Enteka

Experiment # 11: | 'Énteka' The Cursed ☸ Alliance ☇ The Experiments

Born: Guardian, Basic, Mulberry Stone Platinum {Ew} Injection 1: Beige, Grey, Stone Orthopedic Report: N/A Mutation 1: Cracked Skin Mutation 2: Crumbling Wings Mutation 3: Earthshakers scars - scars peeled off later, revealed the gemstone within - Earthshaker's gift

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Do not let appearances fool you. After all, there is a reason people say not to judge a book by its cover, and Enteka is a prime example of why that goes for living beings as well.

Snatched up from beneath the tides before the first crack even appeared in his egg’s glossy surface, Enteka was not born under the kindest star. Upon hatching the artificial lights and unnatural smells of chemicals and antiseptic were among the first things that greeted him and quickly became a constant.

As it happened, his egg had found its way into the lab of a scientist by the name of Khem. A brilliant individual with a mind rivaled by few, he had founded the facility with a goal that would ultimately alter the young hatchling beyond recognition.

Whether Khem’s intentions were pure or driven by pride or insanity, they lead to little more than ruin. He sought to create another Earthshaker, an artificial copy of the mighty being ‘blessed’ with power, wisdom, all that the mighty deity was.

The experiments started before Enteka can really recall, making it difficult to remember the precise order. The earliest he can remember is the shifting hue of once deep mulberry and pale stone scales shifting to what they are now.

Eventually the changes became all the more noticeable and far less pleasant, both to experience and to see. He grew to a size surpassing even the mightiest imperials, and bit by bit, his ability to move lessened, his voice eventually fading to silence; words unable to escape his throat no matter how many times he tried to speak. His scales began to crack, tender webs forming scars of stone in what had once been a natural armor, pieces even breaking off, parts of his wings crumbling like ancient clay.

Despite the cost and effects the experiments had left, manifesting in a myriad of scars across his hide, the experiment had been a success. The Guardian had indeed inherited all the might of the Earthshaker. However, in Khem’s eyes he was still a failure.

For despite Enteka’s ‘blessing’, though to him it seemed more like a curse, he could never share the wisdom he’d been granted, and the destruction he wrought upon the lab was great - his massive size and the great power that often manifested in earthquakes and rockslides were not something Khem could do much about.

Eventually it became easier to simply dispose of the Guardian.

Thus, after an entire lifetime spent away from the tides, he was at last able to return to the sea - dumped there after being deemed a failure that wasn’t worth keeping, no care given for if the guardian lived or not. It no longer mattered and the stone dragon was left to sink beneath the tides from which he’d been taken as a mere egg.

The soothing currents were new, odd compared to the stagnant, still waters of his former ‘home’, but they were a relief where they washed over the cracking expanse of a body well worn. Something he could focus on other than the maelstrom of emotions swirling in his head and heart at having been thrown away like the bones of long devoured prey.

He came to rest upon the seafloor with no idea what to do, how to survive on his own after being nothing but a lab rat for all of his life. However, he knew he couldn’t simply stay where he was, for staying would accomplish nothing. He had no goal in mind as he moved, his progress slow as moving was made all the more difficult, nearly impossible by the water’s resistance. He knew nothing of the seafloor, but even if he had long ago lost his ability to see the future like most Water-kin, he knew to trust what little foresight he had retained as it told him to move forward.

As he traveled, the currents slowly but surely ebbed away the scarring that had been left behind, a seemingly eternal reminder of the pain he’d endured so much of his life. The scars he’d thought would remain until he perished were eventually stripped away by the ever moving tides, exposing what lay beneath. However where there should have been tender flesh, what lay beneath was shimmering and smooth, multi-colored gemstone unlike anything he’d seen before. A gift from the deity he’d been molded after.

Unbeknownst to Enteka, his arrival and travels had disrupted the tides, the waters displaced for a fair distance between his impressive bulk and the small tremors that shook the earth with each step he managed. It was these displaced currents and minute tremors, as well as news of rockslides near the edge of his clan’s territory that drew Ancerran, the leader of a clan residing beneath the currents, to investigate. He found Enteka, and though wary at first of such a remarkable giant he chose to observe. However, soon enough he came to learn that despite his past, the guardian was a true example of a gentle giant, having maintained a gentle soul and kind spirit even in the wake of such horrors and atrocities. The skydancer had been known for picking up strange things and outcasts and bringing them into his fold, and upon realizing this about the guardian, he didn’t hesitate to do the same for Enteka. Though, even knowing of their leader’s tendency and the so common power of foresight, only a few were unsurprised by the appearance of the giant guardian that so easily dwarfed everyone else in the clan. He was a spectacle to behold, surly the largest dragon any in the clan had ever seen, but he wasn’t scorned for it. Even as the earth shook with each massive, struggled step, he was welcomed among them. Eventually, without even really realizing it himself at first, he became a part of that clan, finding a home at the outermost edge of their territory, unwilling to stay too close to the larger populace for fear of causing them harm from an unintentional earthquake or rock slide should he be too close to others. It was while living among the clan that he was given a gift - a true gift this time, rather than a curse in disguise, though any who didn’t realize precisely what it did for him may think otherwise. What he was granted was a device created by Plainsglide by modifying a parasite. It is this device that is responsible for what most see when they look at him.

Art designed by yawns. (ps'ed by flamyfox)

The device presents an illusion, a reflection that shows the guardian as being significantly smaller than he is in truth, smaller even than the average guardian, granting him the ability to be among his clan on important occasions. It is also this device that helps him communicate with others, the mental link he shares with it allowing him to express his thoughts to others where he’d otherwise have no ability to.

He came to make friends among his new clan, and even found something he had never dared hope; A mate.

Punawai was moved by his story, even more so than the others in his clan, as well as by the resemblance he bore to the mighty Earthshaker. She was drawn to him, even as she found the sense of pity she felt for him hard to shake. After all, even with the parasite he’d been granted, a life of immobility and silence still awaited him and he deserved so much more than that after all he had endured.

She sought out Ancerran, asking for a means to soothe the ache of being trapped and to help Enteka live his life to its fullest. The answer came in the form of a golem built from the remains of a dark faerie and the very parasite that is connected to Enteka’s mind. A similar parasite was put in the golem and the two were linked. Thanks to the connection of the two parasites, the golem serves as an avatar for the once trapped guardian.

Thanks to the two gifts granted to him by his new clan, he is freer than he ever thought possible. In the form of the golem, with its eyes and body, he can see and feel the world with his mate, even as his true body remains eternally trapped beneath the waves.

Punawai takes the golem with her everywhere she goes, and since its creation she has grown determined to explore as much of the world as she can with it, and by connection, him so that he can see it all.

There is no erasing the tragedies of his past, no matter how much Punawai and he would give to do so, but this arrangement is the next best thing and neither could be happier with it.

The experiment had greatly reduced his ability of being an oracle as a Water kin. He can still feel the future but it no longer present to him as clear images, or images at all. He can only answer to simple, yes or no type of questions. Though if he's presented with the right question, he can be a very good guide into the future.