The Misadventures of the Man Formerly Known as Victor Heart

*Ring*

*Ring*

*Ring*

The greatest joy of my new form is the ability to truly and deeply sleep. One of the worst parts is alarms.

*Bang*

The fact that my emotions, for example annoyance, empower my abilities, for example physical strength, leading me to accidentally damage my own property, for example phones, is another of the bad parts.

Quick weaving of the threads making up my phone and a redial later.

“Agent Jesse Cole reporting for duty.” And let me tell you the fact that my name is officially Jesse Cole is a source of continued minor annoyance. I am still undecided on a name and only told Olivia one for convenience. I chose Jesse only because I had recently watched an episode about Jesse James and like it. As for the Cole surname, that truly annoyed me as they just stapled that on for their convenience, but we were all maintaining a polite fiction that I was truly one of their people.

“We’ve received reports of disappearances around the intersection of Butcher Boulevard and Axe Murderer Avenue. Please check your email account for all the official documentation related to the case.” Said the voice on the other end in their typical monotone.

“I’ll get on it. Expect my preliminary report by end of day.”

And with that I dragged myself up from the bed. Time for a shave and shower.

***

I just knew the day was going to be a pain the second I saw the geyser of black mist coming from the construction site by my destination.

It was only a matter of minutes before I found the crevasse that the previously mentioned geyser sprouted from. Can’t say I’m not excited to see what lies at the bottom of this here rabbit hole.

“Well nothing to it but to do it.”

I jumped down the crack in the ground while digging Murder Weapon in the shape of a climbing axe into the wall to slow my fall.

When I reached the ground, I took in my surroundings. I found myself in a cathedral-esque hallway composed of smoky black bricks.

I thought I had mastered the manipulation of black smoke, that was naught but arrogance on my part. Whoever had created this building was the true master. I was able to create magical artifacts due to an innate ability granted by one of the strongest entities in existence, unreality. The unnamed builder had no such ability, yet they were able to shape the black smoke into physical form that lasted an untold number of millennia.

Well enough of patting a dead man on the back. Let’s get back to investigating the ever so mysterious hallway.

I barely rolled underneath the stone sword swung at me as I was turning the corner.

It turns out that my new senses were taking a little getting used to. My sixth sense based in unreality had merged with the other five. This meant that I could no longer sense around corners. In return I could sense essences using my other senses. I could see and hear farther than my previous range, follow the equivalent of scent trails, and feel remnants left on surfaces. So, while I did not divine the entity that swung the sword, I heard and smelt them. Not that I could do much of either as the black smoke walls suppress every sense of mine, both past and present.

I turned Murder Weapon into a spear and drove it into where I suspected the core of the revealed golem. Another downside of my new senses. I was fortunate that I was close enough to right to nick the core, I thought center mass when it was at the heart location. The terracotta solider in Han dynasty armor quickly dried up and turned to dust after that.

I smelled another statue about to turn towards me at the next intersection. I immediately activated the unnoticeability ability contained in my mask and wrapped a cloak of shadows around myself. I gauge that the ability will hold up against the conceptual weight of a statue unless they see something attention grabbing.

I let the statue get to the middle point of the hallway before sliding Murder Weapon into its “heart”. This was to avoid another statue seeing it and creating a possible chain reaction.

I spent the next hour sticking to the shadows and mapping out the cathedral. The cathedral was shaped like a wheel with hallways making up the outer diameter and spokes, what I could best describe as cages in between the spokes, and a central room that oozed malice.

The crack that leads to the surface also released the inmates of this prison, emaciated demons. The crimson demons crawled all around the prison fighting the statuesque guards whenever and wherever they met. They also released the other demons as they went.

The only reason the demons did not flood the surface was due to the fact that what I guessed to be the warden created a barrier that anyone could enter, but no one could leave without killing him first.

This created a tricky situation. I could not leave without killing the warden. I could not kill the warden as that would release all the demons into the city. I could not just kill the demons as that would trigger the guards. I could not kill the guards as that would activate a defense mechanism that would feed the slain guard’s power to the warden. The cherry on top of this whole thing was that the warden was succumbing to the greatest enemy of all, time.

The centuries had ravaged all the occupants of this prison with the warden most of all. This prison would have turned into a tomb for everyone in a couple of years, but someone had popped the top off this jar. Now the guards were running on fumes and the warden had to carry the burden of the emergency barrier.

So, my options boiled down to either waiting for the warden to die and fight off the entire prison of demons in front of the exit or killing everything but the warden and take my chances with it. seeing as one option only dooms me, that’s the one I went with.

Being:

Body:

[Nascent Energy Vampire Progenitor]

Soul Tattoos:

[Celestial Weaving]

[Sand: Tier Three]

[Water: Tier Five]

[Faith: Tier One]

[Holy Water: Tier Three]

[Shadow: Tier Five]

[Necromancy: Tier Five]

[Rot: Tier ErRoR]

[Phoenix Fire: Tier Nine]

Special Abilities:

[Empowerment: Tier Nine]

[Emotional Empowerment: Tier One]

[Emotional Manipulation: Tier One]

Current Equipment:

Head:

[The Black Wasp Jackal’s Face]

[Vampire’s Hunger]

Earrings:

[]

Necklace:

[]

Clothes:

[Idle Hands]

Rings:

[The Mentalism Ring]

[Mena’s Book]

[Petrifying Ring]

[Olivia’s Friendship]

[Brash Ring]

Bracelets:

[]

Shoes:

[Comet Kicks]

Armaments:

[Beastly Heart]

[Murder Weapon]

Storage:

[Various Utility Artifacts]

[Various Articles Of Clothing]

[Death Dogtags]

[Leech Muscles]

[Leech Teeth]

[Chimeric Essence]