Senses

The tongue caught for an instant upon one of the fangs, causing a thin trickle of blood, dark as wine mixed with ash, to spill down the figure’s chin–

*–Sensations erupted across his body. His pupils dilated. The stretched mass of his chest rose and fell rapidly, soaking inhuman lungs with the spicy metallic scent of demigod blood. The tongue thrashed, coating itself and his teeth in the rich coppery tang. The spilling of blood was sublime, it was–*

–Nothing.

The experience of such sensations, when even the slightest pain could swell his being with pleasure, was now a thing consigned to memory. Memories of when the screams and rending of flesh, of that belonging to other souls equally as much as his own, had driven him to deeper, transcendent debaucheries beyond excess, and beyond sanity. But that was a time that had long since passed him by.

(...)

'Of course,’ replied Lucius, barely listening as he plucked one of the vials from Cesare’s hand. The Apothecary would have advised the Eternal to wait until just before battle before indulging to avoid losing its effects in the middle of combat, but knew full well the uselessness of the act. Lucius waved the slender cylinder from side to side, chuckling as the other warriors tracked it hungrily. Leaning back, he slotted the vial into an interface port on his gauntlet, and injected its contents into his bloodstream.

With a ragged gasp, Lucius was transported back in time. Back to when his nerves were afire with glorious sensation, where every slice of his blade and every scar he received sent him staggering with overwhelming, rapturous pleasure. Gone was the numbness that withered his eroded synapses, freeing him to accept with open arms all of the gifts of the Youngest God.

Lucius almost cried out in bliss as his helm cracked back against his restraint throne. Waves of honey-rich joy radiated out from the heathen­ war drums of his hearts and raced across his flesh. The voices screaming at him grew muted and distant as his focus returned. His senses sharpened, like a veil being lifted after a lifetime mired beneath its haze. The smells of his surroundings returned, a bouquet of iron and ozone, oil and lapping powder. He tasted his own sweat, and the lingering traces of blood that still clung to his tongue.

He heard Cesare speak with preternatural clarity, his ears attuned like never before, from the resonant vibrations of his vocal cords and the blood singing through his transhuman veins to the individual components of his armour as they clicked and whirred in their ceramite shell.

***

Lucius: The Faultless Blade, I.III