In the space between the physical world and the chamber of the Seal, the Five Heroes watched Redmane fragment into a constellation of lights over their heads, surrounding them like a miniature version of the alien sky of the Abyss.
Danesti waved his hand in the air and the stars flattened, becoming like mirrors with jagged, incandescent edges, and each played a scene from Redmane’s memories. But there were other scenes as well, events Redmane would not have consciously remembered, but remained within his flesh.
And those memories began here, in this very cavern.
Long ago, when Kraal the Devourer met his end at the Five Heroes’ hands, as many pieces of his flesh as could be found were gathered from throughout Volos and brought here, where the first of five Rituals of Sealing would be enacted. As they watched, the dark-haired, sober-faced Vasarab stepped forward, volunteering to be the first to make a sacrifice of a portion of his flesh and soul, which would be melded with the corpus of Kraal to create the Dragon.
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” said Holt, with a sardonic smile.
Vasarab gave him a hard look. “We have failed and you jest,” he said.
“Failure was inevitable,” said Danesti, with a sad smile. “Only the essence of the divine is imperishable. All else disintegrates in time. Even our best laid plans.”
“Then what was the point of all this?” asked Braga.
“To give the world as much peace as our sacrifice could purchase,” said Danesti.
Their golden haired leader Belskaya stood nearby, watching a memory play out in front of him. An image of the creature remaining after they cut away all of Kraal’s power. It was a tiny and pitiable being, almost like a demi-human, yet its skin and hair were a striking crimson color. It crouched in a cell, shackled to the wall by its ankle, staring bitterly out the small barred window on the opposite wall.
“If only we could have killed it,” he said.
Danesti approached his comrade, looking up at the memory of the thing the Morholts called Little Redcap.
“I suspected this would be the point of failure,” he looked over at Holt. “No offense intended.”
Holt shrugged. “They’re my kids’ kids’ kids. I didn’t raise em, I been dead.”
“We should have chained that thing to a rock and dropped it in the sea,” said Vasarab.
His suggestion made Danesti smirk. “That could have had unpredictable consequences, my friend. Better to have left the creature under watchful eyes. Even if our stewards ultimately failed in their task.”
Braga folded his arms, frowning. “All as intended, aye we know. So now what.”
“Now we must trust in our teacher’s final failsafe,” said Danesti.
He referred to the cocoon of power Vos built around the Seal, another of the crafts of Mago Hadas their mentor Vos had learned in the days of antiquity. If Kraal reformed here, if its essence subsumed them and rose again, it would be locked into an impenetrable shell of Gnosis and submerged in the Abyss to be lost for all time.
It wasn’t Danesti’s preferred solution. To be adrift in the Abyss would be similar to being adrift in the sea, only they could be chanced upon by far more dangerous entities than sea creatures or sailors. But at the time this was all prepared, he had no alternatives to offer, nor did he now.
As ever, his understanding was incomplete. Danesti supposed such was the fate of all scholars.
Holt stood before a series of recent memories, watching them while picking his teeth with a fingernail. One displayed Redmane’s first frenzied night of freedom. Others showed scenes of him doing battle with various kinds of beastmen throughout the land.
“He’s been a busy little bastard, tryin to cobble himself back together,” he said.
“Nearly succeeded,” said Braga.
“He did succeed. Why else would we be here,” said Vasarab.
Belskaya held up his hand.
“Quiet.”
He was watching a memory of Redmane rescuing a young boy and returning him to his mother.
There was another like it later on. He’d saved three children, one of them a beastman.
Belskaya had brought together several peculiar scenes. Scenes of this creature behaving in an evenhanded, almost lordly manner.
He rescued innocent bystanders. He delegated their care to trusted lieutenants. He was building a faction, a new kingdom of his own.
This was not the sort of behavior Belskaya expected from an incarnation of Kraal.
Danesti took an interest in what Belskaya was watching, and his eyebrows rose a bit.
“Interesting.”
Belskaya shrugged. “It matters not. The Devourer prevailed in the end.”
“Did it?” asked Danesti. “Or have we denied its chance at transcendence?”
“What do you mean transcendence,” said Vasarab.
Danesti turned to address the dark haired warrior. “Development. Growth. Evolution. Perhaps we witness evidence that the Lord of Hunger reached its next incarnation.”
Holt’s eyebrow rose. “Meaning what, it’s even stronger now?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps it is also more human as well,” said Danesti.
“Well I suppose we’ll never find out,” said Braga. “Seeing as we’ve shown up.”
“We could release him,” said Danesti.
They all looked at him as if he’d grown a second head.
Danesti smiled sheepishly. “Do you not find yourselves curious about this behavior? Perhaps there is no longer a Kraal to protect the world against. This one, Redmane, he seems to have integrated the better parts of Sencis Karalis, and perhaps the better parts of us, as well. We joined our flesh and wills to his, after all. Shall we deprive Volos of such an individual?”
Belskaya considered the merit of Danesti’s words for a moment.
Then the leader of the Five Heroes glanced around at his comrades.
“What say you,” he said to them. “Do we hold to our duty, or take a chance at our enemy’s redemption.”
Vasarab shook his head. “No redemption for the Devourer.”
Braga nodded. “Aye. I hear you Danesti, but it’s too great a risk.”
Holt shrugged his shoulders, held up his hands lamely. “Even if it was walkin and talkin like man, there’s no tellin what it would have turned into with all five Seals open. We’re where we’re supposed to be Danesti, you ought to know that.”
Danesti bowed his head in deference, though he wasn’t smiling anymore. “What a shame.”
Belskaya’s mouth twisted into a slight smile. “Sorcerers. Ever are they more curious than cautious.”
A hint of Danesti’s smile returned for a moment. “Always.”
The Sorcerer of the Five Heroes raised his hand, muttered a brief incantation in the tongue of the Mago Hadas, and the darkness around them was shot through with strands of gold. Sigils and runes of power appeared above them and all around them, as if drawn by an unseen hand wielding a pen with glowing golden ink.
The essence of the Lord of Hunger, which included and was now centralized around the vestiges of the Five Heroes, would be contained within this sphere for all time.
They hoped.
But what they did not know, what they could not have known, was that a vast consciousness searched for the very same essence at that moment, across all the worlds and the spaces between them, and the sudden flare of power here drew her attention to it like the lighting of a candle in the dark.
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From the absolute darkness, an immense, glowing blue hand materialized below the sealed sphere. It gently rose to enfold the sphere within its massive palm, then stretched out its fingers and grasped it the way a scryer might hold a crystal ball.
And then above it, an equally gigantic face shimmered into being. The vision was striking; a woman of exquisite beauty, possessing delicate elfin features, a cascade of long blue hair, and eyes that blazed with the brilliance of giant sapphires.
Danesti and his comrades were but shadows of themselves, copies embedded in the Devourer’s flesh, but even they felt fear in their hearts when they looked upon that face.
For starfire burned in her furious eyes.
Her voice boomed, echoing into the nothingness.
“What hast thou done with my husband…”
Somewhere in the void, a consciousness arose.
It felt as though it had awoken from a long, deep sleep.
And it had dreamed.
It dreamed of monumental struggles. Of conquest and treachery, of suffering and of war. It dreamed of its dismemberment, its haunted imprisonment within five separate bodies. It dreamed of reawakening into an unfamiliar world, in a body at first weak but stronger, and stronger he grew…
He’d been called many things.
But he recalled his latest name.
It was his favorite, for he had chosen it himself.
Redmane.
Redmane stretched out his consciousness. He found himself contained within a sphere of warding sigils, powerful things written specifically to confine him. He felt strangely separated from himself, even within this cocoon. Five souls held his pieces separate from each other, and the tension of that separation galled him.
So… Vos had won.
This would be his abode for the rest of time.
Or perhaps not. A presence surrounded them. Something powerful, and angry.
It felt so familiar. Familiar, but different.
The sound of its voice barely penetrated the containment sphere.
“What hast thou done with my husband…”
If he had eyes, they would have widened in that moment.
He tried to call out to her, but he had no mouth with which to do so.
It was those five. They stood between him and freedom.
They thought they did, at least. Redmane focused on them, saw how they held his essence apart by a trick of Gnosis manipulation. It was a complex work of magic, but it was not as durable as they thought it was.
Redmane heard her voice again, dimly. He sensed the power of her Gnosis closing in against the walls of the protective sphere, like they were immense fingers closing into a fist. But she would not be strong enough to break through from the outside.
He would have to exert an equal force, from within.
It was a simple thing. The Five Heroes were something like his spawn. He simply reached out and untied the knots holding their bundles of his power, and they came undone. He felt five thrills of panic in the same moment, before their consciousnesses disintegrated into the ether.
Foolish of them to think they could join with him and try to take control.
But without Flora pressing in from the outside, perhaps he would not have been able to break free regardless.
He coalesced forcibly. He became something like the things he’d seen in the centers of the Seals, albeit combined. Now he was the roiling, pulsating ball of thunderous power contained within a shell of Gnosis.
Redmane flared and swelled. Flora closed her immense fist.
And together, working from within and without, they split the golden shell like an egg.
There was an explosion of gold in every direction, and at the same time they emerged from that liminal space back into the physical world, at the center of what was once the Seal of the Dragon. The corpse of the Dragon itself became his new form, all he had to do was reach out with his will and inhabit it, consuming it instantly, and it flowed into a new form.
He was taller. Stronger. With glowing horns, three black eyes with gleaming dots of red for pupils. Scales running down his arms and legs like armor. Mighty wings and a tail. An amalgamation of the strongest qualities of the Manticore, the Sphinx, the Gryphon, the Kirin, and the Dragon.
It was the body of the Lord of Hunger, and it hovered in the air above the palm of Flora’s immense hand, under the glow of her radiant smile.
—
Might +50
Grace +50
Fortitude +50
Skills Evolved:
Devourer
Primordial Skill
Rank 5
Passive
Rank 0:
The Primordial Divinity derives sustenance from anything, and its digestion produces no waste. Its teeth and jaws can chew through most substances with sustained effort.
The Divinity's consumption of flesh restores its Corpus, and consumption of magic restores its Gnosis. All caps for Corpus and Gnosis, regardless of source, are removed.
The consumption of refined metals will permanently increase the Divinity's Armor and the damage of its physical natural weapons, such as claws, bite, horns, talons or spines. Damage and Armor gains are proportionate to the quantity and purity of metals consumed.
When the Divinity consumes the flesh of a creature possessing a Skill, it will adopt that Skill as its own at Rank 1. If the creature possesses multiple Skills, the Divinity will acquire that creature's highest Ranked Skill. If the creature possesses more than one Skill tied for highest Rank, the Divinity acquires them all.
Skills obtained in this way increase in Rank by whatever process the Divinity gains in power, if any.
When the Divinity consumes weapons and armor with special qualities, it may allocate those qualities to its physical natural weapons, such as claws, bite, horns, talons or spines, if it possesses any. Armor qualities may be allocated as long as the Divinity possesses a natural Armor bonus. If the Damage and Armor Penetration values of a consumed weapon are higher than that of the Divinity’s natural weapons, the natural weapons will gain the difference between the two as a permanent bonus.
The Divinity may also consume Talismans and Vestments, thereby inheriting whatever bonuses or special qualities they conferred while worn.
Rank 1:
The Divinity consumes the souls of sapient beings it has eaten.
The souls of consumed beings take residence in the Divinity’s Soulspace, and may speak to and hear one another and the Divinity as if all were physically present. If the Divinity no longer wishes to speak or listen to souls occupying its Soulspace, it can block communication from them at any time.
If the Divinity possesses a Skill capable of creating a minion, it may imbue the minion with the soul of a being previously consumed by Devourer. The soul retains the ability to use all its Skills, provided the form it occupies possesses sufficient Gnosis to use them. If the minion in question is slain or dismissed by the Divinity, the soul returns immediately to the Divinity’s Soulspace.
At any time, the Divinity may destroy the soul of a being it has consumed, granting it a sum of Gnosis proportionate to the strength of the soul in question.
Rank 2:
The Divinity's mouth becomes a vortex of indiscriminate consumption.
This ability functions as the opposite of a breath weapon. A conical area centered on the Divinity’s mouth functions as a vortex, drawing in any objects within its range. Upon ingestion, these objects will bestow upon the Divinity any benefits they would confer if they were eaten normally. The Divinity’s Soulspace serves as a repository for consumed souls per the norm, although the vortex has no effect on incorporeal creatures.
The vortex has an effective Might score equal to the Divinity's, for the purpose of determining its ability to pull heavy objects in. The size of the cone will increase as Rank increases.
Rank 3:
The Divinity consumes the incorporeal as well as the physical.
If the Divinity can perceive incorporeal creatures, such as ghosts or spirits, it can eat them. This capability extends to the Divinity’s vortex, which is not limited to a conical area for the purpose of this aspect of the Skill.
Instead, the Divinity can draw in all incorporeal creatures in a spherical area around it. This vortex use differs from the main version; they cannot be used simultaneously.
The Divinity may send consumed ghosts or spirits to its Soulspace, or digest them for their Gnosis and Skills.
Rank 4:
The Divinity consumes Skills.
This ability differs from the monster’s capacity to assimilate the Skills of a creature it has devoured. It may now consume a Skill as it is used. For example, it may consume an attack skill targeting either itself or its immediate vicinity. Furthermore, the Monster may consume any persistent Skill it locates, irrespective of the caster’s proximity.
Skills may be eaten by whatever mechanism the monster possesses to eat, and consumed Skills are learned as if the Monster had eaten the Skill user’s flesh.
Rank 5:
The Divinity consumes whatever it touches.
This ability may be used in two ways. The first, more subtle method, enables the Divinity to consume a miniscule portion of the flesh of any living creature it makes skin-to-skin contact with. This feeding, while imperceptible to most creatures, is sufficient to impart the details of the creature's form, and its highest level Skills, to the Divinity as if it had eaten that creature's body completely.
The second method is far less subtle. So long as the Divinity is making skin-to-skin contact with a creature, it may wholly consume that creature alive and absorb it into itself, either feeding on its soul for Gnosis or sending it to the Divinity's Soulspace, as described in earlier ranks of the Skill.
Physical size differences between the Divinity's present form and the body of the creature to be consumed are not relevant; if the Divinity is in a tiny form, for example, it will simply dissolve into the body of the larger creature, and the larger creature would then become a part of the Divinity's body.
God Body of the Lord of Hunger
Primordial Skill
Passive
The Primordial Divinity's form is protean in nature, and encompasses as many bodies as it desires.
All of the Divinity's bodies share its consciousness, Corpus, Gnosis and Skills in their totality. If one body should take damage sufficient to destroy it, the Divinity may, at will, allocate sufficient Corpus to keeping that body alive. This ability functions regardless of the distance between the Divinity's "main" form and that of the body in question.
It may also spawn additional bodies from its own flesh, which it can deploy as assistants, spies, guards or hunters.
The Divinity is aware of the location and condition of its spawn at all times, and can see through the senses of its spawn and act through them at will, without needing focused concentration.
It may switch places with a spawn, its "main" form instantly flowing into the form of the Spawn and thereby replacing it, irrespective of distance.
If the Divinity possesses a Soulspace occupied by the souls of mortal beings, it may spawn bodies for them to inhabit. Mortal souls possess whatever Skills they had in life, in addition to whichever of the Divinity's own Skills it wishes to impart to its minion.
The Divinity and all of its spawn can travel at their highest overland speed, without rest, for a number of consecutive days and nights equal to the Divinity's Fortitude.
The Divinity can mimic the physical qualities of any creature it has previously eaten, and it instinctively understands the proper use of all such means of respiration, perception, attack, defense or locomotion.
The Divinity may combine the functions of different bestial qualities together, to create unique organs, tissues or natural weapons. It may elongate or condense its torso and appendages, or grow new ones anywhere on its body. It may also increase or decrease its physical size, to an extent limited by its present Corpus.
The Divinity combines the weapon qualities of all its natural weapons together, applying them entirely or selectively to any attack it makes with a part of its body.
—
Vos took a step back from their explosive re-emergence, his eyes wide with shock.
Mother and father had returned.
And they had changed.
