Drew groaned and opened his eyes. His left eye felt sticky and refused to open. His head throbbed, the pain made worse by the neon aquamarine message dominating his vision.
[SYSTEM STATUS UPDATE]
Subject: Drew Wilson Condition: Stabilized (Critical)
Ritual Status:Vascular Synchronization — INCOMPLETE Integration Locked at 74%
Result:Hybrid graft accepted. Regulation failed.
New Condition:Aether Instability
Your aether output is unpredictable. Discharge may be weak or overwhelming.
Abilities (Unstable):
Lúmivolt Conduction — VOLATILE Your body can channel and redirect electrical and aetheric energy. Efficiency and output fluctuate.
Residual Charge — UNSTABLE Electrical discharge possible. Form, range, and intensity vary.
Stormsense — DEGRADED Detects charged air, aether pressure, and unstable wind lanes. Readings inconsistent.
Volucite Resonance (Passive) — EMERGENT Your graft reacts to volatile aetheric gases. You can ionize, stabilize, or destabilize nearby Volucite under specific conditions.
Warning: Uncontrolled discharge may cause collateral harm.
System Note: The Lúmivolt Root adapted to you. Whether you adapt to it remains unresolved.
Combat Experience Gained: +500 XP (Reactive Defense)
Trigger: Voluntary aether discharge while physically restrained.
Assessment: Bravery recorded. Technique insufficient.
Dismissing the message, Drew rolled from his back onto his side, breath hissing through clenched teeth. His hands and feet were bound with rope so tightly they had gone numb. The ground beneath him was cold, hard stone.
Not good.
Somewhere nearby, a woman screamed, high and broken, the sound of an agonized soul. Whatever had happened while he was unconscious, the ritual hadn’t just failed.
The island had fallen.
Smoke stung Drew’s eyes and he shut them. Boots scrapped the stone near him. Tears formed in Drew’s eyes, from fear, from panic, from humiliation.
Boots scraped against rock. Voices barked orders in a harsh, unfamiliar tongue. Something heavy was dragged across the ground, followed by a dull, wet thump that made his stomach twist.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He kept his eyes shut.
A foot struck him hard in the back, the pain shocking his eyes open.
“Pretending to sleep, are we?” a sharp, nasal voice mocked.
“Get him up” the voice commanded.
Twin red vines picked Drew up by his armies and hoisted him into the air. He was carried unceremoniously toward the edge of the island. Bodies littered the ground around him, several bristling with long spikes like grotesque pincushions.
Green canoes with triangular sails mounted vertically above and below their frames were being loaded nearby. Some were packed with wicker baskets of pillaged goods. Others held screaming women and children.
Drew twisted to look at his captor and felt his stomach drop.
The man no, creature carrying him had had his arms and legs replaced by thick red twisting vines. The vines limbs length were far longer than the individuals legs should have been, it walked holding Drew several feet above the stone.
Eerily the vines that made up the legs did not walk as though legs might is a steady cadence but snaked like sine waves, in smooth periodic oscillations.
At the cliff’s edge, Drew was dropped among a huddled group of prisoners. Fray Hernando was there.
One man sobbed wordlessly, clutching his left arm…or what remained of it. At his feet lay his severed hand.
The nasal voiced man turned on Drew.
“How do you know El Venado de Las Venas?”
Glancing at Fray Hernando, Drew could see the man was in rough shape the circle of hair around his head died red by blood. The older man shook his head slightly.
A captor struck him for the gesture.
A stick rapped against Drew’s shin, pain bringing his eyes back to focus on the man questioning him. Drew stood his head violently.
“No.”
“How do you know El Venado de Las Venas?” The man shrieked, striking Drew’s other shin with the haft of his hatchet.
“I don’t”, Drew sobbed. “He only performed surgery on me!”
A small old man leaning on a cane walked into Drew’s vision. The man was wearing an eye patch, which he pulled to the side revealing yellow twisting vines where his eye should be.
The vines looked like cooked pasta noodles in his eye socket.
Drew involuntarily shivered.
“He tells only a partial truth” the strange old man said.
“Put that away elder, the man is not an air current or a target it does not see truth” the man with the nasal voice requested. The first glimmer of dawn began illuminating the clouds.
The elder responded.
“No he is not a current but the aether inside him flows from his heart or near it. El Venado has been performing more communions, this one is not very stable. In all my long years I have never seen a vine implanted in the heart.”
The elder glanced at Hernando and stocked his chin contemplatively lost in thought.
After a long movement the elder spoke up again.
“Bring him” gesturing at Drew “and El Venado the Professor will want him.”
An urgent blinking message with aquamarine text appeared in Drew’s vision.
[System Notice – Quest Failed]
Stormborn Lies (Unique Quest) Objective: Conceal anomalous vine graft from hostile factionsStatus: FAILED
Failure Condition Met: Tzoma Kai sensory units have confirmed nonnative hybrid vine activity.
Cause: Biostatus anomaly exceeded acceptable concealment thresholds.
[Consequence Applied]
Hostile Awareness Increased (Tzoma Kai) Stealth Modifier: ?25% (Biological Signature)Future Deception Checks: Increased Difficulty
[System Notice – Hidden Quest Unlocked]
Stormborn Lies: Broken Veil (Unique / Reactive Quest)
Description: The truth you hid has taken root elsewhere.The Tzoma Kai no longer ask what you are only how you can be used.
Warning: Further exposure may trigger forced integration, capture, or vivisection events.
