"Ugh." I turned my gaze upward to the next set of vines and felt only despair. A kilometers tall tower and the only stairs led below ground.
Only a sadist would think of such a thing.
Half-orc or not, I was fucking sore from this endless training, and healing multiple times a day was even more exhausting. Climbing a bloody vine was the last thing I wanted to do. But… one more floor. All I needed to traverse was one more floor. And I would have it at last.
Though… myself, told me to come here. I would've gone regardless. Considering I had nowhere else to go. Everyone had a place. Besides the Sorcerers and Warlocks of course. But even then, the only other Sorcerer in the tower found somewhere to go. The library. Where the highly overlooked school of Wizardry stood.
I knew not of what Amun knew of the schools and nor did I care. I was a half-orc. The only things I could manipulate were seaweed and the mana within or just around me along with a twinge of the elements.
Magic was far too out of reach for one such as I.
Or so I thought.
But that realization took some time. Only a few days. Days spent in a place the light of the sun had never seen. I was sent deep below ground. Further, even, than the lake bed, where mostly zombies or skeletons and a few shadows worked tirelessly on a subterranean city that contained only warehouses and factories.
It was an… enlightening experience, seeing firsthand that Amun's words were no mere boast. His knowledge of technology was as vast as the cavern I explored throughout those days. Arrays of smelters refined all types of ore into ingots that were rolled and pressed and hammered into a variety of beams or plates or pipes that went into more complex pieces of machinery.
Other materials went into lathes and mills to make components for more sophisticated machines. Sophisticated like strange green boards riddled with archaic lines and dots of what appeared to be silver. And wires. So many wires.
Even with my limited knowledge, I could tell this was just the beginning of whatever Amun had planned. Like a shipbuilder purchasing a yard and hiring a crew, the undead-and by extension Amun- were creating things in an increasingly sophisticated order.
It was fascinating, but not my interest.
Thankfully, it didn't take long for Amun to schedule an appointment with me. A tenday and a half. A seemingly long time made short by our extensive training, yet simultaneously made longer by the times of respite that the dark mechanical world offered me.
I pulled myself onto the observation deck with a triumphant howl and immediately hushed myself to scan the environment. Though thankfully, none were close to hear of my foolery. Or so I thought.
I rounded the contoured wall of the moon church and found Amun sitting patiently before two plates of steaming food.
"I never liked the idea of eating snails. But." Amun paused just as I began to sit, causing me to freeze in place and watch him loudly slurp the contents of a shell clean. "It's surprisingly good."
I again felt embarrassed as I fully sat. And more, nervous about what was to come. Not because I was afraid of Amun. I was his subordinate now, and even if I wasn't, I would have done my damnedest to stay on his good side.
On the contrary, I was nervous because he was unpredictable. His boundless knowledge made guessing his thoughts, and thus the outcome of this meeting an impossibility. And his unyielding calm only exacerbated my inner turmoil.
"Eat, Hogaz." He suddenly said. "It'll help you relax."
"R- right," I muttered and let my eyes fall to my plate. Surprisingly, it was a bit of half-orc cuisine. Some mixed nuts, cheese, and hard-boiled bird eggs with smoked and salted meat.
Turning my eyes to his plate made me assume he was eating drow food. Everything was either black or purple, including the cheese, but only the skin. Besides that and the snails, there were mushrooms of some sort filled with what appeared to be fish roe.
"You haven't seen it yet," he abruptly spoke again. Then paused to force down a bit of food. "We're restricted to campus and the wilds, so we can't enter the Darkworld. But our clones can." He paused again to drink what appeared to be wine. But all I smelled was poison. "My undead can. They've been hunting for mithral and adamantine. Naturally, they've been foraging and fighting whatever comes their way as well.
"Cheese from a Rothay and roe from a Fisher Crab." He pointed to the mentioned items. "A Darkworld cow, basically. And a monster that is neither a fisher nor a crab."
"What is it then?" I asked after inhaling a portion of my meal.
"A crass mix between a scorpion, a spider, and a fish." He all but chuckled. "It perches high in the tunnels and lines the cavern walls with its web, hoping for something to brush against it and be reeled up into its mouth."
"It sounds like a terrifying place." I shuddered.
"It can be maddening." He distantly nodded, wolfed down the rest of his meal, then pushed his plate off the table. Right into a pool of darkness. When my eyes turned back to him, he was leaning his eyes disturbingly close to mine with a knowing smile spread across his face. "But that's what you're here for, right?" The smile widened.
Though it was a question, I thought, he sat sideways in his chair to light one of his cigars and stare distantly off into the horizon. Seemingly giving me the piece to eat, but the silence was not something that I could bear.
"So, Moonlight and Twilight." I pointed to the churches. "The general impression is that they represent good and evil. Is that... true?"
"Within myself, perhaps." Amun casually shrugged. "But nothing is that simple. While they're advertised as helping and killing people respectively, both sides are just as capable of performing miracles or committing atrocities as the other. That is true for everyone and everything. Especially for those who live by such extremes."
"Yes." I chewed. "You've said so before. Is it something you've seen in your… past life?"
"I've seen people vaporize the blood of countless innocents in the name of righteous justice. Not even ashes remained of them," he said. His eyes still locked on the distant horizon. "Conversely, I've seen people labeled as evil terrorists save a country full of strangers as a result of their malice. Countless individuals were freed because they believed what they were doing to be right. Or, they believed what someone else was doing was wrong.
"I would advise against being close-minded in that regard." He took a glance in my direction. "You, Hogaz, can think of Moonlight as helping one's mentality or spirituality, while Twilight is to help the physicality. Or, in a rawer context." Amun shrugged. "It is to fight in the open, or while concealed. But it is much more than mere words can explain. I implore you to get a feel for each room and inquire for yourself.
"But first." He turned in his seat to face me fully. "I need you to be straight with me."
"Be… straight?"
"Bluntly honest." He blinked. "And I'll be the same with you."
"Alright." I slowly nodded. "Okay."
"I'll start by saying I'm reluctant to do this."
"Huh?" I recoiled almost out of my seat."
"I've never done this before." He amiably shrugged. "Honestly, I'm not one hundred percent sure it'll even work. Ninety-nine percent. But I'd prefer not to experiment on my subordinates. That said, if this is what you truly want, I'll oblige."
"Yes!" I found myself rocking forward in my chair. And subsequently shuffling back upon making that realization.
"I don't care why you want power," he said, much to my relief. "However, I want to make sure you understand the weight of inquiring about eldritch powers."
"I do." I heavily breathed, hard enough to force me to bite at the words. "I want power. I need power. I'm a capable fighter. Capable enough to bring me here. But I am weak in the face of everyone else. I am not enough to let me survive out there." I jerked my neck to where he was just staring. "I learned that lesson years ago. And I am not in any station to spend years devoting myself to training or studying."
"You want power handed to you, but you don't want to be corrupted, as you said," Amun stated in an eerily matter-of-fact tone while his lips curled into a fiendishly manipulative smile. "In exchange for what, however? Going places, doing things, learning things that others are unwilling or unallowed to delve into? Search- no." He wagged his finger. "Hunt for the forbidden secrets of the realms? Because that's what I would ask of you as my Warlock. And such things may corrupt you, Hogaz.
"But." He looked away, still smiling as he tapped his chin. "What does corruption entail, exactly? What does being a warlock entail?"
"Making a pact with a powerful, otherworldly being," I answered. "As I understand, you fit that category. One with arcana, who was born with ties to the Shadowfell and the Underworld, as you said."
"True." He nodded. "But in another way as well."
"Your past life?" I guessed.
"Both accurately and inaccurately so." He chortled. "I am the man the moon orbits. And soon, I'll be the man inside the moon. The God who weaves the worlds above. But for now, there is one. Mani. My moon. And myself." He palmed his chest. "But there will be many others, orbiting high above the mortal plane. Above every realm. Watching all that exists under its light.
"You have made your pledge to the Legion, Hogaz. So this pact is not one of loyalty to me. It's one of undying servitude to Mani, the first moon, as its… investigator." His fiendish smile widened. And though I knew his words held more meaning than I could have hoped to ascertain, I couldn't help but get excited.
"Your livelihood in exchange for power." Amun continued with the dead seriousness of his draugr. He looked deep into my eyes- into my soul, to speak his grim words in the sonorous voice of an angel. "Power will you cost much more than that. Being a Servant of the Moon demands your mind, body, and soul in life and after death. So I'll ask you this one time and one time only, Hogaz.
"How willing are you to descend into madness?"
Those eight words carried the weight of eight-thousand frigates. A burden of immeasurable weight that I had no choice but to accept. I was weak. Worse, I was a weak dreamer. An ambitious soul with naught the power to realize those ambitions. I was destined to live a meek life in the shadow of great men.
I was determined. More than anything else, I was determined to change that destiny. "If that is what it takes. I accept."
"Very well." Amun took a deep breath, releasing a wave of his absurd mana to slap at my face. But it was… gentle. Soft and cool like the ocean depths. It radiated from his entire being, especially his eyes, squinting as if he were deep in thought. Then he reached out his hand.
I looked at it in confusion for a long moment. Or bewilderment, rather. Or something, there was something about the pale radiance infused in his hand that left me in a trance for seconds. Minutes. Hours.
I knew not how much time passed before I noticed my hand reaching out, grasping tightly around his palm.
A sudden wave of contradicting sensations flowed into me at once. I felt a biting, pervasive cold tamed by a searing, unyielding heat more than anything. But also an intense rage mixed with an almost intoxicating euphoria. I felt melancholia and serenity. Inspiration and discouragement. All flowing through the depths of my being like the concentrated venom of a wyvern to form a… vacuole within my spirit. A small cave or housing that held the pale light flowing into me.
"Ah!" Amun recoiled suddenly, though he didn't release his grip. "Hold on. I think… I think it's working! Huh?" He laughed to himself. "Interesting."
"You think it's working?" I dejectedly parroted his words.
"Yeah, I can… ingrain knowledge into you." He squinted and flicked his eyes about as if he were reading something. "I think I just gave you Lunar Magic. But it… well, you'll see."
"What do you mean, I'll see?"
"Look at your hand."
"Wha-" I dropped my eyes and froze upon seeing what appeared to be a tattoo on the back of both my hands and, I soon learned, on my palms. "What in the Hells?"
They were like tattoos, but noticeably not. Or if so, done with off-white and abyssal-black inks that left glowing rings filled with mind-bending darkness.
"Go inside and attune with the moon." Amun jerked his neck to the wall behind him. "And you'll be on the path to the Warlock."
I rose without a word. And, though I fully intended to do as I was told, I could help but approach the Twilight church and enter it first.
It was a domed room lined with the golden radiance of twilight and filled with a cloud of smokey darkness that seemed to hug the floor, nearly concealing everything but the central pedestal and a glowing orb directly above it.
The ambiance felt… peaceful, strangely enough. And relaxing. So soothing, as if I needed a soft couch under my ass and a deep mug of ale in my hand.
And it made me think.
Mostly about things I'd rather not think about, so I turned tail and waltzed through the other door without a look back.
The church of the moon was a domed room as well. But unlike the previous room, this one was open and dimly lit in that gentle light I unknowingly came to love. The ceiling was speckled in hundreds of motes of light that appeared like a sea of stars and instead of pews, the floor was lined with plush pillows from the door to the far wall.
There was no podium or beacon of light within the walls. At first glance at least. A glowing ring of pale light, in the same shape as the ones on my hands, hung high in the southern portion of the ceiling. Suspended in the same position and represented in the same image as the true moon, so high above and so far away.
So gentle it was. Inviting. Peaceful and calm. Mystical and powerful. With every essence of my being, I longed to touch it.
And though my hands were still meters away from the light, I did just that.
My consciousness expanded outwards immediately. Beyond the tower. Past the Bodhi Tree, I went. And further. Across the peninsula and high above the world sea until I was floating high above the Mortal Plane, witness to its entirety.
And then my essence bloomed.
In a seamless eternity, my mind stretched to encompass the infinite void beyond. I went beyond the veil of darkness that our small realms inhabited, perhaps out of this universe entirely, to see stars converging like people to form cities of brilliant light. A vast network encompassing the entire universe, I saw. But I also saw the things that couldn't be seen by the likes of men.
Tiny and infinitesimal, those things were, and so too was I in that moment. So small, those things were, that they things could never hope to touch, yet they still did by the hands of a primordial- nay, an innate force of the cosmos itself. They held and merged to create and form what we saw around us. And I saw it all. Down to the finest detail. The sea of atoms and molecules, rippling and shaking from the sounds of all things. From the wind. From the creatures unseen throughout heaven and earth.
It was a mesh of floating motes until, suddenly, it wasn't. All that remained was a realm so expansive that I was but an island in an omnidirectional expanse of nothingness.
There was nothing, in all but a few places. Worlds. Stars. Realms. Moons. Planets, I learned that word from… somewhere. A word that described strange worlds. Realms with unique laws of nature, where anything could be possible. Worlds that existed far beyond the veil. Worlds filled with secrets. Horrors. Horrors and secrets like the ones held in the Mortal Plane. And in… Meighen.
First would come one. Then would come the other, I saw. The secrets in both.
I saw.
I saw things unseen by the eyes of man or orc or anything other than the inexistent eyes of Mani and the all-seeing eyes of the man inside it. I saw the convergence of radiation, blended into a single wavelength made into an inconceivable kaleidoscope of brilliance. I heard the frequency of all sounds, alive and deceased. I smelled every pheromone, scent, or odor wading in the air of the future, past, and present. I felt every variation of energy that made its way to senses that never before existed in my body, small and infinitesimal and grandiose and infinite though I was.
A mind-numbing wave of vertigo signaled the end of that instantaneous and everlasting experience. My expansive self collapsed- imploded into the tiny and insignificant form of Hogaz, standing in awe at the ring of light before him.
The expanse and the senses and the things that swarmed through my mind were no more. I was but Hogaz. A poor half-orc who was now painfully aware of the limitation of his perceptions.
I saw it all. I was it. The fabric and structure of the universe. It all made so much sense as that colossal and tiny being. But, as Hogaz, I couldn't come to understand it.
One more glimpse.
I needed one more glimpse of the truth. Of the sea of molecules and the hundreds of sensations meeting those senses I longed to have again. I needed to see and smell and feel it all again. Only then would I truly understand the reality I was a part of.
But alas, I had nothing but the jumbled thoughts in my mind and the cold burn in my hands. The thoughts that labored my body. And the senses that pulled on my conscious mind. It was exhausting.
It was… maddening.
But still, I felt soothed from the pale light splayed over my face. I felt it. Watching over me and… telling me things. But not by sound, by visions. Illusions. Memories. Dreams.
I could do things now, I suddenly realized. And that realization led me out the door at a full sprint to search the deck for a target that I somehow knew was there. A bird, sitting out on the edge.
I stopped the moment my eyes fell upon it. And carefully, reached out my palm and recalled the strange memories supplanted in my mind. And without warning, I screamed.
"ELDRITCH BLAST!"
It was... eerie, to see the mental picture of my hand glowing as it did in reality. Glowing white from the ring dominating the back of my hand, filling the void within with a searing point of pale white light until it burst from my palm in the form of a crackling bolt of radiance.
The bird was gone by the time I recovered from the recoil. Though that was hardly an afterthought. I could only focus on the other memories, constantly streaming in and out of my mind. All but telling me to pluck one of the feathers and dive off the tower, for there were more things that I could do.
The feather would let me do but one of them. Materials were needed if I wanted to do the others. But…
"Where in the Hells would a newt be?"