Remnants of the Past

Today was not a good day for Max, although for him that really wasn’t saying much. Being the runt of the litter Max was often ridiculed by his peers, not that he knew what these words meant of course. Being the runt meant that Max received an even poorer education than most diamond dogs. He was given the worst jobs that the boss, his older brother, could come up with. This mainly came down to cleaning, latrine duty being the worst out of all of it. Today however, was different, there had been less and less gems coming up from the mines, too little to pay their annual tribute, so Max had been assigned to mining just like everyone else. It was grueling, dirt work, but in this case for once, he was no different from those around him.

Finally, for the first time that day, Max saw a gem, a simple sapphire, though it would play a much larger role. The dog pulled the gem from the ground and was about to return to mining when a crack appeared in the floor. The dog tried to run but the floor came out from under him before he had a chance. Though the dog would never know it, he had landed in a chamber made of solid granite. The room was a large rectangle, with torch-lit buttresses supporting the high walls. The object of interest though, was in the middle of the room. A raised square platform, an altar of sorts, torches of blue light lighting it. Resting in the middle, surrounded by runes of incredible detail, was a large precious stone, another sapphire, though this one was far from mundane. Inside were bolts of gold and green lightning, crackling around from side to side, surrounding two ice blue eyes.

Sadly, for the dog at least, when he landed he hit his head, rendering him brain dead. This was perfectly fine with me as besides his brain, the rest of him was in pretty good shape. I did him a mercy and removed his soul from the body, sending him off to parts unknown. You see, through a magical attack committed upon me some time ago I was rendered incorporeal, my soul bound to the mortal plane without a body. Like others that had lost their bodies before, I tried creating a new one, running into the same problem they did, the body wouldn’t accept the soul. Whenever a child is born a sort of binding agent is created that attaches the soul to the body, something no individual has been able to replicate before. Now I didn’t have to, even though the soul had left, the binding agent was still there, I got to work. I repaired the neural damage, something, though simple with magic, was a long procedure. With that complete, I, for lack of a better word, stuffed my soul into his body, the light within the altar fading instantly. I had no time for preparations as the body would soon detect that the soul was gone. I wasted no time, struggling to convince the new form that I was the original owner of the body. With that done, I took the organic material, bones, muscles, skin and such, and molded it to a vastly different form, instantly I began to scream.

“Oh right pain, kind of forgot about that.” Had to admit, having physical sensations again was nice, not that I was a masochist, but after a few years of not feeling anything, even pain was pretty nice. Nice was a pretty relative term under these circumstances, even though it was refreshing it still bloody hurt. Still I managed to keep my concentration as I finished the process. Looking down I saw something absolutely wonderful, my old body. Hands, feet, legs, arms, everything, it was back. Turning around to the wall behind me, I saw my reflection on the polished granite, my face, with its ice blue eyes and blonde hair, staring back at me. I felt it and it was indeed real.

“I’m back, I’m real, I’m here.” I had a body once more, and better yet, looking at the crackling of green and gold lightning in my fingers, I had my magic with me too. Done admiring my visage, I turned around and walked to the altar that had held me for so many years. Pressing on the bottom, a drawer revealed itself. Contained within were a set of clothes that had not been worn within some time. Simple black pants, shoes and shirt, undergarments of course, with a blue and gold long coat, intricate symbols sewn into it. The prize contained within though was a large golden staff topped with an emerald and a curved blade. Carved along the length of it were countless runes. I picked up the staff and felt a surge of power run through me as the runes lit up and my eyes began to glow, power flowed into me. The flow stopped suddenly as the mana battery ran out. Still, it was enough, I had absorbed enough magic that I could finish what I had started, a slow fire crept up my back and soon faded, leaving a set of feathered wings behind. All set, I flew up to the hole in the roof and left.

-X-----[ROTP]-----X-

I made my way down the passage that the dog had left behind and soon found myself in a nexus of tunnels. I sighed and was about to make my way down a random passage when a silver dog walked out of one of the tunnels. He quickly made to run away but was a bit too slow, before he could escape I pointed my staff and wrapped him in my telekinesis. Though my magic was severely impaired, levitating a diamond dog was still a simple task. I carried him over to me and smiled my most menacing smile.

I growled in his face, “Which way to your den?” I made sure to cast a truth detection spell to make sure he wasn’t deceiving me as he pointed down the hallway fearfully. “Well let’s go meet your alpha shall we?” With that I made my way towards into the hall and towards their den.