Re: Unhealthy Interests [Wisp Quill]
Omentus woke up slowly, the tingling pains that shot through his body keeping him truly awake for the first time in weeks. The gargoyle had discharged some form of natural ability, causing the scales of its wings to take leave of them, alight with lightning. That was just about the last thing he remembered before waking up. Now, he knew the pain of lightning, again. It was even worse than before he had begun grafting the demonic parts to his body, and somehow different. It made his vision fuzzy, and his body did not wish to respond. He'd have to a find a way to solve that.
Speaking of which, there was a gargoyle that had recently shown a great aptitude for control over electricity, laying in a pile at his feet. He lifted up its face, discerning how awake the beli had left it. Dead to the world. 'I'll have to find a more appropriate dose for the physiology,' he thought to himself. He took a thin wand out of one of the pockets in his cloak and pointed it at the unconscious beast. It floated into the air, connected to the wand by a slim, pale yellow tether.
***
In the upstairs loft of Omentus' little apothecary shop, outside the inner city of Kedaldown, the necromancer was pleased with his work. After the gargoyle nearly woken herself from the beli stupor two or three times, Omentus had figured out the appropriate dose for the gargoyle. From his calculations, it wasn't an adult. That made sense, he'd read that gargoyles were supposed to be much larger. On the other hand, none of the texts had ever mentioned gargoyles having a physical control over electricity. He checked over his handiwork before allowing the creature to wake at all.
He had her strapped down, on her back, to a specialized wooden board meant for holding just the child gargoyle. Thick leather straps bound her by the wings, tail, forelegs and hind legs, so that her chest was presented to the necromancer and kept still for his necessary work. Also, metallic cables had been attached to arms, neck and wings, which ran across the ground around the two of them and to a large machine constructed of iron and wood that was adorned with many dials and gauges. A wide vial of silver liquid was prominently featured on the device, with a frosted crystal globe beside it. The liquid was a sample of the gargoyle's blood; the globe was a gauge to determine the amount of electrical power the gargoyle could generate. Beside him was a small table of surgical instruments, most of which had just been used in his work.
The gargoyle, who was still under anesthesia, lay on the table with a large and very precise hole cut into her chest. There was very little bleeding, which was impressive since the incision went all the way down to the creature's slowly beating heart, where the necromancer's handiwork actually lie. It was a device of silver-colored metal that superficially resembled a widow spider. It had eight long, jointed legs that wrapped around the gargoyle's heart, and a node on one side. Attached to that node was a reservoir with a clear, hourglass-shaped window on it. Inside the window it showed itself to be full of a deep red liquid which also seemed to contain swirling black and red images inside itself, as well as thousands of crumbling cities at the same time. Overall, it was good work, and by all accounts, its reservoir should never empty.
Attached to both the large vein and the large artery which led into and out of creature's heart were arrays of tiny crystal studs, whose colors were a myriad of pale blue, yellow and white. The crystals were attached to one another by means of a brassy colored ring that hugged their respective blood vessels closely, yet somehow managed to expand and contract with their movements. A spark of electricity ran across the creature's heart, but connected with one of the rings and became absorbed. In a moment, it was released in the form of a more powerful bolt which jumped to the next ring of crystal studs, became trapped inside it as the crystals began to glow. Suddenly, the crystals stopped glowing, but the gargoyle's body discharged three bolts of power. The frosted crystal globe on the machine behind him was lit from within by a soft light that dissipated quickly.
It was time to wake her. He placed one hand on the beast, and one on himself. The wound in chest closed, migrating magically to Omentus, but split into several smaller wounds as it traveled, which dispersed themselves almost harmlessly across his body. He took a step back and waited for the beli to wear off. It was only an hour before the creature's eyes snapped open. She looked around while trying to move from the spot. He could see the panic creeping slowly into her inhuman face as she must have been realizing at least some part of her plight. He smiled, "Ahh, so you're finally awake..." he said, before his second, deeper voice spoke beside her ear, "...little one."