SOULSCAPE

NAME

Lukas Aguilar

Type

Base Host

Level

4

OMPHALOS ATTRIBUTES

Energy Reservoir Capacity

∞

Current Energy Level

722,436,714 units

OMPHALOS FUNCTIONS

Scan

Level 1

Analyze

Level 1

“Damn,” Lukas muttered, banging his head gently against the stone wall before him. “Damn, damn, damn!”

“I know you came to the realization a while ago. My words merely confirmed it,” Inanna whispered in his ears. “Then why this reaction now?”

Glaring at someone was difficult when you couldn’t see them, so he settled for angrily glaring at the wall instead. And when that wasn’t satisfactory, he glared at the Screen, as if willing it to change from his intense gaze alone.

“I realized it, yeah, but it was only a theory. The more I think about it, the more real it’s becoming. The Screen is more confirmation, and your words even more so.”

“If you choose to believe in me, then yes.”

“Would you cancel our bargain if I said I didn’t?”

Inanna chuckled derisively.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” he grumbled. “The way I see it, I can either choose to believe you or just paw around in the dark. Maybe you’re right, or maybe you’re wrong and delusional. Maybe I’m an idiot for taking this at face value. And maybe you’ll look at this moment in the near future and say I told you so. In the end, it comes down to a single thing.”

“And what is that?”

“You’re the one with the answers. And I’m not.”

“A sound argument. One you would do well not to forget.” She briefly paused. “You appear quite distressed.”

“Shouldn’t I be?” he bit out, gritting his teeth. “My planet’s fucking omphalos is inside me. If that’s here, then what’s over there?”

He punched the wall. The act bruised his knuckles, but the pain didn’t make his inner confusion go away.

“Your world is a lostbelt.”

“What?”

“A lostbelt,” Inanna repeated. “There have been events in the past when a realm has its connection with the Origin hindered. It can escape into the blackness of the In-Between.”

“What happens to them?” Lukas asked curiously. “These lostbelts?”

“They become existences in their own right. Realms that depend upon their own reserves to grow until they run out of fuel. And when that happens…”

“They shatter,” he murmured. “Is that what happened to Earth?”

“I cannot say for certain. This is the only time I have been in one. It is possible your lostbelt stopped supplying the creatures born upon it with Potential as a way to counter the shortage of its energy.”

“But wouldn’t that have stagnated its growth?”

“Survival at the expense of stagnation,” the goddess speculated with disgust. “Hardly an enviable choice. I can say with certainty that a shard of its omphalos has fused with you, making you an anomaly while keeping its memories.”

Memories? Lukas frowned. “I don’t have any mem—”

“The omphalos in you has memories of the lostbelt. You, on the other hand, are merely its host, a consciousness that happens to reside within the body.”

“It’s my body.”

“Not anymore,” the goddess flippantly replied.

Lukas moved his arms and legs around as if to prove a point.

“Your attempt at levity will not alter the facts, mortal. I will be candid. This is the first time I have encountered something as novel as yourself.”

“I don’t know whether to be flattered or amused.”

“Perhaps both. An omphalos will always choose to mutate matter around it, living or inanimate. The shard could have done nearly anything to you.”

“Maybe it didn’t have time?” he offered. “You did tell me you brought us here right after.”

“True,” she agreed, “but there are an endless number of things it could have done regardless. If nothing else, it could have used your body as its primary material and crafted a proper anomaly. Perhaps combining it with rocks and metals and such.”

Lukas was mentally greeted by the image of his own mangled body, in some kind of weird rock-Khorkoi amalgamation.

He shuddered.

“But it did not. Instead, the shard left you as you were and accepted your body as a fully functional anomaly. No more or less complete, but an anomaly nonetheless. A system that can grow, hunt down prey, and gain everything that it desires. I suppose the best way to describe you would be a…wildcard.”

“Well, what does it want from me then?”

“What do you think it wants?”

Lukas hummed in thought. What did a place like this want? He looked at the dank caverns all around him—the tunnels, the caves, the mossy outgrowths, the monsters. Hell, there was even fresh water here. It was a perfect, isolated biosphere. Yet it was also a creature, one that created monsters.

But to do what?

Eliminate prey. The answer was violently obvious. He’d seen it glaring at him several times in his recent past.

What did the prey give it? Sustenance? He had seen the azolgs eat each other, though. Any physical sustenance would go to the predators themselves, not the anomaly that was the Crypt of Fiendish Worms.

He was an anomaly. What did he get when he eliminated prey?

Experience.

The Experience gathered over time, and then depending on his Experience Conversion Ratio, it would be converted to Soul Capacity when he leveled up. But that was just him. Inanna had said every organism had a schema like his, and so functioned similarly to him. It wasn’t special to an anomaly.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. Maybe he was looking at it from the wrong perspective. An anomaly was, very technically, a living thing. Only it employed monsters that it created to do its bidding. The more a creature fought, the more its skills grew, as his own did. If this anomaly was creating these creatures, it must’ve had genetic blueprints at hand. Add in the concept of Potential and leveling up…

“It’s using prey to strengthen its creatures,” Lukas muttered in awe. “It learns from the battles, and once they level up, it uses newer, modified blueprints to create stronger creatures.”

“Correct. But there is one more aspect to it that you are not seeing. Of course, I do not blame you. You cannot see it from your limited sensory perception, and thus remain ignorant of it.”

Leave it to Inanna to make anything sound like an insult.

“Any creature that perishes inside an anomaly has its soul absorbed into it. It is later used to create new monsters based on this.”

“So,” Lukas mused. “That means if I die here—”

“Yes. The crypt will be able to create life-forms based on yourself.”

Even scarier was the unsaid implication hanging ominously between her words. If an anomaly absorbed the souls of creatures that died in it, then the souls would go to the omphalos like data to a hard drive. A soul-storing hard drive.

“So, if Earth was this lostbelt you spoke of, then the millions of species on Earth, their souls, they’re all there in its omphalos, right?”

“It is possible,” Inanna said.

“But I don’t see any. I’m just me, and if my body is the anomaly, then that makes this Screen an interface. Connecting my mind to this anomaly—yes—yes, that makes this—” He narrowed his eyes. “Show me the list of creatures whose souls are stored in the omphalos.”

Access denied.

Lukas blinked. If nothing else, it proved her words to be correct. Thank God for small mercies.

“You are welcome.”

He rolled his eyes, focusing his attention back onto the Screen. This interface was his only chance at obtaining information without having to bargain.

“Why am I denied access?”

Base Host not authorized for access to System Configuration in the current protocol.

“And what is the current Protocol?”

Babysitter Protocol

Inanna’s peals of laughter rang in his ears.

“Funny,” he deadpanned. “What does the protocol do?”

BABYSITTER PROTOCOL

A system set up to ensure the survival of amateur Host.

That made sense. In an annoying way.

“Well, good for you. But I’m skilled now. What’s the next stage?”

Access denied.

Lukas mentally counted down from ten. If someone was trying to subtly teach him that he had a long way to go still, then they were succeeding at it. At teaching, that was. Certainly not at being subtle.

He tried another avenue. “What are omphalos functions?”

Operational faculties available to an anomaly for survival and growth.

That was good news. By that logic, since he also counted as an anomaly, he should technically have the same share of functions that most anomalies did. “What are the basic functions of anomalies?”

Insufficient data.

Lukas sighed. He supposed it was overly optimistic of him to think he’d get all the facts so easily. Luckily for him, he had an expert on the subject ready to answer his questions. Maybe the bargain wasn’t such a bad deal after all.

He immediately hesitated at the thought, wary of the slippery slope he was treading. It was hard not to feel the occasional yearning for a taste of the power his resident goddess promised. He had no doubt she would keep her word in a bargain. Knowledge, power, companionship, and everything else he could possibly want would be at his fingertips.

But he would also be beholden to her. Never free.

Inanna chortled again.

“What are the functions that anomalies have in general?” he asked.

“You realize that anomalies are normally creations of earth and other elements, not walking, talking, frail mortal bodies of flesh and bone?”

“Well, yes, but if I know what the basic functions are, I can work out what they would translate into in my unique case since I probably have functions built for my fleshy environment.”

“Very well. There are four: mutation, assimilation, rejuvenation, and creation.”

His hand twitched as the sudden urge to find a notebook and jot things down overwhelmed him.

“Mutation. An anomaly mutates the terrain around it and reforms it in its own image. Assimilation. An anomaly assimilates the souls of prey it consumes. Rejuvenation. An anomaly rejuvenates any portion of itself deemed to be an injury to its body. Creation. An anomaly creates monsters and environmental adaptations to increase its defensive and offensive capabilities. These are the four fundamental functions of every anomaly. It may, however, develop more attributes to serve its purpose.”

Lukas considered what he already had. His Scan and Analyze functions probably counted as information gathering of some sort. A scanner to identify new creatures, an analysis program to identify it—in case it turned out to be a new one; then he could proceed with incapacitation—elimination through combat, and finally assimilation. The last one, he was still a bit unclear about, mostly because he couldn’t see it happening.

He went back to the four fundamentals. A mutation function, how would that work? Mutating his body? He doubted that would be the brightest thing to try. Assimilation mostly had to do with feeding his omphalos with new creatures; it was nothing of consequence to him or his survival, as far as he could tell.

Creation held some promise. It would’ve been nice to spontaneously create things as he needed them. Considering what he’d learned about skills, even the most rudimentary creation was probably a ways away for someone as inexperienced as him.

That left rejuvenation. Healing. Repair of body tissue. Protection from diseases and the like. It was something that every living body had by virtue of its nature, including his own. Only so far, he’d healed at the rate of natural human healing. Seeing Inanna’s spell act upon him had been wonderful, but she had subtly implied that her Alleviation skill did not follow the natural order.

The natural order…

Lukas closed his eyes. He focused on the bruises in his right hand, on how it felt. The pain, the damaged skin, the oozing blood. He knew the human body’s immune system acted as soon as receptors brought forth information about a potential injury. If his body was also an anomaly, then surely it would trigger something within the omphalos if he thought about it enough—

New OMPHALOS FUNCTION added!

FUNCTION

LEVEL

ENERGY COST

Prophylaxis

1

(Variable)

DESCRIPTION

A healing function that operates on one wound at a time until it heals. Limited to physical restoration.

Something thick and mucousy oozed out of his bleeding knuckles and covered the entire area of the bruise, turning it into a patchwork of dermal cells that spread across the entire area like a fungus. Before he knew it, the tips of his knuckles were back to what they had been. Even the scratches from earlier were now covered under fresh, blemish-free skin.

“Impressive. I daresay your chances at survival are no longer nearly as pathetic.”

Coming from someone like Inanna, that was practically singing his praises. A part of him was exhilarated at the thought of acquiring a healing skill as an omphalos function, especially since it would cost him no Soul Capacity to obtain. And given the seemingly endless amount of energy he had at his command, he was confident he could heal himself over and over in the future.

Then there was the other part of him. The part that stared at his new skin, eyes wide in horror as its significance finally sank in. Inanna was right. His body wasn’t his any longer. It was an anomaly.

He was an anomaly.

“There is something else you are ignoring,” Inanna replied, sounding all too happy with herself. “With this great success of yours, I have completed my end of our bargain.”

“That’s not true,” he blurted out. “I still have other questions I want to ask about—”

“Not this bargain. The other one.”

Lukas froze. The other bargain. The one where he’d held himself hostage to force her to teach him how to heal himself.

“And now you have. You did not specify any particular details or premises. In fact, I explicitly stated you would gain no skills from this. I have fulfilled my end of the accord, and you will never again hold yourself hostage during a bargain with me.”

This he had certainly not seen coming. In hindsight, he should’ve noticed something was odd when she’d offered him information so freely. But he had been too carried away in learning about the world and the universe at large to pay much attention.

The discourse on the Origin. Omphaloi and anomalies. He saw it for what it was now. It had all been a ploy aimed at his curiosity and fear so that he would seek her aid.

“You remain insouciant despite knowing what I am. You wear your independence with pride knowing that genuflecting in my presence can make your life easier. And now, you choose to bargain with me, after all that we have spoken of, merely to deepen your understanding of yourself… It speaks a great deal about you.”

He’d been played like a sucker. Mutation was too dangerous. He had no need for assimilation. Creation was beyond him, at least without her aid. That left rejuvenation: the one thing he had forced her to teach him.

And teach him she did…while also extracting a promise from him.

“A spell of my own choice… I merely require being in possession of your body. I want your word that you shall not try to inhibit me when I perform it.”

Inanna mockingly laughed. “It was enjoyable squabbling with you, mortal. We should do it again.”

Lukas leaned against the wall and sighed. “In the spirit of good sportsmanship, would you at least tell me one final thing?”

“I may.”

It was something that had bothered him for a long time. The biggest question that had plagued his mind over the time he had spent in her presence. The fact that he hadn’t already asked her about it was weird by itself.

How did his world end? What caused it? What was it like?

Lukas opened his mouth to ask.

But no words came.

Instead, his attention was diverted by a sudden sensation. He looked down and, to his surprise, found his left arm shaking. Was something wrong with it? Maybe it had taken some injury and he was only now noticing the effects? Within seconds, the intensity of the vibrations grew to a point that he actually had to hold it within his right arm. That didn’t help at all, and instead, the shaking was joined by a discordant hum that came from his head pounding against his ears. It slowly increased in volume, as if it were the herald of something terrible.

“Did you notice that?” Lukas demanded, looking around with rising panic. Every single hair from his neck to his ankles was standing up.

“Notice what?” came the goddess’s serene answer.

“That!”

“You’re just tired and seeing things,” Inanna replied amiably. “Several of your delusions have just been shredded apart. Perhaps you are having a panic attack?”

Again? The last time he had one was—

“Breathe,” she commanded. “Stop thinking about these things, and just focus on my voice!”

Lukas closed his eyes, and quickly drew a deep, centering breath. A look of serenity began to form on his face. It was a lie. Deep beneath the apparent calm of his mind, there was a part of him that was frantic and terrified as it desperately tried to forget everything, and started counting multiples of thirteen at rapid frequency, focusing on the process as intently as he would while performing a Skill.

“One forty-three. One fifty-six. One sixty-nine,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “One eighty-two. One ninety-five. Two hundred—”

And on and on he went.