A prison - or a containment bay, like hypocrites liked to call it - wasn’t an unexpected nor unwelcome addition to the compound. There were always subjects that needed more stringent security measures than what a simple cage could offer. The only thing ticking off Gorren was that he would have preferred being the one to decide when such an area was built.

Mana-reinforced doors swung open to let him pass, the clockwork-like gears on their surfaces whirring and clicking.

Inside, a contingent of Golems faced a long corridor, fully arrayed for war. Apart from the usual models, that Gorren had made sure to tinker upon as not to repeat the “capture” fiasco, new specialized types stood at the ready.

A duo of Magicians stood conjoined at the hip, the lowers part of their body expanding outward into a platform of jagged crystal, from which six, arachnid legs extended. The humanoid torsos had razor-fingers hands, each holding one up to cradle a large water sphere, at the center of which what seemed a snow crystal slowly rotated upon its axis. The golem emanated a cold, soft radiance, like snow shimmering under the winter sun. Shadowy lines, like forms under water, zipped across its crystalline skin.

Gorren had called this superior model Hierophant. In his opinion, it was a rushed and unrefined brutality. But that would change soon, or his name wasn‘t Gorren An-Tudok anymore.

A Guardian stood at the forefront. It was bulkier and brawnier than its brethren, the shield it wielded was thicker, and glistened with rows of minute scripture etched in mercury. Its skin was made up of what looked to be rubber, black and giving off an oily sheen. Straps and belts crisscrossed it, holding it in place.

Differently from the normal Guardians, this one had a head, even if just a triangular protusion without the shadow of a neck. Thick googles, polished to a sheen, made for its eyes. It didn’t wield any weapon. Instead, its free hand was an over-sized pincer covered in thick, black padding.

Gorren had named this model a Smotherer Guardian. While the Hierophant’s higher power made it a true upgrade, this one was but a specialized variant, so it didn’t deserve any truly different name.

Close to it stood Snatchers equipped with the same black, oily coverage, and with large, webbed hands with hooked and padded fingers replacing their blades. The same was for the Jaws, but these ones had their heads replaced with flexible tubes ending in wide apertures. A steady sound came from it, similar to the breathing of a dog, but still quite unlike.

Smotherer Snatchers and Leeches, those were the names Gorren bestowed upon these new types.

The Leeches in particular were… dangerous, a special treat. It was testament to the potential dangerousness of the subjects held in the prison that he had decided to rush their deployements.

Passing by, he caressed one. The creature didn’t show sign of aknowledgement, but in his mind its proto-sentience shimmered with it.

If the guys at the university ever saw this, i would have a crowd of them under my window and yelling for my head before Timothy managed to say “please, Master, don’t.”

As much as the association as a whole was a great success, pioneering advancements that had seen life in all of Truvia raise for the better, he had often be forced to witness how their tight ethics restrained them. It was slightly frustrating, but ultimately inconsequential. The help they gave him at the lower levels of his research was more than enough, and to train a true colleague would have required centuries anyway. Not like he wouldn’t loath to have to share…

That line of thought was a traitorous one, and he dismissed it with a sneer, dumping it at the back of his mind.

The golems opened another door for him, this one held close by thick steel beams in addition to the arcane gears.

The corridor beyond split in two. Gorren hesitated for a moment, then took the left one. His humour was more adequate to that, for sure.

After another guard of modified golems and another door, he entered into a room. Inside, a table provided with two chairs faced a large glass window. Papers, pens and ink pots cluttered it, together with two boxes.

A Gremlin sat on a chair, alternatively watching the window and scribbling on a paper with a long feather pen.

Hearing his steps, the Gremlin turned, and gave him a quick nod.

Gorren liked Thrax, he almost liked him the most out of all his five Acolytes. The Gremlin was gruff, taciturn and to the point. He didn’t lose himself in uselesss prattle or abeisances, his grasping of explainations was quick, he had an excellent spirit of observation and, more importantly, he shut up and worked, just the qualities that he searched in his assistants.

The Gremlin looked at everything with suspicion, like he was trying to understand what way you’d use to betray and stab him in the back, so that he could stab you in the eye a moment before. Gorren suspected that outlook had originated during his previous life as a goblin, a theory reinforced by the chewed-up, shredded flaps that made for Thrax’s ears.

He could only vaguely imagine what the Gremlin had passed through, but that he was still there and kicking showed that he was as tough as old boots. And Gorren could respect that. Funny. If someone told him that one day he’d prove something resembling respect for a Gremlin, he’d laughed his ass off before throwing whoever said it down a ramp of stairs.

Life was strange like that.

Gorren stopped by the table, crossing his arms.

“Anything new?”

The Gremlin shook his head, gesturing over the paper he was laboring over. The page held two lines of spidery writing.

“After calming down, she has barely moved.” Thrax said. His voice was unusually deep for a Gremlin. “Not a word, not a move. She didn’t even touch her food.”

He shrugged and shook his head. More than for the results, it was the wasted time that irritated him.

Gorren chewed his lip, thinking. After a moment, he turned to watch the glass.

The window gave vision over a large room without doors or windows. The walls were heavily padded and covered with the same rubbery substance of the modified golems. Eight thick chains, each ring engraved with fiery glyphs and the size of a man‘s fist, shot from each corner. They wrapped around a large cage, keeping it suspended at the center of the chamber. Four Golems, their forms stout and squat, kneeled at each corner of the room, their triangular heads bowed.

Inside the cage, there was a small form wreathed in fire. She was curled up, tightly hugging her legs against her chest. From where he was, Gorren couldn‘t see her face.

She looks so small.

He repulsed that weak thought a moment after having formulated it, disgusted.

“I’ll talk to her.” He declared.

Thrax narrowed his eyes to him, natural suspicion melding with concern in a strange mix.

“Are you sure, master? That gal might be little, but she got bite.”

Gorren hesitated. Was he sure? He couldn’t really say it. Now that he was here, there was a chaos of emotions warring inside of him, a frantic sort of expectation and apprehension, mixed to someting that almost resembled terror. No, he wasn’t sure about going there. In fact, he didn’t want to. But he hadn’t ever been one to shirk from duty. He needed to speak to her, to understand, no matter if he feared the meeting or not.

He nodded once, stiffly, and Thrax bowed his head.

The Kor didn’t make as much as a whisper as it closed back behind him. Gorren felt his determination wobble, but then he steadied himself.

There is no reason for me to be this nervous.

The cage was large for the size of the prisoner, but for some reason it appeared to him like it was stifling.

Gorren put his clutched fists behind his back, refusing to aknowledge the way they slightly trembled, and advanced in the chamber.

The prisoner didn’t give sign of aknowledging his presence. Gorren stopped, unsure of what to say. That weak feeling of uncertainty was such a novelty for him that for a moment he almost felt dizzy. He… didn’t know how to deal with it, didn’t have the shadow of a clue.

He just remained there, trying to put his jumbled thoughts together.

A little sound coming from the prisoner attracted his attention. Almost relieved for having something to snatch him away from those strange thoughts, he listened intently. After a moment, he understood.

The child was sobbing!

That realization hit him like a thunderbolt, a storm of emotions surging through him. Pity, heartache, confusion, remorse, anger, and then frustration for allowing himself to feel such weak things. The only thing he managed to do was to walk to the cage and put his hands against the bars.

The fire-child weakly lifted her head. Their gazes met, full of despair and tears hers, full of confusion his. Then, the fire-child’s eyes widened, and she scrambled back with a yelp.

Gorren stiffened, fingers tightening around the bars until the knuckles turned white. The chaos of emotions warring inside of him surged to clog his throat. He couldn’t find the words, couldn’t do anything but remain there and watch.

The fire-child watched back, curled against the back of the cage, wide-eyed like a pray animal taken into the light of a hunter.

After a few silent moments, the panic in her eyes seemed to lessen, replaced by a mix of suspicion and perplexity. And wonder, Gorren realized with surprise. She looked at him like he was some kind of exotic beast.

Still warring for words and against unease, he tried to regain control by focusing over her appearance.

She was bigger, he realized. If when she was ravaging his compound she was a ten years old child, now she showed the age of a fifteen years old young girl. Her features were also different; sharper, more defined, closer to those of a real human being than before. The blazing glow that had come out of her eyes and mouth was absent, replaced by sparks of light.

The clothes she had been given laid in a charred heap in a corner of the cage. The only thing covering her was the wild mane of fire that made for her hair.

His momentary observation was broken when she moved.

Still wearing that expression of shocked wonder, she lifted a hand toward him. It was tiny, Gorren noticed, its red skin smooth and bare, any chance of hair burned away by the flame. The fingernails were almost non-existant, by how much chewed upon they had been.

The fire-child hesitated, then her gaze set on something vaguely resembling decision, and she reached for him.

Gorren didn’t move; just watched her, his thoughts running wild.

It was almost without thinking that he called for magic. Fear and eagerness warred inside of him, conflicting impulses pushing him to reach for her and to step away away. He found himself only wishing to see, to understand. That wish was shaped into a circuit, a portal opened over the past, just waiting for the proper input to reveal its secrets.

The moment she touched his hand, the circuit was completed.

And he saw.

Darkness, cold. Being there but also not. The mire sucks at my legs, the water fills my throat. Groping and fumbling. I can’t breath, i can’t breath.

Darkness, seeking me. If i stop struggling, it will take me back. Don’t let it take me, don’t let it take me.

The world is spinning. Hands touch me, give me form. With each spin, the mire’s grasp lessen. I am, more and more.

Light, warm and soothing. The mire retreat in the distance. A face. It covers everything. It smiles at me. Maker. Creator. Father.

I am made. Thank you.

Gorren stumbled back, the images assailing him like an angry swarm. It couldn’t stop them, couldn’t avert his eyes.

The mire sloshes against my feet. Darkness, only a moment away. Fragile. Incomplete.

Father left me in the dark. Others are made. Stronger. Bigger. Better?

Am i not good enough?

Return, Father, please. I will become better for you, i swear. Just don’t let the mire take me back. Don’t let me disappear again.

Father, please.

…………

Waiting in the darkness. Father doesn’t return. Abandoned. Am i unworthy?

Anger. Refusal. The mire won’t take me.

Fire burns. I burn. I am fire. The mire retreats from my feet. I am, i am.

Hatred. Anger. Power, surging. Not unworthy, not unworthy.

The Maker made more me. I hide in the shadows. They watch me. I defy you. I am better. I am worthy.

Waiting. Listening. I learn. Fire burns higher and higher. I hate you, Father.

Great me. Father touches. Father smiles.

“You will be my greatest masterpiece.”

Discarded. Thrown aside. Another chosen. Hate hate hate. Fire burns i burn i am fire. The darkness runs from me. The mire burns. Unleashed. Unbound. Hatred completes me. I will destroy it! I will burn it!

You were wrong! You were wrong!

Those last three words screamed again and again into his mind, assaulting him with a defeaning din.

His back smacked against the wall, and he stopped, fighting to retake control.

Little by little, the voice faded into the hateful distance, and he remained there, panting and covered in sweat, struggling to stop the storm raging inside of his head.

Slowly, he turned to look at the cage.

The fire-child clutched the bars, watching him. Her expresison was a mix of surprise, fear and curiosity.

“You…” Gorren said, understanding of everything that had happened, and why had happened, clicking into place. “You damn moron!”

The child squeaked and tried to jump back, but he was faster. He grabbed her hand, giving her a wrathful gaze.

“You aren’t unworthy at all, dammit!” He screamed, disbelief, anger and another thousand things blasting away anything resembling calm. “You were supposed to be a doll! Just a doll! I didn’t know that you were alive!”

His vehemence startled her, but she didn’t draw back, frozen on the spot.

Gorren ground his teeth together in frustration. The sheer idiocy of all straight-out maddened him.

“Look at you!” He screamed. “You are alive! You are fricking alive! My golems are toys, goddamit, stones with motion! They can’t hold a candle to you! You are alive! And with more power than anything i have ever built! It’s you that is my greatest masterpiece!”

She looked stunned, but he couldn’t stop to give her a moment, the words coming out like an avalanche.

“I cannot make life! I am not a God! I made you, but i never really thought you would become alive!” He was just babbling, but he didn’t care. He just wanted for her to understand, to understand that he never meant for that to happen, that he was sorry, that she wasn’t unworthy of life. “But you did! And that is amazing! That makes you my… my daughter.”

That realization left him stunned, draining all his anger away even while he said them. Him? A daughter?

In disbelief, he slowly turned at her, almost like she could explain it to him, that, yes, he was a parent now. But she had nothing to give him, just the same stunned disbelief.

It was too much.

Gorren turned and briskly walked away, the Kor opening to let him pass. He heard her call for him, but didn’t stop. He walked out of the chamber and then out of the prison, ignoring Thrax’s questions.

Only when he was back between his golems, he stopped. Head spinning, he leaned against the leg of a Guardian, trying to make a sense of what had just happened.

It wasn’t just the revelation that he had a daughter now that had shaken him. Her memory had crumbled over him like an avalanche, making him relive her brief life and all the raging, painful emotions that had came with it. Hatred, anger, terror, all reaching such peaks of undiluted intensity that he could scarcely believe they were directed to him, even less that he was the cause for them.

A spike of remorse pierced his chest. But how could have ever known? He still could barely believe it! It was the Crux, and that cursed influence he couldn’t ever understand!

And still, amidst all the confused emotions, the part inside of him that was a researcher rejoiced at the new insight, and the paths that discovery could possibly open.

The rest of him, where the logic stood, was at loss. A daughter, him…

He took a stuttering breath, having finally regained a semblance of calm. The thought that his doll had come to life, and that qualified her as his daughter, was still bewildering, but now he could think straight once again, more or less.

This was supposed to be a jounery toward power, truth and vengeance. Daughters weren’t mentioned anywhere.

He passed the back of a hand over his forehead, feeling it slick with sweat. That wasn’t exactly how he hoped that meeting would go.

There was nothing to it. The revelations had been too big. He needed time to digest them. And then… then he would see what to do.

He threw a glance at the other corridor, the one where the other prisoner waited for him to come. Again, he wasn’t very willing, especially not after that. But, again, he wasn’t one to shirk from duty, and hated indecision.

Taking a breath, he shook off the last remnants of the shakiness, thrust what happened into the back of his mind, and marched into the right corridor.