AuthorLeftright
patreon
Chapter 24: Collapse
🕑 Added 2022-12-27 20:50:19 +0000 UTCSlippery rock after slippery rock. Sticky handful of gravel after sticky handful of gravel.
Dan pulled at the pile of stone and flesh, each motion dislodging hidden reserves from pockets within the recently reverted hard ceiling. Light kissed his hands, healing his wounds the best his exhausted core could produce. At some point, through the hasty digging, his core sputtered out its last glimmer of gold, sending the cave and Dan himself into darkness.
Behind him, sitting within his cauldron, Sully watched his young apprentice work his hands to the bone, his skin raw, and his mind ragged. His eyes bore into the human who decided to carry him around, his frown was locked in dismay and revolution.
Dan could hear the screams through the rubble and down the broken elevator shaft. He could hear the mine resolidifying into its original form, solid stone. Each passing second the death cries became more distant, more subdued. They were dying, something that only pushed Dan to move faster.
There was just so much gravel in his way.
An hour came and went. Guards entered, yelled something, and exited. Miners hesitantly stepped up, the ones least affected by the cave’s curse. They fell to their knees, helping move the wreckage until a few returned with shovels and wooden carts. Together, they continuously worked, shovel, fill, repeat.
To Dan, he could see the madness pooling around their feet or nipping at the heels of the weaker few. Deciding it was not the time for terrible influence, he did his best ridding everyone of the plague before the tendrils could take hold. He slipped up more than once, especially when the madness chose to dogpile on a certain person.
His exhausted state didn’t help, nor did his weakened core. Every ounce of power, every harsh breath, was given to the miners who helped clear the collapse. His belly rumbled at this, the miners making his insides churn. The way they moved, the odd appearance of third or fourth appendages, the ungodly strength a few held.
Dan told himself his feelings were wrong and fake, that they were just amplified subconscious thoughts brought to flourished life by the madness. Keeping himself purged from the tendrils proved difficult, the malevolent ichor still speeding down the stone walls ruining his presence of mind… that and the silent screams.
There were some still alive, there had to be. The madness told him they were all dead, that it was his fault, that he killed all of the unlucky miners. He could hear their whispers, their punished thoughts, their dying pleas. The darkness of the cave pulled at his attention, a miner was hurt deep in the dark. They needed his help, they wanted his help, they would kill him in revenge.
The miners helping remove the rumble turned vile, their haunted appearances morphing into something more sinister. They fell through the hard stone, becoming one with the cave much like the source of Dan’s nightmares. The whispers turned into laughter, the haunted thoughts of death becoming reality.
The miners were dead, the elevator’s drop was too long, the killings were left to go on for too long.
Golden light snapped to life in the dead of the cave, sending the darkness away in a wide radius. Sucking in air with whole body tremors, Dan dripped beads of dirt filled sweat. He listened to his own heartbeat, trusting in its safety. The madness failed to keep its hold, fading away as his core flared into a second wind.
He wished, more than anything in that moment, to be back at home. To be in his bed, to feel the warmth of his city, to go back to his day-to-day. He wanted freedom, he wanted to soar away from the camp, to forget about everything he had lived through. Opening his eyes, brought him back to reality.
The miners stared at him, their wide eyes looking back and forth between the orb of light and the closeted expression he wore. Dan didn’t want to show weakness, he didn’t want those around him, especially the madness, to know where his pain came from.
He caused this, and he would work himself to the bone to fix it the best he could.
The cave’s influence stayed relatively weak for the next hour or so, giving Dan plenty of time to think. The cave augmented the miners around the terror the four legged slave felt, the random blood culling explained as much. Dan focused mainly on their blood. Every flayed artery, every sliced blood vessel, every gorged chest, every drop of blood, called the god that slumbers under the mine.
And it responded.
Sinew and fleshy walls, the god’s influence and livelihood. Dan had seen it before, he understood more than most what it all meant. Is that why the high priest sacrificed people? Is that how he sacrificed people? Blood, was it an alarm clock? Was it nutrients to feed a starved god?
Whatever the case, Dan and the miners were making no visible progress by the time the first miner chose to stop. Whether it was exhaustion or the realization it was hopeless, the other miners soon followed, leaving the rubble to only the human.
“Dan,” Sully quietly said. “I think it’s time to rest.”
Tears bubbled around Dan’s eyes, but he blinked them away before any fell. “No,” he swore in a halfhearted beat.
Behind his back, Sully’s frown deepened and his eyes grew narrower. A threat, a tiny spark of white, bloomed at the tips of his finger. Slowly, as to not break the perfect plane of golden shadows, he held up his magic laced hand. His jaw went slack and concentration and bled over to-
Dan turned around, “Maybe you are right… I can’t feel my hands and my knees are scuffed up…” He frowned at his mentor’s weird posture. “Uh, Sully, are you alright?”
The elder fainted a stretch, the remembrance of his magic nowhere to be seen. “I’m just stiff.”
Dan nodded along, sitting across from the cauldron and its inhabitant. “Let me heal my knees and hands, then I’ll take us out to get some air.”
Before he could fix all of his broken nails, exhaustion broke his consciousness sending him to sleep. The last thing he saw before his mind slipped, was a frowning Sully fade from existence.
A rough kick roused him from tender sleep. Following up the boot, Dan found a pleated hem and white embroidery. Golden fabric made up the cultist’s wardrobe, and a darkened cowl his full outfit.
Behind Golden Robes was a taller man who let his horned appearance and straight posture shine. His dark cloak differed from usual cultist dress, but as he was their leader, he was allowed such amenities.
Stifling a look of dismay, Dan spoke aloud while standing, “H-high priest.”
He kept his form closed and small, surrendering all sense of rebellion. He was a resigned slave in that moment, exactly as expected . Letting the madness take a small foothold, Dan hoped the added meekness would help him hide his secondary core.
The high priest didn’t look at Dan as he spoke, “What happened here?”
“One of the slaves set up an ambush for us and retreated in here when it didn’t go as planned,” he said robotically. “The cave’s grasp took hold and caused a savage bloodbath between a group of miners when the slave neared. The cave-“
Dan stopped. He didn’t want to mention the cave transitioning into life. The high priest already showed a great interest in the muscle passages beyond the red doors. Anything that brought him more suspicion would be rough to explain.
“The cave collapsed?” Golden Robes supplied.
Dan nodded to the question, swallowing in relief.
The high priest, however, didn’t seem impressed. He only looked at the pile of gravel and stone, a bored expression plastered across his high cheekbones.
“Who is we?”
The question rebounded along the cave’s silent walls. Dan frowned, turning to the cauldron. “Sully-“
It was empty, Sully was gone.
“Where is he!?” Dan asked, his light core flooding to muted life.
Golden Robes punched him in the throat.
“Careful now,” the high priest said, a twisted smile along his lips. “Remember who you are speaking to. I answer none of your questions if I so choose. Raising your voice only harms you.”
Golden Robes echoed the sentiment, smashing his elbow against Dan’s hunched back and sending him to the ground in a hard smash.
Blood gushed from his bruised chin, the pain obscured in fear for his friend. Did he crawl away? Did someone take him? Did the madness get to him? Those questions and more bounced around Dan’s mind, almost making him miss the display of void magic.
The high priest procured a black slug from the tip of his staff after a short chant. The appalling lifeform took to its newfound reality, screeching a misery filled bark of world-warping sovereignty. It marched to the pile of stone, slipping through the cramped cracks and into the heart of the wreckage. After another short war cry, an explosion of dark matter encased the heap of gravel.
As the dark magic faded, a perfect cylinder of sliced stone was missing from the floor, walls, and ceiling. The majority of the collapse was gone as well, only a few small rocks that were unaffected by the magic remained.
And just like that, Dan’s pain redoubled, the realization that his tireless trials of moving stone were fruitless compared to what the high priest could achieve.
“Let’s go,” the high priest said glaring at the lowly human.
Golden Robe grabbed Dan’s torn shirt, pulling him away from the empty cauldron and into the dark corpse infested mine. The four legged slave was hardly a footnote for the cultists. They disregarded his pierced corpse like a dead cockroach on a sidewalk. Only Dan stared at his kill, the man who started all of the anguish.
The elevator shaft was a plunge into the dark, only the cast metal poles holding a sundered frame left standing. A deep whistle sounded from the empty shaft, air and wind singing their ways through the caves below. There were no screams, no pain, only silent fright and the forceful lump in Dan’s throat.
Golden Robes flicked his gloved wrists out, the white fabric along his hands tuning into frequency of magic. In a glorious hum, golden light expanded out and dropped. Platform after platform, a spiral staircase formed and solidified leading all the way down the shaft. He pushed Dan to go first.
One hesitant step at a time, he and the two cultists traveled deeper and deeper into the mine. The utility his own magic brought played in the back of Dan’s mind. There was not a doubt in his mind that Golden Robes was copying his likeness and was bringing to life greater magical creations than he had ever done previously.
Knowing that his magical skills were lacking, despite his evolution, Dan looked forward to finally escaping his prison and ridding himself of the high priest’s seal. A staircase? That was child’s play compared to what he imagined himself being able to do.
The darkness of the shaft, despite the golden staircase, gave the tendrils of madness hope of compulsion. They lurked in the shadows, moving to attack both cultists and human whenever they let their guards down. For the cultists, the tendrils rebounded with force, failing to the blunt trauma like a ram charging at a brick wall.
For Dan, however, he was accepting the brutality of the situation. The whispers were getting louder even though he shucked himself clean of hundreds of hairs every few moments. The process was getting to him, the exhaustion from a night of digging weighing heavy on his stiff body. After every purge, he found himself waiting a few minutes longer to rid himself of the never ending ailment.
He was spiraling into true madness, he realized. Insanity, the repeated task was pulling at his mind and zapping his strength.
Reaching the bottom was Dan’s only saving grace. Not because he could rest, but because there were miners alive and grasping for help.
The only three survivors within viewing distance of the elevator shaft reached out with their lame arms, blood pooling around their fresh wounds. Dan didn’t wait for instruction or the go ahead, he simply dropped to his knees and healed. It was slow and tedious, each patient having different anatomy than what he was used to.
He recognized all three miners though, which helped the speed at which he learned their bodies. While it was true Dan had healed these particular miners before, he only gave them a cursory look over. It was more akin to a massage than a surgery, which left him feeling stupid and behind.
Why had I not been studying everyone I healed? he asked himself.
A full body madness purge reminded him that he did do just that. Dan, before the Void and under instruction from Sully, sought to look at each slave that would allow him. It was partially training to get over his fear of those different from him and partially to become accustomed to healing nonhumans.
If only he did a better job, the miners wouldn’t suffer for so long.
It was his fault, right?
“I’ve got you,” Dan said to a miner who’s lower body was crushed under metal and stone.
Light and magic rotated around her body, bursting into a great dome of sparks. Each tiny bead of light soothed the woman, ending her pain while closing up the more nasty wounds. Dan breathed out in a deep puff, pulling against debris that stuck into her skin. She screamed at the sudden movement, her insides rupturing from the force.
Light was there to heal her as soon as Dan finished pulling everything off her.
He sat back breathing hard and heavy. Looking to Golden Robes, Dan forced himself not to shake his head. The cultist stood a bit down the hall, watching the human work with keen interest. In particular, he watched the madness.
“The high priest is checking on some things, he will be back in a bit,” Golden Robes said, his voice oozing excitement. “Shall we begin our joint experimentation?”
Dan thought through saying no and telling his captor off, but quickly chose against it. He needed to heal the survivors, not deal with whatever sadistic experiment the cultist wanted.
“Help me heal them and I’ll do whatever you ask.” The words came out before he truly decided he wanted to say them.
“That’s cute of you to think you have any say in what we do,” Golden Robes said, removing a small vial from his laced pocket and tossing it to Dan. “Do not worry though. You will be healing them during our experimentation.”
Dan gulped at the gray shimmering liquid. “What is it?”
A small smirk filtered through the cultist’s dark cowl. “It will help you regenerate your magic faster, albeit with some side effects. A failed experiment, you may say, but one that will support our charade well enough.”
The liquid tasted distinctly of lemon and blood, iron and sour citrus. The taste puckered his lips and caused his eyes to water. He choked a bit, the threat of a beating the only thing keeping the putrid concoction down. With a grimace, he moved to the next miner.
A man with three heads, each face sporting a different level of agony. One face was torn from the chin to the forehead, nothing more than broken teeth and fleshy bits. The second was frozen in a full scream, a white milky liquid pooling around its eyes and tongue. The last was the more well off and was “awake.”
The third head talked to Dan like there was no issue, that everything was fine, and that the other two heads were being dramatic. Something shifted while he was being healed, however. A dull pop signaled the start of something dastardly within the man’s body. The third head screamed, the other two heads laughing at his pain.
Dan wanted to stop, he wanted to reassess the man’s situation. But the potion was burning brightly in his chest. Like fuel to a fire, his core bulged against the seal’s restraints. Power imbued into his magic, foreign but oddly familiar. It was his own, he knew, but amplified. He wanted it. He needed it.
Each head took to the effects of Dan’s magic differently. The first quieted down, resigning itself to restitching flesh and clotted blood. The second unfroze but kept its grimace face. The last finally gave up, passing out. Each head twitched and faded, eventually phasing together like a child born with a sixth finger or third arm.
“Thank you,” the mass of skulls said.
Dan looked to Golden Robes, finding the man had moved closer. The cultist was crouched, inspecting the stable miner with a careful glare.
“Next, but this time use a different healing spell.”
Dan nearly fumbled at the words, the fury inside his core resounding against its chains. He moved to the last of the alive miners, finding a platter of blunt trauma and broken bones. The miner was sticky, his scales sharp, and his hair dry. Odd protrusions of bone ripped the man’s skin, creating hard spots along his body without inhibiting movement.
Thinking the job was the easiest of the three, Dan got to work. Adhering to Golden Robe’s words, he healed the man using a golden palm. He whipped the man down like using a rag to bath, finding the fire within his belly making the work simple and straight forward.
Until his palm pulled a chunk of skin off the miner.
Dan went stark still, waiting for a scream or grunt of pain. He looked from his palm to the miner, blood dripping down to the stone below. The miner only closed his eyes at the sudden stoppage, a grimace lining his face.
A set of eyes opened within the chunk of skin, sending Dan into a screaming mess. He kicked off the ground, sending himself into the wall with a dull crash. Jumping from the shadows, the madness chose to strike. Hairs lined his body in mere moments, giving Golden Robes plenty to carefully examine.
Screaming, Dan scratched at his body, invisible eyes popping from his skin. He was on fire, his core was imploding against the seal. He dug at his chest, his fingernails becoming bloodied as skin flayed. Pain, it was all he could understand, it was all he was.
It was familiar.
Too familiar.
Golden Robes reached down, touching Dan on his forehead. The madness tendrils slid away, hiding within Dan’s mouth or in his nostrils. A single pulse of mana sent the tendrils away in a brunt of power.
Thoughts other than agony returned to the human and just as quickly his flesh flattened and regrew. His muscles let go from their iron cramps, his lungs fully inhaled, but his eyes were forced to close under the strain of his own golden light.
It was bright, far brighter than anything he had produced other than in the Void. Checking internally, Dan found the seal had loosened, giving him even more of his evolution to utilize.
Golden Robes pulled back his cowl, reveling Dan’s own face plastered out of jelly. “I’ll call that a success, wouldn’t you?”
Following the cultist’s gaze, Dan found the mimic inspecting his core with a great smile. “What is the point of these experiments?” he asked.
“To maximize your potential so I can harvest as much before your sacrifice,” Golden Robes gripped Dan’s hand to his slimy chest. “I will take as much of you as I can. I love collecting powerful individuals.”
