The Karcist and the Lord

a S.C.P. Foundation Mythos x M.G.E. crossover

Chapter 37: The Fist Marches on, Part 1

As the Militant-Litigents cleared out the castle, Magos Serina inspected the library. As Barion approached, she turned to him. Waving a hand in the general direction of the books that were arranged on the shelves, she spoke as several dendrites with dish shapes inspected the books.

"Any corruptive influences premating the library?" she asked. Barion turned and stared at her.

"The same passive corruption this land has been tainted with Magi, but so far we are more then resistant to passive corruption. I am detecting stronger examinations from some of these books however, and thus I request that perform safety tests before we read them. Have a Hoplite stand by, and I will commence with our purification rituals." Barion said, setting down the satchel he was carrying, and producing a number of items, including incense and an oil lamp. Serina then turned around and left, pointing at the door way to watch over him while she and the other Hoplite with her left the room.

As Barion set down a bronze block on one of the desks in the library, he then opened it, doing so by unfolding it as though it was origami, until it formed a set of walls with spaces to put the various objects Barion had with him, formed a small shrine to Mekhane. He then took out a book, and looked at the title.

Monster Girl Enclycopedia. Volume 1. increased levels of corruption noted from 'Demonic Energy,' and thus likely enchanted. The Tech-Acolyte thought, as he turned it so it was facing away from him. Setting it down on another desk, he then placed a model of a human brain with eyes attached made from an electronic device. The Hoplite that was watching then spoke up, as he saw that Barion was attaching a sensor of some kind to the model.

"Sir, what is the purpose of this?"

"This is a test to make sure I don't end up being corrupted. This will act as a simulation of my mind and eyes, and thus if there any cognitive or memetic hazards, they will activate. This will allow me to also see what effects will be had when looking at the data sent to my screen here." Barion explained, showing a computer device which had a image of a brain on it. "Right now, this is what my brain should look like. Now, when I open this book here..." suddenly there was a surge in activity in one part of the brain, which increased slightly. "Ah, this book is indeed a trap. Right now the energy the Abominations known as Mamono would use to corrupt and turn us into worshiping The Flesh, known as 'Demonic Energy' contained in the book is being poured into the copy of my mind. Note how slow and insidiously it is warping the simulation of my copys' thoughts subtlety." Barion said, tracking the minute changes as he turned the page of the Encyclopedia, which released another burst of Demonic Energy. Continuing further, Barion then processed the entire book through the model, showing the Hoplite the changes in the brain becoming more and more visible. "Now then, looking into the effects of the books enchantments, it will have significantly altered ones mind, and no doubt body as well, given the autopsies performed on the dead we collected. Essentially, if I had actually read this entire book without removing the spells put upon it, I would've been overwhelmed and converted into consorting with the Mamono."

The Hoplite then nodded his head, and saw Barion walk over to the shrine. "So now you are going to remove the hazards in question?"

"Correct. Now, I would recommend keeping your distance, in case something goes wrong."

"As you wish." The Hoplite said, taking their position near the door. The next two hours passed without incident, at which point Barion processed and purified half of the library books that were heavily protected. It was almost insulting how simple and easy the removal of the cognitive hazards that were placed on them were, and Barion also noted how most of them weren't meant to kill, but cause one intense sexual frustration. Although when he finally took a look through one of the books to see why, he realized that the titles were euphemisms for romance stories with a variety of fetishes in them. The Hoplite then ended up walking out, while Barion went on an absolute frenzy and threw most of them into a fireplace, his voice modulator unit letting out screeching noises as he burned them. After some time passed, the Hoplite walked back in, and saw the Mekhanite priest was sitting on a chair rubbing his face. "Are you alright sir?"

"Yes, just pissed I wasted two hours of removing cognition hazards put upon romance novels." Barion replied. "And they were not even organized in any sensible fashion. You would think that they would at least put them into categories." Barion then sighed and picked up another book, and looked at the title. "Alright see this book?" he then showed it to the Hoplite, who nodded. "This is a book about magic, and teaches some of the spell disciplines this world has in it, and it doesn't have any hazards put upon it."

"Well, to be fair, the majority of Mamono, according to when you memory scanned the Angel, don't care for that in so much as they do for satisfying their carnal desires, do not wage war with each other, and the passive corruption that spreads throughout the land ensures any attempts to reclaim said lands from the Order before the Sarkics came to this world were guaranteed to fail. So why bother?" the Hoplite explained. After a few seconds, Barion nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, I suppose so, still annoys me." he said, putting it away. Some time later, Magos Serina walked in. "What do you need lord Magos?" Barion asked, while Serina looked over at the ashes in the fireplace.

"We heard you screaming all the way down to the first floor, and you were on the third. I came here believing you encountered some form of horrific knowledge about this world. I see you have taken care of it however. If you can, would you mind explaining what happened?"

"I was removing cognition hazards that I was far overqualified to remove for two hours, and I found out just now, that the books in question, were nothing, but written flights of depraved fantasy penned down on parchment." Barion explained, the words coming out in a broken manner. Serina then let a few seconds of white noise, before leaving, a sense of disgust being conveyed in her body language. Barion then returned to his work, after finding a book about the so called 'Desert Kingdoms.'

As he went through the book, finding that it was safe to read, his mood began to lighten up as he poured over a passage. The Hoplite watched as he stood up, and then collected a number of books. After going through the entire library and gathering them up, he sat down, about twenty or so set up in two stacks of ten. When he spoke up, it was with a curious tone.

"Should I get the Magos?"

"Huh? Ah yes, yes please. I might have a clue of our next destination."

"Yes sir." With that, the Hoplite left.

**POV SHIFT**

As Bethane awoke, she opened her eyes to find herself staring up towards the canvas of a wagon top, and felt a large amount of pain in her body, causing her to groan as she grabbed at her stomach. She then paused upon feeling a row of stitches, remembering the Human that chased her and the Queen through the sewers, being cleaved in two by him, and then...

"Ah, your awake. And it seems you retained your personality, and senses." a voice said, as Bethane turned her head, and saw a Lich approaching her. Bethane then looked down, and saw she was laying face up on a white mat with a blanket over her body. "Can you speak?"

"Y...Yeah." Bethane said. "How long was I dead?" she asked.

"About four hours." the Lich said. Bethane nearly shot up, but flinched as another spasm of pain shot into her. "Don't move. Eventually you will fully heal, and I'll remove the stitches as well, but until then you are to stay in bed. Now, to summarize, you are technically a Homunculus. Homuncului as you know, tend to have erratic personalities due to being made of multiple creatures put together. However, I have put you back together with all your original bits and pieces, so nothing of the sort will happen, and I'm also casting a spell to repair your body. Right now, I'm waiting for your internal organs and spine to put themselves back together, which will leave a weird sensation in your abdominal region for the next three hours or so. Don't want to rush ahead to far." the Lich explained, as her hands waved around while glowing a faint green light on Bethane. "The most worrying injury was the damage to your head, but thankfully I took care of that. And it was a good thing we did, since that Automaton/Human hybrid was close to sma-"

"Can we move on?" a cringing Bethane asked. Liches were often used to gore from their studies, but even so, they usually know to keep details to a minimum when speaking with other Monsters.

"Sorry." the Lich said.

"Where are we? Is the Queen safe?"

"Yes she is. In fact, we managed to escape into the woods. Right now, a contingent of the Fallen God worshipers are going to try and get the attackers away from us."

"The Fallen God?" Bethane asked. "We're not in Pandemonium are we? We would risk being exiled and-"

"Relax. The Mamono Lord herself has issued an apology just recently for her daughters actions and the Fallen God being exiled. She also has reversed the ban placed upon her Cult, which is swiftly sending aid to Lescatie, with Sasha Fullmoon leading the relief force." at this, the Lich frowned. With a whisper, she said "However, due to hearing about Royal Makai being destroyed, a lot of Mamono are starting to lose faith in her."

"WHAT?!" Bethane yelled. Immediately, the Lich shushed her. Bethane, now whispering herself, asked "The capital was destroyed?"

"Rumors have been going around, but there are a lot of them going around. Even so, no official statement has confirmed or denied it yet." the Lich explained. "Right now, everyone is heading to Wonderland, since it is closer anyway. A number of Fallen God cultists are also escorting us, in case we run into the Cult of Nalka on the way there." upon hearing this, Bethane sighed in relief. At she won't have to worry about Queen Annabelle and her daughters.

"Wait, what about the Mamono going to the Humans that attacked Bernia? They, like the Cult of Nalka are able to resist our temptations."

**POV SHIFT**

Berina

"Alright, the Humans and their constructs are going to come into view, so remember, if they start attacking, everybody is to fall back. Got it?" Dark Valkyrie Landias said. As her team of eight Dragons and Thunderbirds confirmed they heard, she thought back to the Cult of Nalka and when she was trying to contain them. While rubbing at a fully healed nose she got after failing to stop them, she then looked and beheld the Automatons had gathered in circle formation of some kind. There were three kinds from what she could see. As they examined them from high up in the air and level with the clouds. Most of the Automatons, to the sudden confusion of the Dark Valkyrie and her team.

One of them, which resembled a male Centaur in armor of some kind, pointed a spear, which began to glow a baleful green.

"Ah shit, FALL BACK!" she screamed, as the entire group swerved away and dodged a magic projectile of some kind, which came in the form of an orb of the same green energy. However, when it reached to their level, it exploded, bathing them in its payload as they felt it burn them. One of the Dragons, who was closest to the orb screamed as open sores covered her body and her hair fell from her scalp. Landias could see her skeleton and those of her team, despite the fact her eyes were closed from the sheer brightness of the light. She also could fell some sort of sickness inside her, and when the light faded, she realized she and her team were all falling, as their hair and feathers fell off. The Dragons were also falling, indicating they were weakened as well by the exposure of whatever they were attacked by.

They all began to scream, the pain overwhelming them as it set in. Landias looked on in shock, seeing the ground coming at her faster and faster, the wind wailing in her ears. As she began to panic, the Centaur Automaton slowly moved its spear, which began to glow again as it tracked the Mamono as they fell.

What did that thing do us?! She thought, as her body began to hemorrhage, growing deep patches as she bleed internally. She then snapped out of her stupor of thought, and invoked the Fallen God. "Save us!" she cried out to her, her voice weak and hoarse. "Save us oh true Chief of the Gods from this death, and let us bask in thy glory!" She yelled. After a second passed while feeling like hours, the Fallen God responded by opening a portal, through which the Dark Valkyrie and her team fell through and were caught by their peers. The Fallen God herself was among them, and immediately closed the portal as a second orb of green light tried to come through as well, which was bigger then the first one.

"Take them to triage now! Only I can treat them!" she yelled. An Arch-Valkyrie, named Fallina spoke up.

"What was that? And why can only you can treat it?" she asked in worry. With a disturbed look on her eyes that sent chills down the spines of those who around her.

"That was atomic energy. I shouldn't have sent them there." she said, as she carried Landias herself to the Palace of Pandemonium. "That can't right." she whispered. "When the hell did they figure out how to split the atom, and channel nuclear energy that efficiently?"

**POV SHIFT**

Bernia, Inside The Spear of Mekhane

"Flesh abominations escaped. Nucleus blast has detonated after portal to unknown dimension collapsed before it entered it. Entities will likely die from exposure, Magos." one of the crew-priests of The Spear reported. Magos Litheria scowled under her mask.

"Analyze the visual record of The Spear, and see what you can glean. They clearly were saved by their deity, and no doubt she will have the power to heal them." she said. After she looked at her console, she spoke again. "I'll be back. One of my subordinates is coming in with another report. Barion has apparently found a new discovery, something that may aid us in our crusade, and so soon after we learned about those creatures that can disrupt electrical components. Maintain sentry formation until I come back. Fabricator Choris, keep an eye on the Spear of the Nucleus. We tried to blast the other side of the portal with a considerable attack and failed. If you need to, do what you need to transmute non-radioactive isotopes back to their original radioactive ones."

"As you command." the Mekhanite replied, while Magos Litheria left the Colossus command center. When she reached her quarters, she saw Barion was sitting in his seat waiting for her. As she walked around to face him, Barion stood up.

"What have you found?" Litheria asked. Barion took a second to put together what he was going to say, and then responded.

"I have found a particular set of records concerning the history of this world. Specifically before the current Mamono Lord rose to power." Barion said

"Go on." after Barion gave a brief summary of the world and the Cycle, he got to the subject that he was here for.

"I have found that the records referenced a civilization of advanced Humans. This particular group was one that appeared roughly 10.5 thousand years ago from the present date of this world, and managed to inhabit a mountain range known as the Cimmerain mountain range. For around 5.3 thousand years, it had been infamous amongst the Monsters of the time, who had differing forms from that of their present day descendents for their advanced technological developments and for their abilities to fight even the strongest of Monsters. Then one of the previous Monster Lords, through cunning and brute power, and managed to start a 30-year long war with it. The war ended with the civilization being defeated, however they managed to save a cache of their technology and even a portion of their people were transported away from the battle."

"How advanced was this civilization?" Magos Litheria asked, leaning in with increased interest. Barion then held up a hand, and pointed at it.

"Roughly our current level of knowledge and application. That is, we were more advanced before the War against The Flesh was declared, and dropped drastically as it drew on, similar to what happened to them. Coincidental your thinking, right?" Barion asked.

"Correct."

"Wrong. As it happens, according to our own history, what happened 10.5 thousand years ago on earth?" after a brief pause, Magos Litheria widened her eyes.

"Our first attempts to reach the stars. The current one was based off part of its transport system, scaled down affixed to one location. A ship was made and designed to travel between worlds through the black sky through what would be known as a warp gate. However, we underestimated how strong the ship's drive was, and thus the ship opened a portal to another universe all together, and was presumed destroyed as the true void consumed it, and due to the near dissolution of local reality, we never tried again, until the Gateway of Worlds was made, being both smaller, affixed to one location, and not being as damaging to reality. Are you saying that ship landed here?"

"Correct. I have compiled a summary of what I read to convince me of this into a single record. Sources stem mainly from written records by the Monster Lord herself, who claims to have written about this after the First Chief God disappeared." Barion said, as he recounted his evidence. "This is the record I have formed as such:

"For lo and behold, during the days when the world was first formed, and held under the tyranny of the First Chief God, when the Cycle oppressed both Monster and Human, a great and terrible star came to the world, and crashed down upon it near the Cimmerian mountains. With thunder heard around the world, and with quaking of such power that the God of the Dead herself trembled from the impact, all felt its power. The Monsters who resided within, believing in their ego and might, believed that if the comet survived the impact, that its materials would give them power over Humanity in the area.

"They were wrong, for it was not a comet, but a great and spacious ship made of metal, liken unto bronze, yet stronger and more durable then was possible. And they stood and gazed upon it, for they could not understand who made it and by what hands its curious workmanship was made from, for there was nothing like in all the world. And when the Monsters disturbed it, from it spilled Humans. As they stood in awe and astonishment, their minds unable to comprehend how this could be, the Humans unleashed strange fire, lighting, light and thunder upon them, slaying the Monsters that fought back and ran away in fear alike. As they regrouped and prepare for war, the Monster Races of the Cimmerians rallied for war, believed there was simply not enough of them when they first lost.

"The battle, known as the Battle of Raining Stars was great and terrible. The Humans unleashed their unbidden fury in the form of a hail made of metal, distortions of the natural worlds' laws upon the defenders. Automatons the size of Giants marched upon the field of battle, which ran red as the Humans from the stars slaughtered their way to the Cimmerians. Like a flood, they marched on, heedless of whoever amongst them fell. Many a Monster settlement was attacked and destroyed, along with an equally great number of Human lives were lost. None understood why, but all feared their banner of a machine man. A machine man, who wield a hammer with lighting bolts coming from it, for wherever they came, death and destruction followed.

"The First Chief God saw how these Humans openly defied the Cycle, and so unleashed the Pantheon upon them. Hel sent her blights and plagues and diseases upon them, and the Humans learned to cure themselves. Odin rained lighting and hail and whirlwinds upon their heads, and they learn to tamed the elements. Eos the God of Love tried to tempt them with sweet nothings, but they refused her. The Gods tried again and again to cull them, and again and again the Humans refused, never bending the knee to the Pantheon, and worshiping a strange God in their foreign fashion. The fashion of which they worshiped came in destroying their bodies, and replacing them with ones of bronze and lighting, and in building great wonders and terrible weapons that were beyond mortal comprehension. Finally, the First Chief God herself came down herself and with a force liken unto a hurricane, scattered them upon the face of the earth.

Through her limitless power and omnipotent hand, they were chastised by her, slain and turned into ash, burned while freezing, and a thousand thousand other horrible fates were visited among them until they finally broke and surrendered to her will. As punishment, their great and terrible vessel was taken from them and destroyed. The Humans from the stars were then sentenced to imprisonment within the Cimmerian mountain range, were they would abandon their god and worship her for protection against those who sought to slay them. There they remained..." after recounting the tale, Barion opened his eyes and sat back down. "I'm sorry, I need to compose myself."

"So why were we unpunished then? If the Gods themselves are supposed to know of us, surely they would attack us right?" Listeria asked.

"According to the records, the Mamono Lord learned of this through delving through the memories of her predecessors, and found that the current Chief God actively censored knowledge of the event by erasing such knowlege from mortal minds, and rewrote much of the events, and the First Chief God erased the events from the minds of the Pantheon. It seems that due to injuries the current Chief God sustained, as well as the Mamono Lord herself growing in power, she learned of these events and decided to write out the history of the world as unfiltered as she can get it." Barion said. "To paraphrase, the so called Humans from the stars also forgot their origins as well, lived in the mountains of the Cimmerian range, were scattered by an aspiring Monster Lord that came before the previous one who destroyed all they built up, and formed a city that worshiped Aries known as Sparthens. Then it was corrupted, where their current descendents of today reside." Barion explained. "Importantly however, not all of their knowledge and machines were lost. For a group of them were stated to have 'disappeared in a manner as though being covered in a invisible cloak, along with an entire portion of their city, placed into devices that kept them asleep.' if I am right, that means a group of our lost brothers and sisters are trapped in stasis to await for us. Other Mekhanites, Magos Litheria, and they have been trapped here like sheep lost to the fold!" he continued, visibly excited.

"Calm yourself. How do we know they are still wherever they are, and not corrupted?"

"Because they aren't in another dimension like the Mamono Lord believes. I went over her description of what the devices that sent them away were, and they conform to the basic design of a chrono-regulator. A device that manipulates time, which can for example make a Colossus seemingly disappear then reappear at will as it phases out of sync with the rest of the time line, rendering an attack useless. We just need to turn them off from our end."

"Alright then, so where is the Cimmerian Mountain range?"

"As far as I know, they were destroyed, but all my sources say they are located somewhere within the Desert Kingdoms, and that Sparthens in particular will have the necessary clues to find them." with this, Barion pulled out a map of the world. "As you can see, we will need to march the Colossi for about three weeks through the main continent."

"What's this city here?" Magos Litheria asked.

"Lescatie, a major city that will be on the path to the Desert Kingdoms, and is also currently being fought for by the Mamono and Sarkics. It will take an additional two weeks if we go around the city, but-"

"No. we can not afford any delays. You are dismissed/" Magos Litheria said, getting up and walking back into the Colossus command center. "Comms link to the other Colossi." she said. A quick second passed as the Mekhanites confirmed that all the other Colossi were listening, and Magos Litheria spoke. "We march."