Beastborne- Mark of the Founder

by James T Callum

  “Keep casting!” Mira cried.

  “I am, but it is not working!” Ashera snapped back. He’d never heard her shout before.

  “Any moment now,” Giel said. “Get ready to move, the fumes are dissipating.”

  Hal’s vision clouded over. Pain stole thought and awareness from him. He was vaguely aware of the voices around him raised in emotion and edged with panic.

  “Every time I cast Cure his HP bottoms out again! I’m torturing him, Elora!”

  “If you don’t keep curing him he’s going to die!”

  The pain ebbed once more and the briefest period of awareness came back to Hal, only to be flushed away once more in a maelstrom of razors slicing against every inch of his body.

  “Hold on Hal, please hold on a little longer!” Ashera pleaded.

  There was only so much he could do against all that pain. Every instinct rebelled against holding on, the pain would stop if he let go.

  If he would just let it all go.

  A moment later, or an hour, Hal couldn’t tell the difference anymore, Ashera spoke again. “Give me the Manaseed, Elora.”

  “Do you know what we went through to get that?” Elora shot back. “Do you know how many people’s lives were destroyed just for this one Manaseed? Even if we save him with it… there will be no Sanctum. No hope.”

  “We have to try.” Ashera’s voice was eerily calm. “He will die without it. Even with it, he may die. We might be too late. There are other Manaseeds, we can find another one. Can you say the same about Hal?”

  Elora was quiet for a time, long enough for the pain to ebb once more. Deceptive warmth filled him, coaxed his body into relaxation. Hal fought against it with every fiber of his being.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  He had always thought death would be a violent, hard thing. He could feel the infinite, yawning expanse of the beyond an inch away.

  It would be as simple as a sigh. Easy as a thought. He already had one foot dangling over the endless void and the welcoming warmth made it hard to resist the siren call. To put an end to all the pain.

  Hal never would have guessed that death would be so… easy.

  37

  Hal floated somewhere dark and as soothingly warm as bathwater. There was an incessant tug at his navel as if somebody had a thread of his soul and was pulling on it with increasing fervor.

  Disembodied voices drifted around him but he knew them well enough by now to tell them apart. He could almost see their faces.

  “If we lose the Manaseed, there’s no Sanctum. There’s no safety for anybody,” Elora said weakly. “Almon died getting this. His family was slaughtered. I want to save Hal too, Ashera, but what will we do if we save a Founder only to have no shelter for that Founder? Is there no other way?”

  Ashera’s voice rang into the dark. “We are not just saving a Founder, Elora! We are saving our friend. Give me the Manaseed.”

  Whether she gave Ashera the Manaseed or not no longer seemed relevant. Hal had more pressing matters to attend to.

  A pinhole of light blossomed amid the darkness. Fearing that it was the fabled “white light” of impending death, Hal pushed against it with all his willpower. It shrank for a fraction of a second before it exploded to cover his entire view.

  A shadowy form appeared from the white expanse beyond and when Hal’s eyes adjusted half his reality was filled with darkness, the other with light.

  Drifting before him was an imposing figure, all dark interlocking plate armor and a pair of raven-black wings spread out behind them. A dark cowl pulled low over their features, but a pair of luminous golden eyes peered out. Pinning Hal to the spot.

  They made him want to spill out his most embarrassing secrets, to repent for every wrong thing he ever did, and grovel for mercy at this thing’s feet. If not for Ashera’s whispering voice drifting through the dark, he might have caved to that overwhelming presence.

  “Please let this work. You cannot die on me, Hal. I will not allow it.”

  The figure beneath the cowl snorted in derision as if they heard Ashera’s voice too. Focusing on the figure, he noticed a massive black scythe in one hand. The blade had a series of glowing runes etched into the dark metal.

  With a gauntleted hand, the figure pulled back the black cowl revealing pale features, striking golden eyes, long raven-black hair, and a pair of ears that pointed out exaggeratedly. Her full lips were twisted in what looked like a permanent sneer.

  The gaze she cast on Hal made him feel like an insect she would sooner wipe off her boot than converse with. She huffed and looked around. Presumably for somebody more interesting.

  When she turned her piercing golden gaze on Hal again, he found it easier to shrug off.

  The woman gave him an alluring smile. “Come now, Hal,” she purred. “Put down your burdens and come with me. You’ve done your part but your story is over. Accept it and move on.” She extended a hand toward him.

  “No,” Hal said, gritting his teeth against the deeply appealing words. All his life he’d wondered if there was something beyond death. If religion was all some sick joke. Right in front of him was definitive proof that there was something at least.

  And he was turning it down.

  She let out a breathy, annoyed sigh. “I don’t have time for this. You are coming with me.”

  The wave of her suggestive force nearly sent Hal spinning head over heels but he managed to find a reserve of strength to shrug off the influence. “No,” he repeated.

  “Fine,” she said. “You want to do this the hard way?” She brandished her scythe threateningly, twirling it about in a dazzling display of showmanship. All it would take was a single twist of her hand and she could send the blade swooping down to cleave him in half.

  And yet she didn’t. For all her insistence… she didn’t hurt him. The cruel black blade, curved like a talon, sang through the air inches from Hal’s face but never touched him.

  She can’t hurt me. He realized. He wasn’t sure why he thought it but he felt the truth of it in his bones.

  “If you knew where I could drag your pitiful soul you would not be smirking at me!” she railed at him, snapping her scythe to her side.

  “You can’t,” he said. He wanted to feel smug but he wasn’t really sure how he felt about much of anything right then.

  The woman visibly deflated. She motioned vaguely with her free hand. “What do you really have to go back to? Certain death at the hands of an unholy aberration?” She snorted. “Sure, I’ll send you right back only to have you come here anyway a short moment later. One way or another, Hal Williams, I will claim your soul.”

  “Why?”

  The woman pulled her scythe behind her and laid it down in the empty white space behind her. She sat on it like a was a ledge and raised her gauntleted hand, snapping her fingers. The white winked out, replaced by a somber pale-purple twilight that suffused the nothingness in every direction.

  It was easier for Hal to see her now and how weary she looked. Her black wings folded behind her as she laced her hands in her lap.

  “You know, I get a lot of questions as a Reaper. Mostly they’re banal questions about the deceased’s existence. If they are truly dead, yada, yada. But you’re one of the first who asked me why I’m doing it.”

  She rested her elbows on her thighs and leaned forward to peer deeply into Hal’s eyes. Her stare seemed to probe him, though he couldn’t tell what she was looking for.

  After a few tense heartbeats, she shrugged. “As I said, I’m a Reaper. My duty is to ferry souls from The Pale to the Beyond. You know, like that old human saying, ‘Beyond the Pale.’ That’s where I take people like you.”

  “But why can’t you just… take me? Force me, like you said you would?” Hal pressed, more curious than concerned now.

  “I should be able to compel you, barring that I should be able to force you.” Her gaze narrowed to thin golden slits. “I actually was trying, you know. But I couldn’t. I’m not goin
g to get into the soul jargon with you, but suffice to say that you are not what I was told. Some souls are fighters, those have to be coerced.

  “Your soul, it seems, has transformed into a fighter somehow. I couldn’t answer the question as to how that happened even if I wanted to, so don’t bother. Souls like yours need to be coaxed and coerced. That is not my specialty.

  “Neither do I want to see you suffer as a Wraith or something worse. If you refuse to let me guide your soul, once your body withers away you will begin to change. Slowly at first, but soon you’ll forget why you stayed. Anger and grief will mix. They will send you into blind rages that hurt those nearby. You’ll hurt the people still mourning you the most. Might even kill them.”

  Hal shook his head in disbelief. “I would never do that.”

  “They all say that,” she said disdainfully, flapping a hand at him. “And in the end, they all turn. Every single one. Once they realize what they’ve done, they wail and lose themselves completely. The lucky ones never come out of their rage to understand the horror they’ve wrought. I’m here, in short, because your soul resisted the call that all souls must heed.

  “You have died, Hal.” She gave a little sympathetic shrug. “You can wait around until you change into something truly monstrous, or you can come with me. I’ll be leaving shortly either way.”

  Something seemed off about what she said. “I died,” he repeated. The Reaper watched him carefully. To Hal, it seemed she watched him a little too closely.

  Then he remembered what Elora and Ashera had been talking about. Something to save him. Something Elora didn’t want to lose. “Are you allowed to lie?” Hal asked, hoping against hope that she couldn’t.

  Then again, it’s not like I could catch her on it. She could say no, then lie to me. I’d have to find something I knew the truth of that she might lie about.

  The Reaper twisted her lips up into another sneer. “No.” The word was practically pulled from her mouth. She spit into the void to the side. “Blegh, I hate that. Tastes like tar whenever I try to lie. Never works anyway.” She gave Hal a sly look. “No offense, I had to try.”

  Pretty compelling, even if it is just an act.

  “Am I presently dead?” Hal couldn’t feel his heart beating here, didn’t even need to breathe, not even to speak. But at that moment he could almost feel his heart thumping with anxiety as he awaited the answer.

  She shut her eyes and breathed deep, then let out a long exasperated exhale through her nose. “No. You are not presently dead.”

  “So they’re reviving me,” he mused aloud. He didn’t feel any different.

  The Reaper shrugged again, showing how little she cared. “Maybe. You’re still going to di-”

  Her words were cut off as several bright flashes of flame appeared in the distance, each flash a different color. They were far off, though Hal had no reference point beyond himself and the Reaper, so it was hard to be sure exactly how far.

  Shimmering figures walked out of the flashes of light, making their way toward Hal and the Reaper as if the empty void were as firm as stone. The Reaper was visibly agitated, her words had fallen away and her wings shook themselves out to their full, terrible glory.

  Warm, humid air filled Hal’s lungs suddenly and the pain he had left behind flooded back into his limbs, working its way from his fingers and toes inward.

  As it did, the figures that were surrounding them blurred and became indistinct. Only the Reaper, sitting a few feet from him seemed in focus. The glowing orange light of Premonition’s warning fell upon her.

  Hal reacted without thinking.

  He reached out, planted a foot on empty air that should have found no purchase, and closed his hand upon her cold, pale wrist. He pulled the Reaper toward him in a lurching tug.

  The pair collided in a tangle of limbs. Pain lanced through Hal’s body and he gasped a shuddering breath that felt like he was breathing in a thousand tiny knives. Light flooded his eyes, watering them.

  Sound thundered into his ears. And a distant, ethereal series of discordant screams faded into nothingness.

  A pair of hands grasped him and pulled him roughly to his feet. As his eyes adjusted, Hal realized with a sense of dread that he was back in the chamber with the Shoggoth.

  You have been Resurrected.

  You suffer the effect of Soul Sickness.

  Contrary to popular belief, revival and resurrection are two distinctly different acts. The latter is all but impossible without the aid of overwhelmingly powerful artifacts or magic. Through the use of a Manaseed infusion into your very soul, you have been brought back from beyond the Veil.

  Despite the miraculous occurrence, a soul is not an item to remove and replace at leisure. There are severe consequences for violating the most basic tenet of mortal existence.

  -50% To all stats.

  -50% HP, SP, and MP.

  HP Regeneration halted.

  SP Regeneration halted.

  MP Regeneration halted.

  You have unlocked the Manatree Skill (Level 0).

  By absorbing part of the nascent Manaseed used in your resurrection, you have gained access to an otherwise impossible-to-obtain skill.

  If you choose to share a piece of yourself with the semi-sentient creature, you will spare the permanent death of the Manaseed to which you owe your life. Doing so will have ramifications but will grant a temporary surge of a Manatree’s magical essence, known as Elysia.

  If instead you choose to fully absorb the Manaseed, you will gain all of its Experience Points and the Manaseed will die. You will gain the ability to siphon power from the Manatrees themselves.

  Divergent Quests: Twin Souls & Power Overwhelming.

  Divergent Quests are branching questlines that require a choice to be made. By choosing one, or completing a single objective, the other automatically fails.

  New Quest: Twin Souls.

  By combining your soul with that of the Manaseed’s, you will save the semi-sentient creature’s life, folding it within yourself. Its powers will continue to grow alongside yours and may very well stay dormant for years. Make no mistake, a Manatree has the equivalent of a soul and this is it. As part of its gratitude, the process of combining souls will infuse you with a temporary surge of Elysian energy.

  Objectives

  Accept the Manaseed’s soul, entwining your soul and its.

  Rewards

  Temporary Buff: Elysian Surge.

  No Manatree will ever harm you.

  New Quest: Power Overwhelming.

  You have already partially absorbed the Manaseed. Finishing the process will slay the fledgling soul and allow you to take its power for your own. In doing so, you will gain all of the Manaseed’s considerable Experience Points, expanding the limits of your Discordant Stone.

  Doing so will grant you knowledge about the intricate mysteries of the Manatrees. Your Manatree Skill will change to Manasiphon and you will gain the ability to drain the lifeforce of a Manatree. Empowering yourself even further.

  Objectives

  Devour the Manaseed’s soul.

  Rewards

  80,000 Experience Points.

  Manasiphon Skill.

  As out of it as Hal was, he had the presence of mind to still be disgusted by the second Quest. Without a further thought, he agreed to shelter the Manaseed. It may be lost as a Manatree, but the least he could do was allow it to continue to live on.

  The Manaseed had saved his life. It would be cruel not to return the favor.

  His sense of foreboding dread was washed away in a surge of magical essence. It was distinctly other. And yet, it felt soothing. Like standing beneath the perfect temperature in the shower.

  Every ache, every pain vanished. The heaviness of soul sickness evaporated, leaving him feeling oddly buoyed.

  Quest Failed: Power Overwhelming.

  Quest Completed: Twin Souls.

  By combining your soul with that of the Manaseed’s, you will save the semi-sentient
creature’s life, folding it within yourself. Its powers will continue to grow alongside yours and may very well stay dormant for years. Make no mistake, a Manatree has the equivalent of a soul and this is it. As part of its gratitude, the process of combining souls will infuse you with a temporary surge of Elysian energy.

  Objectives

  Accept the Manaseed’s soul, entwining your soul and its (Complete).

  Rewards

  Temporary Buff: Elysian Surge.

  No Manatree will ever harm you.

  Elysian Surge

  Manatree’s, despite their nomenclature, utilize Elysian energy instead of mana. Elysia is a raw and potent variant of mana. Until the Manaseed finishes merging with your soul, your body will run rampant with Elysian energy. Your MP regeneration and magical prowess will be several orders of magnitude higher for a short while.

  You are afflicted with Ethereal Instability.

  However powerful a Manaseed’s aid is, it cannot completely negate the natural order of things. Not only have you returned from the dead, but you have seen fit to bring another soul with you.

  Due to this, your body is having an extraordinarily difficult time staying rooted in a single plane of existence. At random intervals, your body will phase out of sync with the Prime Material Plane.

  Elysian Surge dispels the effect of Soul Sickness.

  That doesn’t sound good.

  Mira attacked with relentless fury, taking on one tentacle then the other with explosive force. More often than not she found an eye and put it out but for every one she destroyed, two more grew in its place.

  It was a war of attrition the Dragoon had no hope of winning. Hal had no idea how long she’d been fighting but already he could tell she was slowing down compared to the start of the fight.