#elatis

[zmeess]

commission for @mareastrorum, who asked me to come up with what Elatis could look like in her fanfic The Fool and the Soldier! i was absolutely thrilled to figure out the themes and color scheme for a painting of a character that would be undeniably attractive and sultry, but deeply unsettling at the same time. thank you for commissioning me! 🐝

commission info commission tag headshot | half body | full body

[mareastrorum]

WIP Wednesday: TF&TS (The Pattern)

Here is a scene from chapter 2 of a longfic I am working on.

Fanfic Summary: Mollymauk Tealeaf survived the encounter with the Iron Shepherds, but a short time later, a spirit had begun hunting him, claiming that he stole his body. This Campaign 2 AU begins with Episode 26 and continues on from there.

This fanfic will be posted on AO3 starting in June or July.

The Somnovem had forsaken their old names and identities. Individuals mattered little in the Pattern. However, the nine leaders of Cognouza, the saviors of the Planes, should be remembered for their accomplishments.

They inherited the minds of their people and brought that power into themselves. They were nine, and within them were nine others, and within them were many. Once they reached the Astral Sea, the nine within were sorted between them so that they became paragons of Cognouza. Thus, they adopted new names to reflect their freshly distilled identities: Culpasi, Elatis, Fastidan, Gaudius, Ira, Luctus, Mirumus, Timorei, and Vigilan.

The Dream took its toll, but soon the Somnovem awakened. While they did not revert to their discarded names or selves, they remembered the nine they had been.

Elatis was not the loudest, no. Other Somnovem screeched and raged and howled and gasped, their voices overpowering and demanding. Not Elatis. Such uncouth behavior was beneath her. She was not a siren, belting out temptation indiscriminately across land and sea.

Elatis spoke apace in the faintest of whispers, crooning beguiling melodies. Her words dripped and melded together—like fresh honey—the meanings dissipating into formless praise if they could not be caught as they fell. The words she emphasized lingered, cordial and delectable, intoxicating and sweet. None but her fellow Somnovem could even detect the arcane echoes underlying each breath. Only they could escape her charms.

Unity in purpose was an essential virtue. Elatis was the mastermind behind the Pattern, the waking dream that connected the minds of Cognouza and the Somnovem. She had balanced peace and ambition among the most advanced minds in Exandria, a phenomenal feat in the Age of Arcanum, the era of pride and power. Eventually, her Pattern became the method of recruiting the Somnovem’s herald: the Nonagon.

Elatis did her work well, and she was entitled to be praised for it. 

When Elatis first brought the Pattern into existence, the people of Cognouza were enraptured, regardless of their protections against such magic. Once the people joined, none could resist Elatis’s honeyed song. When she bid them to support her plan (the Somnovem’s plan, of course) to betray Aeor, they rallied and cheered. The people lauded her name (and the Somnovem, of course) as they prepared the ward for travel to the Astral Plane. They loved her, they adored her, they exalted her.

The people would do anything for Elatis, anything to hear her luscious voice. Anyone would. Anything to hear her speak, laugh, sing, whisper. Anything to make her proud.

Anything for Elatis.

For Elatis was the Voice of the Dream, the Mistress of Enchantment. 

Once Cognouza brought her Pattern to the Material Plane, all would surrender and serve.

* * *

Lucien gradually came to consciousness again. He still had no form, but he felt more like himself than he had at any other point during this perilous journey to the city of Cognouza in the Astral Sea. Scattered, now collected.

Almost.

Wasn’t there something missing?

Regardless, the Somnovem had said that Lucien could soon return to the Material Plane; he could go back to Cree and the Tombtakers. Rather, the Somnovem had communicated telepathically, as they had no mouths, and Lucien could not hear them if they had spoken, as he had no ears. Without a body to perceive anything, he could only rely on senses they and the rest of Cognouza shared through the Pattern. An ephemeral, second-hand existence that faded in and out. It had been so long since he had actually heard anything that the Somnovem’s thoughts and emotions seemed like voices now.

At least this was better than the shattering.

As the Nonagon, Lucien had needed to undergo a ritual to travel to the city via an astral projection spell. It was powerful necromantic magic, far beyond the Tombtakers’ capabilities. The only spellslinger he knew capable of such a feat had been Archmage Vess DeRogna of the Cerberus Assembly, who had hired them for the trek to Eiselcross where he discovered the ritual tome. He offered a trade: she would conduct the ritual, and then she could keep the book for her own studies. She had been cross, arguing that the book was hers under the terms of their contract anyway, but the Somnovem gifted him with the power to render her magic useless in a confrontation. So they had an accord. She performed the ritual.

And DeRogna murdered Lucien by shattering his soul, scattering the pieces across the Astral Sea.

Caillech.

He did not know how long it had taken to understand anything again. An unknown amount of time drifting as fragments with only enough in each for nightmarish, bleeding thoughts of shredded identity trying to grasp who they were, where they were, what anything was. It should not have hurt, but even so, pain was the only word that came to mind to describe it.

No, it had not hurt. That had only been a fractured mind attempting to understand and deciding that it must be in pain because nothing else made sense. It was not real.

The Somnovem did not abandon him. Instead, they collected the fragments in Cognouza as it traveled the Astral Sea. They separated him from the minds of the city, keeping him isolated in the Aether Crux until they were certain he would not be overwhelmed.

Self had not come back in a single moment. The lost pieces had taken memory with them, only recalling and filling the gaps of missed misery once joined with enough of the others. It was nigh-indescribable to suddenly remember and experience the harm done to another fragment once it had been reunited. All that time had condensed into an instant, but he was dragged through it from beginning to end regardless. It happened again and again and again and again and again. Each subsequent remembrance was worse than the prior because the new pieces brought more understanding with them, adding to the horror of what had been done. Many times, it all just bled together, an ongoing sense of destruction despite that it was the opposite occurring.

At some point, he had been Lucien again. At some point, able to understand what was happening and that the healing was not yet done. But none of that occurred only once. The last few remnants were the most devastating, an overwhelming storm of agony that left memory reeling. The Somnovem had to pause until his soul had healed enough to withstand the next, until he remembered again, lest he be lost or warped in the recoil. How long had each of those taken? He could not know.

The Somnovem had provided their individual types of “assistance,” but Elatis was the most adept at it. The problem with her was that everything she did worked, even when her target knew exactly what she was up to. She did not demand; she prodded in such a way that others would do as she expected willingly, without the need for a request.

“Isthisyour end? Ismere pain enoughtostopyou?”

It was not pain, though a crumbling mind yet again suffering the memory of a shattering soul could not retain that. Elatis was clever enough to parse that out. Her bliss was fragile. Pride was far more difficult to break.

Bloody wagon, she was.

But that part was over. The worst was done. It did not matter anymore.

Once Lucien had recovered enough to start asking questions and recall the answers, the philosophers taught him while he healed. First, of course, how to retain self in the Pattern, so that he would not be lost among the multitudes. It was easier than expected, though that might have been because Lucien had relived so many things with each reconnection, engraving a sense of identity that could not be undone by the torrent of others.

Then, when the barrier between Lucien and the city was done away with, the Somnovem taught with dreams, visions, and memories—and not only their own, but from the people of Cognouza as well. Thousands of lives filtered and distilled into teachings for the Nonagon, the herald that would bring them to Exandria and beyond, a king to lead them. All welcome distractions and novelties.

Even if Lucien had some way to perceive the world individually, time had little meaning in this plane. There were no rhythms of life to measure. Nothing aged. No growth, no change, no decay. Years seemed to go by for some lessons and merely seconds for others. The quantity of information had little to do with it. He felt as though he had learned lifetimes’ worth of study from the Somnovem, but there was no method of comparison to confirm.

The history and structure of the Material Plane and of the Astral Sea, to understand the flaws and potential of each. Logic to maintain calm and to understand reason. Epistemology to remain focused and to understand knowledge. Metaphysics to think clearly and to understand reality. Structuralism to harness control and to understand the mind. Arcane sciences to bend the aether and to make dreams real. So much more, but of all the lessons, those were the most useful for the Nonagon—each necessary to invoke his will through the essence of the Astral Sea.

Yet it was all useless without action. Lucien could not enact any of those teachings as a formless soul trapped in the Aether Crux, still too fragile to be loosed without a tether to his body. He needed to do something. Anything. Dreaming was useless if it could not be made real.

And while reflecting on those teachings during his convalescence, Lucien realized the flaws of the Somnovem as well. When he had first gained his eyes, he thought they were gods, so far beyond his understanding.

No.

Much of that had been the devious design of the Pattern, their tool for recruitment and control. It was like a river current, driving all thought and emotion along a single path, and the further into the current anyone went, the more difficult it was to escape. It was overwhelmingly onerous to resist if it caught Lucien unaware, even after the Somnovem’s lessons on retaining individual thought. He suspected that the only reason he could oppose it at all was that he had also learned enough to discern which ideas and emotions it had sunk its teeth into. It reflected the whims of the Somnovem, encompassing their essence one at a time, ever cycling between the nine and their domains.

Once Lucien had the chance to think without the Pattern’s overpowering sway and had built some understanding of what the Somnovem had created, he also saw their hypocrisy, their madness, their stagnation. A small amount would have been tolerable, even expected, but the nine reveled in each like pigs in mud. They acted as if merely existing as part of the city was victory. As if it was already perfect. All this power and possibility at their disposal, and they had done nothing but sit in the Astral Sea. Every bit of growth was endless recursion without anything new.

That was not quite it either. It was not even growth, as that implied some sort of natural process. It was assimilation and transmutation into what already was there. No improvement. Only mimicry.

It was when Lucien finally tapped into more recent memories that he saw Cognouza for what it was, without the Somnovem’s illusions and lies.

A city, alive but not living—suspended in time. Corrupted and aberrant, so much like Molaesmyr. An amalgamation of the flesh and materials of the people and Aeor united in a single body hosting thousands upon thousands of souls and minds. Blood flowed through monstrous arteries and veins because the people remembered that it must, because they remembered blood had a purpose, even if it was useless now. Cognouza did not need blood, it only remembered that something within it had once. And so it was with every aspect of the city. It did not need to breathe, but it did. It did not need eyes to see, but it sprouted them to look anyway. Pieces pretending to be water, pretending to be streets, pretending to be plants, pretending to be people, pretending to talk, pretending to walk, pretending, pretending, pretending.

It had to be a mistake. While the Somnovem had the power to shape it however they pleased, Cognouza’s memory had been warped by a psychic storm that had ravaged the city when it arrived in the Astral Sea. When they had shared dreams with Lucien, they had only shown him the version in their minds and assured him that they merely needed direction and guidance. It must have been the madness that had prevented them from correcting this. If not for his resilience, surely he would have succumbed to the same fate when he shattered.

Lucien could not fix this for the Somnovem, not yet. He was trapped within the city as well, unable to do anything until he was resurrected. They were all adrift and useless. How could the city dream of change when it remembered neither what it was nor what it could be?

But no. It had not been a mistake.

Even if the Somnovem had any intent to implement change, they would never reach a consensus on it. The batty philosophers formed cliques against each other, and they shifted allegiances over time as well. Lucien had to constantly deflect their requests that he pick a side. Surely, they would have turned against him when their fickle alliances diverged yet again. Nevertheless, they dragged him into their squabbles against each other. There was nowhere he could go and nothing he could do to escape it.

All Lucien could do was play the diplomat, soothing their concerns with whatever assurances they wanted to hear, sweet platitudes that left a sour aftertaste for having made them. Stupid games that had to be played over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Only one of the Somnovem had been insane enough not to bother with the rivalries, instead devolving into paranoid fits and seeking solace in solitude. Hardly an improvement.

Their petty nonsense lifted the veil. After all, how could they possibly be genuine about unity and transcendence when they were little more than bickering toddlers? The Somnovem had only achieved power. Not enlightenment. They weren’t gods. They were spoiled children, raised on the best of everything, believing themselves to be paragons of mortality and able to replace divinity on Exandria because they had once been clever enough to avoid being destroyed by actual gods when they escaped to another plane.

Lucien had died for them. He had been scattered for them. He was stuck in the center of an abomination pretending it was still people and the city they lived in—for them.

For the Somnovem that did not even care for him. That saw him as a living tool to be used. He had a greater purpose than the others in Cognouza, but he was still only valued for that purpose. Not Lucien, only the Nonagon. A king, a conqueror, a leader, a herald, a soldier, a page, a student, a servant.

A slave.

What the fuck was this bullshit?

People had called Lucien arrogant for working to be more than an orphan from Shadycreek Run, but this was beyond the pale. Nine of the most learned wizards from the most advanced city of the greatest age in the history of reality, here, having unlocked secrets and power that could change all the Planes, and they wouldn’t do a damn thing with it. They wanted him to lead the way to new conquests, not decide what should be done. The Somnovem sat at a feast of every magical resource they would ever need—knowledge, power, imagination, will—and ate for the sake of eating, with no grand plans and no desire to do anything other than devour all they could reach. As if they deserved to do so, as if anyone actually deserved anything, as if someone could be entitled to anything by merely existing or by having a certain name or heritage or connection.

They expected Lucien to do the work of bringing them all to the Material Plane and spreading the city’s influence to Exandria. And for what?

Nothing.

When they called themselves the Somnovem, Lucien had not expected the meaning to be so literal. Hundreds upon hundreds of years spent sleeping and dreaming had turned the lot of them into self-indulgent deadbeats. He had risked and lost his life—at their direction—then finally regained his sense of self and had learned so much, but only to discover along the way how pointless it all had been.

Lucien could do so much better, and he had not had even a fraction of the opportunity they had. Hells, that was probably even the reason for it. What the fuck would any of the Somnovem, spoiled brats bred and raised to their station by those already in power, know about the horrors inflicted on the “lesser” people?

Nothing.

Lucien had to fight his way to everything he had ever had because his heritage and origins had rendered him unacceptable to the common folk and the ruling classes. So many horrible things in the world that needed to be fixed, and even if he had been struggling to sort out how to do anything substantive about them before—after all, what he was seemed so bloody important to everyone else that everything he ever did or said was questioned, if not disregarded outright—he could do nothing about them now.

Nothing.

No, instead his soul had been stuck here, in the plane of dreams and imagination, waiting for nine insane wizards to piece him back together because they wanted him to bring them to another table to gorge themselves on.

Lucien could do so much more with this than the Somnovem ever had, than they ever would, if he only had the chance.

Why not, then?

He did not need an opportunity to present itself. He could carve one. He had done that before, dozens—no, hundreds of times. He could do it. He would. The fact that no one else had taken the time to try was evidence of how much was wrong with the damned world. Fine. Lucien would fix it.

If the Somnovem had not wanted him to set his sights on their seat of power, then they should have known better than to choose him as the Nonagon. They knew him, they said. He was what they needed, they said. Sure. He would be exactly what they needed.

Punishment for having wasted all this time and power when it could have been used to implement change. Discipline for having no self-control or purpose. A parent to teach them what they clearly could not figure out on their own. And if they knew Lucien so damn well, then they should have known what he would wrought.

They brought it on themselves.

So Lucien schemed against the Somnovem, even as he learned from them, even as they rejected Vess DeRogna as his replacement. Gratitude and disdain were not mutually exclusive, after all. They would benefit from his plans, too. Better for them to be tools at his disposal than wasting away.

Of course, they were still demi-god wizards, and Lucien was still only a healing soul. He had to be clever if he was going to usurp them. Any individual Somnovem had more than enough power to destroy him utterly, or to twist him into something useless, or to scatter him anew. The Pattern was also an obstacle because he could not resist it completely. Thankfully, they actually wanted him to be clever, so while they would use the Pattern to nudge him along, they were not going to rob him of individuality or control of his own mind. That was probably their long-term goal, but not yet.

Lucien anticipated that he would be able to resist the Pattern more strongly once he regained his body. It could plant thoughts and emotions, but the Somnovem had also taught that physical sensations could interfere with it. It was their justification for Cognouza’s unity as a single mass; the Pattern did not need to compete with the individual experiences of the thousands within if they all felt the same thing. So if he was in his own body, he could use that to contradict whatever the Pattern was doing. It might not hold it off completely, but it would combat total control.

Until the moment they were all indisposed, Lucien needed to play along. That would ensure the Pattern was only involved sparingly, and they would not have reason to suspect his motives. He would do it. He should be able to keep it at bay more strongly once he was restored to life. And once he was in control, he would change the Pattern to suit his needs. As long as Lucien kept his traitorous thoughts inside his own head, the defenses he had learned from Timorei would safeguard him. No one knew his thoughts unless he wanted them to. Granting him access to memories about such protections was their biggest mistake.

Lucien had already worked out how he could debilitate the nine at once using some weapons abandoned in Aeor. After all, he’d had plenty of time to think it over. Intuit charges could simulate another psychic storm, which had been the initial reason for the city’s insanity. Thanks to the Somnovem’s delusion that the city was already perfect, none of them had even considered rectifying that gap in defenses either. Gobshites. The eyes would protect him against such effects, so the charges were perfect for this use.

During their initial trek to Eiselcross, the Tombtakers had sighted intuit charges scattered throughout the ruins without realizing what they were until much later. Lucien would need to pick up as many as he could find while collecting the threshold crests necessary to bring the city to the Material Plane, then bring both to the Astral Sea through the interplanar gate at Aeor’s heart. It would not take much to prepare the trap or a distraction, and then it would all be over in an instant, before the Somnovem had any chance to use their magic, the aether, or the Pattern against him. Once they were brought low, he could seize control and bring the city back under his command.

The Tombtakers would certainly help Lucien with each of those steps, though he doubted he would have a safe way to warn them of his true motives without risking the Somnovem’s discovery of the plot. Maybe some opportunity would arise. Nevertheless, Cree, Zoran, Tyffial, Jurrell, and Otis trusted his judgment. Lucien would have to rely on that heavily or control them outright, though he would rather the former. Neither was optimal, but, well, whatever. Besides, even if they were misfits, they were every bit as ruthless as Lucien. They would do what must be done, he could depend on that much.

Assuming they were still alive. Lucien had told the Tombtakers to scatter if something went wrong, just in case DeRogna turned on them—and she had, the witch—but he had no idea if they had been able to or what might have happened since. The Somnovem could not reach out to them without the Nonagon to establish the connection.

How long had it been? Months? Years? Decades? More? How much longer would this take? 

At this rate, Lucien would lose his damn mind too, reviewing everything for the hundredth time to check whether the Somnovem had pulled some stunt to fuck with him before he could be resurrected.

Where were the Somnovem anyway?

Lucien shifted his attention to the Pattern and the minds of Cognouza, the unified hive of thought that ever persisted in the background. It used to seem only like screaming and fractal shapes and half-remembered sensations, but there was so much more to it, so much information and memory and emotion. While he could not precisely perceive places or distance in this state, he could vaguely determine whether the Somnovem were nearby or further afield.

All nine had gathered somewhere other than the Aether Crux. Strange. Why would they meet in such a way when their consciousness was separated rather than melded into the Somnovem Omega at the Crux? So many of them detested each other.

And as though that idea had called them, Lucien sensed several minds of the Somnovem approach only a moment before Elatis began, her euphoria manifesting like a song reverberating through and around him.

Knowthis: we are proud of you. Youareour herald, Nonagon, nowhealingand returned tous. Youhavebeen strong, and we shall make you yet stronger.

The words flowed so quickly that Lucien could barely follow Elatis as she whispered. He had only just grasped the meaning of her first words before the Pattern ebbed down and smothered him with more, a deluge of sensation overriding everything else.

What had he been thinking about just now? Damnit. Wait—

Theeyesthatwere gifted toyouare waiting foryourreturn. Youmust take thembackfroma thief. You mustbetheoneto kill thisinterlopersothatyoumaybe restored. Weshallhelpyou, uplift you, empower you.

The Pattern infected every perception, the taste of power and pride permeating all thought.

Lucien only perceived what Elatis wanted him to, and the very idea that there had been anything more faded from memory. There were no others, only her. His own thoughts dwindled, slowly sinking down to his subconscious, bringing her enchantment-laced nectar down with them. 

Youshallbea spirit withoutformuntilyou reclaim yourown, the Vessel blessed with our eyes. Youshallnot live, butyoushalltravelamonghosts. Inthebodiesofothers, your vengeance willplayout. Youshall horrify yourenemies, andyoushall possess allthatthey hope todenyyou. Allshall wither beforeyou.

The Somnovem had been scheming since their last meeting, but Lucien did not mind anymore. He had felt so empty, and Elatis’s voice was saccharine ecstasy. Every lift and drop, every trill and stop. All he could do was drink it down as she drowned him in it. 

There was nothing to forgive. Elatis could do no wrong. Only the Pattern mattered. 

Youshallnotlastwithouta host, butbenotafraid, forour gift toyouisthat you cannot die. Wehave tethered youtoourhome, our beloved city. Shouldany strike youdown, youshall return again, andyoushallbe more thanyouwerebefore. Youare unstoppable, relentless, and shining.

Somewhere, lingering just beyond conscious awareness, Lucien knew that Gaudius, Fastidan, Mirumus, and Vigilan had each provided some blessing, they must have said something (but he did not remember, and it did not matter, Elatis imparted all that he needed to know), they must have done something, and he was certain he could tap into those gifts if he chose, but not now. 

Youmust reclaim yourself, our champion. Andwhenyouarewhole, Nonagon, youshall continue yourmission. Only you can do what must be done. You shall be our salvation.

There was more, Lucien knew that, he had to be ready for rebellion, the Somnovem could not be trusted (but everything was alright here, it was warm and safe and comfortable atop this pedestal, Elatis made it so), they were using him, there must be some cost, he had to act.

But not now. 

Sleep. Whenyou awaken, youshallbereadyto take whatisyours. Weshallwaitforyou, Nonagon. Dream.

In this dream—now—only Elatis, her perfect voice, and the Pattern echoing through Lucien’s healing soul.