The old man’s voice cracked on the last word, a tremor of genuine fear beneath the bravado. I watched him through the smoking hole in the door; his eyes were wide like a frightened animal. Am I that scary?
I glanced behind me to see the result of the fiery beam that I dodged, and I saw that the hall behind me was virtually sliced in two, continuing into the darkness, and tearing through various unknown devices, and there was even a vat in the way of the beam, but it did not appear to be damaged.
I looked back at the scattered pieces of material discarded around the feet of the old man, and my heart shook a little. He had made such a terrifying weapon from the parts he scavenged around this room, and something was telling me that none of the parts here had been designed to be used as a weapon when they were created.
Behind and around him were massive devices, some so large that they disappeared into the ceiling, obviously linked to other machines outside this large room. This place seemed like the control center for the entire facility.
"Don’t make me do it... Stay back... shuu, return to your nice warm bath, Sid would take care of you." The old man nodded his head repeatedly, "I sure would."
I cocked my head as I looked at him from his head to his toes; he did not appear to be a warrior, nor was he a mage; he was closer to the true scholars I saw in the Academy, the ones who spent years in their laboratory and had allowed all their social skills to die off.
Nevertheless, one of the greatest lessons I had learnt in the loop was how deceptive appearances could be, and the wave of chill and the persistent danger spot over my heart did not make me consider this old man any less of a threat.
I pulled the door open wider, my hand pressing through the heated parts of the door like it was made from putty, and the edge of the door was screeching in protest as I widened the hole I had punched until it was large enough for me to step through, and I did, my expanded form still towering over the room. The ceiling was higher here, and I could stand without stooping.
The old man backed away, his hands raised, and somehow his eyes became even wider.
"Ew, he feels so creepy, squash him, Elric," the fox whispered in my ear.
The old man frowned and looked around me, a bit of confusion passing through the panic in his eyes, and I noted this.
He was thin, with a face like crumpled parchment and a balding head that shone in the dim light, leaving a thin tuft of white hair drifting around his ears and neck.
His lab coat may have been white at one point, but now it was stained with dark fluid, and his fingers were stained with ink and metal dust.
"Stay back," he said. "I mean it. I will..."
"You’ll summon him," I finished. "The Sovereign. I heard you the first time."
I stopped advancing. The cold spot on my chest had faded slightly, and I could see the old man’s fear more clearly now. He did not appear to be a threat, but there was something off about him that made me uncomfortable, and the Moon Fox had felt it as well, and she thought of it as creepy.
"So, why haven’t you?" I said.
"Wha... what?" the old man asked in confusion.
I allowed my body to shrink, and I gestured behind me, "I have broken out of my prison, and I am standing before you. Your guards are down, and your defenses are broken... why have you not summoned him?"
The mouth of the old man opened and closed like a fish out of water, his eyes jerking left and right as whatever reasoning he had made in his head to stop me from entering this place was being broken, and after a few seconds of silence, I sighed and asked him,
"Who are you?"
As if I had given him a lifeline, the old man quickly replied, "I am Sid... I am the Overseer, Keeper of The Forge. I have been here for..." He paused, his brow furrowing. "I don’t remember, it has been a long time."
I frowned, "Keeper? This place, you are not its creator."
The old man nodded, "I made the Inscriptions." The fear in his eyes was slowly vanishing as he began speaking more fluently. "The designs were given to me, and they were beautiful, but lacked a certain amount of common sense. Who would need an Adamantite coil the size of a continent? So, I, um, refined it, improved it. All to maintain order, and the sanctity of this place, so you see, you really should not be here... I am a good Keeper, and I would take care of you..."
Then the old man whispered, "... trust me, I would take care of you so that you do not meet him."
"Meet who? The Sovereign of the Stars?"
The old man flinched. "That is not... that was a mistake, and a mercy, but meeting that Sovereign is better than meeting Sad. He will... he will..."
The old man stopped speaking for a few seconds, his mouth hanging open, while his left eye began to twitch, before it began to rapidly blink, and as if he was not aware of what his left eye was doing or that he had been silent for a few seconds, he began to speak,
"...the designs were given to me, and they were beautiful, but lacked a certain amount of common sense. Who would need an Adamantite coil the size of a continent? So, I, um, refined it, improved it. All to maintain order..."
"... trust me, I would take care of you so that you do not meet him."
After speaking to this point, he froze, and as if he were a player stuck on repeat, he began repeating the words he had said before, but this time his words were more garbled, as if his tongue was swelling.
I frowned, and I did not know why I took a step back. The left eye of the old man was blinking so rapidly that tears of blood began to pour out of that eye, and his black iris began to turn yellow. At the moment, a dense demonic aura that I had not felt before, similar to the Narghul Sorcerers but different, began to pour out of the body of the old man.
I could barely hear what he was saying anymore when a single long tentacle broke out of his jaw, then another, until the bottom half of his face was destroyed, leaving the old man with twelve waving tentacles filling the bottom half of his face.
His left eye stopped twitching, he went still, and a giggle emerged from him, "Hehehehe... Sid, you have been a naughty boy."
The yellow eyes focused on me, and I recognized them from the endless dream of madness inside that vat... it was the demon who was eating my mind.
"Let me guess," I said as I took another step back, "You are, Sad"
"Bingo!" the demon said as it raised both of its arms with the flourish of a clown, and everywhere went dark as if every light in reality had been consumed. "Now, you get a prize for being a good student, but a bad, bad boy."