56the of Ymiden 720, after academy hours, midnight!
What does lonely hands want with us father? How will he chase the fear of eight legs away?
Zemos shook his head at the inner question, as he proceeded through the halls of the Academy to the Institute of Arcana. It was a relatively small space, appropriately so for the purpose it fulfilled. There were precious few who studied arcana, and even fewer who understood it most intimately. Magi, those infected by the wondrous disease of arcana. A contagion that has survived for centuries beyond anyone's remembering, save perhaps for the Immortals.
He stood at the entrance to the Institute. Apparently he was expected, for the doors opened in his wake. Nobody moved to stop him as he passed through them.
He thought he saw something skittering in the darkness... A small humanoid shape, over yonder just beyond the dim corridor lights. He thought perhaps this thing, this object or construct was meant to show Zemos the way to his teacher. So he followed it.
The thing seemed to chitter and laugh as he came after it. Still, it stuck to the shadows, just out of sight so that Zemos couldn't see its details or make. Or indeed whatever it was. The thing took him some corridors left right and left again. After some leagues of walking, it darted into a thin opening in the side of the corridor. Zemos sped his pace a bit, and soon slipped into the passage that it'd gone into.
Curious, he squinted his eyes, trying to make his way by the very dim light. At first he saw nothing, but his eyes did adjust to the dark in time. It was then he realized he was looking at Professor Mervani, without realizing it. When the Professor saw recognition dawn on Zemos' eyes, he nodded.
"I wondered if you'd come. But then, for all your faults, you are an inquisitive one."
Praise most excessive,
he softens our meat with venom,
before he takes a final drink.
The egg warned Zemos, yet he wouldn't turn away. Just as the professor said, his curiosity got the better of him in this instance. "Fear Spider? How hel..."
Mervani waved a hand, cutting him off at the pass, "How many times must I tell you to curb such displays of horrendous linguistic skills? Keep a lid on it, and listen to me, follow my lead."
"I didn't bring you here on a social call, nor to give you an impromptu therapy session." Mervani quirked a brow, looking unamused. "I'm here to give you a gift, should you prove worthy. Take my hand."
He held out his cold, blue hand for Zemos to grasp.
Lonelyhands, lonelyhands, lonelyhands. Take it not Father! How we have warned you!
But Zemos ignored the egg again, ignored the lance of pain through his arm as he disobeyed its warning. He took the cold hand of Mervani, and for a moment nothing happened. But then, a knife suddenly appeared in Mervani's other hand. He cut both of their hands, drawing blood from both. The blood mingled as Mervani's grip tightened, and something seemed to move through Zemos.
The Blessed infection? What is this?
Zemos didn't know, but he wasn't sure if he'd call it a blessing, as he felt an alien power running through his veins. A sheen of sweat formed on his brow as the blood leaked from his hand, until at last Mervani released him. Then the former slave stumbled backward, giving him an accusatory look.
"I thought to test your mettle against spiders, but couldn't find enough in the Entomology lab. So... Hopefully, these crawlers will be to your liking." Mervani chuckled as he moved away, stepping out of range of Zemos's viewing.
Then, the sound of skittering legs on the floor, coming up through the gaps in the ground. Was it?
Eight Legs! We are betrayed!
But no, the egg was wrong, this wasn't a spider's crawling it was... a centipede. Many of them, coming on in a swarm. But as Zemos felt them crawling up his clothes and upon his flesh, something seemed wrong about them.
Cousins? They surely will not harm us?
But he was once again betrayed by his presumptions, as the centipede injected its venom into the flesh of Zemos. His immunity, however, was triggered, and the insect venom besides being very painful had no lasting deadliness to it.
It fills us with the Hive Mother's milk! Watch master, watch what happens now!!!
Indeed, as he felt the pain of the venom infecting him, a strange sensation came over him. A sudden call to dominance over the swarm crawling over his body. He felt their ether signature, a faint cold glow that existed within their dead thoraxes. He latched onto that etheric signature, and turned the swarm to his own will!
Sweet triumph Father! We are born again!
Zemos couldn't argue the point and smiled to himself as he directed the swarm to crawl this way and then that. Finally, he directed them to crawl a single file into his sackcloth bag. There, they rested, in a little chitinous ball of insect flesh.
A singular, solitary clap sounded through the room. Sarcastic in its cadence, Mervani appeared from the darkness. Zemos' smile disappeared as he saw his teacher, and almost frowned, but stopped himself shy of that. He instead took a deep breath and waited for his master to address him.
His body still racked with pain from the venom, and stooped over from the exhaustion of animating his first thrall, Zemos could only lift his eyes to Mervani in a silent question. The eidisi toxicology professor and necromancer shrugged at his student. "I suppose it's no use offering you an antidote. The venom of that many centipedes would have killed any ordinary subject." Mervani scoffed, "You are Yithnai, a marked of Lisirra... did you know that?"
Zemos thought about it... The name, Lisirra, seemed eerily familiar. Something beyond the white void throbbed in his mind, he knew there was something to that, but what it was he didn't understand. He shook his head at Mervani, no. He may have known that name once upon a time, but right now? It's origin and meaning eluded him. More questions popped into his head, yet more questions to be squelched by the professor's disdain for his tongue.
"Well no matter. She may have marked you without your knowing. Perhaps she thinks to use you as a spy against the Magistrix. Doubtless Yvithia is well aware. Although why you haven't be disappeared to... well, parts unknown is a matter for conjecture. Another time we may explore that question. But for now, you may go..."
Zemos stared incredulously at the professor. There was so much he wanted to ask him, so much he wanted to say, but knowing how offended the teacher was at his poor common, he thought better of his questions. He turned around sullenly, and made his plodding way out of the empty chamber where he'd been initiated. Initiated... he was now blessed with arcana. He wondered if he should seek out someone to explain his arcane power to him, perhaps Professor Thetys, or Associate Wellyn would know what it all meant, or what he could do with it. Mervani didn't seem like much of an arcana teacher, as good as he was at teaching his students about toxins...
There were too many questions, and few answers. What could he do with this power, and what were the limits? Were there dangers? Who was the Magistrix and Yvithia? Perhaps he'd ask his lab partner later, when they had a moment outside of class together. But for now, he had only to wonder at the encounter he'd had with Mervani, and the newly discovered power in him.
He lifted a hand to wipe some moisture from his brow... and found it sticky, with blackened tar. All along the top half of his face, like a thick warpaint, was covered by a tar-like substance. Even under his hair, it seemed to adhere to his fingers, while leaving little in the way of residue. Overwhelmed by all of these changes, he retired to the hostel he lived out of. He would find answers in the next few days perhaps, but for now, torpor and blessed sleep.
