Chapter Thirteen.

I’d made a lot of discoveries about myself- and my magic- studying the Sanctuary. Not all of them were good, but all worth knowing. First and foremost was magic; whoever these people were they had mastered magic at a fundamental level that left even Veris stupefied in awe. The more I explored this place the more I realized I was incredibly lucky that my own magic was able to mimic theirs enough to get the door open. I was essentially a parrot squawking out copied sounds in comparison to their utter mastery of universal law.

They’d taken concepts like thermodynamics and gravity and elevated up household convenience to a similar level, case in point: the pools. They were each a warm and perfectly comfortable temperature to any of us that checked, not because of a heating element or a sensor or any external magic, but because (after exhaustive testing with both [Law] and Veris’s scanner) we’d found that the literal laws of physics in the pools said the water would be comfortable.

The entire Sanctuary was like this. It was a mind-blowing display of power that was equal parts awesome, inspiring, and a little terrifying. I spent days just trying to absorb the smallest fraction of what we found.

What I found about myself… not so fun. After my second day inside, I noticed an odd sense of restlessness- both in myself, and the [Blightlings] (yeah they’re growing up past that stage, but they’ll always be my little murderhobo toddlers). At first, I dismissed it; we had plenty of food and there was so much to learn, plus the Sanctuary was literally the safest possible place down here. Violence was utterly impossible, even general grouchiness was difficult to pull off outside of your head.

The restlessness progressed into jitteriness and an almost drunken sensation. I found myself homing in on the slightest sounds- Theo tripping while dashing around the ceiling had me rocketing towards him only to abruptly stop in confusion with no idea how I got there or why. A flash of frustrated anger came… and vanished instantly. Something was up.

Checking on my minions, I found them all in various stages of nervous breakdowns. Alternately dashing around the walkways frantically or trying to interact with each other in a bizarre, halting fashion. Like watching glitched NPCs in a game, stuttering and lagging constantly. Reaching out to them in the link their thoughts were just as fragmented and incoherent.

Panic flashed through my mind before it too vanished, leaving me feeling hollow in its wake. Something is wrong. Have to tell Veris.

Sharp emotions kept cropping up and being spirited away like ghosts, and the more I paid attention to it the worse it got. Rage and terror sprinted across the forefront of my thoughts in a flickering strobe that left me feeling disjointed and confused, floundering my way towards Veris where he was still studying the creatures.

“VErIs! hElp. US.”

He immediately looked up from his notebook with concern. “Something the matter Kos? What is-- oh my.” No longer able to maintain my shape, I’d started partially reverting to liquid form. I’d tried to reach out to him through the link, but my emotions had sent the [Blightlings] into a similar downward spiral and it was full of our increasingly splintered thoughts.

Without hesitation, he’d grabbed me in a force bubble and proceeded to scoop up the minions before rushing us outside.

When we left the Sanctuary I had a brief moment of clarity where my thoughts instantly cleared and I thought to myself, problem solved! And that’s when the other shoe droppedbecause I was instantly swamped by psychotic rage. The deep hunger that warred with my conscious thought during a hunt or feeding came roaring into the foreground and shunted me into the black without giving me even the opportunity to resist.

I’m not exactly sure what happened next, but what I do remember was… bad. Really, really bad. Just flashes, nightmare bits and pieces of scattered thought like brittle glass at the edges of my mind. Me howling, my body shifted into a writhing mass of shapes as I frantically clawed at the inside of the force bubble. Freedom, then darkness. Then I was racing along a tunnel, dozens of tendrils whipping my body forwards at a blistering pace. Blood. Blood blood bloodbloodbloodblood--

A spark of pain jarred me into consciousness and the first thing I saw was Veris’s face. He looked upset, but for some reason was deeply apologetic.

“I’m so sorry my boy… This was a most egregious oversight on my part. If I hadn’t been so caught up in my research then this could have been avoided entirely.” Sighing, he shook his head.

“What… happened? Where are we?” I asked groggily, looking around to find myself in an unfamiliar cavern much smaller than Veris’s residence. The [Blightlings] oddly enough were all huddled behind Veris and kept peeking out at me almost like… no, are they afraid of me?!

"Guys?"

Speaking to them broke the dam and they all rushed forwards, crowding around me like scared kids and flooding the link with questions and their need for reassurance.

"Are you ok now??"

"You tried to eat Theo!"

"Scary!"

"Any new toys?"

Veris waited until I calmed them down (and promised Gnaw some new toys) before he continued.

"We made a mistake, Kosimar. We have been caught up in the study of magic since we discovered your unique Ideal and thus neglected an important detail." Pausing here he looked uncomfortably at me.

"I realize this is somewhat of a sore subject for you, but it is related to your nature as a beast. While your mind is human, your body is not. Between our many conversations and witnessing your progress I'd assumed your human will had complete supremacy and thought nothing more of it."

"What are you saying?"

"That you are an obligate carnivore, boy. Your natural species is one of the Deep's apex creatures with a powerful predatory drive. Your fellows are an extension of that and much of their social interaction is predicated around violence- even if only in play. By remaining in the Sanctuary overlong- a place where even violent thought is nigh impossible- we created a cascading series of conflicts with your very nature. Leaving as we did released the 'cap' so to speak and your repressed instincts surged forward, overwhelming your conscious mind."

Narrowing his eyes he said, "Although your reaction was quite extreme, enough that I believe there to be more at play. A healthy mind should have recovered quickly- as your [Blightlings] did. Tell me, has something been troubling you, Kos?"

I froze at this question, because he was right; something had been bothering me in the back of my mind since I first started learning magic. A niggling feeling that I always got when procrastinating on my homework or putting off chores until the last second. The quiet anxiety of putting off the necessary for the fun, only magnified this time by higher stakes.

My class. Twenty three people had been shipped off God knows where and I was the only witness. I was relaxing, enjoying myself learning magic and exploring while people I knew could be being brainwashed into slavery right now.

And so without further ado, I spilled. Starting all the way back at my death I unloaded my whole story to Veris in a stumbling rush. How we’d been taken from the river of souls and imprisoned, sold for an undisclosed price to beings claiming to serve the gods, even my own incarnation via celestial ‘yeet’.

It was so relieving to just get it all out in the open. I’d always hated keeping secrets, and come what may it felt like a huge weight had lifted off my shoulders to confide in someone.

Veris nodded along, interrupting only a few times to clarify while mostly remaining silent. When I’d finished my tale he stood up and began pacing slowly, lost in thought and murmuring to himself quietly. My anxiety had returned by the time he finished and faced me again.

“That is quite the fantastical tale Kosimar, and it explains much about you that I’d questioned if accurate. Allow me to allay at least some of your worries then.” He conjured up a chair for each of us and bade me to sit before continuing. “Your friends are fine. In fact, I would dare say they’re in much better position than you find yourself to be. Based on your descriptions, the ‘envoy’ you encountered is a type of divine messenger. They are most commonly known for delivering the various champions chosen by the gods into their respective temples. While it seems the method of… acquisition has grown most distasteful, the souls themselves will be far from mistreated upon entering our realm. From the moment of their arrival they would have been greeted by the finest luxuries and best tutors the various churches could arrange to build them into powerful champions.”

“What?? Why not just use your own people? Why kidnap mine?” I interjected, disbelief and shock warring to be my dominant emotion. Veris only shook his head again.

“It has to do with fate my boy. The Oraculum observe the grand web of destiny, searching for Calamities and dooms that ripple across the world. However the actions they can take to curtail such events are limited by the very web they observe. If they move too greatly, then the web is disrupted and their hard-earned prophecy rendered worthless. Champions brought from outside our world can act as independent variables, minimizing disruption and preventing the Oraculum from being blinded to greater threats.”

My stomach dropped as things started making sense to me. It was the solution to the time-traveler’s paradox, changing the future by bringing in an outside entity. It let them remain a neutral party while still fighting off the big bad(s). Despair crept up as I made connections and came to an unpleasant realization; my escape and all my struggles to this point were utterly worthless.

Fury slowly strangled my coherent thoughts as I struggled to keep my composure in the chair. I’d been turned into a freaking monster. Forced to fight for my life as a pathetic puddle thousands of kilometers beneath the surface. I had been carrying around a mountain of guilt in the back of my mind over my class’s fate and they were all getting the luxury spa treatment!

All I’d needed to do… was nothing… and instead of being trapped in a cave, I would be living out a fantasy adventure with my friends.

I felt myself losing control again, black and red creeping up on the edges of my consciousness as my body writhed in place. A flash of light signaled Veris sealing of my half of the cavern with his magic and I lost it.

Howling with rage I let myself go- clawing at the ground, the walls, the ceiling. My form shifted uncontrollably with twisted appendages slashing at everything in sight before vanishing and reforming all over again. I was completely overcome with the urge to just destroy everything I could but the only thing present was stone that stubbornly resisted my efforts.

That’s when rage-me decided it would be a great idea to use magic to destroy the rocks imprisoning me. [Law] spread out from me and filled the space not blocked off by Veris’s magic, only this time it looked different. Instead of the starfields and nebulae of before, my aura was an almost transparent blackness that shifted everything within to grayscale. Hair-thin black lines started to spread out through the air around me looking like twisted spiderwebs surging out towards the edge of my aura.

Abruptly I found myself flattened on the ground, my [Law] domain crushed completely out of existence in an instant. I looked up to find Veris, his face furious like I’d never seen him before.

“Boy, you may rage against your circumstance as you wish; claw at the ground like an animal and debase yourself if you will. But you will never use your aura in such a fashion again. Am I understood?”

An unintelligible groan was my only answer as he let up on the pressure crushing me into the floor. I was shocked at his violent reaction to that use of my power. Anger still clouded his features as pinned me in place- metaphorically this time- with a glare.

“I am not one to punish without reason, and I will not leave you in the dark about this- much as I’d wish to. Auric Annihilation. Feeding raw destructive energy into a domain effect centered on yourself, attacking the very fabric of reality in your vicinity. A unique ability dependent on your own Imperial Indomitability for you to survive its use, it is also the signature ability of Demons. Entities from beyond the plane with the sole purpose of wreaking as much destruction on the world as they can before existence itself crushes them out.”

He knelt in front of me and began speaking very carefully.

“I know you Kosimar. Perhaps not for the longest time, but I feel I understand enough about you to be certain that you are no demon. Even so, I still had to hold myself back from exterminating you on principle when your aura manifested in that… twisted shape. There is no being in this world with any knowledge of magic that will not feel the same, and most will not share my hesitance to murder a student.”

I nodded, subdued, but couldn’t muster up the energy to reply. With my outburst over I just felt… hollow. Despair returned in the wake of my fury, it was like discovering that I’d bought the jackpot lottery ticket two minutes too late and came home to find my house burned down.

I felt adrift, not to say that saving my friends had been my sole driving purpose down here but it had at least been a goal. With it gone I felt like I had nothing- just another monster in the dark.

Veris left after a bit, leaving me to my gloomy thoughts after giving me directions back to the Sanctuary, although I was in no hurry to return.

What do I do now?

I felt a nudge through the link and looked down to find Theo perched next to me. Concern was all over his (admittedly nightmarish) face as he spoke seriously.

“Don’t be sad, you didn’t really eat me. I’m ok!”

I snorted involuntarily and this opened the floodgates for the [Blightlings], each of them rushing forward to assure me they didn’t blame me for what happened in their childish speech. Reaching out I hugged all the little monsters as tight as I could.

“Thanks guys.”

A chorus of squeaks was the only answer as they each gripped my tarry surface. I still felt hollow, but hey, at least I wasn’t alone.

Firming my resolve I decided the first step for me was to make some new goals. I was a badass monster in a fantasy world, learning magic from a master thirty-five hundred kilometers below the surface. If I couldn’t make the best of this then I just wasn’t trying hard enough.

I would learn. I would grow. And then I would explore as much of this new world as I could just for the fun of it.

You know what? Maybe no pressure isn’t a bad thing. If everyone else was getting the spa treatment, then maybe I should try some down here! Thinking back to the pools in the Sanctuary inevitably brought up the fossilized corpses surrounding them.

On second thought, maybe not the spa.

One thing was for sure, I was totally going to enjoy the no-pressure life. The worst was already behind me!

…

Right?