It was a neat endless stairwell going downwards with nothing to illuminate it but a small magical light in my hands. Without it, even I wouldn’t be able to see because no light reached down this far.
For quite a few minutes I was already descending said stairwell, whistling loudly to fight my boredom. At last though, I arrived at a metallic door, shimmering in a gentle blue light. It was protected by a few magical circles to stop any intruders from entering. I did have the key thought. Pushing the little dove I always had around my neck against the metal, the door opened slightly.
Loud screeching assaulted my ears almost instantly which made me flinch in anger. Closing my eyes in resignation, I kicked the door open and strolled into the large hall. The walls were made out of crude stone with very few magical lamps here and there. Otherwise, there wasn’t much furniture inside, except the cages filled with demons.
The adventurers I hired and Hannah’s mercenaries did a great job at capturing these animals for me, that was for sure. I just hoped they would educate these demons once they got captured because the noise was unbearable.
The loudest one of the bunch was probably the demonic bull who threw himself against its chains and the cage every time I stepped into the room. I should have started the tests I was conducting with him …
Anyways, these demons had luck – they could survive a little longer. I walked past them with heavy steps, not towards the big iron portcullis on the other side of the room, but rather through a hallway into another room which was closed off by a magical barrier blocking off any sound, but not anyone from passing through. Without this barrier, I would seriously go insane whenever I did my work inside.
“Who do we have here?” It was a smaller creature with red eyes and green skin. As one of the more common demons, goblins were easy to find and simple to capture as well. Their screeching didn’t make them a good conversation partner though. Well, conversations would be hard if you are chained to a table, gagged and high on drugs.
“Oh, right! Your brother died yesterday so … I’ll call you Isabelle!” I exclaimed and walked over to a table filled with lab instruments. One particular experiment I did yesterday caught my eye immediately. Around twenty test tubes were standing side by side on a wooden stand, each filled with partly human blood and with Schwarz’s - yesterdays goblin’s - blood. Most of them formed clumps but a few select did not.
“Wow, you are an interesting fellow.” The discovery of blood types hadn’t been made yet on Solaris, but that couldn’t stop me from making tests on them. Goblins had blood groups … probably. What was more interesting though was that there were cases in which the blood group matched with a human one … which should have been impossible. One couldn’t just transfer the blood of a cow to a human … I mean, you could, but the patient would die. Only human to human transfusions should be possible provided the blood grouping was fine.
That there weren’t any clumps in some vials though which could only mean one thing. The goblin had human blood, as weird as it sounded.
“Okidoki …” After I put the experiment away, I strolled over to a cabinet and looked for a simple knife. As soon as I found one, I strolled back towards Isabelle and laughed happily. “You poor girl have a stalker? That’s so sad … but look on the bright sight. At least someone wants to have anything to do with you. You and your crappy personality of always asking me for help … seriously, what’s wrong with you?” I asked loudly and listened to the muffled sounds of Isabelle trying to break free from her chains. “Don’t worry … once you are dead you will see Schwarz, Louis, Ellie, Olivia, Catherine, Noah, James, Emilie, Elliot, Rudolph, Wolfgang, Kyle, Zoe … you will see the whole fucking school one day.” Slowly, I placed the knife right above her pinky finger and pushed it downwards until it touched the goblins skin.
“But before that, you kind of have to live with my frustrations because I cannot vent them on the real person … I’m kind of fucked up, aren’t I?” Chuckling a bit, I used the dagger to saw through the upper joint of its pinky finger. I could have just chopped it off, but where would be the fun in that?
Like this, I could enjoy Isabelle’s animalistic screams full of pain and agony. “You have a really sweet voice, you know?” And I wanted to hear more of it. Sadly, the joint wasn’t exactly sturdy or thick and thus, I was through the finger quite fast.
The screams turned into whimpering quite fast which was sadly my signal to bandage the stump to stop the goblin from dying right away.
Interested in the finger, I ignored Isabelle for the time being and strolled over to a clean workbench with all kinds of medical utensils. After taking a scalpel, I began to cut the finger apart carefully and took notes during my short breaks.
“Three phalanges with approximately the same length as a six year old human …” The goblin started to groan loudly through the gag which interrupted my concentration a little bit. “The nerves are a bit less embossed though … probably helps in reducing pain a little … would you please stop groaning you fucking imbecile? Others are trying to think here!” I closed my eyes, thought about what I saw and then grabbed the scalpel once more.
A bit angrily, I stomped over towards the goblin again and grabbed its wounded hand. Isabelle couldn’t resist at all as I cut another finger off and dissected it right there. The results were exactly the same and as I studied the third finger, nothing else surprised me.
“You have a freakishly human hand for a goblin. The only difference is really your nails there …” They were quite sturdy in comparison to human nails and could be used as a makeshift weapon even though they probably shouldn’t be used as such.
A bit interested in the strange similarities, I traced over the bloody table with my index finger and licked the tip.
Immediately, a foul taste filled my mouth and I spat out everything I could. Even though goblins and humans were similar and their blood didn’t clump in some cases, a vampire still wouldn’t feed on them if they could avoid it. Well, I was still on my animal diet because I didn’t want to be found out, but even then I wouldn’t drink goblin blood.
“Similarities and differences … your predecessors weren’t human by any chance?” I asked myself and thought about the day before. Sadly, I ripped Schwarz to pieces already as I didn’t really care about my scientific progress after he puked onto my shoes and thus, I wasn’t really able to recall much about his organs.
“Well then … you are a lucky one, Isabelle.” I smiled a bit and then looked straight into her eyes. So many lovable emotions were shown in them. From fear to a hint of defiance, I could find so much in them and all of it stirred my sadistic heart. Slowly, I sliced through her throat and took all of these emotions into me until her resignation took over. In the end though there was nothing left but a pair of hollow eyes, gazing into the distance.
Breathing out loudly, I started my work in cutting open its ribcage and inspected her organs. While most of them retained their human form, expect the liver for whatever reason, they were oddly arranged. The heart was placed a lot lower than it should have been, making the lung press against it whenever the goblin must have breathed in. Additionally, the appendix was completely missing and the stomach walls were a bit thicker than humans … but otherwise?
This species was insanely similar to humans which could only mean they shared the same predecessor. Maybe goblins mutated off some kind of ape … but then the blood would always clump. Meaning … goblins mutated off humans, just like the werewolves did.
“Oh…” Suddenly, I had a brilliant idea. With the goblins heart in my hands, I rushed back into the main room and looked at every cage.
“Mammal, mammal, reptile, avian, mammal …” I went through each and every cage I had, guessing their group if I didn’t know it better until I went through all. “Where are all the insects?” I knew of several mutated insects like a big fire ant, but none of them were any smaller than a fist. In fact, there wasn’t any small species I knew of which didn’t already exist two hundred years ago.
“Small species can mutate because of too much mana in the air … but they always grow in size … what else do I know? I can murder goblin children without any emotional turmoil and these new races are not graced by Irminsul … despite their similarities, I despise goblin blood …” The only answer I could come up with to all these puzzling pieces was that Irminsul had nothing to do with these new races. They also didn’t evoke naturally, because otherwise they would be graced with life just like the werewolves were. Their size also supported this hypothesis as smaller species should also exist, but didn’t. I kept thinking about the contradictions a little bit until it dawned me.
“Irminsul … do you really want to tell me all of these races didn’t appear naturally? That they were created without your approval? Or is it simply that another god didn’t want you to give them your blessing … then who was that god? … Ah.” There were three groups of gods. One broadly containing the forces of darkness like death, chaos, lust and hatred. Another group was completely opposite of them. Irminsul, the god of light and so on and so forth was in them. The last one was right in between them, containing the god of doors, stone and other gods which didn’t want to affiliate themselves with any group.
If it wasn’t Irminsul who blessed them, then it must have been someone from the group of gods Aska belonged to.
“Which means … oh, I get it now. Demons against humans, good against evil, the power of friendship against pure destruction … is it that you fuckers? You want this planet to be a battlefield? How often do I need to tell you that this planet is mine!” Angrily, I threw the heart in my hand into the nearest cage at some sort of ape. It made some funny sounds as it hit the floor while my hands were twitching in rage.
“If anyone of you assholes is watching me … I’ll make sure you won’t have any fun watching humans and demons tear each other apart … and I’ll make sure none of you will ever step any foot onto this planet.” I didn’t know for sure if I was correct with my assumptions, but I chose to stick with them for the time being. I didn’t actually change my plans by that much though as I still didn’t plan on fighting the demons yet. That would be exactly what the gods wanted after all. Instead, I would try to hold the reincarnators back and hold this boring stalemate between the races until all eternity. And if that didn’t work, I would try to defeat the demons in the most boring way I could think of with as little carnage as possible.
As much as I loved Aska … I wasn’t willing to be a piece on his or anyone else’s chessboard. Because one thing was certain. None of these creatures was created by Aska, but someone else entirely.
This was the day I understood that it wasn’t just Aska who influenced the world through other means than their chosen ones … and I was powerless to stop that for the time being.
It was a neat endless stairwell going downwards with nothing to illuminate it but a small magical light in my hands. Without it, even I wouldn’t be able to see because no light reached down this far.
For quite a few minutes I was already descending said stairwell, whistling loudly to fight my boredom. At last though, I arrived at a metallic door, shimmering in a gentle blue light. It was protected by a few magical circles to stop any intruders from entering. I did have the key thought. Pushing the little dove I always had around my neck against the metal, the door opened slightly.
Loud screeching assaulted my ears almost instantly which made me flinch in anger. Closing my eyes in resignation, I kicked the door open and strolled into the large hall. The walls were made out of crude stone with very few magical lamps here and there. Otherwise, there wasn’t much furniture inside, except the cages filled with demons.
The adventurers I hired and Hannah’s mercenaries did a great job at capturing these animals for me, that was for sure. I just hoped they would educate these demons once they got captured because the noise was unbearable.
The loudest one of the bunch was probably the demonic bull who threw himself against its chains and the cage every time I stepped into the room. I should have started the tests I was conducting with him …
Anyways, these demons had luck – they could survive a little longer. I walked past them with heavy steps, not towards the big iron portcullis on the other side of the room, but rather through a hallway into another room which was closed off by a magical barrier blocking off any sound, but not anyone from passing through. Without this barrier, I would seriously go insane whenever I did my work inside.
“Who do we have here?” It was a smaller creature with red eyes and green skin. As one of the more common demons, goblins were easy to find and simple to capture as well. Their screeching didn’t make them a good conversation partner though. Well, conversations would be hard if you are chained to a table, gagged and high on drugs.
“Oh, right! Your brother died yesterday so … I’ll call you Isabelle!” I exclaimed and walked over to a table filled with lab instruments. One particular experiment I did yesterday caught my eye immediately. Around twenty test tubes were standing side by side on a wooden stand, each filled with partly human blood and with Schwarz’s - yesterdays goblin’s - blood. Most of them formed clumps but a few select did not.
“Wow, you are an interesting fellow.” The discovery of blood types hadn’t been made yet on Solaris, but that couldn’t stop me from making tests on them. Goblins had blood groups … probably. What was more interesting though was that there were cases in which the blood group matched with a human one … which should have been impossible. One couldn’t just transfer the blood of a cow to a human … I mean, you could, but the patient would die. Only human to human transfusions should be possible provided the blood grouping was fine.
That there weren’t any clumps in some vials though which could only mean one thing. The goblin had human blood, as weird as it sounded.
“Okidoki …” After I put the experiment away, I strolled over to a cabinet and looked for a simple knife. As soon as I found one, I strolled back towards Isabelle and laughed happily. “You poor girl have a stalker? That’s so sad … but look on the bright sight. At least someone wants to have anything to do with you. You and your crappy personality of always asking me for help … seriously, what’s wrong with you?” I asked loudly and listened to the muffled sounds of Isabelle trying to break free from her chains. “Don’t worry … once you are dead you will see Schwarz, Louis, Ellie, Olivia, Catherine, Noah, James, Emilie, Elliot, Rudolph, Wolfgang, Kyle, Zoe … you will see the whole fucking school one day.” Slowly, I placed the knife right above her pinky finger and pushed it downwards until it touched the goblins skin.
“But before that, you kind of have to live with my frustrations because I cannot vent them on the real person … I’m kind of fucked up, aren’t I?” Chuckling a bit, I used the dagger to saw through the upper joint of its pinky finger. I could have just chopped it off, but where would be the fun in that?
Like this, I could enjoy Isabelle’s animalistic screams full of pain and agony. “You have a really sweet voice, you know?” And I wanted to hear more of it. Sadly, the joint wasn’t exactly sturdy or thick and thus, I was through the finger quite fast.
The screams turned into whimpering quite fast which was sadly my signal to bandage the stump to stop the goblin from dying right away.
Interested in the finger, I ignored Isabelle for the time being and strolled over to a clean workbench with all kinds of medical utensils. After taking a scalpel, I began to cut the finger apart carefully and took notes during my short breaks.
“Three phalanges with approximately the same length as a six year old human …” The goblin started to groan loudly through the gag which interrupted my concentration a little bit. “The nerves are a bit less embossed though … probably helps in reducing pain a little … would you please stop groaning you fucking imbecile? Others are trying to think here!” I closed my eyes, thought about what I saw and then grabbed the scalpel once more.
A bit angrily, I stomped over towards the goblin again and grabbed its wounded hand. Isabelle couldn’t resist at all as I cut another finger off and dissected it right there. The results were exactly the same and as I studied the third finger, nothing else surprised me.
“You have a freakishly human hand for a goblin. The only difference is really your nails there …” They were quite sturdy in comparison to human nails and could be used as a makeshift weapon even though they probably shouldn’t be used as such.
A bit interested in the strange similarities, I traced over the bloody table with my index finger and licked the tip.
Immediately, a foul taste filled my mouth and I spat out everything I could. Even though goblins and humans were similar and their blood didn’t clump in some cases, a vampire still wouldn’t feed on them if they could avoid it. Well, I was still on my animal diet because I didn’t want to be found out, but even then I wouldn’t drink goblin blood.
“Similarities and differences … your predecessors weren’t human by any chance?” I asked myself and thought about the day before. Sadly, I ripped Schwarz to pieces already as I didn’t really care about my scientific progress after he puked onto my shoes and thus, I wasn’t really able to recall much about his organs.
“Well then … you are a lucky one, Isabelle.” I smiled a bit and then looked straight into her eyes. So many lovable emotions were shown in them. From fear to a hint of defiance, I could find so much in them and all of it stirred my sadistic heart. Slowly, I sliced through her throat and took all of these emotions into me until her resignation took over. In the end though there was nothing left but a pair of hollow eyes, gazing into the distance.
Breathing out loudly, I started my work in cutting open its ribcage and inspected her organs. While most of them retained their human form, expect the liver for whatever reason, they were oddly arranged. The heart was placed a lot lower than it should have been, making the lung press against it whenever the goblin must have breathed in. Additionally, the appendix was completely missing and the stomach walls were a bit thicker than humans … but otherwise?
This species was insanely similar to humans which could only mean they shared the same predecessor. Maybe goblins mutated off some kind of ape … but then the blood would always clump. Meaning … goblins mutated off humans, just like the werewolves did.
“Oh…” Suddenly, I had a brilliant idea. With the goblins heart in my hands, I rushed back into the main room and looked at every cage.
“Mammal, mammal, reptile, avian, mammal …” I went through each and every cage I had, guessing their group if I didn’t know it better until I went through all. “Where are all the insects?” I knew of several mutated insects like a big fire ant, but none of them were any smaller than a fist. In fact, there wasn’t any small species I knew of which didn’t already exist two hundred years ago.
“Small species can mutate because of too much mana in the air … but they always grow in size … what else do I know? I can murder goblin children without any emotional turmoil and these new races are not graced by Irminsul … despite their similarities, I despise goblin blood …” The only answer I could come up with to all these puzzling pieces was that Irminsul had nothing to do with these new races. They also didn’t evoke naturally, because otherwise they would be graced with life just like the werewolves were. Their size also supported this hypothesis as smaller species should also exist, but didn’t. I kept thinking about the contradictions a little bit until it dawned me.
“Irminsul … do you really want to tell me all of these races didn’t appear naturally? That they were created without your approval? Or is it simply that another god didn’t want you to give them your blessing … then who was that god? … Ah.” There were three groups of gods. One broadly containing the forces of darkness like death, chaos, lust and hatred. Another group was completely opposite of them. Irminsul, the god of light and so on and so forth was in them. The last one was right in between them, containing the god of doors, stone and other gods which didn’t want to affiliate themselves with any group.
If it wasn’t Irminsul who blessed them, then it must have been someone from the group of gods Aska belonged to.
“Which means … oh, I get it now. Demons against humans, good against evil, the power of friendship against pure destruction … is it that you fuckers? You want this planet to be a battlefield? How often do I need to tell you that this planet is mine!” Angrily, I threw the heart in my hand into the nearest cage at some sort of ape. It made some funny sounds as it hit the floor while my hands were twitching in rage.
“If anyone of you assholes is watching me … I’ll make sure you won’t have any fun watching humans and demons tear each other apart … and I’ll make sure none of you will ever step any foot onto this planet.” I didn’t know for sure if I was correct with my assumptions, but I chose to stick with them for the time being. I didn’t actually change my plans by that much though as I still didn’t plan on fighting the demons yet. That would be exactly what the gods wanted after all. Instead, I would try to hold the reincarnators back and hold this boring stalemate between the races until all eternity. And if that didn’t work, I would try to defeat the demons in the most boring way I could think of with as little carnage as possible.
As much as I loved Aska … I wasn’t willing to be a piece on his or anyone else’s chessboard. Because one thing was certain. None of these creatures was created by Aska, but someone else entirely.
This was the day I understood that it wasn’t just Aska who influenced the world through other means than their chosen ones … and I was powerless to stop that for the time being.
