Father of Monstrosity

Veks flew through the air as he tested out his new body. The boy and his bodyguard and bone creeper had worked on him for over two days, while he had been in an induced coma, thanks to some strange concoction he was given to inhale.

But now he was remade. The whispers in his head were louder, but they were pleased, and the coin-sacks strapped to his belt jingled merrily as gravity dragged him back down to earth again. Veks’ cloven hooves left several shattered rooftiles in the wake of his landing. As he thundered across the tiles and reached the edge, he used his new legs to send himself flying in a massive leap, his slender and lithesome tail flowing behind him.

He was unsure where the inspiration for his transformation had come from, but given his clawed right hand, half-metre curved ram’s horns, salamander tail, and goat hooves; it had clearly been demonic in flavour. Once not so long ago, he would have never indulged such an impure and heretical fancy, but those days were behind him. The visit to the Mage Quarter and his acquisition of the mirror-blade had irreparably deflected the trajectory of his life.

The boy had stayed true to his word and remade him as a stronger version of himself, the strength of four people stacked within his deceptively-slender arms and legs. And, for the first time in his life, Veks felt the freedom of true strength and independence.

Now he was beholden to none but himself.

Instead of resting on his laurels following his highly-successful transformation of the Thief, Jakob dove straight into his next project. His goal of recreating a being comparable to Heskel was side-lined once again for his exploration of whatever ideas came to him in fits of wild imagination.

With the easy access to acceptable relatively-untainted materials and organs, he set about creating a colossal bone construct, which, despite the implications of its name, would contain more flesh and fatty tissue than actual bones.

Grandfather had explored the idea of a hulking being when he created Septimer, but given his preference for chimeras, he had never reached the conclusion of a flesh-hulk, which Jakob now sought to remedy, armed with his new font of knowledge about constructs as he was.

There were certainly many upsides to using a human as a base for any creature he aimed to create, such as with Holm and Callum, but such upsides were more in terms of convenience rather than efficacy. And if he aimed to recreate a being as superb as Heskel, he needed more experience crafting a being from the ground-up, with every aspect carefully trimmed and polished for a specific purpose.

It would require more time dedicated to its creation, but a true Fleshcrafter’s skill lay in creating a new and stronger being, not tinkering with beasts and their inherent flaws, hoping to accomplish something special despite their very nature working against you every step of the way.

After all, he had crafted his centipede construct from the ground-up, and it was obedient by nature, not by force, and contained an intellect that would evolve with time, rather than a stagnant mind, frozen in place by demonic spell.

Jakob was torn from his work by a sudden commotion.

He got up from where he had been kneeling next to splayed-open organs and looked over at Heskel, who had overturned a table when he collapsed. A horrified shiver flowed through him and he quickly ran to the Wight’s side.

Before he could check on him, Heskel groaned in pain and discomfort, like a deep predatory growl.

A sound like leather being slowly ripped apart filled the laboratorium, and the skin on the forehead of the Wight, where the mask did not cover, slowly tore itself open, exposing the bloodless flesh below and parts of cranial bone. Then a seeping darkness boiled up through the flesh, until it started spilling out of the massive rend in the giant’s forehead. Over one stretched-out and terrifying moment, the darkness took shape, becoming bulbous and halting its expansive growth. Lights and colour started flowing into it from below, like he was looking at a pool of dark water and seeing discarded things resurface. From one moment to the next, the chaos of light and colour oriented itself and became an eye full of stars and tiny galaxies.

With a gasp, Jakob took a step back, fearing he had already erred in looking upon it.

“My son…”

“Grandfather?”

“I want the tomes.”

How had he found out!?

“I cannot give them to you. I have yet to transcribe their contents.”

“I was not asking. Raleigh will pick them up from you. Prepare to greet him with due respect.”

Before Jakob could protest, the eye sunk back into the skull of Heskel and the cavity started knitting itself shut.

He almost fell backwards in terror, and was only caught in his fall by the centipede construct.

“Raleigh… he’s coming here?”

Heskel regained his composure and stood up, but instead of cleaning up his mess, he looked at Jakob. Despite the mask covering the Wight’s expression, Jakob could easily guess it.

“You told him, didn’t you?”

A grunt in the affirmative.

“I suppose it is good to know where your loyalties ultimately lie.”

“Cannot disobey.

“You may not have such autarchy of your own functions, but I do.”

“No.”

“Yes, Heskel! I will disobey him! The tomes are mine! He can send whoever he wishes, but they will remain in my possession!”

The Wight looked poised to argue back, but Jakob quickly stopped him.

“You can leave and never come back, or you can help me finish this construct.”

Heskel seemed conflicted, knowing that the boy would use the construct to fight back against Raleigh, the favoured Demon-vessel of Grandfather. Ultimately, he chose to help the young Fleshcrafter and Jakob was happy for it, as, without the Wight by his side, he would suffer immensely in lost knowledge and advice, not to mention, the loneliness seemed terrifying to him, given that Heskel had been a constant in Jakob’s life since he first was summoned.

As the three worked in silence, only broken by the occasional chatter of the bone centipede’s mandibles and the boy’s quiet mutterings, Jakob wondered if it was possible to remove the element in Heskel’s body that controlled his loyalty to Grandfather.

The Fleshcrafter reclined onto the two rear-most of his countless arms with a satisfied sigh. Under his many feet scurried his creations, busy tidying up his latest experiments and preparing his immense laboratorium beyond his ritual chamber for the next.

“He is finally showing a rebellious phase.”

“What do you wish for me to do, aside from collecting the tomes?”

“Teach him a lesson he will survive, but will long remember.”

“As you desire.”

As Raleigh left, his steps a loud cacophony, one of the Fleshcrafter’s many hands reached his chin, scratching it contemplatively, as his withered husk of a torso dangled aimlessly below the growth of the dozen branching limbs.

“This will be good for him, I think. Strife builds resilience and character,” Grandfather mused, knowing that his will would not be denied.

The following three days seemed both excruciatingly-long and as though they moved by in a blur.

Jakob was pleased that Raleigh was a loud and rapturous monster, as his appearance in the Slums and many subsequent fights with the guards gave them plenty of advanced warning of his approach, while they finished up the final touches on the Flesh-Hulk.

However, it troubled him greatly that Raleigh’s might seemed undisputed, even in the face of the Crown’s special Guard, and the members of the Adventurers’ Guild.

When Jakob started painting the septagram on the floor, Heskel seemed suddenly surprised.

“What? Did you think I would rely on Necromancy for this?”

“Too dangerous.”

“I know. That’s the point. You can’t fight a demon and show restraint.”

“Fire and fire, more flame make.”

“Enough! I have decided.”

In truth, Jakob was conflicted. He had originally wanted to simply produce another fresh intellect with the Birthe Sentience, but while its growth potential was exponential, he needed something to fight back against Raleigh now. Unless reined in with a sufficient contractual bond, demons were powerful and wicked, not to mention unpredictable and anathema to the rigid nature of reality, whose fabric their mere presence corrupted. Though they had many uses, the thing they were best at was killing each other, and thus he had decided to summon a demon into his hulking mound of flesh.

Thanks to the blood-rag-bound Demonology tome, Jakob knew the perfect entity to summon too. Granted, it would be his first of such summonings, as he had only ever summoned imps, fire-sprites, and other simple beings, and never before a Greater Demon such as the one whose name he was now drawing into the complex septagram with a fine pen of horse-hair:

One of the chief servants of the Fourth of the Unholy Seven: Mercilla, the Viscountess of Voracity.

Given that Raleigh was a Wrath Demon, it seemed fitting to pit him against a Demon of Gluttony. They would devour each other; of that he had no doubt.

“Check it, but don’t dawdle.”

Heskel grunted disapprovingly, but set to work checking the enormous septagram, within which towered the mound of flesh.

The Flesh-Hulk stood about two-and-a-half metres tall, just somewhat above Heskel in terms of height, but what made it truly imposing was its girth, as it spanned twenty metres or more in circumference. Within its almost-gelatinous corpus was a framework of bones that served as a cage for the four hearts within and was kept stable like a gyroscope despite whichever way the mound rolled, thanks to some truly-obscure bit of Necromancy that Heskel knew and had carved into the bones.

Though it seemed from the outside to be a simple stitched-together mess of bodies, it was truly the most complex creation Jakob had ever created. It made the bone centipede seem like child’s play by comparison. The biggest hurdle had been keeping a functioning blood-supply running through the labyrinthine one-way veins he had crafted with an absurd number of valves, which had required eleven slaves to produce. Almost an entire afternoon had been wasted tracing down one faulty valve and replacing it, but now it was done, and soon a Greater Demon would inhabit its body.

“Is it good?”

Heskel nodded solemnly. Jakob knew it was a risky move to summon a demon such as the one he was invoking, but Gluttony Demons were fortunately the easiest to satiate, as they simply required sustenance and nothing else, unlike Greed Demons who grew more-and-more avaricious and depraved as time went on. But Gluttony Demons were destructive, while Greed Demons were clever and cunning, and its appearance would not go unnoticed, just like Raleigh’s inherent nature made him loud and mayhem incarnate.

The centipede came up next to Jakob, dragging a large bowl of blood. For a summoning as tremendous as this, an absurdly-large Blood Toll was required, but, fortunately, they had been diligent in their harvesting of their bought slaves.

Heskel came up next to him shortly after with the second bowl.

“Excellent, we can begin.”

The centipede moved around behind Jakob and lifted the front of its body, clamping its enormous mandibles about his torso, ensuring he would not move a hair’s breadth from where he stood.

Dipping each hand in their respective bowl, he let the blood cover him up to his elbows, then he began intoning the lilting chant.

“I call you from your lair of plenty; I call you from your bountiful tower.”

“Heed my call lest thy stomach remain empty; heed my call lest thy lips not savour my offering.”

“Obey me, Mercilla. Obey me, Mercilla. Obey me, Mercilla, heed my call and manifest thyself within this realm of substance and mortality!”

Like a sudden bonfire, the septagram and the many intricate drawings burst into flames tinged purple, blue, and red. Like a massive gale-force wind, air buffeted the room, scattering the many tools and materials so carefully stored, shattering lanterns and specimen jars, and pushing even Heskel away from the circle of fire. Jakob held true though, thanks to the centipede keeping him in place with its tremendous mass, which stood unflinchingly against the gale.

Then the wind subsided and the flames died down, and, like a vortex, the blood in the two bowls started spinning rapidly, before being drawn impossibly into the air and towards the Flesh-Hulk where it stood in the centre of the septagram.

As though following a separate ruleset of physics, the blood passed directly through the hulk, and then immediately a slobbering voice filled the room.

“TINY THING. I HUNGER.”

“And you shall feast plenty upon what I have to offer you,” Jakob ensured. Blood trickled down the left side of his head from where his eardrum had popped with the sheer concussive force of Mercilla’s voice, but he did not relent, after all, any moment wasted could be exploited.

Lifting his blood-soaked hand, he quickly ran a knife across his left palm, and cited the Contract of Obedience he had meticulously conjured to ensure there were no loopholes for the Demon to manipulate, but, before he could finish its conclusion, a massive crash sounded just beyond the basement lab and the surprise made him pause for one crucial moment.

“IS THAT A WRATHFUL ONE I SMELL!?”

The massive flesh mound quivered in ecstasy, then started wobbling out of the septagram, smearing the detailed drawings under its colossal weight.

Standing locked in place by his construct, Jakob could all but watch as it rolled towards him, crushing anything it came near.

Suddenly Heskel tackled him from the side, tearing him from the grip of his frozen centipede, just before it was pulverised under Mercilla.

The backlash of Jakob’s severed connection to the construct felt like lightning striking his brain and his whole body started seizing and convulsing uncontrollably, until he lost consciousness.