Imago

  One of the 5 known Runes of the Hunting King Wayth Disragon—a rite of ruin, an art beyond peril. A rare and deadly rune, a tune of soul invoked only by the confident or insane. Created with spite, devised for the slaying of the most apocalyptic of beasts—Calamity Entities. It functions with a singular, brutal principle: strip the thinking beast of mind, and force the body to evolve beyond the constraints of restraint. A double-edged rite, Imago has seen nary use, for it demands the hunter face a monster beyond all monsters at its absolute apex…

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  Endless blue, a reflection that stripped Bayren’s thoughts and cares. His mind and body burning to the whim of finality, broiling muscle and bone swelling as he melted through research buildings, incinerating any unfortunate soul in a blink as he plunged deeper and deeper into the Pit of Styx. Thoughts and sensitivities desperately holding on the fringe of his awareness, body rebelling against every thought that dared to command a single strand of blackened scale or horn. All was futile in the face of that all-devouring freedom that unshackled his mind from flesh. Forced to face himself, Bayren let out a resounding roar.

  A roar that echoed through the icy void and found itself clashing with Simon Mere, who amidst the rumbling anguish felt fleeting control return to him as he stared up at that endless horizon.

  “To die as bait… criminal…” he muttered as he and Talas were dragged down into the depths. Simon glanced at his arm, his fingers frozen against the cold air and forced to tether Bayren to the mirror horizon of the Imago’s domain.

  The roaring of the C.E. thundered down the abyss, its fireburst flame exploding ferociously, shattering the icy walls into a spray of mist as heat rose high into a rumbling storm cloud of Kyyr and Ends-world fire. Spiraling fire exploded beyond the Imago as Bayren fell aimlessly, his claws melting metal and ice as he fell at terminal velocity. And yet, not far, facing the searing Kyyr—Talas and Simon began to reclaim some control, forced to face their horrid fate as they crashed hand in hand down the Pit of Styx.

  Simon pulsed his Kyyr as he fell, struggling against the warbling shrill of Cythrallis, his muscles tight chains against his bones as an esoteric Rune burned bright on his palm. Gravity twisted his guts as he turned to find Talas staring up in horror. Above them, the Kyyr had grown increasingly violent, lashing against the ice causing earth-shattering groans to resound all around them as Kyyr seeped into the frozen water igniting everything in a mesmerizing blue glow that spiraled around the mirror sheath of the Imago and into Bayren’s collapsing nova of fire and ice.

  “TALAS!” Simon screamed—but his voice was no more than a whisper against the rumbling of the Calamity Entity.

  Waves of Kyyr sent the two flying down in a fierce burst. Talas managed to shield himself with his Kyyr and scales, while Simon, on the other hand, felt blood rising from his ears. He grunted in pain as white petals blossomed from his ears, his vision straining as he felt dizzying nausea, the spiraling world spun and spun beyond his reality as his brain writhed in the face of Calamity’s Kyyr as he struggled to regenerate against the howling firestorm.

  The two figures floundered just beyond the Imago, their bodies shot down like living comets by Bayren’s energy. Cast out of the main vein of the Pit of Styx, where ice gave way to a massive hollow sparsely populated by research stations and a small community of people.

  Below, in the frosted streets and clustered homes, confused citizens and researchers who had withstood the onslaughts of Kyyr staggered outside or pressed to their windows, eyes lifted skyward as the eternal night came to life with spidery weaves of amber-crimson Kyyr. A crimson fracture stretched across the icy firmament—beautiful, ominous. Their final vision, a display of blooming red and pyroclastic death in the depths of Himadri.

  Forgotten in a black flash, Bayren's flaming form crashed into the settlement. Consumed by the flames of disaster, a wall of water exploded outward—the rising heat melting flesh and metal as a roiling waft of condensed steam sent shockwaves through the icy shell of the planet. The shuddering impact spread with continental magnitude. The city above was slammed by the chaos. Ice walls collapsed in thunderous sheets, crushing buildings as support beams screamed and buckled. Concrete burst, glass rained, and the city convulsed in terror.

  Inside the Nordos, bodies were thrown from their footing as everyone struggled to stay on their feet, with Pax reeling in pain as Cythrallis’s Kyyr stretched to its absolute limit. The chitinous man-beast writhed blindly; Calamity Kyyr violating his senses.

  Back in the depths of Styx, a draconic figure shielded Simon as the two hovered in the air, held barely out of reach by Cythrallis as they stared down at the collapsing star that was Bayren. The once-icy expanse was now a steaming sea, churning violently around the living firestorm that was the C.E. Steam erupted outward as all that remained at Bayren’s feet was the mirror-rune. Its blue skies were gone—replaced by a furious sunset, massive rolling clouds bathed in sullen gold, weeping pink, and the glow of autumn fire.

  Bayren exhaled. Embers hissed against the false reflection, the mirror-rune standing alone as the only platform in that black sea of mist and ice. He stared down at it, his visage cracking, the raging flames dimming from a roaring inferno to a dull, failing glow—until there was only black. What remained was skeletal and gaunt, a deformed thing vaguely shaped like Bayren, his tail coiled tight around his bony frame as strange, cancerous growths bubbled from his chest.

  Simon and Talas landed at the edge of the Imago, their hearts beating beyond their control as they struggled to figure out what they could do.

  Talas turned to Simon in a panic. “Simon can’t you undo the damn Rune?!”

  Simon grabbed at his arm, straining his Kyyr. “I’m trying—but the Needle bastard’s got a bloody tight hold of my fucking Kyyr!”

  Talas turned back toward Bayren. The massive form twitched, arms unfurling as he collapsed forward, his head slamming into the mirror-rune platform. Cracks carved through his face while flickering flames struggled to reignite.

  “What do we do?!” Talas shouted, panic rising as he began compressing Draconic Kyyr into his body.

  Simon’s Kyyr tightened in his mind. I regained some measure of control. But to what degree? He turned to Talas. “Talas can you fully transform?!”

  Talas shook his head, “I tried—but it’s like I’ve forgotten how. Or if I ever could.” He frowned, confusion creeping into his voice.

  Simon glared at the Rune seared into his palm, the esoteric symbol burning a bright electric blue. “Hmm…?” He pulsed his Kyyr in his other hand, a blossom erupting from his hand, the white petals extending and weaving into a basket-hilted sword, its blade borne of thorns, its guard a pale green blossom. His crimson eyes focused on his marked hand. With a decisive strike, he severed it at the wrist. The Rune fell with the limb, flopping uselessly against the Imago’s surface as it flickered and dimmed. The Rune faded, but the Imago remained.

  Simon shifted his focus inward, Kyyr receptors flaring as he sensed the ebb and flow of his severed limb. Without his command, a white rose burst from the bleeding stump—bone and flesh tearing forward as regeneration took hold, replacing the pale rose with muscle and bone. His hand writhed to life, and with it a flicker of crimson, before a new blue Rune was burned onto his new palm.

  Talas watched in disgust. “Don’t get desperate on me Simon, you're supposed to be the level headed one here!”

  Simon ignored him, studying the flow of his own Kyyr. “I see how this ends.”

  His words were answered by a blast of Kyyr from Bayren. The Calamity Entity rose with resounding force, a wave of energy clapping through the air with a thunderous roar. His body blackened further. The cancerous mass at his core bubbled violently as something pushed from within, bony growths and joints rubbing against the sinewy tissue of the black flesh.

  Talas rushed to Simon’s side. “What? What ends where? What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Simon scoffed. “That bastard Cythrallis knows we can’t best Bayren. To use Imago against an Omnistrallis-level C.E. is tantamount to suicide. All that bloody Needle wants is time. Giving us our minds just to buy itself leeway, but—” He was cut off by a crashing wave of Kyyr. Simon staggered, his gaze drawn to Bayren.

  The Calamity Entity stood tall, chest bulging grotesquely as blackened ribs tore apart. From the cancerous mass at his core, two additional arms erupted, clawing free through sinew and charred flesh. Their skin was snow-white, thin and taut over bony, nine-fingered hands, each digit banded in unnatural black stripes. As the fingers spread, fine, wiry fissures crept along the arms, bleeding a low, cold blue glow from beneath the skin.

  Simon continued, eyes locked on Bayren. “What I’m trying to say is—we can survive this.”

  “WE CAN?!” Talas shouted as the alien hands turned inward, digging into Bayren’s own flesh.

  Simon continued as calamity Kyyr began to re-ignite. “Cythrallis is at a disadvantage. When I cut my arm off, it patched me up with its own Kyyr. Now the blasted Needle’s stretched thin—split between us and its other hosts. It’s gambling on our survival instincts to buy it time while it gets its stupid act together.”

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  Talas glanced at Simon, confused—his monstrous visage twisted in fear as his gaze flicked between him and the ruined thing Bayren had become.“So we want to waste its Kyyr?”

  “No!” Simon shouted over the rising hum of Kyyr. “We have leverage—to NEGOTIATE!” He stressed the final word, then turned his voice outward. “Cythrallis—release your hold, and I promise you your time!”

  Bayren answered with a monstrous wail. The alien arms plunged into his chest, tearing free a shining orb. Foreboding light spiraled outward in a maddening display of alien color before the nine-fingered hands closed around it, collapsing the orb—Bayren’s calamity core—into a silent amber flame.

  Silence.

  A warble echoed in Simon and Talas’s minds—a shrill painful alien cry that mended into words. “As if.” Cythrallis’s voice rang within them. “But… hope is a powerful tool, and I am a Hy’Kyyrian. I am risk incarnate—eager, alive, and willing to talk.”

  The nine-fingered hands raised the core high in ritual light as the Imago churned, its surface boiling in response. And somewhere within that reflected heaven, a distant winged figure, unknowable, answered Bayren’s roar.

  “Okay?!” Talas shouted. “SO TALK!”

  Behind them, the crimson orb that had descended with them rose from the water, blades peeling free to orbit Simon in a slow, deliberate halo. The metal shimmered, catching the molten glow rising from Bayren.One by one, the blades drew together, snapping into place. Mercury metal churned and folded into itself, spiraling around the crimson orb as it reformed—braiding into a single, elongated weapon. A basket-hilted sword emerged, its blade etched with writhing Hy’Kyyrian script. The crimson core flashed. The weapon turned in the air, its hilt offering itself to Simon.

  “The Imago is your lifeline,” Cythrallis said, its voice cutting cleanly through the sonorous roars of Bayren. “As long as it condemns Bayren to himself. I promise—survive the monster, and I’ll leave your pathetic selves to deal with the empyrean fallout.”

  “What of Talas?” Simon narrowed his eyes. “Will you allow him to commune with the Dragon God?”

  “Take my blade,” Cythrallis hissed, ignoring his plight.

  Simon sighed. “What is it you desire, blade?”

  Cythrallis warbled in an alien tongue as it shoved the blades toward Simon, stopping mere millimeters from his face.

  Simon glanced to Talas, who stared back with an ever-confused look carved into his monstrous visage. He half-smiled, raising a hand in quiet acceptance.“I always dreamt of wielding one of Alvlad’s Swords… what an absolutely terrible ambition that was.” He took the hilt—and agony detonated behind his eyes, cascading from his hand into his mind.

  “Wield me as an equal spawn of Eve—I leave you this body. This blade. Wield me with my one purpose—”

  Simon gaze flowed along the strange sword, the tip guiding his eyes to the monstrous Bayren whose calamity core spun wildly, fire flashing in violent bursts as his blackened body began to glow from the fractures and cracks crawling across its frame.

  “To kill…” Simon finished the Hy’Kyyrians words with little confidence.

  Talas nearby felt his body lighten, his Kyyr rising, yet the embrace of the True Dragons eluded him. “I can only partially transform!” he shouted over the rising drone pouring from the Calamity Lord. “So what now? How do we fight that?!” Ripples exploded from under Bayren. “What in the Planuras is he doing?!” Talas cried, raising an arm to shield his eyes.

  Simon squinted against the storm incarnate. “I don’t know. Everything about this Imago exceeds the bounds of a normal rite. If I were to guess this mess must be tied to his status as an Omnistrallis.”

  The Kyyr pouring from Bayren surged violently, the surrounding water answering in kind, churning into cold, heaving waves that crashed against the mirror-rune in thunderous sheets.

  “TALAS” Simon bellowed over the Kyyr’s roar. “Grant me your back. We must become a Dragoon!”

  Talas looked at him, shocked, preemptively shaking his head. “EWW! WHY NOW?”

  “We must draw Bayren to the moon’s surface! It's the only way to reduce the damage to the city above—and without you I lack the mobility to get us out of here while sustaining the Imago.”

  “But why in the world do we have to reduce the damage?!” Talas asked, still vexed by the proposition.

  “Because even if we survive a mindless Bayren, the moment he sees what we’ve done to the city, he’ll blow us apart anyway. And if we somehow live through that, Ezzeks will finish the job the second he hears how royally we’ve fucked this up.”

  Talas grimaced. “Deus—if only death weren’t so haunting…” He huffed. “Agh! Fine. But not a word of this to another soul—assuming we survive.”

  Simon tried to smile. “No promises.”

  Talas sighed, his overlapping jaws failing to hold a smile. “Damn Vileblood…”

  Talas’s Kyyr ignited to the limit allowed by Cythrallis, his already monstrous form swelling until it rivaled Bayren’s in size. Four wings tore free from his back. His snout lengthened, horns branching outward in repeating patterns as scales rolled across his body in surging waves.

  The once vaguely humanoid Draconic Plāgas stuttered and fractured in form, hovering on the brink of Excidium. He rose clad in bronze scales that shimmered with an iridescent blue sheen. With a powerful roar, the Dragon God of Waves, half-formed, reluctantly lowered his back. “Go on…” he grumbled.

  Simon wasted no motion, vaulted onto his back, Alvlad’s Blade clenched in hand. There they settled together, partaking in the dance of the Dragoon—two wills aligned, poised in a single stance for battle.

  Bayren’s Kyyr spiked as Talas and Simon watched him collapse to his monstrous knees. In the mirror’s reflection, they caught a fleeting glimpse of something. For a breath, they thought they saw the alien hands clasp a tendril. Long. Pale. Ringed with the same black marks. Then it was gone. Or perhaps it had never been there at all. But they couldn’t ponder the vision, as Bayren rose again. The extra arms were gone, though his hands now bore two extra fingers on each hand.

  The Calamity Lord lingered in silent reverence to the unseen.

  SKRSHH!

  Flame detonated outward as Bayren ignited. His visage cracked, three clean fractures splitting each side of his skull, tearing open into the birth of false eyes. Fire poured from his mouth as his gaze locked onto Talas and Simon. Bayren dropped to all fours and roared, unleashing a blast of flame so hot that the icy ocean boiled in an instant as steam surged upward, swallowing their vision.

  Talas’s Kyyr rattled through the air in waves, his slit eyes narrowing as he took to the sky. Simon wrapped white blossoms around Talas’s neck, straining his Kyyr as he felt the drag of the Imago. Steam had risen high, blanketing the darkness in spiraling wafts that lit ablaze as Bayren erupted from below. Millimeters from raking Talas’s underbelly, Bayren missed. The two surged higher as the Calamity Lord slammed back into the rising rune platform, its once-amber skies erased, replaced by an otherworldly night of thundering nebulas veined with erratic lightning.

  Bayren shot upward again, narrowly missing Talas with a flaming slash.

  The dragon growled. “Do we really have to stay this clo—WOAAAAAA!” A condensed cylinder of flame tore out of the rising steam. Bayren’s jaws split wide as the beam tracked them, boring through kilometers of ice before erupting upward into the frigid expanse of the moon’s surface.

  “We must hurry!” Simon shouted, white blossoms blooming across him, hardening into pale, ghost-petalled armour. “To the surface!”

  Talas groaned as they dove into the steaming wound carved by the pillar of flame. They burst upward through the ice. The tunnel closed tight around them. Talas scanned the cramped walls, unease prickling as he pulsed more Draconic Kyyr, sending rippling waves outward in search of Bayren.

  Death.

  Bayren erupted from the steam in a flash. Talas narrowly veered aside as the Calamity Lord smashed into the tunnel, the impact detonating ice in a thunderous explosion. Talas growled and beat his wings harder, Kyyr surging as Bayren tore through the ice like paper, leaping to the opposite wall. Claws raked permafrost as flame compressed deep in his throat.

  Talas’s Kyyr receptors sparked. He felt the pressure building. His scales shifted in rolling waves as he dragged Simon into his grasp, hauling him in like a living conveyor.

  “Hold on!” Talas roared.

  The blast came. Talas wrapped himself in his wings and dove into the ice, vibrating them violently as he burrowed through the wall. The beam sliced after them, searing past where they had been a heartbeat before.

  “Turn back!” Simon shouted. “I’m losing the Imago!”

  Talas groaned, releasing waves of Kyyr from his wings, spreading them to create space as he focused his Kyyr on Bayren and used his legs to boost himself in that direction. “Is this the right direction?”

  “Yes—w-wait, go up! We’re heading back d—”

  Fire detonated into them as Bayren collided with them like a rising asteroid. Ice burst apart. The impact drove Talas straight through it, the force alone flinging them onto the frigid surface of Himadri.

  Talas shrieked in pain and erupted with Draconic Kyyr, shockwaves tearing outward and blasting Bayren away from him. The foul beast crashed down at the Imago’s center, the Kyyr domain swelling as Simon raised a blood-slicked arm. The weary Vileblood stumbled clear of Talas and collapsed hard onto the ice. Blood splattered from the stump where his leg had been severed. Groaning, he drove Cythrallis into the ground for support as white blossoms burst forth, bone and flesh knitting together as the limb regrew.

  Talas roared again as Cythrallis’s Kyyr surged through him, regrowing the dragon’s left wings and both of his arms Bayren had torn away. The mirror-rune spread beneath them, its surface trembling as they watched Bayren devour what remained of Talas’s severed limbs in the distance. Simon cast a pained look down at the mirror surface beneath them, his eyes widening as he turned to the sky where he saw the immense beauty of the pale-scarred giant: Fowoz-5.

  It was a white planet—massive beyond reason—its pallid bulk consuming the sky like an all-devouring god. Its surface churned beneath layers of spiraling storms, vast cyclones braided together in slow, planetary motion, yet every one of them bent away from a single, unspoken absence. A crimson abyss scarred the world from pole to pole, a raw, vertical scar that bled color into pale. Fowoz-5 stared at the minuscule entities, its glare dreadfully beautiful, yet filled with judgement.

  Simon swallowed nervously under the pale god’s gaze, his petals weaving tight as he was forced to rely on Kyyr in the absence of air. He refused to meet the planet’s stare, watching instead as Talas finally regrew his arms, painfully pulling himself upright beside him. Together, they waited, forced to watch Bayren finish his meal.

  Talas grunted, pain threading his voice. “So how many more arms am I meant to feed him?”

  Simon watched in horror as Bayren crushed dragon bone with a single bite. “Can’t say… We can only hope Cythrallis finishes his business swiftly.”

  Talas groaned. “Hope, huh? And what, precisely, are we hoping that thing manages to accomplish?”

  Simon shook his head. “I don’t think we want to know…” he tensed up.

  In the distance, Bayren let out a horrific roar, body igniting as his six slit eyes locked on Simon and Talas.

  “Let’s come back from the dead, friend.” Simon whispered.

  Talas lowered his massive head beside him, settling into a defensive stance. “Friend?” he rumbled. “Since when do the dead make friends?”

  Bayren roared before Simon could answer, bridging the gap in a blink, and so they clashed, the shockwaves of their battle for survival rippling to the crisis in the city below—where a black chitin-armored creature stood over two dismembered bodies, their futures cut short by a new monster.

  Threnody of the Depths is going

  way, way down the line.

  -L.Osric