Chereads / Rapture's Requiem / Chapter 3 - The Worm Emerges

Chapter 3 - The Worm Emerges

The tranquil silence of the dark basement was disturbed by the loud buzzing of a large insect. It was black, and soft shelled. Six long, hard and pointed legs hung off it lazily as it buzzed around aimlessly, clicking it's jaws and being a general nuisance to the young man trying to sleep beneath it.

He thought of happier times, namely the decade spent in japan when he was seven. The country had been beautiful, and the girl he befriended was kind to him. He sighed sadly. Those days were gone now, and would never return.

Especially not now, as it seemed that very planet itself was trying to kill itself. Monsters were quickly killing off entire cities full of people, and if his father's word was to be believed, old calamities were waking up.

The basement he lay in was large and barren, dry and very cold. A single window had been cut into one of the walls, and rather than a pane of glass, that hole had been filled with three inch thick steel bars.

If this room seems like a prison, it's not. The door was not locked, and he could leave any time he wanted. However, he rarely left. His siblings cared very little for him, and his father quite literally hated him. Knowing this, he stayed locked away, filling his days with practicing magic and sleeping. In all honesty he spent more time sleeping than he'd like to admit.

This man's name is Leon Geier. He was young, perhaps twenty seven. Leon often wore a purple jacket and gray cargo pants, with a tight black long sleeved shirt. When he stood, his clothing often hung off of him thanks to his deathly thin build. His ribs and spine were very nearly visible, and he had virtually no visible muscle on his body.

Leon's face was thin and had he been healthy, he would have almost been attractive. His skin was a sickly pale, thanks to his physical complications and a lack of sunlight. Leon's eyes were icy blue and he had a piercing glare in his right eye and thanks to losing roughly sixty percent of his vision in his left eye, Leon's left eye lacked this glare. Thick and dark rings traced around the eyes, thanks to poor sleep. The flesh around his left eye was hard and rough scar tissue, thanks to an injury he'd sustained several years before. While scar tissue tends to fade after a few years, the nature of this injury prevents the scar from fading fully.

Finally, Leon's hair had naturally been dark gray, but thanks to his various injuries and unique physical situation, it had begun to fade to white in recent years, leaving large and uneven locks of white hair spread randomly throughout Leon's hair. For this reason, he often wore his hood and tended to slink around to avoid being seen.

However, Leon's appearance wasn't the only thing wrong with him. Leon's right leg was partially lame, and bending his knee took great effort. Running long distances was quite literally impossible for him, and running any distance that was greater than ten meters was a great effort. His left arm suffered a similar condition, with only three fully functional fingers and poor grip strength as a result. Both limbs were afflicted with arthritis and stiffness when used, which helped lead to Leon's physically lazy lifestyle.

The insect's buzzing was finally starting to get on Leon's nerves. Closing his eyes, Leon tapped into his mana cells and willed the bug to be silent. It stopped flying and landed on the concrete wall, calm and docile, flicking its antenne up and down as it stared into a corner. He relaxed, and his mana cells stayed open, always ready for his next use. They only shut down when he slept, which, despite his persistent attempts throughout the day, was a treat he was rarely allowed to sample.

Not long after he let the bug be, it began to tap on the wall with its legs, knocking small pebbles of concrete loose with each tap. Leon growled and tapped into his cells again, allowing the all-so familiar current of energy to pass through his body once more.

"Come here!" Leon barked, and the bug immediately obliged, flying to the mage beneath it. Leon opened his jacket and the insect flew in and snuggled up to his cold, thin body next to dozens of other bugs of both similar and different builds.

Leon, much like the rest of his family, was a student of Vile Magic, a hateful type of modern magic which allowed its users control over aspects like poison, plague and invertebrates in general. This form of magic was often looked down upon by other mages, and thus most of its users held a rather nasty and envious disposition to those who could use any other kinds of magic.

Thanks to his general weakness in comparison to the rest of his family, Leon did not hold such a disposition. Rather, he was simply thankful to be able to use any kind of magic at all.

Leon checked his wrist watch and seeing that it was long after midnight, he sighed and got off of his mattress. He wasn't going to sleep tonight. Since that was the case, coffee, a walk and some practice would do him some good.

Thanks to the time, most of his family would be asleep at this hour. Leon slipped out his bedroom door and shut it behind him silently, a skill he'd honed to perfection in his younger years. Now, he limped up the stairs, not as quietly as he'd shut the door, but his steps were still virtually soundless. At the top of the stairs, he stood and listened for any signs of his siblings, father or the staff. Hearing nothing, he slunk over to the back door. Leon slipped out like a ghost, and quickly limped down the sidewalk towards the bright lights of the greater city.

Little did he know that his father was watching him from his bedroom window. Leon's father was a foul man of ninety-seven, with a hooked nose and a bald, scarred scalp. He currently wore a blue bathrobe and glared down at his youngest son with his piercing gray eyes. His mouth was turned down in a frown he wore at almost all times, and his lips were cracked and withered with age. This man's name was Augustine.

Despite the saintly name, Augustine was far from virtuous. Truly a creature of pride to his very soul, Augustine considered himself a genius. He, his brother and first born son all had knowledge no one else in the current magical world had access to, and kept that secret viciously, for one reason or another.

Augustine hated Leon, solely because the boy had been born weak. Augustine liked to believe that the Geier line was the strongest original magical family, but the reality was that this was far from the truth. Leon's obvious lack of magical power and talent had made him an embarrassment to the family, and had shook the delusion of superiority Augustine held so dear.

So, with hatred and bitterness, Augustine glared down at the limping and broken figure of the youngest son, skittering off into the night like the undying roach that he was. Normally, Augustine would be planning some awful thing to do to him, or perhaps to make him do, but the recent situation of the world was starting to seem more important than Leon's suffering.

What was the world's situation? The problem started years ago. In the past, Humanity, Elves and other such races and a magical race known to them as The Fae lived together, working to reach a greater plane of existence, in the name of exploration and research.

To achieve this, The Fae gave to every race the gift of magic, a great power that was both internal and external, which allowed the manipulation and creation of concepts that were of natural and supernatural origin, such as elements and spirits. Over time, five witches, One Human, One Elf, One Fae, One Dwarf and One Dark Elf became powerful and skilled enough to reach that higher plane. The five witches, drunk with power, decided to rule the Earth and using their new found power, took magic from the lower peoples to prevent any possible threats to their thrones.

Over time, the lower peoples managed to forge a new magic system from the remnants of their old magic, but quickly found it to be much too weak to challenge the witches. Further cultivation methods finally helped them raise that new magic to its peak, but it was still little more than a mere spark in comparison to the raging forest fire of old magic. The witches allowed the lower races to keep this new magic, as it was of no threat to them. In fact, their attention had turned from the lower plane entirely.

Centuries passed, and one of the witches, the Fae, who had been a sort of leader for the five, transcended to an even greater dimension than the others, leaving them behind. Immediately, the witches began to argue and fight among themselves, all wishing to become the new leader.

Naturally, such power being thrown about would have effects upon the lower worlds, bringing us to the present day. Now, Augustine did not know the exact reasoning behind the current state of the world, but he and many other learned mages had speculated this to be the case.

Thanks to the unstable state of the world, this provided many… opportunities to insert his family at the top of the magical world when the world stabilized again. Augustine watched Leon until he'd limped out of sight. He snorted and went back to bed. He had no time to waste thinking about Leon, and went back to sleep.

***

The blinding early morning lights met Leon as he came into the greater city. The city was quiet, as it had been for a long time now. Gone were the days of late night parties, now replaced with silent fear and paranoia thanks to monster attacks that grew in frequency by the night. As he slunk down the road, Leon looked around the street. It looked like a battle had just taken place.

Several small craters marked the street, a street lamp had been hacked down, and there were a total of half a dozen bloody kobold corpses littered all over the road. The blood was still wet, and there were also various metal weapons sticking out of two kobolds. Those weapons were fading into sparks of mana, meaning they were constructs.

Keeping his guard up, Leon moved through the carnage quietly. After he cleared the battlefield, he continued down the street, drinking in the cold morning air and breathing deeply. The night was tranquil, and crickets chirped loudly. Leon tapped into his mana and led the chirping, dancing, if you could call it that, as he did. He had no skill as a conductor and utterly ruined the synchronized music, but he didn't care right now. Eventually, Leon released the bugs from his control and relaxed. The chirping continued as he walked down the road, simply enjoying the night.

A sudden scream silenced the crickets instantly, and Leon's head snapped in the direction of the scream. To the right, perhaps two hundred meters ahead, off the road and in the bushes. Leon limped quickly in the direction of the scream, and sped up even more when the person screamed again.

It was clear they were in danger, and Leon tapped into his mana once more. The grunt of some monster was the next sound he heard, and Leon broke into a run for a split second, crossing ten meters in an instant and immediately regretting it, as his right leg shot a spike of pain up his calf.

Soon enough, he reached the location of the sounds. Breaking through the bushes, Leon reached the scene and bristled at what he saw. A kobold stood over a young woman, brandishing a heavy blade. It held the blade up, preparing to kill her.

"Rise and devour, Locust!" Leon muttered, waving his hand in front of him. A dozen massive locusts popped into existence and hurtled at the kobold, buzzing angrily as they flew at it. The kobold, which had turned around at the sound of Leon's voice, growled at the large bugs and dashed directly at Leon. It ducked and weaved through it's would-be attackers with utter ease and leapt at Leon, sailing towards him and slashing with its weapon as it came within range.

Leon's eyes widened as the blade came closer, and he scrambled back to avoid it, but his foot caught on an unforeseen stone and he stumbled forwards, right into the blade's edge!