Chương 81: A New Start

Nyxil had lost four limbs. She glanced down at herself, running a finger over the stumps that now replaced them. Skin already sealed the wounds. I've still got six. Nyxil thought. By all counts, that still leaves me better off than most. Rising to her foot with the support of tentacles, Nyxil couldn't ignore just how inhuman she'd become. Hair of long mould strands. A hard, chitinous hand that hid vicious claws. Her wing and tentacles and third eye. Not to mention the wealth of changes within her jaw.

There was no way anyone would look at her and think she was human. Tarchon had declared he would deal with hiding her mutations for the upcoming Trials, but she did not envy the challenge. How exactly did he plan to hide the echo of her voice? She had learnt to control it well enough during rituals and song, but the moment she tried to talk normally, the echo followed her lead spontaneously. It was annoying. The Technocultist's guest bedroom was just as she remembered it.

Pipes, pistons and wires broke through the walls in the most illogical places, where she knew they didn't pop out on the other side. Everything was the same… except the bed. It was torn to shreds and melted in placed. I should apologise for the bedding. Considering where she'd woken, it wasn't a leap to assume she'd fallen off. That, or Tarchon had pulled her off after she'd already destroyed half the bed. Nyxil's eyes lifted to the door he'd left through only minutes ago. She still hardly believed any of it.

He had seen her in her full inhuman glory — and by the fact that her third eye was covered by the shroud again, a bit more than that — yet hadn't tried to lock her away. It was incredible. Such a refreshing reaction to finding out she was such a valuable sacrifice. And she struggled to believe it. With nothing else to lose, Nyxil had told him everything… even how she'd come back in time, yet the fact that he didn't try to squeeze out every little detail left her unsettled.

If only she could figure out why he acted as he had, she could feel comfortable, but such explanations were fleeting. What benefit was there to leaving her unbound? Why not try to discover every little detail of the future? Unless he thinks I'm mad? She cast the thought aside. It was even more likely that he would have killed her then and there at even the indication that she wasn't fully sane. Gathering herself, Nyxil made for the door. Her hand grasped the handle, but she paused. Her blade was gone.

Pushy — the only tentacle not currently holding her upright — felt at her hip where not only was the blade gone, but its scabbard too. She twitched as she looked through the room for her missing weapon. It's not like she was without a means of defence without it, but it was still important to her. Nyxil felt like some beast could jump out at her at any moment. A fleshforged in the walls. A shark beneath her feet. The fact that nothing came unnerved her more than the fear that they actually would. Idiot.

Nyxil chided herself. The Dark Star is gone. I shouldn't be jumping at shadows. With a clenched jaw, she pushed through the door. Instantly, she tensed for an attack, only to realise what she'd done and forcefully calm herself. Tarchon sat with his back to her, working away at one of his many workbenches. The groan of pipes overhead, the loud hum of power-tools, and a screeching piston off in the corner that sounded like it needed lubricant didn't make for a quiet environment, but oddly enough, it was calming.

She'd gone so long in a constant state of stress that the flipside felt unnatural. There was more noise in Tarchon's workshop than what she normally had to deal with in the former fleshforge, yet it felt almost silent. Unsettled by this change, Nyxil found herself lingering in the doorway. Waiting. For something to attack, or her world to shift.

She knew it was stupid; the world hadn't been a constant battlefield before she'd gotten stuck in the Dark Star, so now that she was out, she should expect that battle to continue. But she could do nothing to suppress the ingrained sense of caution years had instilled in her. And that was another shock in itself. What had been — for her — at the very least two years, only a few months had passed out here. Nyxil hadn't even considered the possibility until Tarchon had announced it as reality. Was the time real?

Or had it simply seemed that long. No. There was no chance at all she'd been in there less than a year… even accounting for the timelessness of the environment. In the early days Nyxil had been counting the hammer strikes. She'd lost a precise count in the hundreds, yet she knew they went upwards of ten thousand. No way could that many have occurred in only a few months. Especially not when the Fleshsmiths had managed to figure a way to survive in the time between them. Enjoying this book?

Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Pushy curled at her side, and she realised it was still feeling for her blade. Well, it was better than standing here all day expecting to be attacked. Nyxil stepped forward and called to Tarchon.

"Did you pick up my sword when you found me?" Without glancing her way, he reached his arm to his side and flung something over his shoulder. Excitedly, Pushy snapped forward. Her tentacle grasped the blade before she even recognised it as hers.

"I sharpened it for you," Tarchon grunted without looking up from his work. Unsheathing it, Nyxil was surprised to find it did look sharper… but she hadn't even noticed it getting dull. The weapon had cleaved through fleshforged as easily as its first day.

"Thanks," she said, grateful, but still unable to comprehend the man's intentions. The belt clipped around her waist easily — saddled just above the point where her tentacles grew — and she made her way to the bathroom-surgery combo. It had been far too long since she'd had a bath. Well… a bath that wasn't burning hot flesh. Nyxil passed the sterile metal table where the Technocultist had once cut her open. She made a beeline to the shower, but stopped short as she passed the mirror. After so long, she had to look.

She'd expected to look older. Once again, the proof that her perception within the Dark Star had been off by an entire factor was right before her eyes. Instead of finally breaching the gap of how old she felt, she remained a teen. Of all the things to be concerned about, the fact that she didn't even look like a young adult was petty and inconsequential, but it annoyed her. Gaunt as it was, her body was already smaller than it should be.

Considering she'd been sustaining herself off fleshforged meat, Nyxil wasn't surprised her body hadn't improved, but she had been hoping all the names and mutations would have made her look less like a starving rat. They definitely stopped her from feeling like one. Nyxil was confident she wouldn't snap like a twig at the slightest force anymore. With a chitinous finger, she poked at her lips. After so many accidental slip ups, they were now horribly scarred.

Like her lost limbs, the scarring didn't need to be permanent, but it would be difficult to convince anyone to heal her. Tarchon would know somebody, but he had already made it clear that such benefits wouldn't come her way until she'd proven herself at the Trials. Growling, she stepped into the shower, threw the lever, and disrobed. The Trials were far too close at hand. It was obscene to think she was required to win without her mutations. Those mutations were her strength.

Without them, she was hardly better off than the rest of the competitors. It was honestly a relief she'd decided to evolve her blade Talent alone. With Thaaren, she had something to rely on that could actually be explained to observers. She couldn't use her mutations without revealing them, after all. Not without a plan. Nyxil spun a knob, careful to avoid the dangerously labelled ones. As much as her body seemed immune to her own acid, she wasn't about to take that risk for others.

The warm, foamy water rained down on her head, slid down her back, and washed through her feathers. For the first time in so long, the tension slipped from her muscles. Nyxil closed her eyes and simply enjoyed the comforting embrace. Black muck pooled around her feet for the first few seconds, but the chemicals in the foam quickly ate through all the undesirables infesting her body. Copious amounts of dirt and dried blood — both her own, and that of cultists — melted off. Nyxil stopped thinking.

In the relaxing warmth, she might have even fallen asleep on her feet. She spent a long time simply standing there. But eventually, hunger stabbed at her chest and she was forced to give up the luxury she'd very much missed. Quickly, she shoved her clothes under the running water and let the chemicals wash away the filth, before she stepped back into the wet robes. Not ideal, but she didn't exactly have another set to change into.

When she slid the lever up, and the wall opened back into the surgical room, a plume of steam rolled off her. In an instant, she was dry.

"Do you have anything to eat?" Nyxil asked as she walked out into the workshop. Tarchon hadn't moved from his bench, and stepping close, she found him binding clockwork into a spare arm. Absently, she wondered if clocks still broke if they weren't used to tell time.

"Back shelf. Third from the right. Two up." He waved in the general direction, not taking his eyes from his machine. Nyxil grimaced at the long wall of mechanical parts. She'd forgotten his tendency to mix foodstuff in with the oil and metal. It wasn't difficult to find the drawer as directed, but when she slid it open, she found it filled with bricks. White, fist-sized rectangles that looked like slabs of concrete. Delicately, she lifted one from the pile… and slammed it into the shelf's metal brace.

The brick didn't break. Instead, it left a dent in the metal.

"It's a biscuit, not a weapon." Tarchon's sarcastic tone had her spin to the man, who'd stopped working on his machine arm to watch her.

"You eat this shit?" She couldn't help herself; Nyxil doubted that, even with her unnaturally sharp teeth, she could bite into the small slab. Tarchon averted his glass eyes. Though, Nyxil couldn't be sure it was because of her question, or he was just more interested in his work.

"… Occasionally. They are nutritious." When she'd been living here alone, she'd opted to get her own food. The few items that had been lying around looked so stale she hadn't even wanted to touch them. Now, despite really not wanting to eat cement, her hunger gave her no room for argument. Her teeth slid into the brick easily, and surprisingly, it melted in her mouth. Whether helped by her acid, or intentional, it went down easily. Unfortunately, it tasted the same as it looked.

She stuck out her tongue in distaste, and her tongue mimicked the expression. The 'nutritious' brick didn't leave an aftertaste though, so it was already better than fleshforged sharks. She swallowed the rest.

"Don't you chew?" Nyxil found Tarchon looking her way again. His face was as blank as his tone, so she couldn't tell if it was a serious question or he was chiding her lacking manners. She shrugged, feeling surprisingly filled from that single brick.

"Can't. Not really." She poked at her teeth.

"Too sharp." Tarchon simply stared at her. Looking left, then right, Nyxil didn't know what else she was supposed to say. She didn't know if he expected her to say something else. Not only had she gone two years without a — civil — conversation, but she'd not had many opportunities beforehand to learn. Maybe, now that someone knew all her secrets and hadn't yet stuck her in a cage, she could start.