Diabolical - Chapter 5 (Patreon)

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His reasoning was elementary --- the manor was too large, and too mysterious. Its network of passageways was labyrinthine; the thought of mislaying himself in these blackened, sinister hallways made his brain tremble in his skull. Even now, he could feel it --- a frozen fog of peril hung in the air, and countless thin, sharp shards were perpetually scraping across his skin, like ghostly fingertips.

When he heard a door creaking somewhere in the distance, he no longer dallied. A profound sense of danger arose in his heart --- he had a feeling that, if he hung around here for much longer, the choice would no longer be his to make. He stepped into the room and, when he did, the fiendish barrier directly closed behind him.

Arthur took a moment to survey his surroundings --- the interior was innocuous enough, at first glance. The accommodations were extensive; lavish furnishings decorated the floor and walls, and an antiquated bedstead sat at one end of the room. Its long, effulgent posts reached toward the ceiling, and opulent curtains stretched between them. A curved bench had been placed at the foot of the bed --- its cushions were made from red satin, and gave an impression of languidity.

In the middle of the floor, there were three lounges and a table. Around them, there were cabinets, drawers and dressers aplenty, to the extent that it seemed out-of-place. It would’ve made more sense if for some sort of repository, but not for a bedchamber. It was all the same type of wood: a glum, oiled sort, with the fabrics sharing the same rusty, brown coloring.

It wasn’t the gloomy motif that frayed his nerves --- the malefic taint that pervaded the interior had a different source, one that he noticed almost immediately, despite his (situational) predilection for nescience.

Arthur’s face turned pale. Thin, blue veins could be seen, running beneath his skin. ‘It’s those damnable symbols, again!’ He thought. Every last inch of his confines was crawling with them --- the ones on the golden sphere and on the pendulum were hazardous indeed, exuding a pull that seemed ready to swallow him whole, if only he stared deeply enough. ‘But these… are different!’ He realized. The others were dormant, but these were wriggling, worming against his consciousness in an effort to penetrate his mind. He could feel them reaching out, writhing into his eyeballs and into his brain.

He felt something warm and wet on his upper-lip and, after reaching for it with a trembling hand, he retrieved his fingers and saw that they were covered in blood! Suddenly, the little black square that had been sitting peacefully in the bottom-right-corner of his field-of-view expanded, enlarging until the black slate abided once more. A single, underlined word was written on it:

‘Periculo!’

Arthur couldn’t understand it, but he could sense its warning, like a prickling heat, pressing against his mind. But what could he do? If his ‘mystica’ could somehow be used to resolve this encounter, then he didn’t have a clue how to go about it! Abruptly, the slate cleared and a new word appeared:

‘Impediens.’

He muttered the word a few times, trying it in-case it was some kind of spell, but it had no effect. His head was throbbing dreadfully now, and the trickle of viscous, red fluid down his nose had turned into a flood. He threw his head back and pinched it, but it was getting worse.

That was when it happened: the carved lettering lit up, like molten iron had been poured into it, and he heard a noise inside his head, like a massive steel beam being twisted and pulled. There was an explosion inside his mind, and an enormous force descended, with the strength to crush his bones to dust and squeeze his flesh to paste.

His viscera rang hollowly as it undulated within him. The objects in his vision doubled, tripled, quadrupled…! He swayed where he stood, feeling like he might spontaneously collapse into a puddle of goo. After a dozen-or-so seconds, his sensibilities returned to him, and he thickly swallowed the blood that had pooled in his mouth. He realized with joy that the unremittent squirming inside his mind had been pacified!

Whatever the tablet had done had worked --- the parasitic symbology was prevented from invading any further than it already had. However, he could still feel it inside him: thin, frozen hairs that pervaded every corner of his flesh, like fiberglass splinters.

He closed his eyes; anemic and nauseous. With shaking hands, he managed to find the papered wall with his fingertips. Putting his back to it, he sunk down until he was sitting on his haunches. In the crimson dark beneath his eyelids, the tablet hovered. The ‘word’ on it had cooled, with the white-hot slant of its lettering now having shifted to a dull red. While he was studying it, it directly rotated until the back was facing towards him. As it disappeared, he saw those familiar etchings again. However, he immediately noticed that the first line was different:

‘Potentia ( 0/1 ) -> ( 0/0 )’

Arthur felt a pit forming somewhere in his gut; it seemed that salvation didn’t come for free --- he was still in the dark regarding the exact nature of the word ‘Potentia’, but its reduction didn’t bode well. Now that it had been depleted, didn’t it mean that, if a crisis broke out again, the tablet wouldn’t be able to prevent it? He felt like bursting into tears --- the only thing keeping him halfway sane was (having already experienced it) his fearlessness toward death, and his state of emotional exhaustion. ‘But, in this place, death is the least of my worries...’ He thought, with grave surety.

Reopening his eyes was an astronomical task. It was only through fearful desperation that he accomplished it --- if he wanted to prevent vile possession, then he needed to act. He dreaded what he would find inside the very bowls of the thing that endeavored toward his demise. ‘It’s pointless.’ He thought, already despairing the outcome, yet he steeled himself as best he could and rose to his feet.

He looked at his wrists, which he’d unknowingly scratched until droplets of red blotted underneath his pale skin. ‘This numb itching is unbearable!’ He decried with horror. He could still feel the cursed malevolents under his dermis --- their hibernation did little to relieve the disgust he felt from their presence. After repressing his revulsion, he looked around.

The room was as it had been --- the only difference was the patterning, which stood out starkly to him; it waxed and waned, pulsing inorganically in a manner that defied description. Arthur drew his eyes into slits and half-covered them with one hand. It helped a little. ‘The worst of it was coming from the ceiling!’ He realized. He refused to look at it directly, but through his peripheral vision, he understood that it was a continuation, and related to the image he’d seen on the door --- if it had been the front page of a book, then the thing on the roof was like an index! ‘And these cupboards, drawers and cabinets --- they are the contents!’

Underneath the dread, he experienced a faint sensation of excitement. He suspected that he’d an inkling of the purpose of it all! There was knowledge here --- extremely dangerous and explicitly despicable, but knowledge nonetheless. ‘It seems to be a type of… nursery.’ He reasoned, fully aware of how deprived that comparison was.

‘Before’, when he’d been small, his parents had wanted a career for him in the sciences --- to that end, they’d stuffed his room with things conductive to that pursuit. Children’s books on topics they wanted to encourage, wallpapers of famous individuals in the related fields, toys purposed for education --- it was ‘environmental conditioning’ at its finest.

Arthur’s pupils widened. ‘That may only be a part of it, but I’m sure of my guess!’ He elated, feeling a dark satisfaction in his heart. This room was an incubator, meant to stimulate its occupant toward the understanding of some kind of deplorable practice.

Suddenly, the tablet tumesced. Arthur watched, fascinated, as it underwent another change --- in the bottom section, underneath ‘spontanea evocatio’, another line of text appeared, chiseled into its surface in demented lettering. He recognized the style immediately --- it was the same as the diabolical somesthesia that’d infiltrated him earlier. It simply read:

'Diabolismus ( 0/0 )'

He stared at it, dumbfounded. ‘I was right!’ He thought. The tablet had directly confirmed his guess! ‘When I accidently used ‘magic’ on my father, the tablet appeared. Perhaps it wasn’t ‘Mystica’ that triggered it, but ‘Spontanea Evocatio’…? And now ‘Diabolismus’ has manifested on the slate, as well!’ He realized.

After everything that had happened, how could he not put two-and-two together? The tablet was documenting his skills! ‘If those two things are skills, then ‘Physica’ and ‘Mystica’ must be my attributes!’ He concluded. ‘I wish it were written in plain English, but… ‘Spontanea’, that’s just spontaneous, isn’t it? And ‘Evocatio’ --- that one is a bit difficult, but if we’re talking about magic, then couldn’t it be evocation?’ He wondered, but, in fact, he was already sure in his heart. ‘Spontaneous Evocation --- it sounds an awful lot like ‘using magic by accident’, but why would there be a skill for that?’

Arthur decided to shelve his questions, for the time being. He didn’t trust the shards inside his flesh --- the fact that they hadn’t been destroyed presented a troubling possibility. ‘They may be frozen now, but they could thaw at any moment, and I would have no way to return them to a petrified state.’ He deliberated anxiously.

He took a step forward. He still wore his shoes, so he couldn’t be sure, but he imagined that the rich carpet would’ve been incredibly comfortable to walk on. ‘I’ll ignore the furnishings, for now’. He decided. Not only had their motifs proven to be extremely dangerous, but if there was something worth finding here, then he was sure it would be stored in one of the closets. There were shelves and drawers and cupboards and racks and mantlepieces and counters and…

A peculiar wardrobe drew his attention. It was positioned near the edge of the room, and was about as tall as a person. It had one door, and it had a polished, bronze mirror fastened to it. ‘I’ll start there. It’s as good a place as any.’ He thought. He carefully creeped towards it, with one hand still half-covering his eyes, taking care not to expose himself to anything particularly anomalous. When his gaze landed on a gilded vanity, he hurriedly averted his eyes. He was sure there was ‘something’ inside it --- he knew it with as much certainty as he knew his own name.

A shiver went down his spine. ‘Damn it, it seems the symbology isn’t the only hazard in here!’ He lamented. Giving the thing a wide berth, he circled around until he finally arrived in front of the door with the bronze mirror. He noticed its handle --- the frame was a black, gleaming metal with a soft, ivory grip. His senses had quieted, so he deemed it safe --- as safe as anything in here could be, that is. He extended his other hand, noticing how it was covered in dried blood, and grasped the handle.

Pulling on it as carefully as he could, he drew his neck backwards like an ostrich and peered over the edge with a single eye. He didn’t look into the bronze mirror at all --- all sorts of terrible stories involving mirrors had suddenly appeared at the forefront of his mind, and he didn’t want to take any chances.

Inch by inch, he widened the gap, until the darkness gave way to something that both stimulated and worried him --- there was another room on the other side of the door, one that appeared very different to this one. It was a passage, and its floor and walls had been tiled with something like black glass, and it had an arched roof that was a dark grey color, like granite. It was about six feet in length and ten feet in height, and led to a larger room. The part of it that he could see looked as the passage did --- gleaming, all in black. ‘Is that a… towel rack?’ Arthur pondered, seeing a pair of bent, ebony arms with a rod of the same mercurial substance connecting them. He didn’t know what else it could be.

Carefully, he set one foot into the hallway. When his soles produced a ‘click’, he felt his neck shrivelling like a retracting jack-in-the-box. ‘So loud…!’ He thought. In the deathly silence of the room, the sound was like nails on a chalkboard. As quietly as he could, he took off his shoes and put them down on the carpet. After he did, he took one step into the passage, then a second and a third.

Suddenly, he had a premonition. ‘I should close the door behind me. Wouldn’t want any nasty surprises while I’m exploring the place.’ He thought. He turned around, and when he did, something caught his eye immediately. Though the gap between the door and the wall, he saw the vanity from earlier. There was an oddity regarding it --- the crystal mirror, stood on its surface, had turned and was now facing towards him! ‘Fuck…!’ He exclaimed inwardly. Not wasting any more time, he reached out and grabbed the door handle. It didn’t have a key or a lock, but a sort-of curved bar that would connect with a latch in the wall. He closed the door quietly, and directly latched it. While leaning his back against the glass, he let out an inaudible sigh of relief.

When he’d regained a measure of tranquillity, he advanced. ‘I hope there isn’t anything waiting for me in here…’ He thought. Quiescence abided, but there was a definite unusualness to the spatiality --- earlier, he had described the interior as ‘tiled’, only because he didn’t have a better word for it. Admittedly, that portrayal didn’t paint an accurate picture --- there were no seams, junctures, corrugations or anything similar. As a whole, it was a solid expanse of black glass, floor and walls in-all. When he looked down at his feet, a sensation of vertigo befell him --- it was like he was standing on the surface of a dark, bottomless ocean. He hurriedly lifted his gaze.

Unfortunately, the change of scenery didn’t alleviate the disturbance --- the dome above his head become discorporate, as if it was floating in a vacuous space. He laid one hand against the halcyon wall in an effort to stabilize himself --- it had some effect. ‘Not even the bathroom is normal!’ He bemoaned. By now, he had made it to the end of the passage, and he was able to see the space in its entirety. He was growing accustomed to the chateau’s penchant for grandeur --- it was ‘far’too big, about the size of what he’d seen of the bedchambers as of now.

There was a slanting pool at one end. Its substance was the same as that of the towel-rack, and the door handle --- it looked like solid mercury. It rose out of the floor like some kind of organic, metal structure --- the gleaming, silvery surface drank in the surrounding darkness like a mirror, giving it a sinister appearance. It looked more like it was some sort of cultic idol, and Arthur was willing to bet every last penny of his that its insides had once swirled with blood.

He swallowed and crept closer, putting one socked foot in front of the other. The first object that came within his reach was a basin --- a graceful faucet, flowing like a swan’s neck, grew out of the wall. The metal was so dark at its base that he couldn’t see where it joined with the glass. Hypnotized, he extended a hand and turned its valve. The scent of cool, fresh water tickled his nose. Uncaring, or perhaps unable to care, he cupped his hands and brought it to his mouth. It tasted incredible, carrying with it a mineral aroma that made him salivate, and elucidated its subterraneous origins.

When he’d slaked his thirst, he doused his face a few times, washing away the mucus and blood that had accumulated. Feeling a lump of something in his throat, he hacked it up and spat it onto the argentiferous surface --- it was a globule of red plasma. It was thick and viscous, and, through hazy eyes, blurred from washing, he thought he could see many thin, translucent things wriggling inside it. He blinked a few times and looked again. They were gone.

When the pinkish goo had been swept away by water, he closed the valve. Suddenly, an intense wave of exhaustion suffused his system. It was like a syringe full of sedatives had been injected directly into his veins --- he was so tired that he was unable to even produce a yawn. He felt that, if he didn’t find somewhere to sit down, he’d collapse right where he stood. His eyes flicked towards his feet, and towards the deepness beneath them. ‘Not here!’ He thought. His sixth-sense was warning him --- the barrier that separated him from that void had abruptly thinned, to the extent that it might break any moment, plunging him into the infinite abyss. He needed to…

At once, he saw the pool. Like an apparition, he drifted towards it, stripping himself of his clothing on the way. It perched on a meandering platform of glass, upraised by two staggered, elevated layers of obsidian. Coming to a standstill at the foot of the structure, he placed his hands on the silvervined edge and peered into it. It wasn’t round or oval --- it had a natural slope, like a hypogenous reservoir that had been carved by time’s private chisel.

Arthur raised a leg over the rounded border before lowering himself into the quicksilver cavity. He found it to be exceedingly comfortable --- the smooth metal seemed to have been sculpted to accommodate him. Perhaps the curves were a bit generous for his small size, but, all-in-all, the experience was luxuriating. Now on the verge of slumber, while unconsciously stretching himself, he found something underneath his hand --- it was flat, elongated shape, almost like a handle. When he gripped it, it turned by itself, and he suddenly felt icy cold water dousing him. Rather than jolting him into wakefulness, it had the opposite effect --- the freezing chill burned his skin like a medicinal balm. It reminded him of his schoolboy days, when his attractive female tennis coach would, after a bit of prompting, be persuaded to salve his stiff, sore muscles.

His lips unconsciously curved into a smile. ‘Ah, those were the days…!’ He fantasized, dreaming of times long past. The tingling frigidity of running water was like a lullaby, and, within a span of seconds, slumber had him firmly in its grip.

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