Book 2: Princess Of Arcadia

The Ice Maidens Keep: Part 2

The Gate spell took us to the foot of the peak where the Ice Maiden would be.
Hoshi slid his finger along the blue ice blocks lining the entrance. They were covered with runes and symbols that I couldn't decipher even with the help of my User Interface. I did a complete scan of the letters and hieroglyphs to store the unknown data into the computer.
Hoshi began to mouth some of the words to himself while pulling out his blade.
He pressed the tip at the opening and pressed it into a magical membrane.
"Just as I suspected, barrier magic." Ohta said whole punching the membrane into a solid dark blue wisp in the middle of the entrance.
"The barrier materializes when foreign objects attempt to pass through." She continued to say crossing her arms.
The keep was heavily protected, and sealed off but the entrance stood wide open begging me to break in. My patience grew thin as my nails dig into my palms with my growing frustration.
"Do you know what any of that means ?" I asked with excitement growing in my voice.
Hoshi nodded affirmatively, "Yes but you won't like what it says."
My heart became heavy, my face washed over with a mixture of fear and adrenaline. Harsh words were forced out my mouth in my anxiety.
"What the hell does it say Hoshi?"
Hoshi pulled out his journal and translated the writing.
"Take heed, the Princess' keep is cursed. One must be given in order to take from the keep. The loss in your atonement shall match her betrayal."

"IM NOT GIVING UP MY ONLY BLOOD!" I shouted at the mountain causing my rage to take form around my body.
My arms and legs were cloaked in that same black sludge from the woods. I felt the power of the anger rising critically in my soul. It burned deep into my core and sent me into an unnecessary rage. Pent up aggression from unknown sources started to whirl around my mind. Voices and events poured into my conscious, I lost my mind soon after. I was unrecognizable to Ohta and Hoshi. They stepped back away from the black substance that spread with the likeness of a freak bacteria. The ooze poured from my skin and reshaped my body. I no longer had skin, it had become covered with scales with the black tar hardening into more features, I was hellishly embellished with small demonic looking wing bones protruding from my back. Horns and spikes ripped and stretched at the scales all over my body. It was agonizingly painful but I didn't let out any signs of it bothering me.
Ohta reached out toward me in a desperate attempt to stop me but Hoshi held her back, grabbing on her green robe.
I looked at them with eyes redder than the setting sun.
They flickered like plasma and the sludge began settle into this same new substance. A simple but sturdy looking pitch-black ethereal tail extended from the very bottom of my tailbone and floated gracefully behind me.
My anger turned to anguish. My panic turned into pain. Spots all over my body burned with a distinct black and white glow. The tattoos, Pentagrams, and sigils with sinister markings scarred themselves into my flesh. The transformation had nearly finished and it left me looking like a pitch Queen of the Demons.
The slick look of my dark horns and scales shined under the pale light of the Antarctic.
The transformation made a protective layer of the substance around my naked humanoid body. I could peel myself from the membrane exposing my true body from the inside.
The molted later layer lifeless at my waist as I exposed my bare upper body to the elements.
I flipped my hair with my forearms, stretching them above my head popping several aches joints as well.
Along my bare back and arms were the markings from during the metamorphosis. They etched themselves along my bare body leaving behind dark scars. My arms, legs lower torso and back were covered in symbols I again couldn't decipher.
I admired what little had changed on my body .
My clothes and equipment laid on the snow floor accumulating moisture. My coat and the heavy parka, my blade and even the headdress and gauntlet. They were all removed while my body was in a semisolid state . I was thankful none of the ooze stuck to the fabrics.
I picked up my sword and immediately noticed it had changed again.
It too grew pointy spikes along the dull side of the blade, they breathed a purple color like the crystals from the cave back in the catacombs. The blade also had a streak of purple and the embroidery was a smoky mixture of deep black and lavender.
The Exo-skin crawled back up my torso and attached itself back to my body. Releasing plumes of the Neo-Slime. It behaved like a gaseous blob but when disturbed or touched felt like the same sticky ooze. It smelled far worse and settled into big puddles of itself. The puddle was similar to that of the portal I could create.
In fact I'm sure it was the same substance with a new property as a side effect of the transformation.
Amy voice separated in two tones again, "What... just happened to me." I reached out for Ohtas hand.