Putting the pieces together.

Ulal quickly gets what he wants. Accessing the secret vault in the enchantment quarter he takes out the sack with the living metal that was stored there months ago. The vault seems empty with only half a Dragonbone inside (He has used all the remaining Orichalcum in his new clothes) without much of a thought he throws the jewel inside, he has no time to charge it now and who knows what kind of traps await him in the laboratory of somebody that creates magic power leeching living metal.

On his way out he quickly informs Catherine about the situation at hand and tells her to take over while he takes care of this.

Then he runs of. Literally. Ulal’s demon enhanced physique gives him enough stamina to run the whole distance of around a day in less than ten hours. There is still some daylight lingering around when he arrives.

Glenn is very surprised to see a half-demon bursting into the impromptu camp he and his people have set up in front of the cave. His messenger hasn’t even returned and he had expected a warlock with a staff eagerly grinning walking into his cave, not a Demonmagus with breakneck speed running into it, his face more that of extreme determination.

“Who are you?” Glenn asks, his voice quivering. “Ulal, formerly Uklag. No questions just tell me how deep in the cave.” Ulal answers and re-adjusts the sack over his shoulder. The metal inside squirms a bit as it feels its old dwelling place. “Keep left and follow the torches.” Glenn babbles and the Demonmagus sprints off.

“What the fuck?” Another person of the Shelter asks. Everyone else can just quietly agree.

Ulal storms through the cave. The torches at the wall little more than balls of fire that fly by his face he hastens through the winding tunnels until he reaches a side route that was recently opened. There are marks on the floor and ground from where stones where dragged along it. In the darkness, to Ulal as bright as daylight, he can see the laboratory.

It is by no means big, only a single room. A bed, two worktables, one with alchemical the other with transmutation instruments upon it, a small shelf. Above all a thick layer of dust. A single footprint on the ground shows how far the people of Shelter were willing to go. The metal inside the sack on his back squirms even more. Other, smaller bits now start to move in the laboratory.

They are everywhere. On the floor, the ceiling, under and in the bookshelf, the table. A few even crawl outside the beds cushion. They move towards Ulal with such absolute slowness that the Demonmagus doesn’t even feel threatened to walk deeper into the laboratory, only looking out to not stop underneath one of the weird creatures.

'…ter…then…' A voice enters his head. It is filled with static noises and hard to understand. “What?” Ulal asks into the laboratory. “Better…ones…before.” The voice repeats. Ulal sees something that makes his eyes hurt. In the middle of the already dark room float a spot that is just completely devoid of all light. There is nothing there, a black hole in his vision fixed at that point of the room. It moves slightly towards him and Ulal takes a step back. Whatever this is, it is really disturbing and wrong. Even with his demonic knowledge he can’t comprehend the magical power he is seeing. It is like somebody tangled a thousand strings into each other. It reminds him the slightest bit of the merging of Uklag’s and Jalkal’s soul he has witnessed but split into infinite amounts of smaller souls and then bound to different objects. Ulal sees weak strings of magical energy that connect the orb to the fragments of living metal that crawl around the place.

“…….” The voice is completely filled with static noises this time. Ulal slowly walks around the orb and looks around. He sees and open book on one of the tables and looks at the page. It is pretty well conserved, apparently one of the many fragments of living metal has lied on it to save it from dust and decay.

“Partail success.” Ulal reads. “The ritual to bind my soul to a spirit and then use that spirit to possess the body of Eclys-metal I have prepared was successful. However I already feel the connection fading away. Soon my soul will splinter away and this body will fall apart. I have overestimated the amount of magical I still possess. If somebody could provide it to me in the future I might be able to be resurrected. In this faint hope I have sealed of the entrance to this cave so that the parts of my body won’t be able to escape into the world as each of them takes on parts of my personality. As long as they all remain her my memoryless core should be able to hold a bit of control over them. That is the hope at least.

If a mage of power every finds this I beg of you: Please save me. You only need to bring together the pieces and give me enough magical power to stabilize.

A_“

The name is completely unreadable beyond the initial. 'BETTER THAN THE LAST!' It suddenly booms in his head in a distorted voice. “For my sake.” Ulal curses at the orb that is floating directly besides his head. 'Lost in white noise.' The orb says, the voice is female Ulal recognizes, 'Lost. Lost Lo….' The voice fades into static noise again.

Ulal looks at the orb flying off. If what he read just now is true that orb is the core of whoever’s laboratory this was. This might be a very long joke of some insane person or a genuine cry for help. Both are equally possible considering he is inside some forgotten tunnel inside a mountain. “But I might as well.” Ulal figures and fishes the big living metal out of his sack. He uses his right hand in fear that the thing could eat his new metal one right off and it envelopes his hand.

As it gnaws on his magical energy the binding between it and the orb indeed becomes stronger. Ulal pushes his enveloped right hand at another blob and the two become one. He continues to do so until the amount of living metal, or Eclys as the book called it, becomes to big to be carried around. He stops the flow of magic into his hand and with a disinterested squelch it falls of him. He does the same three more times with other blobs in the room, each time ending his feeding session above the already existing one, until he has found every piece of the metal.

The orb all the while tries to send him more messages but all he gets is white noise. Ulal drops the last bit of Eclys he can see on top of the blob on the floor and crosses his arms as he waits. The blob is big enough to make up the mass of an adult and in contrary to its old slow behaviour quivers rapidly.

“Go get in there.” Ulal commands the orb that is still floating around. 'He….Me.' “I can’t understand jack, get in there and form a functioning mouth.” Ulal says. The orb seems to understand him and moves into the blob, phasing inside it as it uses a spirits ability to possess things. Well, according to the book it is more of a reunification than a possession.

The black blob of metal doesn’t form a mouth, instead a single arm like tentacle creeps out of it and slowly waves around. Ulal sighs as he guesses what the thing wants from him. He grabs the semi-formed hand. It feels a lot like a real hand, although a very smooth one and a bit squishier. The last part quickly changes as magical power is siphoned from him. If he had been still human, the amount would have been alarming but like this it is just troublesome.

The hand becomes defined. The fingers, long and elegant, close around his hand as a body forms out of the blob under it. Feminine curves take shape a woman of gracile build with long limbs and slightly under average breasts. She grows out of the shapeless mass that gets used up in the process. A black mannequin holds Ulal’s hand.

The legs get hidden by a sort of artificial dress as the former blob takes a more intricate form. The shoulder down to above he elbow and her face change into a colour of milky white skin, the long dress like extension stays black and so do the rest of hands, giving the impression of black gloves and a shoulderless dress that is held by the neck.

Finally her face forms details, a snub nose, pale red lips, long, straight white hair that flows backwards, white, elegantly curved eyebrows, small, slightly pointy ears. Then a pair of clear, light green eyes open and look at Ulal.

The Demonmagus is speechless. “Thank you.” The lady says in a melancholic voice. “I got lost. May I ask what year it is?” Ulal almost can’t find words, “We have the year 282 after Estarian Unification. 1253 if you prefer the Saeletran calendar.” The lady takes a step, From the sound of it she has high heels under her skirt, that is her own body at the same time. Ulal only unwillingly let’s go.

“Mhm, so I have been gone 270 years. That’s almost four times my original lifetime.” She calmly says and walks to the shelf. She takes a violin that is lying inside and looks at it with sad eyes. The strings have long since ripped from the extended amount of time they lied around and the wood of the instrument has swollen from the moisture in the air.

“Pardon this question.” Ulal says as aspects of Uklag impede on him. “But you wouldn’t happen to be Aclysia?” The lady turns and gives a very slight smile. “I indeed am. Has my work survived this long?” She asks and walks back to him after carefully putting the useless instrument back down. “Estara tries to purge it to this day but true followers of knowledge copy it or bring originals to the neighbouring countries for safe keeping.”

Aclysia gives him a slow nod. “That is good, knowledge should never be lost. May I ask a question next?” Her melancholic tone lulls in the awestruck Demonmagus, “Whatever you want.” He says, “What are you?” Ulal looks down on himself, spine like tail waving into his field of view. “Oh, yes, right. It is a long story, you mind if we walk while I tell you?”