Wight - A Slow Awakening

Written by Jaina Wyverntamer

The Creation

“Give me an ounce of the Oil of Tartar.” The alchemist frantically called to his assistant. The assistant ran to the case being held up by the guard and rustled through the cabinet. “No, that’s the Oil of Vitriol. That’s Oil of Turpentine. Butter of Antimony, Milk of Sulfur, no no no, where was it?”
Cursing to themself, the alchemist turned to another cabinet. “We need something that will symbolize cleansing, but the other cleaners are incompatible. Here it is! Clean off the souls, they need to be completely cleansed of their intelligence.”
The assistant took the Oil and thoroughly applied it to the artifacts, activating the triangle and then containing the essences that were coming off. Quickly moving it into the flasks prepared to contain the anima of the soul. They cleaned the anima off the artifacts and left the leftover soul on the artifacts.
The alchemist gathered up the axe they had used for the last gathering of anima, and mixed the anima they had collected in various flasks. “Cleaning bed of Natron, keep it all as pure as is possible.”
“Assistant! Stand still and don’t move from your spot until I tell you to! When you do, make sure to pass me the second bottle on the right, we can’t have you making mistakes now.” As the assistant froze, the alchemist began slowly adding the anima blende into the last artifact standing on the desk.
About three minutes afterwards, a light began flickering in the artifact. “Now assistant.” The assistant quickly put the mixture of Aqua Regia on the artifact, stabilizing the flickering and making it produce a steady hum. “Good! The golden soul should be stabilizing everything else now. Quickly though, we need to install it into the body!”
Working quickly and efficiently, they installed the core into the body they had crafted for this task. A big body to rival the revenants at the gate, with weapons already installed instead of the first set of arms. A second set of arms for fine manipulation was installed below the first, and the leg sets were optimized for stability.
“Now, dear creation, go out and slaughter the revenants outside. If you cannot do it, save yourself.” The alchemist looks at the Wight they just had created. “Are those orders understood? Nod if you understood the orders.”
A slow, ponderous movement came from the Wight, before it turned to the exit. As it walked out of the lab, it crushed part of the wooden door, before it gave out in its entirety and launched into the opposing wall.
The Wight stepped around the debris lying around and slowly moved out of the court. As it walked out of the gate, the revenant outside turned towards it. A monstrous clash of strength happened in a few seconds, as the revenant brought a giant sword to bear, and it clashed with the arm of the Wight.
The second arm raised, and the cannon on it fired, breaking the clash and knocking the revenant down. Unfortunately for the Wight, its master had mentioned multiple revenants, and the second one came in from behind. Crashing into the Wight wreathed in purple flames, the revenant brought her hammer down upon the Wight’s head, crushing half of it before the Wight could get the revenant off of it.
The Wight assessed the new situation, deemed it an unwinnable situation, and quickly retreated. The female revenant had blocked the gate it came through though, and the only option left to the Wight was the entrance to the sewers below the main city. With surprising speed, it crashed through the gate and into the main sewer line.
It ran through the sewers quickly, losing track of where it was, and losing its pursuers. It slowed to a slower pace, eventually coming to a stop. It had fulfilled its orders to its capabilities.

The Pondering

Now what?
It did not need to return. It did not need to do anything else, until it felt that it could safely leave this place, it could just… wait.
Then why did its maker create it, a flawed creature that could not fulfill its single true purpose? Why was it sent out if its master knew that failure was a possibility?
It pondered these issues in its days in the sewer, it pondered them as it strolled through the sewage. It pondered them as it walked past a human, who was fleeing from the undead in the deeper parts of the sewer.
It was roused from its slow pondering and meandering as something jumped on its head. “Mreow.” The cat made itself comfortable far above the refuse it had been walking around before.
The Wight looked at it, before slowly patting it on the head with the second set of arms it had. The cat perked up, before submitting itself to righteous worship, and settling down again. Another set of steps came out of the dark, and a liche floated out of the darkness.
“What might you be? Some escaped experiment?” Though the liche was talking to itself, the Wight did shake its head carefully. “Oh? Some thought is present in you? Can you speak?”
The Wight nodded in answer to the question. The liche shook its head and chuckled. “Why don’t you speak then? No, come with me, I will lead you to someplace more interesting.”
The Wight just followed the liche, it did not have anything better to do, and doing so did not interfere with the previous orders. On the way to wherever the liche was leading it, the liche constantly asked questions, though it usually ordered the Wight to shut up instead of answer the questions asked.
The Wight just used that time to think and came to the conclusion that the alchemist who created it had not cared enough for their tool to retrieve it. Thus, the Wight was free of the previous orders given to it. It also was not beholden to the liche, so it resolved to leave the liche behind as soon as they came to the place the liche led it.
And so, the Wight and liche traveled for several days, before they came upon the place that the liche was leading them. They stumbled upon a clearing far south of Zaestra, the liche laughed as they arrived. “See here! The Insomniac’s Vale! A piece of the living within Deadhaus’ grasp!”
As the liche continued laughing, the Wight slowly nodded. “I will stay here. This is a peaceful place.” The cat, noticing that they were in a living area again, looked around, stretched, and jumped down.
“Go little one, if you come back, I will have some food for you.” The cat looks and, with total disregard for the liche, turns around and chases after something in the bushes.