Chapter 13 (Patreon)

Bruce coughed nervously.  Kassar was staring intently at him.  He wasn’t sure if it was the fact that skulls didn’t have eyelids, or if there truly were something that made the alien seem like it was watching his every movement with the alertness of a hawk, but the entire situation unnerved him.

“This, uh,” he half mumbled, reaching up to scratch the back of his head as he tried to find the right words to respond.  “This feels like it could easily be a trap?  Like, I’m not trying to be offensive or anything Mr. Kassar, wait is it Mr?”

The skull didn’t respond.  Instead the flames surrounding it simply flared slightly, drawing beads of sweat from Bruce’s forehead as it glared at him.

“Anyway,” he rambled hurriedly.  “The aesthetic feels a bit off.  I’m in the bottom of a pit and you’re a flaming pile of bones.  That raises a bit of a red flag from the start.  Now you’re telling me to let you possess my body?  I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention in Sunday School but this feels like the sort of thing that they were warning against.”

“Well,” Bruce amended.  “This and interacting with girls before marriage in any way shape or form.”

“I am in your mind right now,” Kassar rumbled.  “It would be the act of a moment to hollow you out and turn you into a meat puppet which my spirit could inhabit as I made my escape.  Unfortunately for both of us, the process would burn your body out.  Your flesh would last no more than a week before it crumbled to dust under the pressure of my psyche.”

Bruce took a step back, waving his hands frantically in front of his face as he tried to flash a disarming smile at the imposing creature.

“I didn’t say no,” he blurted out quickly.  “After all, I didn’t exactly listen to what the sisters had to say about girls during Sunday School either.”

“Good,” Kassar replied.  “You are weak now Bruce.  Too weak to take revenge upon the betrayers.  I will mold and forge you.  Transform you from crude iron into an alloy that can pierce their hides and rend their flesh.  Together, we will make them regret their actions even as we stand atop a mountain made from their brittle and shattered bones.”

“That…” Bruce began, stumbling as he tried to find the right words.  “That sounds like a whole lot.  I mostly just want to get out of the maze and go home.  I’m not sure I need the rest of that, so if we could-”

“No.”  Kassar’s skull flared and Bruce could feel the sweat pouring down his face as the heat baked his skin.  “You do not know what you ask Bruce.  You do not know what has been done.  You did not die and spend a millennia of fitful sleep in the belly of the Great Labyrinth dreaming of the destruction of your people and your vengeance against the betrayers.  I will make you strong.  I will make your people shower you with honor.  You will have more mates than your greatest of chiefs and your progeny will found clan after clan that will rule your pitiful world in your name.”

“But,” the ghost hissed, swooping closer to Bruce as its azure eyes cloud.  “I will have my revenge.  Without it, the betrayers will come for and kill you.  The Race surely represents too great a threat for them to leave an inheritor untouched.”

“Then maybe I should just go-” Bruce began, edging toward the fire-cloaked entryway to the Sanctuary room.

“You will not survive long enough to reach the first stairwell,” Kassar growled.  “The lower levels of the Great Labyrinth are more efficient.  Distance and time itself move differently.  Every step you take down here counts for a hundred if not a thousand on the first level.  The price paid for such efficiency is a grave increase in the threat posed by its denizens.  At your current level, even if you had proper abilities rather than the weak and sickly patterns provided by the borelite, you would be annihilated in seconds.”

“Well,” Bruce replied, sighing.  “Shit.”

“Indeed,” the skull said.  “You will be hip deep in feces.”

He took a deep breath, trying to weigh his options without letting the menacing alien hurry him.  Bruce wasn’t sure that he could fully trust Kassar.  It seemed a bit intense and preoccupied with revenge, but at the same time, there was no doubting its power.  Further complicating things was the unspoken possibility that it would just kill him if he said no.  It clearly had the capability to do so, but so far it seemed to want his agreement and cooperation.

Any capitulation would be under duress, but Bruce doubted that a judge or arbiter would care.  As best he could understand, Kassar would probably eat anyone that tried to stop it.

“Fine,” Bruce acceded, extending his right arm toward the apparition.  “I’ll accept your help.  How do we do this?”

“I am glad you understand the stakes,” Kassar replied.  “You will only regret this for but a moment.  I have a whole new galaxy to show you.”

“Wait,” Bruce blurted, out, eyes widening as he took a step back.  “What in the hell is that supposed to-”

He didn’t have a chance to object further.  Kassar dropped to the ground, the blue pinpricks of light in its eye sockets snuffing out even as the flames covering its skull twined together and leapt through the intervening space to surround him

Bruce felt warm, but he didn’t burn as the fire rapidly spread over every inch of his body.  Instead, the only real effect he noticed was that his skin prickled as static energy danced over it beneath the tongues of fire.

His HUD flashed.

[External Contact Requested. Do you wish to accept a direct connection? Yes / No]

Appeared in the center of Bruce’s vision in calming blue light.  Below it in smaller letters the system went on to warn him.

[As a reminder, representatives of the Treaty of Rigel will NOT ask to directly interface with you.  Direct connections present a risk of possession and psychic contamination.  Your sales representative accepts no responsibility for any injury or spontaneous death that might befall you if you accept such a connection.  All external contact must be made at your own risk.]

Before Bruce could respond, a circle made of red light appeared around the [Yes] button.  He opened his mouth to say something, but the HUD whirred causing a slight amount of vertigo as it responded to the sudden input.

[External Contact Accepted.  Remember, you were the one who thought this was a good idea!]

The HUD flickered once before it disappeared into static that clogged most of Bruce’s vision.  His skin tingled again and a wave of phantom noise rushed over him.  There wasn’t anything of use that Bruce could make out, it sounded more than anything like standing next to a running generator or a waterfall.  Loud and omnipresent.

There was a slight pinch in his temples and a sense of pressure before Bruce suddenly had an unshakeable feeling that he wasn’t alone. It was like there was someone standing just over his shoulder, out of sight but watching his every action.

“By the Void Mother.”  Kassar’s voice came from nowhere but Bruce could hear him clearly.  He wasn’t sure how he knew that Kassar was a ‘him,’ but suddenly that piece of information was as instinctive as his understanding that he had two arms and ten fingers.

“Your operating pattern is a mess,” Kassar grumbled.  “I knew that the borelite patterns were designed to weaken and instill complacency, but this is borderline sabotage.”

“Sabotage doesn’t sound good,” Bruce replied, glancing around the room.  Other than the now still skull that had housed the alien, it was as empty and featureless as the sanctuary chamber that he’d rested in with Maddox on the first floor.

“It makes you weak,” the disembodied voice growled.  “Helpless and dependent.  All of these patterns conflict with any other pattern, learned or self-made.  Before long, you would only be able to purchase abilities from one of the betrayers, allowing them to limit your growth so that they can steal your wealth and prevent you from becoming a threat.”

“Crap,” Bruce responded.  “I knew we shouldn’t have trusted Treekipp.  The green little bugger was shady from the start.”

“The only solution is to tear down this edifice of lies and start from scratch,” Kassar continued, a scratching sensation inside Bruce’s head accompanying the entity’s grim words.  “We must tear it out root and branch.  It is like a contagion.  If the smallest scrap of the Rigellian infection remains it will poison your body, destroying you as surely as a sword or an ax.”

Bruce took a step back nervously, but there was nowhere for him to run.  Kassar was inside his head, rooting around through his mind.

“Hey buddy,” he said, licking his suddenly dry lips.  “I don’t know what you’re up to, but we should probably discuss what you’re doing before you make any serious changes.  I don’t want you to break something in there and suddenly forget how to breathe or what my grandma’s cookies tasted like or something.”

“This is a discussion,” the alien replied.  “I have found the origin of your problems, and now I will yank it out, freeing you from enemy control.  You may want to be seated for this.”

“Wait-” Bruce began only for his ears to pop.

His vision dissolved entirely into static and vertigo sent the snowy world spinning.  He stumbled once before sinking to his hands and knees.  Bruce’s body still twinged with pain from when Kassar had initially forced him to the ground, but it was manageable thanks to Regeneration and the intervening time.

“Useless,” Kassar murmured.  “Beyond worthless.  The energy conduits on your body enhancement are so great a mess that I suspect they were designed to intentionally harm you.”

The scent of freshly mown grass exploded around Bruce.  His balance spun and it felt like he was falling from an impossible height as he curled into the fetal position on the floor of the maze.

“Only three attributes?”  The ghost in his head snorted.  “Three?  They seek to hide affinity from their users.  Worse, the operating pattern steals the gains.  With every kill they grow stronger while you suffer, a shadow of what you should be.”

Bruce’s ears popped.  He was gasping for breath as a sensation of warmth suffused his entire being followed by the taste of lavender and cinnamon filling his mouth.

“There,” Kassar said triumphantly.  “I have found the last of the hooks the betrayers have embedded in your soul core.  One more twist and the surgery will be complete.  You will be born anew Bruce, your eyes unclouded by the lies and illusions cast over you by the enemy.”

His vision swam back into focus.  Bruce just lay there, gasping for breath as he stared up at the ceiling.  The entire world was sharper, somehow more real.  It was like the spirit ransacking his mind had slipped magnifying glasses over his eyes while he had been struggling and thrashing on the floor.

“Now for your path,” Kassar continued.  “You have two choices.  You are of the priest caste, but I was not.  That does not mean that I have learned nothing in the field.  I can offer you a basic priest caste path, that of the mentalist.  It is mostly used to train initiates before they are introduced to greater powers.”

“But that is not the path you should accept.  I was of the warrior caste, but I was also a figure of some note in my day.  I can offer you the path that I walked.  It is not a forgiving path, a jealous path.  It does not cooperate with patterns or abilities outside of itself.  If you choose to accept it, it will grant you power beyond your comprehension but you will never be able to stray from its confines.”

“What does it do?”  Bruce croaked, licking his lips a second time.  Somehow, in a matter of minutes they had become dry and cracked like he had not had a sip of water in hours.

“It is the path of the neutron star,” Kassar said triumphantly.  “You will become a master of fire and gravity.  Your hammer will strike with enough force to crush worlds until they are naught but spheres of solid protons and neutrons.  Your shield will shine with the flares and gamma radiation of an angry quasar.  Cooking your opponents inside their own skin before they know that they have made an enemy of you.”

“Your wrath will shatter stellar systems and your fire will turn that wreckage into unrecognizable slag.  You will taste power beyond anything you have ever imagined.  Together, we shall have my revenge and cast the betrayers down, crushing their fragile bones beneath the weight of our disdain.”

---------- Navigation ----------
Previous     Index     Next