The Ascension of the Nenormalni

Prologue: Covert Agony

The night was no longer young, and the soldiers had just began their patrols through the town. They swept through the streets like a plague, attacking anyone who was out past curfew. A teenager ran through the street, having been locked out of his district by accident, looking for somewhere to hide. Unfortunately, a soldier spotted him and shot an arrow into the back of his head. However, unbeknownst to the men, down the street was a man in a barn with his younger cousin, preparing to head out to risk everything he had. This young man was called Cassius, but his cousin's mother and father had been killed under false accusations of treason before she was even named. When the two of them had to run away to survive their hometown being purged by soldiers, Cassius took her in and called her Akeeva so that she knew she'd always be safe around him. Sadly, neither of them had ever been able to get any work, so Cassius had been forced to resort to thievery just to provide a small amount of daily food, which he mainly gave to Akeeva to make sure she was kept as healthy as possible.

One day earlier that week, Cassius had been in a tavern having his one monthly glass of mead when he had overheard a group of people discussing a ring that had been recently discovered in a cave that was off the coast of Eastern Maledictus. The supposedly priceless ring was apparently being kept on the third floor of a tower in the town's main cathedral. So, after a few nights, Cassius observed as Akeeva fell asleep before donning a dark, hooded outfit along with a homemade mask and leaving after hearing the soldiers walk past. Sneaking up to the cathedral, Cassius threw a metal hook on a rope up to the lower roof and slowly scaled upwards, repeatedly pressing his body against the wall whenever the building's guards patrolled past. When he reached the lower roof, he crept along to a hatch in the roof he could slip through. However, he landed a few feet behind a lone guard, almost catching him off guard. Cassius' only weapon was a small dagger that was barely the right size to do any lethal damage, and was only useful because he knew where the guards' armour's weak spots were. The reason this was his only weapon was because most of his remaining strength had depleted over the years from lack of any real amounts of food.

Unsheathing his dagger, Cassius carefully prepared his strike before covering the guard's mouth and stabbing him in the neck, slowly lowering the man onto the floor behind some crates. Making his way up the stairs, Cassius saw two more guards defending a small glass case. Within the case sat the most gorgeous ring Cassius had ever laid eyes on. The way the emerald in the centre of it reflected the light around it whilst not blinding him, and how the silver shank's design was both beautiful and simple at the same time, caught his eye, almost seeming hypnotising to Cassius. Grabbing a small, spherical & leather pouch from his pocket, Cassius pulled a tag off of it and threw it between the guards. After a moment or two, the pouch released a cloud of smoke around the whole room. Unfortunately, the smoke cleared far too early and the guards spotted Cassius sneaking off holding the ring in its case. Realising that he'd been spotted, Cassius ran towards the stairs but was stopped by another guard running up them. Turning around and stumbling slightly, Cassius ran as fast as he could and leapt out of the window at the end of the room, praying that he'd accurately mapped out which way the river in the moat around the cathedral was from the room. However, despite him guessing correctly, the ring fell out of the case and he had to quickly snatch it and throw it onto land as he plunged beneath the wintry water. Coughing as he crawled onto the mud whilst being absolutely filthy, Cassius grabbed the ring and, with no other options on safely storing it, placed it on his right ring finger. Strangely, the ring shrank to fit him perfectly, but he didn't notice as he was focusing on escaping. As Cassius ran around a corner, he was suddenly kicked in the gut by a guard and knocked to the floor.

However, as Cassius put his hands up in an attempt to be arrested rather than killed, he suddenly felt an immense pain in his finger. Looking down at it in agony, he saw that the ring had tightened to the point where it was crushing his bone. Moments later, three dark green tendrils emerged from the ring and dug into his wrist. As Cassius screamed in agony, the gem and the tendrils all became crimson as they merged with his blood. Slowly but surely, these tendrils began digging through his bones and flesh. Eventually, as Cassius screamed in agony, the tendrils completely tore off his hand, which sprayed blood all over the floor. Sadly for Cassius, this wasn't the end of his torment. Him and the guards observed as the same tendrils emerged from the dismembered hand and connected to his arm, slowly covering all of his skin to form a sort of exoskeleton, tearing off his hooded attire and leaving only his clothes beneath the waist and his mask on in the process. After a few seconds of nothing else happening, the tendrils on Cassius' hand attached to his wrist and connected it all together, leaving only a thin red line between his hand and his forearm. Thinking it was over, the guard slowly stepped closer, hearing his companions drawing closer to his location. However, the tendrils around Cassius' ribs suddenly dug into his flesh, and soon the entire exosleleton had burrowed through these wounds and replaced his entire skeleton. The process was relatively quick, but Cassius felt it all. Every break, every fracture, every dislocation and every crunch were all individually felt, causing him to fall onto his back and repeatedly roll around in excruciating pain. After what felt like hours but was only in fact mere moments, the wounds in Cassius' chest were filled in by the tendrils and he was finally able to move freely, but he was still slow because he was in shock from what had just happened. As he stood up, two guards suddenly pinned him to the wall and a third one held a knife in his hand.
"G..get off of me!" Cassius yelled, struggling against the two guards holding his arms. However, the guard with the knife simply chuckled at him.
"You didn't think we didn't know about you and your cousin, paskiainen." the guard threatened, pressing the knife against Cassius' throat, "Maybe we'll visit her next, have some fun before the kill.".