7 - 2 [Fool] Al-Khemia Vampyrika: Philosopher’s Flame, He Became The Tunnel Rat Mageling - 4th of Mead’s Tap, Year 1125 A.E.

Eiden awoke with a start, his blood thrumming in his ears and his heart pounding against the cage of his ribs.

He lay atop his bed, hands supporting him up, a woolen blanket at his knees.

He looked around his immediate surroundings. At first, Eiden thought it was already day, but then he knew better.

The fire of the hearth had died.

The shutters of the window were closed.

The room should be pitch-black to the sight of a mortal man. Yet to him it was bright as a cliffside overlooking the sea at noon.

His eyes pierced the black. Eyes of beast, of a vampyre.

A shiver ran through his spine at the thought.

“Hells take me,” Eiden whispered softly before he let out a grim chuckle.

It seemed the Abyssal Hells had already claimed him as one of Their own. He had yet to die and arise from the Pale River, at least. Although, what would happen should he die?

Would he be turned into a monster proper?

Eiden shook his head, banishing the thought, for it was a morbid sort of curiosity he wished not to indulge in any longer.

A night plagued by terrors conjured in slumber was one without need for any spooks borne of the waking mind.

And what terrors they were.

“Lad, are you alright?”

The voice sent Eiden’s heart pounding, a startled yelp escaping his mouth as his spirit jumped out of his body.

Quite literally so.

His aura expanded to cover the entirety of the room, washing over it like the fetid breath of a beast. And under its domain, he found the source of the sound, his head swivelling towards the origin with the practiced ease of a bird of prey.

The Exorcist stood at his side, his presence vanishing into the background. The sight eased Eiden’s nerves, a breath of relief coming from his lips.

His spirit eased back into his body like a fat man sucking in his gut. The abrupt void left in the wake of his aura made the room oddly wet and humid.

“Scared me hafta death,” said Eiden with forced mirth, his voice cracking and torrid like he was a salted fish left to bake in the sun. “You fuckin’ ghost.”

Fin looked so frail without his coat, only a simple linen shirt to cover his boney chest. Though he had ample muscle, lean and made for killing, it was a hollow thing as so much rib and collar bone could be seen with the unlaced shirt.

The old man’s aura, the mageling realized, was veiled and hidden away. He could still feel the weight that the Exorcist’s mind put upon the fabric of the mental realm, but could not discern physical location, only a general sense that he was not alone.

“Nightmares.” Eiden said simply, his head hanging a notch lower. The weight of it all hung heavy on his shoulders.

The Exorcist gave hint of his understanding, his face a thing of soft lines and sorrow. He nodded, handing his apprentice an already filled cup of water.

“Here, drink.”

Eiden drank the water, his dried throat blissfully made no longer so. Like rain filling the earth in the drought months, the water was a boon like no other.

The drink parched not only his thirst, but washed away the phantom ash that lay bitter in the back of his mouth.

After his mentor handed him the clayware, the old man went to the hearth, putting another stack of wood inside and then setting it alight with but a snap of his fingers.

Eiden felt the fluctuations in the Exorcist’s spirit and in the general vicinity near him, ripples like waves of a pond spreading through the fabric of being as a spark of something else lingered around the man’s hands.

He couldn’t discern much more as his sense for mana was only a day old. Did all acts of magicking create ripples? What was that spark that felt so familiar yet foreign?

Eiden ended up not airing his questions, what with him already having awoken the man.

Fin sat on his haunches as he warmed his mitts against the hearthfire. His spirit swirled in lazy yet jagged patterns, his aura like the fur of a spooked cat.

“There’s no need to feel any shame in what you dream of, Eiden.” Fin said simply, his back to the mageling. He spoke softly and without harshness in his tongue.

The timbre surprised the tunnel rat greatly, given that the man’s voice, for the short time he’d known the Exorcist, was like crackling mountain stone. There simply wasn’t much room for subtlety when one spoke with gravel in the throat.

“I felt them; yer nightmares. Through the fabric of the Spiritual Realm. Like waves from a stone thrown forcefully into a pool; sharp and violent.

“They told me of the quality of what ye’re sufferin’ through. Though not what ye witnessed.

“Neither will I ask. Should you choose to one day grace me with that trust, I will be there with open ears and without either need or want for blame. And if you never do, that is fine as well.

“Just know that soul-dreams are not judgements of character, neither are they things that can be so easily divined—not even an exorcist like meself can see through the veil that lies atop the eternal psyche.

“Not even gods above, below, and in-between hold dominion over such.

“Most often, they make no godsdamned sense. More like the visions conjured by potent druggae than anything properly sensible.”

The Exorcist returned to his cot and laid down, his aura a comforting weight on Eiden’s spiritual senses. It had slowly returned to the fore and into the fold, now much more noticeable than when the mageling awoke.

“Thank you, Fin.” Said the tunnel rat, his voice and spirit sincere as could be.

“You’re welcome, lad…” The Exorcist’s speech denoted more to follow, yet he left the air empty for a spell before he deigned to fill it.

The silence fermented, growing pregnant with the pause.

“Should you need anything, don’t be a stranger. You are my apprentice, you shall take my last name and carry my magicking Path.

“Closest thing to blood there is except, well, an actual blood relation.”

Fin added one more thing, his voice decidedly rickety like a poor fisherman’s boat wrought of sticks and frayed lashings.

“Good night, boyyo.”

Time passed like honey down a wooden spoon; smooth and slow. Fin had fallen asleep quickly, his snores pails of thunder.

Eiden chuckled at the spectacle: a slayer of mythic beasts, noisily in slumber like a drunken waif on the Leaden Day.

Though Eiden was still leery of owing a debt to the man, he was grateful. No one had ever done anything to help him as such before. No master had given him an apprenticeship, a path to get away from the strife that were the gangs of the Undercity.

And yet, here he was, given no simple occupation, but instead a magicking Path.

A tiny spark of hope came into being and was quickly snuffed out in the cradle, cries of an unwanted babe that it were.

Eiden shook his head as his shoulders slumped a notch.

It did not feel right to be content or happy so soon. The scene of that Night was fresh in his mind, flirting on the edges of his thoughts like vultures circling in the sky.

Waiting in bated breath to devour his rotten and warped flesh.

The mageling was glad he did not have to sleep alone. He did not think he could withstand the terrors without company. Without someone who could kill creatures of the night.

If only he could kill these nine-damned nightmares, too.

Eiden could still remember the strange dreams vividly. They weren’t normal; didn’t feel normal. He did not awake until the narrative was fully effectuated, forced to see with open eyes all that transpired.

Eiden could remember most everything; he wished it were not so.

The fear wasn’t so bad as Eiden had felt that emotion all his life, what with the constant running and near starvation.

Fear was a familiar fellen friend.

No, what most disturbed him was what he had become. Debased and turned primal, turned animal and beastly.

Turned monstrous.

The images of his dreams were burned onto his vision, intractable and repeating, such so that he had no choice but to relive them once again.

The taste of copper in the air and his lips, sickening yet oh so sweet. His heart beating to the thrum and thrill of the hunt. The feeling of those warm iron claws against the tips of his boney fingers that dug into flesh and tore it asunder.

His eyes burning cold as they could no longer be sheathed, forever forced to stay awake and with sight, never to have any rest. His skin raw and flayed to the tendon. Muscles writhing and rent, flailing like snakelings ground under the heel.

His blood turned to prickling flame, veins hollow and hungry. Teeth neverending growing inside his throat, bent back like the spines of a porcupine. His jaws cracking open bone and his tongue slurping up the messy gunk of marrow.

Yet all that he swallowed was naught but ash and bitter grey.

The last he had tasted of anything not wrought of dust was the Diabblein Tree’s maggot-ridden fruit.

He had engulfed it whole, squirming worms and critters of all kinds crawling down his throat.

Eiden wanted to vomit but could not, his iron stomach stopping him cold.

He tossed and turned atop his cot, nausea and unease consuming his every waking moment as did the apprehension of encroaching slumber.

Hard to fall asleep when what awaited him was being dragged into the skin of a monster. The same kind that had murdered his kith and kin.

Irony as great as any curse of legend. Then again, perhaps this was a curse, Eiden ventured. He had seen the fleeting form of Lilithu Herself, the Devil Beneath the Willow Tree. It was no surprise that he had come out of such an encounter scathed by Her influence.

Such was a reason the mageling held no faith for the Seven Above. For gods to let such evil to propagate was wrong. No being could cowl themselves in such apathy and not become cruel or be complicit.

Creators of an entire world, possessing power untold. Yet it was a hollow thing to beheld such might and not use it for good. Sure, Eiden was no saint of himself—he had thrown others to the Soap-Maker’s Pit in exchange for soapstone.

For the Undercity made all under its shadow and stone into monsters.

Yet, if he had the choice, the power to not be bound by necessity, Eiden would’ve done differently. If his will were free of the chains imposed by base survival, he would not have wrought all that he had.

For who could blame a thief of bread for the rumbling of their stomachs?

Eiden tossed and tumbled, trying to find a comfortable spot on his cot. The tunnel rat had slept better on cold and bare marble than on the cloth-covered straw bedding and goose-feather pillows.

Thankfully, his dreams were the stuff of black nothingness.