Beastborne- Mark of the Founder

by James T Callum

Instead, he was at 108 HP and dropping slowly but steadily.

  As it was, even with the Feral Strain Affliction, his body couldn’t regenerate enough HP every minute to counter the continuous Vine Lash damage. The true danger was in his MP regeneration.

  With the Beast having exhausted most of his MP – and Hal before that by utilizing Drill Branch to break through the wall to Elora and Mira beyond – his spells were out of reach.

  For now.

  Every minute that passed only aided the Beast. His Strain ticked up all on its own without any need to cast a spell that incurred more. As his Strain rose up to 35 - 15 points over his max - once more and his HP dipped to 95, Hal realized the awful truth.

  His Strain was going to max out long before the Beast’s HP dropped low enough to render him unconscious. And even then, what proof did he have that the Strain would stop increasing?

  It seemed to be increased by the way the Beast was tapping into his essence powers. Sharp bone-ridged tentacles whipped off the Beast’s body and lashed out at the vines and the Wortlings themselves.

  Vines were severed by the saw-like ridges of bone but Hal was quick to replace them. The damage the Wortlings sustained was startling but not unmanageable. Every cut vine chipped away at the Wortling’s HP.

  Every second the Beast remained in control it grew stronger, smarter. The sharp-ridged bones on its tentacles sliced through the vines with greater ease and though Hal could replace them, it was a constant struggle.

  One he was beginning to lose.

  Instinctively reaching into his innate Assimilation ability, Hal tried to shore up any Wortling that was damaged by the savage assault. The Beast was there, ripping what little control Hal managed away from him.

  For a second, Hal felt the power ready to come to his call. He had taken a fraction of control back. It wasn’t enough. He could keep trying, activate Assimilate in the brief moments he could wrest control. But that would take time.

  Time that the Beast knew Hal didn’t have.

  Even as Hal was whittling away at its HP, the Beast’s Strain hit a new level. And a terrible wrenching pain twisted in Hal’s gut.

  Strain Affliction Lv.4 (Primal).

  The Beast has seized control and steadily marches toward its ultimate evolution. That of an utterly alien creature, divorced of its human moralities and emotions. As the Beast reaches ever deeper into its wellspring of corrupting power, it becomes more akin to an abomination from beyond the stars.

  Unable to stem the tide of otherworldly corruption, there is little you can do now to prevent the ultimate corruption of power.

  Beast Magic Efficacy +300% | Beast Magic Damage +300%.

  Essence Tier +2 | Beast Magic Tier +2.

  Max HP +50% | Max MP +50%.

  HP Regen +65% | MP Regen +65%.

  MP Cost -25% | Strain Accumulation +100%.

  Unlocked Ability: The Dark Between

  Summon otherworldly darkness from beyond the farthest stars in a 30ft cloud. All other creatures within take Corruption Damage and are Blinded, Muted, and Deafened. Only the Beast can see within the impossible darkness.

  Unlocked Trait: Beyond the Veil

  While within the corrupting shroud of The Dark Between, you gradually recover HP.

  Quest Update: The Beast Within.

  The abomination within you has reached its penultimate form. Time is running out. Each second the Beast gains more power and once it fully takes control its first act will be to track down every personal connection made and destroy them. Few, if any, Beastbornes have been able to turn back this tide of antediluvian power once unleashed.

  Reclaim yourself. Or lose everything.

  Objectives:

  Reclaim your mind and body before hitting Strain Lv.5.

  Rewards:

  Maximum Strain Increase +.

  Beast Magic Skill Increase +.

  New Trait.

  Hal quailed at the messages before him. He was partially amazed that they came through at all. Even as his heart dropped at reading the horribly demoralizing turn of events, the Beast acted.

  A terrible ripping sound filled the cavern, echoing with disconcerting reverberations. Elora, Mira, Ashera, and even Vorax stormed out of the tunnels. All of their expressions were the same mix of horror and fear at what they saw.

  Through the rip in the very fabric of reality, a cloud of frigid inky corruption flooded into the cavern. It smothered all light. All hope.

  The Wortlings took incredible amounts of damage but worse was the Beast’s quickening HP regeneration. Hal had to continually Vine Lash because every few seconds the corruption would eat through the vine. It didn’t matter. The Beast now out-healed anything he could dish out while rooted.

  Needleshot did negligible damage, though Hal felt he had to try. It was clearly a utility spell, after all.

  As Hal sank deeper into despair, an unshakeable battle cry stole him from his thoughts. It wasn’t fierce Mira’s lilting tones, nor was it Elora’s melodic voice.

  It was Ashera’s. Her normally calm and quiet demeanor shattered like a pane of glass, her wordless cry denied the devastating scene before her.

  Hal watched her wade into the corrupting darkness without a moment’s hesitation. Noth floated in behind her, whispering into her ear. The Beast, with its MP regenerating faster than Hal originally anticipated, had a spell ready for the Sin Keeper.

  The air warped and twisted as Drill Branch churned the air. Before it could hit the oblivious Ashera, two Wortlings leaped out. One onto the spell, the other hitting the Beast with a hefty dose of sleeping toxin.

  The first broke apart on the spell before it could reach out to Ashera, and the second’s attacks broke the Beast’s concentration on the spell and it faded.

  Ashera was safe for now.

  But how much longer could he keep his friends safe? The sheer sides of the glassy rock that lined the circular pit of his mental imprisonment possessed no handholds. And Hal, no mountain climber, would have struggled even if it had been made of typical rock.

  Without all four Wortlings leashing the Beast, it broke free of the remaining two. Hal grimaced and sent another Wortling toward the Beast. He needed to distract the Beast, to divert his attention from Ashera to give her an opening.

  The Sin Keeper waded into the battle, whipping a spell of blazing light that collided into the Beast in a glancing blow. The explosive blast was swallowed by the cloud of corruption and Ashera had no way to know if it hit or not.

  Staggered back onto his heel, the Beast was stunned long enough for the Wortlings to unleash a barrage of toxin-laced strikes. It was one of Hal’s last hopes, that the sleep toxin would knock out the thing that stole his body.

  It shrugged off the toxins and in a flash the [Goblinbane] weaved about, hacking apart the Wortlings. Two needle-tipped tentacles jabbed into the badly wounded Wortlings, draining away the last of their life.

  Ashera came in behind that last Wortling, moving so fast that the Beast didn’t have time to muster any sort of defense. She had a black mace that was practically invisible in the dim environment of the cloud and swung it in an upward arc.

  It connected solidly with the Beast’s chin but Ashera couldn’t see the sharp-ridged tentacles that lashed out and around her. Her mouth opened and twisted in a mute scream. Blood splashed from the gruesome cuts on her side and back even as the Beast arced through the air from her hit.

  His tentacles snapped back, fast as thought, and braced him. The eight appendages caught him before he ever crashed into the ground. They twisted and coiled, lifting him effortlessly to his feet.

  Now it was the Beast’s turn.

  69

  Ashera was blind, mute, and deaf. Luckily, she didn’t need any of those senses to hear the Reaper’s guiding voice. Noth did not use any mortal means to communicate. And Ashera had long-since attuned to those emanations.

  “He’s coming at you now, two tentacles on the left, one snaking around behind,” came Noth’s instructive
voice.

  Her assistance allowed Ashera to duck, weave, and slip past Hal’s initial assault. Like most monsters – and poor fighters - it spent its fury all at once and then backed away.

  Hal was better than this, she had witnessed his growing prowess first hand.

  But this was not Hal.

  It wore his face and had his body but it was not him. Even if Noth hadn’t explained what was going on to Ashera – who then relayed it to Mira and Elora – she would have known the difference.

  Ashera came in close under a swipe of the blade. She felt the air rush just above her horns and tightened the grip on her mace, [Stargiver]. So named for its apt concussive enchantment that, when triggered, dazed most creatures.

  Her hand whipped across, aiming for his knee and at the same time enacting the devastating enchantment.

  She could hear nothing, see nothing, but she felt the solid bone-rattling impact reverberate through the handle. Knew, without having to see that Hal’s knee would be shattered from the blow.

  You’ve knocked him off his feet, he’s falling sideways in front of you. Blade, straight jab.

  Trusting in Noth’s guidance, Ashera shifted her weight to her back foot and twisted to the side. Ashera transferred her mace from her right to left hand, dipping her leading shoulder. She continued the spin, coming in to connect solidly with an underhanded blow.

  Another burst of concussive force tingled her palm.

  You knocked him out of the cloud, to your left. He’s down. Wow, Ashera. You do know I can’t bring him back to life if you kill him, right?

  Ashera nodded, her skin burned with the dark presence of the cloud and she was quick to exit it and breathe the relatively fresh air of the cavern.

  She worried for Hal.

  His very soul was being consumed by impenetrable darkness. Elora and Mira were still injured, Ashera did all she could and gave them each a few potions. But there were limits to how much she could heal and potions had their own drawbacks.

  Healing was not such a simple art that anybody with a bit of MP could sling a spell and the person was cured.

  In all her life, she had never seen anything so monstrous. But it wasn’t evil, of that she was certain. It would be hard for something purely evil to take root inside somebody like Hal.

  He had no idea what power he had within him, and ironically the Sin Keeper knew it had nothing to do with his newfound Class. Nothing to do with being a Founder. In all likelihood, it was what Hal considered his main weakness: his naïve hope that he could make things better. Connecting people to a common cause.

  The Beast inside him was doing all it could to smother that light.

  And that, Ashera could not abide.

  Elora and Mira, seeing Hal exit the cloud were on him in a second along with the lone remaining Wortling. It staggered out of the cloud, bits of its thick bark-like skin sloughing off with every step.

  Now that Ashera could see, she winced at the way Hal’s face was twisted into a rictus of pain. She knew several of his ribs were now broken. One of his lungs may even be collapsed.

  But it was a risk worth taking.

  As much as she didn’t want to admit it, it would be better to kill Hal than to allow him to transform into an abomination. It would be a kindness.

  Mira leaped into the sky and came down a moment later, the blunt end of her spear jammed into Hal’s middle. His bizarre knife-ridged pseudopods came up a moment later and threw the Dragoon, bleeding from their touch, from his body.

  They bent backward and pushed Hal to his feet. Ashera wracked her brain for a way to help him. Beating him would, at best, distract the thing inside him. Provided they didn’t let it get an upper hand.

  Waves of blue and red mana rolled off in thick bands that arced and dissipated into the air. Ashera noted the stark change since she erected her barrier to ward him off.

  Back then, hardly ten minutes ago, the uncontained mana waves were an even mix of blue and red. Now, it was almost entirely red. A few flickers of blue. Nothing more.

  She hardly knew what that meant but she could take a guess. Hal was losing the fight for control.

  A moment later, Noth confirmed her fears.

  “He can’t hold the Beast back much longer. Before he changes, he asks that we put him down. He does not wish to become a monster.”

  “It won’t come to that,” Ashera thought back to her. “Tell him not to give up.”

  She would do it, but she did not need Hal to know that she would prefer that end over his transformation. He needed hope. Something to cling to.

  But when she saw the state Hal was in, her faith faltered. Fear rose like bile in her throat and choked off the inspiring words she was about to call out to him.

  Hal’s body was transforming into something horrific. His body was wrapped in pitch-black bubbling shadow. It roiled and separated from his body like blobs of melted wax in a glass of water. His eyes were glowing red pits of rage and bestial aggression.

  The Beast snarled and rose to its feet, though the very act should have been wracked with so much agony as to make that impossible.

  Black wings sprouted from its back, dripping oily shadow in a puddle around him. Red waves of mana rippled in the air between them.

  Mira struggled to her feet, voicing what they were all thinking. “We’re too late.”

  Ashera couldn’t believe it, didn’t allow herself to entertain the horrible thoughts. Even with the proof in front of her, she couldn’t lift a hand against him. And in the end, she knew she would fail him.

  For all her brave words about doing what was right. That she would rather see him dead instead of turned into a monster… when it came down to actual doing it, she didn’t have the strength.

  Not Hal, she silently prayed. Anybody else, please.

  Her heart grew heavy. “Is there nothing you can do?”

  Noth looked at her and hovered toward Hal. “No, even now our connection wanes. He gave up much of his strength to tether me again. And the Beast in control has all but locked me out.”

  “But the Beast is Hal, right?” Ashera reasoned. “That means the Beast’s strength is Hal’s strength. Even if he doesn’t know it. The Beast can’t be stronger than Hal.”

  “This is forbidden magic, Ashera,” Noth said, golden eyes leveled at the transforming Beast. “The rules you know do not apply.”

  She looked to Elora, shock ran through her anew at the tears in the Ranger’s eyes. But Elora, so unlike herself, knew what she had to do.

  Whatever her feelings were on the matter, she would carry out her duty. Elora nocked a silvery arrow. When Ashera recognized the deadly strength it held, her eyes went wide.

  Before Ashera could stop her, Elora let fly the silver arrow. It cracked through the air like a lightning bolt, leaving a silver afterimage in its wake.

  The Ranger was one of the fastest archers Ashera had ever seen. And so it startled her more than a little to see the Beast’s oily-black hand flash out and catch the arrow an inch from hitting its mark.

  Of course, Elora was full of tricks. And the surprise was the Beast’s when the arrow exploded in a disorienting flash of sound and light.

  “No!” Ashera cried.

  * * *

  Hal struggled against the Beast. Just as he thought the tables turned and Ashera was walking into a trap, she turned the attack on the Beast. What came was a sudden wave of such intense, nauseating pain that Hal nearly blacked out.

  He didn’t miss the implications but neither did he want to tip his hand so soon. One chance. That was all he knew he would get. If he tried to reach for control too soon, the Beast would be put on guard.

  His only hope was that his friends would batter the Beast to the point that it was so distracted by the battle that it failed to notice Hal until it was too late.

  All he needed was a few seconds. Enough time to reach out to use Assimilation. As the Beast’s Strain steadily gained ground, time was against him.

  Hal gave up his m
eager attempts to fight for control. He curled up into a ball of pain in the lonely pit somewhere in the deep dark recesses of his mind. It wasn’t hard to embrace the agonizing pain that wracked his body.

  Again and again, Hal watched as the Beast struck out and failed to overwhelm the Sin Keeper despite the obvious advantages. That was when he noticed Noth.

  Beautiful, ghostly Noth.

  Immaterial and not of this plane of existence, magic didn’t seem to touch her. And so, unlike Ashera, she could see in the cloud of corrupting darkness. With her guidance, Ashera just barely managed to turn the tide against the Beast.

  Much to Hal’s joy.

  Unfortunately, his happiness was short-lived. As the Beast became increasingly focused on the troublesome Sin Keeper, it relinquished some of its defenses. The very fact that Hal could feel his own body again stood as a testament to that.

  His knee was a bright star of blinding pain, and when Ashera batted him in the ribs, he did blackout for a moment.

  When Hal came to, the Beast was rising to its feet. Despite the broken knee, ignoring the shattered ribs and his one lung that couldn’t get any air, it stood. Hal’s mind was awash in a sea of torment.

  Part of Hal was impressed with the Beast. And though he secretly cheered for every pain, he didn’t know how much longer he could hold on.

  His HP was dipping into the red, his Strain was already 50 and was similarly flashing dangerously. If his Strain was already maxed out, why didn’t the quest fail?

  More importantly, why wasn’t the Beast transforming?

  Hal understood a moment later. The Beast was torn. With the pain clouding its mind, it could force Hal out and keep control while fighting, or it could reach for its final evolution.

  The Beast could only do two simultaneously. And with the full force of his friends arrayed against the Beast, it was forced to decide which was the greater threat. Hal, or his companions that had beaten it to within an inch of death.