During the past week, Sophia and I discovered a useful invention we called the obelisk, named after the project that spawned it. By inserting a thin slice of quartz beneath the second vertebrae of the spine, the user gained full control over their soul. This gave us the water we needed for choking out the raging fire that was the forgotten tribes’ anger.

You see, the tribe’s mutations were caused by their souls resonating. Gaia’s energy disturbed them, like ripples through a pond, but unlike water, a human body can only bend so much before breaking. With the obelisk implanted, they could curb the deformation of their minds and bodies. In effect, we absorbed the source of their blight before giving them the cure to their symptoms.

We tested the obelisk on several willing villagers and not so willing palisade guards. Sophia and Jack never knew of the latter, but I figured we’d need to confirm the effectiveness of the surgery on humans eventually. I decided sooner rather than later and on humans I deemed less desirable. I’d handle their chiding later.

For now, this gave us a means of leveraging the tribe’s loyalty, so I proceeded towards Kade and the other tribe leaders with a serene certainty. Razor floated behind me, and after passing a broken Nelastra, we reached the unending spring that fueled Nelastra for all this time. It’s waters were why the gap in the barrier below existed. They called it the Everspring, but the clouded water was bloody and thick and carried corpses.

Kade, coated in his dark, iron skin and beaming pride, spoke beside a gray bearded brick of a man. His shoulders spanned a width equaling his height, and his blue skin and mounds of muscle shifted with each of his gestures. As he walked, he chose each step with care, and his words carried the same weight behind each of them.

Beside the both of them, a thin, wiry woman glanced between the two of them, cunning as a fox. She watched them close, like a vulture waiting for a lion to leave its prey. She spoke between the pauses of their words, inciting them to argue amongst one another. The furs that covered her gave her away as a Beastguider.

The Beastguiders could control animals to some extent, though they lacked the refinement of many tribe’s abilities. They relied on raw talent since they were a new tribe, yet there skills were necessary to the stranded citizens of Nelastra.

An entire population of skilled workers lay waiting, vulnerable to the great green forest that surrounded them. Contracting a beast rider for a tame monster enabled a reliable method of transport in comparison with horses. Many dark, twisted things could consume a healthy mare in a single swallow. Beastguiders offered the only alternative. Many tribes prospered from the fall of Nelastra, but none would gain as the Blackirons would. I made sure of that.

As I paced down a set of chipped, worn stairs, the eyes of the tribes set on me. Some eyes held the elation of the newly free, others held the apprehension of confronting a force. Kade’s entire aura held a dense sense of gratitude. If it were a well, the water at its bottom would fill an ocean. I drank that water dry.

I’d yet reverted my form as I strode up. The long limbs with rippling mass and hard horns made my grimace all the more imposing. As I lumbered, the gray beard and wiry woman moved aside as I said,

“How are you Kade?”

He walked up, his iron gestures grinning as he said, “I’m feeling light. Thank you, Darkened One.”

I nodded as I said, “I only did as I would regardless. However, I need a favor.”

He nodded as he spoke with his steel voice, “Anything.”

I grinned as I said, “Go to the blacksmith’s union beside Petra’s school for Prodigies. You will find two girls, one named Joan and the other Sophia. Obey their orders. I will be there shortly.”

He nodded before saying, “Of course.”

He turned before picking up speed with a sudden sprint. With a weighted leap, he landed atop a roof before disappearing in a forest of roofery. I turned towards the other two and said, “Who are you two?”

The blue man stepped in front of me, half my height yet just as wide. He said in a gruff, gritty voice, “So you're the Darkened One? I expected someone more ominous.”

I leaned close and said, “Inside me are horrors. Pray I never need to use them on you.”

He frowned before rolling his eyes and saying, “I am Jakfar, son of Jacklow. I advise the leader of the Titanic Tribe, Yuguhtar. We were discussing how to handle Nelastra.”

I frowned as I stood straight and said, “Well then, what options are you considering?”

Jakfar frowned before saying, “Why should we tell an outsider?”

I leaned my forehead onto a hand before the woman stepped up and said, her voice lean as her features, “Jackfar. Use more respect. He freed all of us.”

Jackfar replied, “Do you not believe he will use us just as our other rulers did?”

I snapped, “I rule noone. You may fight amidst yourselves. It doesn’t matter to me. I only require knowledge of what your plans are.”

Jackfar replied, “The titanic tribe wants the humans to serve us as slaves, just as we served them.”

The wiry woman said, “We Beastguiders want the humans to share their knowledge and land.”

I said, “Then what did Kade desire?”

Jackfar scoffed as he said, “He had iron in his brain, he does. He wants to let the humans be free and take nothing despite what they’ve done to us.”

I raised an eyebrow as I said, “And here I believed the tribe’s primitive wrath would burn the city to nothing but ashen embers.”

The wiry woman said, “Not all of us lost our sanity. Many of us are still human.”

Turning to her, I said, “Hah, you are as human as I am.”

Jackfar stepped up as he said, “We are nothing like you, mutant.”

I said, “I agree. I’m not as dull.”

He reached for a half hidden hammer, but I snapped my fingers around his neck before he could pull the weapon out. His face reddened as I lifted him into the air and said, “Do not test me, little one. I am dark water, and you are a spark. Try burning me, and you will drown.”

I tossed him aside where he fell like a wingless bird. As he landed, the wiry woman said, “My name is Loa. We have heard tales told of you by humans and other tribes alike.”

I grinned as I said, “Any details, like consuming children or swallowing darkness?”

“On more than one account.”

“I’m curious. Do you believe them.”

Her voice quiet, she said, “More often than not.”

My eyes turned to slits as I said, “They are fairy tales told by children or myths by men.”

“Yet here you are. The monster of the myth standing beside me.”

I glanced around as I said, “We are all monsters here. No need to deny it. Regardless, implement your plan. Using the humans as slaves would be a waste of the knowledge they have. Besides, they are weak and easily broken. They make poor slaves compared with horses.”

She frowned as Jackfar stood up and said, “Bah. It’s for more than just economic gain. It’s to send a message.”

I snapped back, “It is for self satisfaction. Be quiet. You are exposing your stupidity.”

He grit his teeth in anger, but he neglected reaching for his weapon that time. Having said what I needed to satisfy Jack’s altruism, I leapt up onto the cobblestone wall of a noble’s home. While stabbing my talons into the stone, I crawled atop the roof with the crisp crushing of rock vibrating around me.

As I reached the shingle covered top, I glanced at the palace at the center of Nelastra. Spires of ice, colored red as wrath, uplifted from cracks in the wall, out of windows, and from the surrounding marble slates. I raised an eyebrow at the sight, so Loa answered my unspoken question,

“The Bloodglaciers set up their den in the palace. From what I heard, there was a bloodbath there when they arrived, giving them just what they needed.”

I smiled as I said, “A fortress of crimson at the peak of a dead city. How fitting.”

I charged towards the blacksmith’s building, clay tiles and slate shingles fell and snapped underfoot. A gentle breeze blew across my skin any time I stood still. That breeze signaled change. No longer would this be a city separate from the world. All the horror and brutality and pain would gouge in, like a needle into skin.

As citizens screamed at my passing, the blacksmith’s plumes of white smoke bubbled into clear nets above the plumes. Smoke had been strictly regulated due to the barrier. A type of silk from a flea species found outside the barrier could hold the smoke and filter it as it rose. I’d eaten some so I could filter any air I needed to in the future.

With an earth cracking thump, I landed at the blacksmith association’s broken doors. The solid iron hinges held firm, but the wood behind the metal brace bent like putty before something crawled in. Kade had forced his way through.

As I did the same, the heat of hot iron and the smell of coal saturated the room. Tools of all sizes and shapes rested atop innumerable work stations, each table well worn over time. Scorch marks, winding scratches, hot embers, and gray soot etched onto every surface. This place had plenty of experience dealing with hard labor. I wondered whether it had seen surgury.

I crawled along on six legs, the hunch of my back scraping the roof as I walked. As I squeezed through another door like a gelatinous mush, the sound of Joan’s voice filled my ears. They no doubt heard my approach.

Joan was talking about how she controlled her own soul and how that had helped her prevent her body from unraveling. I skulked up the stairs before sliding past another doorway as Sophia, Kade, and Joan stood in a circle beside a sweltering plume of heated coals. Kade listened intently, his hand holding his chin as he looked down at them.

Joan stopped speaking once I began pouring through the doorway. Her face paled as my joints and bones popped out and back into sockets. My flesh molded back into shape before I shook the stiffness from me. As I came close, Joan pointed her finger and said in a hoarse scream,

“What the fuck is that?”

A knowing grin traced my lips as I said, “I’m Deluge. What did you think I was, a tribesmen?”

She stepped back as she said, “I didn’t...What in the hell happened to you?”

I approached, my steps dragging on wood as I said, “I reformed for combat. Do I disgust you when I look this way?”

She blinked before saying, “I mean, who wouldn’t you disgust. I can’t believe it. I heard about your er...powers from Jack, but I never imagined it would be so gruesome.”

I reformed back into Jack’s normal form as I said, “That is nothing compared to my potential. Ask Kade.”

Kade’s left eye twitched before he said, “I’m surprised your companions are so pleasant. I expected two witches, but they are normal girls. In part at least.”

I cracked my neck before saying, “That part is larger than you’d believe. Especially for that shorter one.”

Sophia frowned as she said, “Alright, I didn’t know how to tell him what we had planned. I was hoping you would be able to frame it better than I could.”

Kade glanced between us before saying, “What’s your plan?”

I set an arm on his shoulder as I said, “A painful, agonizing surgery.”