Vraxious- The Forsaken Lands
Vrax edged forward to peer at the tiny, fragile figure in Red’s outstretched hand. It was a light mottled brown and white with positively soft-looking fur, and there was another almost identical creature nestled behind it. It peered back with large, curious eyes and stretched its tiny arms out, showing off its wing-like flaps of skin.
The Myconid suddenly spoke, scaring the hell out of everyone in the room. “Good job, Red! Now give Vrax the Sugar Gliders and I will send you back to the Whispering Grotto; your gold will be there!”
Red looked incredulously at the myconid before gently tossing the sugar gliders towards Vrax; they both extended small gliding wings and sailed to his chest, grabbing on and immediately trying to nestle into his cloak pocket. Then Red, a lot less gently, winged a booklet with pet care information in Vrax’s general direction.
“I wasn’t here! I thought the dungeon just wanted to do some dark sacrifice bullshit, but this is way worse. If I knew these exotic-ass pets were going to you, I would have fucked right off and not been a part of whatever atrocity is about to occur!” Red said pissily, then stepped back to the center of the teleporter, arms raised up. “Gold, please!” He disappeared in a flash.
Vrax scooped one of the small friendly creatures out of his pocket, and it clung to his hand like he was a ship in the ocean. “By all the gods, Torvald, it’s like an adorable friendly squirrel that glides!” Vrax said, giving it a gentle scratch with a single finger.
“Ha, yeah, for now…” Torvald grumbled.
“Bah, I bet we can still leave you cute...mostly.” Vrax mused out loud, then channeled adapt into it, changing the swirling browns to a forest green. “Welcome to the menagerie, little guy.”
Vrax studied the booklet for a good amount of time and watched the creatures flit about before one got tired and crawled back into his pocket to nap, his eyes locked onto the already slightly adapted one sitting on his knee. Alright, what can I do with this guy...almost certainly make it more magically focused than my previous creations. Ha flying fear squirrel? No, that's a bit basic... Let's start with changing what drives you naturally. The book says you are an omnivore, so that's a good start.
Vrax channeled adapt, focusing on the creature as a whole, shifting it farther towards its predatory tendency: longer, sharper teeth; hands that ended with razor-like nails; and a digestive system meant more for meat. Finally, some changes to how it viewed prey loosened its brain's definition of valid food. Almost immediately it started staring with too much intensity towards the Logarts in the nearby nest, fur bristling slightly. But it didn’t strike yet, instinctually knowing it would still lose.
This is either going to go really well, or we are going to have to burn it before it escapes this room... Vrax reached out with trepidation, petting the creature in his hands once more, this time focusing [Adapt Life] on making it more intelligent. Mana coursed through the little guy; this change was slow and methodical. Vrax knew it was working even without any visual change other than a slow widening of the sugar glider's eyes.
[Mana 117/143]
Its gaze slowly swept around it as if it was seeing the world for the first time, excitedly skittering around in Vrax’s hand before giving the cutest squeak of happiness. Okay...so far so good, and wow, all that barley cost any mana; the system really considers this guy bottom of the barrel as far as power. Let's try giving it some skills…something for misdirection would be great if I'm expecting this guy to be able to survive adventurers. Hypnosis? No...illusions? You can’t kill someone with an illusion unless you get real creative, unless the illusions actually do something…
Vrax excitedly held the sugar glider up. “Holy shit, I hope this works! Torvald, if I pass out, please make sure the Dreadfeast doesn’t eat the little guy!” The sugar glider squeaked at the Dreadfeast, angrily spreading its wings wide.
“Gods Vrax, don’t ruin that poor thing.” Torvald couldn’t hold back his grin at the ridiculous threat display.
Vrax focused on a magic talent and skill working in tandem, imagining the sugar glider ripping the worst memories from its prey and making them real. He channeled adapt with the image of the sugar glider presiding over its foes from above, staring at them with deep, hungry eyes eager to feast upon those who would dare threaten it. It watched haughtily as phantasms of its foes worst nightmares rent them apart below it in the forest.
There was a pause almost like the system governing reality had to check personally on what was happening before mana chunked from Vrax like never before. It wasn’t a steady slow stream like before; it was like he wrote a new line in the laws of this world with the system’s permission and some edits of its own.
Mana [30/143]
[Talent Granted]
[Revelation Of Nightmare]
View the worst fears and memories of any prey that wishes you or your colony harm.
[Passive]
[Skill Granted]
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
[Materialize Fear]
Use memories of foes to create and control phantasms; these phantasms effectiveness depends on the targets mental state, mental defense, and the memory used.
[Mana Cost Variable]
Vrax looked in wonder at the fuzzy little creature in his hands; its eyes now had an uncomfortable shimmer to them, like they were reflecting an unseen hellfire. The sugar glider squeaked at him, happily dancing around on his hand for a moment before looking back toward the logarts; its face kept twitching in such a way Vrax would have sworn it was trying to smile.
“So…Torvald, buddy…would you be willing to test the new monster? Vrax asked cautiously.
“I should have stayed in fucking Hopes End,” Torvald grumbled, standing to his full height, hammer in hand. “wanting me to fight something that cute.” He took off his symbol of Vurune; oddly enough, both the Dreadfeast and the sugar glider didn’t seem to care.
“Huh, wow, both of them like you,” Vrax said, expecting more of a reaction.
“Don’t make this worse. How am I supposed to test it? I’m not going to flatten the cute thing...this is all kinds of fucked up, Vrax.”
“Pretend to eat this one!” Vrax handed him the other sleeping sugar glider. The adapted glider bristled as Torvald took hold of its friend.
“Oh no! Down the hatch!” Torvald opened his mouth wide in a parody of a bite and went to put the sugar glider close to his mouth; he didn’t get that far.
An unholy sputtering hiss leaked from the adapted sugar glider as it rose into the air, eyes now burning with actual spectral green flames. “What? How the hell is it doing that?” Vrax muttered to himself, then noticed what almost looked like slight shadows of a strong breeze filling its wings.
Torvald set the sugar glider down carefully, weapon held in front of himself defensively. “Now what!?”
The ground around Torvalds feet seemed to split apart as something pulled itself into reality from a shadow that wasn’t there a moment before. A shadowed burning man in farmer's garb crawled free, reaching towards Torvald.
“Boy, save the others! Save them!!!” A voice wracked with agony cried out from the man. Torvalds's face darkened in both anger and alarm before the purple fire around the man lashed towards him, burning at his flesh as the melting man stumbled to his feet, lunging to embrace Torvald in the searing inferno.
Torvald swung his hammer in sheer rage, scattering the flaming specter across the ground like a fog of fire. “Not fucking okay, squirrel!!!” Torvald screamed, picking up a nearby rock to heft at the sugar glider, who loomed above, mouth pulled back into a rictus smile, fangs peeking free in evil glee.
The glider ducked down, hiding in Vrax’s pocket, and the cavern went still for a moment before more dark spots blemished the clearing around Torvald; a half dozen sickly, emaciated figures formed of shadow stumbled upward, retching and coughing as they went. “Save us, Torvald! There was medicine for you!” the mocking voices called out.
Torvald laid into them in a blind fury as they grasped at him with deceptively sharp claws of shadow, and each cough left dark blemishes on his skin. Torvald boomed a battle cry and dispelled three in a heaving sideways swing, grabbing another by the skull and screaming in its face before tearing the head free; it scattered in his hand like mist.
“Okay, holy fuck, that’s enough! Put the damn bracelet back on!!” Vrax shouted, and Torvald gathered himself enough to put his Mark of Vurune back on mid-fight. The shadows didn’t abate, and an evil chittering laugh came from Vrax’s pocket.
Vrax rushed past the shadows, grabbing the panicked-looking normal sugar glider and stuffed it in his pocket with its demented sibling.
“Fine, you smart little shit, we get it. No more poking at your friend!” Vrax said soothingly to his cackling pocket. The shadows scattered instantly, and the room that had been slowly darkening over the course of the fight returned to normal.
“That wasn’t fucking okay, squirrel!” Torvald complained.
Vrax flinched. “I’m really sorry about that; that went too far, did it conjure…” Torvald interrupted Vrax.
“Yeah, recurring nightmares I had for years. The first one was that my grandpa had burned to death in that barn fire, and the second was after the summer fever when I was the only kid that survived out of the three of us that caught it…”
Torvald took a few deep breaths, looking at the handprints burned onto his skin and deep scrapes across his arm and torso. “It could have dredged up worse if it really wanted to; I think that was its way of saying, ‘Don’t touch my bro.” Torvald said with odd approval in his voice.
“It’s beautiful…..” The myconid next to them reverently said before exploding in a massive shower of steaming mushroom.
“Ugh...probably worth it to skip the tunnel trek.” Torvald said and poured one of the lesser potions they had generously over his wounds.
“But…” Torvald smiled unkindly at Vrax. “You know the rules; you carried a prank too far. You owe me one.”
“Fuck, yeah, I’m not even going to argue that; it wasn’t a prank, but yeah…” Vrax admitted not looking forward to whatever fucked-off favor Torvald would call in, and these favors neither of them could say no to.
Vrax waited for his mana to regenerate and carefully adapted the second sugar glider to match the first. I still have some wiggle room on mana. Vrax added some finishing touches; first, he made their little faces have some extra muscles so they could be a bit more expressive with their newfound intelligence. Vrax also added some more cosmetic tweaks: larger, cuter eyes and a slightly fluffier pelt that would puff up more impressively when they were mad, exposing the new ethereal green undercoat.
Then he let his mana top off again two times to pour even more intellect into them. Both of them skittered around on his shoulders, making odd faces and excitedly exploring a world that must have seemed so much more to them now. Vrax cautiously used Identify, curious of what he had wrought now, [Nightmare Conductor Tier-1] (lvl 8).
“That’s it. I can’t make any more changes to them even with topped-off mana.” Vrax turned to the looming Myconid patiently waiting nearby. The dungeon door ahead opened, revealing a shadowed hallway coated in what looked like marble with streaks of emerald within it.
“Just step in with them for a moment,” the Dungeon said.
Vrax obliged, awkwardly stepping just inside the threshold. There was a slight wave of mana, and the myconid nodded at him and gestured to the teleporter.
“See you again soon,” Vrax affably said in the general direction of the dungeon, stepping onto the teleporter. Torvald stepped up beside him, and they both suddenly found themselves somewhere else. There was no lead-up, no flash; they were simply suddenly elsewhere, standing on an identical platform on top of a tower overlooking the ruined city near the Grove of Vurune. Vrax could even see the river threading past the ruined windmill less than a league away.
The stone tower they were on sat slightly outside of the city on the other side of the river, surrounded by a high wall, and below it sat a long, ruined barn with only the stone framing still intact.
“Alright, let’s wait out the night up here and venture into the city tomorrow. There were a hell of a lot of Bogarts running around this area, and I can’t think of a much better plentiful food source for a nest of soul renders than those twisted goblin knockoffs.” Vrax said thoughtfully, one hand in his cloak pocket fondly scratching his newest horrors, the other pushing the Dreadfeast's maw away from said pocket.