Through a curtain of moss-draped vines, a slender black serpent slid soundlessly into view, emerging from the rich dirt moments earlier and finding itself inside a massive forest, now looking around with unbridled confusion.
Barely thicker than a man's thumb, the snake moved with unnerving grace throughout the forest, going in between the gnarled roots of trees, various skeletal carcasses littered about, and jagged rocks as though its body met no resistance at all from the foliage around it, smoothly altering its movements without wasting a second to transition its movements.
Its fine, dark black scales shimmered in the light provided by the yellow sun hanging above the forest, and a set of small, ink-dark feathers, no more than a handful, decided to protrude from behind its head and by its side, twitching subtly with each flick of its forked tongue.
The forest around it, despite being flush with life in color and density, was eerily silent; that much was easily obvious to even the dullest of minds. No birds flew through and atop the massive branches of the trees about, humming without a care in the world, no insects buzzed about, and no deer, badgers, foxes, or various other larger inhabitants of the forest were in sight.
The quiet felt wrong, unnatural.
The snake coiled around the trunk of a split cedar, lifting its body in a spiral as it ascended a few feet, scanning the area with a slow sway of its head. Its forked tongue flickered, tasting the thick, lingering mana in the air – a faint memory echo that stirred a memory of a child, carefree and wild, scrambling through the forest like a monkey, clambering up a tree, and leaping from branch to branch. It dipped back down without pause, slithering into a dense thicket of tall grass whose blades parted like silk curtains before its approach.
Its movements quickened as it broke through a clearing, weaving through low shrubs, curling beneath the hanging shelf of a mushroom the size of a food cart, and darting through a patch of tall grass.
Then, without any fanfare, as it reached the clearing, the snake's body contracted inward in a flicker of motion. Feathers erupted from scale, spiraling up around its form in a halo of black and violet blur. Its spine snapped upward, folding itself into a tight spiral as two thin wings exploded outward with a crack of displaced air. Scales peeled away and folded into sleek feathers as its snout lengthened and its tail shrank into a needle-thin plume.
Now standing in the same place where the serpent once slithered, a hummingbird launched itself into the air, its wings invisible from the speed at which they moved.
Though this serpent-hummingbird hybrid creature had taken on a fully avian form, remnants of its previous form were still visible: faint tracings of black scales could be seen around its talons and laced along the top of its narrow, spear-like beak, and faintly around its slitted, bright blue eyes.
The hummingbird zipped forward, tracing a precise, erratic path through the tangle of the forest, following the direction of the wind. Its movements were faster than what most could see, even those of Tier Two wouldn't be able to keep track of it – transitioning from one moment dipping beneath a twisted arch of wood, the next darting straight up through a beam of light that speared the canopy.
Minorly petrubed at this, its eyes had transmuted themselves black and glassy, despite its undisturbed focus as it scanned the forest floor and treetops alike, as if searching for something.
The hummingbird darted through the forest, weaving around branches of all sizes, barrel rolling over fallen trunks, and through shafts of light seemingly for the fun of it - without a care going through its mind, as though it had already achieved its goals.
It skimmed over pools of clear blue water scattered about, passed through glades choked with vibrantly green-colored ferns, and shot between towering fungi.
Something called to it, something pulsing just beneath the skin of the soulspace, tugging like gravity towards it.
Minutes passed. Or maybe hours. Time within this forest seemed to be folded strangely here. It was incredibly odd for a–
It found what it was looking for.
At the base of a massive redwood tree that could be seen for miles away from the treeline and whose crown hung overhead the entire forest, and whose roots coiled around themselves like ironically enough, knotted serpents, nestled in a collection of moss and stone, sat a glowing, white orb, the size of a bowling ball, and softly pulsing.
And all around it, it seemed as though the forest bowed inward; even the light seemed to bend itself around it.
The hummingbird froze mid-flight, hovering in place with a low hum as it stared at the core of the Soulspace of the young little Jötunn it invaded.
Then its form began to fracture and shift.
Wings vanished in a blur. Feathers peeled away and lifted like smoke. Bone folded and snapped, reshaping itself with the crunch of wet stone. Limbs stretched downward, legs forming, arms splitting from a still-narrow torso.
Where once the bird hovered, a figure now stood barefoot in the moss, taking its place – a humanoid, tall and wiry, with long black-green feathers woven between strands of damp, ink-dark hair. Thin black scales climbed up the bridge of his nose, coiled along his forearms like tattoos, and framed his feet like armor. His eyes, sharp, slitted, and blue, remained unchanged.
He stood still for a moment, chest rising slowly as if savoring the air and the brief touches of memory echoes gracing his mind. Then he stepped forward, barefoot on the moss, approaching the orb with reverent calm.
"This soulspace…" he muttered, voice low, almost surprised. It came out rough and in perfect Nahuatl. "Far too large for a Tier One and a Level 10 at that. Not even one specialized or having any training at all in the soul or mind arts… How curious."
He crouched beside the orb, his hand hovering just above its glowing surface, fingertips twitching with the urge to make contact. The glow bathed his scaled fingers in soft white light, the veins beneath his skin pulsing faintly in response as he was mere moments away from claiming the body as his own.
"A body like this," he said, almost to himself. "Strong base, good magical potential, and its base affinity tied in flame... It must truly be the System providing me with a reward for my work. Truly an excellent base to use as a body."
His head tilted slightly, expression unreadable. Then a faint grin broke across his face, barely there. "And the middle name… even that leans toward flame."
His hand began to lower.
Then he stopped.
All at once, the calm, serene atmosphere of the forest around him changed, and it was immediately replaced with an overwhelming rush of bloodlust that locked him in place, preventing him from moving.
The avian-serpentine-humanoid 's fingers, still trembling above the glowing orb, stiffened mid-reach, as his slitted eyes flicked upward.
An enormous head, draped in glistening, white scales, had appeared from the canopy without a single sound. A monstrous serpent, larger than any natural thing had a right to be, its head alone the size of three buildings stacked atop one another.
The intruder's breath caught. His voice, when it came, was high and fraying at the edges, the composed arrogance in him cracking like dry bark.
"Y-You can't – how – I–"
But he was never able to finish his sentence as, within the blink of an eye, no, faster than that, he was gone.
He and the entire forest behind him, for miles and miles away, seemingly vanished out of existence. The only thing untouched was the white glowing orb, still resting gently at the base of the redwood. But as seemingly just as quickly as it vanished, the forest came back, looking just the same as it did prior to vanishing.
In the empty air where the avian-serpentine-humanoid once stood, a single wisp of blood-colored whisp lingered in his place.
Then the giant serpent, still unmoving, head lowered just slightly, spoke.
Its voice was like old stone breaking open, slow, heavy, and bitter.
"…It seems that I've lost this bet."
It stared at the glowing white orb, its massive pupils narrowing further.
"As Mattias is absent, I suppose I can give a reward to his son in his stead…" The voice lowered to a rasp; however, to anyone else, it sounded like a mountain being torn and shredded. "Albeit… only a minuscule fraction of it. Wouldn't want to strain the boy's soul more than it already has been."
The blood-colored whisp pulsed before a bit of it, smaller than a grain of sand, splintered off it, atom-sized in truth, and drifted toward the glowing orb. It passed through the light's surface without resistance, vanishing inside with no sound at all.
A moment passed.
Then the forest returned, as if it had never been disturbed. Wind rustled softly through the ferns. The golden sunlight spilled down through the branches again. Nothing stirred near the orb now, save for the faintest, almost imperceptible glow – just a hair brighter than before.
And the massive serpent was gone, along with the rest of the blood-colored whisp.
***
Deacon let out a choked gasp that cut through the air as his body jolted upright, chest heaving as if he'd broken through the surface of deep water. Cold sweat clung to his brow. His eyes immediately went to his left hand. Did he become a…? Was Sam–?
"Deacon!" Esmerelda's voice was sharp with relief, cutting through the low echo of the vast chamber around them. She dropped to a knee beside him, her hands already moving to check his pulse, his pupils, his breathing.
Sam was immediately by his side, not a second later, looking as though he'd seen a ghost. "Holy fuck," he muttered.
Deacon turned his head, wincing at the stiffness in his neck.
Deacon blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of where he was and what had just happened. He and Sam now stood on a ten-foot-tall circular stone platform suspended above what appeared, at first glance, to be a lake of blood. It was a far cry from the torture-prison chamber they'd been trapped in before he lost consciousness. But that didn't make any sense; they couldn't leave the temple without retrieving the sap needed to remove the slave bindings from their wrists.
Down below, walking through the shin-high blood like it was nothing more than a garden puddle, were Bonehead and Jass, and deep in conversation with a third figure who immediately grabbed Deacon's attention for not being someone he'd recognized.
A man, tall and broad-shouldered, with two great wings of radiant white sprouting from his back. He wore a deep grey coat cinched at the waist, a wand holstered at his side like a revolver, and his fingers were heavy with rings that shimmered subtly even in the dim chamber light.
The man said something to Bonehead, nodded toward the platform.
Then all three looked up.
And Deacon, still taking in deep and long breaths, found himself pinned beneath ten eyes.
"Welcome back to the land of the living," Sam muttered, before bringing up his left arm that had regrown with no signs of any scales growing atop it.
Esmerelda still hovered close, her expression tense. "You were out for hours, and no matter what we did, we couldn't get you to wake up after you and Sam suddenly teleported into this room and almost drowned in the blood. Are you okay?"
Deacon remained quiet for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts, before grimacing and turning his head to the side, where he spat out a wad of congealed blood and wiped his face with the back of his right hand. "Ugh, fuck me, does anyone have any toothpaste? And some anti-disease potions?"