IM2: Chapter #1 (Patreon)

Deep in the earth, a war was being waged. Surrounded by a cocoon of stone, Thorn lay unmoving as his body was devoured, stripped of its life force by a magical curse. Nicked by a cursed dagger, Thorn’s large frame had been reduced to little more than a skeleton. Above his skin, a rippling layer of nanites shifted in agitation as they watched the curse eat away at him. Pus filled sores opened across his body as his flesh necrotized, prompting the nanites to rush into his skin, repairing the damage even as it was done. Above his chest, a small winged fairy stared down at him, her expression full of concern.

“Come on Thorn, you can do it.”

Though there was no one who could hear Eve’s voice, she still spoke out loud, hoping that it would somehow reach Thorn in his unconscious state. Around her, hundreds of thousands of tiny symbols hung in the air, filling the open space between Thorn and the rock that encased him, like the fluid of an egg. If Thorn was awake, he would have been surprised to discover that none of the runes that she was using were known to him. Yet even unknown, their power could not be denied. Biting her lip, Eve landed on Thorn’s chest and pressed her hand down toward his heart.

As soon as she made contact, the world shivered and destiny flowed out of Eve, vanishing into the air as it rejoined the universe. For a full minute, the world continued to shift as she expended all of the destiny that she had accumulated, leaving her with a hollow feeling. Letting out a breath, Eve erased the thread of resentment that started to form in her heart and concentrated, adding the final rune to the sea of runes that surrounded them.

The shuddering in the air had just begun to settle down when the runes lit up and began to flash. Slowly at first, but with ever increasing speed, they flickered on and off, intangible patterns running through them. Every time they flickered, they shrank down, coming closer and closer to Thorn until they were sinking into his emaciated skin. There were so many that it took nearly four hours for all of them to enter Thorn, and by the time they had, he was little more than skin and bone.

Inside his body, the nanites were forcefully keeping his organs moving as the magical curse tried to absorb his life force. By this point, the curse had spread over every inch of his body and was trying to suck the marrow out of his bones, but with an unending stream of energy, his heart continued to send life force throughout his form. Into this war, the tiny runes fell, still flashing with abstruse patterns. As soon as they approached the strands of mana powering the curse, they began to change, seeming to grow small spikes that stabbed into the curse, like tiny burrs.

More and more runes sank deep into Thorn, binding themselves to the swirling mana in his body, and producing, for the first time since he was struck by the curse, a stalemate. The curse, having grown fat off of his abundant life force, was completely bound up by the tiny runes that covered his body, buying him a reprieve from the destruction of his body. As if it could sense a chance, the device that acted as Thorn’s heart pulsed powerfully, causing mana to flow through his body as it tried to heal the damage that had been caused, even as the curse struggled to free itself from the runes that Eve had created.

Knowing that she had only bought time, Eve still let out a small sigh of relief. She had not been sure if Thorn would even be able to survive long enough for the runes she cast to take effect, but his stamina had proved resilient and he had made it, if only by the skin of his teeth. Muttering something under her breath, she pulled the last few nanites that were still outside of his body together into a ball and then began to shape them. It was not for nothing that she had been watching over Thorn and even without his conscious direction, she was able to form a perfect rune.

Pressing her hand forward, she sent the nanites into Thorn’s chest, down to where the Atlas Star sat, releasing a stream of earth attributed mana. The mysterious device was one that she had guarded for a long time, ever since she was first conscious. It was what enabled her to live, providing the power her intense calculations needed, while also serving as both the core of Thorn’s life and the nanite colony that created the microscopic creatures that were currently holding Thorn’s body together.

One of the six power gems that sat around its edge was currently filled with swirling darkness, indicating his affinity with darkness attributed energy, and one of the five blank spaces between the gems held his modified Earth Step totem that allowed him to teleport using either darkness or earth attributed mana. It was into the spot next to the totem that the nanites poured, beginning to carve out another symbol.

Time ticked by as the nanites worked, creating the microthread structure that Thorn had learned in Angoril. A new totem slowly came to life as Eve watched, filling the second space on the Atlas Star and leaving three empty spaces remaining. The new totem had a sinister look but now was not the time to worry about that. Sensing that her binding spell was about to reach its end, Eve said a small prayer to any force that might be listening and activated the totem. Murky black light burst forth as the totem lit up and Eve felt a terrible suction lock onto her.

Realizing that she had made a mistake, she gave a high pitched scream and fled, her nanite body melting away into the air as she hid inside the Atlas Star once again. It wasn’t only the nanites that were targeted by the totem, however, and the deadly magical curse that was starting to wiggle free from her small runes quickly began to flow toward the activated totem. Mixed with the runes she had created, the magical curse quickly sank into the totem, spinning around and around as it ran along the mana path.

Drawn from all over Thorn’s body, the curse seemed unable to resist the pull of the totem and a short few minutes later, his nearly dead flesh was finally free of it. However, that was only the beginning. At the center of the totem was a small space and it was here that the curse was funneled. Forced into the small space, the mana that surged through the totem caused the curse and the runes that bound it to spin around and around. The faster the curse spun inside the totem, the more condensed it got as the burr-like runes that had covered the mana containing the curse condensed together. Tighter and tighter the mana became as it collapsed in on itself until finally, with a crunching sound, it spun itself into a small gem filled with a spiderweb pattern.

Pulsing with that same murky light, the totem suddenly exploded with power, sending tendrils of darkness out of Thorn’s body. Made of a muddy mixture of earth and darkness attributed mana, the tendrils appeared to suck the vitality from the dirt wherever they passed. Like dogs sniffing after an animal, they probed this way and that, slowly closing in on the ground above where Thorn lay. Pressing through the crumbling stone, they revealed a thick root that ran above the gap in the rock that held Thorn’s body.

Wrapping tightly around the root, the tendrils began to suck the abundant life energy contained in the root, pulling it out in streams and sending those streams back into his body. Though most of it was sent into the totem where it fed the cursed gem, there was so much life force that it couldn’t all be contained and the extra life force soon spread out into Thorn’s body. Minutes turned into hours as the tendrils continued to suck life from the root, and soon those hours turned to days.

Throughout the entire process, Eve could only watch over Thorn’s body, unable to affect the process now that it had begun. There were times when she wondered if he would ever wake up, but her only option was to wait and see. Two weeks had passed by the time the situation began to change, but it was not in the direction that Eve had expected. Rather than waking up, Thorn, whose body had been refilled with life force, suddenly began to shudder.

A great and terrible presence swept over him as the root that he had been pulling life force from shifted. Though he was still unconscious, his mental sense swelled around his body to try and protect him, only to be driven backward into his body as it was smashed down by the alien mind. Yet Thorn’s character was nothing if not firm, and once again his mental sense tried to resist. Over and over, the presence attempted to force its way into him, only to be blocked.

Like a giant child finding a beetle and tapping at its shell, Eve got the impression that the tremendous presence that had locked onto Thorn was not malicious as much as curious, but the result was nearly fatal for the Titan as his mental sense began to crack apart. Just when Eve thought that it was going to fall apart, the totem she had created suddenly sent out a thread of muddy energy, binding it back together. At the same time, it pulled more life force from the root, causing the presence to grow slightly stronger.

With each tap, the giant presence cracked Thorn’s mental sense but the totem would repair it just as quickly, using the tremendous amount of life force it had absorbed to fill in the cracks, creating a cycle of destruction and creation that repeated for nearly two days. As quickly as it had arrived, the presence suddenly vanished, leaving Thorn and Eve alone, much to Eve’s relief. However, along with the presence, the root vanished as well, depriving the totem’s tendrils of an abundant source of life force to absorb.

“Alright, Thorn. I’ve done my part, now you do yours,” Eve muttered as she watched the totem slowly fall inert.

With a thought, the nanites reformed a body for her and she hovered above Thorn’s nose. She was intimately connected to him and had been paying special attention to his mind this whole time, so she knew that he was fine, just unconscious. With nothing to do but wait, she settled down on his forehead and slowly fell asleep, only waking up two days later when he finally began to stir. Realizing that his brain was regaining consciousness, she quickly moved off his forehead as he sat up with a gasp.

*thud*

Slamming his forehead against the ceiling of the small space, Thorn groaned and fell back, trying to roll over. The whole space was barely big enough for his body to lay down, so all he ended up doing was bumping into the wall. With a deep breath, he tried to clear his fuzzy mind and after a few minutes he was finally able to take proper stock of his situation. Pressing his hand up, Thorn shifted the stone that was above him, giving himself enough space to sit up.

“Eve?” he said, squinting at the fairy hovering in front of him.

“In the flesh. Well, nanites, but you know what I mean.”

“How did you… what happened?”

Flying down to Thorn’s knee, Eve walked back and forth on it, tapping her chin as if she was thinking.

“Well, you nearly got yourself killed setting a trap for Aciakko, and picked up a nasty curse in the meantime. You both didn’t manage to kill her and you nearly died, though that seems to have passed. Uh, I manifested in this fine form. What else? Oh, I solved your curse problem, and then you had a two-day mental headbutting match with the tier ten plant monster that you have been stealing life force from to survive.”

Sensing the forced lightness in her tone, Thorn had a sinking feeling. Before he had succumbed to the curse, he had tried everything he could think of to remove it from his body but nothing seemed to work. Curious about how Eve had managed to get it under control, he suddenly caught sight of his hand and froze. Eyes going wide, he checked the rest of his body and found himself dumbfounded.

The heavy muscle that had covered his body ever since he had manifested in Nova Terra for the first time was gone, and his bulk had been replaced with a slimmer, denser form. Given his height, the change left him looking gaunt, but strangely, Thorn only felt stronger, not weaker. Still, his hands were nearly skeletal and Thorn was not sure he liked the change. Letting his mental sense sink into his body to examine it, he found that the surface level change was the very least of the adjustments to his body. Every single inch of his body was practically bursting with life force that far surpassed anything he had ever possessed before, but there was something strange about it. Unlike the pure life force that he was used to, this energy was tainted by a murky darkness that made his mind flash back to an unpleasant memory.

“Eve.”

“Yes, Thorn?”

“Why does my life energy feel so strange?”

“Hm? I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“What did you do?”

“What do you mean? I saved your life from a curse that was literally eating you alive.”

“And I’m thankful for that, I am. I’m just wondering how exactly you saved me, and why it feels like my life force has been corrupted?”

“Well, you just spent the last two and a half weeks fighting for your life, so it makes sense that things would feel a bit off. Plus, your life force was torn apart and you survived by absorbing the plant monster’s life.”

Flying up until she was at Thorn’s eye height, Eve hurried to explain. But no matter how calm she seemed on the surface, Thorn could sense the tension her words hid. His gaze narrowed as he stared at her until her words petered out.

“Eve.”

“Y… yes?”

“I noticed that the Atlas Star has a new totem on it. First, I’m impressed you were able to create it, and second, while I’d prefer you to consult with me before doing something permanent like that to my body, I understand that desperate times call for action.”

“You’re welcome,” Eve said, nodding her head like that was the end of it.

“Even so,” Thorn continued, causing Eve’s small shoulders to flinch. “Why is there a phylactery totem on the Atlas Star?”