Chapter: 268 - Ravenous (Patreon)

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Tala stood in the teleportation tower of Alefast, Waning. Specifically, she was in the room that had been prepared for a cleansing teleport.

-Tala, the through-spike.-

Oh, rust! She barely ever thought about the through-spike, though it probably was the magical device she used most often. Only because it’s always on.

She sighed, walked back over to the shelf, and pulled off the through-spike, setting it beside Kit.

Once Tala was back in the teleportation circle, she looked over to see the Fused, who was there to assist with that process, staring at her.

The woman  cleared her throat. “Is that iron I see and detect on you?”

Tala grimaced. “Yes, unfortunately.”

“Can you remove it?”

“I cannot.”

That took the woman by surprise. “Well… We cannot teleport you with so much iron. If it were steel, we could tweak the spellforms and dump it into the ether, but pure iron?” She shrugged helplessly. “We can’t help with that.”

Master Grediv cleared his throat. “I think I can do something.”

The Fused bowed to him. “That would be wonderful, Master Grediv. Thank you.”

“Go stand on the teleporter, Mistress Tala. I don’t want your… passenger to have more time to interfere than necessary.”

She nodded and did as he asked.

As she did, she felt his power begin to build upon her, forcing its way through her aura and the iron.

The iron started to heat up, and Tala felt the dasgannach begin to stir within her, clearly agitated at ‘its’ iron being affected.

“My apologies, Mistress Tala, but this is going to hurt. I will keep it from overwhelming you, but I can’t have a gentle hand in this.”

She nodded again. “You’re going to burn it off?”

“That’s right.”

She grit her teeth. “Lovely. Do as you must. Thank you.”

-The teleport is going to erase my inscriptions, Tala. We knew this… I know your plan, but I’ll say it anyways. Please get reinscribed as quickly as possible? I really don’t like nonexistence; even when I return, the time when I am ‘not’ is… unpleasant to recall.-

I will do my best, Alat. Thank you for your willingness to try this plan.

Alat sent a feeling of resoluteness in return.

The iron continued to heat up, and the dasgannach was getting increasingly agitated.

NO. MINE. As always, it wasn’t actual words, it was pure instinct and desire translated by Tala’s mind.

Tala tried to send back her own instincts and desires.

Ours. Pain stop? Join?

She offered up the Archon star again.

NO. MINE.

She somehow pushed the memory of the iron fragment she’d held in her hand going away when the dasgannach failed to claim it. She then did the same with a memory of the gold dasgannach taking all her gold and leaving just to die once it was out of her. If yours, death. Ours? Live?

She really didn’t want to have all her outsides cooked.

Additionally, the teleportation would remove her inscriptions and all her stores. She was going to have to eat so, so much when this was done, and the dasgannach bonding her would prevent that need.

If only she were so lucky.

Please? Ours?

MINE.

Tala sighed.

As Master Grediv worked, he began talking through the process. “Alright. So, if this works perfectly and ideally, you will be rid of the dasgannach entirely and have no physically adverse effects.”

“But when does anything ever work perfectly?” Tala put on a pained grin, the iron on her skin continuing to heat up.

“Exactly.”

“So, failure cases.”

“No, there are no failure cases here, just unideal outcomes.”

Tala huffed a laugh. “Fine, fine. Unideal outcomes. It evacuates as I’m teleported away, leaving the dasgannach centered on the teleportation circle.”

“And almost instantly dead. I’ll be ready to keep it from diving into the ground or any such thing, so that would be essentially the same as the ideal situation. Another outcome might be that it is simply left behind with all your iron, but that would have the same result yet again.”

Inside, the dasgannach was becoming quite irate at the heating exterior iron. NO. MINE!!!

Despite its death grip on the iron, it just didn’t have the weight to defy the Paragon’s workings.

Tala tried to ignore it as Master Grediv supplied the next possibility. “Given that you’re holding it at bay with an Archon star, it could bond with you. If that happens, I will be watching to help if I can, but you will have to let me. The time it takes to bond is incredibly expanded from your perspective, don’t forget to ask for help if you need it. I will hear.”

The Fused woman who was tweaking the ancillary scripts hesitated. She opened her mouth, then stopped and shook her head. “If I needed to know, they’d tell me.”

It was very softly spoken, but Tala heard it easily.

Tala cleared her throat moving the topic along. “There’s no danger of it being teleported and leaving me behind… is there?”

The Fused woman looked up and smiled. “No, dear. It is keyed to your magical signature as shown in your gate and your soulbound items. We’re not just grabbing whoever happens to be within the circle.”

That made Tala feel better.

Master Grediv smiled. “This isn’t going to be pleasant. Regardless of the result, you’ll have repercussions, but we’ll get you out from under the headsman’s axe.”

“Thank you for that.” She tried to smile but just managed to grimace, even her reinforced flesh was starting to cook as the iron was now glowing quite fiercely. Her scripts were healing her skin and muscle as it baked, but it wasn’t a pleasant process.

Thankfully, the iron was slowly burning away.

NO. NO. NO!!!! MINE!!!

This can stop. Ours?

There was hesitation, but only briefly as another section of iron was burned away. NO. MINE.

Tala had no idea how Master Grediv was doing what he was.

She shouldn’t have been able to stand up under the heat required to burn away iron, but he was somehow focusing his power to minimize the damage to her.

It was excruciating even so.

Master Grediv tried to chat with Tala further to distract her as he removed her external iron over the next half-hour or so.

It didn’t really work, and she really didn’t process what he said, and even Alat was occupied helping her bear up under the pain.

Finally, the process was done, and Tala was gasping at the bliss of being pain free once more.

The elk-leathers had burned away almost as much as the iron had, but they had a direct connection to her gate and were thus maintained and regrown in the end.

They all waited for her to recover just a bit as well as drink some water.

That done, it was time. They couldn’t risk the dasgannach finding some other way to interfere.

“Ready?” The Fused was watching Tala intently.

Tala nodded. “Ready.”

Frost licked over Tala’s already sensitive skin, accompanied by the static tension of power rippling through her from an outside source.

With a pulse of darkness, she felt the magic seize her.

The moment seemed to extend into infinity as her body was thrown into the ether. The process was instantaneous, but it seemed like it wasn’t simultaneous.

As she was being ripped away, the dasgannach went berserk.

It wouldn’t matter in the end, because the damage it was causing would be repaired in the teleport.

Her elk-leathers and Flow came along with her body as they were as much her as that body.

As Master Grediv suspected, her biological iron was being left behind, given the dasgannach’s influence.

That was fine. She’d get new material on the other end.

As her Archon star was pulled toward the ether as well, something changed.

NO. MINE.

The dasgannach opposed the teleport directly for the first time, but it wasn’t strong enough to stop her, and its grip was slipping.

Finally, like a man hanging on to the edge of a slippery cliff, something fundamental shifted.

Tala had no idea if it was due to her efforts, proddings, or invitations. It could have been because of the modifications made to the dasgannach by the City Lord. It could also have been the dasgannach’s unexpectedly extended stay, regardless of what she’d done. The trip through the Doman-Imithe could have facilitated a change, or it could have been any number of other, ancillary things or a combination of any number of factors.

Regardless of the ‘how,’ the dasgannach was no longer as it had been, and in the last microsecond the dasgannach’s intent and instinct resounded with a new thread.

Ours.

The Archon star was absorbed, and before she was thrown into the ether the moment stretched, and Tala was fully ripped into the white void of possibilities.

*     *     *

Tala was ravenous jealousy.

She had no form but that which was required to gain the object of her desire.

And she desired everything.

She could perceive around herself because her previous, pathetically weak form had been able to do so.

Her perceptions let her find the best direction of movement to acquire.

Spellworkings splashed across her, feeding her need for magical power even as a cataclysmic zeme swirled around her, funneling magic into her from miles around.

Material was pulled through her border, incorporated simply because it was there.

The very concepts of reality bent their nature to join with her.

She had been reduced to something primal, something primordial.

She had been refined to something perfect.

She was hungry

She was Hunger.

She would consume everything.

+Umm… No. Absolutely NOT.+

The conglomeration of impressions and sensations broke apart, back into the whiteness of the merging void.

*     *     *

The void of her nature had stripped away the iron within her at the merging, leaving her with a ravenous need for the same.

Iron dust wasn’t compatible as she had been a creature of biology, first and foremost.

It was only the iron within blood that would do.

Thus, Tala drank oceans of blood.

Creatures’ blood filled the need but didn’t satisfy.

Only the blood of sapients truly gave her a moment’s peace.

She could regenerate from almost any injury.

She was durable and resistant against magic to an insane degree.

All of humanity—city, village, and slave hovel—feared she would visit them and take her tithe of blood from under their roof.

Her soul had expanded, the tendrils she’d created with her myriad bloodstars allowed her to attach a bit of her power to her contributors, giving them a fraction of her strength in exchange for similar requirements.

Thus, her legion grew.

Thus, she came to rule the world.

+What the rust? Absolutely not… Why do I sparkle in the sun? That’s just stupid. That makes no sense.+

The knowledge of her own soul, spread across all of Zeme broke apart, back into the whiteness of the merging void.

*     *     *

Tala walked through the streets of an arcane city, harvesting death with every touch.

No one below her level of power was safe as their iron and magic were ripped free at the barest brush.

Chaos surrounded her as she built up her own reserves of iron and power.

When they finally pinpointed her as the source of death, iron surrounded her, utterly locked to her will, rendering her immune to hostile magic.

Her own power was so overflowing and overwhelming that she swept the field of even sovereigns who tried to stay her hand.

+Alright. I’m going to stop you, there. This is just patently ridiculous.+

Her rampage stopped, her power and iron shattering back into the whiteness of the merging void.

*     *     *

A half-dozen more utterly insane mergings were foisted before her, each as awful as the last.

This is… really, really bad.

The options were becoming increasingly repetitive, and there didn’t seem to be a good option on offer.

Rust.

She refused to accept any of the murderous or otherwise corrupting unions the dasgannach was putting forward, but there wasn’t anything better.

If she didn't accept any of the offerings, she would die, and all this would have been for nothing.

Yeah… That’s not going to happen. It can't.

But there was nothing that she could do to change what was happening.

The last vision had been identical to the first in all the ways that mattered.

There weren’t going to be other choices.

She had no good option.

And this is why ‘be careful what you bond with’ is an important adage.

She needed something to change the rules.

Tala wasn’t able to do that.

She needed help.

Master Grediv, I hope you’re actually able to help.

Through that desperation and mounting panic, a hazy shimmer of emerald power seeped in from the surrounding white void. Now invited, it snapped into place in a viridescent flash, momentarily suffusing everything. White became green, and the dasgannach's grip on possibility and potential was shattered.

His voice echoed overtop the fading remnants of the latest depiction of wanton destruction and avarice, “Make your choice wisely, Mistress Tala.”

The fields of blood and death splintered once again.

*     *     *

Tala floated in the white void, the dasgannach floating before her, an amorphous blob of iron.

She detected confusion from it. Its intent, its purpose was now directionless. It didn’t have a mind, not really, all it could do was grab onto fragments of her own will and wield them alongside its instincts and desires, having built potential unions based on deep ignorance of how the world actually worked.

It would still have to accept in the end, but she could forge the potential paths now.

Let me show you what we can be.

*     *     *

Tala felt full power and authority over her own self.

Everything within her was hers and all that she consumed was beyond contestation.

More than that, she had an infinite supply of power coming in, eternally adding to her strength.

She used that power to defend those around her and—

NO. IRON. POWER.

The vision shattered before Tala had fully built it.

She sighed. Alright. Let’s try again.

*     *     *

Tala tried a dozen dozen variations. Trying to come up with something that the dasgannach would actually agree to.

The bond had been started, and they had to come to an understanding or they would both die, torn apart at the deepest levels.

Yet, it instinctively rejected anything she put forward.

Tala didn’t realize why until she took the time to truly consider.

It doesn’t understand, nor see the utility, in helping others. I cannot present my options in that light.

That grasped, she had an idea.

*     *     *

Tala was covered in iron, the metal utterly under her control.

Any iron she touched could be taken and added to herself, inside or out.

The magic which brushed across her skin was pulled in, a subtle intake, like a breath amidst the wind. Not noticeable in the grand scheme of things, but vital to her.

The iron was hers.

The power was hers.

SHE was her own.

All that she wished to consume became of her flesh.

All that she saw was regarded for consumption.

She was the infinite void.

She was the gate to that void.

She was the guardian of that gate.

She had mastery over her self at every level.

That mastery was her strength.

That strength let her seize her place in the world.

OURS. ETERNAL.

Thus, it was agreed, thus was the merging forged.

*     *     *

Tala gasped, stumbling forward even as magics faded from the receiving circle below her.

She had been teleported as the bond had begun to form, and she’d returned the instant it had solidified.

She felt like she was covered in a layer of ice, the cold suffusing her being, and there was an odd heaviness to her movements.

I’m missing my scripts. Without the enhancements, she was weaker than she should be, but there was more to it.

She’d come back with more iron than when she’d left, and it was making her heavy, though she didn’t really grasp how it was incorporated into her body, not yet.

She stumbled towards the shelf, picking up Kit, her movements feeling clumsy.

“Mistress Tala?” Master Grediv was keeping his distance and regarding her warily, clearly uncertain how the process had born out.

“One moment.” She forced out. “Inscriptions.”

He frowned, but nodded, obviously curious.

Tala threw Kit against the floor and fell through, landing on her dais. REINSCRIBE.

She opened her mouth, and waited, laying there on the ground but nothing happened.

What?

Then, she took the time to look within, and she felt it.

Her body was suffused with iron.

More than she’d ever consumed, seemingly filled some of the gaps between her organs.

There was no way her body could actually function that way, but it was.

Something within her was keeping everything working exactly as it should.

Well… that’s going to be a joy to explore, but not yet.

She had to think in order to figure out what was going on.

She needed to think to know what to do.

She had to think.

Think.

THINK!

The solution came to her, or at least the potential of one, and she hesitantly pushed all the iron outward.

The metal passed through her flesh and bone without causing damage, forming a thick, flexible layer just outside her skin, under her elk-leathers.

Reinscribe.

This time, it worked, the metal threads pouring through her open mouth and weaving themselves through her body from the inside out.

The pain was excruciating, but she was hardly fully in her right mind.

When the reinscription process was finished, her keystone activated and power slammed into her scripts, raging through her body.

She screamed without meaning to.

She didn’t collapse this time, nor did she restrain her power from going into any of the scripts.

She allowed for a full, instantaneous activation.

-Tala? Oh, rust. What happened?-

Tala ignored Alat, knowing that the alternate interface could pull from her memory to come up to speed.

Tala was both glad that she hadn’t had to hit herself in the head to activate Alat and concerned that the pain might have been severe enough to knock her unconscious on its own.

I’ll live.

She lunged upward and aimed to get back out of Kit.

The leap wasn’t nearly as high as she intended, and she ended up needing to catch the edge and pull herself up. She then picked up Kit and hung the pouch from her belt.

In the same series of movements, she grabbed her bloodstar holster and placed it across her low back, and then she carefully placed the through-spike, with the help of a mirrored perspective via one of her drop bloodstars.

Master Grediv was now looking incredibly wary. Even if his perception wasn’t seemingly able to bypass the through-spike that was maintaining her human appearance, it had only just come back online.

She did not look very human at the moment.

“Mistress Tala?”

With a thought, she released her active hold on the iron, and it sank back into her body, again without causing the damage that Tala really felt that it should have. To demonstrate her humanity, she forcibly deactivated the through-spike and smiled. “I’m me. I think.”

“That’s good to hear. What—” He paused as the Fused in the room gasped, and Tala’s own eyes widened.

Tala was shocked at what she felt internally. They were shocked at what they saw.

Inside of Tala, the iron had contracted and found new placement around her spell-lines.

Such was their density that Tala lacked the proper amount of iron to cover them all.

In fact, the free iron within Tala only allowed for the encasement of the inscriptions from the tips of her fingers up to her elbows, but the result was immediate and startling.

Her magics manifested as light carved into reality almost instantaneously, wreathing her hands and forearms in manifestations of magical power.

Master Grediv seemed to instantly recognize the nature of the inscriptions as visual representations of her natural magics, or at the very least, he realized that she wasn’t purposely manifesting power in order to attack.

The poor Fused woman had leapt backwards, and only after seemingly activating some defenses did she take a closer look and begin to calm down.

Master Grediv spoke as if Tala were a growling dog, “Mistress Tala. How do you feel?”

Tala took a long, deep breath, really assessing herself for the first time. Ironically, her stomach growled, and she felt a light wave of dizziness. “Honestly? I’m feeling ravenous.”

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