Rise of the Godking

The voice was that of a woman, soft and melodious and pleasant to the ears, almost, if not for a strong hint of arrogance that coated all of it. Whatever was holding Daneel was doing such a good job that he couldn't even move his head, and even though he tried to look in the direction of where it had come from with his eyes, all he succeeded in doing was that he looked like a paralyzed man trying to search for a burglar in his house.

[Host is held by a spell that uses air. The air has been compressed all around host. Spell recorded and ready to be used. Crystal usage: low.]

He didn't know what to feel when he heard the system's message, but it was a good sign, at least, that it was ready to copy and use every spell that it saw. Of course, he had been aware of this capability since long ago, and he had played with the idea of somehow coaxing the elf into using spells that he could use so that he could record them, but because he had found no way to make it happen without seeming extremely suspicious, he had let go of the idea.

Now, he regretted doing that. At the moment, the only useful spell he could think of was the fireball that he had discovered, himself. It had only utilized the concept of bringing together particles that belonged to the same element to give rise to what they represented, and even that first time, when he had cast it, he had known that it was crude, using much more energy than it should have. In his later study of the magic system, he had seen that just like the system had said, all the patterns that he had learned on Angaria were useless here, and he needed to learn new ones if he wanted to regain the mantle of a great mage that he had once donned.

Even the system had thrown up its hands and given up trying to adapt the spells from there to be used here, as the two places were just two different. It was steadily building the base slowly, with everything that it saw…but it was definitely still far away from contending with anyone who had even a tiny bit of proper training.

The spell caster finally walked in front of Daneel a few moments later. Her steps echoed in the empty library as she neared him, and the first thing he detected was a bitter perfume that almost stank, coming off of her in waves and waves. As soon as she entered his vision, he studied her thoroughly, hoping that he could find something to use…but alas, there was nothing of the sort to be gleaned.

She was wearing a loose, elaborate dress made of silk, painted with patterns of creatures he couldn't recognize swimming and flying throughout the length of the piece. Her face had heavy make-up on, emphasizing her cheekbones and sharpening her weak chin. She wasn't unpleasant to look at, at all, but there was a sort of…tightness to her, that made it seem as if she was a spring wound up so tightly that she would soon escape her confines, and destroy everything around her.

She stepped forward and made her lips take the shape of a 'O'. She looked like she was about to blow air at his face, but in fact, air wasn't what left her mouth.

With his elementary vision, he could see it. It was a wave of particles so complicated that he couldn't possibly make sense of them in the brief amount of time that he had. They drifted towards his head, burrowing into his ears and nose, and as soon as they reached his brain, they went to the physical part of him that dealt with memories.

Suddenly, new ones popped into existence in the recesses of his mind. They weren't very perfect; they had an artificial quality to them, as if they were something he had dreamed, but despite that negative aspect, the horrific scenes that they showed did not lose any of the terrifying effect that they might have inspired in anyone normal.

All of them were from the point of view of someone being tortured. And in all of them, the one doing the torturing was the woman in front of him, laughing gleefully in many of the memories but also cursing with anger in a few where she dealt the most pain. Over half of the men and women that she used her tools on were innocent. He gathered that they had been picked up out of the street whenever she was in a bad mood, and in many ways, she reminded him of the person the original inhabitant of his body had been.

This woman went above and beyond in her hobby, though. She had created her own private set of tools she used to scrape off skin, play with eyeballs, scoop out flesh or even in some cases, replace bones with maggots that crawled inside one's body. Each memory was more horrifying than the last, and as he went through them, Daneel knew immediately that anyone who wasn't as strong in their mind as he would break, right away, and babble anything and everything that she wished to know in the hope that what they were seeing would not happen to them.

"If you're wondering…they're all real. I extracted the memories after they died. The brain decays far too quickly after death, and that's why they're not very clear…but I think they serve their purpose. Well? Who are you?"

He contemplated, for a moment, about what he was supposed to do. There was no real question to it, though; if he didn't act as if he was affected by her move, it would raise too many questions, and because he didn't trust himself at the moment to act sufficiently broken, he tasked the system with putting on the appearance of someone ready to sell out even their parents if it meant that they could get away.

As it controlled his face to look beaten, scared and terrified, a certain idea came to him.

"System, I'll tell you what to say."

[Affirmative.]

Tears appeared in his eyes, and snot rolled down his nose as he cried where he stood. The woman smiled as if she had been expecting it, and even enjoyed the moment, relishing in his pain. Then, she repeated the question, and Daneel cried, "My name is Micheal! Please don't hurt me! I was sent by the rebels to kill the king! I was the only one who fit the clothes of the soldier…so they chose me! The plan was simple! I would go inside using the letter! There was supposed to be no one else! You were not supposed to be here! Please don't cut me like in those memories! Please don't burn me! Please! You won't do it! You can't do it! Please!"

She frowned and paused before asking her next question.

"Who are the rebels? Why are they doing this?"

"No! Keep those knives away! Keep the fire away, it burns! No! NO!"

He began to scream, then, the very image of someone at the end of their sanity. Inside, of course, he was watching and hoping that his little ploy would work out…and when it did, he almost felt like jumping with joy despite the pain.

Conjuring a blade using air, once again, and a hint of water which was curious as he would never have thought that it would have been required for such a spell, she cut a long gash down his stomach.

"I'll talk! Don't cut me! They're from the Mainland from—oh, it burns!"

She leaned forward expectantly as he said that word, and once again, she fell into his trap.

A fireball came to life in front of the same wound, and the pain made Daneel suck in a sharp breath, but if he was the one controlling his face, he would have grinned.

Everything was in place. But what was he to do with her?

He could try knocking her out, but right away, he saw the foolishness in that decision. She would know that he could use magic, and she would definitely be interested in hunting him down. She had even seen his real face, so it would be simple to search all the islands while asking about his features…so, there was only one real answer.

She needed to die.

He might have hesitated if she hadn't used that move just now. From just a small portion of what he had seen her do, he knew perfectly well that she deserved what was coming for her, so without further ado…Daneel deployed his plan.

"It's the elves! They commanded it! They're going to make another Empire!"

He chose the most outlandish statement possible, and hearing it, the woman blinked with confusion.

"What? That's just…"

Her eyes were still on him. Sending a quick command to the system to make sure that it was ready, he took back control of his features…and winked, before spitting on her face.

She looked stunned, for a moment, but then, anger flooded through her face. With a snarl, she prepared to end him, and in that exact moment when she put all her concentration into casting her spell… Daneel gave the command.

"Do it."

[Spell casting commencing. Burning energy. Utilizing Mageroot to draw and split elementary particles. Combining particles. Spellcasting complete.]

It all happened too quickly for anyone to react. A burning blade behind her neck, and before she could even glance down at it with surprise, it hacked forward.

He had been right to be cautious: there was some sort of defensive charm on her body, but the blade cut through it in just a moment. The sick smell of burning flesh filled the room, and her headless body fell to the floor, twitching.