The Chronicles of a Scalebound Sage

WM [109] The Demons You Know

Bjorn had lost track of the time he had been down in the tunnels. They were strangely vacant of any monsters; the only ones he had ever seen were Sanguin Travelers that presumably brought him down there to begin with. He didn’t find any tunnels that lead directly to the surface but there were miles and miles of underground caverns and he had only mapped out a small chunk of them between dives into the blood maya.

“Am I going to have to be the one to ask why we haven't needed to eat in, well, since I became a part of this trio,” Isin asked mentally. “I have all of Bjorn’s memories now and I don’t remember anything about not needing sustenance.”

“What are you talking about? I ate… I ate. Huh.” Bjorn stopped walking. “Wait, Failsafe what is going on?”

“I don’t know. As far as I know you do still need to eat and drink but your systems are all perfectly alright. No illusions slowly starving us or mind magic making you think you’re okay. Neither would work on me and the fact that Isin noticed means he also isn’t affected.” 

“But we have been down here at least a month right? I don’t even think I have slept. Everytime we leave the maya I just start wandering around the caves until I can dive again.”

“I have a theory.” Isin said. “Higher Plane Energy is a part of a higher realms laws. When we go I feel the maya in my mind too. It isn’t malevolent, it is loving. It wants us to stay and let it in.”

“You think it is rejuvenating us?” Failsafe questioned.

Isin shook his head, “Well, not on purpose maya isn’t alive to make decisions. The voices are likely just manifestations of our own subconscious being influenced by a foreign energy. Like a dopamine or drug. It is us trying to get us to stay, not the maya itself.”

“That makes sense but that could also mean that we are keeping ourselves from reaching the magic crystal as well.” Bjorn said. “Wait, that means we are keeping ourselves from the crystals.”

“Yeah you just repeated yourself,” Isin said.

“Because I understand it now,” Bjorn said as he turned around to head back to the blood maya. “Maya feels benevolent because it lets people do what they desire without feeling the consequences of those actions. It is the ultimate enabler. This entire time I have been trying to shut out the maya. Not just from my core but from my mind.”

“Yeah, because if you don’t we are dead.” Failsafe said.

“I have more than one mind or else I wouldn’t have the buzzkiller himself tagging along,” Bjorn said.

“I didn’t have months to come to terms with what was going on.” Isin said in his defense. “One second I was facing my mortal enemy then the next I was a monster living in a cave thousands of years after the fact. Sorry if I am not mister sunshine.”

“I accept your apology,” Bjorn said flatly. “Do better.”

“Wait, if I am understanding you right you are going to let the maya into one of your heads,” Failsafe said. “That is completely foolish, you are the main mind of this body if you get corrupted…”

“Then I have you and Isin to protect our core.” Bjorn continued. “If things get iffy Isin, cut my heads off and take control of our body. I know that you can since you dragged us out the first time. Your consciousness and mine are separated somehow.”

“If he is incapacitated I think I can control us,” Isin agreed. “It’s crazy but I don’t see another way.”

Bjorn made it to the wall of blood maya. It was as ominous as a pool of demonic energy could be. But if everything went according to plan. This was the last time he was going to have to enter this corrupting demonic soup. Bjorn took a long breath then turned his heads to Isin and Failsafe, the former nodded while the latter looked unsure.

Bjorn activated his magical defences, and the armor and magic both sprang to life, coating him in layers of protections. He then realized that the whole purpose this time was to let the maya into his mind so he relinquished the spell and the armor vanished. Old habits do die hard.

He stepped into the inky blackness, the coalescence of the Infernal Plane’s presence in this world. He could feel the whispers as soon as he passed the threshold. He had to make his purpose clear. He had to know what he wanted and put a singular goal to the forefront of his mind and nothing else. The maya wants what he wants; it wants him to have what he desires.

“Maya is breath.” Bjorn said as he took a deep inhale.

The maya traveled freely into him as if eager to take the opportunity to accept a new child. It entered his body with each inhale and he  carefully moved it around his meridians and out with each exhale. Slowly he imparted his will into the enigmatic energy using the breathing techniques Joha had designed especially for him and his recovery. 

Step. Inhale. Focus. Control. Step. Exhale.

He heard the whispers, felt the call to freedom. It was intoxicating. The maya wanted him as it clawed its way through his mind. He didn’t fight it. He let it enter freely, trusting that Failsafe and Isin would protect his core. He needed now more than anything to push forward and he would not let this stop him. 

***

Isin stood before Nuriel, jaw set, his daughter cradled in his arms. He should have left. Every instinct screamed for him to flee, to protect the small life in his grasp. His legs wouldn’t move no matter how much he tried to rationalize it. There was too much at stake, too many people he had to care for for him to act out of passion.  Still even as he knew all of this his body refused to turn away. Not while that monster still drew breath.

His gaze flicked toward the orb hovering beside Nuriel’s head. Something in him snapped. He didn’t know what came over him, just that everything turned red. His aether surged, latching onto the orb, and in an instant he was consumed. Information flooded him so fast and so impossibly vast blood trickled from his nose. The aether was layered far beyond the complexity of the R-02 Ophanim. Comparing them was like comparing the flicker of a campfire to the burning heart of a star.

This was no device. It was her. The heart of Nuriel’s magic, a forge where divine will sculpted miracles and horrors. He wasn’t seeing technology anymore, he was seeing… soul stuff. Aether in its raw, unshaped divinity. The same primordial essence that gave birth to Angels. 

It was only with that revelation, something inside him clicked. The Angels weren’t gods. They weren’t divine. They were just... people. People with keys to powers they barely understood. Tools too sharp for their own hands.

Isin and his daughter were something else. Not because he was stronger. Compared to Nuriel, he was little more than an insect. However this world didn’t belong to her kind. It belonged to his. To those who could wield mana, not aether, not borrowed divinity from the celestial world, but the true breath of this realm itself.

Here, everything was mana. Everything bent to it. Everything obeyed it. 

Nuriel’s smile faltered as she realized her toy had gone off script. Then she gasped, croaking like something was clawing its way out of her throat. She collapsed, choking as if stabbed. Her hand clutched her stomach, golden ichor pouring from her mouth, eyes, nose and ears and pooling on the ground.

One of her Angel Cores was gone. The connection she had to it was severed before she even realized what happened. A wound not of flesh, but of soul tore away part of her true essence. 

Isin stood still as power surged through him, a storm of mana and aether spiraling outward. Behind him, something formed that spoke to his heritage. An intricate halo, spinning with layered rings of fire and light. It was as luminous as a crown forged from pure will.

He didn’t know what he was doing. He just did it. Instinct guided his hand as he raised the orb, focused on the stunned angel. Rage. Hatred. Loathing. Pain. Those words do little to describe what he felt. The orb fired as if it understood his grief.

A beam of condensed, blinding energy burst forth. Nuriel’s head left her body in a clean, searing arc of light.

Silence.

Then, Isin collapsed to his knees, every ounce of energy spent in a single decisive act. He held Mihr close, the little girl still unaware of the divine-scale battle that had just unfolded around her.

“You fucking ingrate,” hissed Nuriel’s severed head. “You dare touch me? You dare steal from me!”

Isin’s blood ran cold as Nuriel’s body lifted itself off the ground, golden ichor streamed from the stump of her neck. Her arms moved one picking up her own head, cradling it under her arm like a grotesque trophy. The other lifted toward him. He dove to the ground. Aether screamed through the air.

A beam of godly light carved a hole through space itself. Isin didn’t look back. He held Mihr close and he ran. Behind him, the wall and the mountains far beyond were gone. Simply erased as if they never existed at all.

“Ophanim!” Isin roared, sprinting down the spiral staircase.

It responded before he reached the next step. It appeared in a flash of celestial geometry, hovering effortlessly beside him.

“Lord Isin,” the gilded machine intoned. “How may I serve?”

Then the scream came, it wasn’t a sound so much as a force. An inhuman and furious, echoing from everywhere. Ribbons of aether spiraled into the sky like flares from a dying sun. Then the world turned white. Everything vanished in the blinding glare. The floor beneath him evaporated. The air was fire.

A dome of shimmering energy held him, floating in the middle of the radiant void unharmed.

“Detection of hostile entity,” Ophanim announced. “User protected.”

It took Isin a few stunned heartbeats to understand what had just happened. He was standing in the epicenter of a blast designed to kill him. It was a cataclysmic detonation wrought by Nuriel’s wrath. Smoke and dust spiraled around the dome, rising like the breath of the dying planet. Inside the dome he felt nothing. No heat, no pressure, not even the rumble of the destruction outside. It was all eerily quiet beyond the dome of light the Ophanim had erected.

He looked down at Mihr in his arms. She was safe and in fact more than that, she was thriving. Her small frame glowed faintly as she drank in the ambient mana and aether, her body acting like a wellspring made to absorb the chaos around them. She giggled softly, completely unaware of the devastation. 

“How is she still alive,”  Isin muttered. “I cut off her head…”

“The physical body of a Homo Caelestis in this realm functions as a vessel,” the Ophanim replied without pause. “While damage to the vessel may cause temporary dysfunction, it is not fatal. However, forcibly removing a bound Angel Core significantly destabilizes the aetheric integrity of the host.”

It gestured to the orb now floating beside Isin. He was so shocked by everything that he hadn't even realized it was there.

The Ophanim continued, “this Angel Core previously belonged to Site Manager Nuriel. However, the connection has been reassigned. Shall I report this development?”

Isin stared wide-eyed. The Angel Core pulsed with dense, incomprehensible power, like a sun compressed into a sphere of polished metal.  He didn’t have time to think about it. They had to move quickly. 

The smoke outside began to clear, and the full scale of what had happened revealed itself. Nuriel’s palace was gone. In its place, a vast, smoldering crater stretched across the landscape. A quarter of the Site had been wiped off the map. Thousands of people were likely dead in an instant. Debris rained across the facility and the landscape as if it were the eruption of a volcano. 

Then Isin caught a glimmer of light above. Suspended in the air was a radiant sphere of burning white aether, the size of a house. It pulsed ominously, surrounded by hundreds of floating aetheric formulae that spun around it like celestial glyphs in orbit.

“What is that?” Isin asked, his voice tight.

“Angelic Regeneration Failsafe,” the Ophanim replied. “Site Manager Nuriel has entered emergency hibernation.”

“What does that mean?”

“This protocol was established by the Supreme General to prevent the continued loss of Angel operatives. In the event of catastrophic injury, the Failsafe transfers the subject into a sealed stasis sphere for full rejuvenation within a designated safe zone.”

“She can’t leave that thing?” Isin asked.

“The Site Manager will remain in stasis unless a credible threat to her existence is detected, or until her rejuvenation is complete.”

“So, she knew that was going to happen and used that explosion to kill me before she was forced into hybernation?”

“This unit can not ascertain the reasons behind the actions of the Site Manager. Personnel Designation Number 293, Isin, does not have any criminal history or active death warrants. It is unlikely that you were the reason for this detonation.”

Isin didn’t want to correct the android on its assumptions; he didn't know if it would attack him if it knew the truth regardless of his modifications to its programing. Any hardwired rules would require extensive reworking, time and expertise he didn’t have. Best not to provoke the murder machine with the abilities to protect them from a point blank aetheric blast.

“Can you kill her?” he asked, voice low and furious.

“Attacking a Site Manager violates internal protocol,” the Ophanim said. “Nuriel Acavari Ni, Lightbearer of the 33rd Lesser Chorus does not possess a current death warrant.”

Isin gritted his teeth. “Hypothetically, if you engaged her. Could you win?”

“Negative,” the Ophanim responded without hesitation. “This unit is not equipped to engage with an Aetheric entity of Nuriel’s capabilities.”

“Fuck,” Isin hissed, pacing for half a second. “Okay—okay. How long will she be in that regeneration sphere?”

“Error: this unit has been separated from the central site network. Would you like me to reestablish a connection?”

“No, don’t do that. Just give me an estimate, offline.”

“In order for the Angelic Regeneration Failsafe to activate, substantial damage must have been sustained to the aetheric form. If minimum damage thresholds were met, projected rejuvenation time ranges from one to fourteen days.”

Isin’s eyes narrowed. “That’s… a massive gap.”

He turned back toward the floating sphere, watching the runes spin faster now, like clock hands caught in a storm.

“Take us down to the ground,” he ordered. “Away from any of the R-Series Androids. Then return to your post unless I call for you again.”

“As you command, Lord Isin,” the Ophanim replied.

***

The world shifted in an instant and Bjorn found himself alone, submerged in the suffocating dark of the Blood Maya. It clung to him like tar, whispering half-formed words and pressing inward with every breath, seeking his core. He didn’t have time to process the memories; he didn't even know what triggered them. He had to step forward, he had to keep going.

For the briefest moment he heard Isin and Failsafe although their voices were muddled as if they tried to talk to him with his head dunked underwater. He clawed forward, unlike before he didn’t lose the scent of the mana crystal. With every exhale he exerted his will over the maya, with every breath he was dragged closer to the Abyss but he was the one in control.

Or so he thought until he felt something else in the blood maya. Before he could react, his grip on the maya was ripped away. The substance churned violently, turning into a spiraling whirlpool around him. 

Bjorn could see the mana crystal he dug his claws into the ground to keep himself from being flung away. He felt lacerations along his body, stinging pain that hadn’t been there moments before. With a gathering of will he enveloped himself in his armor and magic protection. He pushed against the maya in his body. Aether, mana, primana all battled against the encroaching maya in his core. 

In a final lung he collided with the mana crystal. There was no time to marvel at it. No time to even see it properly. The moment his clawed hand made contact, its power surged into him and just as quickly, it vanished, absorbed into his inventory. 

He turned to leave when the maya went dead still. A creeping feeling of dread overcame Bjorn. He wasn't going to stick around to find out why. He focused aether into his limbs and utilized his new spell. It was an odd feeling to have a spell versus his normal animal magic which worked on instinct. The spell required him to focus magic in the right sequence in his body. The slight delay in activation nearly caused him to fail at the casting. Instead of trying to find a way back to the tunnel he angled himself up and jumped.

Juggernaut Stampede

Primana Cost: Variable

(I) Low cost, 10 Primana. Instantly launch forward in a straight line using Flash Step and light muscle infusion. Grants minor impact resistance and momentum-based damage. (II) Medium cost, 15 Primana. Increases speed and durability; impact damage now knocks back targets and breaks minor defenses. Reinforces muscles and bones during movement. (III) High cost, 20 Primana. Fully saturates the body with primana, turning the caster into a living missile. Crashes through solid obstacles, ignores most knockback, and causes area damage on impact. Bones, muscles, and tendons are reinforced to withstand even high-velocity collisions.

Blood Maya was odd, it churned and felt like a liquid, but swimming in it wasn’t really possible, at least not for Bjorn. It felt more like being in slightly less gravity but the air has the viscosity of oil. Bjorn was able to move through it mainly because of his sharp talons before he could easily grip the ground and push forward.

That was not the case as soon as he lifted off the ground. The spell launched him forward but not to the degree he was hoping. He felt himself being pulled back even as he soared higher and higher. Once the effect of the spell wore off that pull became even greater as he began to sink. 

Desperation surged as he thrashed, reaching for anything to arrest the pull. By sheer luck, his hand struck solid stone. He latched on. A second taloned hand followed. Then his foot and finally his other foot. He clung to the wall, muscles burning as the entire lake of maya spun around him like a draining vortex.

Even the maya that had seeped into his body and mind was being pulled out, wrenched free like venom from a wound.

“Bjorn! Oh, thank the Celestial Planes you came back!” Failsafe’s voice burst into his mind like a warm wind.

“What… what happened?” Bjorn panted. “I couldn’t hear you, but I knew you were talking.”

“You started letting the Maya into our meridians,” Isin said. “I kept us moving, but then… I started seeing the memories too.”

“You were both unconscious for like twenty minutes,” Failsafe added. “I focused everything on keeping the Maya out of our core until you two came back.”

“We’ll deal with that later,” Bjorn said, eyes narrowing. “What’s happening with the Maya now?”

“No clue,” Failsafe said. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“I’ve only seen what you’ve seen,” Isin added. “This is beyond anything in my experience.”

“Weird demon magic is acting weird,” Bjorn muttered. “Got it.”

Without waiting for more theories, he began to climb, hand over hand, foot over foot. He wasn’t sure how long he had been climbing before he finally broke through the top of the maya. Much of the lake had been drained and for the first time in a few weeks he could see the sky. He could also see just how deep underground he really was. He was less than halfway to the bowl-like top. He was practically climbing an inverted mountain.

Then it hit him—an explosion of experience, flooding in from Tanisha’s side like a psychic shockwave. The shock of it all nearly made him lose his grip as his cores struggled to contain the new influx of power. He refocused and continued his climb with significantly less breath.

“Uh, Bjorn. We have a big problems.” Failsafe said.

“Two big problems.” Isin added.

“Three.” Bjorn said.

He had to use his parallel thinking to his limits to figure out what was going on. From his first perspective, with the maya draining, monsters were starting to filter down into the cavern. These were the powerful ones that were near the edge of the lake. The ones he would have only fought one at a time after he made a detailed plan of escape should things go south.

Isin’s report wasn’t any better. The maya wasn’t draining, it was condensing. Folding in on itself, gathering into a single, dense point. Bjorn’s instincts screamed at him. Blood Maya was already a hyper-concentrated form of demonic energy. Whatever it was becoming now? It wasn’t anything good.

Failsafe’s problem was the most confusing despite one of the aforementioned problems being maya suddenly turning itself into a orb of pure demon energy. 

“Bjorn,” Failsafe said, bewildered. “You just jumped twenty-six levels.”

Bjorn blinked. “What? How?”

“I don’t know how. It synced up with that experience burst from Tanisha—”

Before Failsafe could finish, a deluge of emotions slammed into their bond. Relief, rage, joy, despair, exhaustion—months’ worth of feedback all condensed into seconds. It wasn’t like anything he had ever gotten from the bond. It was so concentrated and sped up that it left him momentarily dazed. It was like reliving only the emotions left from someone else’s memory at hyperspeed. Almost imperceptible, but not quite.

Even with his mind split so many different ways at once he was getting close to needing to make a decision. So he made one.

“Failsafe, max out Primana and Primana Regen,” he ordered. “Then split the rest between Vitality Restoration and Constitution. Extra point goes to Constitution.”

“On it,” Failsafe confirmed immediately.

Status Menu

Name: Bjorn Isin Scalebound
Species: Lernaean Hydra
+ Level: 67 < 93

Level Progression: 29%
+ Vitality: 204 + 18 = 222 / 270
+ Restoration: 272 + 18 = 290 / 330
+ Constitution: 150 + 19 = 169 / 217
Strength: 145 / 254
Dexterity: 116 / 300
Stamina: 145 / 183
+ Primana: 155 + 95 = 250 / 250
+ Primana Regeneration:  166 + 110 = 276 / 276  (+235 from bond)

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He immediately activated Shadow Concealment, flattening himself against the jagged cavern wall. The monsters weren’t descending with any sort of strategy they were brawling. Territorial clashes erupted as they crawled down, corrupt mana flaring with every clash of claw and spell. Entire chunks of wall rained down like meteorites.

Bjorn had wanted to wait, to let them pass while he clung to the shadows. However once spells started flying, that plan disintegrated like the slagged stone around him. Corrupted magic scorched the rock, transmuting sections of the cavern into bubbling acid, walls of crystalline spikes, or sharp-edged traps faster than the eye could follow.

The monsters moved at speeds Bjorn had a hard time following. These monsters weren’t entirely mindless either; spells and counterspells rang out with the precision of a magic caster. Bjorn was suddenly very glad he didn’t challenge these monsters  or he would have been very dead.

One bolt of monster magic missed him by inches, carving a molten scar across the wall where he’d just been. Now was not the time to hesitate. Up was certain death. The top of the cavern was becoming a battleground.

Down most of the maya had already been absorbed into the rapidly forming orb. He didn’t know what waited below but at least he understood some of the maya's rules. Better the demons you know than the demons you don’t.

“Down it is,” he muttered to himself, and let go.