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< 1 >
"Child, this is the measure of my mercy. I will not train you until your joints are broken. I will not sever your limbs. I will not break you because such behaviour begets only a broken thing, not a stronger one. But you will suffer and endure until you are capable of surviving anything the world does to you. You may hate me; that is natural; and if you learn to focus your hate, you will master yourself."
Skirk offered the boy a smile, and he felt it as a kindly caress no matter that the expression was more of a grimace. "If you wish to survive, to live in spite of this hell, to thrive and grow stronger, I will teach you all that you can learn but you will sacrifice softer emotions because those are a trap, a lure that will see you devoured."
"What do you mean?"
"There are creatures here that take the shapes of people you love to draw you close enough to grab because you are no more than an easy snack. You will learn to slay your loved ones over and over again until you associate their faces with the prelude to an attack. If you do not learn to leave those memories in the past, you will die; and if you live to see them again, you will kill them before you understand that they are real."
The boy gaped at her, wide-eyed with horror. "But…"
"This place will consume all that makes you human, child. That is inevitable. The only question is whether you survive to remake yourself from whatever remains afterward."
She saw the flash of determination in his eyes. Good. Maybe he'd become more than just another victim.
<>
The boy fought and screamed and cried. He hated and raged and wallowed in fear.
He didn't hate Skirk, though; he saved that for the monsters in the shadows, for the things that sought to consume all that he was.
He refused to let go of his humanity and become just another monster, no matter that it hurt him far more to resist, and no matter the corruption he ingested with every bite of flesh and every sip of tainted water.
The Abyss was insidious though, and far more powerful than one small boy. Slowly, the whispers ate away at his thoughts and devoured the edges of his softness. He became cruel and ever more violent, hungry for blood to sate the need for slaughter.
He refused to hate Skirk or the surface world that would never, now, be able to accept him, and so he hungered instead, raged against the inevitable; and endured the losses he couldn't prevent.
Gradually, he surrendered more of himself, withdrawing one step at a time to guard his soul from the inexorable tide of corruption. For as long as he could, he clung to the fading memory of love and kindness, defying Fate so that when he returned to his kin he would not see monsters wearing their faces, until eventually he forgot who he was because all that remained were a few lingering echoes of gentleness and Skirk's apprentice. Her lessons kept him alive and fighting and so she became the only truth he could retain, the centre that he had to guard.
In his defiance, Skirk saw his burgeoning strength and knew that the boy was a deserving heir if he could contain the legacy of the Abyss.
(She knew he could; he already bore its corruption without letting it devour him)
<>
"Let your rage and hunger have an outlet," Skirk told him. "It will be unpleasant and it will feel as though the Abyss has swallowed you whole; but you will have the power to face mighty foes and win, once you have learned to wield it."
"Is this how you replaced your legs?"
"Somewhat. It is in essence the same power I channelled but it is not given to healing; it is corruption, after all. It is however effective in forming constructs, in being useful to its host. For me, its use was in forcing the power outward to form the limbs I needed."
The boy nodded. "I will learn."
<>
Skirk was right, he thought muzzily. The leviathan had swallowed him into its belly where he was swept up in the tide of acidic water that flowed within.
He felt his flesh melt from his bones, and the liquid fill his lungs.
He was devoured
dissolved
drowned
Skirk had been very clear about his circumstances from the outset: he would suffer and endure, and if he did not learn, he would die
He died anyway, because the Abyss consumed everything that fell into its reach but he learned to give ground, to protect what mattered; and refused to give up. He clawed his way to his feet and fought harder
Deep within the leviathan, the stubborn heart of a fallen child found a trail of coloured specks and followed them to their source.
The specks' source was overgrown by the flesh that surrounded it. He ripped it from its housing with his claws and devoured it.
He drowned again
<>
Skirk fished the boy from the Sea and laid him face down over her leg so that the pressure against his gut forced him to vomit the water clogging his stomach and lungs.
"You have done well," she told the bedraggled body, fond despite herself, once he could breathe without choking and spewing curdled water. "Now you will learn to use what you have gained."
< 2 >
The Devouring Deep fell from a rift and landed in a poof of soft snow.
He shivered, utterly unprepared for the freezing temperature and the blindingly bright whiteness.
The urge to survive forced him to his feet, smelling warmth on the frozen breeze.
He found a cave and a somnolent bear covered in a thick white pelt. The Devourer's claws slit open the belly of the animal, spilling intestines that steamed in the cold so he pulled more of the obstructions free to make space within the body where it would be warmest for a while.
The organs were delicious; rich meat and clean blood untainted by the Abyss.
The Devourer realised he had almost no memory of surface life, of basics like clean food and water and how to build a shelter. Such things had been corroded over the slow passage of months or years, or were consumed in the dissolution of rebirth when he claimed the leviathan's core and devoured it.
There were lessons, memories and instincts in the blood that pooled around his body and flowed over his tongue. He learned of hibernation and the oncoming spring and chose to adopt the eminently sensible approach of avoiding the cold.
Once the warmth had fled the bear's body, he stripped the pelt from the carcass, scraped it carefully with his claws, and stored the meat near the entrance where the intense cold would preserve it. Safe and snug for the moment, he wrapped himself in thick fur and slept deeply for as long as possible until the air warmed and he awoke to the sound of humans hunting nearby.
The sound and smell of humans came closer. Silently, the Devourer draped the pelt over a large rock and slipped stealthily into the shadows out of line of sight of the entrance to wait patiently for the hunters. He'd eaten the last of the bear before the end of winter, and no creature of the Abyss would refuse an easy meal that walked itself into its lair.
Briefly, he thought of Skirk, who'd sent him away to make a life of his own until he was strong enough to return to her side. He supposed it was proof of his capacity that she deemed him more than the needy pup he'd been when they met.
<>
The hunters wore all wore the same type of clothes and carried weapons the Devourer didn't recognise. The first of them lifted his weapon and fired at the rock.
They were completely surprised by the bullet ricocheting and clipping another man.
They were more surprised by the Devourer that seemed to spawn out of the shadows to slice his claws through the throat of the first and the guts of the second. By the time the man furthest back lifted his weapon, the other three were bleeding out.
The Devourer growled, baring his fangs, and the blood pooling around his feet lifted to form a glistening crimson shield. The bullet Pyro-infused bullet bounced off and more blood shaped into a sharp point. The weapon flung itself at the last hunter and took him in the throat.
The Devourer was pleased. He had enough food for several days and new weapons to examine; and the memories carried in the blood gave him more information about the surface realm.
He added the hunters' clothes to his nest and, when he went out to search for water, tossed the useless objects into a nook beneath an old fallen tree.
<>
Another group of hunters entered the Devourer's territory several days later, searching for the first set. It seemed that there was a lair that housed many humans – and that meant plentiful food.
This group failed to find the cave, but he heard them exclaiming at the discovery of the discarded objects. They hurried away to tell the tale to another of their kind.
A larger group arrived. From their words, he understood that they were special simply because they were direct servants of some self-important creature.
The Devouring Deep shifted his form and slew this group, firstly because they were a convenient food source but mostly because the arrogance needed to be tested.
(They weren't at all special and their meat tasted oddly tainted)
The Devourer sighed as he dumped yet more metal junk under the fallen tree. He had learned Skirk's lessons well. There was no point clinging to a compromised nest when doing so would make the hunt easier for an enemy. He was going to have to move further away.
He rolled up his nest and used belts to fashion straps to carry it on his back, and turned a spare jacket into a sack to carry the meat. He left the guns; he knew that they required the coloured jewels to function but hadn't been able to make them activate. He took the jewels though, preferring to reduce the humans' access to power.
He found a deep den tucked beneath a river bank a few miles from the cave. It had been the home of some other animal but not since the winter. He settled in and, since the river was right there, moved water to conceal the entrance and provide warning of an intruder.
The new den was cosy. He found ferns in a clearing and brought bunches of them to lay over the soil beneath his nest. He liked the fresh scent and the rustle of the leaves when he moved.
<>
A hunter found the den many days later. The water called a warning as boots splashed through it seeking the way in.
The Devourer didn't think the hunter knew of the warning or the den; its search pattern was too random. Rather it seemed to sense the Devourer and was trying to reach him. He huffed. Hunters were boring and annoyingly persistent.
He stretched his senses and smelled chemicals and metal and corruption. That was unexpected.
He readied himself to fight. He refused to be prey to anything spawned here; he had already given up all he cared to and had learned the lessons of Skirk and the leviathan.
Be strong. Endure
Survival is all that matters
An enemy deserves no mercy
devour
dissolve
drown
Behind the hunter, the river rose and pulled him down to drown.
<>
The drowned hunter was strange. It had very little flesh, and that little was tainted with a strange alchemical stench; and it didn't leak any sort of blood. Instead the body contained objects made of metal and other materials.
Out of curiosity, he tried to manipulate the liquid but it was too far from water to be useful.
He decided it wasn't edible and so he carried it back to the fallen tree and dumped it there.
He remembered the huge metal creatures of the Abyss Order and really wasn't sure that it actually needed to breathe, so he yanked out various bits and pieces and used a rifle butt to smash them to be sure the creature couldn't get back up.
(He widened the water ward around his den. Clearly, more warning was necessary)
< 3 >
The ward sang a warning on a cold and windy day. The Devourer was tracking a boar but turned back upon realising the threat to his nest.
At some distance still, he sensed something Abyssal; it smelled of the corruption typical of the Abyss Order but also of surface things such as soap.
How odd.
The intruder was riding a very large animal, and both were jingling with metallic objects that served no obvious purpose.
There was no stink of the guns favoured by the first groups of hunters or the odd smell of the machine.
He decided to let the creature get closer to the den where the river could obey his call but instead it looked around, seeming to sense the Devourer hidden in the shadows of a large tree.
"Come forth!" The creature called, his words clear and very human. He was definitely not of the Abyss Order, or at least not one of the ordinary ones; those spoke a garbled language that rarely seemed human.
Curiosity seized the Devourer, which was not something he was used to, and so he stepped out into view.
He realised this was the first time he'd spoken to anyone since he left Skirk; his voice was creaky with disuse. "Trespasser. Leave."
"You have slain my people."
"They trespassed."
"So you would slay me too?"
"If you don't leave."
The masked head tilted curiously. "Well then. Let's see what you're capable of." He swung down from his mount and drew a gleaming narrow sword into existence.
The Devourer huffed. Really? He will fight to take my territory? He doesn't even want it! He threw himself into the air in a long, graceful arch, and plunged down into a roll that brought him much closer to the river. He could pull liquid from anywhere, but the river was quite deep and fast and thus the energy was plentiful.
They fought.
The man used his sword and Cryo; his body contained great strength and precision and he was a lot faster than should have been possible given his size. The Devourer was used to that; Skirk was very similar and used the same combination of element and preferred weapon and was also ridiculously fast.
The Devourer wielded looted blades and reinforced himself with the strength of the Abyss that he'd earned with every sacrifice of blood and soul and mind, and when that wasn't enough, he used the Devouring Deep and the blue core that pulsed with every beat of his heart until finally, when the man was still fighting, he ripped the blood from the body to heal himself and dissolved his flesh into the river while the man collapsed to the ground.
The current dragged him through swirls and eddies until, trapped in a little pool formed by a cluster of debris, he could pull enough of himself together to reform.
Fucking hunters
Cautiously, he returned to his den to collect his nest, noting that the human and the riding beast were gone. It was time to move on.
<>
For three weeks, he followed first the river and then the coast. Eventually, he saw a beacon glowing like a tiny fixed star far in the distance over a wide stretch of moonlit ocean.
The Devouring Deep leaped into the waves, letting a strong flick of his tail send him towards that distant light.
He emerged onto a rocky beach very close to the beacon, feeling an odd sense of home which resonated even more deeply than his nest did.
The land was soaked in a power he didn't recognise though. Cautiously, he turned away from the beacon to follow the beach and cliffs.
He needed a place to nest
(He wanted a place to belong)
The island was very small. To the south east he could see a larger landmass though, so he swam the short distance. Unfortunately, he soon discovered that there were a lot of people here who wore the same sort of clothes as the hunters. He took to the sea again and headed south where he found a much larger island and, along a west-facing bay, a place of whispers that reminded him of his Abyssal birthplace.
He found a shallow cave that was empty and silent but for ancient whispers and the sounds of the sea, with a secondary area behind it hidden by a thick mat of dangling moss. With care, he slipped into the rear chamber without disturbing the moss and set up his nest. Perhaps this den would be secure from unwarranted interference.
< 4 >
A pleasant hunt for fish was disturbed when a rift-gate opened along the shore. He watched, eyes barely above the water as a small horde of Abyss-spawn spilled forth and charged at a group of defenders.
The three men and one woman were horribly outnumbered even though they were wielding the energy that suffused the islands.
His hatred was reserved for the monsters of the Abyss. For them, he wielded his rage and hunger as a weapon
The Devourer leaped from the ocean in a spray of water and crashed down upon the Wild Hunt mages, squashing them into the stony beach – to the stunned shock of the defenders who hadn't expected a whale to help them.
Seconds later, the whale transformed into what looked like a young boy, filthy and clad in rags, with extremely pale skin marred by scars discoloured by corrosion, and sharp fangs that became visible when he bared his teeth in a threatening snarl. With a sweeping gesture, the blood pooling around his feet formed a glistening shield against the Wild Hunt's barrage of attacks and freed him to ignore them while he drew Hydro from the ocean into a pair of blades.
The shield shifted into a ring of sharp spikes and flung themselves at the enemy, followed by the boy. Child or not, his expression was hungry and psychotic enough to make the strongest of his foes hesitate.
Getting a grip on their confusion and relief, the defenders turned their attention to the fight, rather disturbed by the sheer violence of a little boy ripping the blood from an opponent and hurling it like a spear straight at the next…
<>
Later, when the bodies had dispersed back to the Abyss, Sousi approached the youth, who had backed off and was simply watching with a distinctly cautious demeanour.
"Thank you for your help. My name is Sousi." Up close, he could see that under the grime and filth that coated his skin and hair, the boy was no more than his mid-teens.
The boy blinked, apparently surprised at the gratitude. "You're welcome?"
Feeling rather like he was navigating rapids in a canoe made of straw, the Lightkeeper persisted. "I must ask: Are you Abyssal?" He gestured at the distinctly inhuman appearance. "Humans don't tend to have fangs, you see; and those marks look like they were caused by Abyssal poisons."
The head tilted slightly seemingly curious. "I am not. They are prey."
"What are you then?"
"I am the Devouring Deep. The Abyss tried to consume me but it failed, and then it failed to keep me contained."
"I–" What was he supposed to say to that? The boy was definitely Abyssal – but considered himself unaligned. He wasn't Wild Hunt or, probably, Abyss Order… "Will you let me bring my leader to speak to you? You obviously dislike the Wild Hunt and we have a need for strong fighters willing to protect the people of Nod-Krai."
"What is Nod-Krai?"
"Er… It is the common name for our islands. This is Lempo Isle. To the west is Hiisi Island, and north are Paha Isle and Piramida."
The Devourer nodded. He quite liked the idea of fighting Abyssal enemies to protect other people. "You can bring your master. I will listen."
<>
"Hello Devouring Deep. This is Starshyna Nikita, the leader of the Lightkeepers."
The human was tall and fair-haired. He wore the same dark wool and fur clothes, boots and hat as Sousi did, and both carried a lantern on their belts. The outfit was very different to the clothes worn by the previous hunters.
"Hello."
"Sousi told me about the fight you helped with. Thank you for defending my people." The boy tipped his chin in acknowledgement of the thanks but seemed to have no comment to add. "Would you explain how you come to have your name and what you meant when you said the Abyss tried to consume you but failed?"
"I fell. The Abyss tried to consume all that I am but I saved my hate for it and used the rage and hunger to protect my soul. Master said I did very well and allowed me to challenge the leviathan. I was devoured-dissolved-drowned but I survived and took its core for myself. Master taught me how to use all that I learned so that I could become the Devouring Deep."
Nikita nodded as though he understood.
(He didn't; he really did not. This child looked no older than his own son and definitely did not deserve to have learned to survive the Abyss and become a monster!)
"Was the whale the Devouring Deep?"
"No. That was a whale pup; I was fishing. This is the Devourer." He rose to his feet and kept going as his body expanded into something over seven feet tall, massively muscular; fanged and clawed and coated with abyssopelagic dark scales fading to bluish-grey along the edges of each plate which also formed a mask over his human features. He held the form for a few minutes before collapsing back into his human skin.
Nikita gaped at him, stunned by the strength of the Abyssal Denizen contained within a small boy. "Um… I–"
The boy sighed, resignation obvious on his young face. "I will leave. You need not hunt me."
That jolted the Lightkeeper out of his surprise. "No! No, kid… I have a son about your age. I wouldn't want to see him fall and I am horrified that you did – but, still, it is good that you survived. You helped my people. If you're willing to fight the Wild Hunt, and not prey upon the people of Nod-Krai, we'll give you a home and education…"
"Really?" He sounded sceptical.
How often had the poor kid been forced to abandon whatever place he'd made for himself? Well, he was going to put a stop to that right now.
"Really." He smiled warmly. "Kid, you will be a welcome addition to our tiny force of stubborn bastards." He touched his lantern reverently. "Our task is to refuse to lie down and die and instead be the light in the dark that guides our people home and beats the crap out of Abyssal arseholes."
For the first time an honest smile curled the boy's lips. "I saw the beacon on the north island from the shore of the big land to the north east. It guided me here."
"Well then." He offered a handshake. "Let's get you to a bath, warm food and a bed. Tomorrow we can sort out clothes and figure out what you know already. That country to the north east is called Snezhnaya, by the way."
The boy let himself be gently hauled to his feet. "I need to collect my nest."
"Your… nest?"
He nodded. "It is in a cave nearby."
The lad scampered off and Nikita rubbed a hand over his eyes. Too damn young for whatever he's lived through, that's for sure. He glanced at Sousi. "Good job bringing the boy to my attention. We'll give him a home and let him use his power for good."
"You heard what he said; that he's been hunted?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Let's make sure that doesn't happen here. Once he's a bit settled, we'll bring him to Hiisi Island; The Lady Moonchanter will guide us in the best ways to help him. And, you know what our people are like; a few fights under his belt and they'll be welcoming too."
"Don't forget to find out who he actually is, boss. He'll need a name other than kid, particularly if you're adopting him."
"I-what?"
"Adoption? Boss, I know you know what that is!"
"Oi!" Playfully, he smacked Sousi's arm, grinning at the squawk of outrage.
<>
The boy returned with rolled pelts hooked across his back by way of a few leather belts. He hesitated upon seeing them then, realising that they were simply waiting for him, his face lit up with happiness.
Nikita felt his heart melt.
Perhaps this boy would be a different sort of beacon. If nothing else, he was living proof that the Abyss in all its forms could be survived.
He represented hope.
Toivo seems like a good name for the little spark
<>