Benjamin Vryce

Grace had settled down quicker than Benjamin had expected. Her tears spent, she had kissed him again, and left to check on Jade. Stomper had given him an encouraging head nod, and then followed her from the room. Leaving Benjamin alone with a number of bodies and a few ant summons. Dismissing the rest of his summons Benjamin began gathering the monarch’s cores and patterns.

His fears were realized when he inspected the red king’s body. The pattern had been destroyed completely. Whether it had been Grace’s enhanced arrow or the blue king’s scythes he couldn’t tell for sure, and honestly didn’t want to know. Gathering the creation core, he moved to the queen.

Her pattern was intact. After cutting the creation core from her chest, he retrieved the egg-shaped pattern. That was intricately carved with Celtic looking knots. Dropping to the floor in exhaustion, he leaned his back against the queen’s large body and pondered on her for a time.

He wanted to shape her pattern as he absorbed it, just like he had some of the others. setting both monarchs cores down close at hand, he gathered his thoughts and began to absorb the pattern. As he pulled her into himself, he named her the red queen. Placing the second suit of golden armor onto her pattern as it formed in his soul. Lastly, including the same change he had added to the blue king’s pattern.

That all happened very similarly, to how absorbing the blue king’s pattern had. Just like with the blue king, he began to feel off. That feeling didn’t end as the pattern was absorbed this time, though. His mind and spirit distorted with pain, as the pattern attempted to imprint itself on his soul.

It was too much, he could feel that now, only after he had started the process and couldn’t stop it. There were to many patterns imprinted on his soul, and he wasn’t strong enough to keep them all in place. His vision started to fracture and spin wildly, the real world fading away as his void space overlaid his vision.

He couldn’t see individual patterns with his head spinning and in pain. What he could see, he could only describe as a side view of his soul. Normally while in void space he would see the three-dimensional image of the soul standing in his mind. What he saw now was like a broken reflection, fractured into a cross cut view of his void space. with some of the pieces falling away.

The red queen was attempting to imprint itself, but there wasn’t space for her pattern since his soul was already at capacity. his other patterns had covered it completely. From this broken view they looked like plants taking hold, sinking their roots down and intertwining them with his being.

The patterns with the least depth were the first to be ripped away. They came off his soul like a bandage, stuck to long to a wound. They hadn’t had the strength the others had, that allowed them to seep deeper into his soul. So, they came away mostly clean, but there were still small bits of his being attached to them as they drifted off into the void. The space was quickly claimed by the red queen’s pattern, but it wasn’t enough.

Another of the patterns were ripped free. This one had roots spread deeper into his being and when it came away, he screamed. It was similar to the rush of power he had felt when he touched the dire boar’s creation core. His seal had still been in place then and the essence needed an outlet. This was similar, in that the pattern was bigger than he could currently carry. It was different though, in that there wasn’t anywhere he could shunt the pattern away to.

He only had one soul, and it was covered in its entirety. Another of the patterns were ripped from his being, floating away and being replaced with more of the red queen. He couldn’t tell what had been ripped from him, but he knew it was only the beginning. Her pattern was large to begin with, but after he had added the golden armor and a name, it had grown further still.

He needed to make room for her, he needed to pull the patterns away, while he still had some choice in which ones were removed. His mental form moved towards the patterns that had bled into his being. He touched one that ran deeper than nearly all the rest. His mind flashed onto the shaggy furred body of Ice.

He pulled away; he wouldn’t give her up. Even if he had been willing to, her pattern had wound its way so deeply into his soul, that the pain of pulling it free would likely render him a vegetable. Moving on he touched another of the blended forms. This one belonged to a dire squirrel, without pause he pulled it away from his soul. The red queens pattern sinking into the now empty space instantly. He moved on, removing another of the tree climbing beings.

When he touched a pattern that had wound its way so deeply into his soul, that it was nearly impossible for him to discover where it ended and he began, he knew. This was Grace’s pattern; she was a part of him on a level he hadn’t realized was even possible. He still almost didn’t believe it, except that the fabric of his being had been fractured, and left exposed for his inspection.

With a sudden burst of understanding, he now knew why the World Lords chose to connect their creation’s patterns to cores, independent of their own being. Having another’s existence engraved on the soul wasn’t as simple as he had thought, it was closer to a true melding.

the red queen’s pattern surged forward, in anticipation of more soul space for it to claim. When he didn’t remove the pattern in its way, it started to pull at it by itself, attempting to free up the space it needed. With a shout Benjamin pushed it away with all his mental might. it recoiled for a brief moment before returning to its search for soul space.

Benjamin moved rapidly to the next shape that hadn’t dug too deeply into him. It was one of the ants, he pulled it away without a thought. It was quickly followed by another and another until they were all gone, and it still wasn’t enough.

There weren’t that many more patterns he could remove. He did a quick mental count through the pain in his mind. He had removed all the ants, all the dire squirrels and one of the wolves that hadn’t been named. Quickly searching he found the remaining unnamed wolf and ripped it free.

It was the mottled brown and tan one that Stomper had chosen. He watched regretfully as it was reduced to nothingness, the part of himself that came away with it, dissipating as well. He didn’t look forward to explaining to stomper what had happened to his mount, assuming he lived through this experience that was.

What did that leave? He couldn’t think, his mind was fuzzing over with pain and the damage he had inflicted on himself. With his attempt to rid his mind of unneeded patterns. So that, the creeping tendrils of the red queen wouldn’t destroy anything too precious to him. Benjamin looked to the patterns that remained and to the amount of the queen that had yet to find a home. One more pattern, he had to remove one more pattern from himself or it was all going to be in vain.

Who was left? stomper, Grace, Ice, Honor, Silver, and the blue king. The dire boar had been ripped away from him and he hadn’t even noticed its loss. That was a shame; he had never been able to summon the beast even once. He looked at the remaining list, pain beginning to impede his thought process.

He had to make a decision soon, the tendrils of the queen were already picking at the edges of the patterns still in his soul. Trying to make room for itself. Benjamin could tell that it wasn’t doing this with malicious intent. He had pulled on her pattern and invited the queen to be a part of his being. It wasn’t her fault that when she came at his call, there wasn’t room for her.

Who was he going to sacrifice? Removing Grace wasn’t an option, she meant too much to him and the way her pattern was intertwined with his soul, it would probably be his death to remove her anyway. That just left stomper, the two wolves, blue king and the little spider drone.

Stomper had to stay, Grace had lost too much of her clan as it was and he wasn’t going to let her lose another member of it now. Like Grace, Ice was deeply imbedded into who he was. He didn’t know why he had bonded so quickly and deeply with the she wolf but he had. So, he couldn’t bring himself to kill the last remaining member of her hunting pack, Honor. The wolf who had died by choice, to follow his alpha into the unknown.

That only left two remaining options, the blue king and Silver. It was painful to make the choice, but in the end, it had to be done. He had gone through all this pain and trouble to try to save this universe from corruption, and as much as he loved the spider, it wasn’t strong enough to help him achieve that goal.

Digging his mental fingers into the pattern of the little spider drone, his first friend in this world, he pulled gently. The pattern didn’t fight him, unlike some of the other ones. It seemed to understand what he was doing and why, also how he felt about it. The pattern unraveled itself from his soul willingly. Sending over a final feeling of accepting reassurance to Benjamin as it dissolved into nothingness like all the others had before it.

That was enough, finally. The red queen’s pattern settled into his soul and finished bonding to him. His mental image of the distorted and fractured void space slowly repaired itself, and returned to mostly normal. There were wounds on his soul, places now raw where he ripped the patterns away while they still gripped his being.

he could tell however, that he had grown stronger from the experience. The broken places in his soul would heal and be stronger for the damage he had received. Looking at his core he found another change. He would have been shocked but at this point he was too full of pain and weariness to be shocked by anything.

There were connection strands, leading into his soul now. It was hard to put into words, how does one describe a soul after all? the best way he could describe what he was seeing, was to compare it to how he had accidentally forced open channels into his body. Back when he transformed himself to fight the armor back snapper.

They hadn’t been there before, but after the essence had forged the pathways open, he was able to feed in more essence to strengthen his muscles and heal himself.

This was much the same. His core had bled essence into his spiritual wounds as he was ripping parts of himself away. In an unconscious attempt to fix the soul, like it had once healed his body. He would have to test it later; he was too far gone now. his pain addled mind thought, he might now be able to strengthen and grow his soul by channeling essence through it.

Blinking away his core, Benjamin opened his eyes. He was still laying on the floor of the monarch’s throne room. Both of the creation cores that had lain before him, were now gone. Consumed during his bid to survive the battle, that raged inside his very being. A small price to pay really, there had been abundant essence in those cores, but he couldn’t have used it if he had died after all.

He looked around, feeling like the world should have changed after such an ordeal. Instead, everything looked just the same. Only he had changed, and only on the inside. It was a small thing, yet so profound he doubted he would ever forget it. A mistake, an over calculation, had cost him the lives of many patterns. As well as the life of his first friend.

The fact that Silver had chosen to give up his life willingly, to save Benjamin, wasn’t lost on him either. The little drone had prioritized Benjamin’s health and safety, from the first moment they had met in the Shipwright’s trial. Closing his eyes, Benjamin sent out a silent prayer for the selfless drone. He didn’t know if the Creator cared about creations not his own, but real or not, Silver deserved peace.

Opening his eyes, Benjamin climbed back to his feet. he didn’t know if he would be able to make it down the tower or not, but he didn’t have a choice. The war was just beginning and he was still too weak. if he was going to defeat the enemy before him, he had to press on. he couldn’t rest, not yet.