Rattus Rex

Chapter 5 - Withermancy

Finally, when night came, Hamelin could shake off his lazy charade and perk up. He sat up in his bed and looked out the window, where two pale moons looked down at him from above. This sight had been the first warning that he was no longer in his own world.

Later, as he had stolen into the study and night to read the books on history, his suspicion had only been confirmed. He was no longer in the world where his people had ruled the underworld—rather, he was in a land which knew nothing about vexen.

For a time, this had saddened Hamelin. Not that he missed his people, but he missed the schemes and trickery they were experts in. However, realizing that this land knew nothing about the devious nature of vexen, meant he had an entire world in which to sow chaos. That idea made him quite excited.

For now, he needed to grow up, fast. He flung his feet over the edge of the bed and opened the shutters, leaping out into the night. The air was cold and clammy, as fresh spring rains were currently inundating the land with water.

Nonetheless, the night was his realm, and Hamelin reveled in the freedom. There were no one about, everyone was turned in for the night. The manor was so small and peaceful it did not even require a guard at night, leaving Hamelin free to pursue his wants as he pleased.

With powerful leaps, Hamelin scampered down the roof and onto the ground, then rushed through the garden to reach the manor gate. He crawled over the low, stone wall, separating the manor grounds from the road.

Once down on the road, he was across to the forest, quick as lightning. The darkness no longer bothered him, after spending two years ingesting disease to break down his body, then using the gift and his skills as a withermancer to reforge his body. Now that the gift was a part of him, he had been able to use it to reinforce his body’s constitution, allowing his immune system to take on more powerful diseases, break them down and store their information.

In his human body, this process—which should have been second-nature to a true vexen—had been unnecessarily painful, leaving him sick and wasting in bed for long periods of time.

This was how withermancers grew powerful, although he had to borrow the power of the gift, now that he could not rely on his vexen constitution. His weak body had been a setback, but Hamelin was also starting to see the benefits of being human.

Vexen were short-lived creatures, who grew fast and died young—mostly due to blades in the back, rather than old age. A vexen could at most look forward to twelve or fifteen years, unless they were gifted enough to become withermancers or be blessed by the Lord of Pestilence.

As a nine-year-old human, Hamelin would have been weaker than his vexen peers, but compared to humans, Hamelin was monstrous.

Darting in between the trees, using his darkvision and sense of smell, Hamelin sought his destination with anticipation growing within. He soon came upon the clearing, so deep in the woods that the local hunters rarely dared venture here.

Here, Hamelin perfected his mutagenic improvements and withermancy away from prying eyes, experimenting with his new body and its potential. His bare feet touched the soft ground in the middle of the clearing, and he looked around, assessing the surroundings.

A small shelter stood at the edge, where he would sit and excite his diseases, breaking down and reinforcing his body. The ground was strewn with bark and splintered wood, making it impossible to tread here barefoot and not receive injuries—for normal humans.

The trees surrounding the clearing were all marked with terrible marks, long scratches from the claws of some immense animal. Hamelin grinned, his teeth flashing silver. Stretching out his hands, he used the bodily control he had cultivated over two years to break every bone in his hands, then used the gift to mend and reforge them.

It was an excruciatingly painful process, but there was meaning to the madness. Human hands were weak and useless, and he refused to live without the most prized possession of a true vexen. Between the destructive power of his withermancy, and the mending power of the gift, his fingers elongated and his nails turned into sharp points.

Finally, he had his claws back.

Exalting in his return to form, Hamelin began his first routine: sharpening his skills. The first weapon of a ratling were its claws, and the first skill it learned was how to use them. Even if he had mastered the vexen martial arts in his former life, Hamelin was currently a child, and he needed to train his body from scratch.

Using the sturdy trees, Hamelin was conditioning his body by continuously striking the hard surface and using the gift to regrow the broken skin and bones that resulted. This training was much harsher than any of the sword-training the Regias brothers engaged in, which would be pointless to Hamelin.

Before his body was fully conditioned, he would only slow his growth down by wielding a weapon. As such he simply struck the surrounding trees in a dizzying display of pirouettes, kicks, leaps, and slashes. Using every inch of his body, from his fingertips to shoulders, feet to knees, head to lower back, he was broken and bleeding within the first hour.

Finally having exhausted all of his strength, Hamelin sat down beneath the shelter and focused his haggard breath. The foundation of withermancy was control of the immune system. Over these past two years, Hamelin had sought out every dirty nook of the Regias estate, rounding up all the disease he could gather, ingesting it until his body almost broke apart and used the process of healing to make subtle changes.

Hamelin felt he was close to a breakthrough in power. This night, as the twin moonlight dimly lit up the clearing, the efforts he had gone through over the past two years were finally bearing fruit. The diseases he had stored up were accumulating, aggregating, and combining into a collective, and more potent strain; into his first, very own mutagen.

All over his body, bloodied and broken as it was, his veins turned blue with the infection, bulging out as if on the verge of bursting. Hamelin focused all of his power, funneling it through the gift to increase the potency, as he fought to regain control of his body.

He felt himself being overpowered by the new strain of disease, felt it take over his body and mind, exhausting his strength. Gritting his teeth, Hamelin rejected the notion that he might be overcome.

Roaring to the sky, he forced the growing mutagen within him through the gift. It was a risk, since he knew little about the true ability of the gift, however, without a pre-existing mutagen to build on, he had to improvise before he was overtaken. He felt the gift burn as it came into contact with the potential mutagen, and in their meeting felt them both transform.

Shock waves of electricity ran through his body, and Hamelin fell down on his back, shaking uncontrollably. It took a few minutes before he stopped moving. Only when he finally exhaled a thick smoke of green decay was he certain of his success.

Withermancy’s first stage, Acolyte! He thought, raising a bloody fist to the sky in triumph.

It took a long while before he was anywhere near ready to sit up. Hamelin focused on breathing, feeling the changes to his body to get a sense of his new strength.

He had used his years of experience to concoct the most powerful mutagen he could handle at his current strength. Normally, a withermancer would rely on pre-existing mutagens, gifted by the Lord of Pestilence to the vexen, and simply customize the effect based on a narrow selection of variables. Without that base, Hamelin had gone through a strenuous process, which would have been impossible without the gift’s ability to accelerate growth.

Having amalgamated his very own mutagen, Hamelin gained at least two advantages. First of, he could perfectly customize it to his new body and its strength, and second, it was his power alone. Relying on the mutagens from the Lord of Pestilence also made you a subject to his power; the implications of which had made Hamelin face defeat in his previous life.

The mutagen would fundamentally reinforce of Hamelin’s body, as well as form the basis of a unique primary strain of disease; a disease which Hamelin, as a withermancer, would be able to control, and possibly enhance into multiple sub-strains. From here on out, each stage of withermancy would demand the creation of a new mutagen, and would result in a new primary strain of disease, from which new subsequent sub-strains could be created.

As an acolyte, Hamelin now had control of his very own primary strain, which he could further develop into multiple sub-strains, as long as he could keep them in check. The initial primary strain was important, because it also formed the foundation of the withermancer.

A weak strain would mean a weak withermancer with little potential. Using his vast knowledge, Hamelin had therefore gambled his life to imbue himself with the most powerful foundation that anyone had ever attempted.

Grinning, Hamelin felt how his blood vessels had been enlarged the mutagen, which allowed for more blood to flow, and thus more oxygen to fuel his movements and growth. Once he had recovered, he was sure he could face of against a fully grown adult human.

Finally having the strength to sit up, Hamelin looked down his body, which was covered in inky-black goo. The process of mutation forced out all other impurities within his body, practically renewing it. His hair had grown longer, the lock of white hair now covering his right eye, and his skin shone in the pale light of the moons.

Stretching out his hand, he released a bit of the disease, trying to sense its potency. Nothing immediately happened, not to the visible eye, at least. Using the senses of a withermancer, Hamelin observed how the disease operated, finding it highly unusual. Normally, the initial primary strain would have a high lethal focus, but that did not seem to be the case for him.

The plants around him did not appear to be much affected by the disease, but Hamelin soon became aware of a nearby mouse, which had crept too close. The disease settled on the little animal, and suddenly, Hamelin found himself becoming aware of the mouse on a different level than simple sight or smell. He felt its breath, felt its small claws cramp up, felt its heart beat faster and faster until it… exploded.

Tilting his head, Hamelin observed the remains of the creature, crouching down for a better look. Its small heart had beat so fast that the organ had exploded in such a violent burst that it had formed a crater in its chest.

Strange, he thought to himself, picking at the remains with a nearby stick, It doesn’t feel like a disease meant to kill its host. Rather, it was like it was trying to… manipulate it?

This was something Hamelin had never even heard about, much less seen before. The strange mental link between himself and the mouse was also a peculiarity he had not encountered before; that alone, cemented his belief that the disease was not a lethal weapon.

But how to use it, then?

For now, he would have to experiment. An unusual strain like this was not a failure, far from it; it might instead become a powerful weapon, if he figured out how to use it. It being unknown was also a significant advantage if he ever got the opportunity to pay back the Lord of Pestilence.

Hamelin grinned, thinking about the prospect of sowing vengeance upon his former patron. Without the abominable curse of the Lord of Pestilence, there was no way he would have died such an unseemly death, and he could also have prevented the death of the golden-eyed girl.

Thinking that he had failed in repaying his debt of gratitude to Lady Silvain soured his mood, despite having just broken through to a new stage. In his anger, he growled and struck out at a nearby tree.

Without any conscious manipulation, his hands should have stayed human, but instead they turned into vexen claws, cutting deep marks into the tree. Surprised, Hamelin looked at the transformed limb. It turned back the moment he willed it, into the pinkish hand of a nine-year-old.

The change was no longer forced through the painful break-down of his body, and the rejuvenation of the gift, but almost seemed like a natural extension of his body. It was as if his repeated transformation had ingrained itself into his bones and muscles, and then, in his mutagenic transformation, had changed into a natural extension of his body, like growing hair or nails.

This alerted him to the changes the gift had undergone. Looking down his chest, he saw the tear-drop marking on his chest had grown, along with new markings appearing around it. Several straight lines, tracing the edge of a new circle around the teardrop, had appeared.

Uncertain as to what this change meant, Hamelin nonetheless decided it was a good thing. The night had been productive; now it was time to eat.