Tekkun stepped up to the podium laid out for him. A swirl of ancient emotions surrounded him. He could feel the power of his people converge into this spot all at once. It was overwhelming, it was maddening, it was power.
Though he craved to just give in and lose himself, he knew that the people in the temple required him to stay conscious, to stay sane.
Looking around he saw the people he had known his whole life, protecting him and sheltering him when needed. Feeding him when he was poor, raising him when his parents died, empowering him when he felt lonely.
Caerebar was the centre of it all. The almighty god of their people, the one who showed them that there is power in people, that there is power in those that follow him. He found that compassion and love truly were able to exist in such a world where hellfire and cosmic beings reigned from the sky.
He looked down on the plain walls before him, he laid his eyes on the clean slated flooring and he finally looked into the eyes of those before him. He had to take it all in. It was the last time he was going to see them through those eyes.
Donis was experiencing every emotion and feeling in place of Tekkun, as if he was reliving a memory that wasn't his to control. Donis wanted to weep at the sheer amount of love and sadness coursing through Tekkun. This was the end of the road for him, but it was for a greater cause.
Donis wasn't sure if he could have made the same decision as Tekkun did.
At the apex of maddening emotions, atop the podium, a chorus of voices and musical notes hit Tekkuns mind. The people in the temple had joined in unison to sing in tongues that neither of them understood.
Donis could feel the changes in the air around him. It was slow, the heat rose a little, it felt a little more humid, and the voices were slowly but surely becoming more and more ethereal.
Neither Donis nor Tekkun knew what was actually going on. Tekkun knew that he was supposed to get sacrificed, but he had never seen what was currently going on.
The podium he was on was used to make live sacrifices, a place of supposed holy worship for all of these present. Tekkun, though, had never seen these people here before, he had never seen the current ritual, and he had never seen these effects take place in real life before.
He knew instinctually that this was real magic that was being done in front of him.
'No. No, something's wrong. We're not supposed to be able to do magic here, not yet!' thought Tekkun.
He tried opening his mouth, but he found it shut and skin had grown over it. He was unable to scream, so he tried to flail, but his arms has fused with his torso. He couldn't move his upper body so he tried to run, yet his legs were frozen in place. He looked down and he saw a piece of metal at the base of his foot where it was slowly wrapping itself around him.
His mind went into overdrive. Why was this happening, what was happening, what is going on?!
"Oh Tekkun, oh Tekkun. My most prized. Did you really, honestly believe that you were going to become something greater? As if I'd allow that," spoke the Father, pacing around Tekkun, spreading his fingers out to caress Tekkuns melted body.
"The temple is mine, the Throne of Caerebar will be mine, and with your power, I will come up to Caerebar himself, and tear out his throat and become god. So, sit still there little lamb, for I shall come to reap what is mine in due time," laughed the Father.
Tekkun couldn't believe what he was hearing. The Father, the leader of the priesthood here was plotting against Caerebar the whole time? Wasn't he his most devout follower?
'Then who are those people alongside him?' he thought to himself quickly.
The singing of the people present had slowly gotten more and more intense, bringing more intense changes to the atmosphere inside the temple with it. Their words became harsher, became more broken, they started shifting from Hran, to something else entirely.
Their voices broke, their voices went hoarse, but they never stopped singing. The Father eventually joined in, his voice had brought back the entire chorus from the brink of crumbling, to gaining a new powerful bass. The lights would flicker, the water would tremble and float all around them.
The entire area around the would fluctuate in temperature. The humidity would either shoot through the roof, or become entirely too dry. There was no solace, there was no escape from the heat nor the cold.
Inside Tekkun, Donis began shivering. He felt something click inside of him again. Something that didn't make any sense, nor did it mean anything just yet. He felt some sort of connection to what was going on, but he couldn't make it out.
Tekkun felt a tearing deep inside him that didn't want to close. A rip so powerful it threatened to break him apart from the inside.
The air around the entire group went into standstill. The temperature dropped immensely, instantly causing everyone to break out into a shiver, yet not one of them had stopped their chorus. The Father walked slowly towards Tekkun, beginning a new verse in the chant, entirely alien to Tekkun now. It was no longer Hran, but some other, more powerful language.
"My prized, you have it deep within you, I can see it. I want it. I need it."
The Father pushed him over onto the podium. The melted flesh of Tekkun ended up splattering mildly all over the floors below him. It was grotesque but the Father didn't care, all he could see was the promise of power.
The Father took out a ceremonial looking knife, with runes all over it. A bronze knife with a wavy blade, red and gold streaks on each side of the cutting edges. The runes were etched atop the blade, and not the handle, signifying the need for it to be plunged deeply.
The Father didn't hesitate to fulfil the need of the runes, nor did he ever think otherwise. The blade struck deep, and pierced the lower intestine, right below the belly button. He forced the knife upwards while making eye contact with Tekkun, feeding off of his misery.
The hot knife felt like a thousand searing suns painfully rip the breath out of his lungs. It felt like all of the heat in your body would get sucked out of you from that hole if you weren't careful. The pain was immeasurable, but it didn't stop there either, the Father wasn't finished.
As soon as he got to the ribcage, the Father twisted the ceremonial knife and yanked it out, creating a large wound. He then shoved his hand right under the ribcage, making sure to coat his hand in what Tekkun could see to be a metallic sheen.
The Fathers hand was on his heart.
He could feel his life at the literal mercy of the man he once held so dear. All he could feel was rage. All he could feel was the unending fury at the man before him. The sheer helplessness fuelled the all consuming rage inside Tekkun.
The emotion was so powerful that Donis couldn't even stop himself from being influenced.
Tekkun gave it everything he had, to lash out somehow, to rebel, to fight, to unleash the fury within. He bellowed through his nose, his only breathing hole, until it bled. His teeth gnawed at the skin that had grown over his mouth, and bit right through, producing a roar akin to a wild beast.
His shoulders broke as he tried moving forward with so much force. He wanted to kill, he wanted to end the man in front of him for causing so much pain, so much betrayal, and for so much greed at the cost of his own people, and his god.
Try as he might, his heart was in the hands of the Father, and he quite enjoyed the show.
The bloodied, mangled mess of a man in front of the Father was nothing more than just a pleasure. He allowed him to try, he allowed him to pretend that he could get out through sheer will. He revelled in the pain and suffering of others, and Tekkun was the sweetest grape, the juiciest fruit, he was perfectly ripe.
Yet everything that is enjoyed, loses it's flavour at one point, and for the Father, it was when Tekkun had lost too much blood to continue to struggle. Feeling satisfied, he mashed the heart between his fingers, turning it into a bloody paste.
Tekkuns eyes went lifeless a brief moment after realisation hit him. He was dead. The end.
The room went entirely black as the soul of Tekkun was forcefully ripped out by the chorus of the people there, directed at the Father right in front of him.
Yet no such thing happened. The soul hovered aimlessly above them all, waiting.
The dark room had come to life. The shadows danced. The people had stopped singing, but the voices never ended. There was dozens of the voices, then hundreds, then thousands. It became a powerful cacophony of overwhelming voices all screaming and shouting in a layered unison.
Donis didn't want to believe it. He couldn't believe it.
'This is why the system couldn't be accessed here.'
'It's you again.'