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Chapter 72: Possessed By Disease
🕑 Added 2024-09-10 06:08:20 +0000 UTC“The study of Creation is endless, and while I am a staunch advocate for the teaching of all knowledge - even the more… shall we say controversial subjects - there are some pursuits far too heinous to risk being spread throughout this world. After a strict evaluation by the academic council many centuries ago, they divided these loathful arts into what we now call the Three Taboos.
“The Taboo of Coercion prohibits any sorcery involving the tampering of one’s mind: brainwashing, indoctrination, and mental domination. However, recent years have seen an upsurge in scholars touting theories that would aid in the rehabilitation of the traumatized and mentally ill using these very techniques. Who knows? Perhaps we may just see a revision in the near future.
“The Taboo of Sacrifice is much less disputed, for it forbids sorceries that would require the use of live sacrifices—human or otherwise. This taboo was a favorite for many a tyrant in the past when they found themselves cornered. At times, hundreds of thousands of people would be gathered like livestock, only to be summarily drained of life for the use of a weapon of mass destruction. It is no wonder why this taboo was the very first to be proposed, else the allure of power would lead man to commit the unforgivable.
“And finally, the Taboo of Reanimation. Strictly speaking, it is impossible to give life upon those already perished. Many have tried, and many have deluded themselves of succeeding, but it is a core truth of this world that the soul will always disappear after death. Where they disappear to is one of life’s greatest mysteries; however, the dead are the dead. No matter what body of flesh is created or how the thing claims itself so, it is not the original soul. No, it is a memory—a collection of vague echoes imprinted upon Creation.
“This taboo was not enacted out of fear for the populace, but rather to dissuade the grief-stricken from pursuing an impossible fantasy. Only tragedy awaits at the end of that path: disappointment, despair, and in some cases… a desire to cross the other side. That isn’t to say there aren’t malicious uses of reanimation, however; there once was a sect of sorcerers that utilized corpses to serve as soldiers in their army. These blasphemers of the departed were known as Necromancers.”
The Three Taboos and Why You Should Never, Ever, Break Them: Penned by Arch Magus Faust, Ruler of the Augurium Thaumaturgy
———
Ascalon
“Nokron… you have gone too far,” Ascalon growls under his breath. His veins bulge, his chest tightens in rage, and it takes every last shred of self-control within him to avoid cursing the Alchemist’s name right this instant.
He cannot fathom it: the sheer disregard for human life to commit such a horrid atrocity on one’s fellow man. Ascalon has once believed no one to be above Xeros in regards to foulness, but even that vicious Corvid would never stoop so low. Not to this extent.
Ascalon wants to retch, but thankfully he manages to force the bile down just enough so that he can speak out to the twisted amalgamation.
“Can you understand me?” he asks, but the assimilated bodies are too preoccupied with their screams to bid him an answer. At the bottom, an ill-fated group is molded into the shape of uneven stumps serving as legs, and the outer layer is plagued with teeth and bone and squirming eyes that run along the span.
Every passing moment are they crushed by the immense weight above, but the souls that make up the torso and limbs are subjected to a similar, unnecessarily cruel existence. Their skin is stretched impossibly wide, overlapping and stitching together as if to form a wiry coat of armor; yet, the center of the body is entirely hollow. A wide, gaping hole awaits where should be its stomach, and sharp bones jut out of the squelching void that resemble an exposed rib-cage.
Ascalon knows it in his heart; there is no undoing their horrid transformation like he has done for Sarathiel. It is risky for a King to pity his enemies, but how can anyone who fosters even a sliver of compassion be of cold heart before this sight? The thing reminds him of the bodies back in the village during his youth: after the raid and slaughter. He has seen it then, a massive pile of the dead—body upon body being stacked upon another until it is impossible to tell where one part starts and another ends.
Ascalon shakes his head with a guilty pang, and he readies his blade. The only mercy he can grant upon them now is a swift end to their agony.
The amalgamation turns towards him, and amidst its painful throes does it finally discern his presence. A bubbling drool oozes from its many mouths; its previous trembling freezes to a standstill. And its distress is replaced by unfettered loathing: loathing for all that is living.
It arches back, exposes its cavernous chest, and from the darkness—an spiked tongue thrusts forward with a boom like cannon-fire and attempts to entrap Ascalon within its bristly grasp. He reacts at once, turning to the side with the slightest of movements, and he chops off the tongue as it passes by. One, clean swing, and from the stump does a spurt of blood fly out and taint his armor.
But something is strange. The blood: it sizzles. Instead of crimson, a black sludge corrodes at his barrier.
Ascalon has not a moment to cleanse himself before the fleshy brute charges in and flails its countless, deformed arms. Regardless of his invulnerability, covering himself in any more of the acid-like blood is dangerous. He quickly backs away and engages the thing from afar, inflicting wound upon wound whilst maintaining a safe distance.
It reacts not to its mounting injuries save for the occasional choir of wails, and it crudely demolishes the hall with a frenzy of oddly fast bashes. However, the thing moves like a bumbling infant; Ascalon has no trouble evading, but so far his efforts have done naught to stop or even slow its tantrum. On the contrary, the thing only grows in madness the longer he engages it. He needs to deliver a conclusive blow.
Ascalon almost debates throwing the Mattatron as if it is a spear, but therein lies a more convenient tool within reach; he lunges for the severed half of the amalgamation’s tongue and catapults it directly at its most vulnerable.
The makeshift spike impales the thing with a squelch, sending it flying alongside the barb until its pinned firmly against the ground. Such force only renders it immobile for but only a second, but Ascalon seizes his chance, grabs onto a long, broken piece of rubble, and sends it crashing down—pulverizing the sorry clump into a puddle of its own sludge.
Finally, it is finished. Ascalon is allowed respite at last.
Or so he thinks, until the amalgamation begins to move once more.
The King watches on in horror as pieces of its mangled remains crawl out from the ruin. He doesn’t understand; there is scarce left of them. Some of the assimilated souls have not even a top or bottom half: no heart, no organs, no brain with which to cry suffering. So how are the dead moving?
I… have been mistaken all this time. I merely assumed they to be alive, but now—now I see the truth. The residents of this fortress perished long ago, perhaps during my bout with Sarathiel. These tortured cries, these pitiful pleas for death: merely corpses given voice.
There is no point in contending with what cannot be killed. Fortunately, the smaller dregs pose little harm in their current state; to flee the thing’s pursuit will be a simple task, but the other Templars may not be so knowledgeable. He must warn them of the danger.
“Lorelai,” he relays. “Please send word to the others; do not engage with Nokron’s experiments. They cannot be killed; resisting shall only drain their stamina. If need be, attempt to cripple or ensnare and quickly move on.”
But not a word is sent in reply.
“Lorelai?”
He reminisces back to their time outside the gates, before Sarathiel’s transformation. She has mentioned then of a strange force blocking her connection. Strange, our line was unbroken still a few moments ago. For it to be obstructed now would imply… that Nokron is near.
As if to confirm his suspicions, he spies a faint trail of something in the distance: a wisp of dark mist. And it leads directly into a large set of doors at the hall’s end.
He has found it, the Alchemist’s refuge. All that is left is to confront him.
