Born a Monster

Chapter 26

Large Shrines

“Let’s visit the large shrine sites of the island.” Madonna said.

“The temples?” I asked

She scoffed. “No, I’ve seen temples. These, I am led to understand, are merely large buildings with shrines inside.”

“You probably should, Rhishi. Pick me up a new book while you’re out.” Kismet was looking better, if not quite well.

.....

“Trashy romance?” I asked.

“Mystical elements. Genie, if you can find one.”

I thumped my chest with my fist.

“What kind of pledge is that?” Madonna asked.

“One I learned from the centaurs, although the Uruk peoples also use it. The literal meaning of the gesture is ‘my heart is strong’.”

“Something that Rhishi and I like doing.” Kismet said.

“Should I be ready to make silly gestures?”

“I won’t require it, but neither am I going to forbid it. Decide for yourself if it suits who you are.”

“Only a fool reveals their true self.”

“As someone without the ability to inhabit the bodies of others, I can only be who I am.”

“No.” she said, “You pretend at being some powerless child, a novice at many things. But I have seen you do things beyond your system. Watch your own habits on the streets as we walk. You are more diligent than your system alone would make you.”

“Ugh.” I said. “Why would anyone live with their senses on autopilot like that?”

“But you could, if you wanted, just let your System and your map guide us?”

“I suppose. I normally only let it do that while automatically foraging, or to avoid potentially hostile animals.”

“Avoid? As though you need to.”

“Why seek out violence?” I asked. “Experience has taught me the world offers enough.”

“Darling. You would EXCEL at violence. With a little extra power, such as I could teach you to nurture, you could conquer this entire island chain.”

“I don’t need to conquer it, I just need to get a portion of the resources and goods here to the homeland. Besides, how long could I really hold here, if one of the nations sent a portion of their national army?”

“Rurg. Kismet is right, you are STUPID! How can you be thinking that small? Is your divisor over twenty?”

“I assure you, it is over twenty.”

“You should be looking for things that offer around thirty experience. You should be toppling nations, not working for them!”

“If it helps any, I did start a religious schism in a theocracy, once.”

“Did you? Do tell.”

I told that story, but did not complete it before we got to a shrine of Cernunnos, some manner of horned nature god.

Madonna paused at the threshold and sniffed before entering. I smelled nothing stronger than incense, sweat, and someone’s poor attempt to wash love juices out of one of the rugs. From the state of the shrine building, there was no priestess in residence, but someone came every day or so to clean the place up.

“Tell me,” she asked, “what power do you sense here?”

I shrugged. “None.”

“You aren’t even trying.”

I locked down on my taint, and attempted to call my Mystic Sight. It failed, of course. I needed to increase my focus, or reduce my taint level... or maybe find some way to just quiet it.

#

“You’re fighting your taint instead of embracing it.”

“Everything I’ve learned is that it is the physical manifestation of chaos.”

“And? Before the creation, everything was chaos and void. Why should we daemon-kin desire anything other than a return to how things were?”

“Because it would end mortal life as we know it?”

She snorted. “MORTAL life, not all life. Don’t you crush spiders when you find them in your residence?”

“Were there houses in the void before creation?” I asked.

She snapped her fingers in rapid succession. “Hey! Wife speaking to you. Focus.”

She extended her hands to encompass the shrine. “Now, what power do you feel?”

“You tell me what power I should feel here.”

“No. This should be easy for you.”

“Harmony of nature, hear my voice, please grant my request. Show me this area through the eyes of nature...”

The taint within me SURGED. Not enough to break free, but enough that I had to stop invoking my Commune With Nature.

“See? You could have done that. If taint bothered you so much, you could have taken a spiritual dump here and gotten rid of some of it.”

“Reducing my power?” I asked.

“For a time. Taint grows as it is used, empowered by the chaos that is both around and within the pearlescent order of the universe. It can’t be destroyed any more than chaos itself can be destroyed.”

“What is your point?”

“My point is you are looking at this as a limitation, rather than an opportunity. Among the Eldritch and Occult classes, which one are you closest to gaining?”

“I seem to be some two thirds of the way toward Lifeshaper.”

“An excellent choice. How could you use that class without changing the natural order to fit with your own desires? It is, like most classes, focused on doing something. On changing something. On creating ... chaos.”

“An over-simplification.” I said.

“But not an untruth. To shape a new life form, you must needs un-shape an existing one.”

“And how do you explain things like homunculi?”

“Splitting off a piece of your own soul to imbue life into an alchemical creation? Necromancy, using your own life force rather than the grave-power to manipulate puppets of alchemy rather than flesh.”

“Oh? And what do you consider the most powerful magic? Elemental fire?”

“Of course not! Diabolism, the calling and control of demons and devils. Eldritch magic. I can teach you.”

“You seem eager to teach me, for someone who swears vengeance upon me at least once a week.”

“And why should I not? What is the greatest vengeance you can wreak upon someone? Is it to torture and torment them? To leave them broken and bloodied? To watch as their very soul is torn apart and disperses? I say it is none of these, but rather to let your enemy do that to themselves.”

“Ah, and thus you are Darksoul Madonna.”

She sighed. “At last, you understand.”

#

We visited other temples that day, speaking of various classes that were just horrid to practice, all of which she was eager to teach me.

It was a nice contrast, the comfort of divine houses she could not enter, and the sheer horror of things she wanted me to do, some of them to her.

Daemons, the ancestral beings to both demons and devils, were just not right in the head. But they consider us insane, too, when they bother to think about us at all.

“Honestly, the titans were before the gods, and thus closer to the primal chaos. You really should be on our side of the First Dispute.”

“And yet, being raised by mortal creatures, I understand their viewpoint on this issue as well.”

She snorted. “You may as well be a mortal creature, yourself.”

“I consider myself a mortal creature. I am quite capable of dying, though I strive not to.”

“Why bother? Death will claim us all in the end, including itself.”

“I notice you aren’t running around, stabbing yourself with sharp knives.”

“Again, why bother? I will die when I die. It may be soon, it may be far off into the future. But eventually, I will die. Such is the fate of all things that live.”

“And the gods? They will die, also?”

She shrugged. “When the fabric of order is unwoven, who can say that any of us survive? It’s not something that’s going to happen in the near future, unless...”

.....

“Unless?”

“It’s not something to concern yourself with, yet. You’ll need stronger companions, or to strengthen the ones you currently have.”

“Including you?”

She smiled, licked her upper lip. “I’ve not said no to increasing my powers before.”

“And how would you do that?”

“In the short term? I’d want a cutlass and a crossbow.”

“I thought the very fires of hell served you.”

“Exactly. I have enough of magical power. It’s time to strengthen my physical vessel. And that only happens through physical exertion.”

“You mean exercise.”

“I mean violently killing things. Preferably sentient things, or creatures of power. Have you noticed that your fatigue meters are so much larger than your mana pools? Consider the destruction you can unleash, if only you could empower your abilities the way you currently imbue your food with extra energy.”

“It is a nice dream.” I said. “If it were possible, why are people not already doing it?”

She turned her head and spat. “And there is that tiny mindedness again. You are walking along the streets, when you should be walking among the constellations. You speak to people when you should be commanding them. You... You could be so much more.”

“Someday.” I said. “For now, let’s focus on the current plan of action.”

She threw up her hands in resignation. “Plans! You should be bending reality to suit your will, master.”

“But I am the master, and we shall do things as I decide.”

“For now.” She threatened.

#