Technomagica 47. The Zom-bee (Patreon)

"Why? Delta asked in Russian, opening one silver-blue eye. She had clearly been listening in on my conversation with the Overseer, not fully napping.

"Why what?"

"Why tell her so much? Why the science spiel?”

"Because we need her strength," I replied in Russian. "Because she's a victim and a prisoner of the Vows, not a fanatic, nor a millennia-long plot-weaver like Giovashi."

"What if she's lying? How are you so sure of her motivations?"

I sighed. "Giovashi kicked me out of my body once. I'm going to make sure that it won't happen again."

"By hiding behind the Overseer's back?”

"By accomplishing a lot more... faster," I said. "Kliss is strong and capable."

"She's capable of reporting us as abberations too,” Delta huffed. “I’m not sure if we should be inviting Kliss to our science gang.”

“We’re not a science gang,” I said. “Where do you even get terms like that?”

“I pick things up from the Astral,” she shrugged.

"Look," I stated. "We're playing a very dangerous game here, but it's a game we need to play. Kliss is our best bet for now. One word from Giovashi could likely turn all of Skyisle against us because people will trust the word of the Arch-Priestess over two almost-teenagers. We don’t know exactly who works for the Arch-Priestess and I suspect that all of the barmaids in Fox and Fiddle are her current priestesses from this generation.”

“Right,” Delta nodded.

“Kliss isn’t someone from Skyisle, a lever against the local power of Giovashi. Even our mom or dad could theoretically turn against us because of their unshakable belief in Ishira.”

My twin sighed.

“The Overseer can be trusted with some things on the simple basis that she doesn’t answer to Giovashi. What, you think I’m going to teach Kliss fractal mathematics or something?” I asked. "I'm simply going to blow her mind with more basic grade 10 chemistry. She still can't get over the fact that I made water catch fire."

"I just hope you know what you're doing, Slava," Delta murmured.

. . .

Days flew by as Kliss dug out more batteries from the ground, including a truly massive hex-beacon.

“Why do we need all of these?” She asked, examining the ancient crystalline constructs.

“Magic power,” I said simply.

“Do you mean to tell me that you’re planning to use Almn-Inian… necromagic?!” Kliss squinted at me. “I didn’t sign up to rebuild the Inian Empire, just so you know.”

“What would be wrong with that?” I asked curiously.

“There’s a reason why the other Empires of men turned the very stars against the Inians, exterminated them all! The necromage artifacts are powered by human souls!” She insisted.

I looked at the stained, time worn stones of the tower, at the Mystic tree in the middle of it, at the colorful flowers and thought about the peaceful, serene power of the Sentinel's song. None of it seemed malicious - not the tower, nor the song it was responding to.

“I don’t think that the Alanians were evil. What if you are mistaken? History is written by the victors. Do you have any proof of your claim? Have you ever seen an Inian artifact in action?” I asked.

“No,” Kliss said. "But what I learned at the Academy was that if you find an actual Inian artifact, you report it to your local Equality Inquisitor... so that it can be destroyed!"

“No destroying," I shook my head. "We’re here to investigate their tools and if they indeed prove to be evil, we simply won’t use them for evil.”

“That sounds noble and heroic, but plenty of people fell prey to easy power,” Kliss replied with a headshake. “For example - Vows are incredibly easy to make, but impossible to remove. The Gods do not simply let go of human souls. If you awaken whatever ancient power sleeps in these stones, it might never let us go! It might consume our souls, might outright kill us, or simply chain and bind us to its arcane will and cause!”

“How sure are you that these rocks eat souls?” I asked her, eyeing the hex-beacon. “You dug it out and were perfectly fine."

“Incredibly sure,” Kliss said. “The Overseer’s Vow is absolutely terrified of that particular diamond-shaped rock. It's dead, inactive now… but I am highly concerned about you experimenting on them."

I pursed my lips, contemplating things.

I walked to the hex-beacon, sat at a fair distance away from it in a lotus pose and started to sing the Sentinel's song to it.

A feeling of deep serenity and order started to emanate from the tree and the hex-beacon gemstone as I sang.

The enormous crystal seemed to hum back to me, louder and louder. In another minute, a rumbling pulse began to emanate from its innards in tune with the song. From what my Infoscopes showed me, the crystal activated and began to suck in energy from the environment.

All energy.

Since the Hex-Beacon wasn’t connected to a battery, it was trying to turn on, to power itself up but was failing to do so. I sent [lymphagon 8] towards it. The little Astral critter became immediately drawn to the massive rock's surface, slammed into it, flailing its appendages. The lymphagon could not disconnect from the beacon and cried out in panic in ultrasound as it began to slowly sink into the black, diamond shaped gemstone. I felt the little shard of my soul within it aching, becoming devoured by the beacon. Even my [Info-Tether] connected to the lympagon, quickly washed away, rapidly losing levels.

The Hex-Beacon was eating levels from spells just like the magogenic fault!

I stopped singing the Alanian’s Sentinel song and the beacon deactivated, ceased sucking in everything near it. The lymphagon flew away from it quickly. It was almost completely drained of mana and even some of its soul-shard looked weakened, drained. I connected a tether to the lymphagon and refilled it with mana from Battie, pondering things over.

Kliss was right. The beacon was starved for magic, wanted to consume souls. The Sentinel’s song, taught to our mom by her parents, acted as an activation key for Alanian tech.

“What was that?” Kliss asked. She was staring at the beacon. “I felt… a pulse of magic.”

“I know how to activate it,” I said.

“And?”

“And it eats souls and magic,” I said thoughtfully, rubbing my chin. “You were right.”

The Overseer shuddered as she stared at me. She looked like she was afraid that I would sacrifice her soul to this arcane mechanism.

"Don't look so worried," I said. "I'm done with it... for now."

. . .

“How’s Ogonek doing?” I walked over to Delta to check on my current biggest, and most important bee-shaped experiment.

“She’s fine,” my sister replied.

A fuzzy bee crawled out of her pocket. Its wings flickered and the bee took off circling Delta, its stringer flashing with tiny sparks.

“How long do you think she will live?” She asked. "You told me that bees live thirty days, did you manage to extend it?"

“Well, she’s a bee with one of my and one of your soul shards, which makes her a ‘ghoul-bee’ by the definition Kliss applied to you and me,” I said.

“Zombie bee?” Delta mulled. “She doesn’t look very dead.”

My mind wandered to my memories of Earth-lore. The word "zombie" was first recorded in 1819, in “The History of Brazil” by Robert Southery. It described a soulless corpse brought back to life through dark witchcraft. The concept of ghouls, on the other hand, was echoed in ancient Arabian folklore, where they were depicted as creatures that roamed graveyards and fed on the flesh of the dead.

“Well,” I nodded. “She’s not exactly a rotting zombie. She’s not dead, but her body is slowly changing from within, becoming a bit more like the Blood Elk.”

“Changing how?” Delta eyed her insect pet.

A month ago, I made Kliss carve a small hole in the side of the Mystic-Willow-Oak with her [mana-sword] to extract some [Vitality-aligned] crystals. Pulverized into microscopic powder and mixed with nectar, Delta made the bee consume the crystalline powder suffused with [Green-Vitality]. Normally, consuming such crystalline powder would kill an insect, but I also attached the [Chrysalis] skill to Ogonek via my soul shard within her.

Slowly, over the passing weeks, the [Chrysalis] skill rearranged the insect’s internal structure. This change allowed the bee to consume and build up more [Vitality] crystals inside of itself. After a month of this work, the bee became a lot rounder, fluffier and more dangerous-looking compared to the other local Fire-Bees.

I activated my Infoscope, focusing my attention on the bee. The world around me faded slightly, layers of reality peeling back to reveal the intricate internal structure of the diminutive creature. The normally simple anatomy of the bee was now a complex network of crystalline structures, interspersed with the insect's own tissues. The crystals pulsed with an inner light, emanating a gentle current of [Vitality] that lit up the tiny body from within.

“Ogonek’s body is no longer just an organic vessel kept alive by a shard of your soul, but a fusion of living tissue and crystal. [Chrysalis] rebuilt her from the inside out, the Mystic tree crystals acting as a sort of scaffold around which her cells are reforming. Her tiny heart is beating far stronger than before, pumping not just hemolymph, but a continuous [Vitality] pulse through her,” I explained.

“So our experiment was a qualified success?” Delta clapped.

“Yes,” I nodded. “We’ve created an Immortal bee.”

“Immortal… bee,” Delta’s wide eyes sparkled as she looked at Ogonek. "She does look more regal than the other bees."

“I still wouldn’t send her near the hive,” I said. “Just because she’s immortal, it doesn't make her immune to the Queen Bee’s Charisma.”

“So the next step is to make her charisma-proof?” My twin asked.

“Yes,” I nodded.

“Do you have any idea how to do that?”

“Not yet,” I shook my head. “Your job is to bring up Ogonek's level to twenty while I search the forest for a specific creature with Kliss.”

“What kind of a specific creature?” Delta arched an eyebrow.

“I need to find something that naturally resists Charisma,” I explained.

“Couldn’t you just write [Anti-Charisma] in omnicode and make a spell called that, Mr. Spell-designer?” She asked. “Didn’t you hang [Ward] onto your Battery crystal?”

“That took me over a decade to accomplish,” I said. “And it’s not as powerful or as effective as I’d like it to be because I have to constantly control it with Tether. Both Kliss and Giovashi can basically punch through the Ward Battie produces. The [Vitality] pulse hanging on a [Vitality-aligned] crystalline structure is a hundred times more effective. Your bee is basically a self-sustaining, self-governing, independent organism.”

"Yep, my Ogonek is clearly superior to your Battie," Delta grinned. Her eyes twinkled with a hint of mischief as she gently stroked the bee, its wings flickering. “Cause she can fly places. Who’s a good girl? Yes, you are.”

"Well, Battie is just a crystal battery, a mindless tool. But Ogonek? She is a living, breathing being. She can adapt, grow, and evolve further with [Chrysalis],” I said. “[Chrysalis] cannot modify inorganic structures. Battie was my first creation, the foundational, local crystallography knowledge needed to create other, more advanced things. Without Battie, we wouldn't be able to keep Ogonek alive for longer than a few days.”

“Can we become immortal too if we eat crushed [Vitality] crystal powder?” Delta asked.

I frowned, pondering her question for a few seconds.

"It's not quite that simple," I finally replied. "The crystal powder is toxic to humans and animals alike because it’s aligned to [Green-Vitality]. Ogonek was already one foot in the grave, in a lot of pain, dying because she was covered in life-sucking, parasitic mites.”

“Oh,” Delta’s expression became forlorn. “I didn’t feel that she was in pain.”

“A bee’s nervous system is less complex compared to mammals, and their responses to potentially painful stimuli are primarily reflexive,” I said. “Most of her nervous system was already destroyed because of the mites and the Astral Fungus infection.”

“Hrmm,” she pursed her lips.

"It's theoretically possible to modify a human body with [Vitality] crystals," I continued. "But it would be extremely risky. We are far more complex than a little bee. One small mistake could kill or worse.”

"Worse?" Delta's eyes widened. "What could be worse than dying?"

"Living a tormented existence," I replied. "Imagine being trapped in a body that's not functioning properly, that's in constant pain as the crystals slowly rearrange every single cell in your organs and bones, with no way to end it because the [Vitality] crystals also keep you alive."

Delta shuddered.

“But [Chrysalis] can keep a human body in suspended animation,” she muttered.

“I’m not going to experiment on you or me with crystal-fusion, that’s far too dangerous. Humans are a thousand times larger than bees,” I pointed out. “Basically to repeat the process of what I did in Ogonek inside of a human being I would need to:

1)Find a human who is missing most of their organs and nervous system and is near death, almost completely drained of their mana which naturally protects a creature from being changed by [Chrysalis].

2)Make sure that this human is completely infected by my soul shards to monitor and control the conversion process.

3)To properly bind and align the Tree-produced crystals to a human body, I would need a source of power a thousand times bigger than Battie, way bigger than the Alanian Astral batteries we dug out.”

“Oh,” she said. “You spend that much power on Ogonek?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “Ogonek’s soul was practically nonexistent when you’ve infected her with your Astral spores. All of Ogonek's cells had to be modified, because the crystals themselves cannot be realigned with magic. The [Green-Vitality] realignment took a mountain of power which I gradually ramped up while I studied the cellular conversion process,” I explained. “I’ve practically drained Battie, then the crystal core of the Overseer’s Armor and even all of the Alanian Batteries that I could pull power from.”

“All of them?” Delta blinked.

“All of them,” I nodded. “Like, I said - I wanted to make Ogonek permanent.”

“Oh wow,” Delta’s eyes sparkled. “Thank you, Slava. I didn’t notice how much effort and power you put into her. Why though?”

“Because I wanted to create… something that would survive in the ruins of Tricameron,” I said, looking over the cloud-covered, contaminated valley far below us. “Before I came to Aralsk I saw the greatest engine of death - the Tzar Bomba. For thirty years after, in Aralsk, all I bred was death. But with Ogonek... I wanted to prove that I could create life, not just end it."

Delta's eyes welled up with tears as she cradled the bee gently in her hands. "Well, you did it, Slava," she whispered. "Ogonek is a miracle, our miracle. Do you think she can fly right through the poisoned mists?”

“When she gets stronger,” I nodded. “Absolutely, I’m certain of it. I can position an Infoscope spell inside of her permanently and scan the general terrain of the valley and the forests surrounding it, find more rare minerals that would help me make a proper laboratory in this tower. The magical destruction of the Tricameron citadel changed the landscape and rearranged the atomic structure of everything down there. Things get really weird closer to the epicenter. From as far as my Infoscope could fly on its own within the two minutes range, I spotted Lanthanum, Neodymium, and Yttrium down there just sitting on the ground in that black sand on the edge of the river in great abundance!”

“Those are rare earth elements, yes?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “If we make more bees like Ogonek, we could retrieve all sorts of rare earth elements, grain by grain. Lanthanum is commonly used in optical lenses and as a catalyst. Neodymium is prized for its powerful magnetic properties, making it valuable in magnets and lasers. Yttrium finds applications in superconductors, lasers, and phosphors for lighting. These rare earth elements offer diverse capabilities that can enhance various scientific experiments and advancements.”

“That’s incredible!” Delta hugged me tightly. “I didn’t realize that Ogonek could be so useful! You always think so much further ahead than I do, Slava!”

I felt a warmth spread through me at her words along with a satisfying sense of accomplishment. I met Delta's hug with one of my own. "And she's just the beginning. With time and effort, we can create more miracles like her. We can bring life to where none exists now, take back, heal the magogenic fault meter by meter!” I waved my hand at the Valley of Death far below us.