Heart of Dorkness

Monster Eleven - Cat

I shifted on my feet next to the dark pool.

I was at the very bottom of the castle I’d begun to consider home. Far below the first floor, past the twisting caves and natural passages, and in the cavern where Luciana said I’d been born into this world.

It wasn't the nicest place. The cavern was deep and long, with a ceiling covered in stalactites, some so long they reached the ground and turned into columns. Small monsters with large, distended stomachs, filled with glowing juices, flitted across the air above, casting soft, shifting lights across the grand cavern.

None of those features were as attention grabbing as the dark pool. It was made of that familiar black tar, the one found in pools all around the castle. None of those ponds came anywhere near this pool though. It had a depth to it, something I could feel in myself. It oozed with a sense of wrongness, of revulsion, that made me want to turn away, even as it whispered for me to come closer and surrender to the depths.

“Don’t stand so near to the edge,” Mom said. Her voice snapped me out of my contemplation. “You’ll get your clothes dirty if you fall in.”

I nodded and skipped back from the edge.

We were here so I could use my newest skill.

Every class was given five options for a new skill once they reached a certain level. I had reached Initiate with Harbinger of the Dark Tides, unlocking my first set of skills to pick from.

Dark Leader

As the Harbinger of the Dark Tide rushes ahead, their dark companions naturally fall in line.

Flooding Disgust

The Harbinger masters the art of enveloping their foes in the darkest of magics.

Shadow Born

The Harbinger’s task is facilitated by the subtle arts, and these arts are made easier, allowing the Harbinger to blend into the ever dark and strike with the shadows.

Doom of the Devoted

The Harbinger leads an expendable tide of dark ones. They now fight with the ferocity of creatures knowing their end is near.

My first four skills, those I had declined to take. They seemed interesting, but they didn’t feel right. When I didn’t know what to pick, I approached Mom and listed them off. The Dark Goddess had nodded along until I reached the last skill.

Heart of Darkness

The Harbinger of the Dark Tide pours the darkness of their soul into the blackness of creation, and from this blight, a servant is born.

Luciana had reacted strangely to that skill’s description, but she did insist that I take it, even if I didn’t know what it meant. We came down into the caverns for me to learn just that.

“Monsters are born of the souls of the departed, whether they are man or creature. As long as they have a soul and their body is broken to the point that it is no longer usable, then their soul will be brought to a place like this,” Luciana said. She gestured to the black pool.

“So this thing’s full of dead people?” I asked. Neat!

“No. Souls of the dead, not the actual dead. Though I would hardly consider any black pool to be sanitary,” she said. “Regardless, once a soul enters a pool, they begin to shape and form a new body. This process can take moments or days. It depends entirely upon the soul and the form it is destined to take.”

“Okay,” I said. I didn’t understand entirely, but I got the gist of it.

Luciana moved closer to the edge of the pool. “Your Heart of Darkness skill seems like one that would allow you to shape the creation of a monster. Imposing your will over a fledgling soul so that it takes a form of your choosing.”

“Oh,” I said. “So I can make my own monsters? Using my soul?”

“By using your soul as a bridge, perhaps, but not as the catalyst for the creation. Using an errant soul infused into your creation before its birth would work. I doubt you would even require much effort to push things along that way. The souls within the pool will want to inhabit a new form.”

I looked at the pool, then back at the Dark Goddess. “Is it dangerous?”

“Terribly so, yes.”

“Uh, that’s not very reassuring, Mom.”

“Please don’t call me that,” was Mom’s reply. “And as for any danger, it would only be dangerous if you were to do it without supervision. Seeing as how I am here, there is little to be concerned about.”

“You know how to do this too?” I asked.

The Dark Goddess looked down at me, one eyebrow slightly raised. “Of course. I have shaped monsters from conception for millenia.”

“But not all of them, right?”

“No, only when I require a very specific form for a specific task. You’ll note that monsters shaped personally tend to be... different, than those shaped naturally. I think you’ll find them more liable to follow your instructions.”

“Neat!” I said. I now had a way to make my own pets; that was exciting. “How do I start?”

“Approach the pool. You may want to do this on your knees,” Luciana said.

I nodded, then fell to my knees next to the dark pool. I didn’t dare stare at it too much. The surface up close seemed to have some depth to it. I could almost see past the very topmost layer of the pool, where it rode up onto the gentle incline of the shore. Despite having all the depth of a piece of paper, it still looked as though the pool was fathomless on its very edge. I didn’t want to look into the parts that were actually deep.

“Place a hand into the water, and keep a hold of your soul,” the Dark Goddess instructed. She walked closer, the hem of her long robes brushing by the edge of the pool.

“Alright,” I said. I trusted mom not to let me hurt myself.

I dipped my hand in with a gasp.

“Cold!”

“It is actually quite lukewarm,” Luciana said. “The impression of coldness is entirely in your mind.”

“My mind must be good at feeling cold then,” I said. I shivered, and my teeth started to click-clack together like a typewriter in a hailstorm.

A warm hand pressed itself against my back, and my shivers stopped as warmth pushed into me. It was a soft warmth, like being wrapped in a thick woolly blanket after stepping in from the cold, then being sat down next to a hot fire.

I leaned back into the hand. “That’s nice.”

“As I said,” Luciana replied, “it is terrifically dangerous. Now, I want you to focus on an image, that of a creature. Merely try to imagine a monster that is familiar. The better the image, the greater the result.”

“Okay,” I muttered. I closed my eyes and tried to think of a creature. Something simple. “Just anything?”

“Within the bounds of what is possible,” Luciana said.

“Does it have to be a real thing?”

“It does not. Though I would advise that you shy away from certain forms. The level of complexity in the body of a dragon, for example, might be beyond you. Imagine something simple for this first test.”

“Alright, so something simple.” I screwed my eyes shut even harder and thought as best I could about all the animals I knew. Then I settled on one. “Okay, I think I know what I want. Now what?”

“Envision that creation, the making of it, as though sculpting it in the void. Then press that image towards the very edge of your soul, as when casting a spell, and push it into the black.” Luciana’s voice was calm and low, a murmur that I found myself sinking into even as the woman’s hand rubbed circles on my back to keep me warm.

I pressed the image down into the depths, my soul extending even as something rubbed up inside me in a way that would have been sickening if it wasn’t for the warmth protecting me.

“Carefully,” Luciana murmured.

I felt a familiar soul snake around my own, like a favourite pet circling to keep me safe and warm. It banished some of the queasy feelings that sending my soul into the murk had created.

I nodded, and focused on the image even harder. I could do it! Mom was helping me, after all. Like a normal mom teaching her daughter how to bake cookies, but a little different.

The black waters gurgled and bubbled, and for a moment, I felt a feeling of... completion.

I opened my eyes. “Was that it?”

“It has been hours,” Luciana said.

I blinked a few times, my hand carefully coming out of the black tar. I looked at it, all wrinkled as if I’d been reading in the bath again. “Oh.” I stood, knees aching from being on them for too long. “Did it work?

“Indeed,” Luciana said.

The tar gurgled and bubbled, and from its surface... a cat. Black and lithe, with eyes that looked around sharply with a feral intelligence.

“Interesting,” Luciana muttered.

I grinned. It worked! The cat was... strange. The more I looked at it, the more the proportions seemed wrong, like when I tried to draw things. Its head was a bit big, and its tail too long, and its front legs weren’t as long as its back legs. And maybe those back legs were bending the wrong way? But it was definitely a cat.

“I made it so you have something to keep you warm when you’re reading,” I said. “You know, when you’re sitting on your big chair. You need a cat to pet. It makes the reading better.”

“I... see,” Luciana replied. She eyed the cat for a moment, then returned to gazing at me. “Well, this was productive. Though you have a long way to go before you can attempt this unassisted.”

“I’ll get better,” I said. I bent down and scooped up the cat. “So, what are we gonna name her?”

“We are not keeping the cat.”

“But Mom!”

***