66 An Experiment II (1/2)

Li stood beside the well of souls, at the center of a magical circle so complex and inscribed with scribbles that it almost seemed like the dull, dusted grey marble had finally gotten a paint-over of glowing inscriptions of countless different colors. The circle around him linked its patterns with another circle surrounding the well of souls.

Li had agreed to Zahaka's experiment. There really was no alternative other than staying here forever. She had brought the other gods from their realms to ready for their descent back to the mortal plane as well.

”You're sure this will work, right?” said Li.

Zahaka slithered around Li, her eyes focusing on the vast array of inscriptions she had made. Her fingers glowed with ethereal energy, ready to inscribe more or correct mistakes if there had been any. She flitted her tongue out – a sign of satisfaction.

”You have a guarantee from the goddess of insight herself. You will not find much better than that,” said Zahaka.

”All I envision is failure. We have been failures for a thousand years, and that will not change now,” said Helius.

”Don't lump me in with the rest of you – I'm no failure. What I try in, I succeed. Have some hope, you look like you could use it,” said Li as he eyed the sun god.

Helius truly was different from how he was in Elden World.

In the game, there was so much art depicting Helius, even from the game's cover art. He was a man with the body of a Grecian statue, every curve and outline of his musculatures visible under white robes and golden armor. Angelic wings flowered from his shoulders, spreading out a brilliant, iridescent halo. His expression was ever warm and open, smiling with eyes bright and hopeful.

Now, the sun god sat with his back hunched over, the protrusions of his spine visible under his skin. He wore the same tight-fitting white robes, but they were so stained they were more grey than white, so tattered there were equal parts bare patches of skin to fabric.

When he spoke, his ribs became starkly visible, and his voice no longer had a powerful, projective quality to it. It was more a whisper, raspy and cracked, worn down by years and years and years of mental anguish.

His once golden eyes had faded to a dull, dirty yellow. His radiant white hair that flowed in waving locks were shaved off hap-hazardly at odd ends, making him look more beggar than god. His wings had lost many of their feathers, becoming droopy, decayed things that nobody would think could have enough strength to fly. There was no sign of his armor or his famous Sunspear.

”Why have you brought this errant Old One, Zahaka? Do you intend me mock me? Remind me that my brother languishes in eternal nightmares?” said Helius.

Zahaka hissed at Helius. ”Be quiet. I am on the verge of a breakthrough and hearing your oozing self-pity grates at my ears. Even Khonsu makes for better company.”

”When…will we be done?” said Khonsu. His voice projected from an expressionless white mask of ivory, around which a shadowy cloud of darkness swirled. Echoes reverberated from his voice, and they were of different tones, making it seem as if several people were talking. ”I feel so…cold. I must have warmth, I must hunt, I must hunt, I must hunt.”

”I may have to see about restoring your mind when we descend,” murmured Zahaka. ”But soon, Khonsu, we shall all walk the world once more. And to you, Old One.” She emphatically shook her head at Li. ”Do not start to brew any strange ideas in that alien head of yours. I did not bring you here.”

”I assume the world did, but then again, I've been meaning to ask how that even works.” Li cocked his skeletal head, wisps of darkness fluttering from his hollow eye sockets. ”I never got the slightest hint something wanted me here. No call, no connection. One moment, I was meditating, waiting for time to pass, another, I'm just here.”

”The world automatically attempts to extract divine presences here once if it senses a powerful enough divinity. However, I sense you are an odd amalgamation. Divine, eldritch, and even a smattering of human – truly, there is none like you, so I cannot ascertain the exact parameters of your transferal.”

Zahaka shrugged as she moved to the well of souls, her hands hovering over the snowy white water. ”What matters is that this ritual works, then it will matter little whether you appear here again, for you can always simply leave again.”

”You're right: getting out of here is the most important task at hand for the both of us.” Li clenched his staff tight. ”Just tell me how this will work again.”

Zahaka dipped her hands into the basin, and the water level rose slightly, tipping the pale liquid over the sides of stone. When the water, shining white like the first snow, dripped on the magic circle underneath, it seemed to flow its color all throughout the network of inscriptions until a faint pale glow shimmered from the ground.

”I have re-purposed almost all the tools of this prison for our escape,” said Zahaka. ”The well allows us to see areas within the mortal plane, and so I have used that property as a navigation panel, allowing me to focus where the portal leads us so that we may not end up in some forsaken, desolate world.”

Li raised his staff high. He knew what he had to do as Zahaka had briefed him. Output as much eldritch energy as possible and let the magic circle gather it, but hearing the exact mechanics again was still useful.

”On my mark, you will cast as many powerful eldritch spells as you can upon Khonsu. His [Shadowborn Void] will allow him to soak any amount of damage for a few seconds, so you should utilize the strongest spells in your arsenal. However, the spell you used to destroy Chi-You's realm far exceeds the limitations of the ritual, so do refrain from spells of that caliber.”

Zahaka swirled her fingers around the waters, her slit pupils wide and darting about as she ascertained the best place to teleport back. ”I will set the coordinates of the transfer to where you last were as a courtesy for your contribution to this experiment.”

”And what about afterwards? How are we planning on keeping the world from taking us up again?”

”The world will not pick up on our presences immediately unless we utilize vast amounts of our divine power. I have devised a ritual to seal our divinities into mortal vessels that should, theoretically, stay under the thresholds required for our automatic transferals.” Zahaka nodded at Li. ”You have already done something similar. Should you stay within your human form, I see no risk for your return here, and eventually, I will have also devised a means to conceal you from the world so that you may shed your mortal vessel freely.”