The Homunculus Knight

"Pocket dimension? Did you seriously just call this a pocket dimension? Pantheon's writ, what kind of education are they giving you at that tower?! This is a parallel spatial construct. It's built both alongside and within Mundane reality, creating an extra layer of existence that operates under a variant of cosmological rules. What kind of variant? Well, considering the things that have been coming out of it, I'd wager nothing pleasant. Now, c'mon, we've got to identify what's creating and maintaining all of this. Once it's dealt with, the Mundane will reassert itself, and we don't want to be around when that happens."- words of Paladin Arjonis of the Ninth Temple, during the 'Bleak Womb' incident.

Yara Algal stood alone, silently staring at the shut door before her. Brow creased, hands balled at her sides, the thrall tried to understand what spurred her to be here, and not at her mistress's side. On the surface, the answer was simple: Natalie didn't need her right now; Yara was useless to the vampire's current efforts.

A deck above, and at the other end of the ship, the Alukah lay in torpor, trying to suss out the secrets of her consumed enemy, while a paladin, priestess, and Seraphilim stood vigil. Originally, Yara had wanted to stay by her mistress's side, but sheer practicality made that unfeasible, as the compartment they used barely had enough room for Cole's bulk, let alone everyone else. Of course, she'd at first intended to stand watch in the passageway, just in case Deborah, or more likely, Mina, tried to take advantage of Natalie's distraction. And for a little bit, she had, waiting silently, ready to help Cole if the less trustworthy god-touched did anything untoward.

But after a few minutes of waiting, Yara did something she'd never ever ever done before: she left her post. It wasn't because she'd been bored, as boredom isn't a privilege afforded to good servants. Nor had it been for any other understandable or even remotely logical reason. Yara simply walked away, driven by a desire she couldn't hope to articulate. Yet a lack of comprehension didn't stop her from being guided to a very specific destination—the entrance to Dala's shrine, where Kit was hard at work.

Raising her hand but unable to knock, Yara tried to understand what, or more accurately why, was she was doing this. The only answer that came to mind was that she needed to be useful. Yara hated feeling useless, the very idea of it itched like dry hay down the back of a shirt. So, if Natalie didn't need her, then she'd gone to the one other person who might.

'Thunk thunk'

Yara looked at her hand in genuine surprise. She'd been wavering, considering just going back, but her body apparently had other ideas. Looking back the way she'd come, the thrall briefly considered making a run for it, or pushing her aura of subtlety to its maximum. But before any of those panicked notions could really take root, the door swung open to reveal an excited-looking Kit.

Expression filled to the brim with the brash joy that had been missing since his injury, the magi's smile widened upon seeing her. "Oh, hello, is Natalie's psychic experiment going well?"

Staring into his eyes for a split second, which was far longer than she ever managed with most people, Yara nodded then looked away. "So far, yes."

"Good good. Now follow me, I want to show you something."

Nervous, but still driven by whatever compulsion brought her this far, Yara followed him into the Hierophant's makeshift shrine. The swirling occult symbols and dangling prayer cards sent a shiver up the thrall's spine. By her reckoning, temple altars were already unsettling enough, without this place's witchiness.

Kit squatted down and gestured at one of the sigils, particularly the strange, tiny metal disks inlaid into the wood. "Silver and gold coins. Not the best ritual ingredients, but still cleverly used."

Yara nodded uncertainly as she glanced around the room. There had to be a small fortune stamped into the walls and floor. Or perhaps, more accurately, what her family back in Glockmire would consider a small fortune. Quickly beating back that thought and all that accompanied it, she quietly asked. "Is this what you wanted to show me?"

Still smiling, Kit tapped one of the larger gold pieces, one depicting an eagle. "Partly, yes. I was thinking about your magic and how certain materials can act as a catalyst. That rapier you got, it's got all kinds of nice filigree and inlaid gems, right?"

Yet again, Yara nodded, her uncertainty growing with every one of Kit's words. She didn't like her 'trophy' as Alia insisted on calling it. Just looking at the ornately worked weapon sent a spike of anxiety through her. It wasn't something someone like her should have, hells, it wasn't something she felt worthy of cleaning. She'd known other thralls, belonging to other masters who'd paid dearly for damaging personal trinkets worth a fraction of that rapier. Even if she knew Natalie wasn't like those vampires, ignoring screams so loud they echoed through memory was hard. So, instead of some trophy or even tool to protect her mistress, Yara considered the rapier a great source of disquiet.

Expression shifting slightly, Kit stood up, head cocked to the side with almost avian curiosity. "What's wrong?"

Every muscle in Yara's back tensed, and she felt suddenly more exposed than if she'd been naked. Taking a step back, Kit held up his hands. "Hey, hey, I didn't mean to startle you, I just could see your brain struggling with something."

This didn't help. For most of her life, being able to hide her emotions and reactions had been a key survival skill, so having Kit just pierce through her obfuscation felt… bad. Eyeing the magi, seeing his mix of sheepishness and genuine concern, Yara felt stuck, explaining any of this was dangerous, and yet, something about his earnestness pulled at her. He'd shared things with her, blithely explaining what his father had done while making concerningly good educated guesses about her own family story. At the time, his insight had been beyond unsettling, and even now it still was, but that didn't change the fact he just might understand.

"I don't like the rapier. It's too much."

Uncharacteristically, Kit didn't ask more questions or seek elaboration; instead, he simply nodded, his own eyes going to some distant place. "Makes sense. Forget about it for now, let me show you what I've been working on."

Letting out a breath of relief, Yara helped along the change in topics. "Where is the Hierophant?"

"Sleeping. She's been running herself ragged maintaining all these enchantments. I think having Cole, Deborah, and everyone else around has her feeling safe enough to properly rest."

Kit brought her over to an open hatch in the floor, revealing a compartment filled to the bursting with plants. Upon seeing the great wooden spike driven up through the boat's hull, a strange shiver worked its way along Yara's spine. While she lacked proper magical talent, her survival instincts were honed to a razor edge, and something about this unnatural growth had her hackles raised. A feeling that didn't get better when Kit clambered down into the dry bilge, uncaring of the unnatural foliage he stepped on.

Biting down a hiss of surprise, Yara whispered. "What are you doing?"

Looking back up at her, from where he crouched between lengths of enchanted chain, Kit raised an eyebrow. "I needed to get a better look at this."

"Isn't it dangerous?"

"Probably, but Hierophant Dala's spells are strong and recently reinforced. Besides, we can't really afford to be cautious anymore, not with Natalie's bastard of a great-uncle running about in Harmas."

Not exactly comforted by this, Yara carefully knelt at the hatch, peering down as Kit circled around the spike, a violin bow held in one hand like a wand. "The spirit is contaminated, its animus partially corrupted by some kind of Aetheric blight. I'm no shaman, so purifying the spirit in any traditional way isn't in my repertoire, but I do know enough magical theory to maybe improvise."

Yara sat silently, wondering what set of words might convince Kit to pause his efforts until Deborah or someone more qualified could aid him. But her tongue had always been more dull copper than silver, so all she managed was. "Improvise?"

Shrugging one shoulder, Kit replied. "Okay, that sounds worse now that I'm hearing it from someone else. Still, I've got a few ideas and think I know how to save the spirit, or at least stop the contamination from getting worse."

Running his free hand along some of the foliage filling the bilge, he elaborated. "Spirits are conglomerate reflections, taking on aspects of everything they embody, especially they're core elements. From what I've learned, our half-mad friend here's self is formed around an oak tree, and a royal lineage. This is a clever bit of metaphysical linkage and speaks to how well-crafted this spirit is. But for our purposes, it also points to an opportunity to salvage something of Oaken Brother."

Looking up at Yara, he asked. "Have you ever gardened?"

"A little bit when I was younger," she muttered. Like many families in Glockmire, hers had a small vegetable plot. A vegetable plot that turned into a morass of weeds after her mother died.

"So, do you know what a cutting is?"

She nodded. "A branch or something similar that can be grown into a new plant."

As the words left her mouth, Yara got a sudden notion of what Kit was planning. Yet she didn't say anything, out of fear of being wrong.

"I think I can take a piece of Oaken Brother, one that isn't contaminated, and maybe coax it into becoming our path into Harmas."

Well, Yara had been right, but that didn't provide much comfort in the face of the next question she needed to ask. "How?"

Beaming Kit tapped his wand against the exposed root. "The Lictorim defenses of Harmas! From what I've seen, they're active but not intact. Centuries of no maintenance and even active dismantling have left only parts of the circuit working. But since Deborah's sister is providing the power for the enchantments, she should be able to help me jury-rig a mechanism to enforce a very precise Aetheric separation. A magical scalpel, if you will, perfect to cut away the healthy branch we need."

Things were starting to flow past Yara's comprehension, but she still understood enough to get the sense this might be a bad idea. "What if you cut wrong?"

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This wasn't like her; she didn't point out people's potential mistakes, that was just asking for trouble, and yet she was trying to play accuser's advocate. Hells, what was she even doing here? She should be back with Natalie, not wasting time and risking herself with an erratic magi with a stupid smile.

Coming over to where she knelt, Kit snapped his fingers and pointed somewhere behind her. Glancing in the direction he'd indicated, Yara saw his lantern, sitting neatly next to the door, its unseelie glow somehow gone unnoticed. "I'm going to use that to map out the spirit's metaphysical structure and the exact details of the Lictorim spells."

Yara had seen Kit work wonders with that strange artifact, and her concerns lessened moderately, at least until he next spoke.

"Would you mind handing it to me?"

Eyes flicking between magi and lantern, she half-hissed. "You want to do this now?"

Kit looked mildly confused. "Why wait? The sooner I know if this idea has any merit, the better."

A dozen reasons danced on Yara's tongue, but with every moment she hesitated, they grew clumsier. Her mistress needed to get into Harmas, and Kit maybe had a way in. Who was she in the face of so much power to second-guess what must be done?

Silently, she went over and grabbed the lantern, careful to only touch its ornate handle. Bringing it over to Kit, she sat down, watching him with growing anxiety.

"Thanks!" he chirped, before taking the lantern and returning to his examination of the oak root. Eldritch light shone in the bilge, illuminating the unnatural foliage and also rendering their colors strangely vivid. The lantern didn't just shed light, but somehow enhanced the hues and textures of whatever its glow touched. Yara found the effect both beautiful and disturbing; she couldn't look away, even as Kit started his work.

Tapping both the spike and his lantern with his wand, the magi muttered under his breath in a strange tonal language that somehow brought to mind both bird song and insect chirps. The violin bow vibrated, its string buzzing, as strands of glowing gossamer extended from its tip. Carefully, Kit connected the lantern's central gemstone to the tip of the spike with those iridescent strands, weaving a complex pattern that shifted and writhed with every new layer.

A lead weight settled in Yara's gut as she watched, some instinct born of a life surviving dark, terrible things whispered incessantly at the back of her mind, telling her this was a bad idea. As the very air around them seemed to grow heavier, almost watery, Yara finally managed to muster her courage.

"Kit, I don't think-"

'Crack!'

The noise split through the repurposed cargo hold, and Kit stumbled back, letting out a yelp. One of the chains wrapping around the root had snapped, the shattered link's shrapnel cutting a thin line in the magi's cheek. Fingers dipping into the fresh red, he looked from it and back to the spike. The remaining chains were visibly straining, creaking, and groaning as the root swelled.

A single word escaped both thrall and magi.

"Fuck."

Rushing forward, Kit placed a hand onto the root, the lantern's light growing brighter and brighter as the chains began to scream.

"What are you doing!" half-shrieked Yara as she stood still, torn between running for Natalie and staying to help Kit out of the bilge.

"The spirit is waking up and trying to break through the spells! If I can reinforce them, they might hold long enough to force it back to sleep!"

Bloodsmeared hand gripping onto the trembling spike, Kit began to sing in the strange tongue he'd used earlier. Streams of not-white light boiled off the lantern and tried to join the surviving chains in binding the root. But the moment they touched the shaking oak, it started to change, its main body thickening and distorting, forcing a scream out of both Kit and the over-taxed chains.

Warped links detonated, and Yara ducked down, avoiding the chain's death throes. As the clatter and crunch of ricocheting metal ended, she looked down into the bilge, heart in her throat, expecting to find Kit torn to pieces. Instead, he still stood strong, a shimmering field extending out from his wand, surrounding him in a faint protective glow. But even if he was intact, the seals on the corrupted spirit weren't.

The root had started to unfold, or uncoil, in a way that Yara found hard to look at. Wrist-thick sections of growth twisted away from each other, creating a hollow in the spike's center. Soon, in place of a narrowing shaft of wood, the root had become a triple helix that fused back into one at its tip and base, leaving an almost cage-like gap in its heart, a gap that wasn't empty.

There was an…an… absence, a hole in the air, a hole in the everything. It was a wound, one gouged into existence, and its edges bled with colors that couldn't be. Staring at the absence, Yara wanted to scream, to vomit, to cry, and to laugh; but to do anything but look into that filled emptiness was next to impossible.

A hand grabbed onto Yara's own, startling her from her reverie. Kit, eyes filled with panic, screamed to be heard over a sound that wasn't there. "RUN!"

Slowly, terribly slowly, Yara tried to stand, her limbs heavy and unresponsive. But when Kit let go of her and turned to face the absence, she found some reserve of strength and grabbed onto his shirt, trying to lift him out of the bilge. Ancilla-born strength hauled on the startled magi, pulling him up into the air, where he dangled helplessly. But before she could get him close to the hatch, the roots finished unwinding.

The triple helix split open, stretching the absence between its petals, creating the favorite flower of some mad god. Slowly, terribly, the wound in existence stretched up towards them, growing across reality like a parasitic vine.

Spurred on by this sight, Yara pulled Kit up out of the bilge with a scream of effort. They collapsed practically on top of each other, both gasping in shock and horror. Kit untangled himself from her, his flurry of apologies turning into a shocked yelp as an invisible force pulled on him, tugging the magi back towards the yawning absence. Yara quickly grabbed his ankle and tried to anchor herself against the floor, but it was no use; whatever had Kit was strong, terribly strong. Soon, both of them were being dragged helplessly, unable to resist the power the spirit had unleashed.

Reaching down, Kit grabbed onto her hand on his ankle, and to her shock, tried to pry himself free. Meeting his desperate eyes, she saw an expression she'd only seen on her fellow thralls, Dietrich's other servants who'd laid down their lives to help rouse their master during the coup.

Shouting to be heard over a wind that wasn't, Kit said. "Let go! It wants me!"

Yara reacted instantly and did the one thing she'd been taught to her entire life: follow orders. She let go of Kit's hand, and let him hurtle towards the hungring absence. As he slid along the deck, Yara stared into his eyes, seeing a mix of terror and resignation in them, and knew she'd just made a terrible mistake.

Lunging forward, Yara shouted a word, an alien, unfamiliar word, one she couldn't last remember using for herself. "NO!"

Hands groping wildly, she grabbed Kit's hand, but momentum was against her, and she was yanked off her feet. They tumbled against each other, bouncing along the rune-etched deck like it was a slick cliff face, until they plummeted into empty air and then absent reality.

The universe closed in around Yara like a funeral shroud, wrapping her up in a strangling embrace. She was being squeezed and pushed through a space far too small for her. With every breath, the passageway changed completely. One moment it was a slick canal of warm flesh, another it was a cool green hollow of sculpted wood, but no matter what form the space around her took, it was far too small and seemed ready to crush her in one final spasm.

Yet, she wasn't alone; she'd not let go of Kit, and they now clasped each other's forearms in a soldier's handshake. That little connection, that tiny marker of another's presence, was her lifeline, and judging by how tightly the magi returned her grip, it was his as well.

After a hundred ragged breaths, their prison widened, and Yara saw light, proper light once again. Up ahead, or perhaps down below, it was hard to tell, there was a crack, a widening seam lined by thick shingle-like bark. In the faint illumination spearing through the fissure, she saw Kit's stunned face; he seemed about as confused as she was. Reaching the arboral gap, the pair were pushed through it like wet dough, tumbling out into dim sunlight and onto packed dirt.

Yara found herself staring up at what she thought to be a cellar's ceiling, as she fought to fill her lungs. Kit lay next to her, letting out weak groans as he tried to roll onto his back. A hiss of surprise from the magi, pushed Yara to sit up, and she found him clutching his lantern; it had come through whatever they had as well.

"Wh-where are we?" muttered Kit as he looked around them, his expression dazed.

Pointing up at the thin roots dangling above them, Yara replied. "I think an abandoned cellar."

Managing to stand, Kit shone his lantern's light around them, forcing Yara to change her assessment. They were in an underground burrow, one dug into the roots of a huge tree. Pulling out his wand, the magi muttered. "I really hope there isn't a bear here."

"Probably not," replied Yara as she pointed towards the far end of the hollow. There were stairs, dusty but well-made stone stairs. The pair looked at each other, and Yara grew the stargent dagger her mistress now insisted she carry at all times. Gingerly, they approached the steps and climbed up and out of the tiny cavern.

They were in a forest, surrounded by old-growth trees and overgrown bushes. Curiously few of the trees were budding, and those that were did so poorly, with only a smattering of their canopy bearing ill-looking leaves. There was also a path through the forest, one that hadn't been maintained for a bit by the looks of it, but it started at the stairs and branched off in different directions.

"Which way should we go?" she asked, only to find Kit had stepped off the path and was examining the tree whose roots they'd just been under. It was an utter behemoth, bigger around than even a four-oxen cart. Wand out before him, almost touching the tree, Kit stared up at its sickly canopy, his face pale as Natalie's.

"What's wrong?"

He didn't answer and instead turned to approach the next nearest tree, and then the next, with each examination, his expression became more drawn and fearful. By the seventh tree, he stopped, shut his eyes, and started muttering to himself, not in the eldritch tongue of before, but what he said was barely more comprehensible. It seemed to be a string of letters, numbers, perhaps a code of some kind?

Opening his eyes, Kit pointed along one path. "We need to head that way, and be careful doing it."

"Why?"

"Because I think I know where we are, but want to make sure before we really start to panic."

Yara really didn't like the sound of that. Knife in hand, she walked beside Kit, scanning the surrounding underbrush for anything strange. They made it maybe three meters. The eerie glow of something reflecting the lantern caught Yara's attention, bringing them to a halt as she pointed out the odd shine amidst the bushes.

Whispering, Kit asked. "Metal?"

Eyes fixed on the anomaly, Yara shook her head. Creeping forward, shrouding herself in a cloak of subtlety, she prodded the object with her knife, confirming her own hunch. Cutting away at some questing greenery, she let the item tumble free onto the ground before them: it was a stained human skull. Ignoring Kit's noise of shock, Yara continued her pruning, finding what she'd expected: a badly damaged skeleton leaning against one of the trees. Clad in weather-beaten scraps, the bones were kept together by the collage of roots and vines that had eagerly accepted the corpse's nutrients.

Looking back at the magi, she asked. "Kit, where are we?"

"The Almtree grove, from the looks of it."

"What?"

Stepping past the skeleton and heading down the path, he muttered. "The map I memorized is obviously out of date, but we should reach the edge if we keep going this direction."

Yara was even more confused now, but the jittery, nervous expression on Kit's face halted her questions. He'd not looked this scared back in the cavern, and she got the sense it wouldn't take much more pressure for him to snap. So they silently crept through the forest, avoiding a few more skeletons and what was probably a fresher body, but Yara had no desire to get close enough to check. All around them, the trees grew sicker and sicker, with many of the smaller ones dead. They even had to clamber over a large bough at one point, the person-sized limb having fallen right across the path.

After maybe fifteen minutes of careful hiking, they reached the forest's edge, and as they peered out from beneath the dying canopy, Yara understood Kit's fear. Before them was a city promenade, one not too different from ones she'd seen in Vindabon; well, one that once might have not been too different. Now, the street and buildings before her were in ruins. Half-collapsed buildings leaned against burned-out shops, all framing a decrepit thoroughfare. Despite the surrounding structures' conditions, the main road was busy, its stained cobblestones packed with throngs of shuffling corpses.

Yara's stomach landed among her toes, as dread comprehension flowed through her veins like ice water. In a voice between a whisper and a whimper, she said what Kit had been afraid to.

"We're in Harmas."

The magi managed a jerky nod. "We're trapped."