Neytopia › Part 3: Night › Chapter 4

The deathless

He mourned the loss of his people in silence. It was the only thing he had ever loved, and now it had been taken away from him. The earth above him opened up and his tears flowed to the surface, fertilizing the land above where soon a nightmare garden flourished, with the well of his tears at its center. After a few months of solitude, four outlaws found the garden and decided to keep the sacred place for themselves. Without any means to defend it, the traveler resigned himself to see it taken by crude imbeciles.

The outlaws were thirsty after being on the run for a long time, so they drank of the spring which were his tears. They fell to their knees. Their skin peeled off, hair, nails, eyelids and organs fled their bodies. Their flesh turned grey. Then they saw the traveler’s life flash before their eyes, the oceans of time he had sailed. Once they had been stripped of their humanity, they saw the traveler standing before them.

The traveler smiled down on his new subjects, the deathless. The servants smiled up at their master.

You will bring the end, obey me without question.

Yes, Master.

Go find me seeds of strong trees and plant them around the garden, we must hide this place.

The deathless obeyed. In time, the trees would create a vegetal barrier, shielding the garden from the outside world. After fulfilling their first task, the traveler said,

I overextended and paid the price, I won’t make the same mistake again. From now on, we have to stay low so the watchers don’t come here and rape our sacred land.

The deathless nodded.

But we need to become stronger. So go out at night, capture souls for me and bring them to me.

The deathless left for a small city nearby where they kidnapped a young man, the strongest they could find, and brought him back to the garden. The traveler said,

Behold the miracle of life,

Out of the ground, a blood-red sprout grew into a fully-grown twisted bloodtree in minutes. The man screamed in horror as the deathless bound him to it, then gathered around him to recite:

Oh, garden of earthly delights,
I wish to rest upon your meadows,
Leave this realm of shadows to reach greater heights…

I beseech thy boon, great old tree:
My feats, my life, my sacrifice
Would not suffice to defeat sun and moon,
Were they not meant for thee.

Upon thy grass I will walk,
Not a word will I talk,
That is not meant to bring your endless sea.

The night is short, we must be quick,
They must return to sleep!
To dream the dream of thee, thine forbidden smile,
And for a while be set free.

So accept this offering of life we bring,
The knife gave birth, by the knife it ends,
To make amends with the lonely earth
From which we spring.

Give us one more, we ask,
One more day to fulfill our task.
Forgive our souls, forgive our sin,
We are the forgotten souls of deathless grin!
Thy time is near to kill and sear, we see the ivory tower:
WE SHALL TAKE BACK UNLIMITED POWER!

One of the deathless plunged his knife into the young man, who opened his eyes as he died. The victim’s body was then thrown into the small pond formed by the traveler’s bitter tears. It sunk into his depths, becoming the first soul trapped inside him. The first of many to come.