“Now, hold this for a second,” said Malphestos as he handed Lilith a scalpel. She quickly accepted it. Lilith was always extremely attentive when she was in Malphestos’ presence. She’d learned in her first few days working for him on how unforgiving the daemon was towards mistakes. If he found something you’d done wrong, he could kill you in an instant. Malphestos had gone through four other assistants since Lilith started, she wasn’t about to be next. He usually liked having two assistants at his beck and call but since Hel died last week and Distlemander had yet to assign a replacement, Lilith was all he had.
“Next, I put a layer of Inferim formula version C on top of the exposed muscle,” said Malphestos. He was no longer talking to her but to the recording he was making of the procedure. “I added a dash of profuron in version C, hopefully this will counteract the allergic reaction seen in the last patient.”
When Lilith first started working for Malphestos, his work was on enhancing murlimps so that they would make for better warriors. This project was successful and moved to the next stage.
Of course, the great Malphestos wasn’t interested in mass producing the creatures once he’d figured out the process. Such work was too boring, so he passed the work to others in Gehenna. Meanwhile, Malphestos proceeded to his next research project, which was the focus of this particular operation.
Malphestos’ latest project was to find a way for other daemon races to survive on the surface. Finding ways to increase magical ability was an effort daemonkind had worked at for thousands of years. He didn’t expect to make a breakthrough in that regard and instead was trying to go the other way and find a way to grant Murlimp toughness to other daemon sub-species. So far, his efforts focused on finding a way to transfer murlimp skin surgically.
Malphestos hadn’t had much success yet. In his attempts, harvesting raw material went fine, he had plenty of enhanced murlimps stationed at the facility and so long as he didn’t take too much at once the murlimps would heal up just fine, but Malphestos hadn’t managed to find a way to complete the transfer to a new host. Every attempt thus far ended in complete failure, sometimes even killing the host in the process, but it was still early and Malphestos hadn’t given up.
“Next I apply the murlimp skin to –.”
Tap. Tap. Tap. Someone knocked on the door to the operating room. Lilith didn’t budge. If Malphestos wanted her to answer, he would say so.
“I apply the murlimp skin to the excised region and trim it to the appropriate size,” Malphestos continued.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Ugghh, pass me the sutures then go ahead and answer it,” said Malphestos. Malphestos hated suturing. He considered it grunt work and usually had Lilith do it, but since the experiment was still in its initial stages, Malphestos didn’t even trust her to do that.
Lilith did as instructed, she handed Malphestos the items he required and went to the door.
Tap. Tap. “What is it? You know my master doesn’t like disturbances during his work,” said Lilith as she pulled open the door. Malphestos was the second highest ranked daemon in Niflheim and his wrath was legendary. People rarely disturbed him.
“Ahhh. Legult, it’s you,” said Lilith. The man who’d knocked was the assistant of Distlemander, the highest authority in Niflheim. “I’m afraid my master is a bit busy at the moment. If Master Distlemander wants something, I’m afraid he’ll have to wait a bit.”
“That won’t be a problem as Distlemander doesn’t want to speak to your master. He wants to speak with you,” said Legult.
“Me?” Lilith was utterly bewildered. She didn’t have a clue what the big boss could have wanted with her. She’d only spoken to Distlemander once, when she first arrived and he’d assigned her to Malphestos. Even then, he’d only spoken to her because of the item she came to Niflheim to deliver.
“I assume that’s okay with Master Malphestos,” Legult spoke a bit louder to insure he got attention. The operating room was small so Malphestos overheard everything.
“Go ahead,” said Malphestos without sparing even a glance as he continued sewing. “It’s not like she’s of much help here anyways.”
“Thank you, Master. I’ll try to make it quick.” Lilith bowed her head and moved to leave.
“One thing,” Malphestos called after her. “While you’re there, remind Distlemander that I’m still waiting on a new assistant.”
After taking a minute to wash up, Lilith followed Legult down Niflheim’s vast network of hallways to Distlemander’s office.
When they got there, Legult walked straight in with Lilith shortly on his heels. Distlemander was waiting for them. He didn’t even need to set anything aside onto his paper plastered desk and got straight to the point.
“I hear that since Malphestos began his new project you’ve been overseeing the remnants of the last one,” Distlemander began. “Interacting with the murlimps on a daily basis and insuring all their needs are provided.”
“Yes, Malphestos has tasked me with such things,” Lilith nodded. She dropped the ‘master’ in Distlemander’s presence. Malphestos may have preferred the reverence of formality but Distlemander always preferred efficiency.
Distlemander was referring to the squad of two dozen enhanced murlimps that survived Malphestos’ experiments. Everyday Lilith delivered their meals, settled disputes, and, when needed, patched up the injured. The enhanced murlimps were quite violent and given that they were cooped up in Niflheim with nothing to do, they frequently sparred with one another.
“Good, then you are the perfect person to help me borrow the murlimps for a little errand. I have a task in mind perfectly suited for them,” said Distlemander.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible. Malphestos cares about his creations a great deal. He needs their participation if his new project is to succeed. If he were to find out….”
Lilith didn’t like where this was going. Both Distlemander and Malphestos were known for their dark eccentricities. She couldn’t afford to offend either of them and she wasn’t sure if that was going to be possible.
“I don’t think that’s too likely. I only need you to take a few of them and it won’t be for very long,” Distlemander frowned.
“Malphestos pays extraordinary attention to details. I’m sure that so long as he’s around he’s sure to notice,” said Lilith. She wasn’t sure what Distlemander was up to but if she could manage to change his mind, she could get around having to upset either him or Malphestos.
“So you’re saying that I should first find a way to get Malphestos away from Niflheim,” said Distlemander.
“No, that’s not…” Lilith began to say.
“That’s a pretty good idea. Ha ha… I’ll get rid of Malphestos. Some of the swabs in Gehenna have been requesting his help to smooth out the murlimp conversion process. The team there hasn’t had as high a success rate as Malphestos’ work would suggest,” Distlemander sneered. He always doubted the truthfulness of Malphestos’ results. “I’ll have the request changed to an order. Malphestos will be sent down there within 48 hours to check on the other team’s work. Heh heh. I bet he’ll love that.”
“What exactly are you trying to do?” Lilith asked, giving into Distlemander’s machinations. All she could do was hope that whatever it was wouldn’t blow up in her face.
“Do you know what this is?” Distlemander asked. He pulled out a head-sized metal disk with a number of mana crystals embedded across its surface.
“It’s one of the flying guard drones that I’ve seen patrolling around the base,” Lilith answered.
Whereas Malphestos was Niflheim’s resident mad biologist, Distlemander was its mad engineer. Lilith had frequently seen the drones wandering Niflheim’s halls and although they had never troubled her before, Lilith had heard many stories of daemons being misidentified by the drones as intruders and attacked on the spot.
Malphestos’ death count was second only to Distlemander and his drones. However, since Malphestos’ ire tended to focus on his assist
ants while the whole of Niflheim was subject to Distlemander, Lilith still had the most dangerous job in the place.
“Well… I can understand the mistake but it isn’t a flying guard drone but a flying scout drone,” Distlemander sighed. “The guard drone’s weapons mean I didn’t have room for many mana crystals to store power. The guard drones can’t leave the base since they need to be recharged every couple of hours. The scout drones forego weapons in exchange for a larger mana capacity and consequently can range much farther. It really is quite something. I interspaced the mana crystals with a thin layer of carbon nanofilaments to….”
“And…” Lilith prompted Distlemander to speed up. It wasn’t really her place to do so, but if she didn’t, the artificer could talk all day about his work and Lilith needed to get back to Malphestos.
“And so… The scouting drone is also equipped with visual recording equipment. I send the drones outside occasionally to test the latest modifications. Usually they don’t find anything of interest. Well, you saw the area on your way here. There’s nothing but ice. But a few days ago, this drone saw something.”
Distlemander tapped a few buttons on the scout drone and a bright light shot out of the top. The light was a holographic projection and it began to play a recording.
“At the time, this drone was equipped with thermal imaging. It’s all pretty dark since its all ice out there,” Distlemander explained.
The hologram continued to play. It was so plain and uniform Lilith had to look carefully to see a gradual shift in dark purple textures that indicated a changing landscape.
“What am I supposed to be seeing?” Lilith asked.
“Wait a second, it’s coming,” said Distlemander.
A patch of bright red and orange flew across the hologram.
“What was that?” Lilith asked.
Distlemander pressed a few more buttons on the probe. The holographic projection played in reverse at a slower speed until it stopped at a point when the red blotch was roughly in the center of the drone’s view.
It wasn’t one big spot, but several smaller ovals packed together. The resolution on the drone wasn’t very good and not much more could be made out.
“What is that?” Lilith asked.
“If I’m not mistaken, and I never am, it’s a group of barbarians from the south,” said Distlemander.
Lilith was familiar with the barbarians. She’d passed through their lands to get to Niflheim and knew they had weird beast shapeshifting abilities, but otherwise weren’t that interesting.
“They live pretty far away,” Lilith noted. “Where was this taken?”
“Not far,” Distlemander answered. Their heading isn’t right but at their current pace, they’ll pass somewhat close to us in a week or so.”
“And you want me to bring the murlimps,” said Lilith.
“Yes,” Distlemander nodded. “They’re the only force we have that’s suitable to fight in this climate. Now before you say it, I know how strong you really are. I know you can take a few barbarians without any problems but frankly, the higher ups still want more data on the murlimp troops’ effectiveness in a real fight. Malphestos has been resisting it, but this is a perfect opportunity.”
Lilith looked at the red blotches and nodded. She had a new mission.
Ch. 25: Daemons
Time is a funny thing. It is when we wish it to go by quickly that is seems slowest and it is when we wish it could slow down it flies right by. It is like a dust particle drifting in the air, the harder you reach for it, the more is slips away. All you can do about time is let it do what it wills.
I wished I could speed time up many times over those next few weeks. Do something to end the mindless march into an ever-worsening terrain. Three days after Talia and Wy-1 separated from the rest of us, the forest of dead trees ended. We’d reached the point where even before the weather worsened it’d been too cold for anything to grow. It was also around this point that we stopped running into any of the ice beasts.
A few days after that, the terrain grew perfectly flat and boring. We were no longer traveling over land but instead on a giant ice shelf, where a large chunk of the ocean surface had frozen. That was how cold it’d gotten.
Our dull journey wasn’t helped by the fact that no one could really interact. The cold was so bad that if you opened your mouth the water inside would freeze. Do it a little and your mouth could suffer nerve damage. Do it a lot and you could literally freeze from the inside.
On the positive side, I don’t know if it was because of the incident where Titania saved Bearballs and proved herself in the eyes of the Doragans or because of the physically and mentally breaking trials we shared, but any friction our group once held was gone. Everyone carried their weight. Everyone did their best to set up and take down camp every day. And everyone did what they could to support one another.
As for the weather, what more can I say but the obvious. It was clear, but cold. No matter what they tried to do none of them could escape it. Even by the fire, even all covered up, even with their Othan vigor, or heat producing magic, I constantly saw them shivering.
I say them, because that wasn’t the case for me. Around a week after Talia and Wy-1 left, Low Temperature Resistance reached level 20 and transformed into Low Temperature Immunity. My skin turned stark white and I became immune to the cold.
Given our groups slowly waning condition, I would have been worried if I didn’t know exactly how close we were to our final destination. Everyone else wasn’t sure exactly were the shrine was or exactly how far we had come with no landmarks, but I had Mai.
“Are we there yet?” I joked. This was just the latest of the hundreds of times I asked.
‘You sound like a small child on a long ride,’ said Mai.
“Well, what would you expect if the ride lasted over a month?” I replied. “How close?”
I looked up at the clear evening sky full of stars as I continued to walk. I let myself move a bit ahead of the group so I could chat with Mai without drawing attention. Unlike everyone else, I didn’t need coverings on my face to keep warm and I was free to talk.
Mai used my view of the stars, the time, and date to judge our current position. Back in the Traveler base under Crystalpeak, we’d seen a world map of Traveler sites that included one location labeled Niflheim that was roughly in the same area as the Othan’s Permerine Shrine. Assuming both were the same, Mai could determine exactly which way and how far we were from our destination.
‘We are currently 37 miles from our destination,’ said Mai. We were making 20 to 25 miles per day so we’d get there in another two days or so.
“I’m surprised I can’t see it yet.” The flat ice sheet we were walking on looked endless, pure white in all directions. I squinted my eyes as if that would help and hoped Mai would go about enhancing my vision so some far off dot would zoom into view. She didn’t.
‘Of course you can’t see it,’ said Mai. ‘The problem isn’t distance but the curvature of the planet. Given your height, you are only capable of seeing three miles.’
“But the shrine is quite tall, I should be able to see it from further away,” I argued.
‘Yes,’ Mai agreed. ‘But in order to see if from 37 miles away, it would need to be… 771 feet tall.’
It was then, while looking out towards the horizon, that I spotted something. It wasn’t much more than a black speck and it being night, I wouldn’t have been able to see it if not for Mai’s night vision.
“Ha, and you said that we weren’t even close to seeing it,” I said, thinking Mai might have misjudged the distance.
‘M.A.I. 9000 is the most reliable computer ever made. No M.A.I. 9000 has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error,’ Mai stated.
My vision shifted. The peripheral view of my feet at the edge of my vision disappeared as the ground underneath me flew past. My entire vision zoomed in until what
had been a speck was clearly visible.
It wasn’t the shrine. It wasn’t even a stationary object, or a single object. It was a dozen hulking daemons identical to my own beastform and they were headed straight towards us.
“How far?” I asked.
‘Around 7 miles away,’ said Mai.
“And how long?” I asked.
‘15 minutes, maybe less,’ said Mai.
I looked around. Don’t blame me. It was instinct to try to find somewhere to hide, or at least somewhere better suited for defense, but there was nothing. The ice plain was exactly as the name suggested, plain. There was nothing to do but warn everyone and gather up. This fight was going to happen.
“There’s a problem,” I announced as I pointed towards the murlimps. Of course, no one else could see it yet, but they needed a reference point for what was to come. “Something’s coming. We should get ready for battle.”
“Really, I do not see anything,” said Bearballs. It was difficult to understand him with his mouth covered by cloth to keep it from freezing, but I managed.
“Trust me they’re there. You’ll see them in a few minutes,” I said.
“What sort of things?” Izusa asked.
“They look a lot like my beastform,” I answered. I got the name, murlimp, and knew it was an augmented daemon from the interface but I hadn’t told anyone anything about it. To them, it was simply a strange beast no one had ever seen before.
This bit of news wasn’t taken well. When I first told them to ready for battle, the Othans looked eager. They may not have been in the best condition after their long journey, but it also left them bored and even more eager for a fight than they normally were. All of that changed when they learned what they’d be facing.
They’d seen how powerful my murlimp form was, both back in Doraga as I trained with it and more importantly during our last major fight where they saw me burn down dozens of New Fallen just by touching them. My claim that a bunch of them were headed for us deservedly scared them. It scared me.
“How many of them?” asked Bullseye.
The Ice Lands Page 35
