Episode 43: Day 7 / Season Cycle 7

Seneschal couldn’t believe what the young master had managed to achieve in such a short time. He was proud to see the rapid rise of a member of the royal family, as none but his father had been loved by the CityNation of Maelstrom for as long as Seneschal could remember. Simultaneously, he worried that the young man didn’t know how much of a target his driven team members painted on their own backs.

“I will do my best to watch over them in your absence, my lord, I hope for your safe return.” All around the demon were black flames. The sloppily raided Augustine base had too much proof left behind for Seneschal to be comfortable.

“Looks like I am already needed elsewhere,” said the demon, before he vanished and the street was left ablaze. The only thing left of the small Augustine gang’s hideout, ash, and a large hole for the ashes to fill.

…

Arson lost count of the things the Omen boy practiced on him, he told him that his name was Dare. He mentioned having a large family, as well as the many other details he mentioned because Arson would die there and his knowledge of Dare’s family would never affect anyone.

He didn’t know just how much peace the knowledge about the young man's family truly gave Arson to push forward. Not for revenge or a lust to get back at anyone connected to the man who tortured him, no, but to one day to return to his own family.

Arson dangled from chains and Dare sang to himself as he continued to slice Arson’s torso into flesh as thin as sheets of paper. Normally Arson would heal through this and not be bothered by any of what was being done to him, only he hadn’t healed normally for days now, and the only time he was given the temporary comfort of the lack of pain he was used to, were the moments Dare healed him to start over.

“So why not do as Symphony has done and leave, do as you want with your own power,” asked Arson after he managed to gather enough strength to speak. He spoke rarely as the pain offered very few moments for him to collect his thoughts, but was glad that Dare continued to answer all his inquiries without a seeming end or limit to what he was comfortable to share.

“Hmmm,” said Dare. He hummed as he thought but spoke quickly as if the answer was a simple one to him to give.

“Things such as City building are for people like yourself, and Symphony. I am not thrilled by political finesse, and power games, physical nor mental, as an Agent, I’d be able to do many things that will have a positive effect on reality, either in the short term or long term, my actions will make great change,” said the young man.

Arson digested the answer. Days passed and he thought about their previous discussions.

How the force Dare was a part of made all who joined do everything they were weak at, until it was no longer a weakness. Dare, though strangely talented at harming people had no wanted to. Thus he was trained in the delicate art of torture.

An art form Dare proclaimed to be the worst tool the Maiden has ever created when used incorrectly, as too much fear will make any who face it lie to survive if they see an opportunity to live.

He’s 21 and has done things I could only imagine, why do you believe I could build cities,” croaked Arson in a barely audible voice. Dare looked up at him, with an old fashion rotating saw inches from his exposed rib cage and laughed, in surprise at the question.

“You may be unaware of this, but as you have told me that you are in a trial of runes, I am in a trial of discipline and drive,” said Dare. Arson gave a shaky nod, as Dare had mentioned similar things prior.

“Well, I am being forced to do this to an individual that I will never know if they were innocent or guilty. Of course, all the Agents I asked about the matter told me all teleported here were the worst creation had to offer, but who knows where the truth is. Are you on a pilgrimage of knowledge, or are you what the Agents claim all Omni to be,” said Dare. Arson still managed to laugh, which still seemed to bother Dare. Arson had smiled or laughed with every opinion given about the Omni throughout the torture, as his own representation and Dare’s was far different.

“You laugh, but you don’t know what they say your people have done, Arson. To be honest, if you were a part of the smallest bit of what I have heard, I’d gladly be the one to finish you off, but if you want to know why I said you are like Symphony, it's the look in your eyes, like you could affect how destiny determines what is to happen by force and will alone.” Dare returned to what he did for only a moment, but then Arson spoke up, and more clearly than he had since the beginning of his stay in the dungeon.

“So if I die, you become an Agent then, right?” The question made Dare look up into Arson’s eyes, only to be shocked him in a way that he would remember for the rest of his life.

Where his eyes had grown sunken and small over the days of torture, they once again spun like a red sky filled with stars.

“What,” was all Dare managed to say before Arson’s body began to slowly close itself right before Dare’s eyes.

“I told you Dare, I am on a runic trial to learn the ways of runes and the language of magic,” said Arson as a few of his ribs were twisted forcibly back into place by mana, and Arson once again increased regeneration. Dare’s eyes went wide and he almost was able to take a step backward, but was stopped completely by the flood of power that entered the room.

“How long have I been here? It took me longer to find out what runes to use to reverse the flow of these chains than I thought it would,” asked Arson as he seemed to visibly gain weight in front of Dare over a handful of breaths.

Dare was now one of the most talented pain artist in all of Ascension due to Arson. The young man before him had survived a book of 1000 tortures, and managed to maintain an unyielding smile even as Dare returned to page one and began from the beginning.

Dare hadn’t believed anyone could be as resilient as his own brother, but now after this encounter, he no longer believed his brother to be one of a kind.

“Oh, yeah I forgot, some people can’t operate underneath the pressure of so much mana,” said Arson as he slowed the draw of power on the chains. Dare was able to take a deep breath and move, but felt that could change in an instant.

“What do you plan to do now?” started Dare with simultaneous gasps for air.

“Even if you manage to get free of those chains, you will never make it free of this place, this may be one of the most secure planets in our realm,” finished Dare. Arson shrugged.

“Do I really need to leave? I have a feeling that the thing I am looking for is most likely in this room, or nearby, maybe even on your person, who knows, but I am not going to rush, I have done that before, it comes with too many mistakes,” said Arson while he looked around at the changes he’d missed in the room over time.

“What makes you so sure you could get free of the chains,” asked Dare. The question purely out of interest, one born from the natural curiosity of a scholar's mind.

However, the response given at first was silence. A silence so long and deep that Dare began to wonder if Arson had lied.

“I could have escaped the entire time, but I know it will be a one time maneuver, as of now I am truly no threat, so I believe I will keep those methods to myself, as once seen I will probably be very easily worked around, and as I’ve said before, I don’t believe I will have to leave this room to escape this place,” said Arson.

“I can understand that to a certain degree I suppose, but why not leave at the first opportunity, seek out whatever it is that you are here for,” asked Dare.

“It may come to that eventually, but that just all depends on how long I have been here,” prompted Arson once more.

“I don’t know exactly, maybe a little over half a season cycle, I put such things aside once I realized you weren’t going to succumb easily.”

“I see, well that is unfortunate, but still, I cannot run from opportunity, what is the purpose of all this? Are you really a student of torture? I can’t imagine how horrible a place must be to have such a thing as a part of the curriculum,” asked Arson.

“There is a lot more to it than that,” said Dare.

“We also test medicines, vaccines, chemical enhancements, and test the biologies of our more alien foes, many things are done by Agents,” said Dare. A little less convinced that Arson could leave with the longer their conversation became.

"Hmm, have you found anything interesting by testing my body?”

“Of course, many things, your cells are amazing, they seem to absorb any and everything and turn what’s gained into mana your body uses to rebuild itself or power functions I have no idea as to what they are actually for."

“Not that I like being an experiment, but that is some good information to have, but I noticed that we are going back through the tortures book, was that like a base guide for you that you need to perfect through practice, or were there more things that you had planned? I’ll be honest, I could predict most of what you were going to do next by the end of the last book,” said Arson with a laugh. Dare glanced over his shoulder at the door. The thought of how mad the boy in front of him sounded, became more and more frequent, and he worried if he’d be able to escape if he wanted to.

“No, well yes, it is what I am supposed to practice, but there are far more advanced things that I would like to be doing,” said Dare. Arson nodded and so the real tortures began.

Dare didn’t know how Arson managed to convince him to continue the process in the end, but as the days passed, Dare noticed something. Well more and more things as he tested Arson.

Dare may have made a mistake. Arson allowed for the mana to leave his body through the use of the chains so that Dare could begin his work once more. A work that seemed far more difficult than it had been the first time.

His skin was harder to cut. He’d never been able to scar Arson, even when he seemed to be deprived of mana completely, but his open torso indicated a rapid improvement that Dare had never seen before.

It had taken him days to open his rib cage, due to a second layer of bones that now crossed underneath Arson’s ribs. The new bones didn’t change his physique or external features in anyway, but now added an additional fortification that a normal bone structure didn’t have; his heart almost completely framed by bone.

Dare, studied and lost himself. Though he knew that what he’d done could be bad, he couldn’t stop.

Elements that caused rashes, grew ineffective. Poisons were broken down by blood. Magical elements absorbed by his bones in a breath.

He realized his second mistake was slightly increasing the dosages, or amounts of power. He maybe should have started with everything at a maximum and would have seen different effects, but instead, Arson’s body grew stronger.

“What’s wrong,” asked Arson. Dare had stopped in the middle of what he was doing and stared directly up at Arson utter shock on his face. Arson was forced to look over his shoulder at the young man, and only terror could be seen there. He’d long stopped telling Arson what he was doing, as he felt it gave him time to mentally prepare against what was to come, even if it was but a moment away from reality.

Two things had occurred. The first was that Dare had removed a section of Arson’s spine and experimented on the bone.

The spine had been tested against a blood mixture called Mythical. The mixture of blood was the most poisonous thing Dare knew of, as it was a mixture of the most rare and mythical beast bloods. A mixture strong enough to dissolve planet core stones.

Only the smallest sliver survived the process and Dare believed that the result of his experiment was already a lost cause and would end in a inconclusive development. Instead the spine grew back.

The new material that replaced what had been there was incomparable to what had been there before. The bone of that section of spine shimmered like translucent diamond. Once it reconnected to the other sections of spine, a slow conversion began. It would take many season cycles to transform his entire skeletal structure, but that was only if the rate didn’t increase over time.

Dare’s second issue was the extra bones that grew down Arson’s back. He’d never seen anyone with avian like bones beside their spine, but for the first time in his life, he witnessed the beginning’s of wings as Arson grew even more bones beneath the skin of his back.

The appendages were small for now and grew beneath the skin, but Dare didn’t know for how long that stage of the wings growth would persist. Especially because the wings had begun to grow from the section of spine that Dare had removed and unintentionally refined and restored. This made him wonder if he’d triggered some sort of growth process accidentally when he forced Arson’s body into overdrive, as even the wings bones were the same refined quality as the new spinal material.

Everything changed so rapidly that Dare was finally overcome with the potential monster he could be the creator of. Arson smiled down at the frozen Dare, and shook his head.

“Guess you figured me out. What was it?” Asked Arson.

“I force fed you Mythical, Arson. Only my Godling brother survived that, and he was sick for season cycles afterward, you had a small seizure and made a full recovery in a few days, I don’t know that I have anything that could affect you anymore,” said Dare as he reflexively pulled out a pocket watch, with a rune on the back, that glimmered golden and made Arson’s smile broaden.

“I have failed my entrance exam, participant Dare Omen forfeits his attempt at Agency, and will allow whatever assigned position the family needs to be given immediately,” said Dare. He knew if he didn’t get the words out he never would. Arson stared at the back of his Artifact and chuckled before he shocked Dare further and thanked him.

“You know at first I thought this would be the worst experience of my life, but thank you Dare, for it will be far harder for any to hurt me as easily as I once could have been.” Arson could hear the turbine sound grow in the back of his mind and before Dare knew what happened, Arson was gone. The only thing left in the room, was his shirt and the blood that stained its cloth.

Dare felt cold run down his torso at the sound of the empty chains as they clattered against each other, now empty.

“What have I done…?”