The Red Hand

"I would've never imagined that a Primordial kept a lab hidden beneath the Whistlewoods like this." Sol whistled in surprise as they entered the structure, as Alm tapped her staff to the ground to activate the magic lights strewn around the wall and ceiling, bathing the area a dull yellow glow. "Then again, you always did strike me as the mad scientist type. So I shouldn't be shocked." She chuckled.

"I am a being of Chaos, tis only natural that I attempted to break and reform things." Alm replied as they turned down the hallway, which seemed to run around the entire internal perimeter of the oval shaped structure. "I spent more time here than you can imagine creating things that..."

"Would've gotten you in trouble had anyone found out." Sol finished for her. She knew there were things best left unasked and unsaid and was in no mood to find out what kind of horrors the Primordial of Chaos had unleashed in the past. "I don't even want to imagine the kind of messed-up things you did here." She said as they paused in front of a large metal door, which Alm tapped with her staff, opening it slowly with a creak.

"Got enough dust?" Sol coughed as the door slowly drifted open and revealed a laboratory filled with shelves of books, test tubes, cages, and other things that one could've easily seen in a horror movie. "Yeah... Definitely mad scientist..."

{I can only imagine Halifax's reaction to all this.} (Sol)

"Mad scientist I may have been, but you will be grateful for the result of my experiments." Alm said as they entered. "This is most certainly an instance where the ends justify the means." She smirked, which reminded Sol that no matter how cute Alm looked on the outside, internally, she was still a devious being that should not be underestimated.

"If you say so." Sol said as the two approached a large, empty glass tube that seemed to have once contained some form of life. "So where is this creature that I need to fight?"

"Patience." Alm chided her as she raised her staff and channeled mana, which caused runes within the walls to glow purple as they filled with magic. "I must first determine if everything is as I left it. One small error and the spell will not only fail, but it may well discharge the power violently and destroy everything."

"That sounds like something you should've had people maintaining." Sol retorted.

"What's kept this whole operation secret was the fact that nobody went in or out of this place for millennia. Gale and the other Gods are paranoid, and if they got even a whiff that something was amiss here, they would've investigated." Alm retorted as she continued to swing her staff to channel more power as the various magical devices within the room roared to life, bubbling and buzzing with power. "Golems or other homunculi were considered, but even they require resources to continue functioning. As such, I decided that preservation magic would have to do, and it appears that it worked." She said as she tapped the butt of her staff against the floor three times, which sent more power into the walls and causing a complex patter of red light to flow from the walls and ceiling before continuing back out the door and down the hallway they'd just come from.

"Whoa..." Sol's surprise leaked out as she took in just how complex the magical formula woven into the workshop was. "And you did all this in just a few short years?"

"I had to move quickly." Alm said as she spun her staff. "Vikes was on a war path, and I knew that my own death was imminent. I managed to 'complete' the preparations before my demise, but if I had it my way, things wouldn't have been this sloppy."

{This is the single most complex weave of magic I've ever seen. More complex than even the spell used to join my life force with Father's. If you think that THIS is sloppy, then I can't even begin to imagine what the fully realized product would be.} (Sol)

"How in the Gods' names does a Primordal create such a complex spell?" Sol asked, to which Alm did not answer.

"The spell itself has survived intact, and it looks like the rest of the facilities and equipment are exactly as I left them. Good. Good." Alm nodded as she looked at the tube before turning back to leave. "Come, you must complete your part."

Following Alm through the hallway, Sol observed the complex pattern etched into almost every inch of the workshop's structure. Kalego was a Primodal centered around the idea of Chaos, and as far as Sol was aware, was not that skilled in magic, or at the very least not enough that he could construct something like this on his own. Creating something like this should've taken more skill than what he could provide, though she decided not to pry figuring that she wouldn't get an answer.

"Your Father helped me to build this... Well, at least some of it." Alm said, seeming to read Sol's thoughts.

"I had a feeling this couldn't've been all you." Sol replied as the two continued down the hallway. "But Father... I know he was skilled, and he created the magic used on me..."

"Chaos means many things, child." Alm chuckled. "Do not presume that I am some one-trick pony who can do naught but bring destruction. I can be rather resourceful and persistent when the need arises. Hence why we got along so well. Though in fairness, even he had some hesitation when we created that." She said as they turned into a small hallway that ended at a large metal door. "You've been made far more powerful than you once were with your subsumption of your Father. However, whether or not your power has truly ascended beyond that you can attain as part of your normal growth has yet to be determined." She said as she waved her staff and opened the massive metal doors that led to a large open area that reminded Sol of an arena. At the center, hovering in the air at the center of the 'arena' was a large series of chains that held a swirling green and red orb of energy inside a cage.

"That's ominous." Sol said as they entered the 'arena'. "So, I presume that I'm fighting whatever it is that you've got up there?"

"Yes and no." Alm said as they continued forward. "What you see up there is the central point of my spell. The spell is controlled and congealed via a conduit and is focused on your opponent. Well, technically, my spell is holding the power around it for now, and you need to defeat the one within so that I can use their existance as part of the direction and containment process once you take over."

"That kind of power... What kind of existence could contain such raw energy? Can anything?" Sol figured that no being could handle being pumped full of Creation energy, let alone anything that wasn't Divine in make, and that any attempt to do so would annihilate whatever attempted to do so.

"Contain? For the long term, no." Alm shook her head as they stopped. "But we don't need long-term." She said as she tapped her staff on the ground, which slowly lowered the cage to the floor. "The vessel needs only to survive long enough to contain the power so that the second half of my spell can redirect it." She explained. "Thus, your Father and I began to search for what kind of vessel could handle such power, even for mere moments."

*BOOM*

"What was that?" Sol tensed as the ground shook, a wave of power washing over the 'arena'.

"We searched and searched and searched and searched, nearly giving up honestly." Alm ignored her as she continued her explanation.

*BOOM*

"Alm, what the hell did you put in that cage?" Sol gulped as the energy within pulsed and flickered as if something was trying to escape.

"We thought our search impossible." Alm continued, ignoring her. "I mean, what vessel could contain the power of a Blood Magic Ritual strong enough to sacrifice every single mortal being on Enoris? Surely nothing could withstand something of that magnitude."

*BOOM*

"Alm!" Sol yelled as the energy pulsed again, as a single curved 'arm' erupted from the caged power like an insect bursting from its shell.

"But then, we had an idea!" Alm turned to Sol, a bright smile plastered on her face that creeped her out. "Would a Divine vessel be enough?!? Could a God not handle such power?!?"

*BOOM*

"No... Y-You trapped a God in there?!?" Sol yelped as another strange scythe-shaped serrated arm erupted from the 'energy shell.'

"Hah! If only it were that easy." Alm laughed as she shook her head. Up until now, she'd kept up the appearance and attitude of a mortal girl who was merely burdened with Kalego's memories, but in this moment, Sol felt that she was talking to the Primordial of Chaos himself. "You see, we tried it with just a God at first."

*BOOM*

"However, they didn't exactly do well with that kind of power." Alm sighed. "Even something as powerful as a God couldn't contain such awesome power for even that short period of time. They quickly fell apart, truly unfortunate to lose such a valuable piece, but alas..."

*BOOM*

"Alm, what in the Hells did you create?!?" Sol readied herself for a fight as two more limbs burst forth, followed closely by what looked like an insectoid head with four mandibles around its teeth-filled mouth. "What is that thing?!?" She yelped before summoning a large great sword that erupted in yellow light that one could easily mistake for the Sun itself.

"Well, if just a God wasn't enough to contain all this power, what other kind of being could we try?" Alm smirked.

"Y-You didn't." Sol said as a chill ran down her spine. “No...”

"Where do you think we learned about fusion from?" Alm laughed as the creature burst forth from its cage and roared, its appearance that of a massive insectoid creature that stood on two legs while four scythe-shaped arms flung about in anger. The most apt comparison would be to that of a preying mantis, though such a thing did not exist on Enoris and it was far too large and terrifying to be such a pathetic creature anyway.

*GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOO*

"It's an incomplete creation, but do be kind to it." Alm said as she began to float into the air. "After all, it's thanks to it that we learned how to make you. So perhaps you could consider this your senior?"

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