The Guardian gods

Vellok's heart shattered at the sight. The cherub, once a beacon of pure light and innocent smiles, was now suspended in the center of the vast, cold chamber. Its tiny white wings, once fluttering freely, were splayed out and pinned, translucent membranes stretched taut over intricate, glowing runes etched onto the floor beneath it. Tubes, thin as spider silk but humming with a sickly energy, seemed to siphon the very light from its form, channeling it into crystalline conduits that snaked across the floor towards a series of arcane devices humming faintly in the periphery.

The cherub's eyes, once bright and full of life, were now dulled, gazing blankly upwards. Its tiny body trembled with a subtle, continuous tremor, and a faint, almost inaudible whimper escaped its lips. It was a creature of utter misery, a living sacrifice on the altar of the mage's ambition. The heavenly sound that had accompanied its summoning was now replaced by the low thrum of the machinery, a grotesque parody of life.

Yet, even with this horrific display, the mage was far from satisfied. His face was contorted not with triumph, but with a simmering anger and jealousy. He pointed a trembling finger at the cherub. "This creature," he snarled, his voice laced with venom, "reminds me of the origin gods, demons, and the children of Kaos!"

His gaze swept over Vellok, filled with a long-held resentment. "Their very existence seems to be a mockery to us mages. Beings of immense power, yet creations we can, for some reason, not study or even begin to understand how they are made." The cherub, for all its suffering, was merely a symbol of this infuriating, unbreachable mystery.

The mage's true obsession was not just power, but ultimate knowledge and control over the very forces that seemed to defy his understanding.

The mage's voice was heavy with a defeat born of millennia of unfulfilled ambition, and a weariness that seeped into the very air of the lab. He gestured for Vellok to come closer, his gaze fixed on the suffering cherub. "You will be the new host of this angel, my naive apprentice," the mage declared, his voice a low, chilling pronouncement. "It will live and grow with you, and I will observe both your growth. I hope you don't disappoint me."

At this, Keles interjected, his voice sharp with confusion, "Why doesn't the mage merge with it instead? It's more beneficial and easier to achieve his goal that way."

Ikenga took a moment to formulate his answer, drawing from his own recent observation of others dealing with incomprehensible powers. "Just as during Kaelen's research on the Abyss, he found himself unable to truly understand it, I believe it's the same for the mage," Ikenga explained.

"From his own words, our kind "Origin gods" share certain traits, certain inherent qualities that the mage clearly cannot fathom. Out of caution, I doubt he would risk his own self when he has a subject like Vellok before him. Vellok is a perfect guinea pig, allowing the mage to observe and take a closer look, even to create countermeasures or find a way to achieve this himself in the future. The blueprint for his own ascension."

Ikenga and Keles watched as Vellok helpless and horrified endured the agonizing process of merging. The cherub, once a separate entity, was now forcibly bound to him, a new, agonizing reality. From that moment on, the three brothers were once again separated, their paths diverging more profoundly than ever. Vellok fell completely under the watchful, possessive gaze of the mage, his every moment dictated by the sinister experiments.

Paradoxically, Kaelen could be said to have "benefited" from this grim turn of events. Other mages, observing the extraordinary nature of his siblings, Vellok and Kairos, began to believe that Kaelen, too, must possess some hidden, extraordinary quality they had overlooked. And so, a different mage took Kaelen under his wing, initiating a new series of experiments on him.

This mage's work, unlike the physical enhancements on other knight-seeded goblins, or "Ogres" as they were called, subtly yet profoundly altered Kaelen. Whatever the mage did to him, it made his mind sharper, smarter, and more cunning. He was no longer like his brethren, whose approach to problems was brute force and violence. Kaelen began to think, to strategize, to perceive solutions beyond mere physical might.

Meanwhile, for Vellok, the torment was ceaseless. Every day, every week, every month, a new test was carried out. New adjustments were made to the arcane seal binding the cherub within him. It was painfully clear that the mage was making rapid improvements in his sealing capabilities, each new seal stronger and more intricate than the last, trapping the cherub's essence and Vellok's fate more firmly held.

Vellok matured into a young adult under the mage's cruel regimen. The angel sealed within him, no longer a mere cherub, had also grown, transforming into a Herald that eerily mirrored Vellok's own young adult appearance.

A few years later, a subtle shift began to ripple through the planetary-sized lab. Whispers grew louder, rumors that the project was taking too long, that exploration of new avenues must continue. The oppressive silence of constant experimentation was slowly being replaced by the murmurs of discontent.

Just as these whispers started, Kairos, who had been absent for so long, made an unexpected reappearance. He was strikingly different from how he was last seen. Now, a dark robe obscured most of his features, and an unsettling calmness emanated from him. The only discernible feature was his eyes, which glowed with an ethereal blue light.

Whatever Kairos's new talents were, they had made him elusive. He somehow managed to make contact with both Vellok and Kaelen. Because Ikenga and Keles were reliving a memory, they couldn't fully observe or experience this clandestine reunion in detail, sensing only the faint impression of their brothers' reunion through the veil of Kaelen's past.

To Ikenga and Keles, observing through Kaelen's memory, Kairos's movements were ghost-like, he would suddenly appear, then vanish. This elusive talent made him incredibly effective at gathering intelligence on the vast, intricate workings of the planetary-sized lab. He even uncovered the power source that fueled the entire ship. His only remaining hurdle was devising a way for himself and the other goblins to get off the vessel and down to the planet below.

Kairos's reappearance was a beacon of hope for Vellok and countless other goblins, a light piercing through their oppressive darkness. Even Vellok's tormentor, the ancient mage, seemed less focused on him. Vellok's movements and actions were no longer as restrained, as if his mentor's attention was now preoccupied elsewhere.

Indeed, most of the mages seemed consumed by some new, pressing concern. This shift in focus, combined with the gradual loss of the mages' "grace" over the past years, allowed the goblins to see their captors' true, cold nature with chilling clarity.

They were cast aside like toys the mages had grown tired of, their worth diminished in the eyes of their former masters. In their hearts, a potent mixture of yearning for freedom and bitter resentment against the mages for their cruel actions began to fester.

Meanwhile, Ikenga and Keles watched this part of the memory unfold with growing frowns. Something felt fundamentally wrong; everything was playing out far too perfectly for the goblins. This was a ship housing at least a dozen sixth-tier mages—beings of immense power and perception. How could none of them recognize or react to Kairos, moving freely behind their backs, gathering information, and learning their secrets?

The unfolding events in Kaelen's memory, so suddenly convenient, seemed utterly unreal to both Ikenga and Keles, who had personally witnessed the brutal, unforgiving reality of the goblins' prior existence and treatment. For a smoother reading experience, visit MV&LEMPYR.

Kairos's actions, for all their brilliance, felt…off. It was as if everything was being meticulously laid out for him to find, every piece of the puzzle precisely placed. Yet, Kairos, seemingly blinded by the intoxicating taste of impending freedom, appeared to ignore these unsettling coincidences, convinced it was all his own doing.

Then, a sudden realization struck Ikenga. He recalled Rattan's discussion with Vellok, specifically how the mages had grown impatient with their experiments, no longer willing to dedicate vast amounts of time to a single planet. The memories Ikenga was now witnessing clicked into place, revealing a far more sinister truth. "The mages never truly left this world," Ikenga declared, his voice cutting through the memory's illusion. "They made it seem like they did. They had already planted their seeds; all they needed was time for them to grow so they could harvest."

The truth settled upon Ikenga and Keles. The mages, driven by their vast ambitions, needed to constantly expand their reach, unable to remain tethered to a single world. Yet, they were equally unwilling to abandon the immense progress they had already achieved on this one.

The goblins, unknowingly, were being primed to fulfill the mages' long-term plan: to be "accepted as the first children of a world," a world the mages had essentially purged and cultivated. Their very characters had been meticulously shaped over generations. Arrogance had seeped into the bones of those with arcane seeds, fostering disdain for their knight brethren. And while a superficial camaraderie seemed to have formed among the various goblin factions, it was built solely on their shared hatred for the mages, a hatred subtly stoked and managed by their puppet masters.