(c) Knowledge is Forbidden Fruit (PG 13)

Title: Knowledge is Forbidden Fruit
Rating: PG 13; Dark and violent themes
Author: Myself
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Status: chaptered; incomplete
Summary/Exerpt:
"Attack them! Kill or capture. We can't let them run for help," Kainys commanded, and dropped his now resisted illusion. From under his cloak he drew a pair of long daggers and hacked off the nearest soldier's rifle arm. He pulled the soldier close and sunk his sharp canines into his neck drawing energy from his victim's blood.
Warnings: Rating may become higher with later chapters.

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"Are you kidding me?!"

The scholar didn't answer and instead stared at him expectantly through his tiny pair of spectacles, his violet eyes were chillingly entrancing. He had long, black hair tied back loosely and his complexion was quite pale. His apprentice also had long, black hair, but it was untied, and his complexion wasn't quite as pale. His piercing black eyes and judging smirk made him just as unnerving to look at though. The transport biomancer stared at his map to avoid both their gazes.

"I was only hired to take you to the Abysei ruins and to bring you back with that artefact you got. Now you want to go to a ruin you only assume is there, that just so happens to be near a Brittassian outpost?! Aren't the mercenaries already tired after the attack at the ruins?" he argued at them."

"The fluctuations Zevaryn spotted in his scry are far too suspicious not to be worth investigating. There must be something of interest there," the pale scholar answered calmly. He smiled and looked the biomancer in the eyes. "We're only going to take a reconnaissance approach for now and then we'll return to Sentients’ Tree. If we've discovered something, the finder's fee will more than reimburse you for the detour."

"Don't worry about us either," a female mercenary with a greatsword called out. "Kainys is a good leader and he can cloak us. You just concentrate on getting your big-ass beetle there."

The biomancer sighed and turned to his creation and pet. He climbed up and sat in the compartment hollowed into the giant black beetle's head. A wave of his hand in front of a certain area in the compartment opened up the beetle's wing protectors, revealing the large hollow part for passengers and cargo. The group piled into their transport and the driver closed the wing protectors. Then with another movement, the beetle started to walk.

"Our destination definitely shares the same culture as the mysterious artefact we found, or it's at least related," Zevaryn shared with his teacher. "We almost always come by here on the way to the main Abysei ruins, and there hasn’t been a fluctuation here before."

"It's great to see how observant and calculating you are, Zeva," Kainys praised. "A lot of certified field scholars are nowhere near as perceptive as you. People are right in calling you a prodigy."

"Praise is unnecessary and almost patronising," he replied. "It actually would be patronising from anyone else. I'm simply not as foolish and careless as other scholars are."

"That's true," Kainys said softly and almost to himself. "Well, Whatever we find will definitely help research on this artefact. We don't even know what ancient culture this came from."

Kainys was about to go on, but something had caught his attention.

"There's Brittassians in the distance. I should start cloaking us," he informed, as his irises spread out in a spiral, beginning to resemble a swirling portal. He looked ahead as if in a trance and touched the nearby Brittassians' minds, ready to remove any signal from their senses that would make the soldiers realise a giant deformed beetle was passing by them. They passed undetected by two patrols before they came close to the centre of the fluctuation. The area looked normal enough, but there was a suspiciously symmetrical tree that assured the scholars that something was there. Unfortunately, there was a Brittassian patrol walking straight past it.

"Just wait until they go past," Kainys told the driver through a metal pipe installed into the beetle, for communicating through. "But open the doors so we're ready to get out."

The wing protectors rose as the patrol came close. The group was waiting patiently when all of a sudden, their artefact’s clear crystal part lit up with a blazing light and began to hum. Kainys managed to shield it from their senses at the last second, but the patrol still felt weird for a second and now they were suspicious.

"That was some kind of sorcery!" the patrol's commander yelled. "There are witches or demons around here!"

The Brittassian's raised their rifles and waved them around, looking for the group. Their alertness gave them the will to resist Kainys's deception and they could now make out blurred and transparent images of the group.

"Attack them! Kill or capture. We can't let them run for help," Kainys commanded, and dropped his now resisted illusion. From under his cloak he drew a pair of long daggers and hacked off the nearest soldier's rifle arm. He pulled the soldier close and sunk his sharp canines into his neck drawing energy from his victim's blood. Zevaryn whipped out a pistol and shot point-blank at a soldier's head with a ghostly bullet. The targeted soldier fell to his knees, unharmed, but in total agonising despair. Zevaryn then snatched the soldier's rifle, unloaded it into an approaching soldier and then threw it at another starting to aim at him. In seconds he closed on the soldier he'd distracted and slashed his neck with his now drawn rapier. The beetle charged at some of them. Those not trampled by the hungry transport were now being slowly eaten. The female mercenary swung her greatsword at the ones aiming at her. With her swing came a powerful surge of air that vacuum cut cleanly through all of them. The big mercenary with untamed red hair and matching beard began bellowing a loud war cry that chilled the bones of those who heard it. Those who caught his stare were effectively paralysed. With a powerful heave of his axe, he cleaved through a soldier's skull. The slim, robed mercenary clutched a large piece of emerald and filled it with a dark green energy that matched the colour of his eyes. It shot out like lightning at attacking soldiers and fried them where they stood. In the cases where the targeted soldiers were too close to others, the current carried from them. The patrol was quickly defeated.

"Okay. Drop the artefact by the tree," Kainys directed after flicking, wiping, and sheathing his daggers. "Then we need to load the captives in the boot of the transport."

"We should probably also load a few unbutchered corpses," Zevaryn suggested, as he searched the bodies for things of value. "Necromancers are paying some good money for them these days."

"Right, that's a good idea," Kainys replied. "Put the rest in a pile, ready to burn."

Once the artefact was closer, it shot a beam of light at the tree and went lifeless again. After a momentary delay, a gap formed in the tree and stairs of clear crystal could be seen leading down. A light turned on below.

"Wow, this place looks to be intact, or at least half functioning," Kainys said aloud. "There might be people down there."

He looked around at his group, thinking about the best course of action.

"I think we'll take Hathor with us, and have the rest guard the entrance," he told his apprentice. "We're only scouting the place out, so I'll hide us from anyone who might be down there."

"And we definitely haven't alerted anyone down there of our presence already," he replied in humourless sarcasm.

"We scout the place and then judge whether we need to engage anything down there. The point is that we're sweeping over it first."

Kainys called over the big mercenary and directed the other mercenaries to stand guard. The biomancer moved his beetle closer and relaxed in the driver's compartment, ready to leave in a hurry. The scholars made their way down the stairs with Hathor and surveyed the dome-shaped room. It was made up mostly of clean-cut crystal shining with light and framed by the tree's white roots in an unnaturally organised way. The roots were connected to a bulb-like growth in the centre of the room that extended from the floor and into the ceiling. The growth had shining crystal installed in it and it seemed like it had working organs inside it too. Around the room there were a total of four terminals made in a similar way, and each had an open pod nearby that could fit someone in it. The only other thing of note was a circular door on the other side of the room.

"You can't sense anyone?" Zevaryn asked Kainys with some bemusement, as he noticed the lack of portal shapes in his superior's eyes. "It must be amazingly self sufficient if it functions this much without someone up-keeping it."

"Hmm... We could probably play with it too," Kainys replied, inspecting a terminal. "Although it looks like a lot of it requires neuromancy to do anything."

"These pods look life supporting," Zevaryn relayed, as he too began to inspect things. "Like a womb for adults. My guess is that the residents used them as beds."

"Oh. Very interesting. We can show it to the biomancy researchers back home who are looking into that kind of thing," Kainys answered back, moving to inspect the item in the centre. "They'll have something to reverse engineer now."

"You just want them to stop examining your daughter all the time," Zevaryn teased. "But I agree that studying her acquired ability isn't going to help with that particular project."

"Without accessing the terminals I don't think we could find much about this central artefact," Kainys went on, ignoring Zevaryn's comment. "But we can assume it’s the heart of this place. Powering it and connecting the terminals together. It might help us upgrade our systems at home, assuming it's worth it."

Zevaryn had walked to the door and looked back at Kainys. Kainys made sure Hathor was following and went over to the door too. Hathor pushed the crystal double doors open for them and moved out the way for the scholars to inspect the room, even though his eyes were exploring the room too. Around the room were a great deal of life supporting pods that seemed to be a lot more heavy duty that the ones in the previous room. There was thick crystal shielding on almost all of them, but they looked occupied. The middle of the room had an altar marked with a complex design, but at the far end of the room there was a larger, more elaborate life support pod, which was much more translucent than the other pods in the room. It was so translucent that you could make out the shape of the sentient inside. Blonde hair hung over an almost faceless head. There was simply a nose and a wide mouth that smiled. White wings wrapped around the floating female body, and the arms clutched what looked like a crown.

"Shit! What is that?" Hathor cursed, his eyes fixated on the ancient being.

"We should leave now!" Kainys said with deadly seriousness. "We don't want to wake these sentients up. They don't sense us yet so we should get out now."

Hathor looked mellowed and he took a step forward towards the altar.

"Hathor! Didn’t you hear me? We’re...” Kainys started to yell, but stopped when the realisation hit him. His irises broke into spirals “She’s controlling him! Don’t let her grip your mind Zeva!”

Hathor screamed his war cry and charged at the altar. He cut his palm with the blade of his own axe and threw it to the side while he was still running. Kainys, who had deceived Hathor into thinking he was still chasing him, crouched in front of the mercenary and tripped him up. Kainys jumped on top of him and pulled back the arm with the bleeding hand until it dislocated. That didn't stop him from struggling closer to the altar though. Zevaryn caught up to them and locked Hathor's legs together, trying to pull him away at the same time. The neuromancer reached out for the scholars' minds. A powerful blast at both of their minds impaired them enough to loosen their hold on the mercenary. Hathor threw himself to his feet and swung his dangling arm onto the altar. The blood spilt over the circle design and the room flared brighter. Kainys whipped out a dagger and whacked him in the back of the head with its hilt to knock Hathor out.

"Get him out of this room! And don't come back in it!" Kainys yelled to Zevaryn as his irises began to spin at violent speeds. Pods were opening and the winged beings inside were beginning to emerge. All of a sudden they broke out into harmonious, but wordless song. Circles of light formed above their heads. The other mercenaries ran down the stairs to see what was going on and saw Kainys struggling on his knees, trying not to be dominated but also struggling to keep them from targeting his allies. Then all of a sudden he started laughing. He had a devious smile on his face. He looked up at Zevaryn. His eyes weren't spiralling anymore. Zevaryn smiled, understanding something from the look Kainys gave him. In that moment, the light consumed the room. The song reached a climax and started to sound twisted. A pillar of light rose into the sky above as the room was drained of its illumination. The facility's power failed, and then everything went quiet. Kainys and the woken creatures were gone.