Re:Cursed

"Cover yourself," Tarchon said as he stopped before an ordinary section of dark wall. "We will soon enter our temple; there are eyes everywhere."

She did as he said, tucking her wing and tentacles away, but left her sternum eye peeking just above the shroud so that she could see in the dark. Once satisfied, he stepped forward and touched the wall. Nyxil had only a moment to wonder if there was a door there before her legs almost folded underneath her.

The ground shifted, sliding to one side faster than she could adjust

Tarchon's hand landed on her shoulder, but all that did was shift the accelerating force into her upper body and make it feel like he was trying to crush her. Well, at least she didn't fall over.

There had been no seams in the wall before, but cracks of light widened as long square teeth slid past each other. The long metal teeth slid beneath the panel under her feet and overhead, revealing the outside world.

It moved the wrong way.

Nyxil and Tarchon, along with their tunnel, rose up to align with the level they'd opened up into, but instead of moving left to right as her legs were telling her it should be, the shift was opposite. Only when they jolted to a stop and steam rose through the gap between their tunnel and the platform that awaited them did she realise that the ground hadn't been accelerating; it had been slowing down.

Somehow, the entire tunnel had been speeding through Coral, and she'd never noticed.

On disoriented, wobbly legs, she followed Tarchon out into what appeared to be a large warehouse crossed with a lobby. Technocultist ownership was obvious. Machinery was incorporated into every wall, and a dozen lifts and cranes shifted around ceaselessly. There weren't many people around. And of those that were, they were predominantly not Technocultists.

A low growl had Nyxil turn, but it was just the tunnel sinking back into the earth. It spun and accelerated as it disappeared out of sight. As it lowered, the high ceiling dropped to take its place. Nyxil was welcomed to the appearance of one of the more common subsurface tunnel designs of Coral… and a very grumpy Bodytwister.

Nyxil awed at the machinery and self-serving nature exemplified. To make room for what was likely a Technocultist only transport network, they shoved the tunnel system all the other cults needed to use out of the way.

"Inconsiderate Technocultists," the man grumbled and pushed past her. His body was a patchwork of stitches and skin tone just different enough to be noticeable. His robe was cut from his neck down to his waist, leaving the odd, twisting skin of his arm and shoulder visible to all. A dozen spirals sinking deep into his flesh, like little nests.

She considered slipping one of her tentacles out and tripping the man. The chances a random cultist would notice them was low… but she had to hold herself back. Just because he annoyed her, didn't give her an excuse to put herself at risk. Especially after such a terrible scare.

Best if she didn't have all the cults after her yet. One was bad enough.

Tarchon was already a dozen paces away, striding towards the open space between the fifty metre tall shelves that reached the ceiling. Despite the full automation of it, the place still somehow seemed messy and disorganised. Long steel struts were mixed in with packs of bolts. Yet differently sized screws were scattered everywhere.

Nyxil jogged after him, yet her eyes followed the Bodytwister. The man stormed towards the reception desk… or what Nyxil had first thought was a reception desk. Looking closer, the three Technocultists were fiddling with machines on workbenches much like those in Tarchon's home. Each worked, while tepidly speaking to the many outside cultists vying for their attention.

The Bodytwister charged past the queue — an unrigid one, but a queue non the less — to silent, disbelieving stares. Not those of the Technocultists though; they never looked up.

"I need one of yours to come and fix your shitty gyro ritual platform." With each word, he gets angrier; the Technocultists' lack of attention getting under his skin. "Now! The window for the summoning will collapse before long."

Curiously, Nyxil cast her sense towards the man, and found that not only was he in his fifth evolution, but he had a surprising number of curses clinging to his name. The Technocultists he yelled at were only in their second and third, yet none of them paid him any mind.

Stepping forward, he swiped whatever the young Technocultist had been working on out of their hands. It struck the ground, and the echo was deafening. Other outsider cultists were now shaking their heads, or dropping them into a hand.

"Do you not understand what now means!? Move it, or you be the one explaining to your upper creeds why the Bodytwisters have come knocking."

The man's attitude annoyed her, and she wasn't even the target of his anger. So many people were like him. Some cultist who got a modicum of power, and proceeded to lord it over any lessers that got in their way. Of course, cults protected their own, but that was only after one had gone so far. The upper creeds rarely cared for attitude and disrespect given to the low creeds.

Nyxil glanced at Tarchon to see if he would interfere. There was no way he couldn't hear everything, yet he didn't so much as look their way. A pang of disappointment wormed through her chest. Shaking her head, she cleared the feeling. That was just how things were.

Turning back to the Bodytwister, she prepared to unleash a bunch of those curses just waiting to be triggered. And there were a bunch that looked good, too. Maybe not for him. Sensory maggot infestation beneath the skin. Sticky eyelids. And wow… exploding kidneys. He must have really performed some atrocities to have that. Well, that or be like Nyxil and have been born with them. Though, she doubted that. They seemed somehow… too new. She didn't even know she could sense a curse's age until now.

Before she could shift his day from a little bad, to excruciatingly, the Technocultist looked up, gave the man a bored look, then flicked a switch. Immediately, the ground opened up at the feet of the Bodytwister and a thick clamp tightened around his legs up to the knees.

"The fuck?!" Suddenly he was being pulled away from the benches. "You dare!"

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Each of the dozen spiral recessions in his skin began to twirl. The space above them began to shimmer and bend, as if eating the void itself. He reached down. His arm bulged unnaturally, leaving him lopsided. The metal of the clamp was siphoned into the spirals of his hand, before he tugged. The Bodytwister's swollen arm strained the metal until its creaks filled the warehouse.

The Technocultist flicked another switch.

Just as the man broke one leg free and shouted in victory, two sides of a sphere closed around him. Sealed by this ball of steel, he was unceremoniously carted off to the side wall, where a dark pit awaited.

Well, she wasn't going to get a better chance than this to deal with a cultist than this. Nyxil grasped at his curses. Good luck surviving two burst kidneys without access to a talented healer.

"Don't kill the man," Tarchon said, somehow knowing exactly what she intended. "It'll be a bigger pain than he's worth."

Nyxil gaped only for a moment before she relented and decided to only pop one of his kidneys. That and unleash every other curse he had in him that wouldn't kill the man. Probably.

She listened as the man's muffled screams came only a moment before he fell into the dark pit. Everyone else — besides Tarchon — believed the fall was the source of his anguish.

As the Technocultists and other cultists turned back to their tasks, acting like this was just any other day, Nyxil did the same. She fell in line with Tarchon. His indifference hadn't been from a lack of care, but confidence that his lower creeds weren't in danger.

They walked past a tall roller door that partitioned the warehouse from the deeper part of the Technocult's temple, and a single loud beep rang out over her head. The section still looked like an automated warehouse, but now the shelves hung from the ceiling, leaving a five metre gap between the floor and the lowest rung where cultists were free to move around.

There were a lot more Technocultists here, but not nearly as much as the communal spaces of other cults. Along the walls, there were dozens of curved inlets with all the tools and equipment a techocultist might need for their creations. In the otherwise exacting rectangular nature of the warehouse, the curved walls in each workshop were distinct.

Chapels.

Only a step behind Tarchon, Nyxil couldn't help but notice the stares directed her way. There were at most three cultists to each chapel, sometimes only one, but each of their gazes were locked on her as if she was the bolt that didn't fit.

She didn't like being the centre of attention. She absolutely hated it. The only times she'd ever had this many eyes on her, things always went bad. But she refused to bow her head. As the Technocultists narrowed their eyes at her, she glared right back. Maybe she was acting a touch too hostile to the cult that was willing to help, but those weren't friendly glances; they were suspicious.

"Do not concern yourself with them," Tarchon said, his head forward and not deviating a millimetre. "None but our own are allowed beyond this point. They will come around when they hear what S͍̾ølą̛́̄n̼̙͈̘̄̍̓͘ has attempted."

One of the shelves to her right suddenly lowered. Bolts drilled themselves in places, then it rose again, carrying a dizzying array of extra rungs that had been until that point hidden beneath the surface. Nyxil counted a hundred levels rising before it unscrewed itself and clicked in line with the rest of its neighbours. Their storage was not as static as she'd first thought.

"She knows now… what will stop her from attacking again?" it had been the most pressing problem on her mind since she'd been able to calm down. "How will I be able to participate in the Trials?"

"You worry for nothing."

Nyxil blinked, and stared at the man incredulously. One of the cult leaders is actively coming after me, and I have nothing to worry about? Huh?

"There are too many eyes on the Trails. S͍̾ølą̛́̄n̼̙͈̘̄̍̓͘ will not attack you directly if she doesn't want everyone on Coral to know how important you are."

Tarchon led them further through the grand hall. She noticed it progressively became less… square. The tall shelves split, becoming imperfect, while the chapels grew larger, their shape more incomprehensible. The corruption grew thick, and yet she knew all their machinery still worked perfectly.

"That said, she will make a move. Of that, we have no doubt. It just won't be so obvious. The Trials are already rife with external interference, and now you get to enjoy being targeted from the start, rather than only in the later rounds."

"Great," she said. "Any hint what that might look like?"

Tarchon paused, likely contemplating if he should tell her. If there's anything she's learnt about the Technocult so far, it's that they despise biases. They would do anything to keep their methods and algorithms unaffected by external stimuli. Nepotism was anathema to the Technocult.

"Most cults will have already poached their favourites. There are many reasons, but you should expect that at least fifty percent of the participants beyond the third trial are bound to one faction or another. This is not a fair competition. They will group together and target threats to their chosen representative's victory chances. These types will sacrifice their own position if they need to."

He finally turned to face her. "The individual who emerges victor isn't the only one to benefit. The cult they choose gains a great boon as well. We use the Trials as an evaluation of one's character, inviting only those that stand against the partial without succumbing to those same unjust measures. Very rarely do we offer a position in our cult to the winner. Only once have they taken it."

"Was that you?" Nyxil guessed. It seemed likely.

For the first time since that day he'd seized control of her ward's shutter and welcomed himself in, Tarchon's expression darkened. "No. The boy was killed only a day after his choice to join us. It was our failure to protect him from the wrath of the Worshippers."

Then not even Tarchon, one of the strongest cultists she knew besides the leaders themselves, had won?

"I am already telling you this because you have already demonstrated our usual requirement. Expect poisons, summonings, or any other sort of attack at all hours of the day. S͍̾ølą̛́̄n̼̙͈̘̄̍̓͘ won't strike you herself, but her Fleshsmiths will," Tarchon said. "For now, my juniors will accept our defence of you. This will not last. When our war engines fire, they will question the waste of resources defending a single person. By then, you need to be more than a common Technocultists. You need to be one of a kind."

The warehouse widened into a massive domed room with every surface veiled in machinery that could even be considered artistry through the right eyes. Nyxil wasn't sure that meant her own, but the complex weave of machine certainly made the sight. But it wasn't the ceiling and walls that caught her eye. In the centre of the hall, stood an army.

Sleek, metal machines stood in perfect formation. Lines shone with powerful blue energy through all their forms, making them stand out against the more standard tech around them. A hundred hulking figures at five metres held a vaguely humanoid shape, with legs and arms, but they were thick and slot into the rest of its torso so well that they could likely be confused for smooth slabs of metal.

Nyxil glanced back the way they came. It was straight to the exit, yet it had been impossible to see the army standing right here from back where the other cults could gather.

Behind the war machines — there was no denying their purpose — were a dozen… well, the only way she could describe them was cannons with arachnid legs. The barrels themselves were ten metres thick, and the machines were five times as long. Thankfully, the cannons weren't glowing like they had back in Tarchon's refinery, but that didn't make them any less daunting.

Yet even the tanks paled compared to what stood behind them.

A mountain of steel. At fifty metres, it was an upsized version of the more numerous machines, but less humanoid, and with far more weapons. The monstrosity was slumped forward, yet by the flat surfaces on what might have been its shoulders and hips, that was its intended orientation. Nyxil guessed it would walk on arms and legs, while the level surfaces would act as launching platforms. In addition to the energy cannons that had been seemingly placed wherever there was room, a much larger weapon was slot through its back as if it were a spine.

Nyxil felt pity for whatever ended up the target.

"Again, the Trials are not a fair competition." Tarchon stopped to stare up at the huge fucker. "Expect anything to happen. We can protect you, but not from their greed. You alone can declare war against their exploitation, and make them reconsider coming after you."