The Enginseer's tale

 

Coldness.

 

Wetness.

 

The earliest things I remember.

 

I hate them. I will always hate them.

 

Like many out of the portal of Fate, I never knew my birth parents until later in life, and so had only only a few unpleasant memories to call my own. Abandoned on the Old Grand Crossing like so much trash, I did all I could as a child of one year..

 

I cried.

 

Before I continue, I should clarify this is not your typical impressive and highly unlikely tale of how I survived in the world by myself. I was scarcely a boy, with my tears the only weapon I held, and my only emotion a tingling of hope that I would be spared. Slowly I moved, and saw a human face smiling down on me. He picked me up, and I felt warmth. The rain beat mercilessly against the earth beneath the human's feet, but did not give way. I knew eventually it would be warm, and dry, forever undamaged by the harsh weapons of Nature. It seemed natural to just go with him, my salvation: a way out of the cold and wet.

 

Thus my life truly started to begin in that little village known as Delport.

 

The following days were a blur as my saviour nursed me back to health alongside the wife of his master, Delport's fishmonger. Suckling on her teat, I drank sustenance from the strange creatures around me. The hunger was terrible, and I felt confused. The fever passed, and I was put into the care of Madame Sylvie d'Amour of the Chateau d'Armour. She gave me a knee to sit on and a warm body to hold me.

 

Such a wonderful feeling, to be held in caring, reliable arms. Thanks to her expertise, many found love in her halls, and while some paid her gold or little presents, others repaid her by tutoring me in various subjects. I don't know why she helped me as she did, but I guess that is just the sort of person she is. I was fond of drawing and writing, remembering the simple shapes and colourful images my chubby fingers drew with coloured pencils.

 

Sylvie had named me Ventidius. Her friends, my surrogate aunts and uncles, called me Vent, while she and my 'father' referred to me as Venti. Another child once used it, and I beat him. I was scolded for the first time, but no one but those two called me Venti again. I felt, and feel, no ill will to the Delportians. They had their own responsibilities. I was merely a bratty child.

 

At five I began to play with the other children. I remember fondly the many field trips we took to Estelbar, to see their farms and livelihoods. We interacted with Tae'dae cubs and their little Furrikin cousins. We frolicked and enjoyed ourselves, a simpler time. For five years I travelled between the two villages, learning about agriculture and manual labour. As a child I had been given leniency, but I remember being told by my foster father that soon I would have to start pulling my weight.

 

I had been waiting for such a time. Playing was fun, but boring. I wanted to feel my muscles strain, I wanted to pay back my benefactors, these denizens who treated me better than my own parents, in the way they understood clearest of all.

 

I accompanied my father and saw how he worked. Many hours we spent by the stream trying to catch fish and finding the best specimens with which we could make a profit. Wading into the stream, I noticed sometimes it could be warm when the sun was out, and cold when it hid away. It had two natures, and I distrusted it immediately. Instead I gutted the fish, enjoying the feel of the knife going through weak flesh. At night I helped work the farm and clean the Chateau d'Amour.

 

My proper life began with me as a weak child, but now I became a man, as Sylvie always remarked on telling me. My father became the new fishmonger after his master retired, but I did not want to join him. The toxic smell of entrails mixed with rotten fish and stale water made me detest anything associated with these things. "That is your choice, Venti. But take note, that whatever you do, you remember: Good hard work is its own reward, Venti. A humble pay, a humble job, all these things allow you to take your time and enjoy life." 

 

With my work on the farm, I became a muscular and well toned human. My natural good looks and stature belied my true standing as someone of noble stock, although I refuted this idea. My beauty was the result of my own hard work, my own sweat and blood. The village girls swooned over me, but the first time I took one to bed, none followed. It held no point to writhe around like animals in heat.

 

Usually I was surly, but I made an effort with my friends and family. This gangly teenage boy who had once beaten up a child was recognised as a fine beautiful specimen of humanity. Long hours in the sun soon turned my skin a deep tanned colour, and I used various tints to turn it bronze. I wanted to look like the flawless specimen I thought I was.

 

I left the village without much fanfare at 15, and took odd jobs in the various cities. Celest was the safest place I found out, the only problem the smell of dreadful water. Reminded of my days in the fishery, I stayed away from the port, quickly dispatching letters around the city. Interacting with the other denizens, I discovered how different it really was to be a denizen in a world of adventurers. 

 

Unconcerned, I waited to have a substantial pocket of gold and went to Magnagora. Being human allowed me to blend in, but once or twice I had to hide from a nasty ur'Guard trooper. I soon got lost amongst the urchins. Though they seemed to deride me for my beauty, I cared not, spending my time as a messenger once more. Sometimes I was even a scribe, dictating alien thoughts, geometries and teachings, alongside scholarly lectures and the odd fanatic sermons. Unnoticed by all around me, I came to appreciate bustling city life, although I was always aware of that thick cloying smell, the red cloud of death above with the strange lightning, and the corrosive substance which clung to my skin.

 

I saw red patches appear on it then, the mark of my beauty, and fled in terror back to home. Madame Sylvie found me and healed me, whispering sweet nothings in my ear. The taint had stripped away the lies I had told myself, and my arrogance was helpless within its grasp. I understood then that I feel no love for anyone. I just appreciated her and wanted to be protected by her presence. It was heartbreaking, and yet I had done nothing wrong. Having paid back my dues, I owed them nothing any more.

 

I hoped.

 

I owe her a lot. But I could never truly love her, or my 'father'. I never forgot the change that happened that day, what monster had been born within.

 

I was scared.

 

Travelling to the great library, I found out what the Taint was, and what the Celestine Empire had done to the Basin. Slowly I understood, and absorbed this knowledge, scared still but also elated. With my body fully healed, I decided to chance the Serenwilde.

 

I quickly left, abhorring Nature. It was then I began to refuse being in the village while under the forest's rule, either Glomdoring or Serenwilde, soon avoided the time of revolts completely. I did not need to be lied to, nor did I recognise anyone else but myself as my own master. Little did I know what this spark meant, and the new path it would set me on.

 

At sixteen it finally occurred. The feeling inside me born from that abandonment, along with the destruction of the attachment to my denizen comrades, allowed me to suddenly think to myself, "Hang on. Why do I leave the village, and ignore the cries of those who come to conquer it? How can I ask myself this, and how do I remember the different organisations?"

 

The questions rolled through my mind. I began walking, for who knows how long, and soon arrived in an unfamiliar place, with no memory. My being was stripped bare.

 

In front of me was an old woman, impossibly old, and I knew this was one of the Fates. As if a zombie, I answered her questions, realising finally for the first time I was really taking control of my life.

 

What was my name?

 

Marcus, my mind said. Ventidius said my mouth.

 

Did I know which city I was from?

 

Magnagora.

 

And my chosen guild?

 

Geomancers.

 

With a knowing expression, she gestured me out, and made me Fated.

 

<><><>

 

Ventidius crawled out of the portal of Fate, seeing the glimpse of his shadow as it flew past. No longer did his thoughts cycle endlessly. No more would he be controlled. Was it Ventidius, actually, or Marcus? The human did not know. He had claimed Ventidius, and so that was what he chose. Still fresh within his young mind were memories of Delport, and he rushed over to show off his new body, his new destiny, to his mother and father.

 

But he was doomed to disappointment. The village had changed, and people had moved on. Working out the date from his journal, he stared. It could not be that, it was unthinkable. Atropos had not seemed an evil woman, and yet every fact confirmed it.

 

Three hundred years had passed between his time in the portal and his denizen life. The human sought out any who might remember him, but only Sylvie d'Amour had a vague recollection. He spoke for hours, but her responses were the same, uniform and repetitive. Her focus was only on helping people find love. Nothing else.

 

What cruelty the Fates had delivered on him. No, what insanity!

 

He was Fated now, and the denizens regarded him as they did all Fated. The interaction he remembers, the thoughts and feelings he had gathered, were meaningless to them now. After the sixth time of plump madame asking if he wanted to help her find love, Ventidius stepped back in horror and ran from the village.

 

He instinctively went to Newton, and brought up his sword. All of his rage, his solitude, his newfound loneliness, embodied itself in his blade and he swept it across. The blood of finks and gnomes alike painted the walls and floors. Kids lay butchered next to their nursemaids, and even the prisoners had been dealt with.

 

His shadow. That would make everything better. Yes, Lolliprin was his next stop, and he sped through the portal, utilising the bloodied chains he had recovered from the stupid gnomes. A dull sword dripped blood as he scrambled up Smoke Mountain and slaughtered the entire ant colony. He stole one of their larvae, and let them come to him, laughing as they ran to their deaths. He gave them to the disgusting fink with her sagging breasts and aged skin, killing her kin and giving them to the ant queen. The shoved gold at him, but it was just something minor.

 

On top of Smoke Mountain he ploughed through both armies, finally erupting into the fink encampment and tearing off Fartokan's head, holding it high above. He threw it at the foot of the gnome king, and thirty fink corpses.

 

Ventidius went on his knees, exhausted while Newtonson talked about his shadow, and then it appeared. It was the shadow's fault. it had left him, and made him an adventurer. It had stolen his denizen roots. It had made him suffer.

 

He stabbed it through with tears in his eyes and felt it enter him. "No! I want to go back to being a denizen! No!" he yelled, the King ignoring him as denizens do to people they have no interest in. There was no going back, he had become dirtied and soiled.

 

Only one thing survived his tortuous journey through the portal, and that was his sculpted body. Drawing strength from his beauty, his perfection, he slowly overcame the anguish within and strut proudly from the throne room. He arrived in Magnagora. Three hundred years had passed, but the city seemed the same, except for no one remembering him.

 

Of course, he had been uglier then, and under a different name, but that suited him. Marcus was no more. That was his denizen life, and it was over. The lessons engrossed his hungry mind, and the professors were impressed by his grasp of geography and history.

 

As a novice now, no longer a student, he proceeded to have have his second experience with viscanti, or rather the first as an adventurer. Nothing new came to him, they were just as plain as the lamps. Taught that the Viscanti were the ideal race, that theirs was a beauty borne of the Taint. he looked into their grotesque faces and saw just ugliness.

 

What mockery was this, to have such deformed creatures be known as beautiful? All around me were the ugly ones, the fat ones, the lazy ones. None of them had worked a day in their life, and they went around saying they were superior. Ventidius laughed, and this opened up more memories.

 

As a denizen he loved Sylvie. She had told him to be gentle and kind to others, always respectful, and although he owed her a lot… or perhaps he did not. What had she really done, except try to make him like her? Still, out of his past associates, she was the only one he could not hate. Why would he know of love from a denizen? He was beautiful and vain, loving himself throughout his journey. To him, that was all that mattered.

 

Ventidius saw the Taint's victims, the monstrosities it had spawned and the damage it caused. Ironically, it was for this reason he took up Geochemantics. What better way to preserve his good looks than to reinforce his body against the Taint?  Not even the Soulless would be able to challenge his beauty.

 

He stumbled along the way, made a name for himself in the various camps and families. Loyal and devoted to the city which had taught him, the hard working human impressed many. The Archmage of the Geomancers himself saw the potential, and tutored the boy personally, not knowing their true connection. Filled with zeal and willingness, Ventidius rose up through the ranks, and outfitted more of his body with the tainted constructs born from Geochemantics.

 

And if some hairs fell out, well, what did it matter?

 

He felt pity for those around him who were ugly. It wasn't their fault they had poor upbringings; the Fates had decided to punish them more than usual. An ordinary Magnagoran, Ventidius remained so until the day he got his first magnum.

 

Victor von'Lochli watched as Ventidius demonstrated a keen eye for the contraption's assembly. The attention to detail was good in his mind, but he had been hesitant. The beautiful in his past home had been the same, shying away from the results that came from Geochemantics. Did no one realise there was a war on, that survival was at stake? Lost in thoughts, he did not notice the young Geochemist leave the train and try out his new magnum on the creatures roaming the earth plane. Instinctively he felt something odd for the boy, not realising that Ventidius had been a denizen who had become an adventurer, while he was an adventurer who had become a denizen. Cut off from the cycle of rebirth, from the tapestry which wove him, what else could have happened to him and the comrades who followed him back?

 

The scream distracted him alongside the explosion. The train rocked.

 

<><><>

 

In a flash fire Ventidius was undone. Clear cut eyes melted in their sockets. Beautifully bronze skin, unblemished and whole, disappeared in an instant to leave the raw pink under skin. Lungs decayed, and everything went wrong with Ventidius' body. The death knell came in the final act of the malfunctioning magnum.

 

It was not the stripping of his skin, nor the exhaust flooding all his pain receptors at once, but a small insignificant piece that had been tossed in the explosion. Any hope of consciousness was gone as that thin piece of metal struck Ventidius in the head. He fell back, registering the drilling of the shrapnel into his mind, and then knew little. His mind opened, as minds are not meant to, and memories flashed.

 

Unconscious, he experienced a million lifetimes. He was a child, sliding out of the womb and seeing the first light. Then he was a mother, cradling her infant, and a father beating his son. Age overcome his body, an old man that dug a knife deep into a person's body. Blood splatter coated his face, and then he was the victim. Crying, weeping, wailing, laughing, Ventidius had no clue if he was feeling these emotions, or only seeing them felt by others.

 

Who was he?

 

A thousand experiences ran through his mind. As a leader clad in black armour he struck down the weak, and then as a warrior he felt himself die from battle wounds. A gaping hole in his chest gave him a terrifying shock, sick and twisted imagery rushing past in split seconds, demolishing what sanity remained in his mind.

 

Had he lived all these lives, had he experienced all this, and just forgotten? Ventidius knew not, especially when he saw the final days of Hallifax and Gaudiguch. Frozen in place for an instant before death claimed him, he knew instinctively the cities had doomed each other. The Fates claimed our bodies then, knowing we'd be dead if we ever escaped. Unravelled and then rewoven, he and his comrades were  thrown back out into an uncaring world. The taint slew his body, and a celestian raised him up. A forestal shot an arrow into his heart, and he was gutting a deer. Entrails dribbled from his mouth, and he cawed at the enemy that gathered, his brethren taking flight.

 

It was impossible to think these had all been his lives, and with this realisation came an even darker revelation.

 

That is the true nature of the Fates, and we their sick joke. We are doomed to be born over and over again, fighting endlessly for a resolution that will not come. The tapestry cannot be seen in its entirety, for if we did see it, Ventidius was sure we would all go mad. They were all are connected, every story, and the rage returned.

 

This was why they had failed to warn Magnagora of the Taint. This was why the played sick games and nursed people back to health. The memories faded, and he remembered nothing but the knowledge that the Fates were playing a sick joke on them al.

 

Searing pain woke Ventidius, but at first he saw only blackness. Thinking it the void, he heard a mumbled voice speak through damaged ears and ruptured eardrums.  Delirious, he begged for water, but instead pure acrid oil entered his gullet. At the same time they stuffed herbs in his mouth, foul tasting and alien.

 

But at least he could see and hear again, if only slightly. 

 

Above the shivering wreck, Victor felt a kinship with Ventidius, now he had known true suffering. It was this, alongside the threats of the Archmage, that made him help the bratty child. "I cannot replace his eyes, nor his legs. Excorable energy destroys healing energies by its very nature, and Divinus cannot live side by side with it."

 

The other voice spoke, although too far away for Ventidius to hear, and Victor tutted. "I'll have to look over my notes, but he will never look as he did before. His beauty is gone, and he is truly one of us now" spoke the Viscanti coldly, and gripped Ventidius by the throat. "Our skill is not in healing, but in replacement, rebuilding, improvement! What? Yes, yes, go do your guild stuff. I must be alone, for all my fumes and scientific knowledge shall be required to save the poor wretch."

 

"Make yourself useful and get a Necromancer. We'll need him to have a well developed lich seed within his body. … Now my friend, I shall show you the true beauty of Geochemantics."

 

"When…" whispered Ventidius weakly, hand trembling.

 

"When will it stop?" Ventidius nodded weakly. "It will never stop. Your nerve endings have been tenderised, and your body is imagining pain which is not there. I am too clumsy for that sort of procedure, but pain can be dealt with later. Now we must keep you alive." Victor flicked up a machete and got to work.

 

Deep in his arm, Victor was startled by Ventidius trying to speak. "Stop… preserve my beauty. It is all I have left" whispered the Geomancer, wheezing from the pain and collapsing back on to the table.

 

"Shut up you arrogant toe rag. You want to see your beauty? Here then!"

 

Victor paused and took out a mirror, holding it above Ventidius' head. The Geomancer gave such a long gasp in response he coughed, choking on his own air. He collapsed back, and became unconscious again. "Good" remarked Victor in approval.

 

It took days. The Archmage stood by Ventidius' side, unsure why he cared so much about a simple foolish Geomancer. Perhaps he was destined to be the boy's father, although he had barely seen his fifties. Still, as head of the family, he had to think about these things.

 

Finally, Ventidius sat up, then moved his legs over. Halfway through the process, Ventidius had done something which shocked them all: work on himself. Victor gave him implants, and the mage would place them where he wanted, and organise his own body. When he slept, he thought up new conglomerations and incarnations, speaking rapidly to Victor when he could not do it by himself. Victor beamed at his finished work. No, their finished work.

 

"Improve yourself. Go further than any other. Go beyond what is considered normal and safe. The Taint corrodes, and destroys. You will know when you see your body's new appearance. The implants, they won't last forever, but you can walk, talk and be normal. You see now the beauty of Geochemantics?"

 

Ventidius looked at the scientist, and shrugged. "I saw its beauty in my madness. It is a choice skill, and I will keep it. Too much of myself was based in arrogance and lies. Doing anything I want just because I'm a pretty boy eunuch? No, I think I'm that? Those days are over, good riddance."

 

"Yes! Do it."

 

Take what you consider the core of your being, and see it twisted beyond recognition. That is torture, the same sensations Ventidius felt when he looked again and saw the broken, oozing red skinned human in front of him. Two metallic spheres rolled in his head like some horrific apparition, and the bloody veins in his body seared the skin as they went past it. Covered in spikes, with nut bolts in his neck and who knows how many other contraptions, he was now the machine alive.

 

Terra Ex Machina.

 

Later, Tanin discussed with him about adopting, but Ventidius refused. His unconscious delirium had revealed the actual truth, that they were brothers. Tanin's parents had given birth to a human, and abandoned it, because of their Viscanti breeding. They later became shrubberies, no less deserving of their fate.

 

He had been arrogant and vain. He had prided himself on my beauty, and relied on it. But did it stop him from being injured? Did it protect the self-proclaimed Enginseer? Beauty did nothing to save him from disaster, and even if had any semblance of protection, what if someone threw acid in his face? No, this was what he deserved. He flexed his arms, feeling pistons move noisily against injected lines of iron for the bone lacing. He bent reinforced knees, and steam hissed out from the hydraulics that allowed him to leap higher than most men. He was uglier, and extremely broken, but stronger, and powerful. Tainted blood coursed through his veins, Ventidius emerging as a new man. Enginseer Ventidius De'Unnero, the most learned Geochemist of the Geomancers, had emerged.

 

 

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I studied more into humans, and saw how truly powerful and forbidden we were. Nobody knew where we came from. nobody knew what we were, or what our purpose was. We could breed easier than the other races, but that was it. We adapted better, but there was little. Still, I have never doubted, that humans are the superior race, above all.

 

The true survivors.