[ IP ] Superiority of the Machine

Deep under the streets of a forgotten city was a tomb of bone. A resting place for creatures that had come from The Before and ended themselves with their own power, creations of life and death to crush their enemies, creations that turned on them in the end. 
 
 I wandered these halls of the dead with only the light of a flickering flame to guide me, bleached white bones all around. I was looking for one that called to me, one that might give me some modicum of chance in ending The One ’ s reign, if these being had the power to end all of themselves then perhaps they had still had the power in the afterlife to end the life of one. 
 
 The ravages of time had reduced most of their corpses to dust but here and there I saw the fingers that had sculpted mine and the grinning faces that looked like a evolutionary mirror. As the walls slowly collapsed, bones had been strewn away from their old neat piles and cluttered the narrow path. I kicked these worthless pieces away from myself and kept looking for one that would be right. 
 
 In the old tome that I had found, I read of a spell of terrible power, to wrench one ’ s soul from the afterlife and bind it to the will of the caster. Among the ingredients it called for was the intact skull of the one you wished to bind, and for that I came here, the place where the skulls of those with even more terrible power resided. 
 
 There, sitting at the the end of the hallway and half buried in debris, was what I was looking for. As if the magic of the world could sense that I had chosen this simple piece of bone to have such a gruesome destiny, the dust and sand that had once covered it shrank away from the skull into the corners of the hall with a sound like the rasping of a snake ’ s belly across the ground. 
 
 I stooped to pick up the grinning skull and held it in my hands. Looking into it ’ s empty eyes, I felt uncertainty about what I was about to do, to awaken one of The Progenitors was something only a fool would do. I had met one of the last living ones in my youth all those years ago, bones hidden by pale white skin and garbed in a robe of red, his control over the world ’ s magic had been greater than any I have met since. The children of this world had always had a greater connection to its life than those of us with iron flesh. I, foolishly, squashed my uncertainty with thoughts of power and dominion over those who had wronged me. 
 
 I pulled the only other ingredients for this ritual from my cloak, blood forcibly taken from the lesser children of the Earth and a handful of gold dust to bind the soul back into this earthly vessel. I poured both into the empty eyes of the fiendishly grinning thing and then added my own magic into the mix. The spell book I had taken this from had told me of an incantation to speak over the skull but before I could do so the empty eyes glowed with a crimson light, jagged red lines spread out and down along the cheekbones as if weeping blood and the mandible stretched open in a silent scream. The shadows of the crypt shuddered around me and all seemed to stretch in towards the now shaking skull and dove into the glowing eye sockets until all of the crimson light that could be seen were two red flaming orbs, floating in inky darkness. 
 
 The jaw snapped closed with a click, the flaming eyes brightened and I felt a harsh and irritating power bear down upon my mind. It was then that I heard its voice for the first time echoing in my head. “ What ’ s this? ” It ’ s voice was thin and reedy, filled with humor like a frail old man looking down with amusement at his grandson playing at his feet. “ What would a little automation like you have in store for me? ” 
 
 I was speechless, I hadn ’ t even finished the ritual and still his glowing eyes peered up at my face. 
 
 “ Come now, boy. I do hope you have words in that little head of yours. ” 
 
 “ I- You ’ re not suppose to be here, ” I trailed of lamely, looking down at the deathly visage cradled in my hands. The light shining from his eyes flickered as I watched and cast dancing shadows on its face and the crumbling bones around me. 
 
 “ Oh? And why is that? ” I felt his power bear down on my mind more heavily as he perused my memories at his leisure. “ Ah, I see. It would seem that time has been unkind to this ritual, combining and merging two similar spells into one. ” He chuckled at what I could only assume was some ancient and dead joke. “ I assure you, the power of the ingredients that I now have inside my head is more than enough to call a soul back from the land of death. ” 
 
 I was confused. I had never come across a spell that had been so mangled that the effects and requirements were no longer clear, everyone who practiced even a small amount of magic knew to never change anything in how a spell is written, even if that meant writing things you did not understand while copying the spell to a new book. My line of thought was interrupted though by the being ’ s needling voice. 
 
 “ Come now, don ’ t think too hard about it. Greater minds than your own small one have tried and failed to understand the machinations of magic. ” I grimaced with shame, the thing ’ s words hit heavily on the shame I felt at being slower at learning magic than the other mage ’ s apprentice. I almost listened to him but something deep inside of me told me to be very afraid of what this thing was telling me, a small niggling at the back of my mind that had some small semblance of understanding about the incantation ’ s meaning. Old latin words that I only looked at in passing, “ Imperium ”, “ Mandatum ”, “ Dominus ”, their meaning only passively absorbed through the roots of the words, my subconscious comparing them to the words that they would eventually become. Then, it hit me. 
 
 I opened my mouth wide as I tried to desperately yell out the words of power that would force this soul to bend to my will but it was too late. The skull ’ s glowing eyes grew blindingly bright and I felt its grating power drill deep into my mind, pain erupted in my head as it seemed to stare deep into my soul. 
 
 “ Well, I don ’ t quite like when my underlings try to do things like that. ” With growing horror I realized that those words had come from my own mouth, my own vocal cords affording him a deeper and metallic sounding voice. 
 
 My body moved on its own accord as they stretched out and grasped against the walls and tested their reach. A wave of my hand caused a long shaft of metal to grow from the ground and spear through the skull in my hand, creating a staff with a grinning skull at the top. Another wave of my hand blanketed my body in long hooded robes of red, gold trim glinting in the fire ’ s light. 
 
 “ I must thank you, boy. You have given me another chance to destroy these disgusting metallic golems for what they did to us. ” 
 
 The last thing I saw before my vision went black was my body beginning to move back towards the exit, his laughter echoing in my head. 
 
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 I would appreciate any criticisms.
