And yet, when he closed his eyes, rewatching Retribution’s memories and discoveries, he felt pain. So much pain. To discover your creator had made you just to be discarded and harvested for your budding soul. It would break anyone.
He had heard about the savior sibling on Earth, making a second child whose main purpose was to have his bone marrow be transplanted into his elder sibling to save them from a terminal disease.
It was a very complex moral dilemma, because at least the second child should be in a happy loving home. Not always the case of course, and the risk of the parents turning their second child into just an instrument while also manipulating the second child and forcing him to give his stem cells to be transplanted can be quite heavy. Even more when a child does not want to do that anymore as it’s a very heavy operation.
But in the Cygilites case, their parents had already made it clear they were a tool. A means to an end. And not only had they been “harvested” once, but it would happen a second time!
While yes, David was horrified as a parent, that anyone would do this to their child, the Prothean starving so much for the joy of having their own children they did not see they were abandoning and slaughtering their first ones.
But it shouldn’t affect him this much. Why did he feel this righteous anger, this wish to scream in pain and sadness at this discovery. It took him a few seconds to realise the truth, because David died. David died on that pile of sand, his family gone.
He would see them one last time, but the reward only talked about seeing them, not even talking to them, for all he knew he could be tricked. David had died, his soul and memory landing in Unit-123, a Scrap Bot made by the gnomes, then he had changed his body to become a Cygilites.
And his name, David, finally got taken by Sapphyra. He was not David, not anymore.
It is why he felt this anger, sadness, disappointment, wrath… and hope for his new people. They needed and wished for a new leader? They wished to rise back to their true place as the race who fought the gods and only lost because they were betrayed?
He would help them, he did not know if he truly wanted to lead, but he would show them, he would reveal the truth so that his kind does not get tricked a second time. David would never have the strength or will to be a leader responsible for so many lives.
Akhenamen would. Akhenamen will.
Saphhyra had prepared this realization for him. He wasn’t David anymore. Not after all that happened, not after how much he changed. If he wished to truly heal and recover, then he had to forget about his previous life. He would never forget his family and real goal to see them again.
But David was dead. It was time for Akhenamen to be born. That is why he was feeling so many things. Akhenamen, the Cygilites, the Unseen Truth, was furious, betrayed by those he believed to be loving parents, tricked by them when he believed their propaganda and lies about their “love” for their children.
They would be back for his brother’s and sister’s soul. They would be back for his too.
David would never be able to lead a war to protect his people. Protect his family? Sure. But be ready to kill millions of Protheans to defend millions of HIS people? No. But Akhenamen would.
So Akhenamen opened his eyes, the glowing blue pupils inside his green eyes having expanded in size.
“You’re correct, Retribution. We were made for war, to be discarded and harvested. But never again. The protheans made us into machines to lead their war? So we will wage it. Not on the people of Zenthia, not on the gods. But against the Protheans. Because when we’ll use their signal, we’ll be waiting for them.”
Akhenamen’s hand softly caressed Retribution’s spherical crystal body, like a loving father gently rubbing his daughter’s head to calm her down.
“You are perfect Retribution. You will help us bring death to the Protheans if they dare show themselves again. But to truly leave no chance to survive, we will need allies, the gods, the mortal races, with their help we shall be stronger than ever. Free the elves, drop your hate and bring back hope for revenge against our creators.”
“Yes.. What about our name? We do not wish to keep the name given by the traitors. We want a true name alongside our purpose.”
“A name? That is something only you can choose, a name is important, it defines who you are and what you’ll be. So what name do you wish to bear now?”
“Ascylla… We like it. Ascylla. Ascylla…”
She seemed to be mouthing this word as she was trying on clothes, did this suit her? By the end, she seems to like it.
“Yes… we wish to be named Ascylla.”
“Then you shall now be Ascylla. You have revealed the truth to me. Unveiled the lies of the Protheans. And together we shall reveal the truth to all our siblings. You shall be Ascylla, The Unveiling Truth.”
Ascylla felt… hope. For that first time she felt hope. Hope that she could be avenged alongside our fallen brothers and sisters, that the Protheans would pay for their crimes. Her new title gave her a new meaning, a new purpose, to help her brother Akhenamen to reveal the truth to all her people.
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She was not Retribution, a machine made to create war, death and suffering. But to reveal truths and offer hope to their people.
A pulse of energy seemed to come out of Ascylla, that same pulse entering the prototype’s body. Allowing the souls inside to finally feel freedom. Akhenamen looked at the prototype in the other room, saw the pale phantoms of the Eventelle family rise above the Prototype’s body, hugging each other once more after millenia.
They starred at the newly born Akhenamen. The father and mother bowing down softly, thanking the one who freed them for their torments, Melchion waving happily at him. As they started to finally dissipate, most likely going to the elf's afterlife.
Melchion stayed behind a bit longer than his parents, concentrated really hard, his eyes closing, his face frowning before lifting his hands high and summoning a small ball of light. The light floats to Akhenamen and gives him a gift.
[Finion’s Circus] [Unique] : This spell, despite its simple usage, is quite complex, personally crafted by the Eventelle’s genius archmages Philibert and Melia Eventelle for their child Melchion.
To teach him the importance of happiness, and the fact that hard work brings success, they created this spell with the help of the God of Joy, Happiness and Childhood. Finion, The Happy. Finion is one of the oldest and yet called the “weakest” god, said to be weaker than a Rank 4 despite being a Dominion himself.
Because of the Oldest War, he lost an immense amount of power and followers, and grew completely horrified by war’s consequences. Now he is said to give a gift to every child on Zenthia one night per year. Once the children receive this gift, they also forget Finion’s existence. Giving him his main nickname : The Forgotten.
[Effect] : It summons all kinds of glowing fantastical shapes and allows complete and total control over their movements. This spell allows the gathering of a resource called joy. The more joy and happiness is due to the user’s actions the more they can buy gifts and rewards from Finion’s personal treasury.
[Current Joy] : 15
[New feature unlocked : Finion’s Shop]
Akhenamen stared at the notification then back at Melchion who was smiling at him and waved, finally dissipating. Joining his parents.
“What a strange spell, I will definitely have to check it out. Spreading joy and laughter? Why not…”
Akhenamen let out a small laugh, he had to admit that while he doubted the god of happiness, joy and childhood would be very happy to have this [Unique] spell in the hands of someone whose new purpose was to help his big scary robot people rise to their previous height while preparing for war with the Protheans and accomplish the quest to see his family one last time. Hearing a child’s laughter is something most parents ended up missing.
“No matter, I’ll deal with that spell later.”
Akhenamen turned back to Ascylla.
“I’m proud of you Ascylla. This was the first step toward our rebirth. Now I need your help. A signal comes from this ruin. Are you the cause? I fear it could be related to the Protheans.”
“Do not be worried, Argent Hierarch Akhenamen, it is us, yes. We were calling for our surviving brothers and sisters. But none have answered until you.”
“For now disable the signal. We are not yet ready to emerge. There is a city named Cygislax, a stronghold of our people before the Betrayal. We must take the city first. And only then, when we can protect our people will we be able to call them all. But first. I want you to show me a map of Zenthia if you have one.”
A map swiftly appeared, projected in the air by Ascylla’s powers, allowing Akhenamen to finally see what Zenthia looked like. It was a continent shaped like a crescent moon. In the middle was a massive sea populated by many small islands which formed a sort of natural barrier closing Zenthia’s sea from the wider ocean.
That was a map of ten thousand years ago, so while the territories represented on it all had kingdoms and empires present, now they might have fallen, disappeared or even changed from one nation to the next.
It looked like a “C” , the bottom being much thicker than the top, with its edges being obviously uneven. There seemed to be a rather cold and tundra-like territory at the northern part of the continent, surrounded by huge towering mountains, the whole northern part seemed to be the home of the Giants, Dwarves and even most Orcish tribes. The giants lived in the mountains, the dwarves under those mountains and the orcs lived in the tundra itself.
On the other side of those mountains, the climate became more calm and tempered, most of the Gnomish Alliance stood there, their great megalopolis of Tron standing as a true megalopolis, the biggest city on Zenthia.
Most of the other cities like Kork were actually all linked together through a massive mono-rail system that went all around the gnomish alliance, every city having its own Scrapyard. Kork was the city at the most western part of the gnomish alliance, of course, on the map, Kork was more like a small village than the big city it seemed to have become.
Kork was right next to one of the only natural entrances to the Great Desert of Olleron, a massive desert which back on earth would be able to cover an entire continent.
This desert was what the map seemed to consider as one of, if not THE most dangerous place on Zenthia, even considered one of the five Dead Zones, a place so dangerous and unpopulated that it was simply avoided by every traveller or would be completely impossible to fully conquer or control because of the monsters, beasts, environmental dangers inhabiting those lands.
Below this desert was what seemed like some great plains where the Pyrax Empire, mainly composed of Humans. With quite a few Centaur tribes. Surprisingly, the Pyrax Empire wasn’t a human supremacist empire, it welcomed every race that could be useful to the Empire, because of this they had tight alliances with the Centaurs and Minotaurs that lived in the same plains as them, alongside the Lizardmen and Amphibians of the Southern Swamps.
And to the east of the Desert of Olleron was a huge tropical forest where most of Brightheart Covenant seemed to live, composed mostly of Elves, Nagas and Felinids. And finally at the tip of the continent, even if calling it the “tip” was a huge understatement considering it still represented a massive land almost as big as the Pyrax Empire.
This was the Clouded Kingdom, a land covered in thick fog with very high mountains and very deep canyons that would cover most of its surface with the bottoms of those canyons being very vast and where most of the population lived in what could be called a hollow world. Its inhabitants were unknowns as even the Protheans who tried to enter the kingdom never came back, same for the Cygilites who entered.
However it was not exactly the end of the map as in the middle of the continent’s C shape was a great sea containing many small islands that seemed to exist on top of massive sea turtles.
The islands were inhabited by Mermaids and Octopis. The Octopis were described as half humanoid half octopuses so Akhenamen imagined they had to have the lower body of an octopus and upper body of a humanoid. He hoped, because the reverse would be quite horrifying or very funny.
“Thank you, it feels good to know more about Zenthia. Do you have knowledge of where every Cygilites Facility was once located.”
Small red dots started to appear all over the Desert of Olleron. Very few seemed to be outside of it.
“The Desert of Olleron, very deadly but to the Cygilites who need neither water nor food, and do not fear hot days or freezing nights it already eliminates half of the problem.”
As for the beasts and monsters, he didn’t doubt his ancestors had to be able to deal with them one way or another.
“Where is Cygislax? And what is an Obelisk?”
One of the biggest red dots in the desert lit up softly, showing the city was in the middle of the desert. As for the obelisks, six more dots turned a blue color, showing one at each extremity of the desert and one in the middle of Cygislax.
“Activating all obelisks creates a powerful shield of pure gauss energy that destroys atoms of any non authorized being passing through it. It was one of Cygilites greatest and most powerful defensive inventions.”
Akhenamen now had a pretty clear idea on what to do. First he would obtain all the secondary objectives of his World Quest. It would allow him to explore and understand this world better. Then he would go back to the Desert of Olleron and reactivate the city and its Obelisk. And only then, would he find a way to bring back his people.
“We shall come with you Argent Hierarch.”
“Follow me? Can you truly move? And is that a title you came up with?”
“Yes, do you like it? We thought that the future ruler of our people should have a great title : Argent Hierarch seemed satisfactory.”
“I have not said I would rule our people. I will guide and prepare them.”
“If you guide us, prepare us and counsel us. They will all see you as their leader. Even more if we succeed in retaking the glorious factory of Cygislax.”
“True…but for now disable your signal.”
“As you wish, Argent Hierarch.”