Books of Forsaken Futures Truths of the Past

[Passage 10: Sins of The Descendant]

[Hale: Sins of The Descendant]

- Fall 1963 -

We watch the attempting intruders, while also keeping an eye on Vlad. He seems like a nice enough fellow. But he also seems odd, like a schoolboy with new toys. And a new TV show to boot. If you can call a handful of Vampirials and a couple normal humans any form of entertainment.

Meanwhile, Dem watches in disbelief, because she can't understand how Hitler is not only alive, but a Vampirial. I probably won't bother explaining how he is actually a Vampirial Lord. But I might have to before this is over. Right now he is watching over the shoulder of a human, getting quickly impatient.

He rants behind the man "Mein Gott, könntest du ein langsamerer Mann sein? Sogar ein Minotaurus hätte das mittlerweile schaffen können!" He then presses the man's face into the screen and demands "Entweder erhalten Sie bald Zutritt, oder ich gehe einfach davon aus, dass Sie es absichtlich hinauszögern und Ihre Blutlinie genauso schnell vernichten, wie ich Sie vernichten werde!"

Someone approaches from behind him and says "He is doing well his best Adolf. Leave him to his work. Lord Adryan assigned us here to keep the project safe, not to bully the help." Outside of Hitler, those present aren't easy to identify because of how dark the scene is.

But even with it being so dark, I can clearly see the rage on Hitler's face. Apparently he hasn't figured out how to transform his limbs into weapons yet, but he has figured out how to become a black bear. Towering over this other figure he growls "Wenn Sie darauf bestehen müssen, mich bei einem toten Namen zu nennen, könnten Sie mich zumindest bei meinem richtigen Titel nennen! Or would you like me to start calling you Graham?"

To this, he promptly kicks Hitler the bear in his balls. His strike is direct and powerful enough to lift him off the floor. Then he responds "Call me what you will, but I should remind you that even as a Vampirial Lord, you are but a fledgling with no more standing then I." Now he is in the light, he is definitely Graham, but he is older and somehow a Vampirial Lord. His sideswiped brown hair and square features are hard to mistake.

Dem looks away from the screen and asks me "Vampirial Lord? Fledgling?"

I go to answer, but Vlad does instead "Vampirial Lords are more powerful than an average Vampirial. With a higher threshold of power to command and the ability to manipulate blood. But it is a title one has or does not, as it has never been obtained. Vampirial Lords were the Vampirial soul innocent before conversion. Fledgling however, is just a term used for Vampirials before they earn their new names."

"New names?" Dem asks.

"Why yes miss Demiour, you see, when someone becomes a Vampirial, they take on a new traditional Vampirial name. Also their base form becomes something more similar to their ideal self." Vlad says, then motions for me to go ahead.

"So Cornelius Graham is also a Vampirial Lord? I could swear when I fight him in the future he is human." I respond.

Vlad laughs "Who is Cornelius? Arturo Twistedtrunk was not named Cornelius in his human life."

"They do look very similar though." Dem says, focusing on the screen and examining Graham.

"People tend to look similar to their parents." Vlad shrugs.

Dem seems confused, so she asks "So Cornelius is his son? I didn't know Vampires could have kids. I thought they were essentially walking corpses." She looks sheepishly at Vlad and says "No offense."

"You are too sweet child" Vlad laughs "The entire undead thing is racist propaganda. I blame Bram Stoker personally. Vampires can indeed have families and while Arturo does not currently have children; the fact that Hale says he fought Cornelius in the future paired with the fact that he and his wife are trying is simple math."

"Oh" She says, then something else occurs to her "So that means that you and the others had to kill children?"

I am cut off from responding again by Vlad when he says "Yes, but that is the nature of war. But don't worry Hale, I've read the book. Hayloskien shield you by handling such business."

"The book?" Dem asks.

"Why yes" Vlad sits back with a chuckle "The Book of Forsaken Futures. I am sure Nute would let you read it if you asked. Such a nice man. Especially to one such as I with nothing better to do than read. I have quite the library here."

"I'll keep that in mind. But perhaps we should focus on the matter at hand." I say, pointing at the screen. Dem gets up from her seat and hugs me tightly, then proceeds to sit in my lap. Nothing further being said, even in echoes.

[Dien: Sins of the Descendant]

- Summer 1999 -

We return to not only the world of the living, but to Envoy. The training room to be exact. Only Hayloskien awaits our return. He leans against the wall, not sure for what reason. He stands from the wall as he approaches us with a friendly wave. He says "Welcome back Dien, hopefully this new face is a friendly one?"

"This is Tiamant, we won't be staying long, we're here for Omarack." I say, pointing to her over my shoulder.

He extends a hand to Tiamant and says "Nice to meet you, I'm Hayloskien."

Before I can stop her, she shakes his hand. To my surprise, Hayloskien doesn't appear to be effected by her touch. But oddly, the glyph on her stomach does glow. Then it stops as soon as she lets go of his hand. But starts again when she runs the same hand along the side of his face. She coos "Poor child, what did they do to your soul?"

Hayloskien looks at her confused "I'm sorry, what?"

She looks at me and says "Dien, was it you who so roughly cut apart this child's soul? Where is the rest of it?" Her eyes glow as serpents of light descend from the lighting above, as though an effect of each light panel. Before I can resist, the serpents quickly strike, binding my arms and legs in a crucified position.

She walks toward me, my body suspended in the air. She asks "Do answer quickly, I am not feeling much patience in the matter."

"I split their souls, because the two of them would be more useful than just having one. To face Nute and the Hall of Saints, we needed as much power as we could get. Then the other one went back in time." I say, looking down upon my captor.

"What nonsense." She snaps, motoring with her hand, making the serpents pull and tug. "Nute has always been an ally. On top of that, even we are not capable of time travel."

"But it's true!" Armissa interjects, stepping between us "I was within the scythe and seen it first hand. You have to believe."

She is cut off by Biomant taking over, his deep voice shouting "Shut up girl!" Then he calms slightly and says "Though I should point out that she is correct. So we should put down our still reluctant help."

"Oh fine" She huffs and looks to Biomant with a pout. Then she snaps her fingers and the serpents disappear. She looks at me as I return to my feet and says "Show us to him."

[Squirrel: Sins of the Descendant]

- Summer 1999 -

A nice day welcomes me as I open my front door. A nice breeze accompanying a brisk morning and the smell of trees from the surrounding forest. The barriers around the house are holding strong. Even with that young man in blue robes talking on the outermost barrier. I approach him and wave. I know well who he is, with his square jaw and side parted brown hair, he is Cornelius Graham. But does this punk remember me?

He smiles and waves in return. Then he knocks on the barrier and points in. I shake my head and say "You have no business here boy. You aren't coming in."

He laughs "I disagree." Then he continues knocking.

"Nothing to disagree about. You have no business here." I respond, folding my arms.

"Not that" He says, pointing behind me. I turn over my shoulder in time for the house to be torn apart from within. Shadow serpents burst through the house as it is reduced to rubble, in the mouth of each serpent is member of my family or one of my guests. I turn back to Graham and he slips into the inside of the barrier, exiting a shadow. Is that the game we are playing? He chuckles "I am already in."

"What do you want?" I ask, holding my stance.

"I want nothing" he says as the supplements receive into shadows, taking their captives with them. "I already have what I came for, mostly anyway."

"What else could you want?" I say "Surely you don't expect me to just cooperate?"

"Oh heavens no." He chuckles "I just want to know where the light type has went. I can feel his energy, so I know he was here recently."

"I don't think you will be getting that information from me." I respond as I switch to a haymaker with my right hand.

The impact causes him to fall back and into a shadow, coming out of another behind me. "How uncouth, but I assure you that I have many ways to get what I want." He goes for a punch to my stomach as I turn to face him.

Still turning, I stop his first away with my left hand and make a flat strike with my right. I respond "And you'll find that I have many ways to refuse."

He falls back into his shadow and several shadow serpents strike at me. I strike at one that goes for my face and and roundhouse kick another that is going in low. However, there are more than I can handle and I quickly find several wrapping around my limbs and biting down on my feet, shoulders and hands.

He rises again before me, smiling wide. He simmers "How you refuse is irrelevant. I have what I came for and even if I must wait for the light type, I will find him and the one among his allies whom has the location of the rest of me. I will have it all."

"You will have nothing." I wave my hand, the serpents binding me just gone. "For you've gained nothing. You will open your eyes to find you haven't even crossed the barrier."

Then he does, opening his eyes right where he started. As am I. But don't be fooled, for this is no illusion, but a game of dreams. He looks confused briefly, but perhaps only understanding part of what just happened. He chuckles "So be it. Let's try that again." He knocks on the barrier and again points behind me. I don't even need to look behind me. The ground shakes, but he looks again surprised. For this time, his shadow serpents fail to enter. Instead they thrash against the outside of the barrier.

I laugh at my opponent and this time, I point behind him. Just in time for cannon fire to bounce the heads of the serpents off of the barrier. Just in time for a tank to roll onto him. He falls into the shadow of the tank and brings his serpents with him. Then they emerge from other shadows and dive down on the tank and destroy it. Only, they don't and again he is just standing outside the barrier.

He knocks on the barrier again and looks confused. Then this time when his shadow serpents emerge, they dive down at where the tank was. He turns around, only to see that the tank isn't there. Instead, I am. I run and slide along the necks of the serpents and jump down upon Graham, landing a diving punch to the side of his jaw. My hair, now once again red, waves behind me as my punch makes contact.

He falls back, again into his shadow, but this time he and his serpents attempt to come out from beneath me. As they rise from my shadow, I jump out of the way and again they are subjected to canon fire. Again this slams them across the barrier and they redirect at the tank. Again they smash the tank, only they don't. Again he is outside the barrier, confused. This time though, he just sinks into his shadow. This time his voice echoes around us as the world shakes "The Voices of Chaos sing hymns in the way wake of my destruction, yours!"

The world shakes harder, leaves from the trees of the nearby forest fall and swirl as though we were in a massive snowglobe. The shadows outside of the barrier grow and converge and the shadow serpents again emerge, all connected to singular massive body that rises from the mass shadow. His voice echoes around again "I am Hydramant!"

Again his heads beat up on the barrier. But I am unimpressed. This time, canon fire beats upon the main body. All heads focus on the tank, but now it has multiple canons. Again the shadow hydra smashes the tank. But this time I don't bother waking him up. Instead I take my new other form, an energy being made of black energy coursing with grey electricity. His heads focus on me and begin to dive at me, only to be pelted with more canon fire.

The serpent heads look at each other confused, then look for the surrounding area as it just occurs to them that canon fire could not possibly be coming from a tank. Well, I guess he has realized that the tank was a decoy and his actual target is moving much too fast to be believed. Crusty bolts around in his new energy form, one of gold energy and speckles of white. A muscular build, contrary to his normally large and flabby form. He punches the ground and the force of his punch given at a precise angle, causes canon balls of earth to explode out of the ground and strike the hydra.

A thousand more times, I wake him and repeat the last several loops with minor variations. Each time, he is in some form or another defeated by Crusty and I. However, a thousand cycles later, he stops. He says nothing and instead turns and walks away. He falls into his shadow beneath his feet. I guess he got tired of none of that happening and waking from a dream within another dream. My new power has some definite potential.

Crusty re-enters the barrier and returns to his human form. A lot closer to his normal pudgy self, but some how in his prime with a thick black beard and curly long black hair. He fist pumps as he walks over and yells "Woo-hoo! That was fun! Think he will come back for another round?"

I shake my head as Alexander exits the house with the children following behind him. He would have joined us, but he hadn't yet finished changing as he had just taken the injection when Graham showed up. But now Alexander is younger and his hair is a metallic crimson. He says "Probably not. Cornelius can be stubborn, but he isn't stupid. Whatever he seemed here was not worth the effort he would have needed to use."

"I agree." I add and look to the children, still so young, we decided not to give them the injections. To allow them their childhood if we can help it. Though when that Beowulf guy returns with whoever Alexander sent him to find, he may be given the option and we will leave the children as a last option for emergency.

Read the entire story here: https://editor.reedsy.com/s/kQZFaco