In the pitch blackness of a damp cave, something moved.

There was a sliding noise, the sibilant hiss of flesh slipping over stone. Briefly, almost inaudibly, the sound of incomprehensible muttering echoed off the unhewn stone walls, and through the cool, if moist, air of the cave. But still there was no light.

Light made it difficult for Pendulum to work.

For Pendulum, darkness was the natural state of affairs. So long had he existed in the sunless recesses of the deep ocean that anything brighter than a dull flame caused him to shy away. All four of his eyes, however, were perfectly suited to seeing - sensing - in the dark, and so he preferred the darkness when it came time for him to operate.

And it was indeed time for him to operate.

The subject of his operation - Subject 2-34 - was in a state of suspended animation, hovering horizontally a few feet away. Above 2-34, Pendulum’s namesake swung placidly, held in the air by some unseeable force. Surrounding 2-34 were a series of steel tables, with a variety of sharp and delicate… implements. They would be integral to his operation, but first, Pendulum needed to find something else.

Pendulum searched distractedly for a trinket. Two arms, thin and terminating in three long, delicate fingers, were clasped behind his back. Two more searched thoroughly through a series of metal boxes for - there it was.

Pendulum examined the tiny pyramid he had located, bringing it close to his smooth, noseless face. This one was yet unused. Most excellent. Swiftly, Pendulum slithered over to where 2-34 was suspended, and placed the pyramid upon the surrounding metal tables, being very careful of the instruments. He adjusted his height - rising up on the thick trunk of his tail - to tower over the unseeing creature. Then, he gave a small tap to the pointed tip of the pyramid, and covered his eyes.

There was a dull - brilliant, to him - flash of blue light, seen through his fingers, which presently faded. When pendulum uncovered his eyes, a hidden slot on the tiny pyramid had opened. Miniscule runes glowed with and, without looking directly at it, Pendulum floated the pyramid out of his line of sight so he would not be unduly distracted, but close enough that it would record his words.

Besides the occasional click of his pointed teeth, Pendulum’s speech began uninterrupted.

“Operation log for subject 2-34. Designation: Oppa Mason. Subject is human, female, twenty-four years of age by the local calendar. Subject is in adequate physical condition based upon this one’s initial analysis of local humans, resting firmly upon the upper quartile of physical capability amongst local humans. Qualifier: Local humans engage in daily manual labor. Adjust mean accordingly.” Pendulum paused in his dissertation to get a closer look at 2-34. As intended, the subject’s eyes were open, but unseeing. At least, it was unlikely that they were seeing anything. For one thing, it was still pitch black.

For another, 2-34 had been born blind.

Pendulum rubbed the top of his head, while reaching for 2-34’s face. Delicately, his thin fingers penetrated the surface of his stasis field to widen the subject’s eyelids. His third arm reached delicately for a scalpel, and his fourth prodded gently at the subject’s face.

“Subject’s bone strength… poor.” Pendulum continued. “Standard human female degeneration. Note: Skeletal structure fragile. This one will proceed with caution.” Using two hands, he exposed half the subject’s eyeball, and examined her closely. “As predicted, subject’s eyelids are obstructing operation. Status: Unfavorable. Eyelids will be removed in order to proceed with operation.”

Pendulum brought the scalpel up to the subject’s face, and bit into the fleshy area above her eyes with nearly impossible precision. Pendulum’s entire body had gone still as the scalpel traced the bare outside of the eyeball, separating the eyelid from the surrounding muscle. Then, he did the same with the bottom half of that first eye, and repeated the entire process for the second.

When he was finished, four fleshy flaps of skin hovered above the subject.

Pendulum examined the bared eyes of the subject closely.

“Note: Stasis field is effective. Subject has not yet begun to bleed. Note: Deficiency identified, and is as hypothesized…” Pendulum placed a slim finger over the subject’s pupil, sensing the impurities within. “...Connective tissue, deficient. Nerve systems rendered inert. Operation will proceed.”

With a wave of his hand and the memory of the still darkness of the ocean, he sterilized the scalpel and set it aside. Then, he placed two hands over the subject’s eyes, and with a bit of concentration and delicate spellwork, popped both of them out of their sockets simultaneously.

Pendulum inspected the connective tissue, pointing out the deficiencies for the pyramid floating behind him.

“Here. Here. Here… Here. Musculature atrophied around socket from disuse. Must rectify. Several cataracts. Must rectify. Estimated length of operation: Forty-eight seconds. Estimated recovery time: Three local months.” Pendulum paused. “...Inefficient. Must rectify. Beginning operation.”

Pendulum felt the darks of his eyes flexing, his gullet inflating, his (currently useless) gills fluttering. From deep within his gullet, a fleshy appendage extended from where his tongue would have been. It split open at the end, revealing several smaller, blood-red tendrils, that promptly lashed out and wrapped around the exposed nerve-stalks of the subject’s eyes.

The darkness around Pendulum pulsed, and he fell into the still rhythm of the subject’s life force. He could sense himself, leaning over the floating form of the subject - even though the subject was senseless. He could see the aura of life that he projected - the intense, pulsing glow that he would never be able to withstand within the limitations of his own body. Connected as he was to the subject’s biorhythmic essence, he could feel, like dark splotches of oil, the wrongness within her body.

Immediately, he set to work, augmenting and improving the subject’s natural ability to heal itself far beyond what the subject’s body would ever accomplish on its own. Soon, he could feel the rightness of her eyes restored. The whole process had taken only forty seconds. He used the remaining eight to strengthen her skeletal structure.

He hesitated for a moment before detaching himself from the subject, his tongue receding back into his gullet, which returned to its original size. It was… difficult to leave that form of pure thought and energy behind. Difficult to remove himself from the biorhythmic essence that pulsed in time with his pendulum. It was difficult. But necessary.

He continued his dissertation.

“...Subject’s eyesight, rectified.” Gently, he lowered her eyes back into her skull, then the eyelids atop those. With practiced, delicate movements, he ran his fingers briefly over the severed eyelids, reattaching them to the sinew and surrounding muscle. He made sure to remove any bruising as a result of the operation, and then, placed all four of his hands in different positions around the subject’s skull. “...Beginning process of acclimation…” A note of strain entered his voice, and suddenly, the pendulum above the subject began to swing more quickly. “...Now!”

Rapidly, he sent visions into the subject's mind.

Red. Blue. Yellow. Green. White. Light. Trees. Grass. Humans. Sun. Sky. Earth. Even as he sent image after image into the subject’s mind, he could see her eyes moving beneath her newly healed lids - then, all at once, the pendulum ceased.

And so, did he.

Pendulum slid away from the subject, gills aflutter, taking deep breaths.

“...Success of acclimation process pending subject’s input. No tangible obstructions to the acclimation were detected. Subject aged approximately three local months during operation. Stasis field…” He glanced at the pendulum. “...Intact. Subject should suffer few ill side-effects.”

He reached up to the pyramid floating behind him.

“Operation 2-34: Successful.”

He tapped the pyramid, and it fell into his palm. Gently, he set it upon one of the metal tables for examination later.

First, he needed to prepare the subject for transportation.

Hild Mason woke in the wee hours of the morning to a scream.

Swiftly, the elderly man’s eyes shot open, and he threw his bed covers off of himself. In only his nightgown, he slammed the door to his bedroom open and ran down the hall. He nearly wrenched the door to his daughter’s room off the hinges. Fear lanced through his stomach as he saw her kneeling on the ground, her face in her hands, weeping.

“Oppa!” He cried, rushing to her side. “Oppa, what’s wrong, wee thing?”

“Papa…” She choked, her hands shaking. “Papa -” Slowly, her head rose, and she looked her father in the eyes.

Eyes no longer blank and clouded.

“Papa, I can see.” She whispered.

Hild’s breath caught in his throat as he realized his daughter was seeing him for the first time. She reached out to his face, one hand shaking, and he quickly took it and pressed it to his cheek, then kissed it fervently. He felt tears streaming down his face - but he had no words. Instead, he could only grin, and weep, and look at his daughter, because he knew that she was looking at him.

As they fell into a teary embrace, he did not notice the tiny, floating pyramid that escaped through the open window.

Deep underground, in a damp, dark cave, Pendulum held out a single hand to catch his observation pyramid.

With curiosity, he watched the heartfelt scene play out in front of him, in muted blue and white, before nodding once

“Subject confirms that the acclimation was successful.” He murmured, and the pyramid became inert. “Transportation was difficult, but manageable. This one successfully evaded local authorities and returned the subject before her absence was noted. A successful operation.” Slowly, he slid over to the metal box he had searched through earlier that night. He placed the pyramid inside, and it slotted easily into place next to hundreds of others. “...Displays of affection… noted.”

Pendulum ran two hands over the smooth flesh of his scalp, and tented his other six fingers.

“Interesting knowledge of eyesight acquired.” Pendulum mused. “Perhaps this one’s vision can be… improved. Current oculars too sensitive to light. This one relies heavily upon aural detection in the presence of illumination. Secondary oculars may be adapted, perhaps…”

Muttering to himself, Pendulum set out in search of something raw and slimy to eat, musing over the girl’s tears, and her father’s embrace.

Pendulum is an utterly unique creature - as far as he knows. His skin is a pale blue, and though it is thin enough to see several major arteries through, it is extraordinarily tough and resistant to damage. He has four arms, each ending into three long, slender digits - two fingers and a thumb. His second pair of arms extends from behind him, relying on the musculature of his spinal column for much of their leverage. He has no legs, and instead, has a single, thick trunk that extends into a rather long tail. The tail ends in a thick, rounded tip. From the top of his head to the tip of his tail, Pendulum is about eleven feet long, though he usually holds himself at about five feet tall.

Possibly the most alien thing about Pendulum is his face. It is completely smooth and devoid of definition or protrusions. His four eyes are sunk into his skull, with two large ones set beneath the two smaller ones. Tiny indents on the back of his head serve as his ears. He had no nose or nostrils, and his mouth is a horrifying, circular, lipless maw of jagged and flesh musculature. His tongue - such as it is - general resides deep within his gullet, out of sight. When extended, it has a maximum reach of nearly six feet, not including the secondary tendrils hidden within it.

His voice is deep and wet, due to the fact that he mimics most languages using flexible flesh deep within his gullet. He has four gill flaps on either side of his neck which are capable of being sealed at a moments notice.

Pendulum's earliest memory is one of pain.

The subject of many a torturous experiment, Pendulum is not certain from where he comes from nor what he truly is. He has dozen of hypotheses, of course, but none more substantial than "A heavily mutated merfolk, perhaps." or "Some sort of aquatic Vedalken." Truly, given what little he knows of his past, it could easily be both.

He remembers only blinding pain and contradictory thoughts for the first part of his existence. He believes someone erased his memory of his earlier life, and he also believes he is better off without it. He is uncertain if he could ever go back to being the person he was before - whoever that was. He is uncertain anyone would even recognize him, and by now, it has been many decades since he first escaped his torture. Most likely, those who had known him are dead.

All he knows is that, at first, there were dozens of voices warring for dominance in his head. Some were feral and savage, others were quiet and timid, but one was cold, strong like iron, and logical. Eventually, this voice suppressed all the others, and Pendulum can only assume this is the personality he has since taken as his own. But once the voices had ceased, and the strong, iron voice of logic dominated, his spark flared in the relief of the silence that followed, and he found himself deep in the unfathomable blackness of some faraway ocean.

He is unsure how long he floated in that endless darkness, but the stillness of it soothed him. He could feel the currents, hear the deep bass of undersea life all about him. He reveled in it. Eventually, his body hit the ocean floor, and it was there, with his perfect vision in the deep of the ocean, he found a silver, metal disc, attached to a long, metal chain.

He scooped it up, almost unthinkingly, and it swung with a weight belying its size. The first word he ever remembers consciously thinking sprang unbidden into his mind.

"Pendulum."

He took the metal disc, fascinated by the power he could feel radiating from it, and resolved, then, to understand this thing. To understand all things. The ocean, the life within, the pendulum, and himself. Through careful experimentation, he discovered the limits and abilities of this body he does not remember, and the quick, cold logic of this mind he never had. Armed with an insatiable appetite for knowledge, tempered by his abhorrence of torture and reverence for all living things, he moves from plane to plane, studying living creatures and improving upon their deficiencies. From healing the permanently crippled and terminally ill, he hopes to unlock a perfect marriage of bodily efficiency and mental acuity. Until then, he is willing to silently prod life in a direction that most benefits those who live it.

Often, however, he laments his position as a mutant pariah, and wonders why he possesses the instincts of a more social creature.

Pendulum's namesake gives him the ability to speed up, slow down, and even stop time in a small area, though he cannot reverse it. Anything caught within the area of this time manipulation field is effects, though the area is small and is difficult to expand. It takes an absurd amount of concentration and power for Pendulum to speed up time using the pendulum, and so uses that function infrequently.

Pendulum has discovered little about the origin of his pendulum since he has found it, because few seem to know anything about a mysterious metal disc that ended up on the ocean floor. Pendulum suspects it was some sort of resonance with the artifact that caused him to blindly 'walk towards it in the first place. Pendulum is not a big believer in coincidence.

His skin is highly resistant to pressure, and rather sturdy for how thin it appears overall. His arms are relatively weak, more suited for delicate work, though his tail makes him a powerful swimmer if a ponderous land-dweller. Of all his anatomy, most fascinating is his tongue.

When extended, the tongue splits apart to reveal dozens of writhing, red tendrils. When these tendrils come into contact with a sentient being, it allows Pendulum to transfer a portion of his consciousness into that being. The more intimate the contact, the more consciousness he can transfer. This is useful when he needs to locate, isolate, and neutralize difficult genetic deformities or other troublesome health issues.

He is capable of modifying his body in permanent, if subtle, ways. Something about his genetic codes makes instantaneous evolution possible, though it requires concentration on his part. This can be used to increase giving him echolocation, the ability to sense movement through vibrations in the ground, the ability to see infared and ultraviolet light, or even magnetic and electrical fields. He has the limited ability to shape-shift, but dislikes the feeling he gets when he does so. He tends to remain in his current form.

When summoning creatures (which is not often for combat, but for observation), they tend to be homunculus or other strange creature of the deep ocean or deep jungle. They are almost guaranteed to be venomous.