My eyes shut tight as I screamed, and my hands went to my neck, but there was no blood, no pain, no wound of any kind. Also, I was standing up, and that was weird. I opened my eyes.
This was not Plana. An outcrop of light brown rock stretched out before me, ending at a sharp point. Beyond that was outer space. Twinkling stars and swirling nebulae, emptiness beyond emptiness. It was beautiful, peaceful, and terrifying. Where the outcrop ended, a gray rectangle floated in the nothing, clearly outlined. A simple phrase stood out from its surface in white lettering.
Quit Game
As my gaze settled on the bar, I experienced a sense of vertigo. I could feel myself tipping, falling, though I was standing still. My heart dropped out of my chest, and I felt the same fear that I had what could have only been moments before as a monster made a meal of my throat.
I turned away from the bar, holding my head as the dizziness subsided. The view behind me was very different from the one ahead.
The platform I was standing on was shaped like a diamond, extending an equal distance in both directions. One end led to the void, and the other, back to Plana. I could see the field around my spawn point, frozen in a still image, obscured as if by a pane of fogged glass.
Another gray bar sat suspended in the image.
Continue
There was also a centaur.
He was standing beneath the ¡°Continue¡± bar. The part of his body that was a horse had a white coat and tail, as sleek and pristine as a unicorn. His human torso was bare, a lean body on the edge of gauntness. Long black hair framed an angular face, chiseled, with high cheekbones and a full mouth, but only one eye. He wasn¡¯t missing an eye. There was no eyepatch, no empty socket, the eye was oversized, and centered above his nose. This centaur was also a cyclops.
¡°Ah,¡± I said, ¡°Uh.¡±
The centaur regarded me in silence, his expression severe. I had a lot of questions, but I settled for the basics.
¡°Where am I?¡± I asked.
¡°An interstice,¡± the centaur said, his voice quiet, but clear, ¡°a threshold.¡±
¡°Do you work for Mizu?¡± The goddess had said that when I died, I would go on my way like any normal soul, hadn¡¯t she? There had been no mention of a respawn option.
The centaur frowned. ¡°She is my supervisor, but I do not work for her. My name is Liminus, and I am the entity charged to serve as a guide for those who leave Plana with their souls intact, easing their transition.¡±
¡°Does everyone get a respawn option?¡±
He shook his head and clip-clopped closer. ¡°Your case is unusual. Mizu has decreed that you may go forward or back. I can offer you counsel, but you must decide of your own free will.¡±
That was good news. A second life that lasted less than twenty-four hours would have been kind of a gyp. But maybe I wasn¡¯t cut out for this. Mizu had given me this chance because a mistake on her part had caused my death, not because I was special or deserved it.
¡°What happens if I choose not to go back? I¡¯ll just go to the normal afterlife, right?¡±
Liminus shook his head, his long, dark hair swaying. ¡°I cannot say. To attain what is next, a soul must pass through the celestial forge. Some are annealed, while others are melted for scrap, their essence becoming the fuel of some future life.¡±
Wait, what?
¡°Not everyone gets an afterlife?¡±
Liminus stopped a pace away from me and gestured toward the void. I turned, trying not to look at the ¡°Quit Game¡± bar, and took in the stars. The longer I looked, the more there seemed to be.
¡°Infinity is not infinite,¡± he said. ¡°The stuff of which souls are made is valuable. Life is a test, of sorts, and the reward for a life well lived is to be tested yet again. Those who fail are not worthy of continued existence.¡±
¡°Jesus,¡± I said. ¡°What kind of test is it? What happens if I go forward?¡±
¡°Strong souls pass through the forge to enter the Hierarchy. The weak, the dissolute, dissolve.¡±
¡°How do I know which one I am?¡±
He stepped beside me. ¡°It is difficult for one who has lived only a single life to understand. Surviving the forge requires a soul to be solid, defined. Some people know who they are and possess a core of diamond. Others merely think they know, but their core is like a lump of clay, easily molded, easily dissolved.¡±
Out there, in the darkness, a pink and green nexus swirled, a galaxy vaster than the milky way. Watching it, I did not feel like a person with a core of diamond.
¡°But I can just go back to Plana? Does that mean I can live forever? I don¡¯t have to worry about the whole celestial forge thing?¡±
He placed a hand on my shoulder. Its warmth made me realize how cold I was.
¡°There is a cost.¡±
Of course there was.
¡°If you choose to return to life,¡± he said, ¡°A piece of your soul will be consumed to fuel your rebirth.¡±
¡°So if I die again, it will be even harder for me to make it through the forge?¡±
¡°Life is life. A soul can strengthen and grow, or it can sicken and shrink, according to its experiences. If you are not ready now, you may be ready when you come to me again. All lives end. It is the condition of the soul when it reaches that end which is of significance.¡±
¡°Can you tell me how to improve my soul?¡±
¡°I could, but it would not matter. You will not remember our meeting.¡±
I stepped out from under his hand, turning to confront him.
¡°That¡¯s messed up,¡± I said. ¡°Why would I forget this? I remember meeting Mizu.¡±
His one oversized eye settled on me, and in it, I saw the same void that I was so afraid of meeting.
¡°I told you that your life is a test. To provide you with the answers would nullify its purpose. I can give you whatever counsel you require in making your decision, but once that decision is made, it will be as if we never spoke.¡±
¡°What about normal people? They don¡¯t have a choice to go back. How do you guide them?¡±
His expression softened. ¡°Some find solace in conversation. Others discover themselves, or what they believe themselves to be, in this place of clarity. Being confronted with infinity puts one¡¯s existence in perspective. This interstice will not make a weak soul into a strong one, but it can provide those who are nearly ready a place to prepare themselves for judgment.¡±
If there was one thing I knew, it was that I was not ready for judgment. I¡¯d had a lot of advantages in life. I was pretty smart, and I had a wonderful family. It would have been possible for me to lead a relatively happy, productive existence even after dropping out of highschool. There had been plenty of time for me to figure myself out, and though things hadn¡¯t been perfect, there was no excuse for what I had done. I was nineteen when I was arrested, and as I grew up, I had come to think of incarceration as a kind of crucible of its own, an opportunity to make a better version of myself, but I doubted that kind of crucible was anything compared to something a magic centaur was calling the ¡°celestial forge.¡± After my release, I may not have been an amazing success, but I had been working, I¡¯d been with my family, and I was making better choices. I hadn¡¯t been hopeless.
Mizu¡¯s mistake had cut off whatever chance I might have had at developing naturally, of hardening my soul, or whatever people were apparently supposed to do to prepare themselves for what came next. In that context, giving me a second life actually made sense. All souls were tested, and my test had been interrupted, so Mizu had provided me with another.
Then I had died in a day.
I wasn¡¯t ready to go forward, but I could be. Liminus wasn¡¯t allowed to give me hints because figuring things out for yourself was a part of the test, so extending the conversation was pointless. Stars flickered in their multitudes, beckoning me forward into oblivion.
I turned from the void.
5: My Second Second Life (Rewrite)
I woke up in a field. Nothing particularly special about it, but there were woods behind me, a mountain ahead, and I was completely naked. It took me a second to realize that I¡¯d had this exact experience before. The details of my death were hazy, but I remembered the previous day, the appearance of monsters, and my original conversation with Mizu. It wasn¡¯t hard to piece together what had happened. The sun was barely peeking over the mountains, and their shadows seemed to stretch impossibly far.
I had died again, but the System came with a respawn mechanic.
My hands went to my ears, both ears, and they were fine. There was nothing different about my body, no injuries or scars, and I wasn¡¯t even hungry. There was no health bar floating in my vision, but I guessed that meant I was back to ten hearts. Dying reset your appetite, but it didn''t reset everything. The elder sign was still on my right hand, and when I tapped it, the blue screen reappeared. My Miner ability was at three, and my journal had all the notes and notifications from the previous day, as well as the additional tabs that had been unlocked. My overall level was back to one. Death caused me to lose experience. Did that mean that if I died now, with no levels to lose, that I would die for real?
Maincraft respawned you at your point of origin. The obsidian block was still where I remembered it being, but I felt like it was farther away than it had been the first time. Had I come back into the world in the exact same position, or was it more that I was set to spawn in this general area? Being naked again made sense, at least where it related to how the game worked. You lost your stuff when you died unless you went to find it before it despawned. Experience too. But in the game, you came back immediately, not the next morning.
What about my stuff?
I walked toward the rising sun. As long as I had spawned in the same location as before, then I should be able to walk to my shelter with no trouble, and my stuff would be there. The System notification had stated that the monsters would be banished by the sun, so at least I wouldn¡¯t have to worry about the zombies hanging around my shelter.
"Zombie" was a convenient term, though not exactly accurate. The monster that killed me was not an animated corpse, and their vibe was more Lovecraft than Maincraft. Trans-dimensional tentacle having skin flap monsters. Shamblers. My first notification had referred to the mark on my hand as an elder sign, which was a phrase straight out of the Cthulhu mythos.
It did look pretty eldritch. So I wasn¡¯t just isekaied into a Lord of the Rings type world with Maincraft adjacent powers, the entire set-up was sticky with Lovecraft jam. Thanks, goddess. Appreciate the heads up.
My shelter came into view, a sad little shack surrounded by a murder of crows. The birds didn¡¯t seem scared of me at all. Some were squatting on my roof, and others crowded around my previous body, enjoying the continental breakfast.
My body hadn¡¯t vanished when I died, or exploded into confetti, or anything cool at all. It was just there, splayed out to one side of my shelter a few paces from the stream, all kinds of mangled and gnawed on. I wasn¡¯t sure if it was the shamblers or the birds who had eaten my eyes, but someone had. Also, a lot of my skin was gone, like more than you would expect. It was hard to tell how much actual meat was missing, and they had cleaned the stomach area out, but man, had they been after that sweet, sweet skin.
It was so bad, so surreal, that I actually didn¡¯t freak out that much. This was something you would see in a horror movie, a set piece. It wasn¡¯t me. That hadn¡¯t happened to me. Besides my body, there were also two shambler corpses, which I noted the birds were ignoring. The smell was powerfully swampy.
"Hey guys," I said to the crows, "excuse me, hey, excuse me.¡± My backpack¡¯s straps had snapped, which made it mercifully easy to get it away from my corpse after I¡¯d shooed the birds. The crows were absurdly casual about my arrival, as if I was just another scavenger and no threat to them. My shack was still intact, and there were no shamblers lurking inside of it. They had also left my worktable alone.
Trying not to look at my corpse or the animals feasting on it, I took a quick inventory. My coin supply was very low, but all my tools were intact. The garden was trampled, but it hadn¡¯t been in the process of producing anything edible anyway. I liked to think of myself as a pragmatic person. It wasn¡¯t always true, because I had a habit of getting bad ideas and chasing after them, especially when I was younger. But what I am is goal-oriented, and I tend to take things in stride.
When a judge gave me fifteen years, I had gotten back to the pod and people had asked me how court had gone. When I told them, they didn''t believe me. This occurred multiple times throughout that evening. Other inmates asked me how much time I¡¯d gotten, and I told them the truth, and they thought I was joking.
The way I had reacted didn¡¯t seem genuine to them. I had just come back into the pod and gone back to reading a book. It was from the Dune series, the good stuff, before Frank Herbert¡¯s son ruined it.
I¡¯m not normal. I know I¡¯m not normal, though I really don¡¯t know what normal is. My emotions could be all over the place, particularly at that age. I¡¯d had extreme reactions to non-events, while my feelings about major life changes came across as muted. In my twenties, a psychiatrist had diagnosed me as bipolar, and given me pills, but honestly, psychiatry is a load of crap. They don¡¯t know what¡¯s going on with you. No one knows. We all just make it up as we go along, doctors included. The process of getting older had allowed me to calm down and figure myself out.
So when I got back to camp, I didn¡¯t waste time feeling feelings, because I had stuff to do. I had a challenge. The only quest the System had given me seemed like a joke, but I could give myself one.
"Captain¡¯s log," I told my journal. "Quest Update, construct a shelter sufficient to survive the night. Reward. Not getting eaten."
All right then. I shooed the crows, waving my ax around, and they left my body to alight on the roof, cawing and crowing their disapproval of my rude behavior. I¡¯d deal with them later. First things first, I needed wood. Most of the morning went to shaving off the edge of the treeline of the closest forested area. Traveling into the forest itself was murder on my bare feet, and over the course of a couple of hours of work I could already feel the sun¡¯s rays prickling my skin with the promise of impending sunburn.
Clothing was a must. As I carried back a pack full of mixed coins, logs and sticks and leaves, my thoughts turned to armor. In Maincraft, mobs dropped loot. Monsters sometimes carried equipment, as well as materials specific to their species. Spiders dropped string, Voidmen dropped Void Pearls, and Creepers dropped gunpowder. I was lucky the only thing I had to deal with was zombies. A single Creeper would have blown any shelter I constructed wide open.
Passive mobs, like cows and sheep, dropped meat and materials. Sheep gave you wool, which was necessary for crafting your first bed, and cows gave you leather. Leather armor was the worst defense in the game and I usually didn¡¯t bother making it. You could make your first iron set relatively quickly. But killing the zombies hadn''t resulted in item drops, and I suspected that mechanic would not be a part of my adventure.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The crows were back to pecking at my corpse, and I glared at them while squatting beside the bodies of the zombies I had killed. While the monsters had not disintegrated into convenient item drops, that didn¡¯t mean they weren¡¯t potentially harvestable.
I started swatting at the skin flap robes and nothing seemed to happen. No cracks formed to hint that I was making progress, but I kept at it, just in case. After a full minute of fruitless patting, something truly horrible occurred. I got a new coin.
The zombie''s insides looked even worse than its outsides, and the coin felt exactly like what it was. My materials log contained a new entry.
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[Tainted Leather]
Why would you do this? Leather is a highly versatile material with many possible uses. It can be obtained by harvesting the skin of any animal of sufficient size. For whatever reason, you have collected it from a koroshai.
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¡°I¡¯m working with what I have,¡± I told the screens. ¡°Give me a cow, and I¡¯ll make leather out of a cow.¡± Why was the System so judgmental? After skinning both zombies, the result was something akin to a grotesque art exhibit. Their musculature was recognizable, but deformed, and the placement of the tentacles didn¡¯t seem to make sense, anatomically speaking. They were just tubes of meat hanging from their abdomens.
There was very little blood. The insides of the zombies were surprisingly dry, and less fleshy than I would have expected. These monsters were part plant or fungus. What looked like gray and white threads of mycelium had saturated their musculature. The smell had actually diminished now that their skin was gone, and it reminded me more of decaying leaves than what I thought a body should smell like.
I now had eight leather coins, and if the formula from the game held true, then that would be enough to make only a single item of clothing. It took eight leathers just to make a chestplate, and seven for pants. While covering my nethers was tempting, and sunburn was a potentially serious issue, I opted for boots to begin with. My feet were all kinds of scraped and chafed. Walking around the field was one thing, but a forest was no place to go barefoot, and my lack of footwear had severely hampered the rate at which I was collecting wood and exploring.
At the worktable, I placed coins in the left and right bottom corners, and one more above each of those, leaving what looked like an empty T in the middle of the grid. When I pulled the lever on the side of the table, the coins disappeared, and I was gifted with a fresh pair of boots.
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[Tainted Leather Boots]
Armor Rating: 1
As sturdy as they are disturbing, these boots will keep your feet safe in treacherous terrain. What they lack in style they make up for with comfort and dependability.
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The boots were tall enough to reach up to my mid-calf, and the leather was a brownish green with a bumpy, mottled surface. I dusted off my feet and slipped them on. Socks would have been nice, but as promised, they were actually quite comfortable. Taking a few practice steps, I found they were already as soft as if a previous owner had broken them in. Wearing them gave me a new sense of confidence. Despite still being free in the breeze, I felt less naked now that I had footwear. I looked back to where my original body was still being ravaged.
The first crow didn¡¯t see me coming, but the others figured it out pretty quickly. An ax was not an ideal weapon for merking small animals, but it got the job done and I managed to get two of them before the entire flock was up in the air and screaming crow curses at me.
"Hey!" I shouted. "You started this!"
I buried my body, and then, after some thought, buried the remains of the zombies as well. It turned out that I could harvest the crow¡¯s feathers, but not their meat, which was a major disappointment. I snacked on the last of my blackberries while thinking about fire.
You needed coal or charcoal to craft torches and campfires in the game. You could also use flint and tinder to light flammable materials, but I had neither. What I had was a chisel, dry grass, sticks, and the survival skills of someone who had seen movies. So how did I make fire?
Logically, I knew that doing the spinny-stick-to-make-fire routine wasn¡¯t as easy as it looked on television. But I had what I had, and I was going to give it my best effort. I set up a little campfire zone in the area I had cleared of grass the day before and attempted the friction method of starting a fire.
I set up some wood, put dry grass on and around them, and grabbed my sword. I had yet to actually try using the wooden blade in combat, though it actually looked quite sharp, and from the performance of my ax, I had no doubt it would do its intended job when it came down to it. But right now, I wanted it to do a job for which it was not intended. Its handle was perfectly round and smooth, which probably wasn¡¯t ideal for a grip, but it was convenient for this.
Feeling ridiculous, I carefully placed the point of the sword on top of my chosen stick and used it as a drill. Despite being made from the same material, the point had no trouble biting into the stick. I spun the handle between the flats of my hands, expecting nothing but embarrassment and failure.
A few seconds later, a thin tendril of smoke rose from the point of contact. I got so excited that I misaligned the sword and it popped off where it was supposed to be, but proof of concept had been established. After long minutes of many failed attempts, as well as careful rearrangement of sticks and grass and dropping to blow on smoldering stalks, only to have the beginnings of a flame die out, I had a fire.
It was definitely a cheat. There was no way that should have worked. Gutting the crows was unpleasant, but I soon had a nice thing going, and built up a nice campfire to roast them with.
They were almost ready to eat when I saw the riders. Two figures, a man wearing a breastplate and a girl with long brown hair. She was a lot smaller than him and looked like a kid on top of her full-sized horse. The pair had come to a stop a respectful distance away from me beside the stream, at least a football field between us.
¡°Hey!¡± I shouted, holding both my arms up in the air to show I was unarmed. Neither rider had weapons out, and I took that as a good sign. ¡°Hello!¡±
The man said something to the girl, and the two of them wheeled their mounts around and kicked them into a gallop.
¡°Wait!¡±
I ran after them, but it was quickly apparent that I would not outpace a horse. They were headed in the same general direction as the stream, and I continued to follow them as the distance between us lengthened.
Civilization, humans, had to be nearby. But you could cross a lot of distance in a day on a horse. If the pair had been out here looking for me, they wouldn¡¯t have run away. Maybe they had been hunting, or just out for a ride. The man had looked like he might have been a soldier, but the girl had been wearing a riding dress, and I hadn¡¯t noticed either of them carrying a bow. If they hadn¡¯t been out here looking for me, then their reaction had been reasonable. Confronted with a naked crazy person in the wilderness, avoiding contact was a solid response.
Eventually, I lost sight of them completely. I continued to walk for a while, but I couldn¡¯t be sure if they would stick to the same direction, or how far away their destination was. Finding other people was a priority, but it came second to surviving the night.
I needed to get back and finish my shelter.
6: My Second Night (Rewrite)
Dying from smoke inhalation would have been a real downer after all the preparations I had made during the day, but I wanted an inside fire. I added an addition to the shack, creating a U shaped wall out of birch blocks and attaching it to the open end to contain my fire pit. Then I made a ceiling and chimney out of logs. I¡®d removed the planks I had hastily used to block off one end of the shelter the previous night, and sealed myself in with blocks instead. The extra thickness made me more confident that zombies wouldn¡¯t be able to bust their way through during the night.
The sun had almost fallen when I sealed off the entrance to my shed and lit the firepit, once again using the same trick with my sword. Apart from the chimney, there was only one other opening, a telescoping window I¡¯d made of blocks sticking out from one side of the shelter.
I had plenty of fuel to last me the night. I would just have to throw logs into the fire whenever it died down, but after only a few minutes, I saw the flaw in my plan. My eyes were watering before it was even fully night time. There wasn¡¯t proper airflow in my shack, so not all the smoke went up the chimney. I¡¯d thought adding the window would help with that, but it seemed like I¡¯d arranged things wrong.
Laying down on my grass mat, I could keep below the haze. The smoke gathered in my ceiling before floating out through the chimney. About halfway into my second log, I heard something brush against the side of my shelter. The noise repeated, and then escalated to a long, slow scrape. I grabbed my sword. It wasn¡¯t an ideal weapon to wield in a confined space, but it was better than nothing. The blocks that made up the walls remained firmly in place. Whatever magic my System imbued them with could put together some very sturdy structures, which was handy, because I didn¡¯t have any nails or mortar.
Another shambler announced itself with a series of thumps on the other wall of my shelter. Did they really understand that I was in here, or were they just attracted to anything man made? The intelligence level of the monsters was important, because once I got established, mindless zombies would be easier to deal with than canny vampires or whatever.
Zombies were soft, crappy robots that tried to eat you. But if these were space demons, Cthulhu style, it would lead to a lot more problems. Would I be able to keep them out with a door, or would I always have to seal myself in a cage? Would they work together? Use tools?
Through the window, I could see them shambling around in the moon''s light. One monster approached the opening and blocked it, trying to reach in. I jabbed at it with my sword. It tried to grab the blade, shredding its hands, and after a few minutes of this treatment, the zombie tripped off to bang against the side of the shelter.
One zombie was not attacking. It was standing still a few paces away from the window, utterly still. It was wearing my face. The mask fell well short of being a disguise. They had stripped the skin from my previous body, and I had assumed they¡¯d just eaten all of it.
Not so.
This zombie had apparently stitched my old face over his. It was gory, terrifying, and utterly baffling. Everything I thought I had figured out about these monsters crumbled into nothing. This was not animal behavior. Some of them, at least this one, had to be capable of thinking big thoughts. It was watching me like I was watching it.
More than that, the zombies did not burn away in the sun. They went somewhere, and then they came back. This was the same monster that had killed me.
A part of me wanted to open up the shelter and try to finish it, but that impulse was quickly stifled. The idea that it was walking around with some of my skin was not just horrifying, it was infuriating. I wanted to destroy this thing, but I knew that if I went out there, I was in for a repeat of the previous night. For the moment, it seemed they could not break through the walls. That''s what I needed to focus on.
Sleep seemed out of the question. One foot of birch wood stood between me and the flesh eating monsters who were actively trying to get in. The heat was uncomfortable, though there was a steady flow of cooler air dropping in from the window. It was a muggy summer night, and the smoke had dried out my eyes and throat. I kept my weapons close and waited for the hours to pass.
I really wanted some water. Why hadn''t I made bowls? The recipe was simple, three planks arranged in a V. It had slipped my mind, and now the work table was outside. They would be on my list first thing in the morning.
In Maincraft, there were a variety of monsters that spawned at night. Zombies, skeletons, spiders, phantoms, creepers, and a bunch of other crap. Creepers were the worst. So far, the shamblers seemed to be a zombie equivalent, and I had seen no other mobs the night before. I felt like that was a good sign, because variety would be harder to handle. In the game, skeletons all had bows and knew how to shoot them, and the spiders stayed around after the sun had risen, though they were less aggressive in daylight. Dealing with any of that would be more than what I was prepared for right now.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
By the third log, the number of shamblers outside of my shelter had skyrocketed. An accurate count wasn¡¯t possible, but I estimated more than a dozen. They had blocked off my window with their bodies, and I didn¡¯t bother trying to ward them off. This way, I wouldn¡¯t have to stare at the spooky one all night. The bumping and grinding blurred into a creepy ambience. Occasionally, they moaned, but they didn¡¯t seem to get tired. Real zombie behavior. Single-minded, ceaseless, and hungry.
At some point, I think I dozed off, either because I was tired or because smoke inhalation was putting me at an oxygen deficit. The fire was down to embers. It was almost totally dark within my box, and there was just enough light to make out the shape of the shambler that was in there with me.
The sword hilt was still in my hand, and as the shape lurched over me, I reacted instinctively, angling the point of the blade up so that it came down on top of it. I felt wetness dripping as it pressed itself down, heedless of its own impalement, and used the blade in its body to throw it to one side.
The light levels had gotten too low, and one of them had spawned inside with me. The zombie was dragging itself up the blade, teeth gnashing, blind eyes rolling in its skull. I scrambled away, searching for the ax, which I had left near the fire pit. I got my hands on it at the same time as the zombie grabbed one of my feet.
Fortunately, I hadn¡¯t taken off the boots, and its teeth sank into the leather. Twisting, I brought the ax down solidly into the middle of its back, and it spasmed. I freed my foot and got up onto one knee, hitting it again just behind its head. It stopped fighting, and I thought it was dead, so I tried shoving it to the opposite end of the shelter after turning on my status screen for a little more light.
A tentacle slipped out from its flesh folds and latched onto my arm, its mouth like that of a lamprey. I jerked my arm away in reflex, and it took a chunk of skin away with it. Blood ran from the wound, and I felt a little sick. The shambler still wasn¡¯t moving, but that one tentacle was busily swallowing the flesh it had taken out of my arm like a satisfied snake.
I hacked it with the ax and kept hacking until I was sure the entire creature was well and truly dead. The glow of my status screen only cast more shadows. I didn¡¯t believe for a second that it would prevent spawns on its own. The shambler stank like a cesspool, and I tried not to breathe too deeply as I coaxed the fire back to life and piled on more wood.
My arm and hand were slick with blood, and it was the best I could do to press grass against the wound to stem the bleeding. I was lightheaded, and my heart wouldn¡¯t slow down, panting despite the discomfort of mild smoke inhalation, or maybe because of it. I felt like I couldn¡¯t get enough oxygen, and I put my head back down to get under the haze.
The smell of the dead shambler was overpowering. Pretty soon, it was making me retch. I plugged my nose with rolled up grass bits and resolved to wait out the rest of the night.
I knew when it was morning because of the notifications.
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Achievement: Sheltered (1)
You are no longer a homeless vagabond! Your penalty for social interactions is revoked, so go make some friends!
Achievement: Survivor (1)
You have existed for twenty-four consecutive hours without dying. What an accomplishment! Base physiology adjusted accordingly.
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I had started with a social penalty? Was that why the riders had run off? This System really needed a help function. And what was this about my base physiology being altered? There was no other notification to explain what that meant, but I checked my main status screen, and there it was.
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Name: William
System Type: Survivor
Level: 4
Advancement: 72%
Attributes:
Might: F+
Speed: F+
Presence: F
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My Might and Speed had both increased, and Presence was no longer at a minus, which must have been the social penalty. That was fine, but it didn¡¯t fix my arm or get me a consistent food source. How strong was ¡°F+¡± supposed to be, anyway?
I harvested a hole in the wall and scrambled out of my shelter to get away from the stench and the smoke and breathed deep from the chill air of morning. It was a new day. The bite on my arm felt like it was on fire, and given the creature that had bitten me, there was no way it would not get infected. I needed to find people, ask for help and medicine. Stat. I made a note.
"Captain¡¯s log; I am in a fantasy world, and I have incredible magic powers. My struggle to survive continues."
7: My Third Day (Rewrite)
I was definitely faster. The events of the previous night should have had me passing out from exhaustion, but getting out of the shed had given me a second wind, and apart from my arm, I actually felt healthier than when I had first spawned in the new world. I¡¯ve done a good bit of hiking, and I know I can keep a little over a three miles an hour pace up and down hills for an extended period. I know what that feels like, and I knew I was going faster. What had been my quickest pace before the upgrade now felt more like an amble. My fast walk was at the speed of a reasonable jog.
With a backpack full of coins and a few of my tools, I set off in search of humanity. Following the stream was my best guess. Even if I hadn¡¯t seen the riders headed in that direction, a water source is as important for towns as it is for individuals. Though it had come at the cost of a bite wound, the zombie that attacked me the night before had provided me with enough leather to craft myself a pair of pants. They were the same unappealing color and texture as the boots, but I felt like a new man.
The stream eventually linked up with an actual river, which was an enormous relief. More water, the potential for fish, and an increased chance of someone having settled nearby. The river was twenty feet wide, as well as deep and fast-moving enough that I couldn¡¯t see the bottom except along the edges.
The landscape had changed little otherwise, patches of trees amid the grassland and some rolling hills. The mountains were long behind me. If the journey took longer than a day, I knew I could craft a shelter sufficient to last me through the night. Food was still an issue, and I hadn¡¯t come across any more berries, but I wasn¡¯t in danger of starving in a few days. As long as I had water, hunger would stay a nuisance for a long time before it became a health risk. Along the way, I harvested some tall grass and a couple of trees in my path.
The sun was at its peak when the riders found me.
The man and the girl were back, and they had brought friends. The new people were all riding ponies, and I realized the girl had not been a child. She was a young woman who happened to be very short, but there was nothing childish in her expression or the way she held herself . Except for the first man, these were little people; halflings or hobbits or whatever they called themselves in this setting. The guys on the ponies weren¡¯t much bigger than the girl, and it made me wonder why she was the only one of them riding a full-sized horse.
The man pulled up first. He was blonde, with a well-trimmed beard and the face of a chad. Square jaw, hunter¡¯s eyes, everything. His breastplate didn¡¯t look new, but it was well cared for, and he had a sword at his hip. Except for the girl, the little folk all carried spears.
¡°Hi,¡± I said. ¡°My name¡¯s Will. Nice to meet you.¡±
My words caused a stir in the group, and those that had spears leveled them in my direction. The man turned to the girl and said something that sounded vaguely german. She replied to him in a different language before addressing me in English.
¡°Man of Dargoth,¡± she said, ¡°what brings you to the Free Kingdoms?¡±
¡°Sorry, I didn¡¯t mean to offend anyone,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m new here, and I¡¯m camping where you saw me the other day. I don¡¯t have a lot of supplies. Is there a town around here, because I could really use some help?¡±
They glanced at each other again.
¡°Are you alone?¡± the chad said, thankfully switching to English.
¡°Yeah,¡± I said. How much did the people here know about transmigrators? The message carved into an obsidian block was enough to tell me I was not the first. But that didn¡¯t mean that people thought it was a good thing, or that others like me hadn¡¯t caused serious trouble in the past.
¡°Where did you come from?¡±
¡°I¡¯m not sure how to answer that.¡±
The man frowned and said something to the woman in the German-sounding language.
She watched me, her gaze traveling in a way that had me sucking in my stomach before settling on my elder sign. Her eyes were gray. They widened.
¡°Is that the mark of the Dark Lord on your hand?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t think so,¡± I said.
¡°What do you mean? You speak Kevinian, and you bear his mark. Where did you come from, if not Dargoth?¡±
Kevinian? That had to be a coincidence.
¡°It¡¯s complicated,¡± I said. They might think I was lying or crazy, but I didn¡¯t have enough information about this world to lie convincingly, and half answers were just going to make them more suspicious. ¡°I didn¡¯t choose to get this mark, and I don¡¯t know what or where Dargoth is. I¡¯ve never been anywhere but here.¡±
At least not in this life.
¡°No one lives here,¡± she said. ¡°If you wish to be treated as a friend, you are going to have to be honest with us. If you are a man of Dargoth, that is one thing, but if you continue to evade our questions, we will be forced to assume you are an enemy.¡±
¡°Okay,¡± I said, taking a deep breath. ¡°I get that. What happened was, I died in another world, had a conversation with a goddess, and got reincarnated here. This mark appeared on my hand after I woke up.¡±
There was a lengthy pause. I got the impression that this woman was the only one who completely understood what I was saying. The man just looked confused, and the other little folk were alert, but they weren¡¯t reacting to my statements as I made them.
¡°What did she look like?¡±
That wasn¡¯t the response I had been expecting.
¡°Who?¡±
¡°The goddess,¡± she said, her gaze intense, ¡°what did the goddess look like?¡±
¡°Young. Beautiful. She had blue hair.¡±
Her lips thinned, and she stared me in the face like she was trying to read the truth there. There were freckles over the bridge of her nose. Very cute.
¡°We need to discuss this with the mayor,¡± she said. ¡°Go back to your camp and do not come this way again until we return.¡±
¡°Wait,¡± I said. ¡°Do you believe me? Has this happened before?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know whether or not you are telling the truth,¡± she said. ¡°You claim to be a hero sent by the goddess, and that is not something words alone will prove. If you stay where we found you, we will meet again soon. But you cannot return with us. If you come to Erihseht without permission, we will treat you as an invader.¡±
¡°I promise not to follow you,¡± I said. ¡°But do you have any food you could spare, or medicine? I¡¯m injured.¡±
¡°Injured how?¡±
I¡¯d covered the bite on my arm with a grass wrap, and when I pulled it back, the stalks stuck to my skin in a way that made me wince. It looked even worse than the last time I¡¯d checked. Inflammation was spreading to my wrist and up my forearm, and the edges of the teeth marks were turning black. My depleted heart bar had remained in place since the night before, though unlike my screens, that was something only I could see.
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The woman spoke to the man, who seemed to disagree with her. After a short back and forth, he produced a small pouch from his saddlebags and tossed it to me. It was full of biscuits. He looked annoyed.
¡°We will bring you something for that wound. Keep it clean. It looks infected.¡±
¡°Thank you,¡± I said, and with a word from the man, the riders began turning away.
¡°Wait. What¡¯s your name?¡±
The woman paused, as if debating whether to answer.
¡°Esmelda,¡± she said, and they trotted away.
It could have gone worse. I¡¯d told them the truth, and no one had tried to kill me. It seemed like they knew about Mizu and people from other worlds. I certainly didn¡¯t think of myself as a hero, but if that was their take on the situation, it would be all the better for me once they were satisfied that I wasn¡¯t lying.
My journey back to base was slower than the trip out. A fever was brewing, and my injured arm was leaden. If they had medicine that would help, great. If not, I would either get over it or die and be reborn.
I¡¯d buried the zombie beside the others, and on my return, I noticed that the original grave had a clutch of small white mushrooms growing out of it. Probably best not to eat those. I wanted to give myself more room in my shelter so I could bring in the worktable and use it at night. Rather than using wood to build it out, I dug down.
Digging graves had shown me how easy it would be to clear out a basement. A few taps to the soil with my wooden shovel was enough to harvest one cubic foot of dirt, creating a hole with dimensions that were disturbingly exact. The original shelter quickly became nothing more than a cover for a dirt staircase down into an underground room. I was a little worried about the potential of collapse, so once I had the space cleared out, I put log poles in each corner and reinforced the ceiling with planks. I¡¯d also lowered the firepit so there was no upper level to the shelter.
The bite on my arm was sore and gross, and the process left me exhausted. I cleaned it in the stream as well and left it unbandaged. Fresh air was supposed to be good for the healing process. I¡¯m pretty sure I heard that somewhere.
Some fish would have been nice, but the stream wasn¡¯t deep enough for anything meaningful to have been swimming through it. My belly grumbled at me after a long day of supernatural labor, but I could afford to lose some weight. The biscuits the man had tossed me were dry and hard and tasteless. Eating them involved a lot of chewing and called for extra water, but I felt full after downing only one, and saved the rest.
The firepit was now at the center of my new basement, and the aboveground portion of the shelter was high enough to give the smoke somewhere to go even if the air flow still wasn¡¯t perfect.
Pulling the lever of the worktable with nothing in the crafting grid caused it to convert into a medallion three inches in diameter, even larger than the resource tokens. It made me realize I¡¯d never tried harvesting my tools, so I did the same thing to my sword, which resulted in a similar medallion, engraved with a simple image representing what it was. After a little practice, I found I could slap the sword medallion from one hand to the other, causing it to manifest already in my grip.
It still wasn¡¯t exactly an inventory, but it was the next best thing.
After a long day and no sleep the night before, the thought of having a nap before monsters started appearing out of the shadows was very appealing. I drank water until I felt full, hoping that if nothing else, the need to urinate would wake me before my fire burnt itself out, though I¡¯d also expanded the pit and stacked it with extra logs to ensure a more reliable burn.
When I shut my eyes, I consciously forced myself to relax, trying to get to that fuzzy place where you can rest without going fully asleep. The nap zone. Not that I would have minded going all the way unconscious. I just didn¡¯t think it was in the cards, but I was sicker than I had thought, and hours passed in an instant soon after I lay down.
As with the night before, I could hear the shamblers gathering outside my walls. Now that I had the crafting table inside, I could do something more productive than just keeping watch on the fire. While my supply of resources was far from infinite, I had enough logs and sticks to spare that I felt comfortable experimenting a little.
After wracking my brain for every recipe I could remember from the game, I started with making some wood slabs. Three wood blocks along the bottom line of the crafting grid produced six slabs. A slab was really just half a block, and I made enough of them to cover my dirt steps so they wouldn¡¯t lose their shape when I walked up and down. A single wood plank placed at the center of the grid converted into a small button, a small rectangular prism with a round portion that could be depressed. It was a tremendous loss of raw material, considering the differences in their size, and I had no idea how I was going to use it yet, but it was one more potential tool in my crafting belt, nonetheless.
Fences and fence gates were resource intensive, and I couldn¡¯t remember the placements they required exactly, so I put off making them for now. One thing I really wanted was a chest, and that was one recipe I knew by heart.
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[Chest, Basic]
This chest, though simple in design, is perfect for storing your hard-earned loot, mysterious artifacts, or that collection of embarrassing leather you¡¯ve been hoarding. It doesn¡¯t come with a lock, so be sure to keep it in a safe place. Treasure attracts thieves like eyeballs attract Voidmen.
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¡°Disturbing, as always, System,¡± I said. The chest was a cube two feet in each dimension, with wooden hinges that opened and shut as smoothly as well-oiled brass. It has an agreeable smell, resiny, and I placed it beside the worktable. I¡¯d wondered what would happen when I crafted large items, but rather than appearing fully manifested, it had come into being already in medallion form, suggesting I wouldn¡¯t have to worry about my table shattering under the weight of a furnace if I ever got the material to make one.
After placing the chest, I stepped back to get a good look at it and immediately felt woozy. My knees trembled, and I placed my hand on the worktable to steady myself. My heart was suddenly racing, and I stood there taking deep, slow breaths until it calmed back down. That wasn¡¯t a good sign. My arm didn¡¯t feel like it was on fire anymore, it felt numb, and the area around the bite was both swollen and bruised. My health bar had dropped by half a heart.
I needed to rest, but I wanted to try one more thing.
The recipe for a sword was one stick in the bottom center, and two wood blocks above it. I tried it without the top wood block, which, as far as I knew, correlated to no item in the game, but I was hoping for a miracle.
The result was a wooden dagger. It looked exactly like the sword, a straight blade with a simple, cross pommel, except in miniature. Once again, the System had given me something that did not exist in the game whose mechanics it mimicked so closely. There had to be other formulas to discover, but that would involve running through a lot of materials. For now, I was satisfied with having a dagger.
The individual logs took a couple of hours to burn down to cinders. It was a rough average, but I needed to sleep if I was going to make it anywhere in this world. I checked on the fire, and built a little pyramid out of logs to ensure it would keep going, watched it for a while, and decided that wasn¡¯t enough. There was always a chance it would burn out, or simply dim enough to create shadows deep enough for a zombie to spawn within.
In a corner of the basement opposite the worktable, I constructed a tiny shelter within the shelter, a box that I would have to crawl inside. A sleeping coffin. I made it longer than it needed to be, but not long enough for two people to fit inside. With an offset plank sticking out past the opening, I could affix a block along the plank in such a way that there was a gap large enough for air to pass, but nothing could reach inside.
As cramped as it was, sealing myself inside of it was oddly comforting. Once again, I passed out shortly after closing my eyes. I freed myself the next morning and shuffled around in a daze, coughing and retching, unable to move my infected arm without severe pain. Rinsing it was an ordeal.
It wasn''t killing me fast, but it was definitely killing me. I considered heading to the forest for some more resource collection, and then didn¡¯t even try. Maybe the little people would come back with some medicine, but I was too exhausted to work, and didn¡¯t care about finding food. Halfway through a biscuit, I spit it out. My mouth and throat were too dry to eat no matter how much water I drank, and I wasn¡¯t even hungry, so I laid down again.
Hours later, I felt even worse. My joints ached, and my entire body felt filled with lead. The elder sign on my hand was warm. I could have written that off as being part of the fever, but it was also glowing. A faint green light glimmered along the lines of the tattoo, and my status screen had nothing to say about it.
I shuffled around the shelter, organizing my coins and prepping the fire, though the night was still a long way off. With the way I was stumbling around, someone could have mistaken me for a shambler. Nausea doubled me over, and I vomited up the meager contents of my stomach.
Cleaning up the mess seemed to take forever, and before I knew it, darkness was approaching again. There had been no visit from the little folk. Hot and cold. I couldn''t think. Everything hurt. Zombie bites were fatal. What a surprise.
Monsters were outside again. My eyes got heavier and heavier. At least it was warm.
The next thing I knew, I was back at my point of origin.
8: My Mushrooms (Rewrite)
"Captain¡¯s Log: Don¡¯t get bitten."
Once again, my level had been reset to one, but I¡¯d kept my skill ranks and journal entries and achievements. My enhanced physiology was still in effect as well. So what was the point of leveling up, anyway?
Something had happened after I died, but the memory had dissolved beneath the morning light. For some reason, it made me think about Hubble images of space. Where did my soul go between the time of my death and the respawn? It clearly wasn¡¯t instantaneous. Maybe souls had to sleep too. I wished I could talk to my brother about it. It was hard for me to remember his face. It hadn¡¯t been that long since I had seen my family, but they seemed so far away. We were literally on different worlds, but the distance shouldn¡¯t have mattered. Distance didn¡¯t make you forget.
The events of the last few days were crystal clear. It was my old life that felt fuzzy. A story I knew well, but that had happened to someone else. Was dying influencing my mind? Even if I could continue to respawn without limit, I couldn¡¯t treat this like a game. I had a feeling that repeated deaths and rebirths would do more than cost me experience.
Back at the base, I recovered my equipment and buried yesterday¡¯s body a little downstream from my shelter. It looked okay except for the arm, which was run through with black lines like poisoned veins. Burying myself a second time was surreal, but didn¡¯t bother me all that much. At least this time, no one had stolen my skin.
The upside of dying was that it reset my appetite. Well rested, and not yet starving, I had an entire day ahead of me to work and plan. As I finished filling in my burial plot, my eyes settled on the area I¡¯d designated as a zombie graveyard. The mushrooms had multiplied, and while most were shriveled and white, a few had spread closer to the shadow of the shelter, and those were purple and fat.
Zombie mushrooms. That couldn¡¯t be good for the environment.
I harvested the tainted mushrooms and the resulting material entry consisted of a three word note.
Do not eat.
What an unnecessary warning. Between building fires and sleeping in a coffin, it seemed like I could reliably survive the night. Now I wanted to know more about how monster spawns actually worked. The System clearly had rules, even if they were a little strange. In order to take full advantage of the gift of a second life, I had to learn those rules and exploit them.
What did I know? The shamblers only spawned at night. The shamblers only spawned if the light level fell below an unknown threshold. What other limitations were there? Using my shovel, I dug out three different cells in the walls of my underground shelter. Two of the cells were five-foot cubes, and one was a three-foot cube. I filled one of the big cells with junk, sticks and logs, grass and loose dirt, to where I couldn¡¯t have fit in there myself unless I curled into a ball on top of all the stuff. Then I blocked off all three cells with log walls. Planks would have taken less material, but I wasn¡¯t sure if planks or fences were strong enough to withstand a zombie banging against them for hours.
The log walls were all missing a single piece near the center, not enough of a hole to crawl through, but enough for me to see inside. I was so preoccupied that I didn¡¯t hear the horses approaching.
¡°Hail, stranger.¡±
It was the chad. I raced up the stairs out of my shelter to discover I had four visitors on horseback. The soldier, Esmelda, and two unfamiliar faces. They were both little folk. One was an older man with curly white hair and pale gray eyes. His clothes were too nice for travel, a bright green vest over a pristine white shirt, and his boots looked like they had recently been shined. The other was middle-aged, with a ruddy complexion and a massive belly. He was wearing a blue stole over a brown robe, and I immediately marked him as a priest.
¡°Hi,¡± I said, waving. ¡°Good to see you again.¡±
The chad soldier looked dour, but Esmelda smiled.
¡°Hello again,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m glad to see you are well. This is my father, Mayor Boffin, of Erihseht,¡± she gestured to the older man, ¡°and this is Pastor Tipple.¡± She glanced back at me and did a double take.
¡°Your arm! It¡¯s healed.¡±
¡°What¡¯s this now?¡± The mayor said.
¡°He was wounded,¡± Esmelda explained, ¡°I told you he¡¯d been bitten. It was there,¡± she pointed at my arm.
¡°I got over it,¡± I said.
The pastor''s pony was as fat as he was, and he came down from it with care. ¡°Let me see,¡± he said. ¡°Where was it?¡±
I lifted my arm. There wasn¡¯t anything there to show him. Damage to my body didn¡¯t carry over from one life to the next.
He frowned. ¡°Not even a scar. What bit you?¡±
I considered making something up, but as I¡¯d already told them I was from another world, I figured I might as well stick with the truth.
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¡°I¡¯m not sure what it was,¡± I said. ¡°A monster. It walked like a human, but it had a lot of extra skin and tentacles. It was the tentacles that bit me.¡±
The blonde man gave a sharp intake of breath, then breathed out a word. ¡°Koroshai.¡±
That was the same word my System had used for monsters, but it was hard not to just think of them as zombies. An alarmed look passed between the mayor and Esmelda, and the Pastor¡¯s face hardened.
¡°Where did you see this creature? Did you kill it?¡±
¡°I buried it over there,¡± I said, gesturing to the shallow graves beside my shelter.
¡°Show me.¡±
I fetched a couple of shovels, and the soldier helped me dig up the zombie while the others gathered around. I could have harvested the dirt much faster than we could dig, but I wasn¡¯t sure how they would react to seeing my abilities in action, so we uncovered it the old-fashioned way.
The shambler was barely recognizable. Its body had mostly dissolved into mycelium and plant-like structures, but the bones had kept their shape. The smell wasn¡¯t as bad as before, though it still reminded me of a swamp.
The pastor touched his forehead and uttered a brief prayer in their language.
The soldier grabbed my arm. ¡°How many?¡±
¡°Uh, lots,¡± I said. ¡°They show up every night.¡±
He let me go and said something harsh-sounding to the mayor.
Boffin shook his head. ¡°We need to know that you are what you claim to be.¡± He said to me. ¡°No hero has come to us in living memory. The koroshai are minions of the Dark Lord. Gastard believes you are his servant, and have come to us in deceit.¡±
So the chad was named Gastard? That checked out.
¡°What can I do to prove it to you?¡± I said.
¡°Show us a miracle,¡± Tipple said. ¡°Every soul chosen by Mizu was blessed by her in some way. You asked Esmelda for herbs for a wound, but now we see you are healed. Is that your gift?¡±
That would be a little complicated to explain. Did all transmigrators come with a respawn mechanic, or was that particular to the Survivor System? Regardless, I wasn¡¯t interested in dying again to prove to them I was special.
¡°Hold on,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯ve got something.¡± I climbed back down into my shelter to retrieve my new backpack and brought it back up. They watched me dig through it for coins, and I picked a bare patch of earth to throw one down on.
Grass appeared at my feet with an audible pop, rising almost to my waist.
They drew back, and Gastard¡¯s sword leapt into his hand. He was a moment from swinging on me when Tipple stepped in front of him. They had a brief argument, none of which I could understand, except it was pretty obvious that Gastard wanted to kill me.
¡°Those coins,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°did you create them?¡±
¡°Sort of,¡± I said. It was easier to show than to tell. I patted the grass with my hand, and a moment later, the material converted back into travel size.
Tipple uttered another prayer, while Esmelda watched me with wide eyes.
¡°It is the power of the Dark Lord,¡± she said. I thought harvesting grass was a weird thing for a Dark Lord to be known for, but I wasn¡¯t in a position to argue.
¡°Why are you here?¡± Boffin asked. ¡°Why have you come to us now?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± I said. ¡°I died, and the goddess sent me here. She gave me a quest, but it didn¡¯t come with instructions. I¡¯m supposed to do something involving a guy named Kevin.¡±
There was a lengthy pause following my statement. The group seemed to wait for me to say more, but that was all I had. The mayor cleared his throat.
¡°We rarely use that name. But Kevin is the true name of the Dark Lord. Dargoth has not stirred in centuries, but he rules there, upon his Throne of Shadows, as he always has.¡±
I guess that meant he would not be my mentor.
¡°You don¡¯t know anything else?¡± Tipple said. ¡°Did Mizu send you to defeat him? To protect us?¡±
I held up my hands. ¡°Maybe? I¡¯m not really clear on any of this. I¡¯ve only been here a few days.¡± Esmelda was watching me with narrowed eyes. ¡°When I saw you riding up the first time, I thought you had come to find me. How did you know I was here?¡±
¡°A dream,¡± she said, ¡°but not of you. I saw shadows rising over the mountains, and monsters, and flames. I saw it night after night, and I asked Gastard to ride with me. When we saw you, I didn¡¯t know what it meant.¡±
¡°Can you talk to the goddess?¡± I asked Tipple. ¡°Does she send you messages?¡±
He shook his head. ¡°We offer her our prayers, and we have the Shui, a record of our history and her teachings. But she does not speak to us directly. Esmelda told me of her dreams, and I wondered if they were visions, but we did not know.¡±
¡°So do you believe me?¡±
Tipple looked at the mayor, whose face had wrinkled with concern.
¡°We will have to discuss this further,¡± he said. ¡°For now, I will ask you to remain here. If the beasts of Dargoth are hunting you, that is a danger we cannot allow you to bring to Erihseht.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not sure if they¡¯re hunting me, exactly,¡± I said. ¡°The zombies appear at night, and they go away in the morning.¡±
¡°All the more reason for you to stay away.¡±
I nodded. They had to think about their own safety first, and it wasn¡¯t as if I¡¯d been planning on moving into the first village I found. As long as monsters were spawning, I would be a threat to anyone who was close to me.
¡°I don¡¯t know where Erihseht is,¡± I said. ¡°Would it be alright if I moved closer to the river?¡±
The mayor frowned. ¡°Where this stream meets Wiskywend, no further.¡±
¡°That¡¯s fine,¡± I said, assuming Wiskywend was the body of water I¡¯d come across the other day. ¡°I don¡¯t want to cause you any trouble. But do you think your village could spare me some seeds? I¡¯d like to grow a garden, and I don¡¯t have much to work with.¡±
¡°We¡can,¡± Esmelda said cautiously.
Gastard said something to Boffin, who nodded.
¡°Gastard wants to see for himself if what you say of the koroshai is true. Will you allow him to stay with you through the night?¡±
¡°I¡¯m okay with that,¡± I said. If anything, having another person with a sword around would make me feel a lot better, as long as he wasn¡¯t planning on killing me himself. ¡°As long as he understands how dangerous that is. As soon as the sun goes down, there are going to be a lot of zombies in the area.¡±
Gastard sheathed his sword. ¡°I want that,¡± he said. It was an odd response, probably because of the language barrier, but as long as he understood the risk, he was welcome to shelter with me.
¡°May the blessing of the goddess be upon you both,¡± Tipple said, touching his knuckle lightly against my forehead, and then Gastard¡¯s.
¡°I will await his report,¡± Boffin said.
¡°Good luck,¡± Esmelda had been staring at me, but under the circumstances, I would have been staring at me too.
The little folk rode off, leaving me with the man. The meeting had been extremely brief, and I felt like they had been in a hurry to get away from me. Maybe it was the monster talk. They weren¡¯t exactly welcoming me with open arms, but they hadn¡¯t been hostile, either.
¡°I¡¯m going to collect some more wood before nightfall,¡± I said to Gastard. ¡°You want to come with?¡±
He grunted. I took it as a yes.
9: My Guys Night (Rewrite)
I fast walked to the eastern forest, and Gastard rode along beside me. I was on the lookout for anything edible, but now that I was in contact with a town, I wasn¡¯t as worried about the food situation. If I was going to build another house by the river, I needed a lot of wood. After a few minutes of watching me process a tree into coins, Gastard got off his horse and strung a bow.
¡°I will hunt.¡± He said, and I gave him a thumbs up. He squinted at the gesture, then returned it, before striding off. Did they not do thumbs-up here? I¡¯d always taken it as being universal, but as similar as Plana was to medieval Europe, there were bound to be some cultural differences.
There were plenty of birds around, but knocking down trees was a good way to spook anything he might have wanted to shoot. I spent a few hours processing trees while Gastard was deeper in the forest. He¡¯d hobbled his horse, and it spent the time munching grass a good distance away from me.
As a bonus, my harvesting session won me a new item.
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[Tree Nuts]
You¡¯ve got nuts. These little guys are nature''s power snacks. They''re packed with energy and nutrients, perfect for keeping you fueled for a long day of crafting. Don¡¯t eat the shells.
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Before harvesting, they were round, brown, smoother than walnuts, but a similar size, and too hard for me to break open by hand. But when they converted to coins and back again, the shells disappeared, and I had myself a satisfying snack. Soon after, Gastard came back with a rabbit, and we returned to camp. As taciturn as he was, I found myself wishing he¡¯d been around all along. He skinned the rabbit like an expert, and it was soon roasting over the fire pit. I broke out the nuts, and he accepted a handful, but didn¡¯t eat them.
Gastard gestured at the cells.
¡°Why?¡±
¡°It¡¯s for the shamblers,¡± I said. ¡°Koroshai. I want to capture them.¡±
He patted his sword at the mention of monsters, and I took that for approval. The nuts had an almost buttery taste, and they were remarkably filling. Either that, or my stomach had shrunken over the last couple of days. Eating them made me feel more energized than a snack on an empty stomach should have. Supercharged. I started fidgeting.
¡°Have you fought koroshai before?¡± I asked.
He shook his head. I followed up with several more questions, but he didn¡¯t have any answers for me. Either he didn¡¯t want to talk or his grasp of English was preventing him from holding a conversation.
Darkness came, and with it, the first moans. The horse was inside with us, which made the shelter feel cramped. It had a hell of a time getting down the stairs.
I¡¯d added a ladder to get up to the window, and Gastard peered through it, muttering something in his language. He was going to have more than enough evidence that the monsters appeared around me at night, rather than having followed me from Dargoth, or whatever he had originally suspected.
¡°Sleep in shifts?¡± I suggested.
He nodded, but it didn¡¯t look like he was interested in going first. I didn¡¯t completely trust him, so I ended up crawling into my coffin and pretending to sleep. I doubted it fooled him, but at least I didn¡¯t have to worry about the fire going out.
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The cells remained empty until the middle of the night. Then it happened. A zombie was shambling around inside the first and largest room I¡¯d excavated. I got out to check on it, and it pressed its nasty face against the hole in the logs, gnashing its teeth at me.
It wasn¡¯t a finished proof, but it seemed like they needed unencumbered space to come into existence. I stabbed it in the eye with my sword and blocked off the cell for good measure. Gastard had drawn his weapon as well, but he let me take care of it. His horse hadn¡¯t liked it when the shambler appeared, whinnying and stamping its hooves, so he went to calm the animal.
¡°Have you seen a zombie out there that looks different from the others?¡± I asked him. He narrowed his eyes, and I waved a hand over my face. ¡°It has human skin.¡± No need to explain whose skin it was. ¡°I think it¡¯s smarter. It stays out of reach.¡±
¡°One is different,¡± Gastard said, and I climbed up to the window to check. I had to wait for another shambler to move out of the way of the opening, but there it was. The monster wearing my face had taken up the same position far enough away from the shelter that I would have to come out to get at it.
Neither the small cell nor the cell filled with junk spawned a zombie at any point during the night, despite having the same light level as the one that had. It was decent evidence that the shamblers would only come into being if there was room for them to do so. Fire or no fire, I could sleep soundly in a coffin.
Gastard walked up the ramp and tapped the wall with his fist.
¡°I would kill the koroshai.¡± He said, turning back to me.
¡°There are too many,¡± I said. ¡°They keep coming all night.¡±
¡°You are afraid.¡± He said. ¡°A hero would not fear them.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t care what you think a hero would do. We¡¯re safe in here, and we¡¯re not out there. I don¡¯t think it matters how many you kill. They would just keep coming.¡±
¡°I will fight them,¡± he said, his face hard.
¡°No, man. I mean, maybe later, when I¡¯ve got some better armor. But I¡¯m not ready yet. Let¡¯s focus on getting through the night.¡±
He came back down and put his hand on my shoulder, gripping hard. ¡°Open the way, and I will fight alone.¡±
¡°No,¡± I said again. ¡°Not tonight.¡± Even if we turned an opening into a choke point, giving the shamblers a way in seemed like the worst possible idea at this point.
We went back and forth about it for a while, with Gastard growing increasingly frustrated by my refusals. What was with this guy? Wanting to kill monsters was admirable, but with as little control as we would have of the situation, it seemed almost like a death wish.
He eventually gave up and went to sulk by the window. We didn¡¯t talk after that.
When the sun rose, the shambler trapped in the cell was dead, and mushrooms were already sprouting from the soil around its body, which was swiftly decomposing.
Whatever these things were, they were unstable. Their flesh broke down quickly, and either they had spores inside of them already or the local spores reacted dramatically to their presence.
¡°I will go,¡± Gastard said. As far as I knew, he hadn¡¯t slept, but he had sat down and closed his eyes for a while, resting his sword across his lap. I harvested enough blocks for him to get out.
Gastard led his horse up the ramp and mounted it once he was outside, not looking at me. I got the impression that he was still salty about not having been able to kill monsters through the night.
¡°I will tell the mayor what I saw,¡± he said.
¡°Great, see you soon. Let them know I¡¯m going to move my shelter to the river.¡±
He grunted and set off. It didn¡¯t look like Gastard and I were going to be buddies, but at least he hadn¡¯t attacked me when we were alone. It was a relief to have people to interact with, even if they weren¡¯t all friendly. From what little information I had, it looked like I was going to have to overthrow a Dark Lord, and that would be easier to accomplish if I had some allies.
I walked around the shelter to check for damage to the walls and was immediately ambushed. The sun was still low in the sky, and there were deep shadows in the lee of my base. It lunged at me as soon as I turned the corner, and we both fell back into the light.
A distorted version of my own face pressed close, its mouth open to reveal jagged teeth, and I put my arm against its throat to prevent it from biting me. The zombie¡¯s skin sizzled as soon as it was in direct sunlight, and it didn¡¯t seem as strong as the last time I had wrestled one.
We rolled, and I got up off of it before the tentacles under its skin cloak latched onto me. Then I kicked it in the head as it rose.
It moaned, and moisture evaporated from its skin in a pale mist. I kept kicking it. I doubted I was going to kill it that way, but it was visibly weakening under the influence of sunlight. Its flesh dried and shriveled, and a moment later, it was on fire.
I backed off, and it crawled toward me. The fire wasn¡¯t normal. It was pure white, with no heat. The flames increased, and rather than continuing to attack me, it thrust itself back under the shadow of the shelter.
That didn¡¯t stop the flames. As I watched, the zombie disintegrated. There was ash and flaked skin left behind, but not nearly enough to account for its entire body, which had simply vanished.
I checked myself for bites, but apart from my racing heart, I was fine.
Well, that was something. Time to start the day.
10: My Second Home (Rewrite)
I picked a pleasant-looking spot beside Wiskywend and dug out a basement before dropping my workbench. Unlike the trickling stream, being beside a real river provided me with a new potential food source. So it was with a sense of excitement that I planted a log at the edge of the river and tied off a fish basket with rope, weighing it down with a few loose rocks before tossing it into the water. It needed bait, but all of my crafted tools so far had been supernaturally effective, so hopefully that would carry over to this trap as well.
There were a few hickory trees nearby, and hickories had been my only source of nuts so far. I hit them first, and rather than saving the nuts for a meal, replanted them. Given the effect my presence had on grass and mushrooms, I was hoping it would lead to a tree farm in short order. Not that there was any shortage of trees, but the majority hadn¡¯t rewarded me with anything edible, so being able to farm the hickory would be a major win if it worked. I spread the seeds out to be sure they would have room to grow, and as there were a couple of pines in the way, I chopped them down as well.
My System dinged.
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| Hello, busy beaver. Your Miner skill has increased to ten. New resource unlocked. Rock on. |
That was enough to get me to drop what I was doing and rush back to my shelter. Digging out the basement had uncovered a trove of small stones, but so far, I had been unable to incorporate any rocks into my crafting.
It was mostly pebbles, which I had piled into a corner, but I had a few larger examples as well. Swatting them with my hand did nothing other than irritate the skin on the side of my palm, so I jumped to trying a wooden pick. The effect was almost immediate. Tiny cracks began appearing in the rock as I tapped away, slowly spreading until it looked like it could shatter at any moment.
Then it popped.
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[Granite Shard]
Use it for crafting stylish Granite Blocks, then build back better. The world is your construction site. What''s next, O Master of Minerals?
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The rock was worth one coin, but the pebbles didn¡¯t get me anything. When I tried to harvest them with the pick, they quickly cracked through, and subsequently exploded into dust. It was the same as with the grass. If there wasn¡¯t enough material to harvest a coin, what there was would just be ruined.
Altogether, there were nearly twenty samples large enough to count as [Granite Shard]s, so I collected them all and took them over to the workbench. There were several fragmented materials in Maincraft that could combine into blocks; copper, gold, and prismarine shards, among others. I filled all nine slots in the crafting grid with my new coins, pulled the lever, and it rewarded me with a [Granite Block].
It was one cubic foot of stone, but the table didn¡¯t show any sign of strain at having to hold its weight. Its sides were smooth to the touch, and its edges were crisp. Mining it took longer than the shards had, but the resulting coin looked about the same. Grey, hard, and stamped with a square.
My pick was looking worse for wear. It was chipped and splintering, and its nose was dull. Clearly, wooden tools were not designed for breaking rocks. As the only tool that could be crafted with a single block was a shovel, I placed two sticks in the bottom center of the grid, topped them with the granite, and pulled the lever.
It did not give me a shovel.
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[Stone Hoe]
Tougher than your average hoe. Stone tools will last longer and be less likely to break when used improperly.
Damage Rating: 2
Speed: Average
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There was some logic to this. The head of a shovel contained more material than the head of hoe, and it was interesting to see that the System had made adjustments to the recipes. In my formula log, there was now an addition to the hoe entry to include the new combination, though the wooden version remained unchanged.
It looked exactly like the original, except for the granite blade, and it was ten pounds heavier. A hoe was not what I would have asked for to be my first stone tool, but as I was planning on starting a farm, it was no cause for complaint either. The tools worked best when they were being used for their intended purpose, but anything could be a weapon. The edge certainly looked sharp enough to cave in a shambler skull if it came to that. Though the damage rating suggested otherwise, I couldn''t imagine how something so heavy and sharp could not be an improvement on a wooden ax.
Planks stacked in any direction, even totally horizontally, with no need for support, held together by the crafting force. There was surely a limit to that somewhere, but I hadn¡¯t found it yet. It was super cool and super in defiance of all rational physics, and considering everything else that had happened, a minor note. I covered the basement with what ended up looking like a wooden trailer, including a short hall to go over the stairs leading down.
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With plenty of time and trees to work with, I was ready to mess with fences. I arranged the basement in such a way that when my coffin was in place, there wouldn¡¯t be enough room for a shambler to spawn anywhere outside of the cells I cut into the earth along the walls. To this end, I employed a maze of fences and gates. It seemed like the mobs needed a five-foot cube of unencumbered space to come into existence, but this would serve as an experiment to see if a taller but thinner area would also do, or a triangular one.
The fence arrangement would theoretically keep me safe to harvest my way out of my sleep box and stab the monsters that appeared in my cages overnight, even if the fire went out. Should I use zombie meat as bait for the fish trap? Probably not. Just farming them for leather was weird enough. What would Esmelda or the mayor think about my cells?
My intentions toward the town and its inhabitants were entirely legitimate. I wanted supplies to expand my crafting capabilities, and also, I was just lonely. It wasn¡¯t like I was going to trap the little folk in cages and poke them full of holes. Human leather would be too thin. My primary worry was that they would send someone to monitor me who could fall prey to the mobs, but after my bro night with Gastard, the townsfolk had to be aware of how dangerous it was to be around me, even when the sun was up.
The shambler that had attacked me that morning was still on my mind.
Mobs that weren¡¯t exposed to sunlight didn¡¯t despawn when the sun came up. It was a helpful mechanic from the perspective of the horror farming sim that had become my life. I could corral monsters for their material, but the threat it posed outweighed that convenience. There were probably dark places near my original base camp teeming with space zombies that had come into existence because of me, either underground or amidst dense foliage. I was still miles from Erihseht, I assumed, and the distance would hopefully keep the villagers from being at immediate risk. How reality-bending, or reality-weakening, could my mere presence be?
Once upon a time, I spent a year in solitary confinement. It¡¯s a weird thing to explain because it¡¯s not easily relatable. Anyone can relate to an emotion like grief. Death, heartbreak, and illness are among a laundry list of hardships that are universal to the human experience. Living in a bathroom surrounded by other people who are also living in bathrooms is not a normal step in the walk of life.
During the COVID lockdowns, people talked about that like it was the same as being in prison, but it wasn¡¯t. The closest thing I can think of is NEET culture, specifically the hikikomori in Japan, a phenomenon where people live in their rooms, usually at their parent¡¯s expense. They may have agoraphobia, PTSD, or some other unaddressed issue. The similarity comes to mind because I could have left solitary after a few weeks, but when they came to release me back into the general population, I refused.
Those refusals were the only institutional charges on my record out of nearly thirteen years of imprisonment. The specific name of the charge was something like "refusing a direct order," because they would tell me to leave and I wouldn¡¯t. The administration put me back there because I¡¯d been in a fight, and it was such an immense relief to finally be alone that I had wondered why I hadn¡¯t ever thought of getting myself into restricted housing before then. There was other stuff going on with me, untreated mental illness, and an unhealthy environment, and I got more and more paranoid the longer I was back there. Eventually, something just flipped, and I wanted to get out, but it took me a long time to make that decision.
This is a long way of saying that I¡¯m not averse to being alone for a while, but that doesn¡¯t mean I like it. People can try to convince themselves that they are better off alone, I certainly did, but they aren¡¯t. If I was going to have a new life in a new world, there needed to be a way for me to live around other human beings without putting them in constant danger by merely existing.
Once the shelter was ready and a fire was burning, I sat down on top of my coffin, surrounded by tools. I¡¯d put telescoped windows around the ground level of the shelter, with ladders to climb up to them. I was staying up to see if the special zombie returned after being burned by the sun.
To pass the time, I whittled. I was no stranger to arts and crafts, mostly painting and drawing. Guys in prison would pay me in commissary to do portraits of their families to send home. But I¡¯d never tried something like this.
The crafting process hardened tools sufficiently that the dagger may as well have had a metal blade. Wood shavings flaked off around me as I quickly got into a flow. Despite my inexperience, my hands seemed to know exactly what they were doing. I smelled the wood, fresh and faintly sweet, and felt the grain under my fingers. It was almost like a road map.
After half an hour, I had something approximating a snake. It wasn¡¯t a shape I had planned out, but it had come together like I was following instructions as I worked. Soon I was nicking a scale pattern along its sides and detailing the eyes. It felt as natural as if I had been doing it for years.
Ding.
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Achievement: Artisan (1)
New skill unlocked: [Artisan]
Being a crafter is more than combining coins. Giving your creations a distinctive flair requires both effort and artistry. Keep practicing, and one day, you might make something to be proud of.
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Was this even a real System, or was it just making things up as I went along? Where was the mentor figure who could guide me on the path of being a Survivor, only to die in a heartbreaking moment of crisis in the second act?
Regardless, the snake was neat, and whittling would give me a hobby while I was alone. As soon as I heard the first moan from outside, I started checking the windows. The zombies were all normal so far, but a new voice had been added to their ethereal chorus.
It started with a wail, somewhere between the screech of a bird and a human scream. Then something thumped on the roof. It scrambled across the planks for a moment, then either went still or jumped off. I had no interest in making another hole to see what it was.
As I continued to cycle around the windows, more wails, thumps, and swooshes followed, and I thought of phantoms.
In Maincraft, if a player goes a few days without sleeping, a flying mob will begin spawning to harass them. My sleep schedule had been irregular, but I hadn¡¯t been going completely without it. Maybe the change in location, or the duration I¡¯d been in Plana, was opening the door for new spawns. It was also possible that whatever was attacking my shelter was a native creature, but that was less likely. A natural animal would have no incentive to attack a house that was already surrounded by zombies.
One of the new monsters did a flyby past a window. I didn¡¯t get a good look at it, but it gave me the impression of a manta ray. Definitely a phantom.
This was a bigger issue than the zombies. A flying mob could cover a lot more ground in a night, or roost in an area sunlight wouldn¡¯t touch. The little folk needed to be warned, and I might have to move back to my original base to give them a larger buffer zone. That sucked. I had been looking forward to having fish outside my door.
I was preparing to lock myself into the coffin for the night when I heard someone laugh. It was a scratchy, high-pitched sound that made the hair on my arms stand on end. I rushed back to the window, and there he was.
The zombie was standing up straight, and he had the broken stick in his hand with a pointed end. He was circling the shelter, and though he was still the same fleshy humanoid that I knew and loved, he could no longer be described as a shambler. Dude looked like he had been doing some physical therapy.
The zombies didn¡¯t just come back every night; they evolved. It looked like the catalyst for that was stealing my skin. Sunlight had banished, but not destroyed him. I couldn¡¯t just think of this thing as the special zombie anymore. He needed a name. Given the circumstances, it wasn¡¯t too hard to think of one. I hadn¡¯t seen Silence of the Lambs since I was a teenager, but it had certainly left an impression.
¡°Goodnight, Bill,¡± I said. Either I needed to figure out a way to kill him in a manner he couldn¡¯t recover from, or trap him, but not tonight. Not with a new mob swooping around outside, and only one stone tool to my name. But soon.
"Captain¡¯s Log: Quest Update. Kill Bill."
11: My Fish and Rocks (Rewrite)
In the morning, as usual, there was no sign of the mobs, phantoms or otherwise. Bill was not waiting for me in the remaining shadows. If he was getting smarter, he¡¯d probably realized that his jump scare hadn¡¯t worked the first time and would be even less effective now that I was on the lookout for him trying something like that again. At this rate, I was going to have to worry about him picking up an ax and hacking his way into my shelter at night.
On the bright side, however, my basket had trapped a fish. It was a couple of pounds at least; silver, slippery, and not corrupted by space zombies at all, as far as I could tell. Gutting it and scraping the scales was not my idea of a good time, but I was so excited to have meat that it didn¡¯t matter.
Fish is not my favorite, but it was the most satisfying early lunch that I have ever had. It was hot, half scorched, unseasoned, and gone all too soon. While waiting for it to cook, I¡¯d done some more perimeter checks and knocked down the remaining trees that were within fifty paces of my shelter.
There were thicker woods a mile to the north, and I had to look at any shaded area as being a potential hiding spot for leftover monsters. When I went harvesting, I was going to have to be more mindful of my surroundings than I had been in the past.
Having fish as a protein source was fantastic, but hunger wasn¡¯t as big of an issue as I would have thought it would be. Working would get my stomach growling, but half a biscuit, a few nuts, and I was full.
There were shamblers in the cells. They didn¡¯t seem to be able to force their way through fencing, so using fences as ersatz cell bars made it much easier to get at them with my sword. They pressed themselves against the bars, gnashing their teeth and stretching their tentacles, which I could lop off at leisure.
Dead shamblers smelled bad, but I had gone nose-blind to it. That suggested something unpleasant about my own aroma, so after coming topside and checking my fish trap the next morning, I jumped in the river and scrubbed myself with sand until my skin was raw. It wasn¡¯t the first time in my life that I¡¯d slacked in the personal hygiene department, and now that I was interacting with other humans, I needed to monitor that sort of thing.
Self-care is an important yardstick for mental health. Either too much or too little, and you know something is wrong. Too little and you''re depressed. Too much and you''re a narcissist or have an anxiety disorder or OCD or something. If Erihseht was open to trade, I might get my hands on some soap.
As I got out of the water, I saw two riders coming upriver and rushed to get my zombie pants back on. The bank of the river was overrun with tall grasses, most of which had sprung up since my arrival, which effectively preserved my modesty. Not that they hadn¡¯t already seen me naked.
¡°Hail,¡± Gastard said. He didn¡¯t look pleased to see me, which I took as a sign he was only here as an escort for Esmelda. They both dismounted, and she took a keen look at my shelter.
¡°You built this in a day?¡± She asked.
¡°That¡¯s my superpower,¡± I said. ¡°It¡¯s not telekinesis, but I¡¯ll take it.¡±
She frowned. ¡°Telekinesis? I¡¯m not familiar with that word.¡±
¡°It¡¯s being able to move stuff with your mind,¡± I said. How much of the English language had been translated into this world, anyway? If the source was only Kevin and other transmigrators like us, there were probably a lot of words and concepts that wouldn¡¯t be part of the vernacular.
¡°If you could do that,¡± she said, ¡°you would be a demon. So I am glad you cannot.¡±
¡°Demon?¡± I imagined a red guy with a pitchfork. ¡°Do you have to deal with a lot of those?¡±
She shook her head. ¡°Thankfully not. They are powerful servants of the Shadow. I know of them only from their mention in the Shui. But it is written that they are sorcerers who can manipulate objects with a gesture or a word.¡±
Noted. ¡°Well, I¡¯ll stick to cutting down trees, then. Did Gastard tell you about the monsters appearing at night? What did the mayor have to say about me staying here?¡±
¡°I told them everything,¡± Gastard said, as if it was an indictment.
Esmelda nodded. ¡°My father and Pastor Tipple have discussed it, and they agree you can remain here, but we ask that you do not enter the village unaccompanied, or come any closer than this point after night falls.¡±
¡°So they believe me?¡±
¡°For now,¡± Gastard said. ¡°You are still a stranger.¡±
¡°I¡¯m fine with that,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m still figuring out how to deal with the monsters myself, and I don¡¯t want to put you in any danger. It¡¯s not just the zombies anymore. There is a flying thing. Not that big, but it was loud. They were screaming all night.¡±
Gastard¡¯s hand went to the hilt of his sword, and Esmelda¡¯s eyes widened.
¡°Kilahoro,¡± she said. ¡°Is that all you have seen? Gastard said it was only the koroshai that attacked the night he stayed with you.¡±
¡°That¡¯s all,¡± I said. ¡°I didn¡¯t catch one, so I can¡¯t tell you much about them. Do you know what they are? Or why these things keep appearing? Are there other monsters I should be worried about?¡±
¡°There are other monsters,¡± Esmelda said, pensive. ¡°You have a power like that of the Dark Lord, and the beasts of Bedlam are said to multiply around him as well. No one like you has come to us since the lillits left Dargoth.¡± She bit her lip. ¡°I don¡¯t know how we can help you, or why you are here. What did the goddess tell you?¡±
¡°Not a lot,¡± I said, ¡°but I have this.¡±
I tapped my elder sign, and Gastard took a step back as the blue screen appeared. Esmelda was less wary, and she came closer to examine the display. I switched the screen over to the tab that included my only official quest.
¡°Kevin,¡± she read. ¡°That is all you have?¡±
¡°Yeah, it¡¯s pretty silly. But given the context, I guess I¡¯m here to do something about your Dark Lord.¡±
¡°Then you truly are one of her heroes,¡± she said. ¡°Neither the Dark Lord nor his demons have attacked the Free Kingdoms in a century, at least. When I dreamed of fire and shadow, I thought it meant he was coming, but we found you instead, and I know the goddess would not send you to us without a reason.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not sure how much help I would be right now,¡± I said. ¡°I can barely deal with my own monsters.¡±
She looked past me to the tree farm. There were already hickory sprouts shooting up in a row. ¡°I think there is more to you than that. We have seeds, if you still need them.¡±
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¡°Yes, please.¡±
She handed me a sack filled with small, individual packets of seeds.
¡°What are these?¡±
¡°Wheat, cabbage, carrots, and beats.¡± Except for the cabbage, those were all standard Maincraft vegetables.
¡°That¡¯s fantastic. I can get these planted today. Is there anything I can do for you in return?¡±
¡°I¡¯ll have to think about that,¡± she said, smiling slightly. ¡°For now, keep an eye on the east. Dargoth is on the other side of those mountains, and if the Dark Lord moves, it will be from there.¡±
¡°I will,¡± I said, ¡°thank you.¡±
¡°Is there anything else you need?¡±
¡°Yeah,¡± I said. ¡°Rocks. Are there any big ones around here, or do I need to walk to the mountains?¡±
¡°Rocks?¡± She blinked. ¡°What are you going to do with rocks?¡±
I gestured to the shelter. ¡°Everything I have is made of grass and wood. I can craft rocks the same way I do those, but I don¡¯t have a good supply right now, and I want to upgrade my tools.¡±
¡°Can you show me?¡±
¡°Take care,¡± Gastard said, stepping closer. His hand was still on his sword hilt, and I wasn¡¯t sure what he meant by that, unless it was a warning for Esmelda not to get too friendly with me.
I brought them over to my table and sorted through the coins in my pack until I had what I needed for a new pick.
¡°So this is what I do.¡± I took the handful, three logs and two sticks, lined them up in the crafting grid, and pulled the lever. The pick appeared, and Esmelda gasped.
¡°A miracle,¡± she said.
Gastard grunted. ¡°A simple tool.¡±
¡°Yeah, well, that¡¯s how it works. I pick stuff up and it turns into coins, and then I can combine them into stuff. That¡¯s how I made everything I have. I¡¯d like to upgrade to stone, because the wooden stuff breaks too easily.¡±
¡°There is no quarry near Erihseht,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°but I can take you to a stone.¡±
I glanced up at the sun. There was still plenty of time before we would have to worry about spawns. ¡°Is it near here?¡±
¡°Perhaps a mile,¡± she said, still looking at the worktable. ¡°A boulder. Will you be able to break it down?¡±
¡°Should be.¡±
¡°We will show you,¡± Gastard said, ¡°and then we will part ways.¡±
¡°Works for me.¡±
¡°Could I try to do what you did?¡± Esmelda asked.
It took me a moment to realize what she meant. Could other people use my worktable to fabricate goods in my absence? If they could, it would be a manufacturing revolution, to be sure.
¡°You can try,¡± I said, sorting out a few more coins. You could never have too many picks.
Esmelda approached the worktable warily, glancing underneath as if she was looking for the machinery that made it function.
¡°All you do is pull the lever?¡± She asked.
Gastard grumbled in disapproval. ¡°Better to leave magic to the sorcerers,¡± he said.
Esmelda tugged on the lever, and there was a click as it turned down, but there was no transformation, and the coins remained in their slots. Her face dropped in disappointment, but Gastard looked relieved.
¡°Sorry,¡± I said, ¡°I guess it''s a hero thing.¡±
********
I grabbed my pick and my hoe, and was soon trotting alongside the horses as Gastard and Esmelda led me to the promised supply of rock. Not that I planned on doing any gardening, but the hoe was my only stone tool, and I was proud of it.
"You should be careful around here," I said. ¡°A zombie surprised me yesterday. He was hiding in the shadows beside my house. They can stick around if the sunlight doesn''t hit them directly."
"Pastor Tipple said that might happen," Esmelda''s long brown hair was pulled back from her face, held in place by a silver comb and a ribbon. The comb was obviously valuable. Being the mayor''s daughter would come with having nice things, assuming Erihseht was prosperous. Her relationship to Boffin was likely also why she was the one coming out here as a liaison. "The creatures of Bedlam cannot stand the touch of light. But the village watch has been informed that there may be koroshai lurking in the region."
"I''m sorry," I said. "I wish I knew how to stop it." Actually, there might be a way. Fire kept them from spawning in a small area. If I could figure out how much of a radius my curse encompassed, I could potentially light the entire space and stop the spawns completely.
"I know I''m asking you for a lot," I said, "but do you think you could bring me some coal?"
"Does your wood not burn?" Gastard said, acidly.
"I think I can use it to make torches," I said. "They might work better than the firepit I use now to discourage spawns."
"Coal for torches?" Esmelda said. "That is a strange request."
"Yeah, it has to do with my Sys¡ªmy gift. The combinations I use to make tools don''t always make sense, but they work." In theory, I could get as much charcoal as I wanted after crafting a furnace with all this wonderful granite. But I wouldn''t be sure until I tried, and it didn''t hurt to ask.
"I''m sure there is a bag we could spare at the manor."
We veered off from the river about a half mile from base and headed for the trees. The earth was soft beneath my boots, and the fresh scents of the woods were a pleasant change of pace from the dank smell that lingered around my shelter. Esmelda was riding between me and Gastard, and everyone kept an eye out for stray monsters as we entered the canopy.
Though there were shadows, there were no stretches of darkness around us that could have hid an errant zombie. In the early morning or late evening, a mob might have avoided the sun here. But with the sun high and streaming through the leaves, they would have had to have been curled up under a bush to avoid being fried. Squirrels chattered among the boughs, and birds sang. If there had been leftover monsters, I doubted the local fauna would be so relaxed
¡°There,¡± Gastard said, though it was hardly necessary. An outcropping of rock the size of a house rose like a frozen wave among the trees ahead of us. Moss hung in a curtain from the lip of the stone, and the darkness was thick beneath.
¡°There might be something under there,¡± I said, and Gastard drew his sword. The forest was quieter here.
He rode forward and slashed through the moss, allowing light to encroach on the domain of the shadow. As if on cue, two shapes winged out of the space, banking to either side of the warrior. His sword cut through the air, narrowly missing a fleshy wing.
They did look like manta rays, only with more complicated mouth parts and bony ridges along their wings. The way they moved seemed more like swimming than flying, and it was accompanied by an eerie whistle.
They arced around Gastard, their flight curving in a path that would end on Esmelda. I moved, intending to pull her down off of her pony, but she was already getting off. Her riding dress had a slit on one side that allowed her to sit astride her mount. She lifted one leg over her saddle and hopped down in what would have been a smooth motion, except that I had put myself in her way, so she fell into my arms.
The phantoms swooped overhead, steam already rising from their gray-blue skin as the light punished them. Esmelda and I looked into each other''s eyes, equally flummoxed by the turn of events. I had caught her reflexively, and for a bare second, I felt her lithe form pressed against mine before I let her go.
¡°Sorry,¡± I said. Fortunately, we were too busy being attacked by monsters to address it any further. My tools were at my hips, suspended by a rope belt, and I grabbed the stone hoe to face off with the phantoms as they banked back around.
Their flights took them on mirrored paths, and Gastard kicked his horse into a canter to meet one of them. The phantoms had no trouble navigating the trees, spinning and flipping as it suited them, completely unaware of the limitations of aerodynamics.
They rose past the canopy, which proved to be a mistake. The sunlight battered them with the weight of a waterfall, and forced them to dive. The whistling rose to a shriek, and Gastard caught the first with his sword, slicing it open from its multi-part mouth to its thin, whiplike tail.
The other came for me. I raised my hoe over my head and brought it down on the thing''s eyeless face as it swam within reach. The stone bit into its flesh, and it slammed into my chest, taking me off of my feet. The shaft of my tool smacked me in the chin, knocked out of my hands. It stung, but only cost me half a heart.
The phantom¡¯s wings wrapped around me, and its tail stabbed down into the earth beside my leg. My arms were free, and I grabbed its tail as it whipped up toward my neck. The appendage ended on a bone spike, which hovered inches from my skin. I was strong enough to hold it back, but couldn¡¯t do much else.
Then it burst into flames. White-gold fire, warm, but not painful. Or at least, not painful to me. The phantom wasn¡¯t enjoying the experience. It released me, floating up off of my body. But I still had its tail. Rolling onto my side, I held on with both hands and refused to let go. It was like flying a nightmare kite.
It jerked back and forth, still on fire, and swiftly weakening. A few seconds later, it floated to the ground like a dead leaf and shriveled into ashes. I stood up, looking at the ash in my hands that had been its tail. The flakes continued to break down, evaporating into a gray mist, and then nothing.
Esmelda and Gastard were watching me with their mouths open. A knife hung loosely in her hand.
¡°So anyway,¡± I said, ¡°you guys want to see me harvest some rock?¡±
12: My More Rocks (Rewrite)
¡°The fire,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°you aren¡¯t burned?¡±
¡°Well, yeah.¡± I said, ¡°It wasn¡¯t normal fire, it was the zombie stuff. I think it only hurts them.¡±
She shook her head, confusion written across her soft features. ¡°It burns. Or it is supposed to.¡± She looked back at the phantom Gastard had gutted moments before. It was no longer sizzling, and by all appearances could have been a strange fish that had found its way into the forest before being sliced open. ¡°That flame is the essence of Bedlam warring with the light of this world, and it is as deadly as any natural fire.¡±
My hand felt warm. The elder sign had a bluish cast to it that faded over the next few seconds. There was no notification, but it stood to reason that the blessing of the elder sign did more than let me access System screens.
Esmelda touched her forehead with her index and middle fingers together, inclining her head slightly. Gastard knelt.
¡°Hey,¡± I said. ¡°What¡¯s this now?¡±
¡°The goddess has chosen you,¡± Gastard said. ¡°Forgive my doubts.¡±
¡°It¡¯s cool,¡± I said. ¡°We don¡¯t need to make a big thing of it.¡±
¡°You are one of her heroes,¡± Esmelda said, speaking quickly. ¡°I believed it before, but this is proof above everything. Nothing like this has happened in centuries. There were others like you in the past. But we have been left to ourselves for so long. The people of Erihseht need to know who you are. You should come to church.¡±
¡°Church?¡± I said. That wasn¡¯t my idea of a good time. While I couldn¡¯t be an atheist under the circumstances, that didn¡¯t mean I needed to go get involved in organized religion.
¡°Yes, there is so much Pastor Tipple can tell you, and so much we can learn from you in turn.¡±
¡°You said there were others like me. You mean other than Kevin?¡±
¡°The Pastor can tell you better than I can. Not today, of course. But¡¡± she thought about it, ¡°the morning after tomorrow, Gastard and I will come for you. We will bring you to the village. There are so many people you need to meet.¡±
¡°Is the mayor going to be okay with that?¡±
Her expression became severe. ¡°I¡¯ll make sure that he is.¡±
Gastard rose. ¡°When I was young,¡± he said. ¡°I wanted to be a ritter. A templar. To fight the shadow, and it was only a dream. I feel that day is approaching now.¡± He walked to the dead phantom and picked it up by its tail, then used his sword to hack off the gore that had slid out of its belly.
¡°Why don¡¯t the dead ones burn?¡± I asked.
Esmelda touched her forehead again, her soft, oval face taking on a reverent expression. It had to be a religious gesture. ¡°Its essence has returned to Bedlam, but the flesh is just flesh. Without its spirit, there is nothing to war with the light.¡±
¡°I will take this,¡± Gastard said, tying the phantom to the back of his horse, who didn¡¯t appear to appreciate the burden. The animal snorted and stomped its hooves in agitation.
¡°You''re welcome to it,¡± I said. ¡°There are plenty more where that came from.¡±
I retrieved my hoe, then went under the rock outcrop to make sure there weren¡¯t any more monsters waiting for an opportune moment to surprise us. It looked clear, so I came back out and started mining. It probably looked strange to them, me lightly tapping the stone with a tool until cracks appeared. Esmelda came closer so she could see me work, watching intently as the cracks spread.
When the stone vanished, she jumped.
¡°Where did it go?¡±
I showed her the coin that had appeared in my hand, and she picked it up, turning it over in her fingers.
¡°It feels like stone,¡± she said. ¡°Does it work this way for everything you collect?¡±
¡°Every material has a different coin,¡± I said, ¡°and then I just throw them to turn them back. I might not have to throw them, actually, I can also slam them down. I¡¯m not entirely sure what the rules are, but it¡¯s working okay so far. It might be a velocity issue. Nothing pops out when I drop my pack, anyway.¡±
¡°It is a miracle.¡± She placed the coin back in my palm, and I felt her fingertips brush against my skin. ¡°If a strange one.¡± She paused. ¡°Thank you, for before. You were trying to save me from the phantoms.¡±
¡°Oh, sorry about that.¡±
She smiled, and though she was already pretty, the expression made her beautiful. ¡°You don¡¯t need to apologize for a good intention, however unnecessary.¡±
¡°Esmelda,¡± Gastard said, having collected both the horses. ¡°Your father.¡±
¡°Of course.¡± She stepped away. ¡°He will wonder at the delay. We were only bringing you seeds.¡±
¡°You said you¡¯ll be back the morning after tomorrow?¡±
¡°We will.¡± She glanced at the outcrop. ¡°May your harvest be fruitful.¡±
¡°It will be,¡± I said. ¡°This is exactly what I needed.¡±
The pair rode off, leaving me to my work. Mining stone was murder on my pick. The wood couldn¡¯t handle it, and after collecting only ten coins, the head shattered. Splinters went flying, and one of them nicked my cheek.
¡°Okay,¡± I said. ¡°That¡¯s got to be enough.¡±
I spent a minute sorting through my coins and crafting a fresh worktable so I could replace all my wooden tools on the spot.
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[Stone Shovel]
Formula: Stone Block (2) Stick (2)
Damage Rating: 3.5
Speed: Slow
The heaviest shovel, for use with man hands. Stone tools will last longer than wood and be less likely to break when used improperly.
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I set the shovel aside. I¡¯d gotten good use out of the wooden one, but digging out the basement of my new shelter had been enough for it to show signs of wear. Everything needed to be upgraded eventually, but right now, all I wanted was a pick. Fortunately, it was the next step up.
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[Stone Pick]
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Formula: Stone Block (3), Stick (2)
Damage Rating: 3
Speed: Slow
A pick of destiny. This tool marks your ascent into a new realm of resource gathering, including basic metals. Stone tools will last longer than wood and be less likely to break when used improperly.
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A blow from my hoe had done little to the phantom, so there really was something to these damage ratings. Iron. That¡¯s what I needed. But for now, I could make do with what I had. Mining was faster with the new pick, though still not nearly as fast as chopping wood or slapping grass. After collecting nearly one hundred cubic feet of granite, it looked like a giant had taken a bite out of the outcrop, and I could tell my fresh pick was nearly at its limit. It was so run through with cracks; it looked like a block just before it popped, so I dropped it and took my coin collection home.
There wasn¡¯t enough time left in the day for me to plant all of the seeds Esmelda had brought me, but I hit a square of dirt with my hoe and shoved a random seed in the soil as a test. The little tree sprouts didn¡¯t look any bigger than they had been when I left, but trees took a long time to grow anyway, so it was amazing they had developed as much as they had already.
Shortly thereafter, I was prepared to face the night. I cleared out the cells. With luck, Bill would spawn in one of them and be trapped. Then I fiddled around for a bit after a snack of a mushroom and nuts. The stone I¡¯d gathered sufficed to work my way all the way up the ladder of tools; dagger, ax, and sword.
The weapons were unbalanced, and heavy enough to wear out my arms with a few swings, but they looked good. The stonework was so smooth that it might be mistaken for a dull metal at a glance.
In Maincraft, you can¡¯t forge armor out of stone. The lowest quality defense comes from leather, which is almost more work to gather than iron, and completely inferior. Stone, however, could be converted into things like bricks and slabs and stairs.
With one coin in the center of the grid, I pulled the lever.
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[Stone Button]
A basic operational mechanism, after the button is attached to a surface, it can be activated by touch or with a sanguinum signal.
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Oh yeah, buttons. As a Maincraft player, I hadn¡¯t gotten that deep into making automatic farms and sliding doors, but the mechanics were familiar to me. Was there redstone in this world to power devices? Sanguinum had to be the equivalent. This was the most direct one-to-one conversion of a Maincraft function that I¡¯d seen yet. It opened up the possibility of some impressive builds, especially considering this was a world without technology. Lights, elevators, automation. Would sanguinum serve as an infinite power source? In the game, using redstone that way wasn¡¯t a big deal, but in real life, unlimited electricity was a serious cheat.
The button looked identical to the one I¡¯d already made of wood. I rubbed it between my fingers. The surface was rougher than most of the other items that crafting generated, but the edges were flawlessly rounded. An entire square foot of stone had been remade into this little thing. The System wasn¡¯t terribly concerned with conservation of mass and energy, but that had been clear enough already.
What could it be attached to? My shelter didn¡¯t have a door, as I just sealed the entrance every night, but there were fence gates aplenty. Pressing it against the gate did nothing, and neither did throwing it like a coin. I kept messing around, trying unique positions, until it clicked into place against the fence post where the hinges of the gate attached.
The same crafting force that kept my log house together glued it in place. Trying to pry it free by hand was a lost cause, but in the process, I pressed the button, and it sank into the wood. The gate swung open.
I pressed it again, and it popped back up. The gate swung closed. Oddly, the gate no longer opened normally. It fixed in place unless the button was pressed.
Ridiculous.
Two blocks got me a pressure plate. It was a two inch thick floor tile, and it worked the same way as the button except that had to be placed on the floor. Three blocks got me six slabs, the same way it had worked with wood.
The next link in the chain was bricks, and that was as high as it went. The bricks were interesting only in that they were separable. In the game, a block of bricks is still a solid block with a distinct pattern on its face. This was a block that divided into an equal amount of bricks. They stacked like logs, and the crafting force would seal them together if I placed them exactly on top of each other, or exactly halfway off. It was basically Legos.
However much strength it would take to unseal them was more than I had. I tried throwing them, dropping them, and pulling them apart. The seal didn¡¯t budge. However, when I tapped the paired bricks around the edges where they met with a pick. They fell apart. I¡¯d never had a reason to break apart logs that way. I could just harvest them back into a coin with an ax, but after a little experimentation, the pick worked on them as well.
There was a moan behind me. I¡¯d been so engrossed in playing with my new toys that I hadn¡¯t noticed a shambler had spawned in the first cell. It wasn¡¯t Bill, but it was free leather.
The zombie pressed itself against the cage like it wanted to get stabbed. It was the perfect opportunity to test out my new sword. Extra weight mattered little when I was simply jabbing it through a monster¡¯s exposed neck. The edge of the blade did not suffer for being stone, it was almost scary how easily it went in. The zombie¡¯s moan cut short, and it collapsed. Opening the cage, I poked it a few more times to make sure it was dead, and dragged it out of the cell before shutting the gate.
My eyes fell on the latch that kept it shut. None of the zombies had been smart enough to figure out how to open one yet, but they weren¡¯t locked. If Bill appeared, I would wager all my accumulated coins he would know how to reach through the bars and unlatch the thing.
Good thing I had buttons.
To improve security, I placed a button beside each gate and crafted a case for them out of wood slabs so no pesky tentacles could slip around to press them. Then it was back to business.
The sounds of my nightly visitors had already begun outside, so I picked an unused corner of the basement to bury the newly skinned shambler. Looking down at the misshapen frame, a mass of nearly bloodless musculature run through with mycelium, I had a thought. I¡¯d made only one attempt to harvest meat, and it had failed, but my Miner skill had been lower then, and the resources available to be collected had since expanded.
Not wanting to touch its exposed flesh more than I had to, I retrieved my knife, and spent a few moments stoically tapping the edge against the dead shambler''s thigh.
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[Tainted Meat]
Rich with the flavors of the swamps of Bedlam, this meat is the quickest path to becoming a vegetarian. Consume at your own risk.
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I wasn¡¯t going to eat it, but I was delighted to learn that if I ever killed a cow, I could now harvest its meat as easily as I did any other resource. After I was done with the shambler, it was down to bones, bits of fungus, and unnameable organs that apparently didn¡¯t count as meat. I buried it all. While I finally had enough leather to finish my outfit, there was one more thing I wanted to get out of my granite blocks.
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[Furnace]
Ah, a warm welcome to the world of crafting, survivor. The furnace is a crucial tool in your journey towards ascension. A gateway to the art of smelting, capable of transforming raw ore into forgeable material. This is a must-have for any aspiring blacksmith or armorer. Oven, crucible, and best friend, this device is a bridge between subsistence and success. Treat her well.
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It appeared as a medallion, a circle of stone engraved with a simple image of a flame within a square. My chest was to the right of the worktable, so I threw the medallion down on its left, and the furnace appeared in front of me. It was five feet high, and built like a dual oven. The doors and hinges were all smoothed stone, and there were no inner mechanisms or heating elements I could see, just two empty chambers. There were, however, coin slots on the side of the ovens, and a catch like the change dispenser on a vending machine.
You could do a lot with a furnace in Maincraft. Smelting ores was a necessity for advancing beyond the stone age, but it would also cook food, and transform certain blocks. Assuming its function was the same, I could turn sand into glass, and logs into coal. There were also some more obscure uses, like turning a cactus into green dye, but smelting was its primary function. I didn¡¯t have any ore to throw in, but I slipped a log coin into the lower slot, and the furnace instantly grew warm.
When I opened the lower oven, I was met with a roaring blaze. The heat blasted me in the face, and I shut the door before my eyebrows could get singed. Lacking ore, I slipped another log coin into the top slot, and the furnace got to work. The log was floating upright in the top oven as if it had been caught in a gravity bottle, flames rippling up and down its exterior, but the heat was too intense for me to watch the process in progress.
A minute after I closed the oven, a new coin popped out of the furnace and rolled into the dispenser. It was black and unreflective. Charcoal.
13: My Leather Cap (Rewrite)
In the game, coal was so abundant that converting logs to charcoal was only necessary in a pinch. Unless I stumbled on a mine, I doubted I would discover coal deposits left and right in my travels around Plana. Esmelda had said she would bring me some, and that was great, but now I had my own supply. There was a world full of trees out there, and trees were fuel.
A single coin converted into several pounds of dusty black nuggets, but I wasn¡¯t interested in their natural use. Real torches were made with a cloth soaked in a combustible, like pitch. No one taped a hunk of coal to the top of a stick and hoped for the best. But the game didn¡¯t care about realism, and hopefully, my System didn¡¯t either.
I inserted more logs into the furnace to process, and turned to the worktable. You couldn¡¯t play Maincraft without making a million torches, and the recipe was simple. Coal or charcoal in the center of the grid, and a stick just below it. I slipped the coins into the slots and pulled the lever.
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[Torch]
You''ve successfully crafted your first torch! Illuminate your world and keep those pesky mobs at bay with your newfound best friend. Torch it up and explore the depths or illuminate your shelter with these handy decorations. Brighter adventures await.
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The resulting item was indeed a stick with charcoal stuck on one end. It came into existence on its side, already burning. Picking it up before it could singe the worktable, I examined the craftsmanship. The charcoal was shaved down and set in the wood like a pencil eraser, only there was no metal involved. The top of the stick had a hollow portion where the charcoal wedged into place.
If torches lasted forever, like they did in Maincraft, then I really had something here. If not, it was still cool. I tried pressing it against a wall to see if it would stick like in the game, and when that didn¡¯t work, patted it with my other hand to see if it would convert.
The torch popped into coin form, a wooden circle with the center cut out like a Chinese penny. But it wasn¡¯t empty, a trapped flame occupied that center. Almost stained glass, but not quite. Despite not generating any heat, it looked like a tiny section of torch fire was captured and bound in place. Solid, but shifting. It was mesmerizing to look at.
I slapped it against the wall. No sconce necessary. The resulting torch held itself in place at an angle to the dirt, an obvious smack in the face for gravity and common sense. It was as solidly in place as any material affixed via the crafting force. Putting my hands around the rod, I leaned back and pulled on it with all my strength, but it didn¡¯t budge. It could, however, be harvested by hand.
Throwing it against the wall put the torch back up, burning merrily away. I dictated some notes for my captain¡¯s log about how it worked and then heard something weird. A giggle came from outside. Climbing the ladders, I went from window to window, only to be confronted with zombies trying to stick their arms inside. One window, however, was empty, and I heard the giggle again. It sounded like a child, which was more than a little unnerving, but there was nothing for me to see in that direction. The field, my failed garden, illuminated by starlight. Not a single shambler.
A pointed stick thrust into the extension of the window, almost reaching my face. It startled me so badly that I fell off the ladder. My back cracked on the fence below, and I slid down, momentarily stunned. It hurt badly enough that I wondered if I had nerve damage, and I spent a few minutes recovering.
This was a problem. That had to have been Bill. I¡¯d seen him carrying a stick before, and he had apparently gotten smart enough to mess with me. The other zombies were content to bang against the upper level of my shelter all night, but if Bill was smart enough to lure me up and try to stab me, he was smart enough to use a rock to bash through the planks.
I had to do something about him. My back was still giving me a twinge, but I returned to the worktable to make use of my leather supply. Chestplates took eight of whatever material you were making them out of, leaving only the top center slot of the crafting grid blank.
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[Tainted Leather Chestplate]
Formula: Tainted Leather (8)
Armor Rating: 3
Have you ever wanted to be mistaken for a koroshai? Too bad, now you might be. This chestplate is not only inferior to other materials, it is also ugly. Enjoy.
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I had to admit; it wasn¡¯t beautiful, and it wasn¡¯t really a chestplate either. It was a leather tunic, grayish brown and mottled with bruise green splotches. When I put it on, it reached almost to my knees. The sunburn on my shoulders made it uncomfortable to wear, but like the boots and the leggings, the leather was supple rather than stiff. It might not have been the ideal outfit for a budding hero, but it was a long way from being naked, and I had enough material left over to make myself a helmet.
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[Tainted Leather Cap]
Formula: Tainted Leather (5)
Armor Rating: 1
As stylish as it is horrifying, this Halloween helmet will give your enemies something to think about, as well as grant a modest boost to your armor rating.
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The cap was actually a mask right out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I didn¡¯t have a mirror, but putting it on, I knew that I had gone full Leatherface. The smell wasn¡¯t great either, but not as bad as it could have been. It gave me soggy cellar vibes. I wasn¡¯t sure how armor rating translated into actual defense in combat. My status screen wasn¡¯t partitioned into body parts, it just gave an overall rating. Did that mean all the damage I took would be reduced, no matter where it hit me? That wasn¡¯t very realistic, but given that I had a health bar made of hearts, why not? Maincraft didn¡¯t bother with calculating where a monster hit you. Every piece of armor you put on added to your total armor rating, and reduced the damage you took from any attack accordingly. I had to assume that it wouldn¡¯t work exactly the same way for me. How much would boots help me if a zombie bit me in the face? Still, seven was better than zero, and it was satisfying to see the number go up.
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Name: William
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
System Type: Survivor
Level: 12
Advancement: 44%
Attributes:
Might: F+
Speed: F+
Presence: F
Armor Rating: 7
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Mining all that stone had done wonders for recovering my levels, at least until I died again. As far as equipment went, I was as ready to face Bill as I was going to be until I had some iron. I vacillated over the idea of making an opening and taking on the zombies at a chokepoint and ultimately decided against it. When Gastard came back, we could talk about taking them on together. It didn¡¯t seem like Bill was breaking down the walls yet, and Gastard seemed to genuinely be looking forward to the chance to face down some zombies. If nothing else, I needed to make some changes to the shelter before I tried anything like that.
After sealing myself in my log coffin, I did my best to get some sleep. I¡¯d gotten used to the moans, but the phantoms still woke me up more than once. Maybe my perpetually disturbed sleep cycles had caused them to spawn in the first place, but I couldn¡¯t be sure until I got a full eight hours of rest and they either reappeared or didn¡¯t. There was no telling when that might happen. At least they weren¡¯t popping into the shelter with me.
Esmelda and Gastard wouldn¡¯t be coming back for another day. I started the morning with a perimeter check. Nothing was lurking in the shadows, and my baskets provided me with fresh trout. I now had four of them placed at different spots along the river, and bait didn¡¯t appear to be necessary.
With fish flanks skewered over a fire, I set about preparing a plot of land for planting. Hoeing wasn¡¯t taxing, though it did put a little strain on my back to be bent over and tapping the ground with the heavy stone tool as I went along. The soil converted to neat rows one square foot at a time, shreds of grass flying in all directions as I went.
The final plot was twenty-foot square, and I took a quick water break before planting the seeds. My reflection in the river wasn¡¯t clear, but I could see I was approaching what my mom would have called the Miami Vice look. It wasn¡¯t like a stone dagger was ideal for shaving. The water was chilly, and refreshing on my face, but not something I wanted to immerse myself in early in the morning.
Esmelda had said she¡¯d brought me wheat, cabbage, carrot, and beet seeds. I was pretty sure I knew which bag was wheat. The seeds were longer and thinner than the others, and they looked like they were the right color. I harvested everything to make sure I knew what was what, and each variety was summarily added to my System logs.
The cabbage seeds were tiny and dark, while the carrot seeds reminded me of miniature almonds, and the beet seeds were round and wrinkly and weird. She¡¯d brought me more than enough to fill my plot. I planted all the wheat and carrots first, poking a hole in the soft soil with my finger before dropping in an individual seed and smoothing it over. It was a laborious process compared to what I was used to, so after extending the rows, I tried cheating.
A handful of seeds converted into a single coin, and when I tossed that down, something interesting happened. A single square foot of dark soil was suddenly rich with little green shoots. I¡¯d used the beet seeds, but I only had enough to fill in a few square feet this way. The instantaneous growth was promising, but would I get more out of planting them individually than grouped en masse like this?
My tree line was progressing nicely, but that progress was uneven. Some hickories I¡¯d planted were already several feet high, full saplings. Others were still just sprouts. In the game, there was an element of randomness to how crops grew, just like there was with spawns. Every block occupied by a plant had a chance of advancing to the next stage of its development on any given tick, which was a ridiculously tiny increment of time. A day in Maincraft lasted twenty minutes, so the equivalent ticks in real life had to be proportionately longer. Otherwise, monsters would have been spawning fast enough to make the area around my shelter look like a rock concert, and these trees would already have been growing out of control.
For the carrots, I split them up half and half, dropping two coins in the soil and planting the rest of the seeds individually so I could learn which method gave me a better result. There was nothing to do but wait. The accelerated growth rate was linked to my presence in the area, so if I went off to harvest more stone, the experiment couldn¡¯t go forward.
My fish was overcooked, but not ruined. They were a little rubbery, but the dry, flaky layers broke apart as I chewed for a nice, smoky flavor. Seasoning or sauce would have been nice. Still, I was happy to have meat of any kind, and I got sleepy again after the meal.
Given that I had to stick around the base and planned on being up all night, a nap sounded good. Not that I wasn¡¯t sleeping at night, I just wasn¡¯t sleeping well. So that was my morning. By the time I was up and about again, the sun had crossed to the West, over where I assumed Erihseht would be, and my crops were showing their stuff.
The growth was inconsistent, but phenomenal nonetheless. Some of what I had planted was still underground, others were small sprouts, and a few sections had fully matured. The trees had undergone the most dramatic change. Several of the hickory trees had made it over ten feet tall, spreading their leafy branches at a rate that suggested they would soon shade my shelter.
It was almost scary. They weren¡¯t exactly growing before my eyes, but if I sat down and watched them, I could probably see the change in action. Why hadn¡¯t they grown this fast before?
The sunlight. Most of the time I spent at home was at night, which meant that my plants had only benefited from sped up growth during the short periods before I went off to do other things. The element of randomness was still present, part of the row was still saplings, and those that hadn¡¯t grown the fastest were being crowded out by their more successful neighbors. I would have to spread them out farther in the future to get optimal results.
The crops I¡¯d planted the natural way had mostly sprouted, but it was the patches that I¡¯d seeded with coins that were the real winners. My beets were large and leafy, and when I patted them with my shovel, they produced both seed coins and full-grown vegetables. The same was true of the carrots, so I checked my notifications to see what the System had to say about it.
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Congratulations, survivor! You''ve just harvested your first crop!
[Beet]
A hearty and nourishing treat. Fun for the whole family.
[Carrot]
Aside from the hours of fun to be had from chewing these orange rods of hearty plant fibers, carrots can lure friendly animals like pigs. They''re not just for munching on, they''re pig-approved! Keep up the fantastic farming, and may your future harvests be bountiful and full of orange goodness!
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The vegetables harvested in groupings. It was three beets or carrots to a coin, and each patch yielded one or two coins'' worth. Oddly, the distribution of seed drops was less consistent. Some patches had none, while others rewarded me with multiple coins. So there was some randomness to the yield and the growth rates.
Using the System to plant and harvest was obviously superior to doing it the old-fashioned way, but the growth rate of the other rows was still nothing to complain about. If I ever hung around a normal farm for a couple of days, their crops would shoot up.
All that was left was testing the product. I sat down to try a beet. It was crunchy and crisp and so bitter I wanted to spit it out. The flavor could be described as earthy, but that was putting a positive spin on it. Beets are terrible. However, food was food, and I could get used to them. Half a raw beet was more than enough to curb my appetite, as much because it was filling as because I just didn¡¯t want to chew anymore.
Replanting the seeds took only a few moments, so I sat out in the grass and whittled while keeping an eye on them. The stone knife worked much better than the wooden one, so I tried my hand at carving a statue out of an entire log. Strips of wood fell away under the blade, and I was quickly lost in the work, looking up every few minutes to see if there was any change in the crops.
How fast did plants like these normally grow? I¡¯d placed the garden close to the river, so they were probably benefiting from a nearby water source. Farming in Maincraft usually involved putting a water block at the center of a garden, because without nearby water, the growth rate reduced dramatically. For beets and carrots to mature in a single day, that was what, a hundred times faster than the natural rate? With a big enough farm, I could feed a village, maybe even an entire city, by myself.
My hands kept working without me giving any intentional direction to the carving. After about an hour, the new patches were already developing, and I was holding a wooden figure of a woman. The details were rough, but her dress and her broad features were clear. She looked familiar, though I couldn¡¯t say who it was supposed to be. Not Esmelda, but someone. After a moment, it clicked. The figurine was Mizu.
There were a few modifications I wanted to make to the shelter before nightfall. I used logs and leftover stone to build an addition to the entrance. A short tunnel closed off on either end, with fence gates operated by buttons. I was running short on building materials, but it would do for the night. It was a slaughterhouse.
14: My First Fight Night (Rewrite)
The phantoms spawned first. Their cries made the hair on my arms stand on end, and when one of them slammed into the gate, it startled me so badly that I jumped. Double-stacking the fence gates made them tall enough to block off the entrance completely. There was no room for the mob to slip in, so it flapped its wings and floated away after slapping the posts with its tail.
Did I really want to open it? If I wanted to kill a lot of zombies, I was going to have to either go outside or let them in. The gate at my back was open, so I could retreat and slap the button to shut it in an emergency. I was more worried about getting surprised by a phantom than the zombies themselves, given how much faster the flying mobs were. As long as I had them in a chokepoint, however, I thought I could manage this.
I opened the front, stepped back, and held up my spear. It was a recent addition to the arsenal, and there was no Maincraft equivalent. But there was no room for slashing a sword in the hall, and it would be better for dealing with the phantoms. The formula for a spear was one stone block and two sticks, arranged diagonally across the crafting grid. I¡¯d wasted a not insignificant quantity of wood and stone to discover that combination, but I was happy with the result. The generated item was six feet long, with a thick shaft and a simple, though somewhat oversized, spearhead. It was awkward to hold, given how heavy the stone end was, but I had my knife as a backup. Its damage rating still wasn¡¯t as high as the ax, but you couldn¡¯t beat the added reach.
The phantom returned shortly after the gate opened, preceded by the creepy wail. It dove in so fast that I didn¡¯t have the time to react, but my spear was already angled up, and it drove itself onto the point head first.
The impact made me take a step back as the blade went into its jaws and poked out through its back. The phantom¡¯s tail whipped once, scratching the log walls, but then went still. I lowered the spear and pressed down on its body with my boot to pull out the weapon.
One down, but I could hear more still in the sky. The next few minutes went by in tense silence before I heard the first moan. A zombie shambled its way into my tunnel and I missed my first shot at its head. It didn¡¯t exactly dodge, but it stumbled out of the way as I tried to poke it. I had to back up to get a good angle, that was the drawback of spears, and this time I got it in the chest. The point went in, but the zombie was fine with that. It continued to press itself forward onto the shaft of my weapon.
That was what the knife was for. I let go of my spear and hacked at its neck. The stone blade was sharper than the wooden equivalent, and the extra weight gave it additional momentum. If it had been human, it would have bled to death after the first blow, but I had to grab the top of its head and slash at its neck until its spine was severed to finish it. It still wasn¡¯t clear to me if the zombies had a health bar like I did, or if the head chopping was the only way to kill them. The zombie held onto my arm, and a tentacle came out of its cloak to nip at me, but all it got was a mouthful of leather.
The sleeves of my tunic didn¡¯t cover my forearms, but I¡¯d taken the time to tie leather covers around them for extra protection. A single leather coin was worth a full yard of material, which had been more than enough for me to engineer some basic bracers and cut out strips to tie them on with. It hadn¡¯t affected my armor rating, but it made me feel better.
Fighting with the mask on was surreal. I felt like a serial killer. The second mob was down, and so far, I was uninjured. After freeing my spear, I moved the shambler''s body closer to the entrance so the next one could trip over it. As soon as I had shoved it into place, another phantom swooped in, and I was not prepared.
It slammed into me, and I could barely keep my footing. It floated back, abandoning all pretense of natural flight, and the pointed barb at the end of its tail jabbed forward. The tunic blunted it somewhat, but the tip punched through and punctured my belly. The pain was sharp and immediate, but adrenaline kept me moving, and I slashed at it with my knife before dashing into my shelter and slapping the button to shut the fence.
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Though it was bleeding freely, the puncture wasn¡¯t deep. I¡¯d went more than a decade in prison without being shanked, but here we were. I wasn¡¯t worried about dying from it unless the phantom tails were also venomous. This was an opportunity for one more experiment. Removing my tunic and the mask, I grabbed a couple of carrots and started eating.
I¡¯ve never thought of carrots as being appetizing on their own, but this wasn¡¯t about hunger. I power-chewed my way through the first one, and the pain in my abdomen receded. The bleeding slowed down to a slow leak, and by the time I finished with the second carrot, it had stopped completely. I washed away the blood with some water from my basin, and there was no other sign the wound had occurred. No scar, not even a pink mark.
In Maincraft, eating food healed you.
"Captain¡¯s Log: I don¡¯t care what anyone says. Maincraft powers are OP."
Gastard¡¯s biscuits might not have been magical, but crops I grew myself were imbued with the power of game mechanics. My spear was still in the hall, but it only required a few moments to craft a replacement. Risers of stone slabs had replaced my ladders, so I could now stand at any of my windows as well as the entrance to poke at mobs through them if I wanted to.
The phantom had flown out of the hall, so I only had to kill one more zombie before I got back in there. When it swooped back in again, I was prepared, and it died the same way the first one had. Knowing that I could heal myself made me a lot more confident about taking on the mobs. When I wasn¡¯t fighting them, the spawn rate had seemed overwhelming, but taking them out at a chokepoint as they appeared took a lot of the pressure off.
How many zombies spawned over the course of a night? If it was dozens, that still only added up to one every twenty minutes or so. They were coming faster than that, but most of my time was spent waiting for the next one to appear. Corpses piled up at the entrance, and it was almost boring. Maybe Gastard had had the right idea, and I should have let him out to fight them the night we spent together.
Then Bill showed up.
He walked up to the entrance just beyond the bodies, real casual. Where did he keep getting pointy sticks? Did he stop by the forest before approaching my shelter, or were they considered a part of him, like the pieces of my skin he had added to himself?
His laughter put my teeth on edge, absolute Joker tier. He swiped his makeshift weapons as if inviting me to come out and play. I lunged forward with my spear, and he hopped back out of range.
¡°Can you talk?¡± I asked. ¡°Or do you still just make noise?¡±
He grinned at me. His teeth looked more human than those of the other shamblers.
It didn¡¯t look like there were other zombies around, and I couldn¡¯t hear any phantoms. It was probably a stupid move, but I wanted to kill this guy again, so I stepped over the bodies of his comrades to face him.
The moon was full, and it cast the field in a silver, otherworldly sheen. Bill came at me faster than I expected, and I barely sidestepped his initial charge. His stick thrust into the space where I had been. I pivoted on my heel, thrusting the spear towards his midsection, but Bill twisted, avoiding the point, and grabbed the shaft of my weapon. He wasn¡¯t moving like a zombie at all.
I yanked the spear back towards myself, unbalancing him, and followed up with a quick jab aimed at his face. He ducked, rolling to the side, coming up in a crouch. He was showing off. What the hell? Who even rolls in an actual fight? He held the stick up in a taunt, a lesser version of my spear, and laughed again.
Now that I got a good look at him, he was even more human than I remembered. His extra skin hung from his shoulders like a cloak, but his arms and hands looked like those of a normal human.
I thrust again, and he hopped out of the way, then came in under my spear. I knocked him on the side of the head with its shaft, but it didn¡¯t stop him. He poked at my face, scratching the mask, and I backed off. He took the opportunity to get between me and the entrance to my shelter. Not good.
I charged him, and he got out of the way. He jabbed me in the back as I went by, but the point didn¡¯t penetrate my tunic. I hopped the shamblers and got back into the hall just as a phantom screamed its way in a swoop through the space in front of the entrance.
Bill didn¡¯t follow me in, and I shut the gate before the phantom could circle back around. We faced each other, and he giggled. That was enough for one night.
15: My Visit to Town (Rewrite)
The morning arrived with a notification.
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Achievement: Survivor (2)
You have gone a full week without dying. What an accomplishment! Your base physiology is adjusted accordingly.
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My Might attribute was now an E, though Speed was still at F+, and Presence hadn¡¯t changed either. I felt great. If this kept up, I would be superhuman in a year, though it seemed like these achievements were going to be spacing out as I went along. One day had gotten me the first rank, then a week. Would the next be after a month?
When Esmelda and Gastard arrived at my shelter, they found me pushing zombie parts into a pit. I didn¡¯t see a point in harvesting all their tainted flesh, but leaving them out to rot wasn¡¯t an option. As it was, I expected a major mushroom patch to sprout up around this mass grave, but at least that would be manageable.
Esmelda whispered a prayer, while Gastard slipped down off of his horse.
¡°What happened?¡± His blue eyes were as cold as his tone, but I didn¡¯t think that attitude was for me. The sight of all the dead monsters just had him ready for a fight.
¡°Took your advice,¡± I said. ¡°Tried getting out and killing them. Went pretty well, mostly.¡±
¡°Your clothes,¡± Esmelda said, looking me up and down. ¡°You made them from koroshai?¡±
The mask was tucked away in my pack, but I was otherwise decked out in a complete set. Apart from shields, there were only four armor slots in Maincraft, and I was proud to have filled out every one of them.
¡°Zombie leather,¡± I said. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t recommend it for everyone, but it does the job.¡±
¡°You skinned them?¡± Gastard said, looking at the body at my feet with clear disgust.
¡°I use what I have.¡±
¡°Are you alright?¡± Esmelda asked. She brought her pony up to the pit and looked down at the pile of corpses. She looked more curious than afraid.
¡°Yeah, I¡¯m fine,¡± I said. ¡°Did you see the garden?¡±
They couldn¡¯t have missed it. The wheat wasn¡¯t ready to harvest, but the stalks were tall and green. The trees hadn¡¯t been there on their last visit either.
¡°We did,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°It¡¯s incredible. Mizu¡¯s blessing shines through you. How did you make them grow like that?¡±
¡°As long as I hang around, plants sprout up.¡± I gestured at the high grasses crowding my shelter and the nearby fields. Cutting it down wouldn¡¯t take long, but it was a chore that didn¡¯t rate highly on my to-do list. ¡°It¡¯s kind of annoying.¡±
Esmelda touched her forehead. ¡°It¡¯s a miracle. There are many things written of the Dark Lord, but causing crops to spring up and feed the multitudes is not among them.¡±
¡°We aren¡¯t quite to feeding multitudes yet,¡± I said, ¡°but we can get there. Are you sure you¡¯re alright with me coming into town today? What did Boffin say?¡±
¡°He says you are welcome, as long as you leave well before nightfall.¡±
Gastard kicked the last shambler into the pit for me. ¡°I would have fought them with you,¡± he said.
He was an odd guy. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, there¡¯s plenty more where that came from.¡± I looked over at Esmelda. Her hair was down, but she was still wearing the silver comb. ¡°How far is the village?¡±
¡°Over a league,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m sorry we didn¡¯t think to bring you a horse.¡±
¡°No worries.¡± Walking wasn¡¯t an issue. ¡°Let me tidy up a few things and we can go.¡± I filled in the grave and moved over to the garden to harvest everything that was ready before replanting seed coins in their place.
I could keep all my tools in medallion form, so it was easy to travel light. Walking was pleasant enough, and as they weren¡¯t rushing, I had no trouble keeping up with their mounts, but it made me miss music. The Subway had been close enough to home that I could hike there, and I¡¯d made a habit of doing that in the months before I got my license back. Without earbuds and a streaming service, however, it felt like I was missing something. After getting locked up, there had been a few years without music apart from what I¡¯d heard playing on the TV in the dayroom.
It had taken two and a half years for me to get a CD player, and one of its buttons had come broken, so I sent it back to the company to get a repair. Then they banned CD players from the facility because people kept using the motors that spun the disks to make tattoo guns. That had been a letdown.
In my former life, earbuds had been a constant companion. Music helped me focus, or I liked to pretend that it did. If nothing else, it helped me get through the day, and streaming music was definitely on the list of things I missed from my previous existence. But there were people with me now, so it was probably for the best that I stayed present.
¡°Have there been any monster sightings around the village?¡± I asked as we went along.
¡°No,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°It appears that this distance is enough.¡±
That was a relief. Seeing Bill with new skin had made me wonder if he¡¯d killed someone else.
¡°They will come,¡± Gastard said. I wasn¡¯t sure if he meant my spawns or Kevin¡¯s forces from Dargoth, but either way, it was a downer. Esmelda kept glancing at me. That made sense. I was something out of her people¡¯s folklore. She was adorable, and a part of me wanted to think she might be attracted to me, but the fact that she thought I was a hero sent by her chosen deity was more than enough to explain her interest.
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¡°Are there other towns around here? Or is it just Erihseht?¡±
¡°There are a few other villages,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°but we are not numerous.¡±
¡°And are they all like you?¡± I asked. What was a delicate way to phrase this? ¡°Little folk?¡±
¡°Lillits,¡± she corrected. ¡°Our people settled here centuries ago, but we keep mostly apart from the men of Drom. We do not have many humans living among us. Gastard is an exception.¡±
The man grunted in agreement when his name came up. It was weird hearing her refer to humans like they were a different species, but I guessed that was normal in a fantasy setting. Being an elf or a dwarf wasn¡¯t like having a different skin tone. There were significant biological distinctions.
¡°What¡¯s the difference between a lillit and a human? Aside from height, I mean.¡±
Esmelda gave a slight smile. ¡°It depends on who you ask. We live longer, slower lives, but we are not so different, overall. Some humans don¡¯t trust us, but in Drom at least, most people are accustomed to our presence, and don¡¯t think much about us at all.¡±
When it first came into view, the town was just a smudge beside the river, mostly hidden behind hills. The smudge gradually solidified into a mill and a waterwheel, a scattering of houses, and a few larger buildings. There were crops farther on, and livestock, but no walls that I could see. Further evidence that the monsters were a personal problem.
Everyone was short, and the buildings had been constructed at a reduced scale, but otherwise, it could have been any medieval town. Someone working in a field waved to Esmelda as we came in, and the grass gave way to a dirt road that wound its way through Erihseht.
We attracted a lot of attention as we went through. The lillits stopped what they were doing to greet Esmelda and Gastard, and their reactions to me were mixed. Some looked suspicious, but others tried to speak to me in their language, so I nodded and waved and got smiles in return.
Esmelda had wanted me to talk to Pastor Tipple, so we went directly to the local church. It was the largest building in the area, topped by a steeple with a bell. The doors were short enough that Gastard had to duck to enter, but they were just the right height for me to slip under the lintels. The hall was lined with pews that ended on a rostrum, but there was no one else there.
¡°Pastor,¡± Esmelda called. ¡°You have a visitor.¡±
An unintelligible voice responded from a door to one side of the rostrum. We stopped there to wait, and a few moments later, Tipple appeared, adjusting the blue stole around his shoulders. He¡¯d been on a horse when I¡¯d seen him before, so it hadn¡¯t been as obvious how overweight he was. He looked like a pilates ball with a pair of legs.
His nose was red, and his eyes were a little glassy, so I suspected his caloric surplus had something to do with a day drinking habit. He extended a hand to me, and I shook it.
¡°Welcome,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s a pleasure to see you again.¡±
¡°You too.¡±
¡°Esmelda said you would have questions for me. Why don¡¯t you all come to the study, so we can talk?¡±
We followed him into the room attached to the hall where there was a table with chairs that were all built a little low for me and Gastard. A half-empty wine bottle stood beside a mug and an open book, and behind the table was a shelf lined with more books.
Tipple took his seat by the mug, and we followed his example. Gastard was ramrod straight in his chair, as tense as if he was expecting it to give way underneath him.
¡°Esmelda says you know little of the goddess.¡± Tipple tapped the open book, its pages filled with a foreign script. ¡°Are you interested in learning about the Shui?¡±
¡°That¡¯s your holy text, right?¡±
He nodded. ¡°The record and the practice of our faith.¡±
¡°Esmelda said there were others like me before, not just Kevin.¡±
"That¡¯s correct. Mizu came to one of our people when we were still under the sway of the Dark Lord. She gave him visions and secrets, and he showed us her miracles. He led a rebellion of the little folk and gathered up as many of us as he could to take us out of Dargoth. It was a long and dangerous journey, and we were harried by the forces of the shadow all the way. I¡¯m sure we would have been lost, if not for the heroes."
"What were their names?" I felt like I already knew where this was going.
"Lady Nadia, Lord Umber, and Captain Murderface."
Okay. The first two could have passed for names local to this reality, but there was no way Captain Murderface was not an isekai. Tipple had spoken each title with equal gravity. It was obvious this was no joke to him. I opted not to comment. So Mizu was responsible for bringing these people into this world, and Kevin as well, unless there was another random omnipotent being playing around at being her counterpart. If she had been the one to bring me here, why couldn¡¯t I remember her better?
"Tell me about the miracles," I said. "The heroes performed them too, didn¡¯t they?"
"Of course," Tipple slugged back his drink and poured himself another.
Then he glanced up at me sheepishly. "Apologies for my rudeness. I¡¯m not much of a host. Would you like a glass?"
"No, thanks," I said, to his clear relief. "But what could the heroes do? How did they keep the Dark Lord¡¯s forces from recapturing your people?"
"Each played a part. All three of them were stronger than any man or lillit, fighting bravely and with skill. Lord Umber could heal any wound short of death, and Lady Nadia could command the elements. She summoned mists to hide us and called water out of the earth to ease our thirst as we wandered through the Wastes. At her command, lightning fell out of the sky to scatter the Dark Lord¡¯s forces, and campfires rose like soldiers to fight on our behalf."
"And uh¡Captain Murderface?"
Tipple was solemn. "He was the greatest of them all."
"He was a shapechanger," Esmelda added. "He wore a hundred faces and forms, and he could exchange them more easily than a man changing his clothes. He could harden his skin until it turned the edge of a sword, or grow wings and take to the skies. He could even take on aspects of the creatures of Bedlam."
Turning into a zombie didn¡¯t sound like a great superpower, but there had to be more to it than that.
"Esmelda has made something of a study of the holy triad," Tipple said fondly, "and she is correct. When the Dark Lord sent the greatest of his beasts to finish us, he met them fang to fang. But that was long ago, and he left us soon after we were free."
Had the previous isekais not been able to respawn? Did they age? If Kevin had been around all this time, why not the others? "Your people never saw him again after that? What about the other two?"
"Lady Nadia and Lord Umber helped establish the first free lillit settlement in the Free Kingdoms and negotiated with the kings of those days. But after it was clear that our people were finally safe from the Dark Lord, they took their leave. Only noble Frodo remained behind."
He must have seen something in my face.
"Are you alright? Have I said something to offend you?"
"No," I said, "not at all." The Lord of the Rings reference had just caught me by surprise. No way it was a coincidence. That made four isekais on the side of the light before me. One of them had just spawned as a lillit, or who knew, maybe he had just been short to begin with.
"They weren¡¯t ever seen again?" I repeated.
"There have been stories and songs," Tipple shrugged, "as they worked wonders in other parts of the world, but officially, no. The heroes are said to have returned to Eversea to dwell with the goddess when they were no longer needed here."
¡°We know of them,¡± Gastard said. ¡°Umberious remained.¡±
¡°That may be,¡± Tipple said, ¡°but it is not recorded in the Shui.¡±
Maybe they had escaped the world, maybe they were still here. Either way, it didn¡¯t sound like I was going to run into them any time soon. I looked at the bookshelf.
¡°I¡¯d like to learn some of your language. Do you have anything here that I could use to study?¡±
"I speak Kevinian well enough, as do Esmelda and her father,¡± Tipple said. ¡°She would be a better teacher than I, especially for Sprache. Most of the people of Erihseht are not so thoroughly educated. We keep the memory of Kevinian alive because it wasn¡¯t only spoken by the Dargothians, but the heroes themselves. I do have books written in all three tongues, but they are not instruction manuals. You would have to go to Henterfell for something like that. I¡¯m sure their priestly schools would have them."
"Do they worship Mizu too?"
"Oh, no, humans know next to nothing about the goddess. They send their praises to Gotte and none other." He lifted his mug, found that it was empty again, and set it back down. "If you would like, the two of you can use this room to study. I have some spare parchment and inks, and I will help you as I can. It wouldn¡¯t be proper for you to spend so much time alone, but I would be happy to act as a chaperone."
"I would be grateful," I said. We spent a little more time talking about their history, and I agreed to take part in a service in the indeterminate future. Tipple bid us farewell, and we walked back out into the street in front of the church. There was still plenty of time left in the day.
¡°If it¡¯s okay with you,¡± I said to Esmelda. ¡°I¡¯d like to talk about doing some business.¡±
16: My Business (Rewrite)
Esmelda raised an eyebrow. ¡°What sort of business?¡±
¡°As long as I¡¯m making things,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯d like to be able to do some trading in town. There are materials I haven¡¯t been able to find on my own.¡±
¡°We¡¯ll have to speak with my father,¡± she said, glancing up at the steeple of Tipple¡¯s church, ¡°but I don¡¯t think he would deny you the right.¡±
We walked further into town. The buildings were spaced wide apart, and the road wasn¡¯t crowded. Erihseht stretched as far as I could see, with the houses and shops broken up by fenced gardens and pens for animals. The scent of baking bread wafted through the air, and further on, manure. Men were hacking at a log behind one building, shaping it into a beam. How much faster would that work have been for me?
With a power like mine, it would be pretty easy to destabilize a rural economy. Not that I wanted to destabilize it, but I wasn¡¯t averse to making money. Gastard walked silently beside us. What was his role in this community? He couldn¡¯t be Esmelda¡¯s full-time guard.
¡°How did you come to be here?¡± I asked him.
¡°I was going to die,¡± he said. ¡°Erihseht was a stop along the way.¡±
¡°Excuse me?¡±
Esmelda gave me a warning look, and I let it drop. Gastard could be mysterious if he wanted to be. The mayor¡¯s home was a two-story manor, mostly stone and mortar with a tiled roof. The interior was cozy, with a lot of furniture that was too small and door frames that weren¡¯t quite high enough. Boffin must have heard us enter, because he appeared while I was still looking around the living room.
He looked between me and Esmelda, worry creasing his brow. ¡°So you did come,¡± he said. ¡°I wasn¡¯t sure if we would see you again.¡±
¡°Why not?¡±
¡°From what Gastard told me, you live under siege. But forgive me, I am an ungracious host. Can I offer you some tea?¡±
Mayor Boffin joined me at a table in the living room while Esmelda went into the kitchen. My knees banged up against the table as I sat down, and Gastard remained standing.
¡°If you don¡¯t object,¡± he said, ¡°I will take my leave.¡±
¡°Of course,¡± Boffin said. ¡°I can¡¯t thank you enough for escorting my daughter, but I don¡¯t think your protection will be necessary here.¡±
Gastard grunted and left the manor.
¡°What¡¯s up with him?¡± I asked.
Boffin frowned. ¡°What¡¯s¡up?¡±
¡°I mean, he seems like a good guy, but it¡¯s strange that he¡¯s here with you. There aren¡¯t a lot of humans in Erihseht, right?¡±
¡°Ah,¡± Boffin said. ¡°True, there are not many. Gastard is a virtuous man, but he found himself at odds with the lord of Henterfell, and he has since come to stay with us. We are grateful to have him.¡±
¡°Does the lord not own this land? You all have a king, don¡¯t you?¡±
"Erihseht is a free settlement," Mayor Boffin said, straightening, "and the Lillits are a free people. Every family has their own land, and they use it as they see fit. We do owe a tax to Henterfell, but the king is in Eisenhall, and does not trouble himself over us.¡±
¡°Do you think the king would have a problem with me being here?¡± Feudal societies were a mess, and I could easily imagine that a local lord would have something to say about me settling where I was.
Boffin sucked on his lower lip, and Esmelda returned with cups of an amber-colored drink for all of us before sitting beside the mayor. I took a sip; hot tea, with an undertone of fermentation. It wasn¡¯t great, but it was an improvement over river water.
¡°The king would not be pleased,¡± Boffin said. ¡°It was my duty to send word of your presence to Lord Godwod in Henterfell, but now that we know who you are, I regret doing so. It may cause trouble for us all.¡±
Esmelda held her cup with both hands but didn¡¯t drink. Steam drifted up around her face. ¡°The message said we thought you were from Dargoth, not that you were a hero sent by the goddess. I do not think the men of Drom believe in our heroes.¡±
¡°Drom?¡± She had mentioned the name before, but I needed more context.
¡°Drom is the kingdom we inhabit,¡± Boffin said. ¡°It is ruled by King Egald the Second, and Lord Godwod of Henterfell is a margrave, the noble appointed with authority over the border between Drom and the lands of Dargoth.¡±
¡°What do you think he¡¯s going to do, this Godwod guy?¡±
Boffin sipped, and his shoulders slumped. The drink seemed to help him relax. ¡°Send someone to investigate, I¡¯m sure. Trade with Dargoth was outlawed many years ago by Egald the First. People do not come from beyond the mountains without reason, and they may assume you are a scout or a spy. I have sent a second letter, claiming we were mistaken, and that you turned out to be a hunter with an odd tattoo. But I don¡¯t know what the lord will do.¡±
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¡°Thanks,¡± I said. ¡°So I take it we should keep my blessings a secret? What does that mean for the kingdom, though? If I¡¯m here, isn¡¯t it a sign that something else is coming?¡±
Esmelda hadn¡¯t dreamed of seeing me happily farming in the wilderness, she had dreamed of shadows and fire.
¡°I believe you are here for a reason,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°but a lord will not take my intuition alone as a warning to prepare for war. Sorcery is outlawed in Drom, and that is how they would see your blessings, and perhaps my dreams as well.¡±
¡°You would be taken into custody for questioning,¡± Boffin said. ¡°You still may be, and when koroshai begin to appear around you, they will take that as confirmation that you are an agent of the Dark Lord. If you are to remain by the river, we should have another story to tell whoever finds you there.¡±
¡°So I¡¯m not from Dargoth,¡± I said. ¡°And I¡¯m not a magical hero. But I don¡¯t speak their language, what was it again?¡±
¡°Sprache,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°I can try to teach you some, and you could practice with Gastard, but they would know you are not one of them. It would be better if you pretended to be mute, or an imbecile.¡±
¡°What if we said I was from Dargoth, but I had defected. Is there really no one in Drom who comes from that country?¡±
¡°You would still be questioned,¡± Boffin said. ¡°And you would have no answers to satisfy them. We don¡¯t know enough of what Dargoth has become to tell you what to say.¡±
¡°But they wouldn¡¯t know either, right? I could make something up. If there¡¯s no contact between this nation and that one, how would they know anything I said wasn¡¯t true?¡±
Boffin¡¯s face wrinkled with concern. ¡°That would be a dangerous game.¡±
Esmelda looked thoughtful. ¡°Any lie we tell them could be dangerous. We will have to see how they respond. The lord may not send anyone. And if the Dark Lord does stir, they will have more to worry about than you.¡±
¡°What about the people here?¡± I asked. ¡°Do the other lillits know what I am?¡±
¡°Tipple has been speaking about you,¡± Boffin said, looking like he wasn¡¯t happy about it. ¡°But most do not believe. Now that you have been seen here, the people of Erihseht will form their own opinions.¡±
¡°I asked Esmelda if it would be alright for me to trade for goods in town. Do you think that¡¯s a bad idea?¡±
Boffin shook his head. ¡°Not in itself. They may take you for a Dargothian, because of your speech, and you will not be welcomed on that account. Whether you should tell them what you truly are, I cannot say. If there are things you need, we can help you find them. What were you hoping to trade for?¡±
¡°I could use some iron,¡± I said.
¡°Oh,¡± Esmelda¡¯s hands went to her mouth. ¡°I forgot to bring you charcoal.¡±
¡°It¡¯s okay,¡± I said. ¡°The seeds were more important.¡±
¡°How much iron?¡± Boffin asked.
¡°As much as I can get.¡±
He tapped one finger on the table, thinking. ¡°Until we know whether Lord Godwod will respond, I would prefer that you didn¡¯t cause a stir in town. We don¡¯t need lillits talking about you, saying things that could travel to the wrong ears. I can get you what you need.¡±
¡°What can I give you in return?¡±
He waved his hand. ¡°I¡¯m not concerned with the cost. What matters to me is the safety of the village. If Godwod decides you are an enemy, it won¡¯t go well for us to have had you selling goods in town. As I said, open trade with Dargoth is illegal. And though you are an individual, not an emissary, lords have a habit of interpreting the facts in their own way. If you decide to pretend you are Dargothian, then you should not be trading here. Even if we claim otherwise, your speech will make people suspicious.¡±
¡°I understand,¡± I said. ¡°I don¡¯t want to make things harder on you, but you¡¯ve already helped me, and I feel like I owe you something.¡±
¡°You are one of Mizu¡¯s heroes,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Helping you is the right thing to do.¡±
¡°In that case,¡± I said. ¡°I would also love some soap.¡±
She blinked at me. "Pardon?"
"I want soap," I said. "To wash with."
She laughed. It was a sweet sound. ¡°Soap and charcoal. Let me fetch them for you.¡±
Boffin watched her go, and the expression he turned on me afterward was deathly serious.
¡°Until we know what comes of this,¡± he said. ¡°It would be safest for my daughter if you did not spend more time with her.¡±
¡°She¡¯s come to see me with Gastard,¡± I said. ¡°That¡¯s all.¡±
¡°I know. And I will speak to her about that. But I am asking you as a father to distance yourself. Even if you are a hero, that is all the more reason to do so. Being around you can only put her in danger.¡±
I couldn¡¯t argue with that. It wasn¡¯t as if I¡¯d been planning to ask her out on a date. I liked being around her, but she¡¯d been the one maintaining contact so far. The monsters alone were problematic enough, but adding potential repercussions from a noble made being friendly with me an even worse idea.
¡°I understand,¡± I said.
We sat in awkward silence until Esmelda returned. She was carrying a large, dusty sack filled with charcoal, which she deposited on the table. In her other hand was an oilskin pouch. She gave it to me, and I opened it to find an off-white goop that I assumed was supposed to be soap.
¡°Thank you.¡± I reached into my pouch and retrieved the figure I had carved the day before. ¡°I don¡¯t have much to give you in return, but you can at least have this.¡±
Her eyes widened as she took the carving. ¡°The goddess,¡± she said, cradling it in her arms. ¡°I will treasure it.¡±
Boffin¡¯s mouth pinched.
¡°The day is waning,¡± he said. ¡°You should return to your home. As for the iron, Gastard will deliver it to you soon.¡±
¡°Sure,¡± I said, standing. ¡°You¡¯ve both been a lot of help to me. If there¡¯s anything I can do for Erihseht, you know where to find me.¡±
Boffin stood as well. ¡°We do.¡± His manner was even less warm than it had been before. ¡°Let me see you to the door.¡±
Esmelda smiled at me, and I hesitated. There wasn¡¯t anything for me to say. Boffin was right. Getting closer to her would only put her at more risk. Giving her the statue had been an impulse, and probably come across as a rejection of the mayor¡¯s warning, even if I hadn¡¯t meant it that way.
¡°Goodbye,¡± I said, and the mayor walked me out.
17: My Tiny Miracle (Rewrite)
Tipple caught me as I was passing back by the church. He hurried across the street with another lillit at his side. Despite his out of shape appearance, the pastor could move quickly when he wanted to, and the man beside him had to hustle to keep up.
¡°Leaving already?¡± Tipple said. ¡°There¡¯s someone I wanted to introduce you to.¡±
¡°Hey,¡± I said. ¡°Yeah, I need to get back home before nightfall.¡±
¡°Of course,¡± Tipple glanced at the sun. ¡°But this won¡¯t take long. My friend here is Dongle Darfur. He heard me speaking about you during my last sermon, and he was eager to meet you.¡±
Dongle was four and half feet tall, stocky, and well dressed. His hand flashed with rings as he waved at me. A broad smile, full of pearly white teeth, gave me used car salesman vibes.
¡°Bongu, g?andi pja?ir niltaqg?ek.¡± He said.
¡°Uh, hello.¡±
Tipple laughed. ¡°He doesn¡¯t speak Kevinian, but I can translate for you. Dongle is pleased to meet you.¡±
¡°Oh, well, you too,¡± I said. ¡°I like your rings.¡±
Tipple relayed my statement, and Dongle bobbed his head enthusiastically. He held up his hand so I could get a better look at his jewelry, and followed up with a flurry of words that were pure nonsense to me.
¡°He¡¯s very pleased,¡± Tipple said. ¡°Dongle is an accomplished jeweler, and he likes to show off his work. He says you are welcome to visit his shop anytime.¡±
¡°Thank you,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m not sure if I should though. I was just talking to the mayor about keeping my distance until he hears back from the local lord. Apparently, the nobility doesn¡¯t like magical strangers.¡±
¡°Hm,¡± Tipple pursed his lips. ¡°I didn¡¯t realize he¡¯d told anyone about you yet, but Boffin is a fastidious man, so I understand why he would. Did he send a message to Godwod? What did it say?¡±
¡°I think he sent two. The first said I was a Dargothian, and the second that I was just a hermit living alone, or something like that. He thinks we should keep who I really am quiet for now.¡±
¡°That complicates things,¡± Tipple patted his belly thoughtfully. ¡°Drom has a different relationship with heroes than we do, but better a hero than a Dargothian, I would imagine. Still, you have nothing to fear from our people. Dongle is a good man, very active in the community. He wanted to see a miracle with his own eyes.¡±
¡°Like what?¡± I said.
¡°Why not the trick with the grass? Frankly, I would be overjoyed to witness it again myself.¡±
The church had plenty of space around it, but we were still in the middle of town. There were lillits watching our conversation not far off, talking amongst themselves. Boffin didn¡¯t want me to make a stir and it made sense for him to be cautious, but if the choice was between the townsfolk thinking I was a vagabond or potential threat and believing I was a hero out of legend, I preferred the second option.
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A small demonstration couldn¡¯t hurt. I dug a few grass coins out of my pack, held them up for Dongle to see, and tossed them on the ground between us. With a pop, a patch of wild grass as tall as either lillit appeared, and both men gawked.
Dongle greeted the sight with another flurry of words, and Tipple nodded along.
¡°He asks if he could have a coin as a keepsake,¡± Tipple said. ¡°It would mean a lot to him.¡±
¡°Sure,¡± I handed one over, and Dongle accepted it like I was offering him a holy relic. He pressed it between both of his bejeweled hands, and bowed deeply in thanks.
Looking around, I saw other lillits gesturing excitedly, but they didn¡¯t approach. ¡°Hey,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m fine with you telling people about me, but make sure everyone knows that they shouldn¡¯t try to find me or follow me. There might be monsters in the woods around where I¡¯m staying, and at night, they¡¯re everywhere.¡±
¡°Of course,¡± Tipple¡¯s face became grave. ¡°I¡¯ll make sure they understand the danger. But I think the mayor has the wrong idea in trying to hide your presence. I want all of Erihseht to know what you are. If there is any trouble coming from Henterfell, I will support you. So will this town.¡±
I felt my shoulders relax. Boffin seemed like a good man, but his priority was keeping the peace. Tipple saw me as an emissary of his deity, so he was more likely to go to bat on my behalf.
¡°Thank you,¡± I said.
Tipple took my hand in both of his. ¡°I¡¯ll speak to the mayor.¡± He said. ¡°We need you with us, and the lord will have to be convinced, but it can be done. I don¡¯t know what your plans are, but if you could return here in a week, I want to hold a public forum in the church. There are many others who will see things the way I do.¡±
¡°I¡¯ll be there,¡± I said. ¡°Uh, how long is a week?¡±
The pastor blinked. ¡°Seven days,¡± he said. ¡°What else would it be?¡±
¡°Just making sure.¡±
After another exchange with Dongle, who was more ecstatic about my trick with the grass than the ¡®miracle¡¯ probably deserved, the lillits bid me goodbye, and I headed out of town. I waved at people as I went, trying to look as friendly as possible, and no one tried to stop me or ask me questions. There were a few hostile faces in the market, but not everyone would have heard I was a hero yet, and I didn¡¯t let it bother me.
On the way back to base, I thought about my next steps. The extra charcoal was nice to have. As it had turned out, my torches did not last forever. They burned out in about an hour, which severely limited their utility. I needed more materials, and to improve my skills. Kevin was out there somewhere, and the way things were going, it looked like he was going to be my primary antagonist in this world. I held no illusions that the goddess would have dropped me here with his name in a quest box if the evil empire was not about to make some moves.
Dargoth had monsters a lot scarier than zombies and phantoms, and I needed to be properly equipped to face them when the time came. If this was a grace period, I needed to take every advantage of it while I could to progress as far as my System would allow. Kevin was probably walking around in Netherite armor, or whatever the equivalent was, and I hadn¡¯t even teched up to iron yet.
There were no new phantoms hiding under the boulder. I harvested stone until my pick looked ready to shatter and took it home with me. Working with stone did wonders for both my skill progression and my overall level. Miner was already over sixteen, and I was hoping for another notification of some kind when it hit twenty. The way things were now, I probably couldn¡¯t collect iron even if I found a vein sticking out of the ground. Level ten had unlocked stone and meat, an odd combo, but I would take it. The next rung up had to be metal.
18: My Self-Assigned Quest Update (Rewrite)
| Journal |
Quests |
Notifications |
Materials |
Crafting |
|
Captain¡¯s Log: Five days until I visit Erihseht again. Why isn¡¯t there a calendar function to this thing? Immediate versus long-term goals.
Personal Quest Update: Improve Skills
You currently have two skills, Miner and Artisan. Kevin is going to have more skills and they are significantly better than yours. Since you don¡¯t know how to get more skills, improve the ones you have as quickly as possible. Miner progression has stalled on basic materials. Leather is worth a little, and stone is worth a lot as far as advancing it, so focus on collecting stone. Goal? Get Miner to level 20 to see if it unlocks new materials. Test out iron when you get some.
Reward: Metal tools? Ice cream. Also, invent ice cream so you can reward yourself with ice cream.
Personal Quest Update: Kevin
So Kevin is the Dark Lord of Dargoth, and Dargoth is basically Mordor. He¡¯s been chilling for a long time, so either they are going to attack soon and you will have to deal with it and save the lillits or whatever, or when you unlock everything the Survivor System offers you will have to go to Dargoth yourself and deal with him. Capture or kill? Not sure yet. He¡¯s got demons, apparently, so find out more about demons. Having allies is a big deal, so make friends with the locals, including Lord Godwod.
Reward: It¡¯s hard to tell. The goddess gave me one quest, so I¡¯m going to do it. Will success mean I get to stay in this world forever or send me home or lead to her giving me something else to do? Regardless, ice cream party upon completion.
Personal Quest Update: Kill Bill
Evolving monsters are a problem. Keep an eye out for changes in him and the other mobs. Stealing my skin seemed to be the catalyst for making him special, so, uh, don¡¯t let monsters steal your skin anymore. Capture Bill if you can.
Reward: Not getting harassed by a smart zombie.
|
I¡¯ve always been extremely goal oriented, and I felt better having those goals written out and broken down in a way that made them more manageable. There were too many unknowns involved for me to truly codify what I would need to do about Kevin, but advancing my System had to be the priority from now on. I ate a carrot on my way to the boulder.
Given that I was in the best shape of my life, any life, I decided to run instead of walk. With nothing to compare them to, my ability scores were hard to quantify. What did having a Might score of E mean apart from making me more muscular? My stomach had noticeably flattened, and the weight loss had occurred too quickly to attribute it entirely to my low-carb diet. A handful of vegetables was more than I needed to not feel hungry, but that I was visibly leaner after only a few days in this world suggested that I was burning absurd amounts of calories relative to my intake. Hungry or not, an enhanced physiology appeared to come with a metabolism set to overdrive. I hadn¡¯t seen my abs since I was in my early twenties, and while there was still padding left around my midsection, I felt like they were well on their way to making another appearance.
Jogging was almost too easy. The morning was cool, and I barely felt the weight of my pack and tools aside from how they bounced around as I went. The air smelled clean, though my body odor left something to be desired. I¡¯d put the soap to good use as soon as I got back.
By the time I got to the boulder, I was winded, but not wheezing. There had been periods in my previous life when I¡¯d done a fair bit of running, but cardio had a way of dropping off quickly if you didn¡¯t keep up the habit. Might was definitely a measure of endurance as well as raw strength.
One stone pick could break a hundred stone blocks before it broke itself. While I didn¡¯t have a watch, my rough estimate was that it took about half an hour for me to do that much. Using the worktable I¡¯d left by the boulder to re-equip myself as necessary, I went through five picks in quick succession, and the outcrop was essentially gone. There was still a knuckle of stone sticking up from the ground, but it was no longer something a mob could hide under.
Checking my status screen as I went along, I saw that each harvested block was worth about one point of progress, which meant that the Miner skill had hit level twenty somewhere into the fourth pick. My overall level was also much higher, though it had capped out at fifteen. There was no accompanying notification for either form of advancement.
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As far as the overall level went, it looked like harvesting the same materials over and over got me less and less of a reward. I didn¡¯t think fifteen was a hard cap, just that I would have to harvest something new to get past it, whereas the Mining skill was still clipping along a point at a time.
By midday, Miner was up to level twenty-one, and as the sheer number of coins I¡¯d collected was getting hard to manage, so I converted them all to tokens. It was tedious, though also strangely satisfying, to take a hoard of coins and convert them into a more compact stack nine at a time. As they generated in the same material and style, there wasn¡¯t much difference between a coin and a token aside from their size. When nearly all the coins were converted, my System dinged, and I checked the notification screen.
| Journal |
Quests |
Notifications |
Materials |
Crafting |
|
Achievement: Hoarder (2)
You have collected fifty tokens of a single type. How cumbersome. New storage unit unlocked [Medallion]. Why not merge the tokens?
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Don¡¯t mind if I do. As the System obviously functioned on a base of nine, I counted out that many tokens, piled them in my palm, and slammed them all down on the worktable at once.
Plep.
The resulting object was the same size as the medallions that appeared when I converted things like tools and furniture, an oversized coin with an intricate design around its border in the style of Celtic knots. I held up the medallion to the light to get a better look at it; the embellishments were as clean and crisp as if they had been freshly minted, if there was a mint that could have worked with granite. It was heavier than it looked, but considering that the object represented eighty-one cubic feet of stone, half a pound was nothing to complain about.
There was still rock left to collect, but I had one more skill to grind and crops to look after, so I jogged back to base. The exercise was enjoyable, rather than exhausting, and after forcing down a beet to quiet my growling stomach, I got to work carving a few more figurines.
The practical applications of the Artisan skill hadn¡¯t presented themselves yet, but the System wouldn¡¯t have given it to me for no reason. Maybe there were tools or equipment that could only be crafted by hand, or it would give me more customization options when it was higher level. There was no way to find out except to improve the skill.
The afternoon went by with a series of carvings. Logs transformed under my knife into seemingly random figures. The process required little thought. I simply let my hands do the work, stopping occasionally to harvest any patch of carrots or beets that matured and replant the seeds. The wheat was nearly ready, though I¡¯d spaced the stalks out more than was necessary, and the cabbages were coming along nicely as well.
Part of the plot had been ruined overnight. The fencing was good enough to keep out shamblers, but there was nothing to prevent them from spawning inside, and at least one had, so I¡¯d had to do some replanting and hoeing to clean it up that morning. I doubted the zombies had any interest in my vegetables, so I was going to leave the gate open during the night from now on.
My first full figurine had been a representation of the goddess, but the new ones were all monsters. I whittled a shambler, a phantom, and hulking creature that I thought of as a troll, though it had a long snout instead of a flat face like the trolls from Lord of the Rings. As I was looking it over, I glanced up to see Gastard riding toward me along the river.
¡°Hail, hero,¡± the man said, dismounting as he reached my garden.
¡°Hey,¡± I said. ¡°What¡¯s up?¡±
He spent a few moments checking over his horse before untying a bag from the saddle and leaving the animal to munch grass.
¡°Mayor Boffin sends his regards.¡± He said, hefting the sack with difficulty. Its sides bulged with hard edges.
¡°Thanks.¡± The bag held iron ingots, and I took them over to my work table to count them out. There were eight relatively uniform rectangles, good enough to stack but not nearly as exact as something that I would have crafted. The sides and edges bore evidence of being beaten into shape by a hammer.
Gastard watched me tap one of them with a fresh pick. I kept at it for a minute, with no sign of a change in the metal suggesting that it was going to be converted, before giving up. As I had assumed, my skill wasn¡¯t high enough for me to work with metal yet.
¡°What are you doing?¡± He asked.
¡°Just testing it out. I think I have to work with stone for a while more before I¡¯m ready to craft iron. I really appreciate this, though. Did Boffin say if he needed anything? I¡¯d like more ingots if I can get them.¡±
¡°I will tell him,¡± Gastard said, looking over my garden. ¡°Will you kill more koroshai tonight?¡±
¡°I was thinking about it,¡± I said.
¡°Then I will stay.¡±
¡°Sure, you¡¯re welcome to. I could use the help.¡± Even with a complete set of leathers, the idea of facing Bill again had been stressing me out. The zombie was better at fighting than I was, but Gastard looked like a guy who knew how to handle his sword. With him backing me up, I was less likely to be overwhelmed, and we could double team Bill when the other mobs were taken care of.
¡°I was just doing some whittling,¡± I said. ¡°Do you want a carrot or something? I¡¯ve got plenty.¡±
¡°Whittling?¡± Gastard examined my figurines. His face was always serious, but it grew more so as he picked up the troll.
¡°You have seen this?¡± He asked.
¡°No,¡± I said. ¡°It just came out of me. Do you know what it is?¡±
¡°Koloss.¡± He spoke the word in a low, hard tone.
¡°Are they bad?¡±
He nodded.
¡°Well, hopefully, we won¡¯t see one anytime soon.¡±
19: My Showdown (Rewrite)
¡°Let me see you use your sword,¡± Gastard said.
¡°What?¡± I was piling the iron ingots back in their sack, thinking about how much stone I was going to have to harvest before I could use them, and his question caught me off guard.
¡°Your sword. If we fight together, I need to know how you wield it.¡±
There was still some time before dark, so I grabbed my stone blade and hefted it. The hilt was long enough that I could grip it with both hands, which was convenient, as it was too heavy to use comfortably in one.
Gastard paused in the act of drawing his own sword, his sharp blue eyes narrowing as they took in mine. He stepped forward. ¡°Let me see that.¡±
I switched up my grip so I could hand it to him hilt first, and he frowned as he lifted it. His armor looked old, with some links in his chain shirt showing signs of rust and repair, but his chest plate was so polished that it caught the evening sun.
¡°What is this?¡± He asked. ¡°It isn¡¯t steel.¡±
¡°Stone,¡± I said.
He grunted. ¡°Your blessing.¡± Turning to one side, he made a few practice swings, and the muscles in his forearms bulged like ropes beneath his skin.
¡°This is far too heavy,¡± he said, running his thumb along its edge, ¡°but sharp enough.¡±
He flipped it over to hand it back to me. ¡°Try to land a blow to my cuirass. Let me see what you can do.¡±
Gastard stepped back and drew his own weapon, giving me a nod. Even if we were just sparring, going up against him made me nervous, so I started out with a halfhearted poke at his chest, and he batted it aside with ease.
¡°No.¡± He said. ¡°Do better.¡±
I went at him with a full on side swing, and he parried, but his eyes widened a fraction as he absorbed the blow. My sword¡¯s extra weight added to its momentum, and his blade rang, while mine remained silent. I felt the impact in my hands, and he clearly felt it as well. Was I stronger than him?
¡°Keep trying,¡± he said.
What followed was an awkward series of attacks that were expertly rebuffed. I lost my hesitancy and started really putting my all into the swings. Gastard stepped away from one, then slapped the back of my hand with the flat of his blade. It stung, but I kept my grip.
¡°Enough,¡± he said. ¡°You are strong, but unskilled. You need training, lots of it.¡±
I couldn¡¯t argue with his assessment. Apart from my lack of skill, my forearms were already burning, and I¡¯d been trying to hit him for less than a minute.
¡°Will you help me?¡±
¡°I will. For tonight, stay close, and you may not die.¡±
¡°I have a spear,¡± I said. ¡°I was thinking about using that.¡±
¡°Good. A spear is a fine weapon for a beginner.¡±
There were probably many people who would have said that a spear was a fine weapon at any skill level, but he had a point. The best thing I could do was try to keep my enemies at a distance, and if I were fighting with a partner, it would be easier to keep the mobs from getting too close.
I showed him how the gates worked and moved all my stuff inside to prepare for what was coming.
¡°This place reeks of death,¡± Gastard said as soon as he had stepped down into the basement.
¡°Yeah,¡± I said, ¡°that checks out.¡±
I¡¯d cleared out all the shambler corpses, but the smell was in the dirt, and I was constantly having to clear mushrooms from the cells. It was an altogether earthy aroma, with a powerful undertone of swamp. I got the fire pit going and crafted a new torch to stick in the entrance hall. I could replace it when it went out.
The sun was going down, and Gastard grimaced when I produced my mask.
¡°What is that?¡± He asked.
¡°My helmet,¡± I said.
Gastard didn¡¯t have a helmet, though his dirty blonde hair had a bit of a helmet look to it. His armor was limited to his cuirass and the chain shirt under it, which hung down below his waist, and leather leggings that were reinforced with metal studs. No shield for either of us. If the formula to craft a shield was the same as in the game, then I would have to be able to use iron before I could make any.
¡°Disgusting,¡± he said, as I put it on.
¡°Hey, it works.¡±
He didn¡¯t look like he thought the tradeoff was worth it, but protecting my head was more important than not looking like a serial killer.
¡°Listen,¡± I said, ¡°if Bill shows up, I want to capture him.¡±
¡°Bill?¡±
¡°The special koroshai. The one that has my face. If we kill him, he might just come back tomorrow.¡±
Gastard grunted his assent, and not long after, we heard the first mobs begin to spawn outside. My hope that the phantoms wouldn¡¯t come back if I got a full night¡¯s sleep proved to be false. We had moved into the hall as darkness rolled in, and one of them swooped by the front gate, its unearthly scream echoing in the tight space.
I pressed the button with my spear, and the gate swung open. There wasn¡¯t room for us to stand side by side, so I took up a position a step behind Gastard. When the phantom flew in, he cut it down in a stroke, and I collected the body to toss down in the basement.
¡°No room,¡± he said. ¡°I can¡¯t fight like this. We should go outside.¡±
¡°They¡¯ll surround us,¡± I said.
¡°We keep the hall at our backs, and retreat if there are too many.¡±
¡°The phantoms come from above. They could drop on your head.¡±
¡°Still,¡± he tapped the ceiling with the tip of his sword. ¡°I dislike this.¡±
¡°It¡¯s safer here.¡±
Gastard frowned. ¡°This is not how heroes do battle.¡±
Our debate was cut short as a second phantom barreled in through the entrance. As if to make his point, Gastard¡¯s swing scraped against the log wall, which threw off his timing. The phantom¡¯s tail whipped against his breastplate, and it floated back when I tried to jab it with my spear. Gastard stepped forward, thrusting his sword up into the monster¡¯s belly, and it fell to the ground. Without bothering to continue the argument, he moved to stand in the open just outside the hall.
If that¡¯s how he was going to play it, I felt like I had no choice but to follow his example. I retrieved the torch and replanted it on one side of the entrance. We stood side by side to face the incoming mobs.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
There was only one more phantom in the sky, and it was circling high above, waiting for an opportunity to strike as a pair of zombies shambled our way. Gastard rushed forward to meet them, and had sliced off both their heads before I made up my mind on whether or not to go after him.
¡°They are only dangerous in numbers,¡± he said, walking back to take up his post once more. ¡°We cannot allow them to gather.¡±
While I didn¡¯t agree about the level of danger involved, he was right that the shamblers were easier to deal with alone than in groups.
¡°Just don¡¯t get too far away from the shelter,¡± I said, and he nodded in response. A shriek warned us both of the incoming phantom, but it pulled up out of its dive well before it came within range of my spear. It was testing us.
A few more shamblers appeared over the next few minutes, but between the two of us, they were quickly dispatched. Then it got quiet. The phantom continued to circle, and I lost sight of it as a cloud drifted over the moons. The minutes ticked by, and I could tell Gastard was getting restless.
¡°Why do you want to fight monsters?¡± I said. ¡°I mean, I appreciate the help, but it seems important to you.¡±
¡°The templars,¡± Gastard said, his voice pitched low. ¡°They were knights in the old times. I dreamt of being one of them when I was a boy and learned the speech of the enemy to better understand them. But there is no Order in these days.¡±
¡°Is that why you came here? To be closer to Dargoth?¡±
¡°Yes,¡± his face hardened. ¡°I was going to find my death in my dream.¡±
That sounded ominous. ¡°You wanted to die?¡±
¡°I did.¡±
¡°Like you were going to go into Dargoth yourself, but you stayed with the lillits instead?¡±
He grunted, and I let him be. Boffin had said Gastard had gotten himself into some kind of dispute with the Lord of Henterfell, so maybe he was an exile, or otherwise decided that the only way for him to retain his honor was to ride off into the sunset. Regardless, I was glad he hadn¡¯t gone through with his suicide mission. He was a useful man to have around, and he seemed like a good one, despite his gruff manner.
There was a moan from around the other side of the shelter, and we waited for the shambler to come for us, but it didn¡¯t.
¡°There,¡± Gastard said, pointing at a shape a hundred feet away from us. It was crouching in the tall grass, and I wouldn¡¯t have noticed if not for his warning. It looked like a shambler, but its stillness told me it was something more. Bill.
¡°He¡¯s watching us,¡± I said.
¡°Waiting,¡± Gastard said. ¡°Gathering. That is why they do not attack.¡±
Another figure rose out of the shadows a few dozen paces away, shifting from side to side, but not approaching. This was an entirely new level of problem.
¡°You think he can tell the others what to do?¡±
Gastard shrugged. ¡°Demons can. The aychar.¡±
¡°What¡¯s an aychar?¡±
¡°The Dark Lord¡¯s generals.¡±
¡°But he¡¯s not a demon, is he? I thought he was just a smart shambler.¡±
¡°I do not know how demons are born, or how many other evils lurk in the ranks of Dargoth.¡±
Gastard moved forward, and I backed him up. Bill laughed as we approached, then moved away, matching our pace. He had no intention of facing us yet, and the farther we got from the shelter, the easier it would be to get mobbed.
¡°He wants us to go after him,¡± I said, and we retreated to the hall. The phantom was still keeping its distance, as were the other monsters. If Bill was communicating his intentions to them, he did so silently. The first torch guttered out, its charcoal spent. How long had it been, an hour?
Gastard watched the entrance while I crafted a replacement, and we continued the vigil.
¡°If Bill thinks he can¡¯t win,¡± I said, ¡°he may not come at all.¡±
¡°He will come,¡± Gastard said, ¡°or the others will, as long as the way is open.¡±
¡°How do you know?¡±
¡°They have only the night.¡±
The minutes dragged on, and the moons came out again, revealing more shamblers assembling at a distance from the shelter. I snacked on a carrot, more to pass the time than because I was hungry, chewing the fibers into mush. Gastard refused my offer to share.
A bow would have been nice. Gastard, apparently, had not brought his. I could make rope with grass, but not string. Would I have to kill spiders to get thread? Hopefully, some flax or something would do.
Though there was no signal we could see, the shamblers began moving all at once, coming together in a loose semicircle as they approached the shelter with Bill walking up behind them. His laughter cut through the chorus of their moans.
They stopped a dozen paces away from the entrance, and the shrieks of phantoms filled the night, but they were high above.
¡°As long as we have a chokepoint,¡± I said, ¡°we¡¯ll be fine.¡±
Gastard took a single step out into the open.
¡°What are you doing?¡± I shouted.
¡°He won¡¯t send them to us,¡± he said, not looking back. ¡°He knows it would be pointless.¡±
¡°You don¡¯t know what he¡¯s thinking!¡± I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back into the hall. ¡°Just wait it out.¡±
He punched me in the face. The mask absorbed the damage, but it was still vigorous enough to knock my head back. Anger surged through me, and I saw myself stabbing him, an intrusive thought, but I clamped down on the impulse.
¡°What was that for?¡±
Gastard turned back toward the enemy. ¡°Hero or not, if you touch me again, there will be blood between us.¡±
¡°I¡¯m trying to save you!¡±
¡°You are not my lord. You do not command me. Attempting to physically force me to obey you is an assault on my person.¡±
¡°Are you kidding me?¡± If that was his attitude toward being told what to do, it was easy to imagine how this man might have run afoul of a noble.
¡°I am not.¡± Gastard readied his sword and moved toward the line of zombies, which remained where it was. A phantom dove, and he cut it out of the air, sidestepping so that its trajectory drove it into the dirt instead of into him. As furious as I was, I had to admit, he looked badass doing it.
Bill giggled hysterically, and the shamblers converged on their target. Despite his skill, there was no way Gastard could kill them all before he was dog piled. I uttered a four-letter word and went after him.
As soon as I was out of the hall, phantoms came at me from either side. I got my spear up to meet one of them, and it pulled up at the last second to avoid skewering itself. The other slammed into my back. Its tail jabbed into my tunic, and I felt the point graze my skin. I had to let go of my spear to grab it by one wing and rip it off of me. It was light enough to throw, but it never touched the ground, rising again as if propelled by an antigravity engine.
The first one came back, and I jumped to one side to avoid its dive, ripping my sword out so forcefully that it cut through my rope belt. The phantoms circled me, their tails whipping at my face as I swung wildly to fend them off. Gastard was engaging the shamblers, who already had him surrounded, and I glimpsed Bill moving in with his stick.
As the phantoms continued to harry me, I hit one of them by sheer luck, and the stone blade nearly took off its wing. Despite their unnatural mode of flight, the wings mattered. It rolled, but could no longer ascend, and I chased it with an overhand swing that bit into its spine. The second phantom whipped me again, costing me another half of a heart.
Sword or spear? I wasn¡¯t sure which was the better choice, but one of them was already in my hands. Gastard was cutting down zombies left and right, but he was facing a horde. One was about to lunge at him from behind, and I brought my sword around into its neck, nearly severing its head.
If this fight lasted long enough for fatigue to be a problem, we would probably have already lost, so I went in with everything I had. There were more zombies than I¡¯d realized. Fifteen? Twenty? The next few moments were a fragmented mess of grasping limbs and yawning mouths as the mob of mobs surged around me.
Gastard saw I had joined him and greeted me with a grim smile before disappearing behind a wall of gray flesh. I slashed open a zombie¡¯s belly, and it tried to tackle me, but I kicked us apart, falling back into the arms of another monster. Its teeth sank into the leather covering my shoulder, and I swung my sword up and back into where I was pretty sure its head was. It was an awkward maneuver, but the weight of the stone blade was enough to drive its edge into the zombie''s skull, where it stuck.
Then Bill was there, laughing as he thrust his makeshift spear into my chest. It hurt, but the leather stopped it from impaling me.
Bill seemed to think this was hilarious. I reached for my dagger, only to realize that it had fallen from my side when my belt was cut. Rather than try to pry my sword out of the head of the shambler that had just collapsed behind me, I jumped Bill. As adroit as he was for a zombie, he had not been expecting this, and we went to the ground with me on top.
His hands ripped at my mask while toothy tentacles slipped around to gnaw at my torso. They would get through eventually, but the tunic was doing its job. Without another weapon at my disposal, I rose to my knees and started smashing my fists into his face, a distorted version of my own face, over and over.
It hurt my hands, but I wasn¡¯t thinking about capturing him. I wasn¡¯t thinking about anything; just hitting. The world boiled down to a tiny point of awareness, his jaw distorting as it broke, a single eye popping out, and his laughter, never-ending.
I wasn¡¯t aware of anything happening around me until the laughter stopped. Then all I could hear was my breathing. There were shambler corpses all around me, but I hadn¡¯t killed them. Gastard was still moving, finishing the leftovers. He didn¡¯t waste movement on dealing them superficial wounds. Every stroke was to the neck or the head, and soon, we were alone.
I glanced up, no phantoms were circling. He¡¯d taken care of the last of them too.
¡°Not bad.¡± He said.
Bill was still under me, and his face, my face, was just a pulp. One of his tentacles was still trying to chew through my tunic, but the rest of him was still. I got up, looking for my sword, but there were no more monsters to slay, and my hands weren¡¯t working properly. They were bloody, and I couldn¡¯t open them all the way. I''d lost another heart pummeling him. More than one of my knuckles was broken, and the pain was flowing up my arms like a flame.
¡°The night¡¯s still young,¡± Gastard said.
I went inside.
20: My Bolts Out of the Blue (Rewrite)
| Journal |
Quests |
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Materials |
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|
Achievement: Purifier (1)
You have defeated a Nemesis. The forces of shadow recognize you as their opponent. Increased resistance to Bedlam Taint, disease, and poison.
|
I stared at my status logs as I chewed through yet another beet. My hands were almost back to normal, and Gastard was still outside, having the time of his life. What the hell had just happened? Adrenaline, fear, and a little touch of crazy. I¡¯d lost it. If Gastard hadn¡¯t been there, the other shamblers would have eaten me alive. Of course, if Gastard hadn¡¯t been there, I wouldn¡¯t have been in that situation in the first place.
So Bill was a ¡®Nemesis.¡¯ Was that the technical name for a shambler that stole your face, or just a general term for powerful monsters? Would increased resistance mean I could survive being bitten by a shambler?
I was level sixteen now, so killing Bill had been worth some experience, even if that experience didn¡¯t seem to count for anything. In Maincraft, you used your levels as a resource to enchant items, so maybe it would have the same function here if I ever ran across any enchantments to use.
Sitting on my coffin, I spent a few minutes in silence just getting my head together before going back outside. Gastard¡¯s horse was in the shelter with me, restlessly testing the boundaries of its fenced area. Getting it down the steps had been precarious, but it was a well-trained animal, and I got the sense that it was more bothered by being separated from its master than the occasional moan from outside.
I¡¯d rested long enough. My spear was on the ground near the entrance, so I picked it up and watched Gastard walk through the field of shambler corpses. He was making sure they were all dead.
¡°Have you had enough?¡± I asked.
Gastard gave me a hard look. ¡°The forces of shadow are without limit. All we can do is destroy them as they come.¡±
¡°But we aren¡¯t really destroying them,¡± I said. ¡°Their souls or essence or whatever, it just goes back to Bedlam, and they respawn again tomorrow.¡±
The would-be templar shrugged. ¡°Who is to say? They may return, but does the crossing weaken them? How many times can a soul be reborn before it begins to fray?¡±
That rhetorical question hit a little too close to home. I went to find Bill. He looked dead, but some of his tentacles were still twitching. I¡¯d never bludgeoned a zombie to death, so maybe he wasn¡¯t completely gone.
¡°Let¡¯s call it a night,¡± I said. ¡°Help me bring him in.¡± I could have carried him myself, but I didn¡¯t want to throw him over my shoulder when one of those lamprey mouths could still latch onto me. Gastard obliged, and he held Bill¡¯s legs while we brought him inside to deposit the body in one of the smaller cells.
I shut all the gates and sat back down on top of my coffin.
¡°You should be glad.¡± Gastard said, ¡°We were victorious.¡±
¡°It doesn¡¯t feel like victory,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m just tired.¡±
Gastard grunted, and sat beside me, laying his sword across his knees. Its edge was stained with dark, clotted blood.
¡°I was once in the service of Lord Godwod,¡± he said. ¡°I won honor in his name, competing in tournaments, dueling on his behalf. My blood is not noble, but my father was a knight before me, and his father. This is their sword.¡±
He produced a handkerchief and began cleaning the blade.
¡°What happened?¡± I asked.
¡°The lord treated me like a son and showered me with gifts. I let myself be fooled. He has a daughter, and I was often at her side because he trusted me with her protection. We pledged our love for one another, and I asked him for her hand. He refused.¡±
¡°Is that why you left?¡±
¡°It is.¡±
It seemed like an overreaction to me, but maybe Gastard was a romantic under all that chainmail. He hadn¡¯t gotten himself killed, and he¡¯d found a place for himself among the lillits. He might have other jobs, but he was performing a similar function for the mayor, a personal man-at-arms. Boffin trusted him with keeping his daughter safe just as the lord had.
¡°You and Esmelda,¡± I said, ¡°is there anything going on there?¡±
He looked up at me, his face flat. ¡°What do you mean?¡±
¡°Uh,¡± I said, ¡°are you like, together.¡±
His lips turned down at the suggestion. ¡°I have loved but once in my life, and I love her still.¡±
¡°Sorry,¡± I said, ¡°it¡¯s none of my business.¡±
He grunted, returning to the maintenance of his weapon. ¡°What of you? You came from another world, is there some love left behind you?¡±
¡°Not really,¡± I said. ¡°Well, I had a family, but not romance. Not for a long time. Sometimes I would convince myself that I was in love, but I was just lonely and pretending.¡±
He paused, giving me a confused look. ¡°Pretending?¡±
¡°It was more of an obsession than love,¡± I said. This was a subject I didn¡¯t need to go into in detail. The last real relationship I had was when I was a teenager. When I was locked up, there were penpals here and there, girls who would write to me, or I would talk to them on the phone. But those relationships hadn¡¯t been romantic, at least not on their end.
¡°Ah,¡± he said as if he understood. ¡°Schw?rmerei.¡±
¡°Sure, whatever that is.¡±
¡°Boffin has asked me not to bring Esmelda here again,¡± he said.
¡°Yeah,¡± I said. ¡°He mentioned that. It¡¯s too dangerous. I get it. I wasn¡¯t asking about her because I was interested in her, I was just curious.¡± Was I just curious? She was adorable, but there was nothing between us. We barely knew each other. Esmelda just happened to be the first young woman I¡¯d met in the new world, and the First Girl rule only applied in anime. Romance was something I could worry about after I wasn¡¯t being attacked by increasingly dangerous monsters every night, and at that point, there were sure to be other options out there.
Gastard¡¯s grunt was noncommittal.
***
The following morning, Bill was still alive. When I went to the cell to check on him, he greeted me with a burbling noise, and one of his hands brushed against the fences, though he didn¡¯t rise. So you could knock a zombie unconscious, that was a weird thought.
¡°Good morning,¡± I said, ¡°how are you feeling?¡±
The response was a weaker version of the insane laughter that had been tormenting me over the last few nights. Gastard had left with the sunrise, informing me that he would return with more iron if it was available. He suggested we should train together, and I was happy to agree. It looked like I wasn¡¯t going to be leading a peaceful life in the near future, and my sword skills were in serious need of development. Not that I wasn¡¯t grateful for everything my System had given me, but I wouldn¡¯t have minded some System-based advantages to combat to go along with the crafting.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I¡¯d managed to get a couple of hours of sleep before he left, and I didn¡¯t want to waste the day. The first order of business was cleanup. There were a host of shambler corpses to deal with, and that was a lot of leather to leave on the ground. It was a gruesome business, but at this point, I was getting desensitized to seeing shamblers stripped of their skin. The remains went into yet another mass grave, and I harvested all the mushrooms that had popped up in the area. Unlike my crops, they did most of their growing at night. Sunlight stunted their growth, but the mushrooms inside my shelter got bigger and bigger if I left them alone. The largest cap I¡¯d seen so far had gotten as large as a basketball.
Once the cleanup was finished, I stripped down and stepped into the river. The cold was bracing, and I was quickly shivering, but I had soap and I was going to use it. The off-white paste left a lot to be desired. It wasn¡¯t scented, and it was caustic enough that washing my undercarriage led to some discomfort, but I relished the sensation of being clean. After scrubbing my entire body with sand from the riverbed, I turned to my leathers, scrubbing and washing them as best I could.
Back to the rocks.
After jogging to the boulder site, it wasn¡¯t long before I¡¯d collected everything that was left of what was sticking out from the ground. It occurred to me that I¡¯d gone this entire time without attempting any actual mining. In Maincraft, that was pretty much the first thing you did after you got the basic toolset together. But I had a feeling that the superstructure of Plana was very different from what could be expected of the gameworld, which was almost as expansive underground as it was above.
The outcrop did extend a good way beneath the soil, and I harvested my way down along one edge until I reached its nadir. There was still plenty of stone for me to collect, but it didn¡¯t open up into a cavern. It was just a gigantic rock. Crafting new picks as I went, I continued to harvest until the only sign that a boulder had been there at all was the hole in the ground and a notification.
| Hail, rockbiter! Your skill as a miner has advanced far enough to unlock new crafting materials. All naturally occurring metals are now within the reach of your pick. Start digging! |
I absolutely deserved ice cream, but I could table the personal quest reward for now.
Naturally occurring metals?
Did that mean there were unnatural metals for me to find? This was it, I was about to enter the iron age. I didn¡¯t even bother converting my new supply of coins to medallions, setting off at a jog with my pack jingling on my back as I went. I was quickly out of the woods, and my excitement led me to increase my pace, accelerating to just short of a sprint. The grass sped beneath my feet, and I enjoyed the sensation of the wind rushing across my face. It wasn¡¯t as if I was moving at supernatural speeds, this wasn¡¯t ninja running, but I was fast, and I was almost back to base before I ran out of gas.
People were waiting for me there, but Gastard wasn¡¯t among them. They had brought a low wagon with bulky-looking cargo covered by a sheet. I was still catching my breath, my chest rising and falling as I walked closer, holding my knife.
A lillit woman came around the wagon with her hands on her hips, giving me a disapproving stare. She looked even older than Boffin, with a frizzy halo of white hair and deep wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. Her face was shaded by a wide-brimmed velvet hat as green as a pine tree, and her dress was ridiculous. It was a patchwork of various fabrics and colors ranging from earth tones to splashes of sky blue, fitted perfectly to her slim frame, and sprinkled with pockets bulging with I had no idea what.
"Inti tard." She demanded.
¡°What did you call me?¡±
Esmelda appeared behind her. She was wearing a much simpler riding dress and serviceable boots that reached up to her mid-calf, and her hair was pulled back in a tail.
¡°She said you were late. Don¡¯t mind her, she can be prickly.¡±
¡°Okay,¡± I said, putting my knife back in my belt as I came closer. ¡°But how can I be late? And what are you doing here?¡±
¡°We just weren¡¯t sure where you were,¡± Esmelda said, patting the older woman on the shoulder. ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re back though, we can¡¯t stay for long.¡±
¡°What are you doing here?¡± I asked. ¡°I mean, I¡¯m happy to see you, but I¡¯m pretty sure your dad didn¡¯t want you coming out here anymore.¡±
¡°He doesn¡¯t,¡± she said briskly, ¡°but he isn¡¯t the mayor of everything. There were a few things I wanted to bring you, and I thought you should meet Brenys.¡±
¡°Hi, Brenys,¡± I said, lifting my hand in greeting. She relaxed somewhat but didn¡¯t say anything in response. ¡°She doesn¡¯t speak English, does she?¡±
¡°No,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°but wait for it.¡± She hopped up onto the wagon and pulled back the sheet, revealing several bolts of fabric, as well as a stack of parchments and an armful of books which she lifted for me to see. ¡°I brought you notes.¡±
¡°You want me to practice speaking with her?¡± I asked, confused.
¡°Oh, no, not at all. But Brenys is the best seamstress in Erihseht, and she wouldn¡¯t let me take all this cloth if she didn¡¯t get to see what you can do with it with her own eyes.¡±
I looked over the trove, which I guessed to be a mix of linen and wool in gray and tan. ¡°You brought me¡fabrics? Why?¡±
Brenys looked at me sharply, then turned to Esmelda.
¡°Mhux iridu?¡±
Esmelda responded with a lengthy sentence in the same language and then explained the exchange to me.
¡°She asked me if you didn¡¯t want it. You don¡¯t look grateful enough to her, but I said you were just surprised. And the reason I brought you these is because, well, all I¡¯ve ever seen you wear is the skin of koroshai. You¡¯re wearing monsters, Will.¡±
And she hadn¡¯t even seen the mask.
¡°Please tell her I appreciate it.¡± I gave the old woman a bow, and she accepted the gesture with a haughty sniff. Esmelda hopped down and handed me the pile of papers along with the books.
¡°What is all this?¡±
¡°I made some basic notes about Lillant and Sprache,¡± she said before looking away, suddenly shy. ¡°I tutor the children of Erihseht most afternoons. It wasn¡¯t too much trouble.¡±
¡°I can have these?¡± On the top page, I could see that there was a list of phrases written in English beside what must have been Lillant vocabulary represented phonetically. Flipping through the pile, the pages all looked to be in the same hand. It was a lot of work, and she must have had most of it prepared already, there was no way she could have written it all out over the last day and a half unless she had forgotten to sleep.
¡°It¡¯s hard to learn on your own,¡± she said, ¡°but there is a pronunciation guide here as well. I¡¯m sorry I won¡¯t be able to tutor you personally, at least not until we get things sorted out with the humans, but it will give you a place to start.¡±
¡°Thank you,¡± I said. ¡°This is incredibly helpful.¡±
Her cheeks reddened very slightly, but she met my eyes. ¡°You are a hero, chosen by Mizu. It is my duty as one of her faithful to aid you in any way I can.¡±
Brenys took a step closer and tugged on Esmelda¡¯s hair.
¡°G?idlu jurini l-miraklu,¡± she demanded. Esmelda yelped and slapped at the old woman¡¯s hand.
¡°Sewwa,¡± she said, exasperated. ¡°She wants to see what you can do with the fabric.¡±
¡°No problem.¡± I unloaded one of the bolts of fabric and brought it to a spare worktable I kept by the garden. What tool would be best to harvest cloth, assuming I could harvest cloth? It would be embarrassing if this didn¡¯t work, not to mention absurd if the System ranked textiles as higher on the ladder of difficulty than ¡®all natural metals.¡¯
Thankfully, after a somewhat lengthy silence as the two women watched me swat at the roll like I was trying to give it a gentle spanking, its outermost layer vanished, and a coin appeared in my hand. It was hard but had the texture of linen, and it was marked with a symbol that struck me as an abstract representation of a needle and thread.
I showed it to them, then slapped it down on the back of my hand, returning it to its original form, which draped over my arm, a yard of fabric.
Brenys was unimpressed.
¡°Stajt qtajtu aktar malajr.¡± She said, and Esmelda laughed.
¡°What?¡± I looked between them.
¡°She said she could have cut it faster. But that isn¡¯t really the point. Please, show her how you make things.¡±
I was happy to oblige. After a few minutes of shaving yards off of the bolt, I moved it off the crafting table and took a gamble, arranging the coins as if I were crafting leggings with leather. It would either work or it wouldn¡¯t. I got a ding as the item generated but didn¡¯t summon my status screen to check what my System had to say about it.
The trousers were plain, but seamless, the color of raw flax. As I was looking them over, Brenys rushed up to snatch them off of the worktable. She turned the pants over in her hands and held them up to the light, a look of intense concentration on her face, all the while muttering in Lillant. I let her do her thing and stepped away from the table so she would have more space.
¡°Your friend is weird,¡± I said.
One side of Esmelda¡¯s mouth raised. ¡°Compared to you? Hardly. It sounds like she¡¯s impressed.¡±
Brenys folded the trousers like an expert and clutched them to her chest before turning to face us. She gave a bit of a monologue for Esmelda, before unceremoniously seating herself back on the wagon. The pair of ponies that had pulled it ignored her, nuzzling through the tall patches of grass all around them.
Esmelda placed her hand lightly on my arm. ¡°I should go,¡± she said. ¡°But Brenys is very glad to have met you, even if she doesn¡¯t seem that way. She says the fabric is not a gift, but she will accept more clothing in payment.¡±
¡°How much?¡± I asked.
¡°See what else you can make, I think she¡¯ll be happy with a little variety. The rest is yours to do with as you will.¡± She jumped up onto the wagon so easily that I wondered if she had a better vertical than I did, short or not.
¡°See you around,¡± I said. ¡°Thanks for everything.¡±
She sat beside Brenys and picked up the reins. ¡°Of course,¡± she said, ¡° and if you¡¯re not too busy studying, I wouldn¡¯t be averse to a new dress.¡±
The horses wheeled the wagons around the garden, and I watched them go.
21: My Shield (Rewrite)
After converting all of the fabric into coins, I took the paperwork inside, plopped a stone block down in front of my workbench as a stool, and got down to studying. Sorting through the notes, I found the section that Esmelda had dedicated to pronunciation and laid it beside her list of basic phrases.
Like everyone else, I¡¯d taken some foreign language classes in school, and they hadn¡¯t stuck. Rote memorization was a drag, and I¡¯d never had the motivation to dedicate myself to it. I¡¯d learned what I needed to for the tests, and promptly forgotten it all afterward. While I was a very goal-oriented person, I hadn¡¯t always been consistent in my pursuit of them. It was common for me to get deep into a project, focus on it exclusively for weeks, and then dump it for something shiny and interesting. My attention span left something to be desired, a weakness that had become less prevalent as I got older, but my method for getting things done often seemed like a race against the clock of my waning interest.
That being said, there was now a very good reason for me to put in the effort to learn a language. Only a handful of the people here spoke English, at least in this region, and speaking it exclusively marked me as a potential enemy of the state. While I had no expectation of being able to fool the nobles into thinking I was a native, at least I could learn enough to be able to interact with the people of Erihseht apart from the few polyglots I¡¯d run into already.
By the time I got through reading the pronunciation guide, my eyes were already glazing over. The letter ¡®m¡¯, followed by a consonant at the beginning of a word, was pronounced as ¡®im¡¯. ¡®Mneijn¡¯ was ¡®imnejn.¡¯ Great, but what about that ¡®j¡¯ in the middle of the word? And even if I was saying it right, what did it mean? There was no definition on that page. Esmelda really was going to have to tutor me if I was going to get anywhere with this.
Well, maybe not Esmelda. There was no reason to tick off the mayor by spending too much time with his daughter when Tipple could help me just as well. I could bring it up with him when I went into town in a few days. It did annoy me a little that Boffin had given me that stipulation, but it wasn¡¯t an unreasonable request. Though I liked being around her, it wasn¡¯t a big deal in the scheme of things.
With my thoughts wandering, my fingers tapped idly on the parchment in front of me.
The writing disappeared.
The paper remained, it was just blank, and under my hand, there was a new coin. Dark, glossy, and smooth as glass. Ink was a harvestable material, and my System had something to say about it.
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[Ink]
Congratulations! You''ve successfully extracted the essence of knowledge and obtained some ink as well. This dark treasure holds the power of imagination, ready to become anything your pen can dream.
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Achievement: Reader (1)
You have collected your first example of the written word, and a new tab has been added to your journal. Your posterior superior temporal lobe has been adjusted accordingly.
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¡°System,¡± I said. ¡°Did you just do something to my brain?¡±
There was no response. The new tab in my journal was labeled ¡°Library,¡± and it included a table of contents with only one entry, the pronunciation guide. I looked at the page of common lillit phrases, and read a few of them out.
¡°Bongu. Kif int? X¡¯jismek?¡± The words were nonsense, but I said them with confidence, and they felt right. While the idea of having an ability that directly interacted with the functioning of my brain was disturbing, I couldn¡¯t argue with the results. It was pretty cool.
Tapping my way through the loose parchments took about twenty minutes. It wasn¡¯t like memorizing a list. I couldn¡¯t recite what had been recorded on those pages, but when I looked them over in my logs, I knew what the Lillant words meant without having to refer to the translation. And not all of the pages had been about Lillant, I now had a smattering of Sprache as well.
The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
One of the books Esmelda had brought me was an empty journal. The other was a collection of lillit folk tales. The text was remarkably uniform, but it was definitely handwritten. There was no printing press in this world, or at least not one that was commonly available. A book like this was valuable in a way that books in my world were not. Without mass production, every copy was unique.
Why had she given it to me? There was no way she could have expected me to read it on my own just from the notes, but it could have been something to flip through and get a feel for general sentence construction, or for reference once I¡¯d had a few lessons. Some phrases popped out at me. The language had articles, and I could read basic relationship words like ¡°with,¡± ¡°on,¡± ¡°to,¡± and ¡°from.¡± The majority, however, was still gibberish, even if I had a good idea of how to read it aloud.
I was going to see her again in a few days, assuming she came to the church for Tipple¡¯s forum. Ruining her book and becoming fluent in Lillant in the process could wait. Seeing her had distracted me. My goal for the day was supposed to be crafting iron.
There wasn¡¯t a lot of material for me to waste on experimenting with new formulas. Armor was not the goal for day one, as it would be too resource-intensive. Eight ingots were enough for the essentials; a sword, a pick, and a shield. I was a little nervous about trying to harvest the ingots, even though the System had assured me that I now could. If they didn¡¯t convert, I would be stuck in the Stone Age forever. I put the books and papers aside to upend the sack of iron onto my work table. Patting them with my hand didn¡¯t get me anywhere, and I started to get nervous.
Even though these were ingots, maybe the System was treating them as raw iron because they hadn¡¯t been harvested. I grabbed a pick, started tapping, and was relieved to see cracks begin to form in the metal. A moment later, there was a satisfying pop as the material disappeared and a corresponding coin appeared in my hand. It looked and felt like a normal quarter, except there was no embossment of any kind.
Dropping it back on the table got me a perfect brick of iron, a little smaller than the ingot it had come from. Hefting it, I guessed it was maybe fifteen pounds. The original ingots were somewhat irregular, so I was going to lose a little iron in the conversion process, but in the end, I had eight coins to work with.
Pick first. I placed the materials in the crafting grid just as I would have to make the stone equivalent.
Plep.
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[Iron Pick]
Formula: Iron Ingot (3), Stick (2)
Nice pick! Iron tools will last longer and mine faster than stone. They¡¯re also easier on your back.
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I held the new tool with relief. It was certainly lighter than the previous version, and its edge felt sharper. Apart from mining, it looked like it would puncture a zombie skull with no problem. My confidence restored, I refilled the crafting grid with the formula for a sword, leaving my status screen open to watch the notification appear.
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[Iron Sword]
Welcome to the future. This weapon is a sign that you have crawled up out of the cave-man era ready to be a, well, better-equipped cave-man. With a weapon like this, the creepy crawlies will be no match.
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Stepping away from the work table, I took a few practice swings. It was better balanced than the stone and didn¡¯t put as much strain on my wrists and forearms. The blade was thinner, and I could comfortably use it with one hand. The weapon also came with a cool Damascus pattern on the blade, trippy streaks of dark and light.
I was nervous about making the shield, as my supply of iron was down to a few coins, and I wasn¡¯t completely sure I remembered the recipe correctly. Six planks arranged in a kind of Y shape with the iron placed in the center top slot. I pulled the lever. There were not many conceivable scenarios where having spent countless hours playing Maincraft would present you with an advantage in life, but thankfully, I had been isekaied into one.
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[Wooden Shield]
Formula: Planks (6), Iron Ingot (1)
Nothing like having a wall between you and the enemy, and what¡¯s a shield but a wall you can carry around? Don¡¯t let those pesky mobs get under your guard. Rub this in their grimy faces!
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The shield was two feet in diameter, reinforced with an iron rim and studs. Basic, functional, and with a surprisingly ergonomic grip. With this in my right hand and my sword in the other, I finally felt like a real adventurer.
Bill laughed. The sound gave me goosebumps. He was crouching in the center of his cell, one eye gone, the orbit broken, and the other barely visible beneath the loose flesh of his damaged face. The super zombie didn¡¯t lunge at the fence, or even appear to notice me as I approached.
¡°What are the rules?¡± I said. ¡°Is there any way to kill you permanently?¡±
Of course, he didn¡¯t answer me. If he was trapped, at least, he wouldn¡¯t be able to give me problems when night came. I would have to observe the mobs and see if their behavior was different than before. I could assume he¡¯d been controlling them, but I had no idea how he had done it. With mental commands, Bill could give the zombies instructions from where he was. Was the line of sight an issue? Distance? There were too many unknowns for me to make any assumptions about how it worked.
¡°Make yourself comfortable,¡± I said. ¡°This is your new home.¡±
I was tired of hearing him laugh, and I couldn¡¯t be sure that he¡¯d never be able to work his way through the fence posts. The other shamblers didn¡¯t have patience or make plans, but now that he was up and moving again, he might gnaw his way through.
I walled off the cell with granite blocks and tried to put him out of my mind.
22: My Bread (Rewrite)
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[Wool Socks]
Did you miss these? How are your toes feeling? Wear a pair, and your feet will thank you.
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There were no regular clothes in Maincraft, and your avatar wasn¡¯t naked, but that was an aesthetic choice that had no meaning relative to actual gameplay. You crafted armor to wear, and that was it. The recipes for armor all held true for textiles but with some interesting additions.
The socks were a godsend. My feet had been sweating their lives away in zombie leather boots, and slipping them on felt like a little piece of heaven. The socks were generated by placing a coin in the bottom left and right slots. A second coin above each of those won me a pair of gloves, which were almost as welcome as the socks. Finding that out had cost me virtually all of the wool, but the linen had gone into reproducing the basics.
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[Linen Tunic]
Light and comfortable to wear, a must-have for any starting adventurer. You won¡¯t be the bell of the ball, but this all-weather attire will serve you well at work or in any casual setting. One size fits most.
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The tunic wasn¡¯t fancy, but like everything else I made, it was seamless, and the thread count was so high it felt like silk. It wasn¡¯t exactly the dress Esmelda had asked for, but on her frame, it would be a nightgown. There had been more than enough to make myself a wardrobe as well as extras for Brenys.
After that, I gardened, whittled, and collected resources. My artisan skill advanced much more slowly than harvest. Every carving I finished jumped up the percentage beside the rating significantly, but they took half an hour or more to complete.
As long as I remained close to the shelter, the crops I planted by throwing coins took only hours to mature. The wheat was finally ready, so I collected it and replanted the resulting seeds. I chopped down the hickories that were over ten feet, and new saplings popped up as soon as I plopped the nut coins into the soil amid the old roots. I was getting more seeds than I needed to replace what I harvested, and my garden doubled in size.
From the wheat came bread. A normal person would have had to have put in an awful lot of work to go from freshly harvested wheat to warm, delicious bread. Wheat grains had to be separated from their husks by threshing and winnowing, and those grains had to be dried and milled into flour. Water, yeast, and salt all have to go in to make dough, then comes kneading, and the dough has to rise before it''s baked.
No, thank you. A log got my furnace started, and then three wheat coins went into the upper slot. For whatever reason, I wasn¡¯t able to craft bread on the worktable. Logically, it made more sense to cook it, but that was yet another diversion from the mechanics of the game. A golden yellow coin rolled out of the dispenser, and I slapped it into my hand.
The bread came into existence as hot as if I had baked it in an oven. The smell was warm, yeasty, and comforting. People who came into Subway always said it smelled good, but it didn¡¯t when you worked there. The odors of the meat and the onions got into your clothes and on your hands, and they were hard to get rid of. The bread, though, was one thing that was hard to get tired of.
I took the loaf over to my coffin to sit down. It actually did look like a sub roll, rather than a bigger loaf of sliced bread that you would get at a supermarket. The rind was soft, brown, and springy. It was dense and chewy, and the taste reminded me of nuts. This was the first bread I¡¯d had since being reborn in a new world, and I took my time savoring it.
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Gastard visited me the day after my first bake. He brought another load of iron, enough to round out my tool set, though not enough to get started on armor. I could have made a helmet with it, or boots, but I wanted better tools first, and the leathers had served me well enough against the shamblers and phantoms.
He was very impressed with my sword.
¡°This is fine work,¡± he said, running his hand along the flat of the blade. ¡°Dargothian steel.¡±
¡°It was just iron,¡± I said. We were standing to one side of the expanded garden, and he lifted the blade to the light, causing its edge to flash.
¡°These markings,¡± he gestured with his other hand to the pattern of dark and light, like ripples in water. ¡°They know the secret to forging blades like this in the dark lands, but we have no steel like this in the Free Kingdoms, apart from a few heirlooms. Weapons like these were bought from Dargothian traders before Egald the First issued his ban.¡±
¡°Kevin must have made a lot of extras,¡± I said. ¡°I wonder if their smiths actually make them like this, or they were all his work.¡±
¡°A strange thought, that one man could produce so much.¡± Gastard frowned. ¡°But I suppose you could if you had the material. You would force all the smithies in Drom out of business.¡±
If my goal had been to establish a merchant empire, my crafting ability certainly would have put it within easy reach. I didn¡¯t need money though, apart from what it would take for me to get the materials I wanted. I could craft anything else I needed, and do some bartering here and there when it was required. Upending the medieval economy was not on my to-do list, as fun as it might have been to try.
¡°Would you like one?¡± I asked.
He shook his head and returned the sword to me. ¡°My blade was my father¡¯s. It has no equal.¡±
¡°What about a shield?¡±
He became thoughtful. ¡°That, I would accept. We could consider it the price of your lessons.¡±
¡°My lessons?¡±
His smile was grim. ¡°Now that you have a proper weapon, you must have proper training as well.¡±
We spent a few hours going over the basics. I expected him to instruct me as we sparred, knocking my sword around and insulting my feeble attacks, but instead, he spent most of the time gently chiding me about where I put my feet and how I held the weapon.
¡°Forget the shield for now,¡± he said. ¡°Grip with your right hand nearest the guard, and the other closer to the end of the handle. Not so tight. Your hold should be firm, but allow for flexibility.¡±
I did as he said, feeling self-conscious, but his manner as an instructor was utterly level. He told me what to do, and whether I was doing it wrong, but he didn¡¯t fault me or become impatient.
¡°Your stance should be balanced,¡± he continued, ¡°your feet shoulder-width apart. Bend your knees, not too much. Keep your back straight, but not tense.¡± He tapped my shoulder. ¡°Relax these.¡±
¡°First position. The knight holds his sword in front of his body, prepared either to attack or defend. The blade is angled upward, its point directed toward your opponent¡¯s heart.¡±
¡°Like this?¡± I asked, but I was holding it too high, and he corrected me before moving on to another stance. He used his own sword to show me low, middle, and high guard and had me cycle through them for what felt like a hundred times. While the blade was light, the repetition was enough to make my shoulders burn long before we were done.
We had barely gotten to me attempting my first strike, swinging the blade down from a high guard when he called an end to our training.
¡°Practice on your own,¡± he said. ¡°A few more days of instruction, and we may have another night of revelry ahead of us.¡±
Revelry was not how I would have described it, but at least he wasn¡¯t insisting we slaughter as many zombies as we could right now. I gave him a salute. ¡°I look forward to it.¡±
"What of the face stealer?¡± He asked. ¡°Is it still confined?¡±
¡°He is,¡± I said, ¡°as far as I know. I walled off the cell.¡±
¡°Good,¡± he nodded. ¡°I will return soon.¡±
¡°Do you want to try some bread first? I make it hot.¡±
He paused for a long moment as if he was considering whether the offer was a trick of some kind. His eyes narrowed, and he gave a serious nod.
¡°I accept.¡±
We broke bread, and he went on his way.
I was making notes in my Captain¡¯s Log to keep track of time, and the next few days before I was due to head back to the village were peaceful and productive. The fires of Dargoth might have been somewhere in my future, but for now, there wasn¡¯t any smoke. As long as I kept the logs burning at night and the shelter secure, the monsters didn¡¯t bother me. My training continued, and though we still didn¡¯t spar, I felt like I was getting a better feel for how to properly handle a sword.
It was the night before my scheduled visit to Erihseht that I heard the scream. The sun had just gone down, and I was fiddling with my coin collection, sorting materials and converting them to tokens and medallions as needed when the sound reached me. The phantoms were going to scream, that¡¯s what they did. It was their one job. This time though, the sound was different. There was an echoic quality to the calls of the phantoms, a hint of the otherworldly. I¡¯d gotten so accustomed to them that they hardly bothered me. This was different. It was human, a woman¡¯s scream.
23: My Coffin (Rewrite)
The moon was barely over the horizon, and the stars had just begun to shine, but the monsters were already out in force. A gray shape whipped around high in the sky, but I didn¡¯t have the time to wait for it to dive.
A shambler was attacking a horse, which had reared onto its hind legs to give the monster a solid hoofing. But it wasn¡¯t the horse I had heard scream. Esmelda was on the ground beside it, but already scrambling to her feet. She tried to get her horse under control, but it was panicking, and it bolted, leaving her alone with the mob.
The horse''s kick had knocked the zombie down, but it was undeterred. It lurched toward Esmelda, and I burst into a sprint. They say not to run with scissors, and this advice applies also to swords. I could only assume there was a technique involved, and I would be sure to ask Gastard about it the next time I saw him, but I immediately slashed myself in the face.
I¡¯d taken maybe five steps, and my arms had swung automatically as I accelerated. The blade''s edge touched my cheek, and it felt like a paper cut, only I knew that it was deeper than that. On instinct, I threw my arms behind me and kept going like I thought I was a character in Naruto. Is this why ninjas ran like that? My face was bleeding, but that didn¡¯t matter.
Esmelda had produced a knife, and taken a step back from the incoming shambler. I reached them a second later, and swung my sword around at the back of its neck, twisting my whole body into the blow. The blade whooshed over its head as the zombie ducked, a lucky stumble. It wasn¡¯t paying attention to me. So I gave my best approximation of the high-guard stance Gastard had taught me and broke it with an overhead strike.
The iron blade didn¡¯t have as much of an impact behind it as the stone would have, but it was much sharper. The back of its skull opened like a melon, and it went to the ground.
¡°Get inside!¡± I shouted at Esmelda.
¡°Will,¡± her eyes were wide, and her breath was coming fast. She still held the dagger like she was expecting to be attacked, looking around us for more mobs. ¡°My horse¨C¡±
¡°It¡¯ll be fine as long as it keeps running. We can¡¯t stay out here.¡± As if to emphasize my words, a phantom chose that moment to come screaming at my back. I spun, not bothering to try to use proper form, and sliced through the air just ahead of its arrival. It rammed into my chest, and I tripped, landing on my butt and looking up at the manta-like creature floating above me.
I raised my sword, and the spine on the end of its tail jabbed into my wrist. The pain caused my hand to spasm, releasing the sword. The spine had gone all the way through, a barbed edge sticking out from the back of my forearm, so when it jerked its tail back, it jerked my arm with it, and I cried out.
Esmelda stepped forward smoothly and brought her knife down to sever the phantom¡¯s tail. The cut was clean, and the monster fled back into the sky. I ignored the blazing agony in my wrist, and picked up my sword with my other hand. There was a clear path back to the shelter, but I knew it wouldn¡¯t be open for long. Another zombie was moving in.
¡°Run,¡± I said, and we rushed into the short entrance hall together. I punched the button to close the gate, and it looked like we were safe.
¡°I¡¯m so sorry,¡± Esmelda said. Her hair was a mess, and she pulled it back out of her face after sheathing her knife. ¡°Your hand, what are we going to do?¡±
¡°I¡¯ll be fine,¡± I said, ¡°I just need to eat something.¡±
¡°What? How is that going to help? And your face, did the phantom do that?¡±
¡°No, I uh, slapped myself with the sword when I was running before.¡±
The spine was keeping my wrist from bleeding much, but I could feel the warmth and wetness of blood pouring down from my cheek to my neck. Esmelda¡¯s brows furrowed briefly in confusion.
¡°Oh,¡± she said. ¡°Is that why you had your arms out like that?¡±
¡°It¡¯s a work in progress,¡± I said, taking a few steps to the end of the entrance hall and glancing around my shelter to make sure no monsters had slipped inside. It looked clear. ¡°What are you doing here? You know what happens around me when the sun goes down.¡±
¡°I thought I would make it in time.¡± She looked away. ¡°I wanted to warn you. Men from Henterfell arrived in Erihseht today, they spoke to my father.¡±
¡°That sucks,¡± I took the stairs down into the basement, and headed for the basket of bread I¡¯d left sitting beside my furnace. Esmelda followed me. ¡°What did they say?¡±
¡°They will come for you in the morning,¡± she said. ¡°They are Lord Godwod¡¯s vassals. Knights in his service. And their leader questioned my father about the mark on your hand. They know you speak Kevinian.¡±
¡°Bad luck,¡± I said. ¡°But I¡¯ll figure something out.¡± I set down my sword and grabbed a loaf of bread. I was about to bite into it, but hesitated as I glanced down at the barb sticking out of my arm.
What would happen if I healed with it still inside me? This wasn¡¯t an opportune moment to experiment to see whether my body would automatically reject a foreign object. A couple of inches of the tail hung limply from the entry point. I dropped the bread back in the grass basket and wrapped my hand around the barb. Its side points pressed into my palm, but I took a deep breath, squeezed it, and jerked it out.
Pulling the tail through my wrist was not a pleasant sensation, and blood gushed from the wound the moment it was no longer blocked.
¡°Will!¡± Esmelda produced a cloth from a pocket in her riding dress and pressed it around my wrist.
¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± I said and started shoving bread into my mouth, chewing and swallowing as fast as I could.
¡°What are you doing?¡± Esmelda demanded, her voice strained, her grip on my bleeding wrist tightening.
¡°Just¡give it a minute,¡± I said between mouthfuls. By the time I was finished with the first roll, the pain had diminished, overridden by tingling and itching. I started on the second.
¡°This is insane,¡± Esmelda said. Blood had suffused the cloth, and was dripping through her fingers. ¡°You need to hold this so I can tie a tourniquet.¡±
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¡°You¡¯re good,¡± I said, ¡°keep doing what you¡¯re doing. Eating heals me.¡±
¡°It¡¡± her face was pale, ¡°What?¡±
¡°Eating,¡± the second loaf was harder to swallow. ¡°Actually, could you grab me some water? There''s a stack of bowls by the box.¡± I nodded to the chest beside my worktable. As I kept all my resources in my backpack, it wasn¡¯t really necessary for storage, so I¡¯d taken to using it as a water basin. I didn¡¯t keep it very full, because it was a hassle to fill and empty, but water was something I¡¯d felt like I should have access to in my shelter on general principles.
She didn¡¯t move, both her hands still squeezing my wrist, so I continued to shove bread down my increasingly dry throat. Would carrots have been easier to swallow? Maybe, but they took longer to chew, and anyway, I didn¡¯t like carrots very much.
After finishing the second loaf, I put my hand over hers, and gently unwrapped her fingers from my wrist. I pulled off the cloth to reveal that the wound, though not completely healed, was no longer bleeding. It was obvious that I¡¯d been stabbed, but it was scabbed over.
Her eyes got so big they were threatening to take over her whole face. ¡°Is this another of your miracles?¡±
I took a step toward the basin, and my feet almost gave out from under me. Esmelda automatically placed herself under my arm to steady me. It was a nice feeling.
¡°I guess,¡± I said. ¡°Any food I make or grow restores my health when I eat it. Is that not something the other heroes did?¡±
She shook her head. ¡°Lord Umber could heal with a touch. I never heard of him doing it with bread.¡±
We went to the chest, and I drank. Bowls weren''t ideal for drinking, but it got the job done. They generated in sets of four, so I had plenty. Magical healing or not, I had lost a lot of blood, and it was making me woozy. I closed the lid of the chest and sat down on it.
¡°Could you bring me the rest of the bread,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m still not feeling great.¡±
Esmelda did as I asked, and watched me wolf down the remaining loaves. Though I wasn¡¯t particularly hungry, my stomach felt bottomless, and I kept eating until it was all gone.
Esmelda wiped at my face with the bloody cloth. It was better than nothing.
¡°The cut,¡± she said, ¡°it¡¯s gone.¡±
I lifted my arm and saw that the wound on my wrist was gone as well. The area where I¡¯d been stabbed was still pink, a fresh scar, and I wondered if that would go away too if I kept eating.
¡°See,¡± I said. ¡°No worries.¡±
She didn¡¯t seem to know what to say to this.
¡°What¡¯s your dad going to think of you spending the night here?¡± I asked.
She shook her head. ¡°I didn¡¯t think that far ahead. The knights left to find rooms at the inn, and I told my father I wanted to be alone. He didn¡¯t see me go.¡±
¡°Where¡¯s Gastard?¡±
¡°I haven¡¯t seen him in days. I would have asked him to warn you, but he often leaves Erihseht to hunt, and brings back pelts to sell in the market.¡±
I¡¯d wondered how he supported himself, it wasn¡¯t as if guarding the mayor and his daughter in a peaceful, out-of-the-way village was a full-time job. For someone who had nearly been eaten by a zombie, Esmelda was remarkably together. She had been distraught over my injury, but now that I was healed, she seemed almost relaxed.
¡°Will you help me translate when the men come tomorrow?¡±
She nodded, her expression resolute. ¡°I will.¡± She looked around, fully taking in the interior of my shelter for the first time.
¡°What are all these fences for?¡±
¡°To discourage mob spawns, and trap them if they do.¡± I glanced over at the firepit, which was still burning strong. ¡°We should be safe though, as long as there¡¯s light.¡±
Her gaze settled on the log box taking up one corner of the basement. ¡°What is that?¡±
¡°My sleeping coffin,¡± I said.
¡°You sleep in that?¡±
¡°It may not be spacious,¡± I said, ¡°but it¡¯s cozier than it looks.¡±
Esmelda looked like she was about to respond, but she quirked her head to one side, then looked at the wall that I had built to seal Bill¡¯s cell.
¡°Do you hear that?¡± She asked.
¡°Hear what?¡± The stone muffled Bill¡¯s laughter to the point where I didn¡¯t notice it anymore. But he wasn¡¯t laughing. We both listened in silence for a moment and then I walked over to the wall and placed my ear against the stone.
¡°What is it?¡± She asked.
Even this close, I could barely make it out, a faint tapping from the other side. How good was Esmelda¡¯s hearing?
¡°I¡¯ve got a monster in here,¡± I said. ¡°One of the shamblers. It changed. Got smarter, so I trapped it.¡±
Her lips turned down. ¡°What is it doing?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± Had Bill managed to break off part of the fence? Even if he was using a stick to tap the stone, it wasn¡¯t as if he could ever get through that way. He would have a better chance of digging himself out through the dirt. Now that I thought about it, I needed to excavate the entire area around the cell and fill it all in with stone to be safe. I could do most of that tonight, but my thoughts were interrupted by a much louder sound from above.
I heard a grunt, deep-throated and menacing. It was a noise an animal would make, a bear or an ox. It was followed by a thump, and splintering wood. I rushed up to the entrance.
The outer gate was gone, and I found myself meeting the gaze of a new monster. It was a lot bigger than a shambler, with broad muscular shoulders, and disproportionately thick arms. Basically a gorilla. But unlike a gorilla, it was hairless, with leathery gray skin and a head like a hound. Its eyes were small and dark, and it hooted like an ape when it saw me.
The monster was too big to fit inside the hall, but it smashed one oversized fist against the wall and dislodged a log. It was strong enough to break the seal of a crafted structure. My mind jumped to the figurine. A troll. What had Gastard called it?
Koloss.
¡°Esmelda,¡± I called, ¡°get in the box.¡±
¡°What?¡± She hadn¡¯t followed me up the stairs, but I could hear the quaver in her voice. I ran down and grabbed my backpack.
¡°The sleeping coffin. Get inside. Big monster.¡±
She looked skeptically at the vessel in question, and I pulled out a stone medallion and split it into tokens on top of the coffin, then split the tokens into coins. I could hear the troll punching out more sections of the hall as I did.
¡°Do you know what a koloss is?¡± I asked, and the color drained from her face.
¡°A terrible beast,¡± she said. ¡°Stronger than ten men, with a hide thick enough to turn a sword.¡±
¡°Good to know.¡± I started placing stone blocks around the coffin. ¡°There¡¯s one of those up there. Please get in the box.¡±
There was another grunt from above, and after a fearful glance at me, Esmelda crawled inside the opening of the coffin. I was dropping stones as fast as I could, building up around the sides before covering the top.
¡°What are you going to do?¡± Her voice sounded very small coming from the coffin.
I considered my options. Leather armor wouldn¡¯t help me much. The koloss hadn¡¯t looked like it had claws, but it would probably cave in my chest with one punch. As soon as I placed the last stone, leaving only the opening unenforced, it reached the inner gate.
I looked up in time to see its hand wrap around one of the lateral posts and pull, snapping it like a twig. Was I supposed to fight this thing? No, thank you.
¡°Make room,¡± I said.
¡°What?¡±
I grabbed my sword, just in case, and got on my hands and knees to crawl backward into the coffin. Esmelda pressed herself against the sides of the makeshift safe room, and there was barely enough room for both of us to squeeze inside.
The troll tore its way into my shelter a second later, and I placed a final pair of stone blocks, sealing us in darkness.
24: My Shotgun Wedding (Rewrite)
There we were, Esmelda and I, forced by circumstances beyond our control to spend the night in close physical proximity. Honestly, it wasn¡¯t very comfortable. She smelled like a pine forest in the spring, which made me wonder if scented soaps did exist and she had just given me the unscented and unusually caustic variety, but that silver lining was somewhat overshadowed by the fact that I could barely breathe. If she hadn¡¯t been a lillit, we never would have been able to fit into my sleep-coffin together. Even considering her diminutive size, it was a tight fit.
"Can it get to us?" Her voice sounded muffled because we were laying head to foot.
"Not sure," I said after a long pause, "It¡¯s the first time I¡¯ve seen one of those. I¡¯m hoping either it won¡¯t realize we¡¯re in here or won¡¯t be strong enough to punch its way through stone.¡±
¡°But you don¡¯t know?¡±
¡°I do not. You know more about them than I do. Did you read about these kinds of monsters in the Shui?¡±
Esmelda shifted, and her boot pressed against my midsection. I rolled onto my back, careful not to cut myself as I did so, and rested the sword on my abdomen. It was the only tool I had in there with me, but I knew I could mine the stone blocks by hand, it just took longer.
¡°Some. But mostly from folk tales. We have stories about all the monsters that serve the Dark Lord.¡±
¡°So do you think it can punch through stone?¡± If it got through, at least I had something pointy to poke it with, but we wouldn¡¯t exactly be in an advantageous position.
¡°They are stronger than bears. Resist arrows. The Dark Lord uses them to disrupt enemy formations, but I don¡¯t think they could break through the wall of a keep. We¡¯ve carried stories about monsters roaming the land at night throughout our history, but parents always tell their children they will be safe if they remain inside.¡±
That sounded like a good way to keep kids in line, but I wasn¡¯t sure how much stock we could put in folk tales if the monsters those stories were about had been absent for generations.
¡°It¡¯s inside,¡± Esmelda said. Her hearing really was better than mine, all I could hear clearly behind two feet of stone and logs was the two of us. But that changed a moment later. There was a thump, and the vibration shook the frame of my coffin.
¡°The other heroes,¡± I said. ¡°Did they have this curse? Did monsters follow them everywhere?¡±
¡°Only the Dark Lord,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°The heroes who rescued us were anathema to the forces of Bedlam.¡±
¡°That seems unfair.¡± The coffin shook again, and the troll bellowed like a bull. I guess hoping that it wouldn¡¯t know where we went had been too much to ask for. The mobs probably had some kind of extra sense for where I was. Otherwise, why would they always gather around my shelter at night?
¡°The greatest blessing comes at the greatest cost.¡±
¡°Greatest blessing? You said that Umber guy could heal with a touch. And the woman could shoot lightning? Captain Murderface could shapeshift into a dragon or whatever. How is my powerset any better than theirs?¡±
¡°It may seem that way. But you share the power of the Dark Lord. You can heal yourself, cause crops to grow in hours. The Dark Lord is said to be able to build a fortress in a day, or level a mountain if it stands in his way. Whatever you are capable of, what we have seen is only the beginning.¡±
That would have been more comforting if we weren¡¯t currently trapped in a box. We were both silent for a while, listening to the troll fighting to reach us. Dust fell from the logs over my head as the coffin absorbed blow after blow. It was hard to be sure, but it sounded like the stone was holding out. At least the blocks weren¡¯t being separated. If the troll got through to the logs, we would have known right away. After long minutes of tension, it seemed to give up.
¡°It¡¯s breaking things,¡± Esmelda said. The noise was distant, but I could make it out. Splintering wood, more hoots and grunts. The troll was taking out its frustration on the rest of my shelter.
I heard a moan as well, but there was no chance a zombie could get to us through the stone. It looked like we were going to be okay, even if my base was getting wrecked.
"I think we¡¯re safe,¡± I said. ¡°We¡¯re just going to be uncomfortable for a while.¡±
"Oh, you¡¯re uncomfortable?" Esmelda said with faux concern as she shifted slightly, digging her knee into my side.
¡°Hey,¡± I said, ¡°you¡¯re the one who rode out here with the sun setting.¡±
¡°I had to,¡± she said.
¡°What do you think we should say to the knights when they get here?¡±
¡°I think we should make it clear that you are a member of our community and should be treated as such.¡±
¡°How is that going to work?¡±
¡°Sir Otto doesn¡¯t speak Lillant. I think we should pretend that you do. I will tell them that we didn¡¯t know you because you grew up in Eerb, another lillit village.¡±
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¡°Do a lot of humans grow up in lillit villages?¡±
¡°Rarely, but it isn¡¯t impossible. Eerb does more trade with Henterfell than we do, and some humans go back and forth. Something could have happened to your parents so you were adopted by a lillit family.¡±
¡°That seems like a lot of loose ends. What if they go to Eerb to check out your story?¡±
¡°We have no reason to shelter a man from Dargoth. Sir Otto should take me at my word.¡±
¡°Sir Otto? Is that their leader?¡±
¡°Yes, he is one of Lord Godwod¡¯s most experienced men-at-arms. He serves as a tax collector as well, so my father knows him.¡±
¡°Still seems like a lot could go wrong, not that I have a better idea. But I do speak some Lillant now, by the way.¡±
¡°Oh? You¡¯ve been reading the notes I gave you? I¡¯m sorry if they were hard to understand.¡±
¡°Ma kienx diffi?li,¡± I said. It wasn¡¯t difficult.
Esmelda gasped and shoved me with her boot. ¡°That wasn¡¯t terrible!¡±
¡°Thanks, uh, actually, I needed to talk to you about that. I can harvest words off of a page the same way I do other materials. So if you don¡¯t mind me ruining your storybook, I can learn to speak Lillant very quickly.¡±
She was silent for a while. ¡°I¡¯ve never heard of something like that. I would rather you didn¡¯t destroy my book, but if it means we will be better able to convince Lord Godwod you are not a threat, then I could accept it.¡±
¡°I¡¯ll try to leave it as intact as I can.¡± Statistically speaking, the majority of all the individual words that were present in a given book would occur within a few pages.
¡°What else did you learn?¡±
¡°Pretty much everything that was in your notes. All those are gone by the way.¡±
We spent a few minutes going back and forth, with her asking me questions in Lillant and me answering as best I could. I was a long way from being fluent, but what I did know was fresh on my mind, and she was suitably impressed.
¡°What happened to the pages?¡± She asked. ¡°Do they vanish, or turn to coins?¡±
¡°The ink turns to a coin,¡± I said. ¡°I could probably harvest the page separately, I never bothered trying. Oh, and the text gets recorded on my screens, so I still have a copy.¡±
¡°Your screens?¡±
I tapped my elder sign, because why not, and pale blue light flooded the coffin. I couldn¡¯t sit up, but I could see Esmelda twisting around the other end of the box to look at me.
¡°Oh, you mean the words of the goddess.¡±
¡°It might be her,¡± I said. ¡°It¡¯s mostly a record.¡±
¡°But she gave you your quest.¡±
¡°Kevin, yeah, but she didn¡¯t explain what that meant. Like am I supposed to stop him from doing something, kill him, make friends? I don¡¯t know, but that¡¯s all I¡¯ve got.¡±
¡°I can¡¯t imagine anyone becoming friends with the Dark Lord.¡±
Anime would disagree, but I could see her point. ¡°This mark on my hand, I don¡¯t think it¡¯s Kevin¡¯s mark. I think it comes from Mizu. If Kevin uses it as his symbol, that¡¯s only because he probably has one too.¡±
She frowned. It was odd looking at her upside down. ¡°He is said to have been a hero once, though we have no records of that time.¡± There was a crash from outside the box, and we both froze, but it was just the troll continuing to wreck my things.
Esmelda turned over, facing the wall, and I could no longer see her face. ¡°Will,¡± she said quietly, ¡°there is another way to tie you to our village that Lord Godwod would have to respect.¡±
¡°What is it?¡± I was open to anything at this point.
¡°We could be married.¡±
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out, and she rushed to continue her explanation.
¡°It would be in name only, of course. A political necessity. They won¡¯t be able to treat you as a foreigner if you are legally wed to the daughter of the mayor of Erihseht.¡±
¡°I¡uh.¡± I¡¯d been alone for a very long time. My last relationship had ended after my arrest, and I hadn¡¯t met anyone that mattered to me since my release. Esmelda was adorable, independent, and capable. I could have done a lot worse, but this wasn¡¯t exactly romance she was talking about. I would have been more than happy to take her to the movies, or whatever the local equivalent was for a first date, but we were skipping a lot of steps here. She wasn¡¯t even saying that she wanted to be with me, just that it would be a convenient match. And it wasn¡¯t really about who I was as a person, she wanted to protect me because I was someone chosen by the goddess she worshiped.
¡°You don¡¯t have to agree,¡± she said, her voice small, ¡°it was just a thought.¡±
¡°No,¡± I said quickly, ¡°I¡¯d be happy to, uh, well, I appreciate the gesture. I was surprised, that¡¯s all. To be honest, you¡¯re very attractive, and I haven¡¯t really¡never mind. I know that¡¯s not what this is about. What about Boffin? Would he go along with this?¡±
Considering our last conversation, I had to assume the mayor would be very much not in favor of this turn of events.
¡°The Pastor will support us. He performs all the marriage ceremonies in Erihseht. My father will not be happy, but it isn¡¯t his choice.¡±
¡°Do you mind if I ask how old you are?¡±
¡°What does that have to do with anything?¡±
Asking a woman¡¯s age, always a good idea. It certainly seemed like she was well into adulthood, but she didn¡¯t look it, and you never knew with these kinds of settings. ¡°Just give me the ballpark. I know this is weird, and I¡¯m not sure what the customs are here, but I would appreciate it if you humored me.¡±
¡°The ballpark? What does that mean?¡±
¡°Just a general idea.¡±
¡°How old are you, then?¡± Her tone had gotten sharper.
¡°I¡¯m thirty-two.¡±
¡°Then you have seen fewer summers than I have. Is that a problem?¡±
¡°No, not at all.¡± Thank god. With how short she was, it was hard to tell, and incredibly cringy relationships were a staple of isekai stories, at least the japanese ones. She had said lillits were long-lived, so maybe she was still very young by their standards. Why wasn¡¯t she married already? Not important.
¡°I¡¯m sorry if I offended you,¡± I said. ¡°I would be honored to have you as my wife, even if it is just a marriage of convenience.¡±
She relaxed. In the confined space, it was impossible not to be aware of her body next to mine.
¡°It¡¯s settled then, we will tell Sir Otto that you are a citizen of Erihseht by marriage, and he will have no right to take you into custody without cause.¡± Though it had been her idea, she didn¡¯t sound very happy about it.
A second later, there was a creaking, cracking chorus from above, and something hit the top of the coffin. A lot of somethings. It sounded like the entire roof of the shelter had collapsed.
25: My Confined Conversation (Rewrite)
I would have been worried that we would run out of air, but there was a tiny gap between the stone blocks that I had used to close the opening and the logs that formed the coffin, and that was enough. Even laying head to toe, I hadn¡¯t experienced this level of physical intimacy in thirteen years, which sounds pretty pathetic, but it wasn¡¯t like conjugal visits had been an option when I was locked up. After the roof collapsed on us, we listened to the troll shift around the rubble for a while, and then it seemed to shuffle off.
If Esmelda and I were going to be married, even in name only, I figured we should get to know each other. Besides, talking made the situation seem less awkward and uncomfortable than it was.
¡°Do you have other family in Erihseht?¡± I asked. ¡°Is it just you and Boffin in that manor?¡±
Esmelda was quiet for a long moment, and I wondered if I had touched on a difficult subject already. She was still facing the wall. I stared into the patterns of bark a foot above my face, tinted gray by the pale blue light of the System screens, and waited. If she didn¡¯t want to talk anymore, I wasn¡¯t going to push.
¡°It¡¯s just the two of us,¡± she said. ¡°My mother passed away when I was young.¡±
I shut my eyes and inwardly castigated myself. What a terrible thing for me to bring up. I¡¯d visited their home, and her mom hadn¡¯t been there. I should have realized family was a sensitive subject.
¡°Sorry,¡± I said. ¡°You don¡¯t have to talk about it.¡±
¡°No,¡± she said. ¡°It¡¯s alright. The memories I have of her are mostly good ones. It was hard growing up without her, but my father was wonderful. We¡¯ve always been a team. I sometimes wished that he would find someone else, for himself, not for me. But I don¡¯t think I suffered much for the lack.¡±
¡°Can I ask what happened to her?¡±
¡°Bedlam wart. There was an infestation in a hollow near Erihseht. It happens sometimes, though it''s difficult to say where it comes from. Tipple says the spores can be carried on the wind for hundreds of miles if the colonies are allowed to mature.¡±
¡°Bedlam wart? Is that a fungus?¡±
¡°Yes. It¡¯s native to Dargoth, and it cannot thrive in sunlight. But sometimes they take root in dark places even here. And they are very dangerous. I was among the children that found the colony and went to fetch my mother. She got us all away and cleared it out with fire. But then she was sick. We think it was the spores.¡±
She recited the story tonelessly, like it was a series of facts that had nothing to do with her. It reminded me of something. After that year that I spent in solitary confinement, I¡¯d eventually been shipped to another prison and started talking to a psychiatrist. He also worked at a university, and he was often accompanied by students as a part of their medical training, and they would ask questions to his patients. Once, when I¡¯d gotten done explaining what I did to get locked up and what the sentencing process had been like one of the students commented that I sounded like I was dissociating from those events.
I hadn¡¯t known what he meant in a technical sense, but the statement had struck me. Dissociating is a common response to trauma, and while I hadn¡¯t thought of what I had done or what I had gone through afterward as being particularly traumatic, I had realized that I did tend to mentally separate myself from the world around me, and from myself, if that¡¯s even a coherent idea. Listening to Esmelda, it was hard not to think that she hadn¡¯t packed that part of her life away as a way of dealing with it. I couldn¡¯t imagine the kind of guilt a child would feel if they went to their mother for help, and then she died because of it.
¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± I said again, wishing there was a redo button for this conversation. ¡°That must have been difficult.¡±
¡°It was a long time ago,¡± she said. ¡°What about you? You had a family, didn¡¯t you, in the world you came from?¡±
¡°Yeah. Of course. My parents were both teachers. And I have three brothers. They were my best friends.¡± It was weird talking about them in the past tense when they were all alive, but it wasn¡¯t as if I was ever going to see them again. I was the one who was dead. My chest tightened.
¡°Do you miss them?¡±
¡°I do.¡± I¡¯d been keeping so busy, that it had been easier to not think about it than to reckon with the fact that we were permanently separated. In some ways, I was used to that. For years, it had been normal for me to go weeks or longer without any contact with my family. Phone calls had been really expensive at first, but the company that provided the phones had eventually lost a lawsuit which forced them to lower the prices, so in the second half of my sentence I¡¯d talked to either my brothers or my parents almost every day.
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There was a world of difference, however, between rare visits and occasional phone calls and no possible contact at all.
¡°They feel so far away,¡± I said, ¡°that it¡¯s almost like they aren¡¯t real. That none of it was real. Every time I die, it gets harder to remember them, and Plana feels more like my home. That¡¯s kind of a good thing, I guess, if I¡¯m stuck here. But I¡¯m afraid that if it goes on long enough, it will be like I never knew them at all.¡±
Esmelda turned over again so she could look at me, though she was doing so from the perspective of my boots. ¡°What do you mean, every time you die? You said the goddess brought you here after your death. Has it happened to you more than once?¡±
¡°Oh, yeah. Not the transmigration thing, but since I¡¯ve been here, I¡¯ve been eaten by zombies a couple of times.¡±
¡°Will!¡± Esmelda punched my shin.
¡°What?¡±
¡°You died, were reborn, and didn¡¯t say anything?¡±
¡°It didn¡¯t come up. Plus, it happened before I met you, and you guys didn¡¯t know what I was, and it wasn¡¯t like I could prove that it happened. Anyway, you know more about heroes than I do. Is that not normal?¡±
She thought about it. ¡°The heroes survived impossible things. And they lived long lives. Lord Umber could bring someone back from the brink of death, but there is no record in the Shui of the heroes dying and returning. The Dark Lord is immortal. I don¡¯t know if he can die. But maybe he can, and he returns, like you.¡±
If that was true, it was evidence that respawning was an extension of the ¡°Maincraft powers¡± thing. That would certainly explain why it was called the Survivor System. But it also meant that the other heroes were probably really gone. Whoever had left a message on the stone by my spawn point was long dead, unless that person had also shared my System.
¡°Do you think it¡¯s just the two of us?¡± I asked. ¡°Are Kevin and I the only heroes left?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t believe that,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Mizu would not leave Plana unguarded for so long. But I think she sends her heroes only when and where they are needed. There may be others, but the world is wide.¡±
¡°The Free Kingdoms,¡± I said, ¡°and Dargoth. What else is there?¡±
¡°The Free Kingdoms stretch to the sea. But there are other lands beyond Dargoth. I do not know their names. Plana is larger than what I or anyone in Erihseht could tell you.``
A phantom screamed. Even through the coffin and the other intervening materials, it was so loud that it felt like the monster was in there with us. We both fell silent and listened to the dull moans of shamblers outside. There was an occasional impact as if they were dropping into the basement to get closer to us. Planks shifted, and the moans grew closer.
¡°Who were you?¡± Esmelda asked, distracting me from what was going on outside. ¡°In your other life.¡±
¡°I was nobody,¡± I said.
¡°That can¡¯t be true.¡±
¡°I was just a person. I didn¡¯t accomplish anything great. I screwed things up more than I fixed them. Mizu should have picked a better hero.¡±
¡°This is ridiculous,¡± Esmelda said.
¡°What?¡± But she was already turning herself around. She curled, and then crawled over my legs, avoiding the sword as she repositioned herself so that we were facing the same direction. I turned onto my side to make room, and the sword dropped between us. Her face was inches from mine, her wide gray eyes, her lips.
¡°You weren¡¯t nobody,¡± she said.
¡°I really was. I worked a nobody job, and lived a nobody life.¡±
Her eyes softened. ¡°You didn¡¯t dream of anything more?¡±
¡°I did, but I¡¯d screwed things up.¡±
¡°What does that mean?¡±
Well, she¡¯d already agreed to marry me, so it probably wouldn¡¯t change anything if I told her. It wasn¡¯t like I was shy about my past. Everyone I¡¯d worked with had known I¡¯d done time. It would have been incredibly awkward to try and dance around the subject because any life experience that I talked about would have either involved referring back to when I was a teenager, or to when I was in prison. It had been easier to just be honest with people. But this felt different.
¡°When I was young, I made a series of increasingly bad choices. I committed crimes, and I was caught, and I was imprisoned for a long time.¡±
She didn¡¯t flinch. If anything, she looked interested. ¡°What did you do?¡±
¡°Some robberies.¡±
¡°Why?¡± It was a simple question, and it was one I¡¯d been trying to answer my entire adult life.
¡°I was stupid, but I thought I was smarter than everybody. I got frustrated with my job, and I quit and ran out of money. But I lied to my family and pretended I was still working. Then I just did it. There isn¡¯t anything I can say that would make it make sense.¡±
¡°Did you hurt people?¡±
¡°Not physically. I scared them. Then they gave me the money and I left. It was banks. They had rules that if someone tried to do that, they were supposed to just hand over the money and call the police, so I knew I wouldn¡¯t have to do anything to them.¡±
She was quiet for a while.
¡°Banks? Like river banks?¡±
Oh, yeah. Medieval economics.
¡°It¡¯s a place where people keep their money, sort of. It¡¯s complicated. Money lending. It¡¯s a big business, anyway.¡±
¡°I suppose the goddess could have chosen a better hero.¡± There was something in her eyes that told me she wasn¡¯t saying that as a judgment. She was almost smiling.
¡°You aren¡¯t reconsidering the whole marriage thing?¡±
She shook her head. ¡°Mizu chose you. She does not make mistakes. Whoever you were, whatever you did, it was a part of who you became, and a part of why she decided to bring you here to help us.¡±
¡°You have more faith than I do.¡±
Now she truly did smile. ¡°Then that is something you can learn from me.¡±
26: My Sort of Actual Wedding (Rewrite)
Tapping my way out of the coffin and harvesting the materials that had dropped on top of it had been easier than trying to move things around would have been, and we ascended a slope of loose logs and planks to survey the damage.
My shelter was gone. Well, the pieces were there, but what remained was akin to the aftermath of a particularly ambitious game of Jenga. The troll had been thorough to the point of stomping its way through every inch of my garden. My worktable was in shards, the tools that had been left out were broken, and my backpack had been ripped apart, its contents scattered. The only thing to survive was the furnace, and that had been knocked over onto its side. There was no telling where Esmelda¡¯s horse had run off to.
¡°It¡¯s all gone,¡± she said, her gaze falling on the garden. ¡°All your work.¡±
¡°It wasn¡¯t that much work,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯ll do some cleanup, throw together a stone box to keep my stuff in, and work from there.¡±
The sun was still low in the sky, and there were long shadows where monsters might have sheltered, but it looked like we were alone.
¡°Sir Otto will come soon,¡± she said. ¡°Do you think we can find the book?¡±
If I wanted to be able to hold a conversation in Lillant, I needed her collection of folk tales, but it was lost somewhere in the rubble. I didn¡¯t necessarily need to talk to the knights myself, and if they only spoke Sprache, then I wouldn¡¯t be able to regardless. But if Esmelda needed to say things to me in their presence, then it would be important that she didn¡¯t do so in the language of the Dark Lord. That was certain to get their hackles up.
¡°It was by the table in that corner,¡± I said, gesturing down into the now exposed basement. At least the stone barrier that hid Bill was still intact, though the troll had destroyed the other cells in its rampage. We climbed back down, and Esmelda searched while I harvested the materials that were in the way. Most of the logs were in fair enough condition that they could be picked back up as coins, but the planks that had been broken became [Wood Fragments] instead. Those could probably be recombined into full planks when I got around to it, or else they would make good kindling.
¡°Oh,¡± Esmelda said, her face dropping when she pulled roughly half of her book from the rubble. ¡°It ruined this too.¡±
¡°What a troll,¡± I said. Some of the pages were still attached to the spine, while others were hanging loosely. I cleared a space, and we both sat down as I went about harvesting the words from the first few pages.
She watched me, but there wasn¡¯t much to see. My powers were a lot of things, but they weren¡¯t visually interesting.
"Tifhimni issa?" She said. Do you understand me now?
¡°I do,¡± I said, in what I hoped was perfect Lillant. Esmelda¡¯s gaze was intent, and she followed up with a series of increasingly complex phrases, which I was largely able to follow. If she spoke too quickly, it was hard for me to keep up, and there were some words and constructions that I hadn¡¯t learned because they hadn¡¯t been in the text I¡¯d absorbed, but I was officially conversant.
¡°Do you mind if I finish the book?¡± I asked.
¡°You may as well,¡± she said. ¡°You told me how it worked, but it¡¯s different to see it happen in front of me.¡±
¡°It¡¯s pretty silly,¡± I said, ¡°but here we are.¡± We were both still using Lillant, there was no reason for me to speak English anymore unless we ran into someone from Dargoth. I spent the next half hour turning all of the pages at my disposal into blank parchment, and she busied herself shifting material into piles and picking up coins as she found them.
¡°What is this?¡± She asked, discovering one of the stone medallions. ¡°Is it something you carved?¡±
¡°It¡¯s the more advanced version of the coins,¡± I said. ¡°Holds more resources.¡±
The medallion was a significant find. The other materials were easier to replace, and until I found another boulder to harvest, or took a trip to the mountains, I needed to recover as much of my supply as I could. All my future shelters were going to have to be crafted from rock. But one medallion would do for now.
¡°I don¡¯t want them to find us here,¡± I said. ¡°We should head back toward town.¡±
Esmelda looked around. ¡°This would be hard to explain,¡± she agreed. All I had were my leathers, my knife, my sword, and the few resources we¡¯d been able to scrounge, but we got on our way soon after she gave me the medallion.
¡°I¡¯m worried about Fuzzu,¡± she said.
¡°Who?¡±
¡°My horse. She must have been terrified all night.¡±
¡°I¡¯m sure she¡¯s okay,¡± I said. Unless she had been bitten by a shambler, or the phantoms had decided to target her, but there was no need to bring up those possibilities. We were walking at a subdued pace, it had been a long night, and we were both worn out by the ordeal. As it turned out, Fuzzu was fine. We saw the horse having a drink a mile further downstream, and Esmelda livened immediately.
She whistled, and the animal looked up from the water, regarding us placidly. She ran ahead of me to meet the beast and wrapped her arms around its large head.
¡°Fuzzu!¡± The animal was unharmed. No bite wounds, and when she climbed into its saddle, it seemed pleased to have her. I breathed a sigh of relief, and we continued our journey to Erihseht in brighter spirits. As she rode, she put her hair up behind her head and fixed it in place with the silver comb she seemed to always have with her.
¡°Where did you get that?¡± I asked.
¡°It was my mother¡¯s,¡± she said.
¡°Oh,¡± I said, lamely, ¡°that¡¯s nice.¡±
She glanced down at me. ¡°You don¡¯t have to be uncomfortable, I don¡¯t mind talking about her.¡±
¡°Do you have a lot of things that were hers?¡±
¡°Not many. Father kept everything, but most of it was packed away. She always wore this, it¡¯s one of my strongest memories of her. And I like having it. It helped me feel connected when other things faded.¡±
¡°What did she do, I mean, apart from being your mom? Were your parents together a long time before they had you?¡± Boffin looked old, and given that Esmelda was apparently at least in her thirties and still looked as young as she did, that suggested he had been around for a while. It made me wonder why he didn¡¯t have any other children, or if lillits were like Tolkien¡¯s elves, and rarely had kids. In that context, ¡°long-lived¡± could mean a lot of things. Did lillits live to be a hundred and fifty, or a thousand?
¡°They were,¡± she said. The air was warm, and walking alongside her, listening to the hushed sound of the river, made me feel like day and night in Plana were two entirely different worlds, like the monster attack had never happened.
¡°My father was a merchant before he was the mayor. My mother was a seamstress, she and Brenys built their business together¡ªoh. I suppose I didn¡¯t introduce you properly before. Brenys is my aunt. That¡¯s part of why I wanted her to meet you.¡±
My mind flashed to the older woman and her velvet hat. I hadn¡¯t noticed a resemblance, but from our short interaction, she had certainly seemed both confident and independent, which were qualities Esmelda had in abundance.
¡°I owe her some clothes,¡± I said.
Esmelda¡¯s mouth quirked. ¡°I think she will understand the delay.¡±
We didn¡¯t run into Lord Godwod¡¯s men on the way, and when we arrived at Erihseht, things appeared quiet. A few people were out in the fields, or tending animals, but the street was empty. Their open market was only active on certain days of the week, so the stands we passed on the way to the church were empty, though the signs of the local traders still advertised their wares.
¡°They haven¡¯t left yet,¡± Esmelda said, looking to the inn. It was a quaint, two-story building that put me in the mind of a rustic bed and breakfast. Stalls for horses had been constructed beside it, not a full stable, and all of them were occupied.
She had wanted to get Tipple on board with the plan before we dealt with the knights, and it appeared we would have the opportunity to do so. When we arrived at the church, it was already busy. A young man with a mop of curly brown hair and freckles was rushing out the door as we arrived and nearly ran into us.
¡°Esmelda!¡± He looked from her to me and his mouth dropped open. ¡°You! Um, hello.¡±
¡°Hello,¡± I replied, ¡°what¡¯s your name?¡±
¡°Quentin Darfur,¡± he said, taken off-guard, ¡°do you, um, I didn¡¯t know you spoke Lillant.¡±
¡°I¡¯m figuring it out,¡± I said.
¡°Hi Quentin,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Is the Pastor in?¡±
¡°He is,¡± the young man looked nervous, though it was hard to tell if it was because he was talking to Esmelda or because of me. His cheeks reddened. ¡°Tipple was getting people together to talk about, um,¡± he glanced up at me, ¡°well, to talk about you.¡±
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It was the day the Pastor had asked me to come. Hard to say if that was convenient or not at this point. ¡°I was going to um, tell people,¡± he said.
¡°That¡¯s perfect,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°we appreciate your help.¡±
Quentin nodded and excused himself, and we headed inside. Tipple was talking to a group of lillits in the pews when we entered, and he gave us a merry wave. His belly bounced as he rushed over to greet us.
¡°It¡¯s good that you¡¯re here,¡± he said. ¡°You need to know, men from Henterfell arrived yesterday. They were asking about you.¡±
¡°I know,¡± I said, ¡°Esmelda came to see me.¡±
Tipple¡¯s eyebrows shot up. ¡°Before the sun rose?¡±
¡°Yesterday,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Can we speak privately?¡± The eyes of the other lillits were all focused on us, men and women I had never seen before.
¡°Just a moment,¡± Tipple called to eavesdroppers, and we accompanied him into his office. The table was clear, but we didn¡¯t sit. He rounded on us.
¡°What happened?¡±
Esmelda quickly summarized the events of the previous night, and the color drained from Tipple¡¯s face when she brought up the troll.
¡°We want you to formalize our union,¡± she finished. ¡°Sir Otto needs to see Will as a member of our community, and this is the simplest way to do that.¡±
¡°That is,¡± Tipple searched for words, ¡°a decisive measure. Does Boffin have any idea what you are planning?¡±
¡°I haven¡¯t spoken to him,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°but this is my choice.¡±
Tipple broke into a wide grin. ¡°I¡¯m not sure if I want to be present for that conversation.¡± He slapped me on the arm, ¡°You¡¯re in for a hard time, young man. But I¡¯m happy to help. I¡¯ll join you in speaking to Godwod¡¯s men.¡± He took one of our hands in each of his and cleared his throat, his expression becoming solemn.
¡°Shall we begin?¡±
I looked at Esmelda, and she nodded. Tipple jumped right into it.
¡°We gather under the gracious gaze of our goddess to unite these two souls in sacred matrimony. This union, though forged of necessity, is not just a shield against worldly perils but a testament to the strength found in community and tradition.¡±
He looked at me.
¡°Will, do you take Esmelda as your lawfully wedded wife, to love and cherish, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?¡±
This had gotten heavy fast, but it wasn¡¯t as if I was going to back off now.
¡°I do,¡± I said.
The pastor faced Esmelda. ¡°And Esmelda, do you take Will as your lawfully wedded husband, to love and honor, in joy and sorrow, for all the days of your life?¡±
Esmelda¡¯s cheeks colored. Whatever she might have imagined her wedding would have been like, this could not have been it.
¡°I do.¡±
Tipple nodded and placed our hands together. Esmelda¡¯s felt small and warm in mine. ¡°Under the watchful eyes of Mizu, and with the power vested in me, I pronounce you husband and wife. May your union be as constant as the river, as enduring as the sea. You may seal your vows with a kiss.¡±
We both hesitated. Esmelda looked up at me, her gray eyes lovely and wide. I did want to kiss her, but I felt like it would have come across as forced and weird. Whatever our relationship was, it needed to develop naturally, or as naturally as it could under the circumstances.
Tipple cleared his throat again. ¡°Not entirely necessary. The vows are enough.¡± He patted my arm. ¡°Let no man or lord sever what has been joined today under the divine witness of Mizu. Go forth in love and unity.¡±
¡°Is that it?¡± I said. ¡°Are we married?¡±
Esmelda looked like she¡¯d just lost track of where she was. ¡°I suppose we are.¡±
¡°Just a moment,¡± Tipple turned from us to rifle through his bookshelf, and shortly produced a piece of paper, along with a quill and a bottle of ink. ¡°Let us not forget the legalities. Both of you may sign here.¡±
It was a simple document, a short paragraph stating that we were agreeing to marriage, with spaces left blank for additional vows and terms. The phrasing was drier and more bureaucratic than I¡¯d been expecting, but I was glad there would be a record of some kind in case Godwod had something to say about all of this.
Esmelda signed first. Her family name was Vella. I¡¯d never asked. I just wrote Will. My family was in another world.
¡°And the witness,¡± Tipple said, making his mark at the bottom of the parchment. ¡°Let us inform the community.¡±
The lillits in the worship hall were thoroughly baffled by this turn of events, but they congratulated us all the same. Esmelda knew all of them by name, though I didn¡¯t remember a single introduction. All I could think about was the fact that I had just married a woman I¡¯d known for a week.
¡°I don¡¯t know when Sir Otto plans to set out,¡± Tipple said after the last round of handshakes. ¡°But we should speak to them before they do. Do you want to see Boffin first?¡±
It would certainly help to have the mayor backing us up, but I doubted he was going to be enthusiastic about doing so. Esmelda frowned, likely considering how that conversation would go. Hey Dad, remember that guy you said I should stay away from? We¡¯re married now, let¡¯s go stand up to Lord Godwod¡¯s men on his behalf.
We were saved from having to give an answer when the door of the church was thrown open, and a group of rough-looking men showed themselves in. Their leader had black hair and a thick beard. He was wearing a surcoat over his armor, gold and blue, which depicted an eagle rising over a battlement. He looked like he¡¯d recently stepped in something unpleasant.
"Was ist los?" He demanded.
Tipple stepped forward to get between us, but it was Esmelda who answered. She gave a long statement in what I assumed was Sprache, and the man¡¯s face darkened further. His response was clipped and angry, and Tipple jumped in, speaking calmly with his hands held up in a gesture of peace, which earned him another hot reply. The other men spread out around the entrance. They all carried swords, and though no weapons had been drawn, it looked like they were ready to do so at any moment. Esmelda looked worried.
¡°What¡¯s happening?¡± I asked.
¡°That¡¯s Sir Otto,¡± she said. ¡°He says they know who you are, and that you are to be taken back to Henterfell as a suspected sorcerer.¡±
¡°What? Boffin never wrote anything about what I could do, did he?¡±
She shook her head. ¡°He didn¡¯t. I¡¯m sure he didn¡¯t.¡±
The debate between Tipple and the knight grew more heated, and the lillits gathered around behind us. There was some anger there, but most of them looked afraid, and none of them tried to interrupt. Otto came forward and addressed me directly.
"Kommen sie mit uns!¡± His expression was hard, and his hand lingered over the hilt of his sword. My own was at my hip, but I didn¡¯t reach for it.
¡°I don¡¯t understand,¡± I said.
The man¡¯s brow furrowed, and Tipple and Esmelda spoke over each other to further explain. My guess was that our being married was irrelevant if I was being accused of a high crime. But Tipple was waving the freshly signed parchment anyway.
Sir Otto placed a hand on the pastor¡¯s shoulder and shoved him out of the way. He was more than a foot taller, and in much better shape, Tipple tripped and went down hard. Heat rose in my belly, and my jaw clenched. Esmelda shouted something, and I grabbed her arm before she could step up to confront the knight. The last thing I wanted was to see him treat her the same way.
¡°Let me go with them,¡± I said. ¡°I don¡¯t want any of you to get hurt. I¡¯ll figure something out.¡±
Sir Otto paused, watching us for further signs of resistance. He repeated the same phrase as before in a lower tone but froze when a loud voice called out from the entrance.
"Gruss, Sir Otto!¡±
The men from Henterfell turned as one. Gastard¡¯s broad shoulders filled the entrance, and he had to lower his head to pass under the doorframe. Nothing was threatening in his manner, but he carried himself with absolute confidence, giving no sign that the sight of so many armed men troubled him in the slightest.
Otto¡¯s demeanor changed completely. He addressed Gastard in what I took to be a respectful tone, and they carried on a brief conversation while the rest of us watched in silence. Otto seemed to be getting flustered, but Gastard continued talking in a tone that suggested they were discussing the weather.
¡°What are they saying?¡± I whispered to Esmelda, and she shushed me. Tipple had since regained his composure and came to stand at my other side.
Gastard walked through the line of men to stand face to face with Otto and said something in a low voice. The other knight shrugged, and his response sounded resigned. He moved around Gastard to stand with his men.
Gastard switched to Lillant, addressing Esmelda. ¡°They have orders to bring Will back to Lord Godwod for interrogation. Fortunately, Otto is no true knight, and he has agreed to pretend they never found you. He wants a bribe.¡±
¡°How much?¡± I asked, and Gastard was briefly taken aback. ¡°You speak Lillant now?¡±
¡°It¡¯s one of my blessings. Long story. How much money does this guy want?¡± I had a sum total of zero dollars to my name, and in fact, had no idea how currency worked in this world at all. At least this was a step in the right direction. Working out a deal was far preferable to whatever would have come of me being forcibly escorted into Henterfell, or having all Godwod¡¯s men be killed by monsters on the way there, which was the most likely outcome.
¡°Five pounds,¡± Gastard said, his tone conveying his disdain for the mercenary demand.
¡°What?¡± Esmelda¡¯s voice raised an entire octave. ¡°That¡¯s ridiculous. Even my father doesn¡¯t have that kind of money on hand.¡±
¡°How much is it?¡± I said.
¡°It depends on your station.¡± Gastard said dryly, ¡°Enough for a peasant to purchase a cottage and start a life, or for a lord to buy a trinket for his favorite mistress.¡±
¡°What about a sword?¡± I said. Anything I could make, I could make a lot of, so the cost to me wasn¡¯t prohibitive. ¡°You¡¯ve seen mine, how valuable would it be?¡±
Gastard became thoughtful. ¡°If he recognizes it for what it is, I would say it could be worth far more than the silver he asked for. There is no open sale of Dargothian steel.¡±
¡°You can¡¯t give him that,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°He doesn¡¯t deserve it.¡±
¡°Do you know anyone else who might lend us the money?¡± I would rather give the man a sword than put myself in debt, but I would go along with a loan if that made Esmelda more comfortable.
She bit her lower lip. ¡°Dongle would have that amount. But he left Erihseht a few days ago for business in Henterfell. I don¡¯t think Quentin would be able to give it to us. I could ask him, though.¡±
There was no reason to put that nervous young man in that kind of position. From my one impression of Dongle, he might well have been willing to give me the money, but I wanted to end this encounter as quickly as possible. Sir Otto didn¡¯t seem like the kind of gentleman who would be interested in walking around Erihseht with us while we tried to beg for his bribe.
The men tensed as they watched me draw my sword and offer it to Gastard. ¡°See what he says,¡± I told him, and the knight nodded.
Gastard brought the blade to Sir Otto, whose face registered shock as soon as he had a good look at it. The exchange that followed was brief, and Otto cast a suspicious glance at me before taking the sword, giving a short command to his men, and walking out with them.
Everyone seemed to let out their breath at the same time.
¡°Thank you,¡± I said to Gastard. ¡°That was going to be a mess.¡±
He nodded. ¡°I returned to Erihseht last night, and when I saw that Otto was here, I had planned on following them to your home when they left. But it seems you had already arrived.¡±
¡°It is truly a day for blessings,¡± Tipple said. ¡°First, a wedding, and then, Lord Godwod¡¯s men were sent away without bloodshed.¡±
¡°A wedding?¡± Gastard looked around. ¡°Who was married?¡±
Esmelda blushed.
¡°Uh,¡± I said, ¡°we are.¡±
Gastard gave me a long look. He didn¡¯t say anything, but I felt like words were written across his face, and those words would have been, ¡°Seriously, bro?¡±
27: My Intentions (Rewrite)
¡°What are your intentions toward my daughter?¡±
We were in the mayor¡¯s living room, seated at a table that for me was uncomfortably short. Esmelda had gone to prepare tea for the three of us, and neither Tipple nor Gastard had expressed any interest in being around when we told Boffin the good news. Esmelda had given him the short version of everything that had happened since she came to warn me about Otto, and he had looked like a man being read a death sentence.
¡°Getting married was her idea,¡± I said, way too defensively. That was not a good way to get this conversation headed in the right direction. ¡°I mean, I didn¡¯t plan for this. It was supposed to be a way for us to keep Godwod¡¯s men from seeing me as an invader. If she wants to get it annulled, I¡¯ll go along with that. I don¡¯t want to make life more difficult for either of you.¡±
¡°Annulled,¡± Boffin repeated the word like it was an insult. ¡°Marriage is sacred. The vows are sacred. It is not undertaken on a whim, or dismissed because it has become an inconvenience. Are you telling me that you married my daughter, and you don¡¯t even want to be married to her?¡±
Shoot. ¡°That¡¯s not what I meant. Esmelda is amazing. I¡¯d be lucky to be with someone like her. But we barely know each other. When she suggested this, I thought of it as more of a formality.¡± There was no such thing as a Green Card wedding in this world, was there?
¡°A formality.¡± Boffin frowned so deeply that it looked like the parentheses around his mouth were going to split apart his face. ¡°Do you love her?¡±
¡°I¡could.¡± That was a weak answer, but what did he want me to say? Declaring my undying devotion to Esmelda at this point would have been dishonest, and not believable. She was absolutely someone I could see myself falling in love with, but that didn¡¯t happen overnight. Infatuation did, and I¡¯d confused infatuation for love more than once in my past, but I knew myself too well to think that just because my heart sometimes beat faster when I looked at her it meant that we were in love.
There was silence between us until Esmelda returned with the tea. She sat down beside me and smiled at both of us.
¡°So good to see you getting along,¡± she said.
Was that a joke? Esmelda seemed to be the only person in the room who was not uncomfortable.
I fought for words. ¡°I was just saying, it looks like the situation with Otto resolved itself. And if you don¡¯t want to be married to me, you don¡¯t have to be.¡±
¡°Marriage is sacred,¡± she said, echoing her father. ¡°If I hadn¡¯t meant my vow, I wouldn¡¯t have made it. Our union may have been one of convenience, but that doesn¡¯t mean it is any less binding. And the issue of Lord Godwod is anything but resolved.¡± She looked at me over her cup. ¡°Are you trying to leave me, Will?¡±
It seemed like she was teasing me, but it was a crazy moment to be doing so. I felt like I¡¯d been tricked into agreeing to something I didn¡¯t fully comprehend, even though I¡¯d been a fully conscious participant. I skipped over her question.
¡°You think Otto is coming back?¡± I asked.
¡°Maybe not Otto,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°But I don¡¯t trust him not to say anything to Lord Godwod about you, even if he doesn¡¯t tell him the truth. And if he reports that you were nowhere to be found, the Lord may send someone else looking. Accusations of sorcery are very serious in the Free Kingdoms.¡±
¡°How would he know what I can do?¡± I said, then looked at Boffin. ¡°You didn¡¯t write about any of my abilities, or the appearance of monsters in the area, did you?¡±
¡°No.¡± The old man looked much older than the last time we¡¯d spoken. ¡°Have you shown anyone else your miracles?¡±
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¡°Pastor Tipple,¡± I said, ¡°he brought a man named Dongle to meet me.¡± And we had been in the middle of the street. There had been witnesses, and any one of them could have run off to tell the local lord what they had seen. This was my fault.
¡°Dongle is in Henterfell now,¡± Boffin said. ¡°I would not put it past him to spread rumors while he was there, even if he meant no harm by it.¡±
¡°How far away is Henterfell?¡± I asked.
¡°A day¡¯s ride, two by foot.¡±
We didn¡¯t have much time before Otto made his report. There was a lot of work for me to do before then. My base needed to be rebuilt, and I wanted more iron and a hundred other things.
¡°Maybe I should have left,¡± I said. ¡°I could still leave. Go into the wilderness and try to master my gifts somewhere I wouldn¡¯t bring more trouble for all of you.¡±
¡°You should have,¡± Boffin said. ¡°But it¡¯s too late for that now. Even if Otto says nothing of your connection to us, we can hardly trust his men to show the same discretion. As much as it pains me to say it, you are my daughter¡¯s husband. You have a responsibility to her, and our village. You aren¡¯t going to walk off into the wilderness now, especially if it meant that she was going with you.¡±
¡°You wouldn¡¯t have to go with me,¡± I said to Esmelda.
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. ¡°I will not be an abandoned wife.¡±
Looking between them, a part of me had to wonder if this had been some kind of set-up. Esmelda believed I was a hero, and that my presence was critical for some impending calamity. She had brought up marriage as a reasonable option for managing a difficult political situation, but it apparently came along with the obligation to remain with the village rather than running off to pursue my personal ends. That being said, Boffin looked genuinely miserable, and I couldn¡¯t imagine him being a part of any plot that involved me being wed to his daughter.
A part of me wanted to simply leave and start over. I had enough resources and skills to survive now. But that was probably just belated cold feet. Making this kind of commitment was scary, but I¡¯d already made it, and in any case, I didn¡¯t want to be alone. My other life was gone, my family, but I had an opportunity to have a new one in this world. It had essentially been dropped in my lap.
¡°What do you think we should do?¡±
Boffin rubbed his forehead. ¡°If only either of you had asked me that an hour ago.¡±
¡°If someone is accused of sorcery,¡± I said, ¡°is there a trial? Do they torture me until I confess?¡±
¡°We don¡¯t do anything like that here,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°In Drom, they worship Gotte, and his priests would address any form of heresy, or an accusation like this. They believe that magic is a tool of the shadow alone, though I am sure they had heroes of their own in ages past. I¡¯m not sure what a trial would look like, but it is hard for me to imagine them showing you leniency.¡±
Boffin looked down at the steam rising from his untouched cup. ¡°Torture is a possibility,¡± he said. ¡°It depends on the nature of the accusations, and who made them. We can speak on your behalf, but Godwod has never taken us very seriously. He thinks our people are amusing.¡± His lip curled. ¡°It would be up to the whims of the priests, but they might be open to payment of some kind. A donation to their temple to expiate your alleged sins, or to prove our good faith and honesty. The accuser would be punished if their claims were deemed false.¡±
¡°I can make valuable things,¡± I said. ¡°Payment shouldn¡¯t be a problem if we have some lead time. If worse comes to worst, I can always die. They won¡¯t come looking for a sorcerer if they already have his body.¡±
Esmelda¡¯s face pinched in concern, and Boffin looked dumbfounded. ¡°There is no need for you to give your life,¡± he said. ¡°Whatever I may think of this union, you are still one of Mizu¡¯s chosen. Whatever purpose you are meant to serve has yet to come to pass.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not looking forward to it,¡± I said. ¡°But death isn¡¯t permanent for me. I would wake up the next day back at the place where I entered this world, and we could figure things out from there.¡±
¡°You¡¯re sure?¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Is there no limit? No cost?¡±
¡°Uh,¡± my memories, maybe more than that. If there was a hard limit to the number of times I could come back to life, my System had failed to mention it. Then again, it failed to mention a lot of things. But if Maincraft was any guide to how this worked, then I would presumably be able to respawn indefinitely. That opened up some nightmare scenarios, like if someone covered my spawn point in lava, or something, but that was a separate issue. ¡°I¡¯m not clear on the rules, but I¡¯ve died twice already since I¡¯ve been here, and I seem to be fine.¡±
Boffin sat back in his chair, stunned. ¡°You truly are an equal to the Dark Lord.¡±
¡°Not yet, but hopefully, someday, yeah.¡± I took a sip of the tea. Warm, bitter, faintly alcoholic. ¡°Hey,¡± I said, looking up, ¡°do you have any books written in Sprache?¡±
28: My Stone Box (Rewrite)
I went home, and Esmelda did not accompany me. It wouldn¡¯t have been safe for her, and though we were technically married, we were not at the living together stage, much to Boffin¡¯s relief. As I walked back, I thought about what that meant. My place going forward was in, or at least nearby, Erihseht. They had accepted me as a part of their community, and some of them had stood literally behind me when Otto tried to take me away. By the time I was done having tea with the mayor, the entire village had heard about the day¡¯s events, and they were a lot happier about it than I would have expected.
On the way out of town, I¡¯d been pleasantly accosted by dozens of unfamiliar lillits. Not all at once. They had approached me alone or in small groups or stopped whatever they were doing to wave and call out. We hadn¡¯t had Tipple¡¯s town meeting, I hadn¡¯t wanted to stick around with what I had waiting for me back home, but it didn¡¯t look like it was going to be necessary.
The little folk I met believed in me, in what they thought I was, and word that I was wedded to the mayor¡¯s daughter delighted them to no end. If there were people who were unhappy about it in the town, they had stayed inside and kept their feelings to themselves. I¡¯d been asked to demonstrate my miracle of the growing grass a few times, and I¡¯d begged off. It looked like showing off had gotten me in trouble already, and I hadn¡¯t brought any grass coins with me anyway.
Their attention had been overwhelming. One old woman had cried, telling me how she had waited all her life hoping to meet one of Mizu¡¯s chosen. What was I supposed to have said to that? Mostly I just said hello and thank you and yes, I would be back soon. Being a local celebrity was nerve-wracking, and after the first dozen conversations, I practically ran out of town.
Once I was in the open again, I did run. It relaxed me, and I didn¡¯t have any time to waste on a pleasant stroll. What was I going to do about Esmelda? Should I ask her on a date? We had skipped the courtship phase, but I wanted to have a real relationship with her if I could, not a marriage in name only. Local politics was one thing, but what would happen when Kevin showed up? One troll had been more than I could handle, and there were armies of them somewhere over the mountains.
I needed to get stronger, a lot stronger. Cardio wasn¡¯t going to get me that kind of power, but it felt good to push myself, so I ran until I couldn¡¯t run anymore, and fast walked the rest of the way to home base.
The day was almost gone, but my coffin had held through the night, so I spent what time I had left harvesting all the material that had made up the structure of my house and collecting scattered coins. I found the rest of Esmelda¡¯s book and saved it. Absorbing the remaining pages wouldn¡¯t have improved my Lillant much, and I wanted to give what was left back to her. Boffin had given me a book, Lichtweg, a religious text from Drom that he said I could ruin to learn the language, and I took that with me into the coffin along with my recovered resources to seal myself in for the night.
While absorbing a book imprinted the language it was written in onto my brain, it didn¡¯t make me an expert on the contents. I couldn¡¯t recite the stories I had taken from Esmelda¡¯s book, and I didn¡¯t know what Lichtweg was about, even after I¡¯d emptied half of the pages. For that, I would have to read it.
Reading what was recorded in the logs of my status screens was a little like reading on a Kindle, only more blue. Lichtweg was exactly as boring as any religious text I¡¯d ever perused. The beginning was a lengthy sermon about how darkness dwelled in every heart, and only the pure light of Gotte could save the souls of mankind from corruption. It gave me something to do while I listened for the troll. My eyes got heavy as the night deepened, and all I heard were the usual shrieks and moans. Maybe because they were bigger, it was harder for trolls to slip into the world than it was for the normal mobs, and it wouldn¡¯t happen every night.
I would need to ask another survivor if I ever met one.
I didn¡¯t have enough stone to build a real house, but I could at least give myself a place to keep all my stuff. When morning came, I started the day by replanting a section of my garden. If the troll came back, it was likely to get trampled again, but as long as I remained around the shelter I could have some crops ready to harvest before nightfall. I did a row of beets, followed by carrots and wheat, and turned my attention to the build.
A simple shelter that was ten feet to a side and seven feet tall would call for something like three hundred and fifty blocks. While I had enough, it was a significant portion of my supply. It needed to be big enough to hold my coffin, a worktable, the furnace, and some storage space. It would be a tight fit, but I could always stack stuff on the coffin, which I was using as the starting point of one wall.
There was something deeply satisfying about building this way. Throw down a coin, plip, and the block appeared. I couldn¡¯t toss them willy-nilly, the coin had to be placed right at the center of the block I wanted it to stack with for them to seal properly and be in line. But I managed to keep a pace of about ten successfully placed blocks a minute, which gave me a shelter in what felt like no time at all.
The door was an issue. Fence gates were no good anymore, and while I could have crafted a proper door out of wood, I doubted that would have posed much of an obstacle to a troll either. Theoretically, I could also craft a door out of iron, but I didn¡¯t have a bunch of ingots to experiment with. More complicated builds, like using pistons to open and shut a wall of stone, were even further out of the league of the resources available to me, even assuming all those mechanisms worked the same way in this world as they did in the game.
I resigned myself to having to seal the shelter with stones every night. The furnace was too heavy for me to move in its current form, but I mined it with my pick, and the resulting coin was as easy to place within the shelter as any other block.
Bill was still in his box. When I tapped on the wall and called out, he knocked back. Though his cell had held so far, with new monsters spawning and his increasing intelligence to worry about, I couldn¡¯t assume that would be true forever. With my shovel, I dug out channels in the dirt around where I knew the cell to be before filling them in with stone. Then I climbed on top and opened up a hole.
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It was only a one-foot gap, but his hand immediately shot up through it in an attempt to grab my foot. I stepped back.
¡°Hey, Bill,¡± I said. ¡°Do you want to talk?¡±
He giggled in response.
¡°I¡¯m about to fill in the roof,¡± I said. ¡°We won¡¯t be chatting again after that. So if you have anything to say to me, now¡¯s the time. I think you¡¯re smart enough to understand me. So why don¡¯t you just say something.¡±
His laughter stopped, and the hand dropped back into the hole. I didn¡¯t come any closer to look inside, but I was at least satisfied that he was in there and essentially unchanged. With my remaining stone, I started connecting the new outer shell of the cell across the top. When I was about halfway through, he spoke.
¡°Nah¡knock.¡± His voice was whispery, like two rough pieces of leather being rubbed together.
¡°What?¡± I paused. ¡°What was that?¡±
¡°Knock¡knock.¡±
¡°Jeez. Okay, fine. Knock knock. Who¡¯s there?¡±
If he had meant to tell a joke, he didn¡¯t remember the punchline. Bill continued to repeat the same phrase, interspersed with more giggles, for the next several minutes as I tried to interrogate him about it. The conversation was going nowhere, so I filled in the rest of the roof and put it out of my mind.
Just more creepy nonsense.
A couple of tokens were all I had left, but it would be sufficient to fill in the underside of the cell. I dug down beside the container and mined out the edges on three sides to replace that dirt with stone. Getting under it seemed a little dicey, but my experience digging out the cells had shown me that areas I mined with my ability retained their structural integrity in ways dirt properly shouldn¡¯t have. I felt safe enough to dig out a tunnel beneath the cell, then connected the stone edges so that Bill would be completely sealed in a cube. The new shelter was still situated in the hole I¡¯d dug out for the original basement, so I placed a ladder beside it to help me climb up and down. After filling the tunnel back in with dirt, I called it a morning.
Gastard showed up later that day for sword practice, and to my surprise, he brought both Esmelda and Brenys with him. The old woman was wearing yet another patchwork dress and the same green velvet hat, and she had brought a new roll of fabric with her strapped to the side of a donkey.
She hustled up to me with a murderous look on her face and poked me in the chest.
¡°Esmelda says you learned how to talk?¡±
¡°Yeah,¡± I said, looking past Brenys to see that Esmelda was watching us with amusement.
¡°Good,¡± Brenys poked me again, hard enough for me to feel it through the leather. ¡°Then listen well, boy. Esmelda is a very special girl. Hero or not, you¡¯re going to treat her right, or I¡¯m going to sew your hands to your crotch.¡±
That was a very specific threat. I wasn¡¯t sure if I should laugh or be terrified, as the old woman certainly seemed serious about it. ¡°I know she is,¡± I said, trying to match her severity, ¡°and I¡¯m not going to hurt her.¡±
¡°You better not,¡± Brenys said. ¡°Now where are my clothes?¡±
The extra set I¡¯d made to give her had been in coin form, and I¡¯d been able to recover them all throughout yesterday¡¯s cleanup. I popped them out, and Brenys was shortly absorbed in examining a crafted linen tunic, trousers, and a hat. She used the back of her donkey like a table to lay them out, and the animal accepted this treatment without complaint.
Esmelda and Gastard were letting their horses graze. Fuzzu looked to be in good shape, though when I approached, she sniffed the air and backed off.
¡°It¡¯s your leathers,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°They have a certain musk to them.¡±
I hadn¡¯t noticed, but considering what they were made from, it wasn¡¯t surprising. ¡°How¡¯s Boffin?¡± I asked.
Her mouth quirked. ¡°Still coming to terms with what happened.¡±
¡°You mean with us?¡±
¡°That, and everything. We still have to worry about who else may come from Henterfell, but for today, at least, I thought we could forget it all and just have lunch.¡±
¡°Sounds good to me.¡± It only took a few minutes for me to craft a picnic table with benches out of planks and logs, and Esmelda produced a basket full of bread and cheese, a jug of tea, and some cold meat pies.
¡°After our repast,¡± Gastard said, ¡°we should continue your training.¡±
¡°Fine with me.¡± The bread was coarser than what I made, and regular food wasn¡¯t miraculously filling in the way edibles that had been processed by my System were, but the cheese was a nice change of pace. Very sharp, and strong. I hadn¡¯t been eating for enjoyment, raw beets and carrots aren¡¯t exactly savory, so the simple meal felt like a feast of flavors. The pies, in particular, were delicious.
¡°I¡¯m thinking about taking a trip to the mountains,¡± I said. ¡°I need a lot more stone. And if I¡¯m lucky, I might find some ore.¡±
Esmelda shifted in her seat beside Brenys. ¡°There¡¯s a quarry near Eerb.¡±
¡°Would they want me mining there? Someone owns it, right?¡±
¡°The lords own everything like that,¡± Brenys said, ¡°but they hand out the rights to local people, and expect a tithe in return.¡±
¡°So I would need permission.¡±
¡°I¡¯m sure my father could talk to their mayor,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°I don¡¯t think it would be a problem.¡±
¡°But more people would find out about me. We still don¡¯t know who reported me the last time, but if a bunch of lillits saw me cleaning out a quarry, I¡¯m sure someone would run to Godwod about it.¡±
Esmelda sighed, ¡°I suppose that¡¯s true. But I don¡¯t know how I feel about you going off on your own. The Wastes are on the other side of those mountains, and the Dark Lord could have eyes there.¡±
¡°It would only be a few days,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯ll be careful.¡±
We finished the meal, and the women watched while I stumbled my way through Gastard¡¯s stances. I was back to using the stone sword, which made everything more difficult. Brenys quickly grew bored.
¡°I don¡¯t know about the rest of you,¡± she said. ¡°But I have a business to run. Esmelda, we should be heading back.¡±
¡°I suppose.¡± She stood, and I paused in the training. ¡°When will you leave?¡± She asked me.
¡°Tomorrow.¡± I felt like I should do something, but what was the protocol here? I went over to Esmelda and attempted an awkward half-hug. She responded by wrapping her arms around my waist and squeezing.
¡°Be careful,¡± she said, and let me go.
¡°I¡¯ll be fine. I¡¯m a hero, remember.¡±
She pursed her lips, clearly not appreciating the flippant nature of my reply, and we said our goodbyes. Gastard stood still during the exchange, making no comment.
¡°So what was up with you and that Otto guy?¡± I asked. ¡°Is there some history there?¡±
¡°We need to work on your side stroke,¡± Gastard said, and we did.
29: My Field Trip (Rewrite)
On the way to the mountains, I stopped by my original shelter. It had been taken over by fungus. The outside didn¡¯t look too bad, though there were mushroom sprouts around and over the building. I harvested them all quickly and took a look at what was inside. The momma mushroom was taller than me, deep purple, and surrounded by a fog of spores. I did not doubt that this was the same kind of invasive species that had killed Esmelda¡¯s mother. Rather than go inside and hold my breath to deal with it, I set the whole structure on fire.
Before leaving base, I¡¯d broken down the coffin casing so I would have a ready supply of stone on the road and converted a stack of logs into charcoal using the furnace. Rather than waste the coal, however, I surrounded the building with grass and lit the tinder with flint, which I¡¯d found during a recent dig. It was far more convenient than starting a friction fire. The flames sprang up almost immediately and spread to the logs a moment later. It hadn¡¯t rained in a while, but even so, the fire grew so quickly that I had to wonder if crafted building materials were also extra flammable.
While I was waiting for it to burn down, I visited my point of origin. There was nothing special about it, and aside from the obsidian block in the ground, no sign that anyone else had ever been there. I had to waste a good bit of time looking for it, as the obsidian barely stood out from the earth, and there was high grass all around.
¡°You are not alone,¡± I read aloud. ¡°Prove it.¡±
Beside the obsidian, I dropped three stone blocks in a short column and spent the next twenty minutes scraping a message into the top.
¡°Who dis?¡±
Not that I expected an answer, but it would make the spot easier to relocate if I ever needed to in the future. The super mushroom withered in the heat, though it was too wet to catch fire itself. Once the roof was gone, however, sunlight finished the job. It didn¡¯t turn to ash like the monsters had, but it shrank and slumped and lost its color in the space of a few minutes. They needed darkness to survive.
But the mushrooms weren¡¯t the most disturbing thing about the condition of my original base. The graves had been dug up. There was nothing left of the zombies that had died there but mycelium and bones. More importantly, my bodies were gone as well. It made me wonder if Bill had come back here for an extra dose of my skin, but there was nothing I could do about that now.
With nothing to burden me but a pack full of coins, I estimated I could cover something like thirty miles in a day. I wouldn¡¯t have been able to do that in my previous life, but the System had made me faster and given me crazy stamina as a reward for not dying so much. I wasn¡¯t at superhuman levels, but there was no telling what the next upgrade might do for me when I got there.
The mountains grew and grew, a long jagged line along the horizon, and there was still an hour or so left in the evening when I arrived at the base. I¡¯d followed the stream, which grew as the land rose and I approached its source, a small pond and a waterfall at the base of a cliff. Trees hung their crowns over the water, healthy and green, and the spot looked so idyllic that I would have considered moving my main base there if the location wasn¡¯t so out of the way.
I slapped the iron pick into my palm and got to work cutting out a section of rock to the right of the waterfall.
| Journal |
Quests |
Notifications |
Materials |
Crafting |
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[New Material Discovered: Slate]
A fine-grained stone, ideal for roofing and flooring. Slate is less durable than granite, but lovely to look at. So many colors!
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The note about colors seemed odd, given that all the material I collected was the same mix of black and gray, but it was a nice-looking stone. I dug myself out a cubby to sleep in and noted that my pick was already showing some signs of wear. It looked like it had a lot of use left in it, but until I got more iron, it was irreplaceable, so I decided to make myself some more disposable stone tools to use instead. Using iron tools made mining faster, but I didn¡¯t want to lose it yet in case I found a mineral vein.
After setting up a worktable, churning out a few more tools and a grass mat to sleep on, I took a dip in the pond. Instant regret. It had been a warm day, but the water was not. Still, I felt more comfortable after scrubbing off the sweat and dust of the hike before tucking myself in for the night.
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A troll spawned. I might not have noticed, except that it spent half the night banging its fists against the wall of granite that I¡¯d used to block off my sleeping chamber. It knocked off plenty of dust, but was unable to break through.
The next couple of days blurred together in a mining montage, during which, I discovered not a lick of harvestable metal. I might have had more success if I was exploring a natural cave instead of digging my way into the side of a cliff, but at least I got what I came for, a bagful of stone medallions. As an added benefit, I learned something new about the System.
Maincraft caves are full of mobs. They can spawn in any available darkness within one chunk of the player, and that includes areas you haven¡¯t explored yet. As my tunnel lengthened and branched, I kept torches burning, but I still expected to hear shamblers popping up in the areas I left behind. They didn¡¯t, and to test my developing theory, I deliberately built a few cells and left them dark while I worked to see if anything would spawn inside.
They didn¡¯t. Monsters only spawned at night, regardless of light levels. I already could have assumed that to be the case, because the cells in my shelters had always remained empty during the day. However, I¡¯d expected caves to be different. In the game, monsters were so ubiquitous underground that it was hard to imagine moving through an unlit space and not having to deal with them.
I¡¯d told Esmelda I wouldn¡¯t be gone too long, and I did want to check back in with the town and see if there was any news on the Lord Godwod front. Her worry about Kevin having eyes on the mountain seemed to be unfounded. At least, I hadn¡¯t noticed anyone watching me. In any case, I remained in a small area at the base of the mountain and spent most of every day inside my tunnel, so there would have had to have been scouts everywhere for one of them to come across me by chance.
The hike back to base didn¡¯t seem to take as long as it had on the way out, and there were no signs of new fungal growth around my burnt-out shelter. All that was left was blackened logs, and a bone-white, desiccated stalk. Just to be sure, I harvested the remains of the fungus.
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[New Material Discovered: Bedlam Wart]
This eerie, nocturnal growth is as mysterious as it is dangerous. A thriving colony is a sure sign of an area where the veil between worlds is thinning. Ingesting its meaty cap or breathing its spores carries the risk of contracting Bedlam taint.
A key component in the crafting of Base Elixirs.
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Elixirs? There was a whole branch of crafting mechanics built around alchemy in Maincraft. But you needed a brewing stand to make anything, and one of the components for that could only be found in the Nether. Villages usually came equipped with a stand, among other workstations, but I had a feeling Erihseht would not follow that pattern. Still, I could always ask if they knew anything about alchemy. Adding potions to my tech tree would be a massive leap forward. At least now I knew that it was an option.
When I returned to my camp by Whiskeywend, a boy was there waiting for me. He was a teenager, and he reminded me of some of the kids I had worked with at Subway. His hair was sandy brown and fell almost to his shoulders, though it was squashed beneath a studded leather cap. His lean frame was evident beneath a muted green tunic, and a satchel was slung across his shoulder. The kid¡¯s horse was drinking from the river, and there was a pennant flying from a pole attached to its saddle. The sign on the flag was an eagle over a rampart.
The young man jumped up as I approached. A knife hung from his belt, but it looked more like something you would eat with than use to kill someone.
¡°Hallo,¡± he called, ¡°are you Will?¡±
It took me a second to process it. He was speaking Sprache, and I realized what I¡¯d learned from Lichtweg was a more archaic form of the language. But it was close enough.
¡°That¡¯s me,¡± I replied. ¡°What can I do for you?¡±
He stood very straight. ¡°My name is Emil, I am a messenger sent on behalf of the Margrave. He requests your presence in Henterfell.¡±
Margrave was a rank, though I couldn¡¯t remember where exactly it fell on the sliding scale of nobility. I stopped about ten paces from the kid. ¡°I¡¯m not under arrest?¡±
¡°Arrest?¡± Emil looked baffled. ¡°No, sir. I was told you were a master smith, and I was to bring you to the keep. The Margrave intends to offer you a commission. It is a tremendous honor.¡±
¡°Oh,¡± I said. Lord Godwod must have seen the sword I gave Otto. But how had he known I was the one who made it? Regardless, it was better than being accused of sorcery. It could still be a trap, but why bother, when he could have sent another team of men to capture me if he wanted to?
I looked at the sun. ¡°I can¡¯t go with you now,¡± I said. ¡°But I can meet you at the church in Erihseht first thing after sunrise.¡±
He hesitated, looking dubiously at the shelter squatting in a hole in the ground. ¡°I can stay here,¡± he said, ¡°I don¡¯t mind camping, and we can leave at first light.¡±
¡°Look,¡± I said, ¡°if you don¡¯t go back to town now, you¡¯re not going to live through the night.¡±
He met my eyes, and gulped, taking it as a threat rather than a warning. The kid was probably used to getting rough orders from nobles, if not from smiths. He saluted, mounted his horse, and rode off at a quick clip.
There were still going to be problems, especially if the messenger insisted on staying with me all the way to Henterfell, but this had worked out a lot better than I expected. Apparently, a chance at Dargothian Steel was worth brushing a few accusations under the rug. As soon as I got to Erihseht, I could ask Esmelda and Gastard what they thought about the situation. Was this invitation an opportunity or a death sentence? And who was feeding information about me to the lord? Whatever the answers, it looked like I was bound for the city.
30: My Traveling Companions (Rewrite)
The messenger was waiting for me outside of the church, and it looked like he¡¯d been there for a while. He was sitting against the wall, and his horse was tied off at a post nearby. I¡¯d gotten to the village as quickly as I could, but I¡¯d waited for the monsters to despawn before setting out, so the sun was already well into the sky when I reached Erihseht. The young man jumped to his feet as soon as he saw me, readjusting the studded cap over his curly brown hair.
There were no lillits around him, though I¡¯d been greeted by several townsfolk on my way to the church, and a few had even warned me about the messenger. I waved.
¡°There you are,¡± he said. ¡°Are you ready to go?¡±
¡°Not yet,¡± I said. ¡°I need to talk to a few people first.¡±
Inside the church, a group of children were sitting along the first two pews with tables set in front of them. I¡¯d intended to say something to Tipple before I went looking for Esmelda, but they were both there, engaged in what I assumed was some kind of Sunday school. Esmelda had mentioned tutoring children, and it looked like the church served a double purpose as a schoolhouse.
My entrance interrupted whatever the lesson was as the children turned around. They didn¡¯t seem to know what to make of me, with some of them opening their mouths excitedly while others hid their faces behind the backs of the pews, leaving only their eyes to peek over them.
Esmelda came around the tables and down the aisle to greet me. She was wearing a simple blue dress that covered her from her neck to her ankles, cinched around her waist by a heavily brocaded sash that I assumed was Brenys¡¯s work. She paused a few paces from me, suddenly unsure.
¡°Hey,¡± I said, raising my hand. ¡°Good to see you.¡±
She smiled. ¡°You too. How did it go?¡±
¡°The mining? Fine. I¡¯m not going to be constructing a castle any time soon, but at least I have something to work with now.¡± As impressive as my abilities were, truly large-scale build projects couldn¡¯t be undertaken in a day. I might be able to build a hut faster than a team of men working toward the same goal, but a keep? Even a modest donjon would require several thousand blocks, all of which first had to be mined.
Tipple patted one of the kids on the head as he came through the pews, his belly making it look like there was barely enough space for him to pass between them. He grabbed my hand and shook it.
¡°Welcome back,¡± he said. ¡°I take it you¡¯ve already spoken with our visitor?¡±
¡°Yeah,¡± I said, ¡°what do you guys think about that? It sounds like Godwod¡¯s attitude has completely flipped, and I¡¯m not sure I believe it.¡±
¡°It does seem too good to be true,¡± Esmelda said.
Tipple rubbed at his clean-shaven chin. ¡°I¡¯m not as surprised as I might be. Godwod¡¯s known to be an independent sort of gentleman, more concerned with what he wants for himself than for propriety. If he saw your sword, he could be willing to overlook a few things to get one of his own.¡±
¡°I thought they took sorcery really seriously in Drom.¡± A noble going from wanting to arrest me to wanting to do business with me in the space of a few days felt like a lot of red flags.
¡°The temple certainly does,¡± Tipple patted his stomach, ¡°but humans are human, and the lord is not said to be devout. Rumors are rumors, but a chance at new Dargothian steel, that¡¯s something that would sway any noble.¡±
I frowned. ¡°That¡¯s the other thing. How does he know I made the sword, and it wasn¡¯t just an heirloom.¡±
¡°That¡¯s something we can ask him,¡± Esmelda said.
¡°We?¡±
Her hands drifted to her hips. ¡°Of course, we. If something happens to you, I have to know. And Gastard should come as well, he knows the lord personally.¡±
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¡°I got the impression that they were not on good terms.¡±
¡°Even so,¡± Esmelda¡¯s gaze drifted over to the children spying on us from the pews. ¡°I suppose you¡¯ll want to leave right away. You should send the messenger ahead of us. We¡¯ll have to camp outside of Henterfell. He shouldn¡¯t see what happens around you at night.¡±
¡°I can finish up here,¡± Tipple said. ¡°The students will miss you, but they¡¯ll survive. And you have to speak to your father. I don¡¯t want to have to hear about it if he thinks I let you run off to Henterfell without talking with him first.¡±
Her shoulders slumped. ¡°I know. I need things from home anyway.¡±
The messenger was reluctant to leave without me.
¡°I was asked to ensure you came,¡± the young man said.
¡°And you¡¯ve done that. Good job,¡± I gave him a thumbs up, and his brows furrowed. Emil seemed like an earnest kid, and I didn¡¯t want to get him in trouble, but he would see too much if he traveled with us. ¡°Tell the lord I¡¯ll be there the day after you arrive.¡±
¡°He asked that you come immediately.¡±
¡°This is as immediate as it¡¯s going to get. Tell him I¡¯m honored, and looking forward to being of service to him, and I¡¯m coming as soon as I can. Okay?¡±
Emil hesitated, shifting uncomfortably in place, and Esmelda stepped in.
¡°Young man,¡± she said, ¡°you¡¯ve been given your answer. Erihseht is a free village, and Will is a free man. You¡¯ve done your duty to your lord. Don¡¯t you think he will want to hear the news as soon as possible?¡±
The messenger was taller than Esmelda, but he seemed to shrink under her scrutiny. ¡°Yes, ma''am,¡± he said, and dug a folded piece of parchment from his pack before handing it to me and fetching his horse. The letter was stamped with a wax seal, and though brief, made it clear that I was an expected visitor of the Lord of Henterfell.
We visited the mayor¡¯s manor next, and Esmelda asked me to wait outside so she could speak with her father privately. I was more than happy to agree. The day was cool, and clouds were gathering in the sky. If there was a storm, would monsters be able to remain during the day? I hadn¡¯t been unlucky enough to experience that yet, but it was how it worked in the game. If the weather was bad, we might have to further delay our arrival in the city, and Godwod might see that as a slight. While I didn¡¯t know the man, nobles were probably prickly about that sort of thing.
Esmelda seemed to be taking a long time. There was no way Boffin was in favor of her accompanying me, and when they came out of the house together, neither one of them looked particularly happy, but she was carrying a pack.
¡°If anything happens to my daughter,¡± he said, his face hard, ¡°I will not forgive you.¡±
¡°That¡¯s fair,¡± I said. ¡°Is there anything I should know about Godwod? What kind of man is he?¡±
Boffin let out a puff of air. ¡°I met him in person only once, after I was elected mayor. He made me uncomfortable, though I cannot say what it was exactly. He was not threatening, and he had a friendly manner. Many humans seem to think of lillits as being like children, because of our size, and I believe he is one of that sort. He enjoys flattery, that I know. Be sure to bow to him, and err on the side of courtesy whenever you can.¡±
¡°What if he decides to lock me up? Can lords do whatever they want, or do they have their own laws to follow?¡±
The mayor lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. ¡°They answer to each other. As a margrave, Lord Godwod has more authority in this region than anyone but the king. You are unknown, and we have no say in what happens in Henterfell. If he decides to arrest you, there won¡¯t be anything I can do to help you but make a complaint, and it will not be heeded. The Lord has never treated us badly, we pay a tax, and he leaves us to govern ourselves, but you mustn''t mistake him for a weak man.¡±
¡°I won¡¯t,¡± I said. Esmelda had kept back, allowing us to speak, but she chose this moment to interject.
¡°Gastard will be with us,¡± she said. ¡°He¡¯s dealt with the lord more than anyone.¡±
¡°His presence is the only reason I¡¯m allowing you to go,¡± Boffin said, and Esmelda caught him with a stern look.
¡°Allowing?¡±
¡°I¡¯m your father,¡± Boffin said wearily, ¡°it is my duty to protect you.¡±
¡°Mhm,¡± Esmelda gave the mayor a peck on the cheek, choosing not to argue the point further, and we went to fetch Gastard. The knight lived in a cottage on the edge of Erihseht that looked like he had constructed it himself. It was boxy and plain, the logs of its walls set with joinery and chinking under a thatch roof. Though it was only a single room, it had been scaled for him rather than a lillits, so the door was one of the largest in town.
Esmelda knocked, and Gastard answered wearing a brown tunic. It was the first time I¡¯d seen him out of his armor. His blonde hair was disheveled, and I wondered if he made a habit of sleeping in.
¡°What¡¯s this?¡± He said, not inviting us in. ¡°You¡¯re back already?¡±
¡°Did no one tell you about the messenger?¡± I asked.
¡°The what?¡±
¡°Lord Godwod wants Will to forge him a sword,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°We¡¯re going to Henterfell, and I was hoping you would come with us.¡±
No one had asked him yet? Gastard absorbed the information slowly, his sober expression deepening into full displeasure as he processed what she said.
¡°Very well,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯ll get my horse.¡±
31: My Journey to a Commission (Rewrite)
Henterfell was the first real city I¡¯d seen in Plana. Hundreds of buildings, cobblestone streets, and a sizable keep at its heart. We had sheltered a couple of miles away, well off of the road. Esmelda, Gastard, and I had spent a cramped night together in a stone box along with their horses. They¡¯d offered to find me a mount of my own in Erihseht, but I preferred walking, and I didn¡¯t want to be responsible for an animal. If I ever got a pet, I would have to worry about it being eaten by zombies.
While Henterfell had a wall, it only encircled the inner third of the city. The rest had propagated out as it pleased. The river, Whiskywend, ran through the center, and I saw several mills along its length. The countryside was dotted with hamlets and farms, and we had passed by several small communities on the way, but Henterfell itself did not appear to be by any means agrarian. So much stone, there had to be a quarry nearby, maybe a few mines. What would Godwod say if I asked to pay one of them a visit?
¡°Can we just walk in?¡± I asked. After breaking down the shelter, we¡¯d returned to the main road, and the three of us were closing in on the other edge of the city.
¡°If we were carrying goods for sale,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°we might have to pay a toll, but I don¡¯t see any guards.¡±
¡°We will be questioned before we can enter the inner city,¡± Gastard said. ¡°But there is little in the way of security for the outer portion. People come and go as they please.¡±
¡°Did you live here in the past?¡± I asked, fast walking to keep up with the horses.
¡°For a time,¡± Gastard was as taciturn as ever.
Though there was no definite hard line to cross as we entered the outer city, the dusty road gave way to cobbles, and the first building to greet us was a large inn. Three stories of timber and stone, the upper windows shaded by dark curtains, but those on the ground floor were open to the sunlight. A sign hanging from a pole over the entrance depicted a fat, laughing man. A few people were leaving from under it, but the interior of the inn looked quiet. Early morning wouldn¡¯t be a high-traffic juncture.
Much of the outer city looked like a residential area, but as we were traveling the main road, we were treated to the sight of shops and performers. There was a busker outside of the inn lazily strumming on his lyre, and he gave me a sour look after I glanced at his hat on the ground and didn¡¯t toss anything in, but that seemed like more of a statement about his life choices than mine.
We slowed as we came up behind a wagon that took up most of the road, passing by a blacksmith''s forge, the ring of metal on metal already echoing from its shaded interior.
¡°So many people,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°How can they all live here?¡±
Compared to Erihseht, Henterfell did seem crowded, particularly as we ventured further in. The market was bustling despite the early hour, and a vendor shouted at her as we passed, trying to sell some bangles. I spotted what looked like a guard, but he was lazily chatting with one of the merchants and didn¡¯t seem to be monitoring us or anyone else who was shuffling by.
I felt both more and less like an alien here than I had entering the lillit village. The people here weren¡¯t outlandishly tall or short, and there was a definite northern European vibe, ethnically speaking. It could have been any stereotypical fantasy adventure setting, and with brown hair and brownish eyes, I slid right into the homogeneity.
It was a far cry from being a giant clad in zombie leathers stumbling out of the wilderness with a stone ax strapped to my back. The one thing that might have given me away was the elder sign on the back of my hand, but I covered it with a pair of crafted gloves.
The aroma of cooking spices and bread was outdone by the stench of manure and unwashed bodies that characterized life in the Middle Ages. The lillits never smelled like this, and they were never this loud. A cacophony of voices echoed through the narrow streets, and the shouting reminded me of a prison dorm more than anything.
Things quieted as we grew closer to the inner city, no doubt due in part to the presence of a temple before the gate. It was as tall as the inn had been, and several times larger in every other respect. The granite structure took on a warm tone in the morning sunlight and a statue near the entrance drew my eye. A young boy petting a giant lion.
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¡°What¡¯s that?¡± I asked.
¡°Saint Dahvit,¡± Gastard said. ¡°He spoke to beasts, and rallied them in defense of Drom in another age.¡±
¡°Was he one of Mizu¡¯s?¡±
¡°If he was a hero,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°then she must have sent him.¡±
¡°They do not worship the blue goddess here,¡± Gastard said shortly.
The gate to the inner city was open, but a guard stood to one side of it, and there were more walking the wall twenty feet above us. The man was wearing an iron cap and a surcoat with the sign on the city embroidered in gold thread. He held a halberd planted in the ground beside him.
¡°What¡¯s your business?¡± He asked, eyeing my clothes. I had on a wool cloak Esmelda had found for me, and a linen tunic covered most of my leathers. Though well made in their own way, my garments wouldn¡¯t mark me as either a noble or a rich merchant. I produced the letter the messenger had given me, and the guard''s eyes widened as he took in the seal, though he didn¡¯t attempt to read its contents.
"I''m here to see Lord Godwod,¡± I said. ¡°These are my companions.¡±
He let us through. Beyond the wall were taller, nicer houses, more stone than wood, and some with gardens and fences. There was another inn that made the first seem dirty by comparison, and a few high-end shops that didn¡¯t bother advertising their wares in the open. My gaze was drawn to the heart of the city where Lord Godwod¡¯s keep dominated the skyline. Its massive brick walls were pocked with arrow slits, and the entrance came equipped with a drop gate at the end of a steep ramp. If this place had never been under siege, its architects would surely have been disappointed.
We made our way to the keep, the hooves of the horses clinking on the cobbles, and were stopped once more at the ramp. This guard was wearing a red tunic, and he had a sword instead of a halberd. Instead of addressing us, he simply stared.
¡°We¡¯re here to see the Lord,¡± I said, ¡°he¡¯s expecting us.¡± I handed him the invitation, and he scanned through it.
¡°Just you,¡± he said, not looking at Esmelda or Gastard.
¡°Do you not remember me,¡± Gastard said, his voice cold.
¡°I do,¡± the man said, ¡°but you are no longer free to enter here.¡±
Gastard grunted, and Esmelda slid down from her horse to take my hand. ¡°You don¡¯t have to go in,¡± she said. ¡°We can all wait here.¡±
¡°What?¡± The guard sneered, ¡°Of course he does. The Lord has asked for him, the Lord doesn¡¯t come out to the street to visit.¡±
¡°It¡¯s alright,¡± I said. ¡°There¡¯s plenty of daylight left.¡± I glanced back down the road. ¡°Why don¡¯t you guys check out the inn, and I¡¯ll come meet you after he sees me.¡±
¡°We¡¯ll be close,¡± Gastard said, though whether they were close or far, I didn¡¯t think they would be able to help me once I was inside the keep. The distance was probably better than having them accompany me anyway. If Godwod decided to try something nasty, they could be left out of it.
¡°Wait inside,¡± the guard said, ¡°the Lord will send someone for you when he¡¯s ready.¡± He knocked on the gate, and it lifted to reveal a garden, but he stopped me before I could step through.
¡°Sword and knife,¡± he said, his tone flat. I handed them over, and he nearly dropped the stone-bladed sword, unprepared for its weight.
¡°Take good care of them,¡± I said.
Passing under the arch, I found myself in a courtyard surrounded by a verdant garden. There was no city noise here, and the entire scene felt as if it had been deliberately curated to elicit a sense of peace, down to the bubbling fountain at the center of the garden. It released a gentle spray, casting prismatic hues in the sunlight.
The water was coming from between the cupped hands of a stone man. It could have been a monument to a Roman Olympian, aside from the water aspect, and the face of the figure, which struck me as oddly soft and sad. How did they have the water pressure for a fountain?
There wasn¡¯t an obvious next step, as there didn¡¯t appear to be anyone for me to announce myself to, or a specific place for me to sit and wait. Wandering through the lush garden, marveling at the meticulously arranged flowers and the fragrance of nature, had me itching to collect samples. A lot of these plants were varieties that I had never seen before, and I really wanted to add them to my logs, but despite not seeing anyone around, I couldn¡¯t shake the feeling that I was being observed.
A fat, fluffy rabbit hopped right up to my boots and looked up at me with its nose twitching.
¡°Hey,¡± I said. ¡°You¡¯re not very smart, are you? I could be anybody. I could eat rabbits.¡±
The animal didn¡¯t seem worried.
¡°Good advice.¡± A middle-aged man stepped from around a rosebush. He had on a luxurious robe, yellow and purple, and was wearing a silver circlet over his wavy blonde hair. ¡°One can never be too careful of strangers. My Mutig has lived a sheltered life, but he is a reasonable judge of character, nonetheless.¡±
The man clapped, and the rabbit scampered back to him. He crouched, and it hopped into his waiting arms. Jewels flashed on his fingers, and I was reminded of Dongle Darfur. When he straightened, he regarded me with a tight smile that did not reach his eyes.
¡°You must be the famous Will,¡± he said. ¡°Smaller than I thought you would be. I am Lord Godwod, Margrave of the Border March.¡±
I bowed.
32: My Garden Stroll (Rewrite)
¡°Walk with me,¡± the lord said.
He led me along the garden path, which circled and cut through the courtyard, which was overlooked by many windows in the keep above. It wasn¡¯t the most magnificent garden I had ever seen, and much of it was not in bloom, but it included a wide variety of bushes and shrubbery, all of which had been carefully cultivated to fill their designated beds without crowding their neighbors.
¡°What do you think of rabbits?¡± Godwod asked.
I glanced down at Mutig, who was comfortably ensconced in his master¡¯s arms, its long ears laid flat against its back.
¡°I like them,¡± I said. There had been some wildlife around the prison where I¡¯d done most of my time. Birds and rabbits. We weren¡¯t supposed to feed them, but people would toss bread bits on the grass on the way out of the chow hall and watch the animals eat. It was one of the most pleasant memories I had of that period of my life.
¡°Most people see them as game animals, rather than pets,¡± Godwod said. ¡°A matter of perspective that applies to many subjects, don¡¯t you agree?¡±
¡°With animals? Definitely.¡± I would never eat a dog, but people did. I love pork, but I¡¯d also considered having a pig as a pet before. They were supposed to be at least as smart as dogs, which was pretty disturbing if you thought about it too much.
¡°Not just animals,¡± Godwod said. ¡°People as well. Enemies and allies. Making one instead of the other is often due to a lack of imagination more than any other factor.¡±
¡°Then I do agree,¡± I said. ¡°How we think about things puts a limit on how we can respond to them.¡±
Godwod idly scratched Mutig¡¯s head, and the rabbit closed its eyes. ¡°You don¡¯t look Dargothian,¡± he said, ¡°but I take it you are the same man little Boffin wrote to me about camping near the border.¡±
¡°Yes, my lord.¡± What I told him about myself would depend on what he already knew. While I didn¡¯t want to reveal the truth, given what the lillits had told me of Drom¡¯s attitude toward heroes, I also didn¡¯t want to be caught in a lie.
¡°I must admit,¡± Godwod said, ¡°there have been times in my life when I wished to step away from it all, my duties, the peerage, and make a simple life for myself in the countryside. There are many reasons why a man might wish to abandon who he was and begin anew. What are you running from, Will? Shame? Justice? Failure?¡±
¡°Mostly from monsters,¡± I said.
The lord chuckled. ¡°Monsters come in many forms. I will not pry into your past. Ignorance serves me better in this case, I think. I¡¯ve made a few inquiries, and I am satisfied in thinking of you as being no one at all before you stepped into my garden. Some men in my position are uncomfortable with mystery, but I find it is often preferable to the banality of revealed truth.¡±
I didn¡¯t have a ready response to that, but Godwod was prepared to fill the silence.
"The burdens of rule can be vexing. One may assume that the comforts of my position would be a source of endless joy, but alas, I often find myself adrift in boredom. My days are plagued by the tedium of bureaucracy, the monotony of tradition, the ceaseless cycle of banquets and courtly affairs. I am as thoroughly ensnared by obligation as any freeman seeking to eke a living out of the soil."
He sighed dramatically, his gaze wandering to a nearby rose bush. "There is no mystery for me here. My dear wife, a woman of taste and grace, sadly lacks the depth necessary to hold a conversation beyond the interests of petticoats and peacock tongues. She has given me only a single child, and a daughter at that. The poor girl is cursed to share my love for the unnameable, and occupies herself by hunting for unicorns, seeking wonders she will never find.¡± He paused.
¡°How well do you know Gastard?¡±
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The question wasn¡¯t a complete non-sequitur. As soon as he mentioned his daughter, I thought of what Gastard had shared with me about his experience here.
¡°Not well,¡± I said. ¡°I met him a few weeks ago, and he doesn¡¯t say much about himself,¡±
We came to a stop back at the fountain in the center of the courtyard, and the lord seemed to lose himself in thought as we watched water falling from the hands of the monument.
¡°He is a useful man, and it pained me to lose him,¡± Godwod said at last. ¡°Useful men sometimes forget their place, a failing that could have been overlooked in his case. The fact that he chose to come here with you speaks to your character. I was also pleased to learn that you took a wife. I am more comfortable extending a hand to someone with ties to my land.¡±
As odd as it was to meet a lord alone in his garden, Godwod clearly kept himself informed. I had the impression that beneath his casual demeanor was a man who kept a tight grip on his kingdom.
¡°I want to make a life for myself here,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m honored that you sent for me.¡±
He nodded. ¡°That sword you gave Otto, you forged it yourself?¡±
¡°I made it,¡± I said, ¡°can I ask how you know that?¡±
¡°If you wish to settle in Erihseht,¡± Godwod said, ignoring my question, ¡°that is something I will allow only under the condition that you swear fealty to me. You must forswear whatever bonds you made in the past, and take a new name to ensure that whoever you were does not interfere with the role I see for you here.¡±
¡°What role is that?¡±
¡°For the moment, a small one. I want you to forge me a sword, and I want you to swear that you will neither sell nor trade any more like it without my express permission. I expect no more from you than that. In return, you will no longer be a stranger in these lands, allowed to live as you choose with the lillits.¡±
As starting a market empire hadn¡¯t been in my immediate game plan anyway, I had no problem ceding the right to sell weapons to the locals.
¡°What do I have to do to become your vassal,¡± I said. ¡°Is there a contract for me to sign?¡±
¡°Nothing so vulgar as that,¡± Godwod said. He set his rabbit down on the edge of the fountain, and it immediately hopped off back into the garden. Then he clapped his hands, and a moment later, people appeared. I hadn¡¯t noticed anyone around us as we walked, but we had not been as isolated as it had seemed.
A guard came walking around a hedge, accompanied by what looked like a priest. The man was wearing brown robes and a black cap. He had a dark beard, and he kept his gaze down as he bowed to Godwod.
¡°Now is when you kneel,¡± the lord said.
What followed was a repeat-after-me situation. The priest fed me the words, including a new surname appropriate to what Godwod wanted from me.
"I, Will Smith of Erihseht, swear before Lord Canary Godwod and under the gaze of Gotte my undying fealty, loyalty, and obedience as your devoted vassal. I acknowledge you as my rightful liege lord and pledge my sword, my service, and my life to your cause.¡±
I wasn¡¯t sure what I¡¯d been expecting, but the oath felt all-inclusive. Being a vassal meant Godwod could pretty much tell me to do whatever he wanted, and while I didn¡¯t like the sound of that, I doubted a refusal would have gone over well. Godwod was the highest authority in this region, so if I was going to be under someone¡¯s thumb, it might as well be his.
¡°I promise to defend your lands, honor, and interests against all enemies. I shall bear arms in your name, fight valiantly in your battles, and lay down my life if necessary to safeguard your realm.¡± If Kevin attacked, I''d have been committed to trying to fight him off anyway, for the lillits, if not for Godwod.
¡°I swear to maintain the utmost integrity and uphold the honor of my position as your vassal, treating fellow vassals and subjects with the respect accorded by their rank. This oath I swear on my honor, in the presence of witnesses, binding myself to you, Lord Godwod, as your steadfast vassal, until death or the release from my obligations."
If nothing else, I could just die to get out of this. To my surprise, Godwod followed up my statement with one of his own. Fealty was a two-way street.
Godwod recited his part like a dramatic actor projecting for the crowd. He enjoyed the role.
"I, Canary Godwod, accept this solemn oath of fealty and service from you, Will Smith of Erihseht, as my loyal vassal. I acknowledge your pledge of devotion to me as your liege lord, and I, in turn, vow to fulfill my responsibilities as your protector and benefactor.
I acknowledge your obligations and duties, and I will not unreasonably burden you with excessive demands. I shall treat you with respect, recognize your accomplishments, and reward your loyalty.
This oath I swear on my honor, in the presence of witnesses, binding myself to you as your faithful and just liege lord, upholding our mutual obligations until the end of our days."
¡°Witnessed,¡± the priest said, making a gesture toward the heavens.
¡°You may stand,¡± Godwod said. ¡°Now that that¡¯s out of the way, let¡¯s talk about my sword.¡±
33: My Rights (Rewrite)
Godwod sent the witnesses off, though I had to assume the guard didn¡¯t go far, and we retired to a small alcove off the side of the garden to talk business. A girl in a green dress appeared carrying a tray with a bottle of wine and a pair of glasses which she placed on the wicker table between us. After pouring the wine for both of us, she backed away with the tray to stand just outside of the alcove.
Godwod drank from his cup, so I felt that I had to follow his example. It was bitter and dry, and I tried not to grimace as Godwod monologued.
¡°They don¡¯t understand me,¡± he said, ¡°None of them do. There is no true appreciation for quality and beauty among the lords. My daughter has a heart like mine, but I fear that it will break upon the world. I have the soul of an artist, and as soon as I laid eyes on the sword Sir Otto brought back from Erihseht, I knew that it had come from a kindred spirit, someone with an appreciation for perfection.¡±
¡°He showed it to you?¡± The sword had been a bribe, and Otto had claimed he was going to tell Godwod he hadn¡¯t found me. Obviously, something more had happened, otherwise, I wouldn¡¯t have been drinking with the lord now.
¡°I was informed,¡± Godwod said, swirling the wine in his glass. I wondered what that meant for Otto. Why hadn¡¯t Godwod just taken that sword instead of summoning me to make another one? ¡°I need you to make me a sword with steel like the one you gave to Otto. But more than that, I need you to make something beautiful. This will be no mere soldier¡¯s weapon, but a blade fit for a king. Did you know that I am thirty-second in line for the throne of Drom?¡±
That seemed like a long list, kind of like being Secretary of Agriculture. Technically, eventually, you could become president that way, but a whole lot of people would have to die first.
¡°I didn¡¯t know that.¡±
¡°It is the truth. I am descended from Umberious Rex himself through my late mother. I commissioned the fountain in his honor the year that I found out I was of his most noble and ancient line.¡±
¡°It¡¯s a great statue,¡± I said, ¡°the water, is very nice. How do you get it to keep spraying like that?¡±
¡°I have no idea,¡± the lord waved away the question. ¡°But it was very expensive. Now we are venturing far afield of my desires. The sword, young man, I must have the sword. Are you up to the task?¡±
¡°I¡¯ll clear my schedule.¡± Doing what he wanted would probably take all of ten minutes once I had the materials, but there was no reason for him to know that. ¡°But I have stipulations.¡±
He raised an eyebrow. ¡°Do tell.¡±
¡°Complete artistic freedom. Whatever I make will be to the standard you desire, but the style and subject are for me to select. I can promise you it will be the grandest weapon in Henterfell, but I ask you to leave the design to me.¡± If he asked for something specific, like a pommel in the shape of a dragon or whatever, there was no way I could fulfill the request. Crafting gave me what it gave me, and though there were probably rules in there somewhere, the system was not transparent. When I carved figures, I had only the loosest control over the result.
¡°As you say,¡± he nodded, ¡°an artist must be without constraints. I want the best that you can produce. How much time do you need?¡±
How long did smiths normally take to do this sort of thing?
¡°Give me two weeks from when I return home,¡± I said.
¡°Is that all?¡± He almost spilled his wine. ¡°I want the best you can produce, you understand?¡±
¡°I¡¯m sure,¡± I said. Two weeks was about five hundred times longer than the amount of time I would need to do the crafting. ¡°But before I can begin this project, I need the right materials. In a work like this, every ounce of metal has to be carefully selected. There can be no imperfections.¡±
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¡°Yes!¡± Lord Godwod enthusiastically agreed. ¡°That is what I want. Perfection.¡±
He hadn¡¯t said anything about payment, and I was under the impression that he expected me to provide the weapon as a gift to my new liege lord, but that didn¡¯t mean I couldn¡¯t get anything out of it. ¡°I have limited funds,¡± I said. ¡°To do this for you, I will either need you to provide the materials I require, or your permission to collect them myself.¡±
¡°Collect them?¡±
¡°I need a mine,¡± I said.
Lord Godwod blinked. ¡°You¡what?¡±
¡°Not all iron is the same,¡± I said. ¡°If you give me the right to harvest the ore myself, that will lead to the best result. Is there a mine nearby that I could visit?¡± These people had to be getting their metal from somewhere, and it was high time I took this Maincraft stuff to its natural conclusion.
¡°An interesting request.¡± The Lord¡¯s demeanor shifted, his eyes narrowing in focus. ¡°There is, in fact, a small mine under my eye that is not producing what it should. The current grantees claim that it has run dry, though it did produce iron for a time. I will offer you a proposal, if you are able to find what you need there, and the sword you bring me proves to be everything you have promised, I will transfer their rights to you, and the mine will be yours.¡±
That was more than I¡¯d been expecting. ¡°I would own the land?¡±
¡°No,¡± Godwod shook his head. ¡°You have no title to your name, the land would still belong to Baron Gent, but you would have the rights to work it. A portion of whatever you brought up out of the earth would go to him, and another portion to me, but the rest would be yours to do with as you chose. Remembering that you would sell no swords of this kind without my consent, of course.¡±
¡°I accept,¡± I said, it was more than I¡¯d been expecting, a lot more. Was Godwod in the habit of throwing around mining rights to strangers? ¡°How far is it from here?¡±
¡°Gastard knows where it is,¡± Godwod said, rising from his seat. ¡°He has met Gent before. I¡¯ll provide you with the necessary documents, and you may await them at the gate.¡±
¡°Is there anything else you need from me,¡± I asked, standing as well.
¡°No. You need to think of nothing but the sword. As interesting as you are, I¡¯m afraid I have no more time to spend on you today.¡± He waved his hand at the servant standing a few paces away. ¡°Show out Master Smith, will you?¡±
The girl bobbed her head, and I was shortly escorted back to the entrance of the garden, where the guard returned my weapons to me. Gastard and Esmelda were resting nearby. She looked relieved to see me.
¡°What happened?¡± Esmelda asked.
¡°Kind of a lot,¡± I said, and quickly filled them in.
Gastard¡¯s face darkened as I described swearing allegiance to Godwod. ¡°You are neither a knight nor a peer,¡± he said, ¡°an oath was not necessary.¡±
¡°It didn¡¯t seem like an offer I could refuse,¡± I said. ¡°It may lead to problems, but at least I don¡¯t have to worry about being arrested anymore.¡±
¡°For the time being,¡± Gastard said.
Esmelda patted Fuzzu¡¯s snout to calm her. The horse tended to get agitated whenever I came close. ¡°We still don¡¯t know who told him so much about you, or what Otto said.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not super worried about it. Once we get Godwod¡¯s official permission, I want to get to this mine right away. Are you guys coming with me, or do you want to head back to Erihseht?¡±
¡°Of course, I will come,¡± Esmelda said, glancing at Gastard, who nodded.
¡°The Baron won¡¯t be pleased to have you there,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯ll make sure he doesn¡¯t attempt anything rash.¡±
¡°Thank you,¡± I said. We discussed the location of the mine, which was only a few miles from Henterfell. It would be possible for us to make it there before nightfall. After a few minutes, the same girl who had served the wine appeared at the gate and handed me a scroll tied with a golden thread.
She looked past me as I took it, and her eyes fixed on Gastard. I hadn¡¯t been paying attention to her before, but she was beautiful, with a teardrop face framed by wavy, golden hair. Her clothes were also finer than what I would have thought a servant would wear, a pale green, silk dress.
¡°Johanna¡¡± Gastard¡¯s voice sounded strained. I glanced back at him, and then at her. The girl looked stricken, and after a moment¡¯s pause, she spun on her heel and strode back into the garden. The guard took a small step to place himself under the arch as if to dissuade Gastard from following.
¡°Was that her?¡± Esmelda asked, her brows furrowed in concern.
Gastard¡¯s jaw clenched. ¡°We should go.¡±
34: My Mine (Rewrite)
Why would Godwod have had his daughter acting as a servant? Gastard was pretty cagey about the entire situation, but he confirmed that the young woman who had brought the papers was Johanna, the girl he had asked to marry him. He seemed to think that Godwod had sent her out deliberately as a taunt.
¡°Does he want you to come back to work for him?¡± I asked.
¡°No,¡± Gastard said, ¡°it was intended as a slap. Everything Lord Godwod does is calculated. Your oath to him is only the beginning. Whatever he takes from you, he will do so a piece at a time, so gently that you will not realize what is being done until you have lost all that you hold dear.¡±
Gastard was biased when it came to the lord, but I couldn¡¯t argue with his assessment. I¡¯d been so relieved to discover Godwod wanted to work with me rather than see me jailed that I hadn¡¯t stopped to consider the implications of what he was asking of me. Regardless, our first meeting had not been a place for me to make a stand. For better or for worse, I was his vassal now. Hopefully, it would be a mutually beneficial relationship. If not, he was still a far less threatening antagonist than the one waiting for me in Dargoth.
The mine was around five miles from Henterfell, tucked in a rocky ridge that rose fifty feet out of the ground along its spine. The mouth of the mine was propped up by old oak beams under an outcrop of basalt. I knew it was basalt because my materials log told me so after I took a sample. It was darker and a little softer than granite, requiring a bit less effort to harvest.
There were a few trashy-looking structures thrown up around the mine, and a man in a filthy tunic came out to see what I was doing.
¡°What¡¯s this?¡± He demanded. ¡°Who are you people?¡±
Gastard and Esmelda had dismounted and were tending to their animals while I busied myself checking out the local stone. I strode over to the man and showed him the scroll.
¡°Can you read this?¡± I asked.
His cheeks reddened. ¡°Just tell me what you¡¯re doing here. This land belongs to Baron Gent, you can¡¯t just ride up and do what you want.¡±
¡°My name is Will Smith,¡± I said. That felt weird, but it wasn¡¯t like anyone in this world had heard of the Men In Black franchise. ¡°Lord Godwod has permitted me to dig here. You can take it up with him.¡±
¡°What about us?¡± The man quickly shifted from bluster to alarm. ¡°We already work the mine for the Baron. No one said anything about another team coming here.¡± He looked around. ¡°Is it just you? Who are you working with?¡±
¡°You don¡¯t need to worry about that,¡± I said. ¡°Lord Godwod wants all of you out while I¡¯m here. You can go tell the Baron that.¡±
That part wasn¡¯t in the scroll, which said that I had been given a limited grant permitting me to dig in the mine for the next few weeks. But the man obviously couldn¡¯t read, and if there were more people around here, I wanted them gone for the time being.
¡°We don¡¯t work for you,¡± the man said. ¡°You can¡¯t give me orders.¡±
We were both distracted by the ring of Gastard¡¯s sword as he drew it out of its scabbard. ¡°Begone,¡± he said. ¡°You are no longer wanted here.¡±
¡°Gotte above.¡± The man took a step back. ¡°You¡¯re mad. The baron will hear of this.¡±
¡®Great,¡± I told him. ¡°That¡¯s what I said.¡±
There were a half dozen men in the area, some of whom had to be called up out of the mine. The entire group looked grimy and tired, and they left the area carrying nothing but a few tools and packs and nasty looks. Gastard didn¡¯t have to make any more threats, but he didn¡¯t put up his sword until they were gone.
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¡°That was harsh,¡± Esmelda said.
¡°It would be worse for them if they stayed,¡± Gastard replied. ¡°We can deal with the Baron when he comes.¡±
The empty shacks where they had been staying didn¡¯t speak to fortunes made out of mineral wealth. They had left behind a few broken tools, rags, and bedframes, and I had no use for any of them. Godwod was granting me a remarkable amount of trust, maybe because he knew where to find me if I didn¡¯t give him what he wanted, but whatever the reason, he hadn¡¯t sent anyone with us to keep an eye on my progress or stop me from stealing.
The entrance led to a tunnel that sloped down slowly for a few hundred paces before cutting into a series of switchbacks. There was evidence of pick work all along the walls, small sections that had been hacked out, and crevices that had been expanded with hard labor. I crafted torches for all three of us, and we took a quick tour of the facilities to find a good spot to use as our base.
Using the iron pick, I cut out a living space at the juncture where the tunnel became a switchback, hollowing out a ten by ten cube of basalt and dolerite before dropping the worktable and making a door. To protect the entrance from being broken down by a troll, I placed blocks around the outside to make a passage too tight for one of them to squeeze through.
The real problem was ventilation. Starting a fire down here would have us inhaling dangerous levels of smoke in no time.
¡°You guys should set up a camp farther away,¡± I said.
¡°I can stay with you,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°We survived well enough on the journey here.¡±
¡°We can all cram into a coffin,¡± I said, "but there¡¯s no need for that. And we¡¯d have to do something about the horses as well. This is far enough down that nothing should spawn topside. But I¡¯m not one hundred percent sure about that range, so you should keep your distance anyway.¡±
¡°Shouldn¡¯t you come above as well?¡± Gastard said. ¡°If the koroshai appear in these tunnels, there will be no sunlight to banish them. You¡¯ll have to deal with a horde in the morning.¡±
¡°Maybe,¡± I said. ¡°While I was mining in the mountains, I experimented with the spawn mechanic a bit, and I¡¯m starting to suspect that the monsters won¡¯t show up in total darkness. They need shadows, or maybe moonlight. I¡¯m still not sure, but being this far underground will allow me to test that. If I¡¯m right, nothing will spawn down here at all.¡±
Esmelda gasped. ¡°You mean you¡¯ll be safe if you sleep far enough underground? If that¡¯s true, you could come to live in Erihseht.¡±
¡°It would take one heck of a basement,¡± I said, ¡°but yeah. We¡¯ll see.¡±
My companions left to find a place to camp away from the mine, and I spent what time I had left before sunset exploring. The torches only lasted about an hour, so I could keep reasonably fair track of how long I was taking to check things out. The cave didn¡¯t extend much farther than my shelter, a simple zigzag that petered out after another hundred paces, and the group that had been working here hadn¡¯t done much to expand the natural passages. Not that I blamed them, mining in the Middle Ages was no joke. If not for my superpowers, I certainly wouldn¡¯t have attempted it.
They¡¯d cleaned the walls of any obvious deposits. I had vague ideas of what iron ore looked like, I was essentially looking for rust spots, red or brown discolorations, and anything that flashed in the light. There were some glittering bits in the walls, small quartz deposits, but nothing else jumped out at me during the initial survey. There were a few places that they had been cutting into the stone where ore was accessible, and their efforts had tapered off as the area became too tight to work in or the vein disappeared.
Then I saw the mark. Someone had painted a white X beside one of the thin channels they had dug out at the end of the zigzag. I had to squeeze to get through it, but instead of tapering into a dead end, the channel opened up into a wide chamber. Was I discovering a natural cavern? As I scraped through the opening, holding my torch ahead of me, I started to feel giddy. This was what Maincraft was about.
Sadly, the chamber was just a chamber, with no other branches or exits. It was an oddly uniform bubble, with a round vaulted ceiling and a floor that was as flat as if it had been sanded. It didn¡¯t seem likely that the miners had done this, but it didn¡¯t feel natural either. The stone, however, was the same as everywhere else, and there were no signs of mineral deposits, iron or otherwise. It was unusual enough that I would have to do some digging here on principle, but that could wait until tomorrow.
My torch was burning low.
"Captain¡¯s Log: First official cavern. Monsters may or may not spawn in the cave. Think of a way to celebrate. Take Esmelda to the theater or something. Find out what kind of foods she likes."
I didn¡¯t light a fire in the area I had designated as my base. Instead, I munched on a few nuts and crafted another coffin by the dwindling light of the torch before calling it a night.
35: My Bow (Rewrite)
At first, having my shelter surrounded by monsters every night had made it very hard to rest, but by now the moans of the shamblers had become my sleep sounds. Not hearing them, and not being startled awake by phantoms every few hours, was almost more unsettling. I woke in absolute darkness and wished I had previously designated a place to pee. I didn¡¯t hear any monsters, but I didn¡¯t want to go wandering the tunnel blind either.
My status screen gave me just enough illumination to see the worktable, and I¡¯d set aside the necessary coins before going to bed, I could have told them apart by feel if I had needed to. Charcoal was smooth, and sticks had a wood grain texture.
I squinted my eyes against the sudden appearance of the torch and took it with me up out of the tunnel. My footsteps seemed absurdly loud, and I paused every few moments to listen for the telltale shuffle of zombie spawns, but I was alone. The tunnel seemed longer than it had on the way down, why couldn¡¯t I see the entrance?
By the time I reached it, I realized my mistake. It was pitch black outside. I¡¯d woken up early, and if I had been too deep for monsters to spawn before, I wasn¡¯t now. Whatever appeared outside could follow me into the cave, and it wouldn¡¯t despawn when the sun came up.
I hurriedly set about blocking the entrance with planks. It wouldn¡¯t hold against a troll, but it was faster than using stone, and I could already hear a moan from somewhere outside the reach of my torch. The first zombie came within sight when I was about halfway done closing off the entrance.
There was nothing special about it, just another long-armed hunchback with misaligned teeth. The way I hacked it down would not have made Gastard proud, but it got the job done, and I quickly finished sealing myself in. Walking back to the designated safe room presented me with a new problem.
It was obvious in retrospect, but the issue didn¡¯t occur to me until it was too late. I was relying on absolute darkness to prevent spawns, which apparently, it did. Carrying a torch, however, created a moving stretch of dimness and shadow where monsters could appear. I¡¯d simply gotten lucky on the way up.
A shambler slipped into reality ten paces ahead of me.
¡°Shoots and leaves,¡± I swore, placing the torch on the wall so I could grip my sword with both hands and tried to use the extra weight of the stone blade to behead the thing in one stroke. The tunnel wasn¡¯t an optimal environment for a wide swing, so the angle was off, and I ended up burying the edge of the blade in its shoulder beside its neck.
The shambler made a retching noise and pressed forward. I tugged out my sword, twisting as I did so, and it grabbed onto my arm. I was wearing my leathers, but not the mask or my gloves, and it wasted no time in chomping down on my left forearm. I gritted my teeth against the pain, dropped the sword, and pulled my knife to drive the point into its skull. The shambler collapsed, but it had taken off a solid chunk of skin with that bite, and the wound was pouring blood.
Retrieving the torch, I sprinted the rest of the way to my safe room, shut the door behind me, and poured some water over the head of the torch to put it out. The darkness did not feel safe, but I knew it was better than casting shadows. Even using my status screen as a flashlight was too much of a risk, so with one arm bleeding, I felt through my pack for the last of my bread. Those coins had an odd feel to them, kind of rubbery, and I slapped one into my hand to convert it into a loaf.
I shoved it into my mouth, nearly choking myself in the process as I tried to chew and swallow at top speed. It felt like a waste of good bread, not even bothering to enjoy it, but this was a triage situation. You didn¡¯t stop to savor health potions, even if they were springy and delicious. I felt the pain recede and tenderly examined the bite. It was wet and warm, but the skin was back.
How was I supposed to know when the sun came up? With the adrenaline still pumping through my veins, I wasn¡¯t about to go back to bed. Begrudgingly, I made my way back to the entrance, running one hand lightly along the wall to keep myself on track. There were some small gaps between the planks and the top of the opening, so at least I would be able to see when the sun came up.
There were already shamblers knocking on my door, and I heard a phantom swooping not long after I arrived. Still working by the feel of the coins, I carefully stacked up a pillar of stone to reinforce the plank barrier in case a troll showed up. After that, I didn¡¯t want to just sit around and wait for the sun to rise, so I decided to try mining blind.
Moving ten paces down the tunnel to avoid accidentally breaking out, I produced my pick and started tapping at the stone. Not being able to see what I was harvesting meant this was not a good way to look for iron, but at least I would have something to show for the wasted time. Stone still added to my skill level, and I was looking forward to what the next advancement might be.
I didn¡¯t bother counting the coins or trying to keep them organized, but I kept going until my pick broke and immediately regretted it. That was the last of my iron. What if I needed a metal pick to mine ore? Rather than heading back to the safe room and trying to craft a stone replacement in the dark, I kept going by hand. It was boring and slow, but it gave me something to do, and it wasn¡¯t too long before the first gray of morning began to show through the crack above the planks.
After removing the barrier, I took a quick jog around the mine to check for leftover monsters. There was a shambler chilling out in one of the shacks, so I killed it, dragged it outside, and lit it on fire. Burial was not an option now that I knew exactly how dangerous the mushrooms could be. Esmelda and Gastard found me roasting the monster in a pile of logs. I¡¯d chopped down a couple of nearby trees to restock on wood products while it was burning.
¡°It didn¡¯t work?¡± Esmelda said. She tied off her horse to a post by one of the shacks before coming forward to touch my arm. There were still some flecks of dried blood around where I¡¯d been bitten.
¡°It did,¡± I said. ¡°As far as I can tell. I need to do a run-through of the mine to make sure, but it looks like the mobs don¡¯t appear unless there¡¯s light of some kind nearby. There¡¯s probably some convoluted philosophical point to be made there, but I don¡¯t know.¡±
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¡°The veil is weaker in shade than in darkness?¡± She shook her head slightly. ¡°That would have never occurred to me.¡±
¡°It burns well, at least,¡± Gastard said. He scratched his chin. It looked like he was growing out his beard.
¡°Yeah,¡± I said. ¡°And the smell is not as bad as you would think.¡±
Esmelda wrinkled her nose. ¡°It¡¯s bad.¡±
We lit up a few new torches and went down into the mine. The passages were clear, so I showed them the crevice that led to the vault chamber. Gastard had to remove his cuirass to squeeze through, but Esmelda slipped in without seeming to even have to touch the stone on either side.
¡°What do you think this is?¡± I asked.
¡°It could be natural,¡± Esmelda said, though she looked doubtful. ¡°Was there any sign of water here, or is it completely closed off?¡±
I gestured to the open space. ¡°No gaps but the one we came in through, unless you see something I don¡¯t.¡±
Gastard scuffed the floor with his boot. ¡°It almost seems polished,¡± he said.
I watched Esmelda walk around the perimeter of the chamber, her dress swishing around her ankles, and then she froze.
¡°Did you hear that?¡± She asked.
¡°What?¡± I glanced at Gastard, and he shrugged.
¡°Koroshai,¡± Esmelda said. She dropped to the floor and pressed her ear against it. ¡°They are below us.¡±
I followed her example, feeling the coolness of the rock against my face, and hearing absolutely nothing. Gastard stomped on the space where he was standing, moved, then stomped again.
¡°It''s solid,¡± he said.
I sat up, rummaged through my pack, and slapped a stone pick into my hand. ¡°I¡¯m going to dig down a bit, any objections?¡±
My companions moved back to the entrance of the chamber, and I went to the space where Esmelda had paused. I mined out a three-by-three section, one block deep, and finding nothing, dug further down. The floor of the chamber was four feet thick, but there was something below it.
As soon as I removed the first block of the bottom layer, I was met with open air, and I heard a moan. I motioned for them to come closer, and the torchlight revealed a passage beneath us. Its illumination reflected off of a pair of milky eyes. The shambler reached for me, its mouth yawning, but the opening was too high for it to touch.
I dropped my torch down into the darkness. The shambler was standing on a smooth floor of what looked like expertly placed tile.
¡°I¡¯ll fetch my bow,¡± Gastard said.
¡°If there are no shadows down there,¡± Esmelda said, her voice quiet, ¡°how did a koroshai appear?¡±
¡°Maybe I was wrong,¡± I said. ¡°But I don¡¯t think so.¡±
Esmelda stood by as I mined out a larger section of the floor, creating steps that led to a two by two opening. A couple more shamblers joined the first. The sight of the trio raising their arms and swaying made me snort.
¡°What is it?¡± Esmelda asked, peering over the hole.
¡°It¡¯s like a rock concert,¡± I said, ¡°er¡ªa performance. These are my fans.¡±
She gave me a disapproving look. ¡°This is nothing to joke about.¡±
I smiled at her. ¡°I disagree.¡±
Gastard returned with his bow and quiver and proceeded to take potshots. The fact that they were staring up at us made it relatively easy for him to hit them in the face. One after the other, the zombies dropped.
¡°I need a bow,¡± I said. Though I was perpetually relieved that I¡¯d never had to deal with giant spider mobs, it did mean that I wasn¡¯t going to be rewarded with any spider-silk string drops in the foreseeable future. ¡°What is that bowstring made of, Gastard?¡±
He gave me a questioning look.
¡°Hemp,¡± he said, ¡°why?¡±
¡°What else can you make them out of?¡±
He reeled off a list like I had asked him something obvious. ¡°Flax, rawhide, silk. Almost anything. If I was in the wild, I could make a new string out of sinew if I had to.¡±
¡°Sinew,¡± I repeated. I¡¯d had a vague idea that it was possible to do that just from reading novels, but I hadn¡¯t considered the implications. Rather than heading back up the mine to my safe room, I plopped a new crafting table in the corner of the chamber. It was a waste of wood, but I liked having them scattered around wherever I might feel like trying something.
¡°What are you doing,¡± Esmelda asked, coming to stand beside me. The formula for a bow was ingrained in my mind from a thousand iterations of the game. Sticks in the top, bottom, and left center slots. Three strings down the right side of the grid.
¡°Something ridiculous,¡± I said, checking a pocket of my pack for the one type of coin I had never had a use for. Shambler meat. I didn¡¯t want to eat it, and it had never seemed like a viable addition to any crafting recipe I knew, but here we were.
I placed the leathery coins in the slots that would have gone to string and was rewarded with a pop as a fully functional bow sprang into existence on the table and my System dinged. Esmelda had seen me craft enough now that she didn¡¯t even bat an eye.
¡°What was that other noise?¡± She asked. ¡°It sounded like a bell.¡±
¡°My notifications,¡± I said, tapping my elder sign to summon the screens.
| Journal |
Quests |
Notifications |
Materials |
Crafting |
|
[Tainted Bow]
A functional, though, somewhat reprehensible, weapon. A bow is a must-have tool for any aspiring survivalist, as handy for hunting as for battle. Tainted weapons are less durable but pack an extra punch. Use responsibly.
|
Leather probably would have done for string just as well now that I knew the System accepted these kinds of substitutions. But all my leather came from the same source, so the result would still be tainted. Gastard had suggested linen, and I had a few leftover coins if I needed a backup, but I wanted to see what this extra punch comment was about.
¡°A message from the goddess,¡± Esmelda said, reading over my shoulder. Her eyes shone with excitement.
¡°If you say so.¡± I tapped off the screen before showing off my creation to Gastard. He gave it a test pull and frowned.
¡°A heavy draw,¡± he said. ¡°You will exhaust yourself unless you train diligently.¡±
¡°As long as it works,¡± I said, taking back the weapon. ¡°Could you lend me some arrows?¡±
He nodded. ¡°You wish to explore what lies below us?¡±
¡°Sounds like a party,¡± I said.
36: My troll Problem (Rewrite)
In Maincraft, there was something called the deep dark, and you could find ancient cities there, as well as some uniquely dangerous mobs. But I¡¯d never seen any evidence that the environments in Plana would conform to the tropes of the game. The hall below the bubble chamber had been crafted, there was no doubt about that. The stonework was perfect and fitted together without mortar or sealant of any kind. The only reason you could tell where one block ended and the next began was because they had beveled edges. The ceiling was basalt, but the floor and the walls of the hall were constructed from a polished, bluish-green stone.
I¡¯d constructed a ladder and attached it to the opening I¡¯d made in the chamber above, and Gastard had gone down first. The hall stretched fifty feet in either direction. One side ended on a regular cave wall, presumably where construction had ceased. The other ended on an iron door that had been left open. Faint light emanated from the room beyond.
I looked up at Esmelda, her heart-shaped face peeking over the edge of the opening. ¡°You¡¯re not going to follow us, right?¡±
¡°Of course not,¡± she said. ¡°You¡¯re the one who can return to life. If anything, Gastard should be waiting up here with me.¡±
I could tell she meant to be playful, but it was a good point. Even if dying did cost me something immaterial, there was no comparison to the risk of actual permanent death. I could manage a few shamblers on my own, and if there was something worse than that down here, Gastard could very well lose his life. One look at his face told me he was not going to entertain the idea of staying behind while I went exploring. We went forward cautiously, with torches and swords, listening for the sound of moans and shuffling feet.
¡°At least let me go first,¡± I said, moving ahead of Gastard to the door. I ducked my head in to glance on either side of the entrance, and seeing no monsters, stepped through.
It was a big room, twenty feet high, and at least fifty feet to a side, with the center dominated by a dais supporting what I could only describe as a stargate. That movie had come out when I was a child, and I¡¯d never watched the spinoff series that followed it, but the archetype of what a Stargate looked like was deeply embedded in my subconscious, and I knew what it was when I saw it.
"Captain¡¯s log. Yog-Sothoth has entered the building."
¡°What?¡± Gastard said, close to my back. ¡°What are you saying?¡±
My journal wasn¡¯t open, so the comment wouldn¡¯t even be recorded, it was just a habit. The room was largely constructed of the same aquamarine-colored rock as the passage, except for the stargate, which looked like it had been crafted out of obsidian. A big hoop of it. Each corner of the dais was lit by a pale blue, crystalline block that glowed with a light slightly dimmer than a torch.
¡°Sorry,¡± I said, ¡°just talking to myself.¡±
We walked around the dais. There were two other doors, both iron, but one wall sported an arch and an open tunnel that led off into darkness.
¡°There might be more monsters down there,¡± I said. ¡°I think this room is just close enough to where I slept that they could spawn down here.¡±
Gastard was focused on the stargate. He raised his torch, and the light reflected off its glassy surface, which was etched with runes in the same style as the elder sign on my hand.
¡°What is this?¡± He said.
¡°I think it''s a portal,¡± I said. It wasn¡¯t just that it looked like a stargate. In the game, you could construct a Nether Portal out of obsidian, and stepping through it would take you to the Nether, which was basically hell. A land of lava, skeletons, and ghosts where you couldn¡¯t sleep and water would instantly evaporate. There were some materials there you couldn¡¯t get anywhere else. Blazes only spawned in the Nether, and killing them got you blaze rods, which were required to craft brewing stands and a few other things for the late game. But I wasn¡¯t looking forward to a visit.
¡°A portal to what?¡± Gastard asked.
¡®Hopefully, somewhere nice,¡± I said. ¡°Do you want to check out the other hallways before we mess with it?¡±
He nodded, and we went for the arch first. The other doors were closed, so if there were monsters down here, that was the most likely place to find them. Had Kevin built this place, abandoning it after he made his home in Dargoth? Or was this something left behind by the same person who had put the obsidian block beside my spawn point? I liked to think there were other people like me around, or had been, but the heroes Esmelda and Tipple had told me about had all had different power sets.
The passage beyond the arch went on for thirty paces or so before turning at a ninety-degree angle. It smelled stale and dusty, but there was something else underneath that I couldn¡¯t place, maybe the lingering swampiness of the shamblers we had killed. Our footsteps were loud in the semi-darkness, echoing off of the walls. A door waited at the bend, but it was shut, so we passed by it to continue down the passage, which ended on a second arch after another thirty paces. We had arrived at a library.
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A room of stone shelves filled with hundreds of books. Tables ran down the center, with rows of shelves arranged perpendicular to us down either side. It was a kind of treasure trove I¡¯d never imagined I¡¯d stumble across. Equipment, rare materials, sure. A chest full of gold coins might have been nice. But with my ability, I would be able to digest all the knowledge these tomes contained regardless of the language it was written in. This facility had belonged to a crafter like me, so I could be forgiven for assuming their contents would be relevant. Instructions, recipes, enchantments. The secrets of the System which had been so frustratingly opaque might have been about to be revealed.
We had both stopped under the arch to admire the library as far as our torches allowed. As I prepared to venture deeper, a husky grunt echoed in the chamber, emanating from the still-darkened section behind the last shelves. Gastard raised his sword, and a monster knuckled into view. Huge, horny hands and a squat, heavily muscled frame. At the edge of the torchlight, only its outline was visible, but its head dropped forward, a long snout lined with nothing but canines.
¡°Gotte above,¡± Gastard swore.
¡°Run,¡± I said the word and threw my torch at the same time. The burning stick smacked the troll in the face, and it drew back, more baffled than hurt. I sprinted down the hall for all I was worth. A part of me was afraid Gastard would try to fight it. As skilled as he was, I did not believe that was a contest he could win. It had been strong enough to smash open my shelter, and by all accounts, its skin was as good as armor.
A second later, the sound of his boots mingled with that of mine slapping against the stone floor, and I would have breathed a sigh of relief if I hadn¡¯t already been hyperventilating. I was running so hard I nearly slammed into the wall at the bend. My sword scraped along the stone as I turned because I was running with my arm behind me like I thought I was a ninja. The troll¡¯s howl reverberated down the hall, and it thundered after us.
Over a long distance, I was sure it would have caught us. But we had a few seconds head start, and it had an even worse time taking the corner than I had. I reached the main chamber and kept going to the door we had entered from, sliding through and turning to see Gastard at my heels. The troll pounded into the room behind him, running on its fists like a gorilla. It looked even bigger than last time, if it was even the same monster.
Gastard made it a few steps past me and spun on his heel, his sword up and ready once more, a look of grim determination on his face. The troll hooted, beat its chest, and charged. I slammed the door.
It didn¡¯t have a lock, but there was a built-in bar on a swivel that I pulled down into a bracket attached to the frame. The troll arrived with a boom, and the door shook, but it didn¡¯t dent or bend. It pounded its fist once, twice, and then stopped. I could hear it grunting on the other side.
¡°A koloss,¡± Gastard said, not relaxing his stance. ¡°It was just as I imagined.¡±
The monster had been so large, that it might not have been able to fit through the opening even if it could break down the door, but that wasn¡¯t something I was willing to bet our lives on. If we left it down here, that would mean the library, and whatever other treasures this place contained, would remain beyond my reach. This wasn¡¯t an opportunity I was willing to give up to avoid having to deal with one big monster.
¡°Gastard,¡± I said, ¡°I have an idea.¡±
He finally lowered his blade. ¡°The eyes, throat, and mouth are soft,¡± he said. ¡°You use a spear to blind it while I fend it off.¡±
¡°What? No. I want to get above it.¡±
His brow furrowed. ¡°Above? How will we be able to cut it down from above?¡±
¡°We aren¡¯t going to cut it down,¡± I said, ¡°just work with me.¡±
I slid my pack off my shoulder and retrieved the medallions that represented a shovel and pick. I¡¯d gotten into the habit of converting them whenever they weren¡¯t in use. ¡°I¡¯m going to dig up to the roof of that chamber, and we can shoot it from there.¡±
Gastard shook his head. ¡°Arrows will not pierce its hide.¡±
¡°Then I¡¯ll think of something else.¡±
With Gastard watching me, the mining process felt slow and ridiculous. I tapped at the wall with my pick for ten seconds, and the first block disappeared. Then onto the next and the next. It was slower than it would have been in the game, but still supernaturally expedient compared to how long it would have taken a team of miners to do the same thing without a drilling rig.
By the time I¡¯d hollowed out the first step up and space enough for one of us to stand in, it was clear that this project was going to take several hours. Fortunately, it was still early in the day.
¡°I¡¯ll speak with Esmelda,¡± Gastard said.
I focused on my project, and I was already several feet up into the wall when they returned together. Esmelda came to the bottom.
¡°Are you alright?¡± She asked.
¡°Yeah,¡± I said, still tapping, ¡°we ran away before it could do anything.¡±
She didn¡¯t look convinced. ¡°We could go back,¡± she said. ¡°You came here for iron. If you seal this place, we can return when you are better prepared.¡±
¡°I¡¯m prepared enough,¡± I said. ¡°I have no intention of sword fighting that thing. But we should be able to wear it down if it can¡¯t get to us.¡±
The door thumped, and she jumped, bringing her hands up to cover her face.
¡°Will it hold?¡±
¡°Probably,¡± I said. ¡°It couldn¡¯t bust up the coffin, and whoever made this place was a way more experienced crafter than I am. That door might have been made with trolls and worse in mind.¡±
She spared a dubious glance at the barrier in question. ¡°That¡¯s optimistic,¡± she said.
I kept mining.
37: My Trolling Solutions (Rewrite)
The troll thought it was smart, it was waiting by the door. I guess it had nothing else to do. The internal lives of trolls probably didn¡¯t involve thoughts much deeper than smash and eat, though, for all I knew, it was writing a thesis on the shortcoming of Immanuel Kant in its head while it crouched to one side of the entrance to the stargate chamber. I was looking down through the small opening I¡¯d made in the ceiling, lying flat because making room for me to stand would have taken too much time.
I¡¯d carved out a crawl space above the chamber, and now that I knew where it was, I turned on my back and harvested as many blocks as I thought it would take to give someone room to fire a bow. I had mine with me, along with a few arrows Gastard had given me, so I thought I would take the first shot.
For all I knew, I was great at archery.
All the tools I had ever crafted with my ability had been super effective. Weapons, however, were a slightly different beast. My swords were fantastic, but I wasn¡¯t fantastic at wielding them. In a similar vein, just knocking the first arrow gave me some trouble. It felt odd, and as Gastard had noted, drawing the string of my [Tained Bow] involved a significant investment from my shoulder and wrist.
As I pulled it back, my arm began to shake, and I struggled to keep the arrowhead straight as I sighted the shot. I loosed and was gratified to see that the missile went about where I had intended it to go. It struck the troll in the back of its neck and hung there loosely, as if it had only managed to penetrate about halfway through its skin.
The monster acted as if it had been tapped on the shoulder. It grunted and looked around before turning its attention upward. I didn¡¯t have a torch with me, so I knew that I was in complete darkness, while it was bathed in the pale bluish light of the glowing blocks on the corners of the dais. Nevertheless, I felt as if its eyes met mine.
It jumped. Though its legs were smaller than its arms, they packed a lot of strength. It launched itself high enough for one oversized hand to graze the bottom of the gap I had made in the ceiling. It landed without difficulty, like a discouraged frog, and beat its chest in frustration.
I went to fetch Gastard.
He and Esmelda were sitting in the hall, watching a torch burn down between them. They had come up to check on me a few times while I dug out the crawlspace, and I¡¯d had to craft more torches as the first set burnt out, but they had otherwise reconciled themselves to being background characters until the work was finished.
¡°We heard something,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°What did you do?¡±
¡°Annoyed it,¡± I answered, then looked at Gastard. ¡°I was hoping you could do better.¡±
¡°Gladly,¡± he said, rising with his bow. He followed me up into the crawlspace and gazed down at our target from the tiny shooting range. The troll was shuffling around below us, occasionally smashing its fists into the floor to relieve some of its frustration before glancing up into the darkness.
¡°There may not be much I can do from here,¡± he said. He had no trouble hitting the troll, but his shots were no more effective than mine had been. The first scraped off the skin of its back, and the second stuck in its chest. The troll seemed to think of us as more of a nuisance than a threat, and it continued to try leaping to reach our blind, grunting and howling as it went. I couldn¡¯t see much of Gastard, but it wasn¡¯t hard to imagine his look of concentration as he took his time lining up the next shot.
The troll did us the favor of glaring up at where it knew we were, and his next arrow plunged into its eye. This was sufficient to piss it off. The monster charged around the chamber, hooting as it struck the walls and the portal, and coming to rest far enough to one side that we could no longer target it.
¡°Give me a minute,¡± I said. I wormed my way forward through the crawlspace, mining out windows as I went to get a bead on where the troll was huddling, and after a few minutes, found myself directly overtop of the monster. It gazed up at me, bearing its teeth, but didn¡¯t move.
Rather than clearing enough space to stand and fire an arrow, I crawled back and slapped a granite coin into my palm. I couldn¡¯t hold the block in my hand, but summoning it that way ensured it wouldn¡¯t be sealed to the stone it appeared on. Getting up on my knees, I grabbed the block by both edges and pushed.
It scraped along the floor and then got stuck in the window as it tipped forward. I couldn¡¯t see the troll anymore, so I picked up my pick and mined out another block to allow the stone to fall the rest of the way through.
The result was a loud thump, followed by a clatter, and a very satisfying grunt. I looked down. The falling block had struck the troll and bounced off. It wasn¡¯t dead, but it wasn¡¯t happy either, and it had retreated to another section of the stargate chamber. It was favoring one of its arms.
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The next hour involved a lot of digging, and many falling blocks, throughout which, the troll wised up to my strategy and began religiously avoiding allowing itself to come directly under any of my windows. It was no longer in good shape. Aside from the arrow to its eye, the blocks had torn skin from its back and shoulders, and it was limping.
It was close enough to the shooting range for Gastard to get a bead on it, and he carefully lined up another arrow. Its skin may have been thick enough to resist penetration, but it now had a collection of open wounds. Dark blood seeped overhanging flaps of hide, and Gastard¡¯s next missile sank deeply into a section of exposed muscle on its back.
The troll made a guttural noise and retreated into the tunnel that led into the library.
¡°What now?¡± He asked, his tone carrying neither pride nor disappointment in the result.
As much as I hated to admit it, my strategy of harassment had taken us as far as it could. Unless I planned on digging to the surface and exposing this chamber to sunlight, we were going to have to fight this thing head-on.
¡°You get your wish,¡± I said. ¡°We¡¯re going to go down and stab it.¡±
Gastard released a long-held sigh.
¡°Finally.¡±
During mining out the attic, I¡¯d come across a vein of iron ore. Mining by the light of my status screen, I hadn¡¯t initially realized what I¡¯d found. It turned out a stone pick was sufficient to harvest the material, but it took more than twice as long to do so as it would have a block of simple basalt. Raw iron ore, however, couldn¡¯t be crafted on its own. It required smelting in a furnace. Thankfully, I had enough stone to craft as many furnaces as I liked, and I made one after dropping yet another work table outside of the stargate room.
Logs went into the lower shelf of the furnace, and a fire sprang up. The heat was enough to cause my companions to back away, and I did the same thing after inserting a few ore coins into the top slot.
¡°You don¡¯t have to do anything else?¡± Esmelda asked. ¡°Shape the metal? Drain it into a crucible?¡±
¡°Details,¡± I said. ¡°This will probably be fine.¡±
It took two full minutes to convert an ore coin into an iron ingot, and after I¡¯d run through a few logs worth of fuel, I had more than enough to do some crafting. I took the iron over to the worktable and quickly generated myself a new sword and spear. After giving it some thought, I made a second shield. I still had the one I¡¯d crafted back at base in medallion form, but I¡¯d never bothered using it. Gastard¡¯s training had focused on using a sword in a two-hand grip, but if there was ever a situation where putting a barrier between ourselves and an opponent was necessary, it was this one.
The shields were wooden, circular, and around the size of one of the troll¡¯s fists. Gastard eyed his dubiously but didn¡¯t turn it down. There wasn¡¯t enough iron left for a full suit of armor, but I could make myself a cuirass.
The recipe was the same as it had been for leather. Eight coins, filling up every slot except for the top center space. The result was a gleaming steel chestplate, complete with leather straps connecting the back and front pieces. The System had never bothered to pretend that the materials I put into a recipe would be exactly the same as what I got out of it.
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[Iron Chestplate]
Armor Rating: 5
A true staple in the wardrobes of budding adventurers and seasoned mine crawlers alike! With its polished, sturdy build, it offers solid protection against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Raiders as well. Throw in an enchantment or two, and you''ll be ready to face whatever the world throws at you, as long as it doesn¡¯t throw it at your head.
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Gastard helped me put it on, and we readied ourselves to meet the troll, but Esmelda grabbed my wrist before we reached the door.
¡°You have what you came for,¡± she said. ¡°You can make Lord Godwod his sword, and come back here when you¡¯re better prepared.¡±
I hesitated. As weakened as the troll was, I still wasn¡¯t completely sold on trying to poke it with a stick.
¡°These things spawn around me now,¡± I said. ¡°We don¡¯t know how often or how many. I don¡¯t know if we¡¯ll ever have a situation as advantageous as this to learn how to fight them again. Besides, there are things down here I¡¯m going to need if I¡¯m ever going to have a chance of dealing with Kevin. You think he¡¯s coming, don¡¯t you?¡±
Torchlight danced across her pale face, and the freckles over her nose, causing her pale gray eyes to shine. ¡°I do believe that, but he is immortal. We may have years to prepare before he comes.¡±
I shrugged. ¡°Or we could have days.¡±
Gastard rapped his sword against his shield. ¡°I have dreamed all my life of facing the minions of the Dark Lord, of slaying a koloss with my own hands. I will not turn back.¡±
Esmelda heard the resolve in his voice and relented. Even if she could convince me to be cautious, Gastard had his mind set.
¡°I will hold the door,¡± she said.
38: My Admission of Hypothetical Emotional Attachment (Rewrite)
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39: My Gold Mine (Rewrite)
I was itching to check out the library, but we agreed that it was necessary to see what else was down there first, especially if there was another room where monsters might have spawned without me knowing. The door in the bend of the hall that connected to the library was a dead end. It led to an unfinished chamber of raw stone which I left as it was. The stargate room was aligned with the cardinal directions, so I thought of our entrance as the South passage. The northern door took us into a short hall that led to another arch.
There were no glowstones here, and when Gastard stepped past the arch with his torch raised high, its light was enough to reveal about half of the cavernous chamber. My first thought was "summoning circle." The floor had been divided into three concentric rings marked out by the same obsidian that composed the stargate, with runes carved into the surrounding stone.
¡°What is this?¡± Esmelda asked.
¡°Magic something or other,¡± I said. ¡°Let¡¯s avoid crossing those circles, just in case.¡±
We proceeded along the edge of the room. The corners were recessed, surrounded by more runes and obsidian, and I assumed something was supposed to be placed in each of them to activate whatever this was. The absence made me more confident that we weren¡¯t at risk of activating the previous owner¡¯s trap card simply by being there, and we continued walking along the wall until it brought us back under the arch.
¡°I¡¯ve never heard of a room like this,¡± Gastard said, ¡°though it does stink of sorcery.¡±
¡°Whoever made this place was like me,¡± I said. ¡°There¡¯s probably something I can do with it, but I don¡¯t know enough yet to guess.¡± The summoning circle idea was stuck in my head, but I couldn¡¯t imagine why you would want to summon monsters when they showed up every night anyway.
The West passage brought us to a treasure room that would have made Lord Godwod wet himself. It wasn¡¯t as large as the summoning room or the stargate chamber, but it didn¡¯t need to be. The wall on our left was solid gold, and the one on our right had been constructed from a purplish, semi-translucent crystal. The back wall was regular stone, but it was lined with four columns of locked chests, attached to the wall by a system of tracks. At the center of the arrangement was a stone funnel that I immediately identified as a Maincraft hopper. A lever was set into the wall on one side of the chests, and it was hard not to imagine that we¡¯d stumbled onto a previous survivor¡¯s automatic storage and sorting room.
The promise of new materials to craft with was enough to make my mouth water, but that possibility took second place to what was on display at the center of the room. It was a complete suit of armor, ornate plate mail, forged from a material I could only guess at, white-gold steel. It had sharp lines and edges between the plates that put me in the mind of a suit of power armor, and the helm came with a built-in platinum crown. It was encased in a sarcophagus of clear, glittering crystal.
Esmelda approached but did not touch the sarcophagus. ¡°Diamond?¡± She said, ¡°Can this all be diamond?¡±
Gastard grunted his disbelief. ¡°Glass,¡± he said, ¡°a showcase.¡±
I¡¯d watched a YouTube video once about telling real diamonds from fake ones. Real diamonds were denser than glass and quartz and would sink faster if you dropped them in water. We weren¡¯t going to sink this sarcophagus, but there was a much simpler test to be done. You could scratch glass, you couldn¡¯t scratch a diamond without another diamond. At least, that¡¯s what Google always told me.
I scraped the top of my knife along the case. Nothing. Just to see what would happen, I produced a stone pick and tried tapping at the corner of the sarcophagus. Rather than causing cracks to appear in the block, they shortly began appearing along the head of the tool, so I stopped before it shattered.
¡°If it''s not a diamond,¡± I said, ¡°I don¡¯t know what it is.¡±
¡°Even using your blessing to craft this,¡± Esmelda said, walking around the case, ¡°where could you ever find so much?¡±
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I gestured at the wall of wealth to one side of us. ¡°The same goes for the gold. Whoever made this place had his own mines, and could have gathered all of this himself. I just wish I knew who they were.¡±
¡°Could all this belong to the Dark Lord?¡± Gastard asked, his eyes narrowing as if he suspected monsters might pop out of the chests at any moment.
¡°The Dark Lord is known for his greed,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°he would not forget a place like this.¡±
Gastard approached the wall of gold and placed his hand against its gleaming surface. ¡°I fear what it means if such wealth is now below his notice.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t think it¡¯s his,¡± I said. As interested as I was in the gold, I wanted to see what was in the chests more than anything, and started walking toward them as I spoke. ¡°Whoever left me a message in obsidian had good intentions, there had to be other crafter¨C¡±
I slammed into an invisible barrier, squashing my nose in the process. Light shimmered up from the floor, a pale blue cascade, emanating from runes etched into the stone that had gone unnoticed before. Gastard drew his sword by reflex, but there was no enemy here, just an ancient security system.
Esmelda approached the barrier, which disappeared a moment after it had flared, and touched it with one finger as I rubbed my nose. Where her digit met the ward, light blossomed, though not as dramatically as it had from me running into it.
¡°Can you make something like this?¡± She asked, apparently unphased by the presence of a force field.
¡°Not that I know of,¡± I said. There were no force fields in Maincraft, at least not in the unmodded version of the game.
Any attempt to bypass the runes resulted in the rise of shimmering blue energy that resisted my hammer and pick as easily as it resisted my hand. There was no chipping away at the energy field, no slipping through. It was as solid as the diamond box.
Naturally, I tried digging around it.
While I was able to dig through the floor, trying to come back up behind the barrier resulted in the loss of my pick. The stones behind the chests were engraved as well, and the runes enhanced the stone they were inscribed on in a way that made them harder than any of my tools. But I was still using stone. I spent the last of my iron to make a new pick, but it proved no more effective than the stone equivalent, and I stopped trying to dig through the fortified blocks after it began to show wear.
A crafter had made this place, and there would have been no point in bothering with a glowing magic barrier if it could be overcome by basic tools. The gold and the purplish crystal, however, were unprotected. It was maddening to think how valuable the contents of the chests must have been to warrant a magical security system if literal tons of gold had not been worth protecting in the same way, but at least I was rich.
My companions gathered around to watch as I applied my pick to the wall. Gold was slower to harvest than stone, but cracks began to appear in the block soon after I began tapping. It was weird seeing gold break up like that since metals and rocks weren¡¯t supposed to shear in the same way, but it was an aspect of my abilities that was very much in line with the Maincraft aesthetic. In the game, a stone pickaxe would work to mine iron, but it would destroy gold and diamond without rewarding the player with any material drops. I was a little worried that even iron wouldn¡¯t be good enough to get me this gold, but I had nothing better to work with, so I had to try.
It took a full minute, but a one cubic foot section of the gold wall vanished, exposing the basalt behind, and was converted into a coin in my hand. I held it up for the others to see. It wasn¡¯t a coin, it was a full token, and it looked and felt like exactly what it was, gold.
¡°How much is gold worth,¡± I asked, ¡°like, Otto asked for five pounds of silver, and that seemed like a lot. Does Drom even use gold as a currency?¡±
Gastard shook his head. ¡°You have the wealth of a kingdom in this room. I can¡¯t begin to guess its value.¡±
¡°It depends on the dealer,¡± Esmelda said, then pursed her lips. ¡°Most people will never see a gold coin, but they do exist. Dongle would be able to give you a more accurate estimate, but by weight, I would say that gold is about ten times as valuable as silver. What you have here¨C¡± her eyes widened as they traveled over the wall, as if she was taking in the sight for the first time. ¡°Gastard is right. It¡¯s too much to begin to say the true value. You could buy Henterfell if Henterfell was for sale.¡±
¡°I guess I can pay your dad back for the iron then,¡± I said. ¡°Trading for materials isn¡¯t going to be an issue, at least.¡± I took a deep breath. Being fabulously wealthy was cool and all, but it had to be put in perspective. If I started throwing large quantities of money around, it was going to turn heads in Drom. I could potentially work something out with Godwod to get myself a title and make things seem more legitimate, but when it came down to it, this was a war chest. If Kevin ever brought an army over the mountains, this much gold would allow me to raise one of my own.
¡°It¡¯s going to take me a while to mine all of this out,¡± I said. ¡°Do you want to check out the library for me, give us an idea of what we have there?¡±
Esmelda beamed. ¡°I would love to.¡±
40: My Books (Rewrite)
My System was weird. It played fast and loose with physics, and after I¡¯d cleared out the wall and done a few conversions back and forth, I knew the numbers didn¡¯t add up. Even without a scale, I could tell gold was heavier than iron, way heavier. Nine coins made up a token, and each coin converted to a single gold ingot. Nine gold ingots did not have nearly the same volume as a cubic foot of gold, so something had to be happening there. Maybe the gold blocks were less dense or partially hollowed out. If someone else melted one down, would there be nine ingots worth of gold there, or more? If there was more, than melting down blocks, converting them to ingots and the ingots to new blocks would lead to a source of infinite gold.
I doubted it would work, though that would go a long way to explaining where all of this wealth had come from in the first place. It was a note for future experimentation, but I was rich either way. One hundred and fifty blocks of gold stacked together to make the wall, which worked out to well over a thousand ingots. As both Gastard and Esmelda had suggested, it was more wealth than I could effectively wrap my head around at the moment, especially when there was a library to peruse.
Esmelda was already deep into the sorting process. She had emptied many of the shelves, and piles of leather-bound tomes rose ponderously above the tables along the center of the room.
¡°Those are all blank,¡± she said, pointing out the table nearest the entrance. ¡°Most of the shelves are full of blanks, and a lot of these others seem like copies of each other.¡±
¡°You can read them?¡± I asked. Gastard was further in one of the aisles, checking book by book to see if a given volume had anything written in it, and he barely glanced up from his task at my arrival.
Esmelda put her hands on her hips, frowning down at the stack in front of her. ¡°Not a word,¡± she said. ¡°It isn¡¯t Lillant, Sprache, or Kevinian, and I¡¯m not sure if whatever these are written in even qualifies as an alphabet.¡±
¡°What do you mean?¡± I came to stand beside her and picked up a tome from the top of the stack. A rune stood out from the cover, the same kind of twisty style of sigil as the elder sign on my hand. The interior text reminded me of Korean, blocky-looking characters in neat rows. The pages were interspersed with diagrams that could have come out of a handbook for Qabala.
¡°They look like pictographs,¡± she said.
¡°I see what you mean.¡± I looked over the stack. ¡°You said these were all copies?¡±
¡°I think so,¡± she said. ¡°There are other books on the other tables. I organized them as well as I could, but some are so similar I may have gotten them confused.¡±
¡°Then we can afford to lose one,¡± I said, closing the tome and replacing it on the table before beginning to tap at the rune on its cover with one finger. The text of Esmelda¡¯s books had been easy to harvest, but this worked differently. Instead of seeing the symbol vanish from the cover, I watched as the binding loosened, the edges frayed, and small tears appeared on the cover. Maybe I was destroying it, and the knowledge would be lost, but at least we had extra copies.
The tome continued to deteriorate until it looked like someone had tried to run it through a paper shredder, and then it exploded. A cloud of shredded parchment rose around my hand before drifting lazily back down to the table and onto the floor.
Esmelda opened her mouth to say something, but she paused at the telltale ding from my System and I tapped open my screen.
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Achievement: Reader (2)
You''ve just mined your first Enchanted Book! This wasn¡¯t any old tome. Each Enchanted Book is infused with a unique effect, which can be added to your equipment at an enchanting table.
Remember, each enchantment comes with its own quirks and features, so be sure to read the fine print. Then collect the gems and craft away! Once you finally get your act together, you¡¯ll be ready to conquer dungeons or maybe even save the world. Available enchantments will appear in your crafting tab.
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If I remembered correctly, crafting an enchanting table required both diamonds and obsidian. Both materials were present in the underground base. But enchanting anything in the game required lapis lazuli. There might be a supply of those blue gemstones stored in the chests, but I couldn¡¯t get to them.
¡°An enchantment,¡± Esmelda said, reading over my shoulder, ¡°what does it do?¡±
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[Shadowbane I]
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Items infused with Shadowbane are anathema to the forces of Bedlam. Weapons will do extra damage to tainted opponents, and armor will be more resistant to their abilities. Just the presence of items carrying the Shadowbane enchantment can sometimes be enough to discourage lesser entities from attacking.
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Below the entry was a diagram of a crafting grid. A book was at the center, and what might have been a diamond lodged in each of the four adjacent squares. This was big news. In Maincraft, generating Enchanted Books was like playing a slot machine. You put in lapis lazuli and blank books and got to pick from a few randomly generated options for what kind of enchantment would be the result. The diagram made it look like I could craft specific Enchanted Books whenever I wanted, as long as I had the required materials.
¡°This is incredible,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°with something like this, ¡°you could even rival the demons.¡±
Gastard came around the bookshelves to see what we were talking about. ¡°What have you found?¡± He demanded.
¡°These books will allow me to enchant our equipment,¡± I said. ¡°This one specifically helps fight monsters.¡±
He stood stock still. ¡°And the rest?¡±
¡°Let¡¯s find out.¡±
Oddly, absorbing an Enchanted Book did not allow me to read the others. The language in which they were written remained foreign, and the symbols on the covers gave me no hint as to their contents. One by one, I destroyed a sample from each stack of magical tomes to add what they were to my enchantments tab.
Shadowbane did not exist in Maincraft, but the rest of the Enchanted Books contained effects that were familiar to me. Unbreaking increased the durability of my equipment, and Protection would improve the damage absorption of armor. Feather Falling made dropping from a height safer, and Efficiency improved mining speed. Aqua Affinity was the only one that seemed significantly different from how it worked in the game.
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[Aqua Affinity]
The effect of this enchantment varies according to the equipment it is applied to. A helmet infused with Aqua Affinity will allow the wearer to remain underwater for a longer period, while boots will allow them to swim faster. For best results, consider complete coverage.
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There were supposed to be other enchantments that had those effects, while Aqua Affinity just allowed you to mine faster underwater. But if the System wanted to consolidate enchantments, that was fine by me. To my surprise, one book did not contain an enchantment at all but instead added a new recipe to my formula tab.
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[Eternal Torch]
Refueling a fire can be a real hassle. Tired of having your torches burn out? Give the Eternal Torch a try, and you¡¯ll never be without illumination again.
Warning: Crafting this item requires essence.
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The recipe was the same format as it would have been for a normal torch, except that instead of coal, it called for a gemstone in the top slot. Unlike the enchantments, this was something I could try to make immediately. If it required a specific gem, that was going to be a problem, but digging out the attic had gotten me some quartz to work with, and if I was lucky, any crystal would do. The note about essence was a little concerning, but it wasn¡¯t like I could afford to let it remain a mystery and wait for more information.
¡°Ladies and gentlemen,¡± I said, ¡°let¡¯s try to do some magic.¡±
We headed for the crafting table I had set up outside of the Stargate chamber, and Esmelda and Gastard acted as witnesses to the incredibly anticlimactic crafting process. Stick in the middle slot, quartz above it, I pulled the lever.
The result was a torch, but not a torch. Instead of a piece of charcoal burning at the top of a stick, there was a glowing gem. The light was noticeably weaker than a normal torch would have been, about three-quarters as bright, and there was neither heat nor flame. I let it sit there for a moment, taking it in, and Esmelda picked it up, a look of wonder on her face.
¡°A new miracle,¡± she said. ¡°Will it truly stay like this forever?¡±
I checked my status screens.
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Class Assignment: Survivor
Level: 23
Advancement: 3%
Attributes:
Might: E
Speed: F+
Presence: F
Armor Rating: 9
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I hadn¡¯t been paying much attention to my overall level, but I was pretty sure the progress to the next level percentage had just dropped. It looked like my experience was the ¡°essence¡± that the note had referred to. Crafting certain items, and undoubtedly enchantments as well, would come at a cost. It put a limit on what I could produce, but it didn¡¯t come as a surprise, as that was essentially how it worked in the game. At least now I could be sure what that metric was for. The iron breastplate had done wonders for my armor rating. There was no new information available about the torch in the logs.
¡°It looks like it will last forever,¡± I said. ¡°The glowstones have been around for who knows how long, and they¡¯re still shining.¡°
¡°Sorcery,¡± Gastard said, gruff and glowering.
¡°A blessing is a blessing,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°This is a gift from the goddess, not sorcery.¡±
¡°Perhaps,¡± Gastard frowned, scratching at his burgeoning beard, ¡°but the runes, and now this, it feels like dark magic to me.¡±
¡°Magic is magic,¡± I said. ¡°It¡¯s how you use it that counts.¡±
Esmelda¡¯s expression became grave. ¡°No, Will, it isn¡¯t. Some powers are tainted. There are forces in Bedlam that twist men into monsters. I think the kings of Drom are foolish for treating all magic as if it were the same, but some things are evil at their heart.¡±
¡°Okay,¡± I said. Everything this place offered came from the same System that I had come with, so I wasn¡¯t worried about any of it suddenly turning me into a demon. ¡°Noted. You guys want to see if I can mine that diamond box?¡±
41: My Enchantments (Rewrite)
As it turned out, I couldn¡¯t mine the diamond. My iron pick was no more effective than the stone had been, unable to even scratch its surface, and it quickly became apparent that my tool was going to break if I kept tapping too long. That was a departure from how the game worked, obsidian was supposed to be the only thing you couldn¡¯t mine without a diamond pick, but I didn¡¯t make the rules here, and neither did Mojang. The patently legendary set of armor in the storage room remained out of my grasp for now. Still, even if the chests and the armor were out of bounds, I couldn¡¯t be too disappointed considering what this place had given me.
¡°What now?¡± Gastard asked as I turned from the sarcophagus. ¡°Will you forge Godwod his sword?¡±
¡°That,¡± I said, ¡°and a few other things.¡± I was actually out of iron, but there was sure to be more to be unearthed now that we were below the portion of the mine that had been exhausted. My mind, however, was not on iron.
¡°All this crystal,¡± I said, gesturing to the purple wall. ¡°There has to be a reason they collected it like this.¡±
¡°Maybe they liked the way it complemented the gold,¡± Esmelda suggested, her mouth quirking upward.
That would have been disappointing, and thankfully, it seemed unlikely. Simple quartz had been sufficient to craft a magic torch, so diamonds, and lapis lazuli, might not be necessary for enchantments. ¡°I want to try using it,¡± I said. ¡°Does anybody have any idea what time it is?¡±
Gastard grunted. ¡°I¡¯ll check the sky.¡±
Esmelda sat on the sarcophagus, her feet dangling from its edge, as I began mining out a section of the crystal wall. I had my status screen up so I could see what the System had to say about it.
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[Amethyst]
A low-grade crystal commonly found in geodes. Friend of the budding enchanter, looking to develop his craft without wasting more precious stones. Its lavender hues are a desirable addition to any build, even after you grow up and start using diamonds.
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That was a very helpful notification, though I could have done without the snark. Amethyst was one of my favorite things about Maincraft, I just liked them. They only spawned in massive geodes underground, and they¡¯d always seemed underutilized. They weren¡¯t really good for anything aside from decoration and a couple of obscure recipes, and I was happy to see that in this version, they could be put to use.
¡°What will you try first?¡± Esmelda asked.
¡°Protection on my armor, maybe Unbreaking on my tools if I get more iron to start fresh with.¡±
She leaned forward. ¡°What about Shadowbane?¡±
¡°On the sword, definitely. I¡¯ll do Gastard¡¯s for him too if he lets me.¡±
¡°I think you should enchant the torch,¡± she said, and I paused, looking back.
¡°With Shadowbane?¡±
She nodded, her eyes bright. ¡°Light that would banish the darkness.¡±
¡°The description didn¡¯t include that,¡± I said. In Maincraft, you didn¡¯t enchant torches at all.
¡°It said that Shadowbane could discourage the creatures of Bedlam from attacking. What better way to do that than to let it shine in their faces?¡±
I could certainly respect the lateral thinking involved there. ¡°Sure,¡± I said, ¡°we can try.¡± There was little to be lost in the attempt, and this was assuming I could bypass the issue of not being able to craft an enchanting table, but I thought the solution to that was already close by.
When Gastard returned, it was with the news that we still had much of the afternoon ahead of us and that the horses were doing fine. We paused for a quick meal, the remains of the travel rations they had brought along, and I led us to the summoning room that I no longer thought was a summoning room.
¡°Maybe stay by the door,¡± I said, setting down a stack of books I¡¯d selected from the library.
¡°What is the danger?¡± Gastard asked, peering into the darkness on the far side of the room.
¡°No danger,¡± I said, ¡°as far as I know. But I¡¯m about to mess with something I don¡¯t understand, so we may as well be cautious about it.¡±
¡°Will¡¡± Esmelda said, urging caution with her tone.
¡°Hey,¡± I said. ¡°This place has been good to us so far. And if worse comes to worst, I can come back to life, remember?¡±
¡°That isn¡¯t funny,¡± she said.
I shrugged. ¡°Wasn¡¯t a joke.¡±
A Shadowbane tome came to the center of the room with me. Crossing the circles felt weird, but I was pretty sure that the creeping sensation was just in my head. The runes on the floor did not signify another barrier, and at the center, I found a crafting grid beside a missing block. The center slot of the crafting grid was suspiciously book-shaped. Instead of a lever, there was a button below the grid.
I placed my knife in the open block, and the book in the grid along with four quartz coins. Then I placed an amethyst block in each of the recessed spaces in the corners of the chamber. As with the gold, one block was an entire token to itself, though if I broke them apart, the coins gave me crystal shards instead of ingots.
As soon as the fourth amethyst was in place, the crystals began to glow, if faintly. I returned to the center of the chamber to press the button. Once I had done so, the amethysts heated up until they were brighter than torches, a pretty lavender hue, then swiftly faded. As the blocks darkened, the runic circles lit in succession, working their way toward the center. The noise that followed wasn¡¯t the gentle pop that normally accompanied crafting, it was an electric snap.
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The hair on my arms stood on end, and the runes flashed all at once before the energy was exhausted. At the center of the room, the Enchanted Book and quartz coins had disappeared, but the knife remained. As Esmelda was holding the torch, I brought the knife over to her so we could examine it more closely.
¡°Did it work?¡± She asked. The blade looked unchanged, but there was a subtle difference. There was an extra sheen to its edge now, a way of catching the light that gave it an almost living quality. The entire room was one big enchanting table. The presence of the obsidian blocks had made me suspect that was the case. It seemed like a ridiculous thing to have to set up, and I hoped I wouldn¡¯t have to build one like it if I wanted to do this anywhere else, but I wasn¡¯t going to question my good fortune. A notification confirmed my success.
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Achievement: Crafty (2)
All equipment is not made the same. Some come with extra steps. You have successfully imbued your first enchantment, opening the door to weapons and armor of truly exceptional quality. Quest log updated.
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That was new. I switched tabs and saw that for the first time, something had been added to my official to-do list apart from the nebulous Kevin assignment.
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Kevin
Objective: Kevin.
Reward: Your geas will be lifted.
Journeyman
Objective: Successfully enchant one-hundred items.
Reward: Advanced recipe.
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That was very little information, but a world of improvement over the previous entry. There was a clear goal in place, and a promise of something valuable waiting for me at the end of the rainbow, maybe even ice cream. My System was coming around.
I glanced at Gastard, who was standing under the arch leading into the chamber. He had not come forward to inspect the knife.
¡°I can try your sword next,¡± I said. ¡°Shadowbane seems like the sort of thing a templar would want on their weapon.¡±
His hand drifted to the hilt in question, but he shook his head. ¡°Even if it is a blessing of the goddess, I would not taint the blade of my father with sorcery.¡±
¡°Fair enough,¡± I said, more for me. We didn¡¯t have enough books, let alone amethyst, for me to do one hundred enchantments. That goal would come about on its own in the long run. For now, I settled for adding Protection and Unbreaking to my breastplate, which brought my armor rating up to a ten. It was only a one point difference, but that was still something. Also, I¡¯d noticed that all the enchantments I was working with had a Roman numeral one beside their name. That fit with the game, which had four power levels for all enchantments. I was still working with the basic stuff. I didn¡¯t add anything to my leathers, because I expected to replace those soon, but I added Shadowbane to my sword and decided to give Esmelda¡¯s idea a try.
The crystal blocks were not used up in the enchanting process, though they started to show cracks after being used a second time, and steadily worsened. I didn¡¯t have enough quartz to keep going, but amethyst shards worked just as well. My level had barely gone down. I was still at twenty-one, which suggested I¡¯d run out of amethysts or Enchanted Books before I ran out of experience.
Esmelda handed over the torch, and I placed it and another Shadowbane book in their designated areas. The amethysts charged up as before, and the violet light worked its way through the room. When it was gone, the quartz at the top of the Eternal Torch had taken on a purple hue, though the light it emitted was still pure white. It was obviously brighter.
¡°A new kind of weapon,¡± Esmelda said. She looked pretty smug about it.
There were only a few more things I wanted to do before we left the underground base. Piercing the force field and mining the diamond would have to wait until I had higher-grade equipment, and as the books didn¡¯t seem to convert to coins, leaving them here with the enchanting room was probably safer than trying to carry them all with us. I skinned the troll on general principles, but it didn¡¯t yield a higher quality leather, which was both disappointing and a little nonsensical, but I supposed the System¡¯s cheating couldn¡¯t always be in my favor.
That brought us to the issue of Godwod¡¯s sword. I¡¯d promised him something worthy of his station, so a replica of what I¡¯d given Otto wouldn¡¯t cut it. I could potentially apply some actual workmanship to the hilt and the pommel with my artisan skill, but I had something else in mind.
¡°Gold?¡± Gastard questioned me as I placed the coins on my worktable. ¡°For a weapon? It would be useless.¡±
¡°Why?¡± I asked.
¡°It¡¯s too soft,¡± he said, seeming as if he was fighting the urge to snatch the coins off of the table if I went any further to save me from my folly. ¡°It could never last against steel.¡±
Even in Maincraft, gold equipment had low durability. I doubted, however, that Godwod would be using the blade in combat, and I thought he would appreciate the gesture. Gastard¡¯s hand twitched as I placed the stick and moved to pull the crafting lever, but he held himself in check.
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[Gold Sword]
Pride comes before practicality in this case. While impressive to look at, weapons crafted from gold are exceedingly fragile. They are also exceptionally sharp, and easy to swing. You could always use it to shave.
Damage Rating: 4
Speed: Fast
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It was beautiful. The blade gleamed in the torchlight, the material unmistakable. It came with markings similar to the pattern on my iron blades, but they were light instead of dark, giving the blade an aspect almost like a rolling flame. My other weapons had been simple, if flawless, but this hilt was intricately designed with a delicate filigree that wove along the crossguard. The pommel was spiked with a slight curve that made it look like an eagle¡¯s beak. Dongle would have lost his mind over it.
As promised, the edge was razor sharp, it nicked my thumb at the barest touch. Seemingly against his own will, Gastard held out his hand for the weapon, and I let him take it. He walked a few paces and took it through a quick drill. He handed it back with a sour look on his face.
¡°How¡¯s it feel?¡± I asked.
He grunted and reluctantly replied. ¡°The balance is superb.¡±
We returned to the mine, and I sealed the entrance to the base with basalt. I left most of the gold behind, it was safer here than in my pack, but a few ingots would be enough to buy just about anything I could want. With the sword wrapped in cloth, and our packs on our backs, Esmelda, Gastard, and I walked out into the evening light, where we were met by a group of armed men.
42: My Flower (Rewrite)
¡°Light!¡±
We heard the shout as we approached the entrance of the mine, and I stuffed my magical torch headfirst into my pack to hide its glow. Gastard drew his sword, and Esmelda and I stayed a step behind him. Outside, we were met with four men who looked to have been preparing to camp. Fuzzu was tied off beside Gastard¡¯s horse by the closest shack, and I saw one other horse with them, which had a nice-looking saddle on its back. They had built a fire in front of the building, and there was a pot of stew steaming above the burning logs.
Two of the men were standing a few paces back from either side of the entrance. They looked like hunters, with brown and gray tunics cinched at their waists. Tools hung from their belts, and one of them also had a squirrel hanging from his hip. They all had similar leather leggings and high boots, though in varying states of use, and the two slightly farther from the entrance had bows on their backs. They weren¡¯t holding weapons, but they all of them carried multiple knives on their belts.
¡°Hold there,¡± the man closest to us said. He had dark hair and a sour face. ¡°Put up that sword, we¡¯re here to talk with you.¡±
¡°Talk?¡± Gastard regarded him levelly. ¡°This is an ambush.¡±
¡°Is that what it looks like?¡± The voice came from the door of the shack, which had opened to reveal another man. His tunic was nicer than what the others wore, deep blue, and unstained. It was long-sleeved, with embroidery around the cuffs that partially concealed his hands, which were clenched at his sides. He had a doublet on over his tunic embroidered with a house sign, a rabbit jumping over a tree. ¡°Gastard, you of all people should know an ambush when you see one, or don¡¯t, for that matter.¡±
¡°Baron Gent,¡± Gastard said as I stepped up beside him. ¡°What are you doing here?¡±
The baron wrinkled his nose in disgust. He wasn''t a handsome man, his eyes a little too far apart, his cheeks pockmarked. ¡°This is my land, my mine, and yet I have been informed that you and your friend there came here and took over, claiming Godwod¡¯s authority. But you don¡¯t work for the Margrave anymore, do you?¡±
¡°Lord Godwod gave me the right to dig here,¡± I said, ¡°but we didn¡¯t turn anything up, so we¡¯re leaving. You''re welcome to bring your men back in.¡±
¡°Am I now?¡± The baron stepped down from the shack. ¡°And who are you, to tell me what I can and cannot do?¡±
¡°Will Smith,¡± I said. ¡°Sorry if I sounded like I was giving orders. I¡¯m working for Lord Godwod, and we¡¯re going to see him now.¡±
¡°An unusual situation, if it¡¯s true.¡± Gent¡¯s hand relaxed at his sides, but he was staring daggers at me. ¡°I¡¯m told there was a letter. I will read it.¡±
I passed off the order Godwod had given me to the man with a sour face, and he brought it to the baron. Esmelda, Gastard, and I stood close together under the entrance of the mine. He had lowered his sword, but not put it away. One of the men was giving Esmelda a look I didn¡¯t like, and I stepped in front of her.
The baron took his time reading, though there wasn¡¯t much there. ¡°This says nothing about sending my workers away.¡±
¡°A misunderstanding,¡± I said. ¡°We apologize for the inconvenience. But there¡¯s nothing down there for them to bring up. This is a dead mine.¡±
His mouth drew into a hard line. ¡°That¡¯s what this is about, then? Godwod thought I was cheating him, and sent you to look things over? The upper level is dry, but there¡¯s still digging to be done.¡± He glanced over at the horses. ¡° I have been insulted, nonetheless. That¡¯s your old mare, isn¡¯t it Gastard? But the other is in fine shape. This affair has given me a bad taste. Give that one to me, and I will permit you all to go on your way.¡±
¡°She¡¯s mine,¡± Esmelda said, pushing forward and putting her hands on her hips. ¡°We shall do no such thing.¡±
The pair of men carrying bows unshouldered them but did not ready arrows. I turned to the nearest one, and put my hand on the hilt of my sword.
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¡°What a pretty little girl you are,¡± Gent said. ¡°If you¡¯d like, you can stay with her, and I¡¯ll bring the both of you back to my manor. My wife has been complaining that she needs a new maid.¡±
¡°I am not a girl,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°I am a lillit, and my father is the mayor of Erihseht. Let us be on our way.¡±
¡°A lillit,¡± Gent drew out the word distastefully. ¡°Whoever your father is, I am the baron here, and I demand compensation for the loss of work you all caused me. I am in my rights to do as I please on my land.¡±
¡°We are under the lord¡¯s protection,¡± Gastard said. ¡°If you are unsatisfied, you may take it up with him.¡±
There was a long moment as the baron looked between me and Gastard. Though outnumbered, we were better equipped, and his hunters were too close to get much use out of their bows before we got to them. When it came down to it, he couldn¡¯t know whether there would be a reprisal from Godwod if he did anything to us or not.
¡°I will do that,¡± he said. ¡°You may tell the Margrave that I will be seeking an audience with him soon.¡± He waved the parchment and dropped it on the ground in front of him. ¡°If you return here, you will need much more than this to keep you from harm. These lands are nearly wild, and it is not uncommon for men to go missing.¡±
¡°We thank you for your concern,¡± Gastard said. The three of us went together to collect the horses and began to lead them away. I watched the men watching us go, but they didn¡¯t move to start shooting, and Gent disappeared back inside the shack.
¡°It was bluster,¡± Gastard said, ¡°he is of low rank, and he won¡¯t risk offending the margrave.¡±
We paused as Esmelda climbed atop Fuzzu, giving the horse a comforting pat. ¡°Just a bully,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°I hope we never see him again.¡±
¡°I thought someone would come,¡± I said, ¡°but I didn¡¯t expect it to be the actual baron.¡±
¡°Barely a baron,¡± Gastard said. ¡°He has this land only because no one else wants it. The mine is recent, an attempt to raise his value to the margrave, and it has never produced much.¡±
It was too close to nightfall for me to return to the city, but there was no reason for Esmelda and Gastard to have to spend the evening cramped with their horses in one of my shelters. I told them to go ahead, and after a brief debate with Esmelda, they agreed to wait for me at the first inn we had passed on our last visit to Henterfell.
I walked a mile off the road and selected a nice-looking hillock bare of trees. Rather than build up a shelter, I dug down into the top and made myself a little bomb shelter. I had plenty of stone, and I liked the idea of having hideouts scattered around the region. You never knew when you might need one. Crafting in real life was a thousand times more satisfying than doing the same thing in a game. Every block I placed added to my contentment. The entry hole was too small for a troll, so after adding a ladder to get up and down, I added a fence gate to use as a trap door, reinforcing it with a stone slab on top.
The eternal torch was more than bright enough to prevent spawns in the small space, and I felt better having it out, even if I knew total darkness was technically safe. After spending some time sorting through my coins, a never-ending chore, I settled in to grind my artisan skill. I wanted to make Esmelda a present.
I lined up all my tools, chopped a log down into a four-inch chunk, and got to work with my knife. So far, every time I¡¯d worked on a figurine, I¡¯d pretty much let my hands do their own thing while my mind wandered. Now I actively tried to focus on what I wanted to whittle out of the wood, trying to imagine the shape that was hidden beneath all that extra plant fiber.
Flower, I thought. Give me a flower. My knife shaved down the wood with ease, flakes falling around my legs as I sat cross-legged in the corner of the shelter. I hummed to myself as I worked, longing for Spotify, and watched the wood block transform.
The final product was not a masterpiece, but you could at least tell what it was. The petals were blocky, and mostly stuck together. Still, it was better than it should have been, given my lack of actual experience in the art form. It seemed like my skill was less effective when I didn¡¯t give it free rein, but its influence was still present. I hollowed out a nook in the center of the blossom and carefully tapped in a piece of quartz with my mallet.
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Miner: 29
Advancement 42%
Artisan: 8
Advancement 60%
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My skills were a little lopsided, but that reflected what my needs had been so far. One day, maybe I could spend all my days crafting truly beautiful items, instead of just perfectly functional. The gold sword had been a weird exception as if the System had understood that there was no point in a weapon like that except as an ornament. Regardless, I was proud of the flower.
43: My Bad News (Rewrite)
At three stories, the inn stood a head above the other buildings on the outskirts of Henterfell. The last time I passed it by in the morning, the ground-floor windows had been open to the sunlight, but now they were shuttered. Even the busker was gone. I glanced at the sign hanging from a pole at the front of the building, a large laughing man with a round belly. The word ¡°Hoxna¡¯s¡± was painted underneath it in bright yellow letters. It was definitely the right place, but there was a placard resting on the front door that read ¡°Fully Booked.¡±
I tried to open it and found that it was locked. I knocked, and a few moments later, a slide opened to reveal a thin-faced man with a handlebar mustache. He glared at me.
¡°We haven¡¯t got room,¡± he said. ¡°Try back in a week.¡±
¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± I said. This was incredibly odd. Why would the inn be full first thing in the morning, even if it was, the bar and the dining hall still could have done business. But I didn¡¯t see a point in antagonizing the man in charge of the door. ¡°I was meeting someone. Is a man named Gastard saying here?¡±
He gave me a long look. ¡°Wait, are you Will?¡±
¡°Yes?¡± This entire situation seemed to have gone off the rails, and I had no idea what to do except to play along.
The shutter closed, and I heard a key being turned in the lock. The door opened onto a warmly lit tavern crowded with lillits. Some faces I recognized without being able to put a name to them, and as I entered, it seemed that a hundred eyes were suddenly focused upon me. If there had been conversation before my arrival, it had died too quickly for me to notice. Little folk filled all the seats around the tables and at the bar, many of their legs dangling from the high seats, though it didn¡¯t appear as if anyone was drinking.
Gastard¡¯s presence was unmistakable at a table toward the back of the room. I saw Dongle was with him, dressed in a fine doublet and wearing a golden chain around his neck. His curly-haired son was beside him, and Esmelda was already racing across the floor to meet me.
She stopped short. Her gray eyes rimmed red, and seemed unable to speak. I didn¡¯t know what was happening, but she was obviously in distress. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her to my chest. The man with a handlebar mustache shut the door behind me, and she began to cry.
Most of the lillits turned away, talking quietly amongst themselves, while others watched in silence. I ignored their gazes, focusing on the young woman who was weeping against me, utterly confused. The man excused himself, and across the room, I saw Gastard staring down into his cup.
I didn¡¯t know what to do, but Esmelda seemed to gather herself and pulled away. She looked up at me, her chestnut hair framing a face wet with tears.
¡°What happened?¡± I said. ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡±
¡°Monsters came to Erihseht, and soldiers of Dargoth. The lillits you see here were those that escaped.¡±
¡°And the rest?¡± It was too soon. I wasn¡¯t ready to fight an army, let alone Kevin. Fortune had dealt me a major windfall with the underground base, and it had felt like there would be a chance for me to get ahead, but now the other shoe had dropped, and while the first one had been full of gold, this one was all monsters.
¡°Dongle can tell you, he was there.¡±
She led me to the back of the inn. Some of the lillits were looking at me with hope in their eyes, and others, anger. Before I had come to Erihseht, the Dark Lord had been a distant memory, something from their histories. Even if my arrival had nothing to do with Dargoth¡¯s actions, it would be natural to make the connection. And for all I knew, my presence may have been what caused this.
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Dongle wasn¡¯t exactly cheerful, but he appeared to be in better spirits than the rest of the lillits gathered in the inn. He flashed a grin at me as we reached the table, showing off his pearly white teeth. Maybe he was putting on a front, but his son was here with him, so he might have had more to be thankful for than many of the others.
¡°It¡¯s good to see you again,¡± he said. ¡°You¡¯re exactly the man we need.¡±
¡°You too,¡± I held out a chair for Esmelda and then took the one beside her. ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re okay. What happened?¡±
Dongle laced his fingers together in front of him on the oak table. There were old stains beneath his hands. ¡°I was working late,¡± he said, ¡°and stepped outside to clear my head. On my last trip here, I picked up several orders, including one from Lady Godwod. The woman has impeccable taste, and no sense at all of how long good work can take¨C¡±
¡°Dad,¡± Quentin said, his voice pained. In contrast to his father¡¯s impeccable dress, he had come here in a nightshirt and looked like he hadn¡¯t slept in days.
¡°Oh,¡± Dongle said, ¡°my apologies.¡± He flashed another grin. ¡°I heard the most terrible sound, a banshee¡¯s wail, from somewhere in the sky. Torches were being lit on the other side of town, and I got close enough to see soldiers going from house to house. I ran straight to the church and got Tipple ringing his bell. We rounded up as many people as we could, and ran out of Erihseht with nothing but the clothes on our backs.¡±
He didn¡¯t mention the rings on his hands or the gold chain around his neck, but he could well have been wearing all that when it happened.
¡°They set the mill on fire,¡± Quentin said, his voice quiet. ¡°And there were¡things, with them. The watch got together, tried to organize people. Tried to fight, but that made it worse.¡±
¡°The soldiers were taking captives,¡± Dongle supplied. ¡°Herding people like animals. There was a ring of koroshai, and they made whoever they took stand in the ring.¡±
¡°They weren¡¯t attacking?¡± The shamblers should have seen the lillits as easy prey. Not that they cared if prey was easy or hard, but in my experience, they would try to eat anything that moved.
Dongle shook his head. ¡°It was eerier, all those monsters, standing still like they were taking orders.¡±
I thought about the night Gastard and I had taken on Bill. Was it possible the face-stealer had gotten out of his stone prison? Even if he had, that wouldn¡¯t have explained where the soldiers or the other shamblers had come from.
Gastard gripped his cup so hard I thought it would crack. ¡°A demon,¡± he said, ¡°one of the Dark Lord¡¯s generals, here, in the Free Kingdoms.¡±
¡°I didn¡¯t see any demons,¡± Dongle said. ¡°Then again, I might not know if I had. We got away as quickly as we could. Those who fought were killed. And once you were among the koroshai, there was no getting away. I heard people screaming who tried to run.¡±
I stopped myself from asking about Boffin and Brenys. If they had made it out, then they would have been here with us. One glance at Esmelda was enough to assure me of that.
¡°But they weren¡¯t killing anyone who didn¡¯t resist? They were there to take prisoners?¡±
Dongle squeezed his hands together. ¡°That was what I saw.¡±
¡°When the lillits were in Dargoth,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°it was a different age. The land was green, and people flourished. Then the Dark Lord came and made us his pets. When we were freed, it angered him. Despite all the years that have passed, he still thinks of us as his wayward possessions.¡±
That wasn¡¯t good, but it was better than outright slaughter. ¡°What¡¯s Godwod doing?¡± I asked. ¡°This is an invasion. Isn¡¯t he in charge of the border?¡±
¡°He is,¡± Gastard said. ¡°And he has asked the lillits who come to Henterfell to remain here and cause no disturbance in the city. Otto and other knights left with their followers to assess the situation.¡±
Dongle nodded. ¡°The margrave is paying Hoxna a hefty sum to house us all. It¡¯s generous of him.¡±
Generous probably wasn¡¯t the word. Godwod was trying to prevent panic by keeping the lillits all in one place and away from the rest of the populace. But people had to have noticed their arrival and would be asking questions. That must have been why the doors were locked and the innkeeper had been prepared to turn me away.
¡°I need to see him,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯ve got his sword, and maybe I can get some information out of him about what he plans to do. Otto isn¡¯t going to miss an army. Dargoth is here, and Henterfell is going to have to respond.¡±
I stood, and Esmelda grabbed my arm. Her gaze was as steady as her grip.
¡°I¡¯m coming with you.¡±
44: My Social Climb (Rewrite)
It was the same man guarding the gate into the courtyard of Godwod¡¯s keep, but his attitude toward me was very different from my last visit. He put his fist against the breast of his red surcoat as we approached. It seemed like a gesture of respect, so I returned it.
¡°Hail, Sir Will,¡± he said, ¡°The Margrave is occupied, but you can wait in the garden, and I¡¯ll send someone to let him know you¡¯ve returned.¡±
He didn¡¯t ask me to disarm myself or offer any objection to Esmelda entering with me. Apparently, having sworn an oath to make Godwod my liege lord came with privilege. Was I technically a knight, or how did that work? The situation bothered me. It was nice not to be treated as an outsider, but it made me question why Godwod had been so willing to extend that kind of trust to me on our first meeting. He didn¡¯t know me, and I hadn¡¯t done anything to earn it.
On any other day, Esmelda might have appreciated the garden, but she did not comment on the flowers or the well-trained shrubs as we made our way to sit on the rim of the fountain.
¡°Why do you think he made me a vassal right away?¡± I said. ¡°Isn¡¯t that kind of strange.¡±
¡°It is,¡± Esmelda said. Her hair was up, and she absentmindedly touched the silver comb that kept it in place. I wanted to give her the wooden flower, but with everything that was going on, it was clearly not a good time.
¡°It is strange,¡± she said. ¡°But Gastard says he is a man who never does anything without a motive behind it. I doubt it was an impulsive decision.¡±
¡°He didn¡¯t push me about where I came from,¡± I said, ¡°it makes me wonder if he knew more than he was letting on.¡±
¡°I think Dongle told him about you,¡± she said. ¡°Or told someone. He has more business with Henterfell than anyone else in Erihseht.¡±
That checked out. I¡¯d only met Dongle twice now, and he had given me the impression that he was a big fan, but there was something fake about it. The used car salesman vibes. Tipple had seemed to trust him, and it didn¡¯t mean there was anything nefarious in his intentions, just that he was the sort of person who wouldn¡¯t keep a secret. Godwod¡¯s wife apparently bought jewelry from him, and anything he told her would get back to the Lord.
¡°So Godwod probably knows about the hero stuff,¡± I said.
Esmelda turned her body So she could look up at the fountain. ¡°This statue, Umberious Rex. I always assumed Lord Umber played a role in Drom¡¯s early days, but I do not know their history well. Their church and their king paint all magic as being a tool of the Shadow, but there must be some people who still remember heroes.¡±
A boy in a servant''s livery came down the garden path and bobbed his head at us. ¡°My Lord awaits you in the hall,¡± he said. We followed him out of the courtyard and soon found ourselves in the keep proper.
As we stepped into the dining hall, the ambiance felt oddly subdued despite its grandeur. The vaulted ceiling was supported by heavy wooden beams, their age evident in the darkened, time-worn wood. A few large tapestries, frayed at the edges, adorned the cold, stone walls. They were so faded it was hard to make out their subjects, men and horses, castles, surrounded by complicated decorative patterns.
High, open windows broke the monotony of the stone walls on the western side, allowing shafts of sunlight to pour in. These beams created alternating spaces of dimness of light, and Godwod was seated in a bright space at the end of a long table. The table, partially covered in linens, seemed to have been prepared for guests who had never arrived. There were extra place settings, but the only other occupant was Johanna, his daughter.
She was seated at the corner, half in shadow and in light, her wavy, golden hair unbound, wearing a simple gray dress. The servant paused at the entrance hall to announce us.
¡°Sir Will, my lord, and his wife.¡±
I hadn¡¯t introduced Esmelda to anyone, but either the servant had made assumptions or the people in Godwod¡¯s keep were a lot more aware of me than I had realized. Godwod wiped his mouth with a silk napkin and did not rise. His yellow and purple robes were the lone touch of vibrant color in the hall.
¡°You may enter,¡± he said. ¡°Please, join us.¡±
Esmelda and I came to the table and sat opposite Johanna. I slid off my pack and dropped it behind my chair, laying Godwod¡¯s sword, still wrapped in linen, on the table out of the way of the place settings. The silverware at our places gleamed, meticulously polished, and the crystal goblets, already filled with pale wine, sparkled in the sun''s light. The condition of the tableware seemed out of place in the otherwise empty, dingy hall.
Godwod¡¯s eyes flickered to the sword before coming to rest on me. ¡°It pleases me that you returned in haste. And you,¡± he turned his head, ¡°must be Esmelda.¡±
¡°I am, my lord,¡± Esmelda said, inclining her head. ¡°I am honored to meet you.¡±
¡°Of course,¡± Godwod made a dismissive gesture with his hand. ¡°Try the duck, it is still crisp.¡±
He didn¡¯t seem to want to jump right into business, and there was already food on the plates. Steamed vegetables, a boiled potato, and the duck. Esmelda and I thanked him and went through the motions of sharing a meal with the Margrave. Johanna was pushing food around her plate, but Godwod appeared to genuinely relish the simple meal.
¡°You have already met my daughter,¡± he said, ¡°though not formally. As she is my only heir, it suits me to have her as my shadow as I go about the business of rulership.¡±
¡°It¡¯s a pleasure,¡± Esmelda said, and Johanna nodded at us, saying nothing.
¡°Such interesting times we live in,¡± he said, ¡°to think, I once believed I would grow old in this hall, with boredom as my only adversary.¡±
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¡°Interesting?¡± I said.
¡°Yes. When I was younger, I would jump at every rumor of a koloss, evening riding out myself to meet the beasts. People are so willing to believe in monsters, so eager to find them, that they will turn a bear into a giant, and a bandit into a sorcerer. But at last, we have been blessed with an opportunity to face the shadow in truth.¡±
Esmelda¡¯s mouth drew into a hard line. ¡°Erihseht was attacked,¡± she said. ¡°I cannot see that as a blessing.¡±
¡°Perhaps not,¡± Godwod allowed, ¡°and that is understandable, as you are too close to the matter to see it clearly. My condolences for the loss of your father. Darfur imagines himself to be next in line, but I would prefer to see you acting in his stead. For the lillits in this city, you may speak to me, and I will speak to you.¡±
Esmelda winced at the mention of her father. ¡°Mayor is an elected position,¡± she said.
Godwod raised an eyebrow over his glass. ¡°Is it? How quaint.¡± He took a sip. ¡°Regardless, as you are wed to my vassal, it will be simpler to have you acting as a leader and liaison in the interim. Do you object?¡±
¡°I¡¯m happy to be of service,¡± Esmelda said. She ducked her head, whatever she actually wanted to say, she knew how to behave around nobles.
¡°What are we going to do about Dargoth?¡± I asked. ¡°This is an invasion.¡±
¡°We?¡± Godwod smiled slightly. ¡°I have sent my retainers to investigate, and messages to the Count and viscounts. A call to the barons will follow. But as to the role you will play, I first need to see how well you fulfilled your promise to me. That is the blade in question, is it not?¡±
I stood up to unwrap the sword. Seeing it, Johanna gasped, and Godwod became very still, his face kept carefully blank. I held the golden blade across my hands and walked into the light to kneel and present it to the lord. It seemed like the appropriate gesture.
Sunlight fell across the sword, highlighting the banded pattern along its blade, and Godwod¡¯s eyes widened.
¡°I asked you for Dargothian steel,¡± he said, ¡°and you bring me¡this?¡±
¡°Are you displeased?¡± I asked.
He swallowed, standing as he gently lifted the weapon out of my hands, gripping the smooth wooden hilt, and raising it like he had just drawn Excalibur from the stone.
¡°Breathtaking,¡± he said. ¡°Marvelous. There is truly none other like it. Where in the name of Gotte did you find so much gold?¡±
¡°The mine,¡± I said.
¡°Gent has never so much as hinted that there was gold to be found there.¡± He frowned and called for the servant, who rushed to attend him.
¡°Take this to my study,¡± he said. The boy looked at the sword like it was a live explosive, but did as he was commanded. The blade had to be worth more than a lifetime of service from his entire family, but it wasn¡¯t like he could have walked out with it and sold it. Godwod didn¡¯t seem concerned with security, which may have come with being a lord of his station. The silver circlet on his head was worth less than the pommel of what I had just given him.
He touched my shoulder. ¡°Sit, sit, young man. You have greatly exceeded my expectations. How much gold was there? How did you find it?¡± He was making an effort to remain calm, but his eagerness bled through in his voice.
I returned to my place beside Esmelda, who looked worried. Johanna had stopped pretending to eat, and she was watching her father with an expression that came across as a little sad.
¡°Everything I mined went into that sword,¡± I said.
Godwod placed his hands on the table, leaning over it, and his eyes narrowed. ¡°Of course it did. But if you found a vein, even a small one, there must be more to be had.¡±
¡°I¡¯d have to dig deeper,¡± I said. There wasn¡¯t any more gold. As far as I knew, the material that had made up the wall in the underground base had come from somewhere else. But if I wanted to start spending the ingots, I could certainly pretend that my gold was coming from the mine if he continued to let me keep digging there.
¡°I want you in that mine,¡± Godwod said. ¡°Gent has clearly failed to utilize it properly, or else, he has been concealing its true worth. ¡°I will rescind his rights immediately, and give you a deed. A portion of its yield must go to the crown, and a portion to me. But if there is more gold to be found, you will be a rich man indeed.¡±
¡°Uh,¡± I said, this was happening fast, and I had no idea what would constitute a good deal under the local laws and customs. ¡°How much would I be able to keep?¡±
Godwod sat back down. He took a deep breath and licked his lips. ¡°You have no title, and would therefore be working under my authority. A tenth of the yield would be generous, I think. I would supply you with laborers, of course.¡±
I wanted official permission to use the mine, but there was no more gold, and I didn¡¯t want random people seeing me work. Also, ten percent was crap. ¡°We can talk about the terms,¡± I said. ¡°But I don¡¯t think we can make plans for this mine while there is a Dargothian army marching around your territory.¡±
¡°Ah, yes,¡± Godwod said, ¡°that.¡±
Esmelda¡¯s face had grown darker as the conversation had turned to money. ¡°The Dark Lord has taken the people of my village. They are citizens of Drom. Have you sent a messenger to the king?¡±
¡°I have,¡± the lord gave her an annoyed glance. ¡°But I would not hold out too much hope for their fate. As I have told Dongle, those who escaped Erihseht are welcome to remain in Henterfell until we gauge the threat. But Drom has never marched an army through the Wastes into the dark lands. I expect the king to make a show of force, and we will be at the front lines, pushing the shadow back from whence it came. The lillits who were lost, however, are lost.¡±
¡°What about Eerb,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°the other lillits towns. They could be under threat.¡±
Godwod shrugged. ¡°I cannot stretch my forces to defend every hamlet and village in the border march.¡±
¡°The lillits are my people as well,¡± I said. ¡°I would like to go back to Erihseht, and if any lillits are remaining there, bring them to Henterfell.¡±
¡°I will allow this,¡± Godwod said. ¡°But remember that you are my vassal. The role you will play in my service going forward has become clear. War is a costly endeavor.¡±
¡°If Erihseht is gone,¡± I said, ¡°its people need a new home. Why not let them settle the area around the mine with me?¡±
Johanna had been following the conversation silently, and now she looked up toward the rafters. ¡°The Baron would have something to say about that.¡±
Godwod sat back in his seat. ¡°What to do with the lillits does present an interesting question. The people of Henterfell may not welcome so many coming to live here at once. Perhaps it is an opportunity to be rid of Gent entirely.¡± He smiled. ¡°Very well. Take over the mine, coax gold out of the rock, and I will hand over the barony to you. Given what you have brought me, Gent can no longer be trusted, and that is reason enough to strip him of his rank. You will be entitled to receive rents on the land and a larger portion of the mine¡¯s yield. Settle the lillits as you like.¡±
I glanced at Esmelda. She didn¡¯t look happy, and under the circumstances, I didn¡¯t blame her, but we weren¡¯t going to get a better deal than this.
¡°What do you think?¡± I said.
¡°Of course,¡± she said, her tone flat. ¡°We are honored by the Lord''s favor.¡±
¡°Alright,¡± I said. ¡°Then I agree. What do I have to do.¡±
¡°Excellent.¡± Godwod gave one soft clap with his hands. ¡°I¡¯ll have the papers drawn up. But first, this calls for dessert.¡±
44: My Promise (Rewrite)
Erihseht was in ruins. The fields had been stripped, and the homes and shops burned. If other lillits had escaped the attack, they wouldn¡¯t be here. Esmelda, Gastard, and I were riding through to see what there was to see, and what we found did not inspire hope. Boffin¡¯s manor had a stone foundation, which was all that was left of the structure. Esmelda¡¯s possessions, her books and clothes, whatever keepsakes had remained from her mother, were all gone.
We paused outside the blackened shell of what had been her home.
¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± I said.
¡°The Dark Lord ruins all that he touches,¡± her eyes were clear. ¡°This is no more than what I expected to find.¡±
Gastard grunted his agreement, and we completed our circuit of the town. The church was gone, but its bell remained, cracked and blackened, resting atop a mound of crumbled masonry.
¡°Do you think Tipple was captured,¡± I asked.
Esmelda nodded. ¡°Dongle said he went back for more people after they were out of Erihseht. I am sure he was taken. It wasn¡¯t as if he had a sword to fight with. He would have surrendered if soldiers caught him.¡±
¡°It may not have been soldiers,¡± Gastard said.
All the refugees agreed that the monsters who had overrun the village had been remarkably tame, at least in the sense that they had not tried to eat everyone they saw. That didn¡¯t mean there hadn¡¯t been casualties.
¡°Until we know otherwise,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m going to assume that everyone is alive. They can still be rescued.¡±
¡°Not by Godwod,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°He didn¡¯t say it openly, but he thinks of the lillits as a buffer between the kingdom of men and Dargoth. Losing Erihseht gave him warning that the Dark Lord had stirred. But my people are no more valuable to him than that. The other villages, their loss will only buy him time to gather the army he needs to respond.¡±
¡°They should evacuate,¡± I said. ¡°If they haven¡¯t been attacked already. We can go to them. Godwod didn¡¯t put a limit on how many people I could bring to the mine. We could make a place there for all the lillits, and fight to keep them safe.¡±
¡°I would like that,¡± she said, melancholy stealing the life from her words. Even if we saved the other villages, it would not bring her father back.
Eerb was less than a day¡¯s ride from Erihseht, and even if we couldn¡¯t make it there before nightfall, we could at least see that it was still standing. I had bought a horse before leaving Henterfell. Dongle had been happy to loan me the money, as it hadn¡¯t seemed wise to try to sell a gold ingot in the city while Godwod was almost certainly keeping tabs on me. I wasn¡¯t sure if I trusted the jeweler, but at least he was useful.
The horse was nothing special, not trained for war or show. But he was healthy and friendly enough and had quickly gotten accustomed to the smell of my leathers. He had a walnut brown coat and a lighter splotch across his face. I had named him Bongo and hoped he wouldn¡¯t get eaten.
As we rode out of the collection of blackened husks that had once been a thriving village, Gastard raised one hand and pulled to a stop. We followed suit.
¡°What is it?¡± I asked.
¡°There,¡± Esmelda pointed. There was a group traveling along the river, still some distance away toward the east. It wasn¡¯t an army, though it seemed too large to be a simple hunting party, and I wouldn¡¯t have expected to see one coming from that direction anyway.
¡°Can you make out the banner?¡± Gastard asked.
One of the riders was flying a pendant, but I could barely make out the color of the cloth, let alone what house symbol might have been embroidered there.
¡°It¡¯s the Margrave¡¯s eagle,¡± Esmelda said. Her eyes were apparently as keen as her hearing, a lillit trait, I assumed.
¡°Then it will be Otto,¡± Gastard said. ¡°Let¡¯s find out what they have learned.¡±
Otto had set out with a group of twenty. Only a handful of knights, the rest were their squires and retainers, many of whom were on foot. They recognized Gastard, and our groups met beside Whiskywend, coming to a halt less than ten paces apart.
¡°What are you doing here?¡± Otto demanded. His long black hair and beard were greasy and unkempt, and his expression made it obvious that he was not pleased to see us.
¡°We came to see what had been done to Erihseht,¡± Gastard said. ¡°Lord Godwod is well aware of where we are. What of the Dargothians, what did you find?¡±
¡°Gone,¡± Otto shrugged. ¡°We followed their trail back to a pass in the mountains.¡± He glanced at Esmelda. ¡°From the tracks, it looked like many of her people were with them. Traitors, no doubt.¡±
Esmelda drew in a sharp breath, and I interjected before she could respond. ¡°What about the other villages? You¡¯re saying the army went back to Dargoth right after attacking Erihseht?¡±
His gaze slid to me. ¡°That¡¯s right. The threat has passed for now, which is what I¡¯ll be reporting to the Margrave. It wasn¡¯t a massive force, and the Dark Lord may not be behind it at all. Who knows if he¡¯s even still alive, after all this time.¡±
¡°He is immortal,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°and nothing is done in his name that he does not know.¡±
¡°You old friends, are you?¡± Otto said, ¡°Gossiped over tea?¡± He snorted. ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter, there¡¯s nothing for you to do out here. Did you already make the Margrave his sword?¡±
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¡°I did,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m surprised he let you keep yours after you lied to him.¡±
Otto grinned. ¡°Didn¡¯t lie to him, I lied to you.¡±
¡°What?¡±
¡°You were never formally accused of sorcery.¡± Otto acted like he was sharing a private joke. ¡°The Lady of Henterfell heard about you from some halfling, and my lord sent me to look into it and bring you in if I could. The rest was me taking advantage.¡±
¡°Knave,¡± Gastard uttered the word like it was a curse, and Otto only shrugged.
¡°Worked out for all of us, I¡¯d say. As soon as I showed my lord the sword you gave me, he wanted one for himself. That halfling said some nonsense about how his goddess had blessed you to be able to make anything from anything, and I figured you were a skilled craftsman. The sword proved it.¡±
My blood was boiling, but there were a lot more of them than there were of us, and we were working for the same man. Otto laughed at our expressions and rode off with his group. Dongle had been the one to say something about me, but it had been an innocent, if foolish, mistake. Otto¡¯s scheme explained a lot about my reception in Henterfell, I hadn¡¯t been in danger from the church to begin with, and Godwod had simply played the situation to his advantage.
¡°No true knight,¡± Gastard said, as if casting irreparable judgment upon the man.
¡°He is vermin,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°but that doesn¡¯t matter now.¡± She was looking toward the east.
¡°Armies move slowly,¡± I said, ¡°especially if they¡¯re dragging lillits behind them. We could follow them.¡±
Esmelda shook her head. ¡°The goddess gave you many gifts, but you cannot face the forces of Dargoth alone. I want to follow, but there is nothing I could do if we caught them. This won¡¯t be the end, whatever Otto thinks. When the Dark Lord sees how easy prey we have become, it will encourage him to attack again and again. We have to do something about the other villages.¡±
¡°I agree,¡± I said. ¡°You should go to Eerb, and try to get them to agree to come with us to the mine when I get back.¡±
¡°Get back?¡± Her brows knitted in concern.
¡°You¡¯re right, I can¡¯t take on an army, but that doesn¡¯t mean there¡¯s nothing I can do. At the very least, I want to see what we¡¯re up against, so we can be better prepared the next time.¡±
¡°A sound plan,¡± Gastard said. ¡°We won¡¯t take unnecessary risk, but there is scouting to be done before any enemy can be faced in earnest.¡±
¡°You too, Gastard?¡± Esmelda wore a pained smile. ¡°If that¡¯s the case, then I should go as well, I have better eyes than either of you.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s a good idea,¡± I said. ¡°Someone needs to prepare Eerb, and there¡¯s no telling how long this will take.¡±
¡°Because you plan on doing more than scouting,¡± Esmelda said. She patted her horse on the neck. ¡°It isn¡¯t as if I don¡¯t want you to try. It¡¯s not just my father out there, Brenys, everyone I knew my whole life. The Dark Lord will bind them, and they will never be free again. If there is a chance to save them, I would take it, but I do not believe there is a chance, and there are still people to protect here.¡±
¡°I think there¡¯s a chance,¡± I said. There wasn¡¯t much for me to base that assessment on, but being reborn with supernatural powers has a way of making a guy cocky. ¡°You know I can¡¯t die, right?¡±
¡°You can die,¡± Esmelda said.
¡°You know what I mean.¡±
¡°And what if the Dark Lord knows nothing of you yet, but hears of a man with powers like his own striking out into his realm?¡±
¡°I admit, that¡¯s an issue. But those people are my people too. Boffin¡¯s my father-in-law, right? I have to at least try, and I¡¯ll be able to decide whether the risk of exposing myself is worth it when we see what the enemy looks like.¡±
¡°And you expect me to stay behind?¡±
The way she was looking at me, I didn¡¯t know what to say, but the answer was yes. Esmelda wasn¡¯t a major asset in combat, and even if she had been, I wouldn¡¯t have wanted to risk her in what would almost certainly be a foolhardy rescue attempt.
¡°I will keep him safe,¡± Gastard said. The river ran quietly beside us, and a slight breeze stirred in the grass. Bongo, unaware that anything dramatic was going on, lowered his head to snack. He was a good horse, I could already tell.
¡°And who will keep you safe?¡± Esmelda asked.
¡°I will,¡± Gastard said. ¡°Of course.¡±
¡°Wait,¡± I said, ¡°you don¡¯t trust me to have your back?¡±
¡°You are reckless,¡± Gastard said, ¡°and unskilled.¡±
¡°Reckless? I¡¯m reckless? I¡¯m way more cautious than you are. You would fistfight a troll.¡±
¡°If I had to,¡± Gastard said, his eyes hard.
Esmelda laughed. ¡°Two would-be templars. You are both impossible.¡±
I wasn¡¯t a very experienced horseman, so I had to tug on my reins a few times to get Bongo¡¯s attention and convince him to clop closer to Esmelda.
¡°I made something for you,¡± I said, digging around in my pouch for the wooden flower. Her face lit up as she accepted it.
¡°It¡¯s lovely,¡± she said.
¡°I¡¯m still practicing.¡±
¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll get better.¡± She tucked the flower in one of her saddlebags, then maneuvered Fuzzu so that we were sitting side by side. The animal responded to the slightest pressure from her legs, following her intentions so exactly that I had to wonder if lillits had special abilities that she had just never mentioned. She removed her mother¡¯s comb from her hair and placed it in my hands.
¡°I expect you to bring this back to me,¡± she said.
¡°I will,¡± I said, holding it tightly.
Esmelda raised herself in the saddle and reached behind my head to pull my face down toward hers. Her lips brushed mine, the lightest kiss, and then she let me go. My heart pounded in my chest.
¡°Thank you,¡± I said, like an idiot.
Her eyes crinkled, but she didn¡¯t say anything else. Esmelda turned her horse and set off for Eerb. I watched her go.
¡°If we hurry,¡± Gastard said, ¡° we can make the mountains before nightfall.¡±
I looked to the sky. The sun was already behind us. We would have to gallop.
¡°I have a shelter there already,¡± I said. ¡°We can follow the river.¡±
¡°Good, and before we rest, I need to teach you how to run with a sword. If we face danger, I cannot abide the method you use now. It is the most absurd thing I have ever seen.¡±
¡°Hey, I¡¯m doing my best.¡±
Gastard grunted and dug his knees into the sides of his mount. It responded instantly, leaping forward, and falling into a run. Much more awkwardly, I goaded Bongo into following. Once it had the idea of what I was after, it stretched out its neck and put its heart into the chase.
I wasn¡¯t ready to meet Kevin, but I¡¯d come a long way from making sandwiches. The memories of my old life were still there, telling me I was not enough. I¡¯d never made anything of myself before, and I¡¯d always found a way to screw things up. Relationships, school, the whole prison episode. I was lucky things had gone so well for me so far. Whatever her motivations, whatever her faults, Mizu had given me a second chance.
We might not be able to save Boffin and the others from what was waiting for them in Dargoth, but we could try. The goddess had sent me here to be a hero, and I intended to play the part. As the mountains came into view ahead of us, I felt the weight of what I had been, my failures, my inadequacies, everything I that had come before, lifting off my shoulders, carried behind me by the wind.
45: My Deconstruction (Rewrite)
The Wastes stretched out before us like an ocean. Gray and black sands, rising and falling in gentle undulations as far as the eye could see. On this side of the mountains, there was very little moisture, and the heat of the afternoon sun was oppressive. Sweat dripped down my back, soaking my tunic, and the leather overtop of them was one layer too many. The vegetation around us was scrubby and dry, and it petered out downslope as rock and soil gave way to dark sand.
¡°Why does it look like that?¡± I said.
Gastard and I were following the trail of the Dargothian force that had raided Erihseht. We hadn¡¯t seen signs of horses, either manure or hoofprints, but amid the marks left by the boots of soldiers and lillits alike, there were scuffs and knuckle prints that had to have been left by trolls, as well as uneven drag marks that had probably been made by shamblers. There were wagons with them as well, though I wasn¡¯t sure what was pulling them.
My horse, Bongo, tossed his head after taking a disapproving sniff of the hot desert air. Gastard¡¯s mount, in contrast, was as stoic as he was. The man was ramrod straight in his saddle, surveying the land before us like it was about to become a battlefield.
¡°Like what?¡± He said, preoccupied.
¡°The sand, it¡¯s so dark. How did it get that way? Is there a story there?¡±
¡°Hm?¡± He gave me a quizzical look. ¡°How else should it look? This is the Wastes, a realm of sand. What other color should it be?¡±
¡°White,¡± I said, ¡°tan. You know, sand-colored.¡±
¡°Do you jest? This hardly seems like the time.¡± The slope leading from the mountain pass down into the Wastes was steep enough that we had to proceed with caution. The occasional stretch of gravel didn¡¯t help matters, and when Bongo nearly slipped on a loose stone, I dismounted, and we stopped.
¡°So this is normal sand?¡± I said, looking out over the dark, dry sea. ¡°It¡¯s different where I come from, that¡¯s all.¡±
¡°Ah,¡± Gastard said, ¡°I¡¯m sure there are many differences between the world of your birth and this one. Some sands are white, I think. I have heard that the shores of Flussmund are pale. But the Wastes are dark, and have always been so.¡±
One landmark broke up the undifferentiated expanse, a bridge raised above the sand. It was too distant for me to make out in much detail, but it appeared to have been constructed entirely out of a reddish-gray stone. A ramp leading up to the bridge came down on the edge of the desert about a mile from where we were.
¡°Where does that lead?¡± I said, pointing. The bridge looked like it went on forever.
¡°To Dargoth,¡± Gastard said. ¡°The Dark Lord built Redroad in ages past, and it has stood all this time. When trade was open, it was a way for merchants to bring their wares from Dargoth to Drom, and before that, it was a channel for his armies. If we are to find our quarry anywhere, it will be along that road.¡±
¡°It crosses the entire desert?¡±
¡°From end to end. There are way stations along its length, though I have never seen them. Fortresses for his forces to shelter and resupply.¡±
¡°If we follow them on that, it will be hard for them to not see us coming.¡±
Gastard frowned, considering the sands.
¡°I would not want to risk my mount on those dunes. It would be too easy for her to injure herself. If we crossed under Redroad, we would go unseen, but there would be no way for us to reach the lillits on the bridge, or for them to come down to us.¡±
¡°I¡¯ve got plenty of stone and wood,¡± I said, patting my backpack, ¡°we can get up and down if we need to.¡± I probably could have made a better-quality pack out of linen or wool, but I was still using the woven grass version. It did the job, and I had enough extra material to craft as many replacements as might be necessary.
Technically, this was a reconnaissance mission. Gastard and I had spent the previous night in one of my old shelters on the other side of the mountain, and we¡¯d discussed what our strategy might be. While my System gave me some amazing advantages, it was in no way specced for combat. The weapons and armor I crafted were better than average, but they weren¡¯t game-changers. While I had been able to improve my equipment with enchantments, there was nothing earth-shattering about those enhancements either. I felt better prepared than ever to face the monsters that spawned around me whenever the sun went down, but that was a far cry from taking on an enemy army. Even Gastard, as skilled as he was, was still just one man.
My food healed me like a health potion, though it didn¡¯t work that way for other people. And I would return to life if I died out there on the sands, but again, that didn¡¯t hold true for my companion. We wanted to see what kind of force Kevin had sent, and if it was possible to rescue a few lillits, Esmelda¡¯s family in particular, then I wanted to try. Neither of us thought it would be possible to bring everyone back.
If my powers had been like those of previous heroes, shooting lightning, or changing shape, then maybe that would have been in the cards. But Mizu had sent me to Plana on my own, and Survivor was a support class.
¡°We have come too far for Marie to find her way home,¡± Gastard said, ¡°even if there was still a home for her to go to.¡±
¡°Who?¡± We¡¯d both been silent for a while, and the statement caught me off guard.
Gastard patted his horse¡¯s neck. ¡°I am loath to leave her behind.¡±
¡°We can bring them with us,¡± I said, ¡°but even if they¡¯re okay on the sand, we don¡¯t have enough water for them.¡± We had refilled our supply at the waterfall beside my old shelter that morning. It was enough to last us a couple of days, less with horses.
¡°If we take the road on horseback,¡± Gastard said, ¡°we would catch them quickly, and be less likely to be overtaken in a retreat.¡±
¡°And what do we do when we catch them? That works if our only goal is to see what we¡¯re up against, not if we want to do anything more. It¡¯s not like the lillits could ride with us.¡±
Gastard frowned. ¡°We could take a pair, one with each of us. I consider Boffin a friend, and I do not like the thought of abandoning him to whatever fate awaits them in Dargoth.¡±
It was hard to imagine Boffin leaving the rest of his people behind. ¡°Do you think he would come?¡± I asked. ¡°If we could only rescue two people, I¡¯m sure there would be children out there with them. I might want to get Boffin and Brenys, because I know them, and they are Esmelda¡¯s family, but those are their people. Do you think they would be willing to leave the others behind?¡±
That was assuming we could even get to the lillits. The soldiers would spot us on the road, and they could easily move back to block us from getting to the little folk, assuming they weren¡¯t already driving them at the front.
¡°Perhaps not.¡± Gastard sighed. ¡°I have been treading this same ground in my mind since we parted ways with Esmelda, and in truth, I do not see a way through it.¡±
¡°How far is that way station?¡± I asked.
¡°They are said to be spaced a day¡¯s march apart. My guess is no more than twenty miles, but I cannot speak from experience.¡±
¡°They could already be there,¡± I said.
¡°Then they are lost.¡±
¡°If they stop at the way station for any amount of time,¡± I said, ¡°that would be better than meeting them on the road. Getting through the wall of a keep is no problem for me, and if they don¡¯t know we¡¯re there, depending on the layout inside, we could get people out before they knew what was happening.¡±
Gastard grunted. ¡°Then we take the sands.¡±
¡°And the horses?¡±
¡°We give them what we have. They won¡¯t die from thirst in two days, and neither will we.¡±
Stolen story; please report.
¡°Fair enough,¡± I said. ¡°But I¡¯m leaving Bongo.¡±
It had been nice to be able to ride for once, but I wasn¡¯t particularly attached to my mount, and it would be a lot simpler to take care of one animal than two. The mare regarded me placidly as I removed her reins, as well as the extra water I¡¯d been keeping tied to the saddle. Everything else I could need was in my pack in the form of coins and medallions.
¡°Congratulations, buddy,¡± I said, ¡°you¡¯re free.¡±
Bongo didn¡¯t know what to make of this, and as we began to move away, she took a few steps to follow.
¡°Go on!¡± I shouted at her. ¡°Git! Go back to your kind!¡± There were so few opportunities in life to White Fang something that I couldn¡¯t resist.
The horse swished her tail, remaining in place, and we went on. Gastard made no comment, which was probably for the best, as she would never be able to see that episode of New Girl to understand what I was grinning about.
The bridge was fifteen feet wide, suspended twenty feet above the desert. It was an engineering impossibility. The sheer size was one thing, but you could lift a road of any size if it was supported sufficiently. Redroad was not supported sufficiently. There were pillars on either side of the bridge running along its length, but they were spindle-thin, single-block pillars, spaced a hundred feet apart. It should not have worked.
When I crafted a roof out of planks, they would hold their position even when they were completely horizontal, and I had never tested how far that rule could be stretched. The crafting force could hold materials together, and I guessed what we were seeing here was the limit of that mechanic. Kevin had made this with the minimum amount of material and effort he could for it to still be a viable structure. If you were building something that was miles long, you might not feel like wasting effort and resources on making it look natural.
The sand was hot, it absorbed the heat of the sun like asphalt, and Gastard¡¯s horse obviously didn¡¯t enjoy walking on it. She whinnied, stepping daintily as we went alongside the ramp, getting under the shadow of the bridge as quickly as we could. It was marginally cooler there, but there were obvious heat shimmers on either side of us outside of the shade. Our pace slowed as the ground shifted beneath our boots. Walking wasn¡¯t too bad, but I didn¡¯t want to run in this. The sand seemed to suck at my feet.
¡°Pause for a second,¡± I said after we had gone maybe a quarter of a mile. ¡°I want to try something.¡±
Gastard humored me as I converted a couple of coins into wood planks, and chopped them into smaller segments with my ax. Being able to carry my tools in medallion form wasn¡¯t quite as convenient as a proper inventory, but it still felt cool to be able to produce them when they were needed and shrink them when they weren¡¯t. Carving out notches in the plank segments with my knife only took a minute or two with my Artisan skill, and then I dropped some grass.
While I had only a general idea of how to braid anything into anything, my System made the process feel natural and easy. My fingers wove the dried stalks into thin ropes like they had performed the task a thousand times before.
¡°What are you doing?¡± Gastard asked.
¡°Snowshoes,¡± I said.
¡°Snowshoes?¡± He looked like he was trying to decide whether I was messing with him or not.
¡°Yeah, you sink into snow more than sand, but it¡¯s basically the same issue. I want to tie these planks onto our boots so our feet have a larger surface area.¡±
¡°We are losing time,¡± Gastard seemed doubtful.
¡°It will make us faster in the long run,¡± I said. It only took a few minutes for me to put the snow shoes together. They were not high quality, but when I had the planks tied onto my boots and took a few experimental steps, it did feel easier. Gastard allowed me to make him a pair and knotted them on himself.
¡°Madness,¡± he said, but kept them on.
We walked for hours, as much sliding as stepping along the sand, and the first way station came into view. It was a dark tower connected to the bridge, a lone sentinel amid the empty expanse of the Wastes.
¡°Does anything live here?¡± I asked. I¡¯d seen a few cactuses, but no animals.
¡°Nothing,¡± Gastard said. ¡°I¡¯ve heard there are harpies in the Wastes, and a few creatures of Bedlam, but little else.¡±
Bugs and lizards and snakes lived in normal deserts, not anything big, because there wasn¡¯t an ecosystem to support large grazers and the predators that fed on them. If zombies could starve, they wouldn¡¯t fare well out here. They weren¡¯t fast enough to catch insects or small animals, though it would have been funny to see them try.
¡°Harpies?¡± I said, ¡°Like half bird half woman?¡±
¡°What a nightmare that would be,¡± Gastard said. ¡°No. Harpies are buzzards, but larger and smarter. I¡¯ve never met one myself, but it¡¯s known that they are common in Dargoth and the Wastes. When I was young, my father told me that some birds learned the speech of men, but they could never be trusted.¡±
¡°Checks out.¡±
We kept walking. Depending on how long ago the raid on Erihseht had taken place, the Dargothians would have been well past the first way station by now, no matter how slowly the lillits marched. Being under the road meant we couldn¡¯t see who was on it, if anyone, but as the tower rose in the distance, I noticed a larger shadow ahead of us, as if there was a giant umbrella hanging over the road.
I stepped far enough to one side so that the stone above wasn¡¯t blocking my view, and saw something very strange. It was like a cloud had come to rest on the bridge, with its edges extending over either side. It was thick, a slightly yellowish fog, and as we approached, I began to hear very familiar sounds. Voices carried a long way over the silence of the desert, and so did the moans of zombies.
Gastard¡¯s mount froze when she heard the first of them, but there was no threat to be seen, and he quietly urged her on. I didn¡¯t hear much more as we came under the cloud, but I was sure we had caught up to the army. Dongle had said the Dargothian force was led by a demon, and there had to be some way of protecting the monsters they had brought with them from being despawned when the sun came up. Did this mean they were only traveling at night, keeping themselves shaded during the day?
The cloud didn¡¯t seem to move, but the sun was falling, and it would do so well before we reached the way station.
¡°They are here,¡± Gastard said, speaking in a low tone so as not to alert whoever might have been listening above. ¡°What now?¡±
I could have crafted a ladder attached to one of the support columns to get us up to the bridge, but there was no way for me to get a good look at the force above us without risking being noticed ourselves. When night came, just dealing with the extra mobs spawning around me would make helping the lillits impossible.
¡°What if we took the way station?¡± I said.
¡°There will be a garrison,¡± Gastard frowned, ¡°armed men, sheltered by a tower.¡±
¡°How many people could be stationed in a desert? I can get us into the bottom, then we surprise whoever we find, block off the doors and halls we want to be blocked off, and work our way up.¡±
¡°It won¡¯t be that simple.¡±
¡°Are you saying we can¡¯t do it?¡±
Gastard awarded me with a grim smile. ¡°It will be a feat worthy of the templars of old.¡±
¡°Then we need to stop them from getting there ahead of us,¡± I said, eyeing the bridge.
We continued until we were about a mile past the fog. The keep was still a couple of hours off at our current pace. We wouldn¡¯t make it there before nightfall, but we wouldn¡¯t need to if I gave the Dargothians a sufficient obstacle.
¡°Go on ahead,¡± I told Gastard. ¡°If monsters start appearing before I¡¯m done, you don¡¯t need to be around. I¡¯ll meet you at the base of the tower.¡±
¡°I would protect you,¡± he said.
¡°We can¡¯t afford to spend all night fighting zombies. I¡¯m going to finish this as quick as I can, and we are going to get inside that tower.¡±
I¡¯d given him the Cliff notes on what I wanted to do on the way, and as ridiculous as my idea was, we didn¡¯t have a lot of other options handy when it came to dealing with a big group of enemies. Gastard kept going, and I started building myself a scaffold. First, I dug down into the sand to give it a stable foundation. Using a shovel, the sand harvested even faster than dirt would have, and I hit bedrock ten feet down. It was just sandstone, and I removed a single block with my pick to replace it with what would be the base of my pillar. It only took a few minutes to get me that far, and stacking granite to get me up to the underside of the road was only slightly more tedious than it would have been in Maincraft. I wasn¡¯t interested in trying to hop up to place blocks directly beneath me, but once the pillar was four feet above ground level, I affixed a couple of blocks to its side to allow myself to climb and continued branching it up that way a few feet at a time.
Once I was within reach of the bridge, I started mining. It was fifteen feet wide, which meant that with a stone pick, I could harvest an entire row in about five minutes, including the time it took me to extend my scaffold. A one-foot gap was no impediment, but a twenty-foot gap was functionally impassible until they either constructed a bridge of their own or climbed down. I had no idea what a demon was capable of, but I doubted it would have the same skill set as a survivor.
As the section of Redroad vanished, I began to look over my shoulder at the cloud behind me. It was thick enough that I couldn¡¯t see whatever force it hid, and hopefully, they couldn¡¯t see me either. They might have had a watch posted behind them, but it didn¡¯t look like there were any soldiers posted to keep an eye on the way station ahead.
The sun continued to fall, and I extended the deconstruction process until the stars began to appear. It wasn¡¯t quite a twenty-foot gap, but the fog was beginning to lift, and there was no telling how much time I had left before the first phantom would appear.
Rather than recollecting all the stone I¡¯d used for the scaffold, I catwalked back to the pillar and mined out the connecting blocks that held up the extensions I¡¯d been using to reach the rest of the bridge. Unsupported by the crafting force, they reacted exactly like several tons of granite were supposed to, crashing into the ground below and sending up plumes of sand along with thuds loud enough to be heard from the way station. Human soldiers appeared out of the dissipating fog, and I heard shouts from more still concealed further down the road. They saw me, but they couldn¡¯t stop me.
I jumped off the pillar, and thankfully, the untested Feather Fall enchantment on my boots kicked in, carrying me softly to the dunes below.
46: My Hesitation (Rewrite)
I couldn¡¯t exactly run in my snowshoes, but I was shuffle-sliding as fast as I could. Despite my limited pace, I could still keep ahead of the zombies. They started spawning shortly after I landed, but they were not sprinters by any means. The phantoms, however, had no trouble catching me.
I¡¯d put on my leather mask to protect my face, and I was grateful for it as the first phantom swooped in under the bridge and slapped my cheek with its tail as it went by. With sword in hand, I kept sliding forward, dividing my attention between getting to the tower as quickly as I could and guarding against the next dive.
The phantom¡¯s cry rang high and clear as it came in again, and it rolled to one side to avoid my swing, swimming weightlessly around me. I kept moving, and we repeated our little dance a few more times. It was hurting my progress, and before long, a zombie had spawned directly in my path.
We shuffled toward each other, and I brought my sword around in a wide arc that terminated in the side of its skull as it moved in for a lunge. The creature''s moan cut short, but the distraction gave the phantom the chance it needed. Its small body rammed into my back at top speed, and I stumbled. As convenient as the snowshoes were, they were awkward, and one of them came off my boot as I fell forward onto the dead zombie.
The phantom''s tail spike clinked against the backplate of my cuirass, and I rolled off of the zombie, erratically waving my sword hoping to ward it off. It floated up, and I got back to my feet, ducking as a second one zoomed in. If this kept up, I would never make it to the tower.
The first phantom was rising and falling, its wide, pale wings undulating, threatening to drive into me again the moment I looked away. Keeping my eyes locked on its flexing mouthparts, I reached back for the end of the torch sticking up out of my pack. I¡¯d stuffed it in headfirst to mute its glow, but when I drew it out, pure white light illuminated the surrounding sand and the underside of the bridge.
The Eternal Torch had lived up to its name. It had been shining since we left the mine. As I pressed it forward, the phantom flipped end over end like it was being pushed by an invisible hand. Its partner took a sharp turn out of a dive, avoiding the light. They weren¡¯t bursting into flames, but the Shadowbane enchantment had an effect. I would have to thank Esmelda whenever we got back.
Sheathing the sword, I bent down to tear my other boot out of the remaining snowshoe. It had been nice while it lasted, but I needed to run. The sand sucked at my feet, but I powered through, sprinting up a small dune and sliding down its other slope, holding my torch up as I went.
The Dargothians already knew there was someone here, but I would have preferred not to make my location so obvious. Even concealed by the bridge, there was no way anyone who was looking would miss a light source bobbing through the desert at night. I kept running.
Gastard and his horse were within sight, standing close to the base of the tower beneath a ramp that connected it to the bridge. There were windows cut into the stone about fifteen feet up defenders could use to drop or shoot down at someone approaching from the ground, but no one was attacking Gastard, and no arrows came whizzing through the night. My breath was coming fast and heavy, and my legs felt like lead, but I pushed through, keeping up the pace until I was within a few paces of Gastard.
He had his bow out, and as I came close, he loosed an arrow over my shoulder. Glancing back, I saw a zombie reeling after being struck in the neck. It staggered but didn¡¯t stop, and he fired again.
I jabbed the torch into the sand and felt around in my pack for the medallion that represented my pick. The light had kept me safe so far, but if a troll appeared, I knew it would barrel right through.
¡°Did you succeed?¡± Gastard asked, aiming for a phantom further out.
¡°We¡¯ll see,¡± I said, choosing a random spot on the wall and tapping with my pick. It was possible to rush the mining process by tapping faster, so I held onto the pick with both hands and shook my arms like I was having spasms. The tower was crafted from a darker stone than the road, deep gray granite, and slate. Cracks formed soon after I began attacking the rock, and soon the first block had popped out, then a second. Assuming the army was still stuck on the bridge, we were a few miles ahead of them. The garrison may not have realized anything strange was going on yet unless they had seen the light, but no shouts or alarm bells were ringing in the tower.
If a zombie got too close, Gastard took care of it, and after a few minutes, I¡¯d cut out a shallow channel into the wall of the tower. Making it large enough for Marie to squeeze in after us slowed the job, but for better or for worse, we were keeping the horse.
The wall was so thick; it made me wonder if the entire base of the tower was solid stone. Once I¡¯d carved out enough room for us all to cram inside, I sidled past the horse to grab the torch and placed new stones in the entrance to keep the monsters out. It would slow down our exit if we needed to make one, but we wouldn¡¯t get anywhere if we had to deal with mobs coming in behind us.
¡°Another coffin?¡± Gastard said.
¡°Maybe.¡± If we waited out the night we wouldn¡¯t have to worry about spawns, but who knew what the demon might do with that time? ¡°I¡¯m going to keep digging. If we¡¯re lucky, no one will be hanging around in the basement.¡±
¡°Unless that is where they sleep.¡± The torchlight put Gastard¡¯s blue eyes in shadow, but he didn¡¯t sound afraid.
The wall turned out to be twelve feet thick, and I mined my way through into a darkened chamber. It was a well. Light reflected off of the surface of a large pool at the center of the room.
Kevin had to get credit for his eye as an architect. The internal structure was interesting, the walls and floors patterned with a variety of light and dark stones, and it wasn¡¯t as gloomy and overbearing as it appeared from the outside. A catwalk circled the chamber above us, a place for defenders to stand at the windows, but no one appeared to be on duty. Aside from the well, shelving and crates of supplies lined the walls. Food for the garrison, it didn¡¯t look like it would have been enough to feed a town¡¯s worth of lillits for very long.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Every moment we stood still in a large, shadowy space was an opportunity for mobs to appear. After taking in our surroundings, we hurried to the stairs leading to the next level. It was wide enough for Marie, though Gastard had to lead her carefully, and we found ourselves at a locked door.
Aside from fabric, I¡¯d never tried harvesting something someone else had made. But the door looked just like the ones I could craft. Wood planks, a wooden handle, and wooden hinges. I switched my pick out for an ax, and after about twenty seconds of nicking the wood with its blade, the entire thing converted into a medallion, exposing a short hall and more stairs beyond.
There was a door along the hall, and rather than check it, I simply blocked it off with red granite so we could go on. The hallway wasn¡¯t well-lit, and as I crafted the barrier, a zombie slipped into the world at the edge of the torchlight. It was crouching, its long skin flaps draped over the floor, and it raised its hands toward me like a supplicant. Its mouth opened in a low rasp as it pulled its arms back, unwilling to suffer the light.
Marie whinnied, and I quickly finished stacking the blocks. As we moved forward, with me at the front, the zombie continued to withdraw from the torche¡¯s influence, allowing itself to be herded up the stairs.
A voice filtered down from above.
¡°Was that a horse?¡±
¡°Like hell it was. Let me sleep.¡±
¡°There¡¯s light.¡±
Gastard''s sword scraped out of its sheathe. The stairs curved around the side of the tower, so we could not see its end. But there was light above as well, and it cast the silhouette of a man along the curve of the wall.
¡°Paul, is that you?¡±
The zombie was a lot more interested in the voices than it was in me. It went down on its hands and crawled up the steps faster than I¡¯d ever seen one of them move. Its hungry groan echoed in the tight passage, swiftly replaced by a shriek.
¡°Koroshai!¡±
As I charged up the winding staircase, the clamor from above grew more frantic. The stone steps echoed with the heavy thuds of our boots, the clip of Marie¡¯s hooves, and the shouting from above. Gastard¡¯s breathing was audible behind me, his armor clinking with each step. Somehow, the horse was keeping pace, following without further guidance from its master, holding the rear.
The scene ahead of us was utter chaos. We burst into a half-empty barracks, dimly lit by flickering torches mounted on the walls. Soldiers, roused from their sleep by the commotion, scrambled to arm themselves. The sounds of clattering equipment and shouted orders filled the room.
In the channel between the bunks, a lone, unarmed soldier struggled desperately against the zombie that had preceded us up the stairs. The creature, its skin flaps trailing on the ground, pushed the soldier back against a bedframe. The soldier''s face twisted in terror as he tried to fend off the advancing undead with nothing but his bare hands.
I froze. This was what we wanted. The defenders were unprepared. We couldn¡¯t have been handed a softer target than a group of men out of uniform and distracted by a zombie. But I had never killed a person before, and though logically I knew these men would try to kill me shortly, for the moment, they were strangers in distress. My ax hung at my side, and I felt rooted in place, unable to move.
Gastard brushed past me with a grim determination etched on his face. His movements were fluid, reacting to the chaos with a cold calculation. I watched, my heart pounding in my chest, as he approached the nearest soldier.
The man looked up at Gastard¡¯s approach, confusion written across his sunburnt features. He might have been in his twenties, his skin clear except for a small scar on the right side of his mouth. He was kneeling over a box at the end of his bunk, its lid raised to reveal a folded uniform and a leather belt with a knife still in its sheath. His hands froze over the belt, caught like a rabbit faced by a predator.
With a swift, brutal motion, Gastard''s blade cut through the air, striking the soldier down. The young man crumpled to the ground, his eyes wide with shock and pain, not even making a sound.
¡°Intruder!¡± someone shouted. One of the other men had gotten their hands on a dagger and was hacking the zombie off of its victim. Having retrieved their weapons, three men moved in on Gastard; a halberd, a sword, and a knife. I stepped toward them, only to be confronted with an assailant of my own.
¡°The hell are you?¡± He swore, his broad, muscular frame at odds with a narrow head. His only armor was a sleeping tunic, but he had a dagger in his hand, and he wasn¡¯t waiting for an answer before he used it.
The soldier lunged at me, the dagger angling toward my throat. Instinctively, I raised my ax to knock it aside. It felt heavy, as did my breastplate, the straps digging into my shoulders. It had been a long day, and a long night, and adrenaline or not, I was exhausted.
The soldier''s dagger scraped against the shaft of my ax. He was bigger than me, but not as strong as I expected. There was an opportunity for me to chop into his shoulder. It wouldn¡¯t be a big swing, but his tunic was no protection. I hesitated, and he slashed my arm, cutting deep.
I was too used to fighting zombies. They were slow and clumsy, and didn¡¯t use weapons. The sudden pain pulled me out of my head, and I stepped to one side so that his next stroke scraped across my chest plate.
My right arm wasn¡¯t gripping properly, but I brought the ax around with my left, and it bit into his shoulder, striking bone.
He cried out, backing off a step before lunging for my throat again. I swiped, intending to deflect the knife like before, but the edge of my ax connected with his wrist instead, and his weapon clattered to the floor.
He fled.
The encounter had lasted less than a minute, but that was a long time in a melee, and Gastard was facing off with three men to my one. He had been using the bunks to limit their ability to surround him.
The soldier with the halberd was both the most and least threatening. His weapon¡¯s reach gave him an advantage at range, but crippled him when Gastard closed the distance between them. The soldier tried a thrust, missing by inches as Gastard twisted to one side and stepped in past the head of the weapon. His sword flashed, piercing the man¡¯s belly while simultaneously blocking an overhand blow from the swordsman. He was using the shield I had given him, and the circle of wood absorbed the stroke without complaint.
Letting the halberdier fall, Gastard slapped the knife wielder with the flat of his blade and hopped onto a cot, giving himself an unstable high ground. The man who had been attacked by the zombie was clutching a bite wound on his face and crying. Not an immediate issue. Rather than chase after the one who had attacked me, I focused on helping Gastard. He was on the defensive, fending off two blades at once, but his opponents were as occupied as he was.
I buried my ax in the swordsman¡¯s back, and a moment later, Gastard had finished the other as well.
¡°More will come,¡± he said. There was only one exit apart from the stairwell, the door that my opponent had fled through. Four men were dead, one had run, and the sixth was having some kind of panic attack. A quick look around told me there were at least twenty beds in the barracks.
¡°I¡¯m blocking the door.¡± I¡¯d harvested hundreds of red granite coins from the road, so crafting another small wall would barely dip into my supply. My right arm felt cold and numb, and I was a little woozy. The crying man went silent, and I didn¡¯t turn to see what Gastard had done, but a moment later, he was at my side.
His blonde hair was dark and matted with sweat. There was blood on his face, but it wasn¡¯t his.
¡°Are you giving up?¡± He said as the door vanished behind a final granite block.
¡°No,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯m going into the walls. We¡¯re going to troll these guys.¡±
He didn¡¯t question my turn of phrase, but frowned down at my arm.
¡°That cut is deep. It needs to be bound, and even then, it will impair you.¡±
I didn¡¯t want to look too closely at my arm. It was a mess, and another half-heart had ticked away from the bleeding in the interval since I was cut.
¡°No worries,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯ve got beets.¡±
47: My Barracks (Rewrite)
I blocked off the stairs as well. Mobs could spawn either below or above me, and I didn¡¯t want to deal with them yet. The way station was around fifty feet high, which meant that every floor was a potential spawning zone. Given the light levels present in the barracks, and how dark the well room had been, this place was a perfect breeding ground for monsters. I plopped out my crafting table in the center of the room while Gastard tended to his horse.
Marie had remained on the stairs during the struggle, and her placidity impressed me. She was now comfortably munching on a bag of oats, oblivious to the presence of blood and bodies in the room. It was an enviable attitude.
Soldiers were soldiers, and these men served Dargoth, which was literally the evil empire of the setting. But it wasn¡¯t like they were Stormtroopers, they were simply men who had the misfortune of being born in a region controlled by an immortal jerk. Depending on how long they¡¯d been in his service, they may have never killed anyone themselves. On that note, even actual Stormtroopers were pretty sad to think about. They¡¯d made them all clones so that the audience wouldn¡¯t have to feel weird about the main characters killing them off. But in what way did being a clone make you less of a person? It was a surface-level trick of production that didn¡¯t hold up if you thought about it for more than a second. If anything, clones were more sympathetic than regular people. The poor guys had gone their whole lives without being allowed to make any choices for themselves. That didn¡¯t make them robots, it made them slaves. How was anyone supposed to feel good about killing slaves?
It was with these thoughts that I set about crafting a few extra torches and affixing them to the walls of the barracks until I was sure there were no shadows large enough to allow a mob to appear in the room with us.
¡°Have you killed people before?¡± I asked Gastard.
¡°Not many,¡± he said, casually dragging the bodies into a pile between two of the beds. ¡°Most men will surrender when they see they are outmatched, and it is dishonorable to kill a knight who has given you his sword. But these are not knights, they are Dargothians.¡±
Arranging a few coins on the work table, I pulled the lever on its side and had myself a fresh pick. I¡¯d completely worn through a few of them already harvesting from Redroad. Thankfully, I had more stone than I would ever need short of building a keep of my own, and plenty of sticks to make spares. One of the compartments in my pack was nothing but stone pick medallions.
¡°If we can get them to surrender,¡± I said, ¡°that would be a good thing. They can tell us about Dargoth, about Kevin.¡±
Gastard grunted. ¡°I doubt any of these men have met the Dark Lord. Anyone we leave alive is a complication.¡±
Like the man who had run from me, who by now had no doubt warned the rest of the garrison about us. I tried to build a mental model of the way station in my mind to better choose which wall to dig into. We¡¯d started at the front face, taken a stair, then more stairs, and now I wasn¡¯t sure which direction was east or west. The outer wall was thick enough for us to move within, but the walls of the rooms and subsections of the interior might only be a foot or two thick.
¡°Do you know which way is out?¡± I asked.
Gastard pointed to the side to the left of the now unattainable stairs. ¡°We were ascending along the curve of the keep,¡± he said, ¡°did you not realize?¡±
¡°I didn¡¯t.¡± My spatial reasoning wasn¡¯t the greatest, with my early driving years involving a lot of wrong turns before smartphones started telling everyone where to go. Maybe I wasn¡¯t the best person to have a power set related to engineering. Too bad.
Mining relaxed me. Seeing cracks form in the regular stone blocks that made up the structure was satisfying on a level that was hard to explain, as was adding coins to my collection. You could never have too much material.
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I mined out a hole large enough to stand in and started working on steps to go up. I wanted to keep as close to the interior as possible, so there would only be one layer of blocks to bust through to get to the next level. My pick gave out before I¡¯d gotten much farther, its granite head shattering into dust, and the shaft cracking all the way through. You couldn¡¯t reuse any part of the tool once it had broken.
Checking on Gastard, I found that he was catching a nap on top of one of the cots. The idea that soldiers would take advantage of a chance to sleep anywhere, at any time, apparently translated into every universe. It looked like Marie was doing the same thing. Though she was standing up, her eyes were closed, and her flanks were rising and falling with slow, deep breaths.
Good for them.
I went through two more picks before I was confident that my hole in the wall had brought me to the next level of the tower. Then I stuck my torch at the bottom of the block steps so that the light wouldn¡¯t be too obvious as I opened a window into whatever kind of chamber I was about to be looking into.
One block wasn¡¯t enough, I¡¯d gone slightly off course, so I had to mine out three before I¡¯d cut all the way through.
The chamber was broad, with a single torch raised on a pillar at the center of the space. The light was steady and distinctly red. It didn¡¯t fret like a natural flame would have, and after a few moments of squinting I was sure it was another version of my Eternal Torch. It was less illumination than the chamber needed, as the entire floor was made up of a single open room, but it was enough to see what had happened.
Corpses, a lot of them, dropped like toys discarded by a child. Most of them wore armor, and it didn¡¯t appear to have helped. Their bodies were twisted and rent. A troll loomed to one side about twenty feet from me, munching contentedly on a dead soldier. Its broad shoulder hid its busy jaws, for which I was grateful. There were a couple of zombies as well, taking their fill well clear of the troll.
I went back down.
Gastard¡¯s eyes opened when I came within a pace of the cot he was lying on, instantly alert. His sword was resting on his chest, and he hadn¡¯t bothered removing any of his armor.
¡°That mask,¡± he said. ¡°I almost took you for a koroshai.¡±
My hand brushed over the leather covering my face. It might not have been pleasant to look at, but the tainted leather helmet did its job. ¡°There¡¯s a troll upstairs,¡± I said.
He sat up. ¡°You¡¯re saying the tower is ours.¡±
¡°Uh¡I guess. It¡¯s kind of claiming the main floor for itself though.¡±
¡°Was it wounded?¡±
¡°I didn¡¯t see, but it looked like the fight was one-sided.¡±
¡°They were not prepared,¡± Gastard nodded. ¡°We, however, have faced a koloss once already and were victorious. When we kill the beast, there will be no one left to resist us.¡±
And then what? This had been my idea, but that didn¡¯t make it a good one. I¡¯d seen an obvious goal and went for it without really considering the ramifications. Were we going to hold out in this place when the demon showed up, demanding he return the lillits? Not that I knew much about what it meant to be a demon in this context, but it was hard to imagine they were the sort of enemy that would hesitate to kill a few hostages to make a point.
We¡¯d been pretty lucky so far, but there was no reason to assume that luck would continue. I tended to get ideas and just run with them, consequences be damned, and it had gotten me in trouble in my previous existence. Now I was putting other people¡¯s lives at risk.
¡°Do you think this is a good idea?¡± I said.
Gastard shrugged. ¡°We are here. We are showing Dargoth they cannot attack the Free Kingdoms with impunity. I may have a chance to slay a demon, that is enough for me.¡±
He was a man of clear priorities.
¡°What if we get more lillits killed?¡±
Gastard¡¯s eyes narrowed, and he stood, resting a firm hand on my shoulder.
¡°Our land has not seen open war for many years, but even the squabbling of the nobles of Drom has a cost in innocent lives. At least in this, there is a clear enemy, a clear wrong to redress. I say we continue down this path you have made for us.¡± He squeezed his hand. ¡°Esmelda will not blame you for failure, but it will shame you if you lose heart before the true battle has even begun.¡±
I hadn¡¯t been thinking about Esmelda, but now I was imagining her reaction if I got her father killed.
¡°Do we try to kill the troll,¡± I said, ¡°or use it against the army.¡±
¡°Kill it. Demons can bend those monsters to their will. It will be of no use to us when they arrive.¡±
I took a deep breath.
¡°Fair enough.¡±
48: My Form Still Needs Work (Rewrite)
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49--My Material Windfall (Rewrite)
The stair leading up to the next level attached to the curving wall of the tower opposite the doorway we had entered from. It had no rail or cover until it met the ceiling, and we found ourselves in a well-appointed hallway lit by an everburning torch in a silver sconce. Its light had a yellowish cast, as opposed to the red version below, or the pure white light that mine produced. A magnificent rug, embellished with geometric patterns, rolled out along the floor. The patterns were fascinating to look at, abstract shapes and figures that drew my eye along the length of the rug. I felt like they reminded me of something, but I couldn¡¯t place what it was.
¡°What are you looking at?¡± Gastard was at my back, glancing around like he expected to spot a tripwire.
¡°Just the rug,¡± I said. ¡°Do you know what any of this means?¡±
He grunted. ¡°It looks demonic. Sorcery. I would burn it.¡±
¡°Maybe later.¡± It was just a rug. The hall ended with an iron door with a serious locking system. Gears and pistons and chains out of a steampunk fever dream. At the center of the mechanical mess was a flat copper plate with an oversized keyhole near the top.
¡°There could be traps,¡± he said.
I slapped a spear medallion into my hand and prodded the rug as we went forward, hunting for pressure plates. Nothing triggered, and by the time we reached the end of the hall, we weren''t shot with a single dart or forced to dodge any swinging pendulums. We both examined the locking mechanism, and I noticed a wooden coin hanging on a chain from one of the spoked wheels.
It seemed innocent enough. The coin was attached to the chain by an iron clip. It looked like one of my sticks, only the engraved symbol was a little more complicated. I tapped my spear until it reverted to a medallion, and then removed the coin. When I slapped it into my hand, the result was indeed a stick, though one end had been carved with a series of regular teeth.
Ding.
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[Tally Stick]
Out of paper? Why not jot down some notes on a stick? Want proof of a debt? Notch out the values and split the stick so that only the original pair will properly fit together. If you use your imagination, the potential of this humble item is limitless.
Your Artisan skill is insufficient to craft Tally Sticks. Where did you get this?
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I had some vague memories of reading about how tally sticks had been used as lending notes in medieval Europe, but that didn¡¯t seem to be the use case here. The notched wood slid easily into the keyhole, and once it was turned, the entire mechanism sprang into action. The chains clinked as the wheels spun, and there were pops from the other side of the door that sounded like muffled gunshots as it unlocked.
¡°What was the point of that?¡± Gastard asked.
¡°Only a Survivor could open it,¡± I said. ¡°I don¡¯t think any of the other kinds of heroes can use coins.¡±
The door swung open at a touch, revealing a comfortable sitting room. Lounge chairs, a desk, and a hearth, all bathed in the soft yellow light of an enchanted diamond set in the heart of the stone ceiling. Gastard and I split up to explore. Given the nature of the door, I would have been very surprised to find any soldiers hiding out in the upper levels of the way station. The rest of the doors were wooden and lacked any discernible security features. We found a bedroom, a pantry, and a shaft with a ladder leading to the roof of the structure. Then there was the crafting room.
The Dark Lord¡¯s forge was not as fiery as the pits of Mount Doom. It wasn¡¯t an evil a forge in the traditional sense. A different crafting tool dominated each corner of the room; an anvil, a worktable, a furnace, and what I immediately recognized as an enchanting table. Its body was a four-foot-tall block of obsidian, polished like a mirror. Diamonds the size of my fist sat in each corner, and a leather cover spread over the top, cut in the shape of an equal-armed cross.
An open book rested atop the leather, its pages marked by intricate runes in a minuscule script. The middles of the pages had been removed, perfect squares, as if Kevin had been planning on hiding drugs in there. It was less impressive than the entire chamber dedicated to enchanting that we had found in the abandoned base, but far more convenient. If I was lucky, I could take it with me.
¡°To think this mattered so little to him he left it unguarded.¡± Gastard walked in a circle around the room and came to a stop at the bank of chests hanging from the far wall. It was the same system as the one I¡¯d seen before, though smaller. The chests were arranged around a hopper, and there was a lever to one side that caused them to rotate on a track.
¡°It wasn¡¯t unguarded,¡± I said, ¡°just not guarded very well.¡±
I checked the chests.
All but one chest was brimming with coins, as opposed to tokens or medallions. He could do the conversion, but he had only made the effort for one of these material stores. I guessed that this was an aesthetic choice, everybody likes full chests, and if you had a storage system instead of having to carry everything on your back, the larger denominations wouldn¡¯t be a necessity. Converting coins into tokens took time, not a lot of time, but some, and it must have been easier to pour everything he collected into the hopper and forget about it.
Two of the chests contained granite, red, and regular. He¡¯d also left behind wood, clay, and sand, in addition to a type of token I¡¯d never seen before. It looked like frosted glass, but I didn¡¯t think that was what it was. Both sides of the coin were etched with a snowflake.
I dropped one to the floor.
It was a block of ice. One cubic foot. I stared at it, and my reflection stared back at me.
¡°Well,¡± I said. ¡°That¡¯s something.¡±
Gastard touched the block, and his hand came away wet.
¡°Cold,¡± he said. ¡°I suppose these would serve as a ready supply of water once they melted.¡±
In Maincraft, you didn¡¯t need to drink, and water was functionally infinite. You could pick up water in a bucket, and when you poured it out, it would count as a source-block. Source blocks generated water as game physics dictated, flowing down hills and into pits, and if you picked them up again, all that went away. My buckets didn¡¯t work that way. So if there wasn¡¯t a mechanic built into the System for collecting large quantities of water, harvesting blocks of ice was the next best thing. You could always store water in buckets and bowls, but I supposed this was slightly more straightforward, if still weird.
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¡°It wouldn¡¯t be the most efficient thing in the world,¡± I said, ¡°but there¡¯s enough here to keep a lot of people from dying of thirst.¡±
Gastard nodded. ¡°This is only one way station.¡± His eyes settled on the diamond-studded enchanting table. ¡°He could have a room like this in each of them. It beggars the mind to consider what resources he has gathered in the heart of his realm if he leaves so much behind.¡±
A pair of iron buckets rested beside the furnace, along with another chest. This one wasn¡¯t as full as the others, but there were at least a hundred coal coins in there, enough to keep the furnace running for a long time. We were on a clock, given the looming threat of a demon-led army assaulting the way station, but I couldn¡¯t resist trying one thing.
I grabbed a handful of sand coins and slotted them into the furnace along with coal, and it sprang to life.
¡°What are you doing?¡± Gastard came to the furnace, holding out his hand to feel the heat that was already radiating from its lower oven.
¡°Sand should convert to glass,¡± I said. ¡°He has a lot of sand here, but there I haven¡¯t noticed any glass incorporated in this build. I just wanted to make sure it works like I think it will.¡± While the furnace was doing its thing, I set about merging granite coins into tokens. You could never have too much stone. Gastard watched me with a frown.
¡°I¡¯m going to the roof to keep watch,¡± he said.
¡°Mhm.¡± I was completely absorbed in my task. My hoarding instincts had taken over, and there was no fighting it. I needed these materials. I needed all of them. The sound of a coin being dispensed from the furnace brought me out of my absorption.
It was two coins.
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[Glass Fragment]
Add a touch of class with this fragment of glass. What build wouldn¡¯t be improved by a little extra shimmer? A result of smelting low-quality sand, enough of these fragments can be restored into a full block. Be careful not to cut yourself.
[Iron Dust]
Enough ore to smelt a single nugget, though not a full ingot. You¡¯ll get there someday, champ.
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There was iron in the sand, which was the source of its dark color. The vast ocean of resources now available to me stretched before my mind¡¯s eye. It was functionally infinite iron. The only limit was the time constraint. I could guess that the System was playing off of how copper was treated in the game. Copper ore had to be combined at a crafting table into raw copper before it could be smelted into an ingot. The ingots could also be combined into blocks if you wanted to use them as a building material or ran out of room in your inventory.
The furnace took about a minute to process a single block of sand, but there was no reason I couldn¡¯t have multiple furnaces running at once. It would be days before I ran out of coal, and then I would still have hundreds of logs ready to be converted into charcoal to replace it. But I was getting ahead of myself, I didn¡¯t have days to play around here.
Kevin¡¯s worktable was crafted out of a gray hardwood I didn¡¯t recognize. It also came with gold trim, a set of carpentry tools, and a fancy silk cover. It looked way cooler than anything I¡¯d ever made in ways that were hard to quantify. It wasn¡¯t just the superior materials, the lines were cleaner, and every piece included little artistic flourishes. Kevin had a higher Artisan skill; not surprising, given how long he¡¯d been operating in this world.
I quickly threw together another furnace and got it cooking, then a third. It wasn¡¯t like I would run short on stone. Then I went back to hoarding, merging coins into tokens, and tokens into medallions, before stuffing them in my backpack.
Once nine ore coins had rolled into the dispenser, I was in such a rush to bring them to the worktable that I slipped on the water pooling around the ice block. The excess heat of multiple working furnaces was turning the room into a sweat box and it was melting rapidly.
I harvested the ice, and instead of receiving an ice block coin in return, got a handful of what my System informed me were [Ice Chunk]s. It had lost too much of its volume to return me a full block, but it was nice to know that ice could be broken down into smaller units.
All the iron dust combined into a single unit of iron ore, which looked like a sparkly gray rock with reddish undertones. It was bigger than an ingot, but far short of being a full block itself. I slotted it into one of the furnaces and went back to stealing resources, converting dust into ore into ingots as it became available.
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Achievement: Hoarder (3)
Now that you have collected over fifty medallions of a single material, it¡¯s official, you have a problem. New material unit unlocked: Cabochon.
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The chests weren¡¯t huge, two feet wide by one and a half feet deep and tall. Still, that was enough to fit thousands of coins even when they weren¡¯t arranged particularly neatly. Between all six chests, it would have taken me days to convert them all into higher value units. Nine coins to a token, nine tokens to a medallion; eighty-one blocks, and it was as condensed as I¡¯d been able to make any material so far. Now, nine medallions became a single cabochon.
It wasn¡¯t a coin anymore. It was a crystal, a single smooth, smoky-looking marble that represented seven hundred and twenty-nine cubic feet of dark sand. The gem looked to have been shaped and polished rather than cut, with a domed top and a flat bottom. Hours passed as I converted mass quantities of stone, wood, clay, and sand into a few small pouches of gemstones and a backpack stuffed with somewhat organized tokens and medallions. The furnaces were working overtime all the while, producing glass fragments and iron dust for me to craft into ingots.
It was almost morning when Gastard returned, covered in gore.
¡°Jesus,¡± I said, ¡°what happened to you?¡±
¡°Koroshai on the roof,¡± he said, making a seat out of the anvil as he cleaned his blade with a cloth. ¡°Phantoms as well. It was an eventful evening.¡±
¡°They¡¯ve been spawning up there all night?¡±
¡°Periodically, I was never overwhelmed.¡±
¡°You could have gotten me for help.¡±
¡°I was not overwhelmed.¡± He shrugged, then wiped the sweat and grime from his brow. ¡°Why are there so many furnaces?¡±
I explained what I¡¯d been doing and showed off my collection of fresh ingots.
His eyebrows raised. ¡°So much,¡± he said, ¡°you could make us both full sets of plate and have ingots to spare.¡±
¡°That¡¯s the plan,¡± I said, turning to the worktable to get started. ¡°Any sign of the enemy?¡±
¡°I could see them, but they haven¡¯t moved. There was a mist obscuring my view, but they have constructed a bridge to cross your gap. If they don¡¯t march in the morning, I expect they will be here shortly after night fall.¡±
The reality sank in, and I felt like a moron for having spent the second half of the night gathering resources instead of preparing to defend the way station. I¡¯d gotten carried away.
¡°What do you think I should do?¡± I said. ¡°Barricades? Traps?¡±
Gastard examined his blade in the torchlight and frowned.
¡°The troll dulled her edge.¡± He produced a whetstone, and set to work sharpening his blade. ¡°Do what you can. From what the stories say of demons, some of them can sunder a castle gate with a word. But this one was hindered by a gap in the road, so perhaps he is not so powerful.¡±
Demonic magic was a big question mark. Depending on what they were capable of, they could render any preparations I made moot. A part of me wanted to grab my loot and get out of here before the army arrived. Gastard would have had something to say about that. I pushed away my doubts and started crafting helmets. This would be the last night I wore a zombie mask. Mizu has sent me to this world to be a hero, and now that we had a defensible position, I had a few ideas about how to deal with an army at my door, demon or no demon.
50: My New Sword (Rewrite)
As occupied as I had been by the workroom, I had neglected to search his bedroom. The bed frame was oak, carved with spirals and waves, and time had covered the white silk sheets in dust. Kevin had a comfy study nook, with a deep seated leather chair and a bookshelf. All the volumes the shelf contained were blank, so my initial excitement at the possibility of uncovering new enchantments was quickly dashed. Enchanted diamonds provided continuous illumination, planted where the walls and ceilings met in each corner of the room. Were they torches that had been buried in the stone, or another distinct formula? While I was considering whether to dig one out, I noticed a shadow on one wall where a single pale block jutted out about an inch.
Digging out my spear medallion, I converted it into my hand and used its butt end to press the block. It probably wasn''t a trap, but you never knew. Triggering the pressure plate caused a section of stone to its left to swing back on a hinge. It was his closet.
Kevin had left behind a nearly complete set of tools; an axe, a pick, a shovel, and a sword, all crafted with materials I didn''t recognize. Their handles and shafts were composed of the same gray wood as the work table, heavy, hard, and with almost no grain to the touch. The metal components had been forged out of an off-white metal marbled with gold veins. Having crafted a sword out of gold myself, it was obvious that he had used something else to make these tools, but my System wouldn''t tell me what it was unless I broke one of them down for materials.
Was this repository a backup in case he died and had to resupply? Did that mean he had a spawn point nearby? I glanced at the bed. Sleeping on a grass mat hadn''t changed my spawn point, but I had never tried an actual bed. Could it really be that simple? Not that I wanted to reset my spawn point in the middle of the Wastes, but if it worked, I could change my point of origin to somewhere other than a random field. There was nothing unusual about a Maincraft player setting up outposts as he traveled, but along with the resources that had been left in the workroom, leaving all of this behind for anyone to find seemed like a preposterous oversight.
Still, I would not start second guessing my windfall now. Was this white metal the equivalent of netherite? Diamond? Aside from what they were made of, the tools could have been carbon copies of those that I produced, with the exception of the sword. My swords had blades three and half feet long, and about two inches wide. This weapon was shorter and thicker than that, and displayed a level of craftsmanship that was lacking in the other tools. The crossguard was overly ornate, two bundles of metal spines, and the pommel was adorned with a jewel. It was a diamond, and a mote of red light floated in its center like a particle of dust in a glass of water. An enchantment, but I had no idea what kind of enchantment.
No matter how long I patted the tools, they did not convert into medallions. My mind jumped back to an old notification, and I pulled up my status screens and scrolled through until I found what I was looking for.
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| Hail, rockbiter! Your skill as a miner has advanced far enough to unlock new crafting materials. All naturally occurring metals are now within the reach of your pick. Start digging! |
The phrase, "naturally occurring metals," had stuck out to me at the time. There were metals I could not harvest, and whatever Kevin had made these tools out of was one of them. Did all alloys count as being not "naturally occurring," or was this metal inherently magical? Where had it come from? It wasn''t a question I was going to answer standing around in his bedroom. I wrapped the tools in a bedsheet, tying the bundle with strips of cloth, all except for the sword. It was too wide for my sheathe, so I made a beltloop for it out of grass rope and hoped for the best. Gastard was taking a catnap down with Marie in the barracks, but I had too much to do to join him.
Climbing up to the roof of the tower presented me with a grim tableau, the result of Gastard''s efforts during the night. Zombies were piled along the ramparts, as well as a handful of phantoms. It looked like he''d killed about twenty monsters over the course of the night without me. The corpses were bad enough, but now they were being eaten by birds. The scene gave me a visceral reminder of the flock I''d come across feasting on one of my own previous bodies, but these weren''t crows. They were buzzards, but bigger than buzzards. Condors. Those that were perched on the crenellations looked as tall as lillits. When they stretched, they had wingspans of at least ten feet. Yellow eyes regarded me over long, sharp beaks. They had bald heads, but their feathers were inky black.
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I walked to the end of the tower with Kevin''s sword in my hand, and the birds watched me come. They were croaking and cawing among themselves in a fashion that sounded suspiciously like a language, and a couple of them took to the air as I approached, giving me a clear space to overlook Redroad. The demon''s mist was visible a few miles off, hovering over the road. A rope bridge was swinging across the gap I had left in the road behind them. It was a pretty impressive feat of engineering,, on their part, and bringing the monster''s across must have been an ordeal. The outlines of wagons they had been forced to leave behind were barely visible from my vantage, and the mist wasn''t moving. I had a single day to prepare, and hopefully, to get a few hours of sleep before they started marching again.
"So you guys harpies, or what?"
The nearest birds glared at me, but didn''t answer, pausing only briefly in picking at the zombie remains. I''d always assumed that animals would get sick if they ate tainted meat, but they seemed to relish it. Keeping an eye on the harpies, I stood between two crenelations and organized my materials. There were plenty of loose coins in my pack, and I didn''t want to place the wrong block. With an armful of granite coins, I slapped the first of them against the edge of the roof, and a new stone popped into place. Because the entire tower had been built out of crafted stone, it was easy to affix new blocks, and I set about building a lip that extended out over the ramp that connected the way station to Redroad. Because of the curve of the tower, I had to use a little extra material to create a flat shelf protruding from the roof. It was ten feet across, and I used all the stone I had left from deconstructing a chunk of Redroad to extend it out.
The harpies stopped eating to watch me. They didn''t approach, and those that were in their air stayed well above, but I had clearly gotten their attention. They continued to cough and croak at each other as if they were discussing my odd behavior. Initially, I''d been worried that they would attack me, and I''d worked with my hand on my sword, but I eventually put it back in its loop. The harpies showed no sign of aggression, and my overhand soon stretched thirty feet out from the roof. It shouldn''t have worked, but the crafting force held it together. If Redroad was any indication of how much weight the seal between the blocks could handle, I could have extended the overhang more than twice that far without risking its collapse.
When I walked back to the roof, one bird alighted on the crenelation ahead of me. It was even bigger than the others, at least five feet tall, and it had a ruff of white feathers around its neck.
"You are not the Dark Lord." Its voice was surprisingly smooth, and distinctly feminine. If I hadn''t been watching its beak move, I would have thought there was a woman hiding behind the rampart to talk to me.
I stopped, and reflexively raised a hand in greeting, only to drop it again as I realized she couldn''t return the gesture. "Yeah," I said, "not any kind of lord. I''m just visiting."
The harpy quirked her head to one side. Her eyes were violet instead of yellow, assessing me with the hard gaze of a raptor. "The Dark Lord is the only one who can build this way. How is it you share his power?"
"A blessing," I said. Were harpies pro Mizu? That seemed unlikely. Best to keep it vague.
"A blessing," she mimicked me so perfectly that I had to wonder if she really was female, or if that was just the voice model the harpy used to facilitate human speech. She could clearly do a man''s voice just as well, but she switched back to a female voice when she continued. "This tower belongs to the Dark Lord, and he will punish you for altering it."
"I was going to get punished already," I said, tapping the overhang with my boot. I''d replaced my leggings with iron, but I was still wearing the tainted boots, because they had a Featherfall enchantment that I didn''t want to lose. "Do you work for Kevin?"
She ruffled her feathers in annoyance at my question. "Never. The flock is free of him. There is a demon on that road, man with blessings. The demon will kill you if it comes."
"Do you know a lot about demons?"
"Enough to keep the flock away. Their powers change, but they are all the same."
I glanced back at the fog. "I''m planning on fighting," I said. "Do you have any advice for me?"
The harpy shrugged its wings and shifted its weight from one clawed foot to the other. "You left an offering for us. We are not enemies, nor are we friends. If you fight, kill as many as you can, and leave their flesh out in the sun so that we may feast. That is my advice. We will not hinder you, nor will we help. Tell me, blessed one, are you the one who thinned the veil?"
According to my System, I made it easier for monsters to enter the world just by existing. "It''s not a choice," I said. "They appear, and they try to eat me. I would prefer the veil stayed the way it was."
She made a rattling noise like a crow. "good, good. Then I hope you survive. you bring new flesh into this plane, and we are pleased. Survive if you can, and we may speak more in the future."
"Wait," I said as she flapped her wings. "What''s your name?"
The harpy lifted into the air, and as she swooped by me, I heard the word like a whisper.
"Celaeno."
51: My Leather and Sand (Rewrite)
Gunpowder would have been nice. Without creepers to drop it, however, I didn''t have any ready means of manufacturing explosives. TNT was a Maincraft staple, as well as fireworks, which you could use to fly with an elytra, which was a game item that functioned as a jet pack. The real life manufacturing method for gunpowder was beyond me. It required saltpeter, charcoal, and probably some other stuff I didn''t remember. It wasn''t like I had prepped myself on how to recreate modern technologies before dying. I wasn''t one-hundred percent clear on what saltpeter was, either. You made it from manure, maybe, or bat guano. Something to do with nitrates. In old school Dungeons and Dragons, a pinch of guano was the material component of the Fireball spell, and that had always stuck with me as a funny juxtaposition. In my head, guano was related to explosives.
Still, I wouldn''t have wished creepers on myself for all the gunpowder in the world. They could blow through stone structures as easily as wooden ones, so if they had been spawning regularly, I don''t know how I would have made it this far. In the absence of explosives, preparing to defend the way station from an army of soldiers and monsters required some creative applications of the resources I had at my disposal.
The Dargothian force, along with their lillit captives, seemed to stretch on forever along Redroad. In reality, the column was probably around a mile long, but that still seemed like a lot. The night was clear, and the light of the moon and the stars and the torches scattered along the column gave me a rough idea of its composition. A group of soldiers led from the front, less than a hundred. They all wore armor, perhaps mass produced by the Dark Lord himself, but they came in on foot. That many suits of plate mail would have been a rare sight on a regular medieval battlefield, but if I was Kevin, I would have had a redstone factory pumping out enough iron to supply every soldier in my kingdom with a complete set.
A pair of hulking shapes stood out among the soldiers, trolls, but the zombies were further back. From what I could see, there were more lillits than soldiers and monsters put together. Little folk made up the majority of the column, with squads of soldiers among them, driven from behind by a monster regiment. The demon was too far away for me to make out what he looked like, but I assumed he was the one riding what I hoped was not a dragon. It had wings like a bat, and it was bigger than a horse. My mind immediately jumped to the wyverns the Nazgul rode in Lord of the Rings. He had surrounded himself with shamblers and a few more trolls, as well as another beast I didn''t recognize. It had three heads, whatever it was, and was even bigger than the wyvern.
I was watching the enemy approach from an arrow slit cubby in the main hall. Gastard was upstairs, monitoring the roof. The army stopped well ahead of my overhang, which was a sensible move. My addition to the architecture of the way station made it obvious that the tower was no longer under friendly control.
The wyvern rose into the air with the demon on its back, flying over the lillits, and coming to rest just behind the advance group of human soldiers. A moment later, the trolls lumbered forward. They weren''t as big as the one Gastard and I had killed the night before, but they were still walking battering rams. They''d break down the doors for sure, but I''d made some modifications to the grand hall. Its entrance now included a short corridor with a custom ceiling. The exit, as well as the path down to the lower levels of the way station, were walled off, and the only way up was through a narrow alley I''d built along the stair that connected to the silo of sand above the entrance.
I got away from the window. Torches illuminated my alley, though the main hall was now dark, and I didn''t want to be spotted peeping. Listening to the trolls hammer the double doors, I took a moment to rest my eyes. The day had been a nonstop rush to get my preparations in order, so I''d been awake for almost forty-eight hours, and it was taking a toll. The wooden beam that kept the entrance shut rested in iron brackets, and they held against the first few body slams. But before long, I was watching the trolls come thundering into the hall.
They hooted and beat their chests, looking for defenders to smash, and finding none, circled slowly around, sniffing the air. My alley included gaps for me to keep an eye on the hall, but I was above them, and didn''t do anything to garner their attention. A quick look back outside warned me that the soldiers were hustling in. They were wary of the overhang, but when a demon ordered you to advance, you did.
The aychar was still sitting astride his wyvern. His head was covered in fur, and he was wearing a darker set of armor than the soldiers. It looked like leather. His eyes, large and faintly luminous, settled on the window I was using to spy out of, and I ducked to one side. He''d seem me, or at least my shadow, but it wasn''t like he didn''t know someone was in here.
The enemy charged in, and finding no resistance, spread out around the hall. When I was confident that most of the advance group was inside, I stepped on the pressure plate beside the sand silo and headed for the stairs. My Artisan skill wasn''t high enough to craft iron hinges, or so my System had informed me when I removed them from the back of the wall that opened onto Kevin''s tool closet. But I could still use them.
The ceiling of the little corridor I''d made swung down, trapping those inside behind a stone barrier. The sand poured down, filling the rest of the entrance, and slipping out onto the ramp as well. I took the stairs two at a time, jogging up to Kevin''s private rooms, and shut his mechanical door behind me before taking the ladder to the roof.
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Gastard was already there. He had the Shadowbane torch, and the roof was further illuminated by the glowing gems I''d stolen from Kevin''s rooms before sealing them off. It was enough light to prevent unwanted spawns, though phantoms were still free to appear in the sky. Celaeno had said she wouldn''t help me, but there were a couple dozen harpies circling the tower, and they were gleefully mobbing any phantom unfortunate enough to materialize in the area. As I climbed onto the roof, a bit of monster gore splattered on the stone nearby, and I looked up to see black winged shapes dragging one of the mantas down onto the ramparts so they could better rip it apart.
"Is it time?" Gastard asked, apparently unphased by the violent sideshow.
"Not yet," I said. "Let''s see what he does next."
The demon could fly up to the top of the tower whenever it wanted, but he remained motionless. There were holes in the outcrop that allowed us to watch the ramp. The only other addition I''d made was the giant vat of boiling water. It was a wooden box built around a furnace. Furnaces could hold nine coins worth of material in both ovens. That much coal burned out in about an hour. Fortunately, coal combined into coal blocks, and nine of those were enough to keep the oven going all day, which it had been. It had taken a while for the first batch of giant ice cubes to melt, but the second batch had gone a lot faster. On the underside of the vat, beneath the overhang, was a wooden door rigged to open with a button.
Water did not leak out through the door. It should have, but it didn''t, another quirk of crafted building materials. The demon sent in a squad of soldiers to deal with the sand. When I pressed the button, the result was not pleasant. Human screams were worse than the phantoms. There were about twenty men on the ramp when the scalding water poured down. It didn''t hit all of them, or even most of them, but it was certainly discouraging. I pressed the button again to stem the flow and preserve the tank for a second drop. The men were pulling back from the sand, and it didn''t look like there would be a need for a second dose.
This turn of events sufficiently bothered the demon for him to take direct action. The wyvern spread its wings, and with a few powerful beats, rose. I jogged back to the center of the roof to stand next to Gastard.
"He''s coming," I said, grabbing a shield and taking out Kevin''s sword. I didn''t know whether it had a Shadowbane enchantment or not, but whatever enhancements the Dark Lord put on his own weapons, they were bound to be better than what I could manage. The wyvern rose over the ramparts and the harpies scattered. Phantoms were one thing, but against a monster like this, they would be prey instead of predator.
Its broad head sat on the end of a stubby neck, more like a shark than a raptor or a reptile. Its beady eyes settled on me, and its mouth opened to reveal dense rows of triangular teeth as it emitted a low hiss. Scaly skin, wings instead of arms, definitely a wyvern. It alighted atop my vat, allowing the demon to look down on us from a dramatic height.
"Who are you?" The demon said, its soft voice carrying across the roof. The harpies had gone silent, and I could no longer hear the soldiers from below.
"Lawlimi," I said. It was an old gamer tag. I''d been really into anagrams when I was younger. "This is my tower."
The demon narrowed its eyes. "You are not of this world, are you?"
They knew about isekais. That checked out, considering their Dark Lord was one of them.
"Nope. I woke up on the edge of this desert, found a friend, and decided this would make a good starter base for me. You''re welcome to take your army around. If you want to come through, you''ll have to pay a toll."
"You are young, then. Newborn." The demon''s face was catlike, as were its eyes. From this distance, I could see that he had whiskers. "Let me be the first to enlighten you as to the order of this word. The Dark Lord rules all, and he raised this tower out of the sands. By assaulting it, you have insulted the greatest power in this little world."
"I don''t know anything about that," I said. "But I''ve claimed this place, and you''re not going to take it from me. Who are you, anyway?" We were definitely going to fight this demon, but it couldn''t hurt to do some factfinding first. The lies were a way of distancing myself from the lillits. It was unlikely that he would believe my appearance and their capture were unrelated, but it couldn''t hurt to try. The last thing I needed was for the demon to tell me he was going to kill hostages until I surrendered.
"I am Beleth, sworn servant of the Dark Lord, and thirteenth harbinger of The One Who Knocks. What of the man who stands beside you? Is he a newcomer as well?"
My companion was happy to answer for himself. He had set the torch down between us to bring out his bow, but he hadn''t nocked an arrow yet. "I am Gastard, demon. A knight of the realm, and your sworn enemy."
Beleth licked his lips. "A mortal, then." He spared Gastard a glance and then seemed to dismiss him entirely. "I will extend you an offer, Lawlimi. Abandon this tower, and return with me to Dargoth to kneel at the foot of the Throne of Shadows. The Dark Lord may choose to take you into his service. If you refuse, your time in this plane will be brief, and you will know only suffering."
"Does he have other people like me working for him?"
Gastard was done with this conversation. While the demon was talking, he had casually pulled an arrow from the quiver on his back. Now he pulled back the string of his bow and fired. The missile was right on target, with a twang, it lanced through the air, and would have hit Beleth in the face. The demon twisted one hand into a sign, and the arrow veered off course, lost to the night.
He continued as if Gastard had done nothing. "You have no right to question me," he said. "I will have your answer now."
So arrows were out. My hand was shaky as I bend down to retrieve the torch. This had all been a terrible idea from the start, but we were here now, and there was no going back. Strangely, I felt calm. My heart was beating fast, but my head was clear.
"No," I said. "My answer is no."
"Very well." With no prompting from Beleth, the wyvern spread its wings. Its legs bunched beneath it, and it launched itself forward to attack .
52: My First Demon (Rewrite)
Gastard and I moved in opposite directions, and the wyvern came down between us. I ducked under the sweep of its wing and jabbed my torch in its face. The beast recoiled, its eyes squeezing shut, and then a gust of wind knocked me flat on my back. It came from nowhere, so sudden and fierce that it was like I''d somehow stumbled into a hurricane, and it was over just as quickly. Beleth was doing something with his hands, weaving his fingers in an intricate pattern, and muttering in an alien tongue. The wyvern opened its jagged toothed maw, preparing to bite, then jerked away when Gastard tried to take its head off.
"Sorcery, demon?" He cried. "It will not avail you!" It sounded like a quote. The phrase could have come straight out of the religious book I''d absorbed to learn Sprache.
The wyvern batted him with a wing, and he stumbled, but he had provided me with a chance to get back on my feet. I lunged, intending to ram my sword into its ribcage, and another rush of air turned me aside. It wasn''t as strong as the last one, but the gust continued past me and caused Gastard to spin like a dancer. The wyvern snapped forward, its jaws clamping around my helmet, and the metal crunched. I lashed out instinctively and felt my blade bite into its stubby neck. It let go, shrieking in pain, and Beleth slid down out of his saddle.
The demon moved with startling swiftness, and his hand crackled like a taser as he slapped it against my chest plate. The metal vibrated, heating instantly, and I felt the electricity prickling my skin all across my body. It stung, but it was still better than direct contact. Beleth ducked under my sword and slapped my helmet. The crackle was deafening, and my neck and jaw spasmed. He grabbed my sword arm before I could recover, and the electric assault continued. The iron covering my skin buzzed, and I went rigid. Every muscle in my body contracted at once.
At least it wasn''t a lot of damage. Either the demon wasn''t trying to kill me or he was trying to do it slow.
"Too young," he said, "too weak."
Gastard was going one on one with the wyvern. It was bleeding from the neck, and he had dealt it wounds to its wings, but they were minor. He saw my predicament and turned his back on the beast to execute a perfect thrust at Beleth''s back. The demon''s whiskers twitched, and he twisted to one side. The tip of Gastard''s sword dinked against my breastplate, but the distraction was sufficient for Beleth''s grip to weaken, and I ripped my arm out of his grasp.
The wyvern clamped its jaws around Gastard''s shoulder, picked him up, and tossed him like a toy. My companion landed ten feet away, rolling nearly to the ramparts, his sword lost in the flight. Beleth''s fingers were writing a new pattern in the air as he stepped back.
"You, I do not need to keep," he said, his eyes locking on Gastard as electricity crackled purple and white around his hands.
I rushed forward to attack him, and the wyvern shouldered its way in front of me. My joints felt loose and wrong, and my muscles ached, but I jabbed Kevin''s blade under its wing, and the scales parted. It shrieked again, snapping at me, and I narrowly avoided having my entire arm disappear in its cavernous jaws. With a desperate sidestroke, my blade cut across the side of its head, exposing the skull beneath the skin, and it reared up on its hind legs. Its wings stretched out, vast and dark, as it prepared to leap. Rushing forward, I thrust up under its rib cage, piercing deep, and it lost its strength. The wyvern fell forward, and as I withdrew my blade, it came down half on top of me.
Its weight put me down again, and though it hadn¡¯t completely pinned me, I had to struggle to flip over and pull my legs out from under its chest. Beleth''s voice raised, his words harsh and discordant, and I glanced up to see Gastard rising to his feet. A jagged white line flashed between the demon and my friend, burning itself into my retinas, and thunder rolled over the tower-top.
Gastard collapsed, a scorch mark on his chest, and did not move. I cursed, fumbling to get a proper grip on my blade and scramble up.
"Have you seen enough?" Beleth asked, as casually as if we had met while out for a stroll. "You owe me a mount, but the Dark Lord will reward me if I bring him a willing Survivor." He was looking at my sword.
He knew the name of my class. It was the same as Kevin''s, so the demon was probably more aware of my capabilities than I was. I followed his gaze. The red mote within the diamond on the end of its pommel was larger than before. Was that because I had used it to kill the wyvern? It was interesting, but not something I could investigate at the moment. Beleth had used a full on lightning bolt against Gastard. My ears were still ringing, but he had only tased me. He had to know that if he killed me, I would come back to life somewhere else, so he either needed me cooperating or incapacitated, but alive.
The wyvern''s corpse was between us. Overhead, the harpies were cawing excitedly. A phantom had appeared, and it was trying to get away from the mob. My torch had rolled away somewhere, but I doubted it was powerful enough to do more than annoy the demon. Kevin''s sword, however, seemed to worry him. I planted one foot on the wyvern''s back and propelled myself forward, swinging with both hands.
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Beleth evaded easily, his bright eyes narrowing, and his hands crackled once more. I kept swinging, inelegant, untrained, and desperate. The demon was being careful, keeping out of my reach, waiting for an opportunity to grab me again.
I kicked him in the chest.
He caught my foot. Beleth was faster and stronger than me, a better fighter. His ears perked up, and I could see the triumph in his eyes as he grabbed my boot. Electricity crackled from his hands, coursing over the mottled leather. My boots were to one piece in my set that I hadn''t replaced with iron, and leather was far less of a conductor. I felt a tingle, and hopping on one foot, swung my sword up and around in an artless windmill that would have made Gastard gag if he witnessed it. Given the awkward position I was in, there wasn''t as much force behind the stroke as there could have been, but the end of my blade sliced down across his wrist, nearly severing it.
The demon hissed, releasing me as he jumped back. A line of pink light, like an immaterial flow of blood, stretched from the wound on his wrist to the tip of my sword. The light snaked down the blade and dove into the gem planted in its pommel, which glowed with a new and fierce radiance.
"Holy balls," I said. "Did I just eat your soul?"
Beleth''s eyes widened as he gripped his wrist, and the flow of light tapered off, replaced by the more mundane drip of dark blood. He spun on his heel and sprinted for the platform jutting from the edge of the tower, and I chased after him. The demon would have been gone in a second, his swift feet propelling him in a flash, had Celaeno not intercepted him. The massive bird swooped down as Beleth reached the boiling basin, and her talons dug into his scalp.
He ripped himself away, spinning, and caught the harpy in a swirl of wind that snapped one of her wings and smashed her down into the stones of the roof. Beleth had pressed his wounded hand into his chest, and was casting spells with the other as I caught up to him. I threw myself forward, thrusting my sword ahead of me with both hands, jumping like I thought I could fly like superman. The next concentrated gust ripped across my back, the effect missing me by inches, and my blade poked into the front of his tunic. His leather resisted, allowing for only the shallowest puncture as the force of the blow pushed him back a step and I fell flat on my face.
The gem swallowed another thin tendril of light, and rather than take advantage of my landing, Beleth ran the rest of the distance to the end of the platform and jumped off. Scrambling up, my joints aching, and my muscles sore, I followed his example. The Feather Fall enchantment on my boots slowed my descent for the first fifteen feet, catching me like a parachute, and I had a couple of seconds to watch Beleth land nimbly on the bridge below. His fall had been delayed as well, the wind magic, or whatever he was using, allowing him to drop without risk of injury.
My enchantment, as it turned out, was limited by distance. It had come from a level one book, so there were definitely more powerful effects out there, but I didn''t have access to them. My gentle descent cut into an actual dead drop about ten feet up from the bridge. Beleth looked up in time to see me coming down on top of him.
If I had been more prepared, I would have had my sword in position to impale him, but the unceremonious failure of Feather Fall caught me by surprise. One of my boots hit him in the shoulder, an accidental dropkick, and I ended up on my back, stunned by the impact. The Protection enchantment on my cuirass helped to cushion the collision, but my helmet still rang against the stones, and the sword went clattering from my hand.
A moment later, Beleth was standing over me. The night seemed to darken around him, all but his eyes, which shone as bright as candles. He kicked me back down when I tried to sit up, and I heard the clomp of boots as soldiers surrounded us. The landing had knocked the air out of my lungs, and I was struggling to take a breath.
"You didn''t have to suffer," Beleth said, his voice a purr, "but now I will make sure you do."
Dark shapes were blotting out the stars. Harpies, the entire flock, descended on the bridge, slamming into Beleth and the soldiers alike. Redroad had no railing, and one soldier tumbled off as the others scrambled to fight off the incoming birds. Beleth turned in time to grab one harpy by its wings, but with only one hand, he wasn''t able to prevent it from snapping at his face with his beak.
I rolled over, my gaze darting around in search of the sword, and it was hard to miss. The diamond was a pink flame atop the shadowy stones as I crawled to retrieve it. Electricity crackled behind me, and a harpy croaked. The surrounding bridge was chaos, wings and beaks and blades, shouting men and shrieking harpies. My head was still ringing, but they''d given me a chance to recover.
Beleth dropped a charred, smoking harpy, and a smell that was nothing like cooking chicken filled the air. I slashed below his tunic, the leather of his leggings was thinner, and the blade cut clean through. He yowled, very much like a cat, and stumbled toward the verge of the bridge. The diamond glowed brighter.
A Dargothian charged me, his face etched with hatred beneath an iron helm, and a harp swooped in to seize his arm, pulling him off balance and to one side. I had no idea why they were helping me, but I wasn''t about to question my good fortune. Beleth ducked under my next swing, and his claws came out, jabbing up under my visor and into my chin, but there was no electric discharge. It still hurt.
We were too close for me to strike with my sword, so I head butted him, my helmet crashing into his furry face.
He snarled, ripping my helmet up off of my face, and I took a step back, giving me enough room to swing. His tunic absorbed the slash, and his claws raked across my cheek, taking another heart with them. But he was weaker than before, slower, and with blood running down my face, I jammed my sword through the stiff leather covering his abdomen and pierced his belly. Crimson light poured out, illuminating us both, and his legs went out from under him. Leaning over his body, I used my weight to press the blade deeper, and his mouth opened in a wail.
The light continued to grow, pulsing like a living thing, devoured by the bottomless hunger of the diamond. As the last tendrils of his essence vanished into the gem, Beleth went still. Only a handful of soldiers had been around us on the bridge, and the harpies quickly overwhelmed them, but as I looked up, I saw another squad approaching, jogging in double time, with zombies shuffling in behind them.
I tore my sword out of the demon''s stomach and jumped off the bridge.
53: My Unfolding Catastrophe (Rewrite)
Feather Fall kicked in, allowing me to drop relatively gently to the dunes below. That was fortunate, because my everything hurt. Harpies were calling to each other above as they retreated out of reach of the incoming soldiers, some of whom came to the edge of the bridge to watch me. I moved beneath them, planting my sword in the sand before leaning against a support pillar and digging through my pack for some food. Though I had resigned myself to regenerating on the strength of beets alone, I was delighted to find a bread coin mixed in with the vegetables, and slapped it into my hand.
Soft, chewy, delicious.
While I was eating, Gastard was alone atop the tower, either dead or dying. Being struck by lightning while wearing a metal suit sounded like a death sentence. Even if his heart hadn''t stopped, he was going to be all kinds of burned and in need of immediate medical attention, which I could not provide him. We hadn''t known each other for long, but I had liked the guy. If he was gone, it was my fault. I''d brought us here and put us up against a demon. Now there was nothing I could do to help him but hope.
The cuts on my face closed, and my joints felt less ruined. More food would be necessary to get me back to full health, but as I searched my pack for another edible material, a zombie plummeted to the dunes ten feet away from me. It landed hard, like a crash test dummy, but a second later, it was levering itself up and shambling toward me.
The shouting from above took on a different tone. Someone was giving orders, but other people were just screaming. Was anyone that upset about a dead demon? My elder sign tattoo was glowing faintly. There may have been a notification ding I missed during the fight, but it rarely gave me any visual cues. When my screen popped up, it jumped right into the new message.
| Journal |
Quests |
Notifications |
Materials |
Crafting |
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Achievement: Purifier (2) Tainted (1)
By slaying a demon, you have marked yourself as an enemy of Discord. Entities aligned with Bedlam will actively seek to eliminate you, driven by hatred to ignore obstacles and easier prey. As you know, killing ranked entities can cause spiritual corruption. Banishing Beleth without the necessary filters has resulted in the absorption of a quantity of demonic essence. The elder sign will protect you from some of the side effects of this change, but the resistance it provides is not complete.
You are [Tainted].
Base physiology adjusted: The candidate is immune to all non-magical poisons and diseases. Darkvision applied.
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"As you know!" I yelled at the floating blue box. The immunity was great. Hopefully, I wouldn''t have to worry about infected zombie bites at all anymore, and now that I thought about it, the night seemed brighter than it had a few minutes ago. Under the shadow of the bridge, the sands appeared more gray than black, and the desert beyond looked crisp and clear in the moonlight. So I had been absorbing Beleth''s essence, whatever that meant, though it had looked like everything was going into the sword. Was Kevin''s sword the reason I was getting corrupted, or would this have happened anyway if I had killed a demon without it?
"What are the rules?" I asked aloud, but as always, the System refused to engage me in conversation. I tabbed over to the main status screen.
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Assigned Class: Survivor
Level: 21
Advancement: 67%
Attributes:
Might: E
Speed: F+
Presence: F
Armor Rating: 13
Traits: Darkvision, Immunity to Poison and Disease
|
My attributes hadn''t changed, but my level had jumped up, recovering almost all the experience I had used on enchantments. The listing for my new traits was as light on details as the rest of my stats.
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I was so distracted, I''d forgotten about the zombie.
One of its legs had broken, so it fell down almost as soon as it got up, and was now army crawling toward me. Grabbing my sword, I performed a quick execution, decapitating the monster before it could cause me any trouble.
Two more dropped off the bridge, one of which landed right next to me. I yelped and hacked it until it stopped moving. The bellow of a troll echoed across the barren landscape. It sounded like it was much further down the road. There was a lot of noise coming from up there, moans and howls and shouts, and not all the human voices belonged to soldiers. I heard lillits voices as well, and women and children, all mixed. What was going on?
It hit me. Beleth had been controlling the monsters. Now he was gone, and they would do what their instincts demanded. I slipped the sword into its loop on my belt and started running. It wasn''t just Gastard I''d gotten killed. There had been monsters both at the front and at the back of the column. The soldiers would have to deal with those in front. They were just as likely to be attacked as anyone now that the demon was gone, but what about the end of the column? The lillits would be unarmed, and I didn''t know if there were any Dargothians there to so much as attempt to fend off the horde. Even if, by some miracle, they could band together and fight off the zombies, there had been at least two more trolls, and they would be completely helpless against them. No matter how fast I ran, lillits were going to die.
The sand sucked at my feet, and I felt like I was moving at a snail''s pace, though I was pushing with everything I had. The weight of my armor didn''t help matters, but at least the bread had given me my wind back. A phantom screamed somewhere overhead, and I ignored it. It would attack me when it chose, and I couldn''t afford to wait around for it to dive. Besides what the demon had brought, mobs were going to be spawning around me all night, either on the road or in the sand. By running under the road, I could cause zombies to pop up in the middle of the lillits, but if I didn''t go, it would be an all night slaughter.
It was hard to judge the distance I needed to cross, but after a few minutes of slogging across the dunes, I stopped at a column and started crafting a way up. Placing blocks in a spiral around the support, I ascended as fast as I could, which felt agonizingly slow. Only five feet up, the phantom chose its moment to strike. Its scream was warning enough for me to press myself against the column and face out. I didn''t get my sword out, but I shielded my face with my hands as it rushed by, and I felt its tail whip against my forearm. Half a heart gone.
The manta-like creature flipped over in mid-flight, preparing to come right back. But as it turned, a harpy dipped under the bridge and drove it into the ground. They were still helping me. Whatever their motivations, I knew I was going to have to find some way to repay them when this was over. Rushing to complete my off-brand staircase, I fumbled more than a few of my placements and ended up dropping a handful of coins. The dunes could have them. Zombies weren''t the only thing falling off the edge of the bridge. Well ahead of me, at what must have been the end of the line, small shapes were dropping to the sands. Lillits were being pushed off, or taking their chances with a leap of faith if it meant getting away from whatever was in front of them.
A minute later, I was pulling myself over the lip of the bridge into a crowd of panicking little folk. Someone kicked me in the head.
"Wait," I said, ignoring the pain in my skull to swing my legs up onto the road. "I''m on your side."
Someone recognized me, and I heard my name being repeated in the crowd. There wasn''t any room for them to clear a space. Lillits were pressing in from the back of the line, but there wasn''t anywhere for those at the front to go. Most of them weren''t paying any attention to me, too busy struggling to keep from getting knocked down or off. I stood a foot above the river of lillits, and so did the Dargothians. There had been soldiers placed among the captives to keep order, but they weren''t doing a wonderful job of it, and none that I saw were trying to reach those in immediate danger.
Two hundred yards down the road, people were dying. The zombies were crawling over each other to get at new victims, or crowding around those that were already down. The trolls were happy to smash a few zombies to get to their prey, and the one consolation was that they were stopping to feed rather than murdering for the fun of it.
I pressed forward; the lillits bumping and jostling all around me. The soldiers didn''t know who I was. I could have been one of them, and they were more concerned with saving their own skins than getting in my way. All the voices blended together, and I didn''t see Boffin or Brenys or anyone I knew, but they could have easily gone by me in the crowd. I was fighting the current, and I got my sword up and over my head to avoid inadvertently slicing anyone with from my hip. My perception narrowed to the goal ahead of me, a troll bent over of someone who had been alive only minutes before, of someone who had died because I didn''t think things through.
Getting to the back of the crowd felt like stepping up out of a river. There was finally room to move. The monsters had appeared absorbed with their feasting, but as soon as I was within striking range, they all seemed to notice me at the same time. A dozen zombies reached for me at once, and I started swinging.
Kevin''s sword was so sharp, it made mine seem like a cudgel. In the first few seconds, hands and heads were severed. I wasn''t Gastard, but I didn''t need to be. The zombies were stupid, slow, and I felt like I had taken a super serum. There were monsters all around me, but the blade sliced through them with barely any resistance.
A troll swept one of the shamblers aside and raised one massive, gnarled fist to crush my skull. I drove the sword up under its rib cage, and a dim light swept along my arms. The diamond was burning rose red, reaching its limit. Light diffused, vanishing like a mist. The hulking beast''s arm dropped, and it gave a surprised hoot before slumping down on to its side.
They kept coming, and my arms grew heavy. A lamprey like mouth latched onto my hand, and I ripped it off. Back to seven hearts. Blood and gore made the stones slick beneath my boots, nearly causing me to slip, and I dropped back as more zombies crawled over their fallen to reach me. Another troll was beating its chest a dozen paces away, preparing to barrel through the intervening monsters. My helmet was with Beleth. One hit would be all it took to end my one man stand against the tide.
Beyond the troll, something else moved; the three-headed monster I had spotted from the tower. A lion, a goat, and a snake. It was a chimera. The press of mobs concealed its body, but its heads raised well above them. It might have been even bigger than the trolls. There was no time to plan, or to so much as take a deep breath. More hands were reaching for me, more tentacles, more mouths. It was all I could do not to succumb to the tide in any given moment.
Then there was a light. It differed from the glow of the gem, pure white, and it strained my eyes. Wings flapped overhead, and the nearest zombies recoiled. A torch dropped right in front of me, bouncing on the bloodstained stones. My torch, enchanted with Shadowbane. The harpy flew away.
54: My Zombie Waterfall (Rewrite)
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55: My Homies (Rewrite)
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56: My Taking Leave (Rewrite)
One by one, and then in small groups, the Dargothians gave up their swords and passed into the waystation. They gathered their wounded, and I watched them working out how to pull people who couldn''t walk using the limited supplies they had. It mostly involved blankets. I stood sentinel until the last of the soldiers had worked their way out of the crowd of lillits that were still stretched out along the bridge. They hesitated in coming forward, but there was movement among them, and eventually, Boffin appeared.
"William!" He called, power walking up the ramp to meet me. Aside from looking like he had gotten too much sun, he appeared to be unharmed. His vest was dusty, and there were deep circles under his eyes, but he was as vigorous as I''d ever seen him as he high stepped across a pile of swords.
"I''m glad you''re okay," I said. "You are okay, right?"
He grabbed my arm.
"Esmelda, where is she?"
"She went to Eerb. Gastard came with me. He''s hurt." I gestured to the top of the waystation. "Up there."
"Many people are hurt," he said. "Is there water in the tower? Food? Some of the townsfolk won''t make it back if they don''t have a chance to recover."
"There''s both," I said, though I would have to unblock the passage that led down to the well and the storeroom, as well as make sure there weren''t any mobs lurking, before letting any of the lillits in. "Once the Dargothians clear out, we can try to give everyone what they need. But Gastard is in awful shape. He was hit by lightning."
"What?" Boffin''s eyebrows disappeared under his curly gray hair. Then he met my gaze, and his mouth dropped. "What happened to you?"
"To me?"
"Your eyes, they''ve changed."
I hadn''t looked in a mirror, but I could see in the dark now, so I wasn''t surprised that alteration had come with a physical component. Corrupted by the spirit of a passing demon, one more thing to add to my resume.
"The demon''s magic." I pointed to what was left of Beleth. The harpies had finished their procession, and Celaeno was going in for seconds. "He''s the one who shocked Gastard."
The little mayor eyed the harpies like he was wondering whether they were strong enough to carry lillits off in their talons. From what I''d seen, they probably could.
"Let me get Brenys," he said. "She''ll know better how to help him than I would."
He rushed off, and a couple of minutes went by as I continued my vigil. No more soldiers remained in line to give up their swords. Fewer were left than I had initially thought, and many had already set out on the road beyond the way station. Now that they were disarmed, I could have shut the place off and taken my time murdering them all, but the thought turned my stomach. What they had done was evil, but soldiers didn''t get to pick their assignments, and I doubted Dargoth was a realm where dissent was welcomed. We would take what we could from this place and hopefully be back in Drom before the empire got around to a sending a reprisal.
Brenys had been captured in a nightdress, but she apparently never left home without her green felt hat. It was tilted back on her head as she took the ramp.
"I knew you would come," she said, folding her arms and giving me an approving nod. "You still smell like a dog, but the goddess chose you, after all."
"Thanks, I guess."
"Where''s the patient?"
Brenys, Boffin and I made our way up to the top of the tower. Lillits had come forward to claim the waiting weapons and monitor the Dargothians, but none of them seemed eager to exact vengeance for what had been done to their town. They looked tired, relieved. There was anger, too, but not enough to make them go berserk. The little folk were peaceful by nature, and they wanted to return to that peace, not spill more blood in the sand.
Gastard hadn''t moved, but he responded to his name with unintelligible muttering, and I counted that as an improvement. Brenys took a waterskin from me and carefully helped him drink. He tried to take the skin from her to do it himself, but as soon as he lifted his right arm he grimaced and let it drop again. Swallowing was about all he could manage.
"This is bad," Brenys said. "We need to get him out of all this steel. Be as gentle as possible."
We started with his feet. Medieval knights wore greaves, which were plates that protected their shins over normal boots. Metal shoes were inconvenient if you had to do anything on foot. During a period of my imprisonment where the only book in my possession had been a dictionary, I''d gone pretty deep into the obscure vocabulary pool, so I knew the metal shoes were called sabatons. But these weren''t those, exactly. My crafted equipment didn''t follow the blueprints of what people had actually made and worn in the era of knights and castles.
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The System recognized four armor slots; head, chest, legs, and feet. When I crafted leather footwear, the result was high-top boots. Iron came out the same way, only more complicated, because it comprised overlapping metal bands, and you couldn''t slip an iron boot on and off like you could if it was made of supple zombie skin. Instead, it had clasps running up the back of his ankle that would allow some bands to loosen.
We unhooked the clasps and slid off his boots. Gastard''s eyes shot open, and he grunted. His wool socks had scorch marks around the soles. Once we got those off, the burns on his feet were, if anything, not as bad as I expected. Red sores marked the skin, but the damage looked to be surface level. Brenys and I continued working at the clasps to get the plates off of his legs, and at that point, he was fully awake.
"Wait," he said, his voice guttural, "let me stand."
"Are you sure you can?" Brenys said.
"I was only resting." Gastard shot her a challenging look, and she backed off. He rose, stepping tenderly out from under the shade of the planks, and ground his teeth. "I may require assistance with the cuirass."
After we removed the shoulder plates, he had to raise his arms for me to lift the chestplate off of him. His discomfort was obvious from his expression, but he made it through the procedure without complaint. He removed his tunic, revealing a scar along his chest that looked like a red tattoo, fractal branches patterned like the root system of a tree. There was a similar pattern on his right arm. Brenys spent a few minutes examining him before shrugging.
"You''ll be fine," she said.
Gastard nodded soberly and put his tunic back on.
"Wait," I said, "is that it? There''s nothing you can do to help him?"
Brenys looked at me like she thought I was an idiot. "A poultice for the burns, but I don''t have any herbs with me. He survived. I prescribe plenty of rest and water. He''ll recover if he lets himself."
"Can you walk?" I asked Gastard.
"Of course." His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked woozy. "I may gather my strength for a span before attempting the ladder, however. What of the demon? What did I miss?"
I filled him in on everything that had transpired, and he nodded along as if it was no more or less than he had expected. He gestured at my eyes.
"Those who slay the Dark Lord''s generals are forever marked. You became a true templar before I could."
So it wasn''t just a me thing, or an effect of Kevin''s sword. The gem was still glowing, though it had dimmed somewhat, and the daylight made the glow less obvious as it hung from the loop on my hip.
"Did you make that?" Boffin asked, looking curiously at the blade.
"Nope. Stole it. This place is full of stuff I need to collect before we go. I''ll open up the storeroom so you guys can get supplies for the road, and we can try to get you out of here before nightfall."
Boffin agreed, and Brenys told Gastard she would bring him something to eat if he wanted it. He acted like he was barely interested, and only grudginly accepted.
"I''m glad you''re okay," I said. "I was worried that lightning did it for you."
Gastard gripped my shoulder. "And leave you with your training incomplete? Never. As a squire, you are lacking in many respects, but you have potential."
The lower levels were nearly clear of zombies. Opening up the storeroom on the ground floor involved a jump scare, but I took care of it, and the lillits could shortly make their way down to the well. There was still an absurd amount of resources in Kevin''s workroom for me to collect, so that was most of my day. Coins became tokens, tokens became medallions, and medallions transformed into the colored crystals my System insisted on referring to as cabochons. They flowed through my hands, bounced, slapped, and clicked, as I sorted them into a fresh backpack. Hours later, Boffin found me nodding off over the worktable.
"Are you well?"
I startled, dropping a newly minted cabochon in my hand, and then scrambling to pick it up before it bounced away. The gem was the color of amber, and it represented almost as much wood as I''d ever harvested myself.
"Fine, just a little tired."
"Don''t push yourself too hard," Boffin said, taking in the room. The chests were empty, but the diamond studded enchanting table still had a way of drawing the eye. "The Dargothians are long gone, and Gastard is down in the main hall. Our people haven''t got as much rest as they need, but I think it''s time for us to go back. There''s no telling when more soldiers will come marching down the bridge."
"You''re going to have to go ahead of me," I said.
Creases formed around the edges of his mouth. "Is that wise?"
"There are a few more things I want to do here, and when night comes, it won''t be safe around me, anyway. I''ll follow a few hours behind."
Not long after that, I was alone in the tower. Kevin''s tools were incredible. Whatever material he had crafted them with was as heavy as stone, but they cut most of my harvest time''s in half. The chests, the worktable, and the furnace all popped into medallion form almost as soon as I started tapping them with his pick. The anvil took a little longer, and though I was worried that my skill wasn''t high enough to do the same to the enchanting table, it ended up in my pack with the rest.
Then I took his bed, because it was nice, and why not?
The shrieks of the harpies greeted me as I ascended to the roof. I waved at them, walking to the edge of the platform that extended out over above the ramp. Harvesting the connecting blocks was a work of moments, and after half of the granite was gone, the crafting force holding the overhang in place gave out all at once. Hundreds of blocks, a long arm of stone, crashed down and through the bridge below. I stood at the rampart to observe the result. Whenever the next force came, they would have some construction to do before they crossed.
I climbed back down and took to the desert. Some coins I had lost fighting a troll under the bridge were readily recoverable, but I wasted little time searching the sand for the rest. The harpies followed me, reacting with joyous noise when phantoms spawned as the sun dipped once more over the mountains to the west. Once I reached the support column I had turned into steps, I went back up, harvesting the landings below me as I went so that no one could climb up that way again.
It had been a long few days. Hopefully, Gastard sleep in the saddle as he traveled with the lillits, but I was going to be returning on foot. Redroad stretched out ahead of me, the smooth granite squares illuminated by torchlight. Erihseht was gone, but we would build a new home as soon as Godwod signed off on the paperwork. Kevin was going to find out about me, but it wouldn''t be tomorrow. We had some time to prepare.
57: My Reward (Rewrite)
As I passed beneath the stone archway leading into Lord Godwod¡¯s garden, I had to wonder what his reaction had been to the news of my return. He had said I could round up survivors of the raid, not rush off and face down a Dargothian army alone. He¡¯d promised to help the lillits that returned with me, but under the circumstances, I doubted he would consider himself oath-bound to accommodate the host I¡¯d brought to the gates of his city. At least it smelled nice here.
Lush rose bushes, heavy with blooms, lined the winding garden paths. The surface of an elaborate goldfish pond stirred with fish as I passed by, streaks of gold and orange fins. That was a recent addition. The man knew what he liked, and apparently, having his territory invaded was no reason to stop adding to his courtyard.
A swell of nervousness rose in my chest as I followed the path deeper into the gardens. He¡¯d been supportive enough before, and I¡¯d given him my oath as a vassal, but I had acted against his wishes, and lords didn''t like that sort of thing. The other issue was my eyes. One look in a mirror had been enough to convince me there was no hiding it. My pupils were slits, and my irises had turned a vivid, unnatural green. It wasn''t as if I could put in colored contacts to disguise their appearance, and Godwod would question a mask right away. Gastard had assured me that Drom''s folklore was rife with examples of men who took on monstrous traits after killing monsters, so hopefully the lord would accept my appearance for what it was. I''d killed a demon, and now I had cat eyes. The guard at the garden gate had looked a little freaked out, but he had let me through just the same.
I spotted Godwod rising from an intricately carved stone bench nestled amidst the rosebushes. The lord of Henterfell had a habit of creating the appearance of chance meetings, though I was sure he had eyes and ears all over the city sprinting around to make it seem that way. He turned to face me, the circlet on his head glinting in the sunlight.
¡°William, my boy!¡± Godwod exclaimed, flashing me a broad grin beneath his curly blonde locks. ¡°So good of you to finally make your way back to us.¡±
He strode forward to take my hand in a firm shake that seemed intended to test my grip strength. I squeezed back, and he winced.
¡°I admit to doubting your sanity when I first heard,¡± Godwod continued, shaking off his hand and turning the motion into a clap on my back. ¡°But fortune does so favor the bold. Look at the victory you¡¯ve won for us!¡±
I smiled back at him, unsure of how to take his ebullience. ¡°It went pretty well.¡±
¡°Pretty well?¡± Godwod said, focusing on my face. He lost a beat, but then carried on as if he had noticed nothing unusual. ¡°Word of your exploit traveled much faster than the feet of your little friends. All anyone can talk about is how the brave Sir William broke the back of the Dark Lord''s forces and rescued the poor lillits from their torment.¡±
I''d caught up with the lillits on the way back and given them about a hundred cubic feet of ice to tide them over water-wise, but they had gone on to Eerb while I traveled the remaining distance to Henterfell. Though I wanted to see Esmelda, my intention had been to get to Godwod before anyone else did. Apparently, I hadn''t been fast enough. A messenger certainly could have reached Godwod ahead of me, not that I had spoken to anyone or stopped off at any of the hamlets along the road. The lillits would have talked about what had happened, but news couldn¡¯t travel that fast on its own. It wasn¡¯t as if the people of Drom had cell phones.
¡°So¡you know what happened?¡±
¡°Ah, well,¡± Godwod lost some of his cheer, ¡°the details are murky, but I know well that you did more than visit Erisheht.¡±
¡°And you''re¡okay with that?¡±
Godwod steered me to the bench. ¡°It isn¡¯t exactly what we discussed, I admit, but I applaud your initiative. The nobles of Drom have been supercilious of late, and this will have them chewing their rings. I rebuffed the advance of the Dark Lord without calling upon a single one of my noble vassals for aid, present company excluded, of course. They won¡¯t know what to think, and I rather enjoy that. You¡¯ll have to tell me your side of the tale, and the official version will naturally require some embellishment. Perhaps I sent Sir Otto along with a select team of my personal retainers with you, something along those lines.¡± He looked at me expectantly, and his voice lowered, taking on a more serious tone. ¡°What happened, my loyal servant? What did you do?¡±
So far, I¡¯d avoided sharing the extent of my capabilities with Godwod, but it would be difficult to imagine how I might have accomplished what I had without a miracle.
¡°The force that raided Erihseht was relatively small.¡± I said. ¡°They ended up with a lot more captives than soldiers. When we caught up to them, Gastard and I killed a few sentries, rallied the lillits, and we overran the camp in the middle of the night.¡±
¡°You make it sound so simple,¡± the lord said, turning to look toward the fountain at the center of the garden, where water poured continually from the image of a stone man. ¡°Modesty, it may be, or something else. Did I ever tell you I''m descended from Umberious Rex, that I commissioned that statue in his honor?¡±
¡°I think you did,¡± I said.
¡°It is not an insignificant detail, to trace one¡¯s lineage, that is at the heart of legitimate nobility. Some men are raised up for their deeds, but often those deeds are merely a matter of convenience for their liege lords. Favors and parcels. Trade as vulgar as the mongers hawking old fish in the markets. Not everyone who is high now can prove their blood runs true. If I was only a merchant myself, instead of a margrave, I would still have a claim upon the throne, however distant it may be.¡±
¡°It¡¯s a magnificent statue,¡± I said lamely.
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¡°That it is.¡± Godwod granted me a dead-eyed smile. ¡°They say that the touch of a king can cure any illness, but that isn¡¯t true. Egard¡¯s hands are as callous as a farmer¡¯s, and no magic springs from them, whatever the peasants believe. But Umberious, that was a different matter. He performed miracles, and his children may have done so as well. Reading the histories, it is sometimes hard to unravel the truth from the embellishments. Magic is outlawed in Drom, an old law, and a foolish one. The ignorant claim that sorcery is the domain of the Dark Lord and his demons alone, and therefore anyone who performs the impossible is corrupt. But how could that be true if the first king of this glorious realm was himself a man of miracles?¡±
Esmelda had spoken with me about the law. It was one reason we were bothering disguising my abilities. But though I thought of the lillits as being a bit magical themselves, they didn¡¯t cast spells or lay curses, and they weren¡¯t capable of anything that couldn¡¯t be explained away with skill or natural ability.
¡°What is magic, though?¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯ve never met a witch or a sorcerer. Are there people like that in the Free Kingdoms?¡±
¡°You haven¡¯t?¡± Godwod said, raising an eyebrow. ¡°The stories say that Dargoth is full of sorcerers, and that demons lead their armies," he gave me a meaningful look, "but I suppose that is just what peasants would believe of the dark lands. In my mind, magic is anything that ordinary folk do not understand; the healing hands of a king, or the sword you gave me. A blade like that, it is magic of a sort, wouldn¡¯t you say?¡±
¡°Of a sort,¡± I agreed. His blade wasn''t enchanted, but if my System didn''t count as magic, I didn''t know what would.
¡°That is the crux of the issue,¡± Godwod said. ¡°You have struck the hart in the heart. What is the sorcery we so fear? We have accomplished a great thing, even if it was nothing more than what you say. Leadership is a sort of spell, in its way. But I have it in my mind that there is more to you than that. People talk, you know, and lillits are people, all the same. A man of mystery, Sir William, to have come out of the wilderness dressed in strange clothes, knowing nothing of the Free Kingdoms. Did you know that in the past, when the Dark Lord was at war with the Free Kingdoms, there was an order of knights that specialized in killing demons?¡±
The segue caught me off guard. ¡°The templars, right? Gastard told me about them.¡±
¡°There are many stories of their adventures,¡± Godwod said, ¡°mere mortals, tasked with doing the impossible. Some of what is said can be dismissed as exaggeration, I am sure, but not all. The general populace distrusted the templars because of their strange ways. In times of peace, the ignorant shunned them, because of how their vocation affected their appearance.¡±
¡°Why?¡±
¡°Ah, well. This is only more stories, fireside tales, given that no man has slain a demon since before my father was born. But even men sworn to uphold the freedom of humankind cannot entirely avoid the taint that comes from facing demons. Victories marked the templars even more than their defeats.¡±
"I was worried I was going to have to explain my eyes."
Godwod did something that was very close to laughing. His shoulders rose and fell, but hardly any sound was involved. ¡°Is it true then, you killed one of the aychar?
I nodded.
Godwod''s smile had finally reached his eyes. "I knew there was something special in you, a worthy investment. Keep your secrets, if you must,¡± he said, ¡°but I am not as close-minded as some of my fellow lords. Know that I am pleased.¡±
It seemed like a good time to change the subject.
¡°The lillits, my lord. You said I could bring them with me to the mine, the barony.¡±
His smile faded. "It was our understanding that you would take the barony only if you unearthed more gold."
"I will. I promise you. But the lillits of Erihseht need a place to settle now."
"The other villages will take them in." He waved a hand. "Your concern for them is admirable, but unnecessary."
"Eerb is undefended. They shouldn''t stay there. Given what I accomplished, why not grant me the title now? You can always rescind it if I can¡¯t deliver what you want from the mine."
"Oh, look! There you are." Godwod twisted on the bench and reached for the ground behind us, coming up with a fat brown rabbit in his arms. Mutig munched contentedly on a blade of grass as he was petted. The lord seemed to forget about me entirely as he scratched at the animal''s long ears.
"He''s uh, looking good," I said.
"A returning hero," he continued to play with the rabbit as he spoke, not looking up, "Gent will have even less cause to complain. No one will question why I showed you such favor under the circumstances. The title is already prepared for what we previously discussed. I suppose I could send Otto ahead of you to ensure Gent doesn''t make a fuss."
"And I can bring the lillits with me?"
Godwod straightened. ¡°Details, my friend. We can have all that worked out. The more important question comes next, now that you, and through you, I, have struck a blow against the Dark Lord.¡±
Conversations with Godwod could be hard to follow, and I assumed it was deliberate. Now he wanted to talk about Kevin.
¡°What do you think he¡¯ll do?¡± I asked.
¡°I don¡¯t have the slightest. Dargoth has not moved against the Free Kingdoms in generations. This assault on the lillits; it may have been the beginning of a larger offensive, or it may have been some whim of the unfathomable Dark Lord. We will never know, but I can''t believe that he will look kindly on this check against his power.¡±
¡°The last time we spoke, you said that you had called for help from the king.¡±
¡°I did, and he will send it. Nobles are slow to act when an immediate threat has passed, however, and it may fall to you and your lillits to serve as a first line of defense against what comes.¡±
¡°They aren¡¯t soldiers.¡±
¡°No, and they will not be alone. But you are my vassal now, and you will serve me to the best of your ability. As will those who are loyal to you.¡± He stood. ¡°You have proven yourself capable beyond my wildest fancies, and I am eager to see what else you may accomplish.¡±
I rose as well; our meeting was at an end. Godwod was adaptable, if nothing else, and rather than being angry because I¡¯d potentially started a war, he was comfortable spinning the situation to his advantage.
¡°I''ll let the lillits in Henterfell know what I''m doing,¡± I said. Dongle and many others were still cloistered in the inn at the edge of the city. It was up to them how they wanted to live after this, but they would be more welcome with me than here.
¡°One thing more,¡± the lord said as I bowed, ¡°do not forget our contract. Arm the lillits as you like, but do not make them swords. You are only to craft the sort of weapon you made for me when I have asked you to do so. I won¡¯t have you diluting the market.¡±
I had failed to mention the pile of Dargothian steel we''d brought out of the desert, and it sounded like his informants hadn''t heard about them yet either. Selling them was not a part of the plan, but the lillits were going to be as well armed as any knights in the king''s service.
"Understood. That was never my intention." But I would craft whatever I thought we needed. Besides, the sword I''d made for him was gold, and it was safe to say I wouldn''t be mass producing those in the near future.
He nodded, humming to his bunny. As I walked away, he called out one more piece of advice.
¡°Enjoy this time with your wife. In my experience, peace is short-lived, and marriage becomes less pleasant the longer it goes on.¡±
With that in mind, I was off to find Esmelda.
57.5: My Other Reward (Rewrite)
It was my first visit to Eerb, and as it came into sight, I experienced a sense of both nostalgia and unease. The town nestled in a verdant valley, so like Erihseht, but distinct in many ways. The outer ring of the town was all farmland and grazing fields. A herd of sheep were congregating on a sunny hill a mile ahead of me like a cloud too lazy to fly. It was so peaceful, but that could change in an instant. For once, I wasn''t wearing armor of any kind. My hand clutched Esmelda''s comb in the pocket of my linen trousers.
Our last meeting kept playing through my mind. She had kissed me. Not much of a kiss, admittedly, but my first in a very long time. Prison had not been conducive to romance, and after my release, I hadn''t made much of an effort to meet anyone. What were we to each other? Married, but not really. I was nervous about seeing her again. There were sure to be lots of other women in the world, but I wasn''t worried about that.
Soul-mates had always struck me as a silly idea. There was no one special person for everyone. The math on that just wouldn''t work out. My view on relationships was that you found someone you could stand to be around and put in the effort to build something with them. It wouldn''t always end well, and some people who thought they were compatible were really terrible for each other, but I felt like I was lucky to have a chance to build something with someone like her. I hoped she felt the same way about me.
A handful of buildings, houses and barns, were interspersed among the fields, but the town itself was densely constructed. Ehriseht had sprawled, whereas Eerb was more contracted. The structures themselves were the same, lillits built on a slightly smaller scale than humans. It wasn''t a massive difference, and from a distance, it could have been any other village. But I was only five-nine, and still at risk of bumping my head on most of their doorframes. Gastard had been forced to duck whenever he entered the mayor''s home. Cozy looking homes, tiled roofs and brick chimneys. It would have been a nice place to live at any other time.
Eerb was close to the mountains that separated Drom from the Wastes, but far north of the crossing the Dargothians used to attack Erihseht. It made me wonder if Beleth simply hadn''t scouted the area well, and the fact that Erihseht had been attacked instead of this village had been mere chance. I followed a dirt path through the fields on my approach to the town, waving at the shepherd and trying not to appear like an ominous stranger.
Children played in the main street, too many children. Eerb had absorbed the refugees from the Wastes, but it wasn''t built to sustain having its population doubled overnight. Lillits were working, and others were milling about or chatting in front of houses. The only inn was more of a bed and breakfast with a few extra rooms. They got little in the way of travelers here.
The first face I recognized was Brenys, out watching the kids. She was busy disentangling what appeared to be an impromptu wrestling match between two boys, so I saw her first. Before I could call to her, a lillit I didn''t know walked up to me and grabbed my hand.
It was hard to guess their ages. He could have been fifty or a hundred, with neatly trimmed brown hair and a few wrinkles under his wide-set eyes.
"Thank you," he said, so earnestly that I felt uncomfortable. "I didn''t get to say it before. You brought my family home."
"You''re welcome." I didn''t know what else to say. My name was spreading down the street, and I was getting a lot of stares. As I hadn''t camped with the lillits during their return journey, there were many whom I had never spoken to. The man held my hand a moment longer, then stepped away.
"I''m sure you have a lot to do," he said. "But when I have a home of my own again, you''ll always be welcome there."
"Thank you," I said. Brenys had looked up from the miniature brawl, brushed the dust off of her yellow dress, and strode over with purpose.
"Took you long enough," she said, but there was no bite in her words. I didn''t think I''d ever seen her happier.
"I worked things out with Godwod," I scratched my head, "sort of."
She nodded, resting one hand on the wide leather belt wrapped around her waist. "Let''s get everyone together and talk about it."
"Everyone?"
"The important people."
We ended up at the church, our progress slowed by a stream of handshakes, waves, and one child who very insistently asked me what it was like to wrestle a chimera.
"I didn''t wrestle it," I said.
"Yes, you did. My brother saw you." It was one of the boys who''d been skirmishing in the dirt. His hair was a mess, and one of his sleeves was torn, but he didn''t otherwise seem any worse for wear.
"Oh, well. Then it was scary."
"I thought so." He rushed away.
The church was a mirror of the one in Erihseht, a simple hall with a steeple and a bell. It smelled like cedar. Gastard and Tipple were both there, having a discussion with whom I took to be the local pastor. He had a stole like Tipple''s, but he was rail thin, whereas even after the trial of the Wastes, Tipple still had a sizeable belly on him. Gastard, ever vigilant, spotted us as soon as we entered, waving at the others to look in our direction.
The church looked to be in use as a makeshift hospital, with the pews having all been moved to one side to make room for bedrolls. There were at least a dozen lillits sitting or laying along the walls, most of them in bandages. Brenys and I made our way around a few cots to meet the others.
"How was the city?" Gastard asked. Was he wondering if I had seen Johanna there? I hadn''t, and didn''t want to bring it up if his mind wasn''t on her.
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"About the same." I said. "I stopped by Hoxna''s on my way out. Dongle was still there, but I think he might come here soon. The others should meet us at the mine when we get there."
"The mine?" Tipple looked nonplussed.
"Yeah, it was hard to get a straight answer out of Godwod, but he''s going to give me the barony. We can build a town there."
Gastard''s eyebrows raised. "He gave you permission to settle a town?"
"More or less," I shrugged. "We''re going to do it, and he''s going to act like it was his idea afterward. That seems to be his mode of operation."
"Boffin needs to hear this," Brenys said. "All of you stay here."
She spun on her heel, her dress swishing, and bounced off.
"Where else would we go?" I said.
"Brenys enjoys giving orders." Tipple suppressed a smile, his face turning serious. "I''m happy to hear about the barony. You certainly deserve recognition for what you''ve done. But can that land support all of us?"
"I can make it support us." Survivor may have not been the best class for fighting demons, but it would be hard to come up with a combination of abilities that would be better suited to town-building. Carving out a space for myself alone in the wilderness hadn''t been all bad, but I looked forward to being a part of a community.
"Feeding a village is a tall order," Tipple said, "even for you."
Gastard nodded. "We will need to ensure you adhere to a strict training schedule. It will be easy to forget what is most important if you spend all day in the fields."
Feeding people struck me as important, but he had a point. War would come eventually, and harvesting endless crops of fast-growing carrots and wheat would not prepare me to take on the next demon.
"You can bop me on the head whenever I miss a lesson."
"You will not be missing them." Gastard''s mouth firmed into a hard line. "I will bop you before you do."
The other pastor was hovering in the background, and he chose that moment to introduce himself. His name was Woffin, which I did not laugh about, and he had a lot to say regarding the significance of my being chosen as a hero and how gracious and wise it showed Mizu to be. It mostly went over my head, as my thoughts had turned to Esmelda''s impending arrival. Brenys returned with the mayor and his daughter after only a few minutes, sparing us from any further sermonizing.
She practically threw herself at me. Almost as soon as I turned at the sound of the opening door, her arms were around my waist and her face had pressed against my chest. It caught me off guard. Esmelda had always been more reserved than that, but saving her entire village from servitude at the hands of the Dark Lord must have won me an awful lot of gold stars in her book.
"Hey," I said, very much enjoying the feeling of her body against mine. "It''s good to see you, too."
She stepped away; her face reddening slightly. "I thought you would return straight away, but you went to Henterfell first."
"I needed to make sure he heard the right version of the story." Brenys was grinning, I wasn''t sure why, and Boffin had come in just behind his daughter. He looked better than he had in the Wastes, but the experience had aged him, and there were still deep shadows underneath his sharp, gray eyes.
"I''m glad he didn''t see fit to chastise you for taking action without him," Boffin said. "Is it true that he is making you a baron?"
"It is. He was leaning in that direction anyway after I brought him a gold sword, I think, but the situation with Dargoth put us on a fast track for promotion. It would have looked weird if he didn''t promote me. He''s going with the version of history that says he sent me and some men-at-arms to stop Kevin from taking you all away. Having me as a returning hero is more politically convenient than having me as a renegade vassal."
Boffin frowned, unready to take the gift at face-value. "Can you tell me everything he said?"
We moved the reunion into Woffin''s study, and I went through my meeting with Godwod for them as well as I could recall it. There wasn''t much additional information to share. The Margrave had promised he would have me added to the official records of the peerage within a few days, as well as send along a messenger with documents I could use as proof. I was still expected to provide him with gold, and he could always rescind his favor at a later date, but I didn''t feel as if he planned to throw me to the wayside in the near future. Godwod would always do whatever he believed would benefit him the most. It made him trustworthy, sort of. Predictable, at least.
Boffin filled me in on what the last few days had been like for the lillits of Erihseht. A lot of them had relatives in Eerb, and would stay, but he thought most of the townsfolk would follow me almost anywhere after what had happened in the Wastes. Building a village from scratch was a tremendous undertaking, but he seemed excited by the prospect, and was soon reeling off a laundry list of what we would need and who could help and how.
Woffin''s study had a single window, and when the light began to deepen, I stood. Whatever else was going on, we couldn''t forget the danger my presence would pose as soon as night arrived. We said our goodbyes, agreeing to gather for a planning session in the morning, and Esmelda accompanied me outside. We stood under the shadow of the steeple, the scent of wood-smoke in the air, and I gave her back her comb.
"I wasn''t going to ask," she said, putting up her hair. "I was worried you might have lost it."
"Never."
Her eyes softened, and a slight smile played around the edges of her mouth.
"I''m keeping the lotus you carved me."
"Is that what it was?"
"You''re the one who made it," she laughed. "You don''t know?"
I held her hand, small and warm in mine.
"I''m sorry I can''t spend more time with you," I said.
"I''ve been thinking about that," she looked toward the falling sun. "It does seem strange for a husband and wife to always part when evening comes."
"We can build an actual house when we get where we''re going," I said. "Something solid. Troll-proof." It was nice to hear that she had been considering living with me. It made sense in the long-term. I just hadn''t thought we were there yet.
"A proper home would be best," she said, meeting my eyes. "But for tonight, a simple shelter will do. It wouldn''t be the first time we shared a coffin."
My heart kicked up a notch. She wasn''t necessarily suggesting anything amorous. Our first night together had been entirely chaste, after all. But there was a chance.
"I stole Kevin''s bed."
Her mouth dropped open, her expression one of absolute delight. "You stole the Dark Lord''s bed?"
"It''s pretty comfortable." As I general rule, I tried not to think about sex. It was a habit from the seemingly endless period in my life when it simply hadn''t been an option. When I was younger, sure, I''d been pretty salty about conjugal visits not being a thing in the state where I was incarcerated. As the years went on, however, I became thoroughly resigned to my involuntary celibacy. It wasn''t a big deal if you didn''t make a big deal out of it. There were a thousand things I had missed having a lot more than sex.
She shifted closer to me, her gaze narrowing in a way that caused me to temporarily forget how to breathe. How did she always smell like flowers? I definitely didn''t smell like flowers.
"I will be the judge of that," she said.
Okay, Will. Do not ruin this. It''s probably still not going to happen. You''re making progress. Chill.
We left Eerb together, heading for the mountain. There weren''t any farms in the foothills, so it was the fastest route to getting away from people. The sun was warm on our backs, and there was time enough for me to throw up a stone A-Frame substantial enough to accommodate the bed. I finally remembered to ask Esmelda what her favorite food was. Apparently, it was apples. That boggled my mind a little. So much so that I forgot to be nervous.
It happened.
58: My Barony (Rewrite)
My barony stretched out before us, a mosaic of rocky soil and sparse vegetation broken up by irregular chunks of forest. The border march was broad and mostly undeveloped. Gent''s lands were sizeable, but he had done little with them apart from building a manor for himself and commission a low-yield mine. About an hour''s ride from where we were going to settle, there was a hamlet full of people I¡¯d never met, but who were soon going to be paying me a tithe. I had wondered how a kingdom could exist for hundreds of years without its populations spreading out and taking over every available territory, but I supposed most people just did their best to eke out a living wherever they were. The ridge around the mine was too rocky for farming, and the only local development was the set of shacks that had housed the laborers. Gent was sure to give me trouble at some point, but from what I had heard, Otto had made the new hierarchy clear.
I estimated that there were about a thousand lillits trailing behind me. Boffin had been trying to take a census as we traveled, and it was a work in progress. People were still unaccounted for from the raid and what had happened in the Wastes, and an appreciable number of the residents of Eerb had volunteered to be a part of the founding of a new town. They brought supplies with them, though we were a long way off from being self-sufficient. A stream ran relatively close to the mine. It wasn''t broad enough to satisfy a group of our size, but it was something, and I could see about digging a few wells for the long-term.
¡°It¡¯s hard to know where to start,¡± Esmelda said, leaning into my arm. While we hadn''t discussed our relationship status, she''d been increasingly affectionate in the days since my return. While what had happened the first night out of Eerb had thus far been a singular event, I was doing my level best not to be weird about it or push too hard to make it a regular thing. I was happy, she seemed happy, and there was a lot of work to do. We could proceed at whatever pace she wanted. I would have said we were dating if we weren''t technically well past that.
Legally, we were married, and most of the lillits were stoked about it. They saw me as a hero, not just for the skills their goddess had blessed me with, but because of what I had done. No one, apart from me, blamed me for the deaths on the bridge, at least not to my face. I still occasionally caught Boffin wearing a disgruntled expression when he saw us together, but that lingering sourness likely had more to with the circumstances of our marriage rather than the fact. We hadn''t asked for his approval, and he wouldn''t have given it if we had, but here we were.
Esmelda''s words emphasized the enormous nature of the task at hand. Boffin had drawn up some plans for the layout of the town, but he wasn''t familiar with the land or its requirements. Under normal circumstances, a group like ours wouldn¡¯t survive long enough to get established out here without substantial outside support. There were just too many people to live off nature. Fortunately, though the Survivor System wasn¡¯t ideal for slaying dragons, it was tailor made for town building. By this point, the lillits all knew what I was capable of, as well as the drawback that came with my blessings.
Sequestering myself in the evenings was now standard procedure. We''d spent a few days in Eerb preparing for the migration, and I had left well before dark to ensure the lillits weren''t in danger from mobs. Esmelda had come with me on my first night back, but otherwise, she had stayed in town. All the Eternal Torches and gems I''d liberated from the Way Station were well short of what was required to prevent spawns entirely, and even with a hundred more, phantoms could still appear in the sky. Fortunately, we had the harpies to keep the airborne mobs in check.
The lillit''s reactions to having giant black birds following me around were mixed. On one hand, their presence added to the mystique of my being a chosen champion of the goddess. On the other, there was some concern that the harpies would start snatching babies when they got hungry. My assurances that their favorite food was monsters had done little to assuage those fears. Celaeno and Esmelda had a lengthy chat, and seemed to have taken to each other. Celaeno expressed a general disinterest in lillit flesh and promised the flock would not prey on the livestock or populace of our community. Not all the harpies could speak, and those that did knew only Kevinian and their own language, which was unintelligible to non-birds. But they weren''t animals, and I was confident that their matriarch could prevent the flock from causing and serious trouble.
¡°I know you want to do everything yourself,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°but you don¡¯t have to. Everyone here has skills they can contribute.¡±
¡°I know,¡± I said, ¡°I can¡¯t be everywhere, and I¡¯m going to waste a lot of time just managing spawns.¡± I glanced up at the sky. We''d arrived with the sun high overhead, bathing the rocky ridge in light. ¡°We¡¯ve got a few hours today, at least. So what do I do first?¡±
¡°There are hundreds of lillits here who can help with construction, if they have the materials and tools to do so. Even you can¡¯t build as fast as all of them together.¡± She made a face when she noticed my grin at the implied challenge. ¡°Well, not faster, I mean. For now, give them what they need to get to work, and focus on farming. We¡¯re rationing as well as we can, but it¡¯s all going to be gone in a week. Lack of shelter isn¡¯t the most pressing issue. We can survive a little rain, and the first snow won¡¯t be for months yet. Eerb is helping, but how much food do you think Godwod would lend?"
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¡°Not enough,¡± I said. ¡°Can you and Boffin get this place organized while I work on the food situation?¡±
¡°It¡¯s a deal,¡± she said, holding out her hand for me to shake. ¡°Shall we discuss my share of the profits?¡±
¡°You¡¯re silly,¡± I said. I took her hand and pulled her into an embrace. Dongle had been talking about loaning us funds from what I assumed was a stash of buried treasure, and he''d come prepared with a timetable for repayment and potential profit sharing from the mine. As much as he was a fan of mine, he was a bigger fan of money, and he desperately wanted to rebuild his business. Esmelda and I held each other a little longer, and then I walked over to the shacks beside the mine to provide tools and supplies for the workers. She ran off to talk with the other influential lillits hoping to get everyone on the same page as far as the division of labor went.
Watching the sun, it seemed to take me about an hour to completely break down a single cabochon into all its original component materials. The cabochon had to be broken into medallions, the medallions into tokens, and the tokens into coins. It was a ridiculous exercise, and after a few minutes, I started throwing them down with both hands, looking like a crazy person imitating a windmill. Of course, the onlookers could see that I wasn¡¯t crazy, because I was performing a very peculiar kind of magic; multiplying coins.
If I was going to do the absolute best I could for the lillits, then I could no longer waste time hiding my advantages from them. After what had happened at the way station, I felt I could trust them not to run to Henterfell or King Egard and start telling tales, but eventually, the people of Drom were going to hear about me and know that I was magic. It was something we would have to deal with down the road.
There were gasps when logs started popping into existence where I threw the coins, and a crowd of lillits who probably had better things to do gathered to watch. I didn¡¯t bother trying to be orderly or to build anything. This was just to provide wood for construction to begin. Once I had surrounded myself with logs, I made a crafting table. The way station had left me with a ready supply of granite, wood, clay, and iron rich sand, as well as actual iron. It was more than enough to get the ball rolling for a little town building.
After placing the table, I produced iron axes and shovels, a dozen of each.
A pair of middle-aged lillits were taking in the process with growing consternation. They stood side by side, muttering to each other. The man on the left was taller, and from his proportions could have been easily mistaken for a human. A thick mustache shaded his mouth, and it looked like he was chewing on it. The other man was the most muscular lillit I''d ever seen, with broad shoulders and bulging arms, though he was only about four feet tall.
¡°This is how you craft?¡± He said, mouth gaping. ¡°This isn¡¯t smithing, it¡¯s...it¡¯s blasphemy!¡±
I paused. ¡°Blasphemy against what?¡±
¡°Decency!¡± He shouted. ¡°I dedicated my entire life to the craft, and you¡¯re, you¡¯re throwing coins at a table!¡±
The mustached lillit sighed and took the other man¡¯s shoulder in a firm grip. ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter how it gets done,¡± he said. ¡°Matters that it gets done.¡±
¡°It does matter!¡± The first replied, mortally offended. ¡°This isn¡¯t the way you smith.¡±
Now that I was paying attention, I was certain we''d been introduced before, but I couldn''t remember his name. Had he been at the church when Esmelda and I got Tipple to sign off on our union?
"Sorry," I said, "Who are you guys again?"
The mustached lillit stepped forward to firmly shake my hand. "Perrin Perrinson," he said, "master carpenter. I''ll be making sure all those logs are put to good use."
"Duad," the other said. "I ran the forge in Erihseht."
"I''m glad you''re both here," I tried to reassure him. "It''s not a competition. Your skills are more necessary than ever."
¡°For what?¡± He threw up his arms. ¡°You could produce as many tools in an hour as my shop did in a year.¡±
¡°It¡¯s like you said,¡¯¡¯ I gestured at my table, ¡°this isn¡¯t smithing. I¡¯m not an artisan. I¡¯ve got particular things I can make, and I can make a lot of them, really fast, but I will not spend the rest of my life focusing on putting every smith in Drom out of business. Your skill matters, and you can teach others, which is something I can¡¯t do. This is to get us started, but I¡¯ve got ten other jobs, and what I really need to be doing is the things no one else can.¡±
Quad shook his head, looking at my shovels like they were a pile of venomous snakes. ¡°And what¡¯s that?¡±
¡°Farm.¡±
They both looked at me like they were sure they hadn¡¯t heard me correctly.
¡°We have farmers,¡± Perrin said.
¡°And they can take over for me when it¡¯s set up." I looked over the pile of resources I''d deposited so far. "Boffin''s talked to you about what to build first, right? Do you mind just putting together frames for now? When I come back tomorrow, I¡¯ll give you a bunch of clay and stone. But this is taking too long. I need to put some distance between me and the camp before nightfall.¡±
The mustached lillit gave me a serious nod. I had a feeling he was as offended by my methods as the smith was, but he knew he wasn''t out of a job. ¡°I¡¯ll do what I can.¡±
Waving goodbye to the lillits, I took my backpack, weapons, and a few torches due north of the mine. Black shapes followed me in the sky, as comforting as they were ominous. After I¡¯d gone a few miles, the lillits were well out of sight behind the ridge, and I picked out a nice-looking meadow to be the site of my mega farm.
A single torch in an open space provided about fifteen feet of relative safety. I''d added Shadowbane to all my Eternal Torches, and I was confident in the protection they afforded me, though I would still have to be careful around trolls. I crafted a pole fifteen logs high with sticks jutting out from the sides that I could use to climb up, then planted a torch on top. I¡¯d brought two more with me, having left the rest behind with the lillits, and I added matching pillars to house those. Each pole was ten paces apart, creating a roughly triangular zone of illumination for me to work within, and the extra height would keep the phantoms from swooping in at me when I wasn¡¯t looking. The next step was putting together another crafting table, producing yet more logs, and converting them into planks to fence myself within the pillars. It was going to be a long night.
59: My Election (Rewrite)
The spawns began as I was hoeing. Zombies shuffled around the edges of the light, and phantoms circled above. I ignored them, tapping away at the earth with my tool, which exploded the grass as it went and soon left me with close to three hundred square feet of soon to be vegetable rows. The people of Eerb had been more than happy to supply me with seeds, and I set about planting cabbages.
After the first plot was done, I moved to the edge of the enclosure and drew my sword to stab a shambler in its yawning mouth before slipping through the fence and starting on a shelter. I went with red granite, the building material Kevin had been so fond of, and soon had myself a nice stone cube to spend the rest of the night in. It took longer than it should have, as I had to pause to fend off the more aggressive shamblers, but the torches effectively kept most of them back.
It was difficult to predict how many mobs would spawn over the course of a night. The rate at which they appeared varied, and with the way they despawned, I could never get an exact count. I was just about to put a roof on my shelter when a troll came into being in the middle of my plot.
The torches created a sphere of protected space, but being that I had eyeballed the measurements, and with the height of the poles, there had been a dim zone at the exact center of my triangle. It wasn¡¯t dark; the light was just weaker there. My experience had always been that monsters slipped into the world through shadows, and I hadn¡¯t thought that a merely less bright spot would be enough to cause a problem.
Apparently, I had been wrong.
The troll didn¡¯t look comfortable. It crouched low to the ground, hemmed in on all sides by punishing light, and it was one of the smallest examples of the species I had ever seen, maybe eight feet tall. It looked right at me; small, furious eyes set in a canine face. Its oversized paws raked the ground, and I cried out in dismay.
¡°My cabbages!¡±
I slipped back through the fence, brandishing Kevin''s sword, and the monster hooted angrily. Its gaze was pure murder, but the light had it rooted to one spot.
¡°Complain all you want,¡± I said. ¡°You did this to yourself.¡±
I moved in to stab it, and the monster twisted so that my blade sank into the flesh of its shoulder. The troll roared, and its arm swept out, catching me in the side and tossing me across the enclosure. My cuirass absorbed the brunt of the blow, but it wasn¡¯t a fun experience. I was just glad I''d made a habit of wearing it.
I got back to my feet, coughed a bit, and went at it again. This time I was more careful, and when it swiped at me, I cut its hand. It pressed itself through the light to get to me, and I backed up a step. We spent the next few minutes going back and forth, adding nick after nick to its leathery hide. Even though my armor gave me some protection, if it hit me in the head or grabbed me and drew me in, it could easily mean another death and losing time the lillits couldn¡¯t afford. As its wounds multiplied, the troll grew increasingly willing to brave the light. That was fine by me. The more it exposed itself to the torchlight, the weaker it would be.
Its legs bunched under it, and I realized it was going to lunge. When it came forward, I dodged to one side and brought my sword down into its muscular neck. It hooted, overcome by rage and pain, and I barely ducked under an incoming backhand before retreating. Blood was pouring freely from its neck, and rather than continue its pursuit, it fled back to the relative safety of the dim center of the plot and squatted, wobbling in place. Its long snout dipped, and it collapsed onto its side, breathing heavily. A thin trail of its essence slipped from its wound along with the blood, drawn toward the gem in the pommel of my blade.
I almost felt bad for it.
Eventually, it died, and I set about lowering the torch poles so that the light over the plot was stronger. Shamblers had assembled along the fence like spectators at a bullfight while I harvested the troll''s hide and meat. Trying not to think about what time it was, I used the hoe to fix up my garden and slipped back into my shelter to finish the roof.
The cube was open on the side where it pressed up against the enclosure, allowing light to flow inside. It was necessary to discourage spawns, but I could have seen well enough to work without it. Demon eyes, and all that. It was getting to be time for a nap, and now I had a proper bed to have it on. Unlike in the game, sleeping on a bed did not reset my spawn point, or if it did, my screens hadn''t given me a notification about it. Still, the bed I had taken from the way station was a vast improvement over the grass mats I had used in the past, even if it didn''t come with any System related benefits.
********
When I returned to the mine in the morning, I found Esmelda, Boffin, and Dongle Darfur embroiled in an argument. The fat, former jeweler was waving his arms as he berated Boffin, who was taking the tirade stoically. Esmelda was standing with her arms crossed over her chest, tapping her foot and clearly annoyed. Dongle¡¯s son, Quentin, was nearby, slightly to one side and looking embarrassed.
¡°What¡¯s up?¡± I said, and Dongle caught himself in mid gesture.
¡°Excellent,¡± he said, ¡°now that you are here, we can talk some sense into the Mayor.¡±
¡°It¡¯s Dongle who doesn¡¯t have any sense,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°He wants to go hunting for jewels.¡±
¡°It isn¡¯t a hunt!¡± Dongle insisted. ¡°I know where they are.¡±
¡°Erihseht was raided,¡± I said. ¡°Whatever you had in your shop is gone.¡±
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¡°These were hidden,¡± Dongle rounded on me, confirming my suspicion that he had buried treasure. ¡°My private store. We need resources, don¡¯t we? They want me to help in the construction of a barn.¡± He gestured at the frame of a longhouse that was already rising near the ridge. ¡°It¡¯s a failure of imagination. Look at these hands, a jeweler¡¯s hands, we cannot waste them on mere carpentry.¡±
It was probably for the best that Perrin wasn¡¯t around to hear him say that. The mustached lillit was already directing a crew who were sawing and chopping and notching my logs for better use in their construction.
¡°We all have to contribute,¡± Boffin said.
¡°That¡¯s what I¡¯m telling you.¡± Dongle said. ¡°Allow me and Quentin to go find my savings, and we can purchase more supplies from Henterfell. That¡¯s my contribution. Let us take a small group, a few horses, food for the road, and we¡¯ll be back in a week with enough to feed a village.¡±
How much money did this man have buried? Regardless, he had a point. One or two more pairs of hands wasn¡¯t what we needed now. While Esmelda and I could poke fun at his desire for profit, I was more than willing to pay for his help. There was more gold sealed under the mine than he would have seen in a lifetime as a jeweler. I didn''t want to spend it in Henterfell, but if he used his own money to buy supplies, it would be easy to repay him.
¡°I¡¯m not in charge of rationing,¡± I said. ¡°Esmelda, I¡¯m getting the farm started. But if he finds what he¡¯s looking for, this could really help us. Is there a problem I¡¯m not seeing?¡±
She frowned, her arms still crossed. ¡°Fine, Dongle, go. Ask Brenys about the food and the horses. And we better see you back here in a week.¡±
¡°Wonderful.¡± Dongle bowed to Esmelda, then to me, collected his son, and took off in a hurry.
¡°Am I missing something?¡± I said.
Esmelda sighed. ¡°It¡¯s not the idea of the thing, it¡¯s Dongle himself. I half think he¡¯ll take his money and buy himself a house in Henterfell. We may never see him again.¡±
Boffin cleared his throat. ¡°Dongle is not a...community minded sort. It¡¯s true. I can make sure some lillits that go with him are people we trust. If he¡¯s as good as his word, this could be a real help for us.¡±
¡°Yeah.¡± I said. ¡°He¡¯s a little oily, but we need every resource at our disposal, and he¡¯s one of them.¡±
The mayor chuckled. ¡°So you say. Let me make sure I know who¡¯s joining him.¡± Boffin took his leave to go after Dongle.
¡°How are things going?¡± I asked Esmelda.
She came to stand with me, and we watched the men at work around the longhouse frame. ¡°Mostly the same as yesterday. People are worried, but hopeful. Hunger isn¡¯t too much of a problem yet, but it will be soon, and people know that. We¡¯ve sent out some groups to forage and hunt, but that¡¯s going to be a minor supplement in the scheme of things.¡±
¡°It¡¯ll work out,¡± I said. ¡°We¡¯ve got Mizu on our side, right?¡±
She glanced up at me, surprised. ¡°When did you become so faithful?¡±
¡°Oh, I¡¯m not. That was a legitimate question. Do you think the goddess is looking out for us?¡±
Esmelda squeezed my hand. ¡°She is.¡±
¡°Once I have it a little more together,¡± I said, ¡°do you want to come see the farm? I¡¯m going to have to keep sleeping around the crops for this to work, so I might as well build a proper house there for us.¡±
¡°Of course.¡±
Perrin had spotted us, and he trotted over with purpose in his stride.
¡°You said you had clay?¡±
¡°Oh, right. I was in a rush yesterday.¡±
¡°At your convenience,¡± he said, sounding like he meant right now.
"Got you." I said. "But do either of you know a good way of figuring out where to dig a well?" I asked.
Esmelda frowned. "It''s trial and error. I would suggest starting with lowlands nearby. My mother said that willows and alder trees were a sign of water. Springs, of course, but I don''t know if there are any around here."
Perrin threw up his hands. "Not my area of expertise."
I waved at the harpies, and after nearly a minute of that, Celaeno flapped down to speak with me. She was as taller than Esmelda, and both lillits took a step back as she arrived.
"Hey Celaeno," I said, "can you ask the homies to scout the area for willow trees, springs, wet ground, that sort of thing? I''m looking for a spot to dig a well."
The harpy preened herself, running her beak through the feathers under one long wing.
"We can. This land is lush, nothing like the Wastes. What is a willow?"
Esmelda explained what the different tree species we wanted them to be on the lookout for looked like, and Celaeno took off. Aside from hunting phantoms, there was a lot to be said for having a squad of aerial scouts on demand. In the meantime, I set about giving Perrin more clay than he would ever need, as well as a small mountain of stone blocks. Esmelda returned to community organizing, and by the time I¡¯d run through a couple of cabochons worth of material, the sun was already high in the sky, and I took a break for lunch. Water and flatbread; it wasn¡¯t much, and I knew we would have even less soon.
The harpies quickly came up with several potential dig sites, and I chose the one closest to the ridge. The closest patch of alder trees was only half a mile from the mine, and I picked a spot at random among them to dig. It took me well into the afternoon when I hit the water table about sixty feet down. Then it was just a matter of grinding my way back up, laying stone steps as I went. A group of children had assembled around the site to watch my progress, their faces hanging over the hole.
¡°Hey,¡± I said, addressing one at random, and the boy shrank away.
¡°Can you go tell people there¡¯s water here? It would be a big help.¡±
He nodded, eyes wide, and he and a handful of the other children scurried off. I told the ones that remained to get back to their families. Most of the day was already gone, and I felt like I had accomplished little of anything. I went to find Esmelda, who was helping keep things in order around the supply wagons, and sat down on a convenient rock.
¡°We should try to get everyone together at some point,¡± I said, ¡°make sure the community knows what we¡¯re doing here.¡±
¡°I¡¯ve been trying,¡± she said. ¡°When the longhouse is up, do you want to hold a town hall meeting?¡±
¡°Something like that. I want them to know that we¡¯re going to be alright.¡±
¡°We may not be.¡± Her gaze was distant, ¡°not everyone. People were hurt at the waystation, and the Dargothians weren¡¯t taking good care of them on the road. The touch of Koroshai leads to sickness. Some have already lost family members, and we just have to hope that it stops now, that it doesn''t spread, that we can produce enough food, and the snow doesn¡¯t come early.¡±
¡°All the more reason to talk to them.¡±
¡°I agree,¡± she said, giving me a pat. ¡°They need to see that there is someone leading them. You¡¯re too mysterious as it is, always appearing and disappearing, performing minor miracles, and then wandering off. You¡¯re their baron now, but half of them don¡¯t know that, and we¡¯ve never really had a baron before. We paid taxes to Henterfell, but Erihseht and the other towns were basically independent. Maybe we could elect you as mayor. They would be more comfortable with that.¡±
¡°Mayor of what?¡±
¡°Williamsburg,¡± her eyes crinkled with amusement, already knowing what my response would be.
¡°That¡¯s embarrassing,¡± I said. ¡°We don¡¯t need to name the town after me.¡±
¡°My father suggested it. I think it¡¯s a fine name.¡±
¡°We can circle back to this,¡± I said. ¡°I need to get to the farm before zombies start popping up and trying to eat people.¡±
Esmelda kissed my cheek, her lips soft and warm.
¡°Hurry back,¡± she said, ¡°we need you here.¡±
60: My Something to Protect (Rewrite)
Dongle, much to the relief of everyone who knew him, returned on the eighth day after our arrival at the site of what was, despite my mild protests, now generally known as Williamsburg. He came bearing gifts, including a dozen wagons laden with wheat and oats, dried legumes, and even a quantity of cheese. Lillits crowded around him, and before Boffin, Esmelda and I had gotten there, he was already handing out sacks of supplies like an agriculturally minded Santa Claus.
¡°Wait!¡± Boffin shouted. ¡°We need to take inventory! Everything has to be rationed.¡±
He was ignored. Dongle was laughing, basking in the praise and thanks of the lillits, and tossing out sacks to the crowd as he went. His son and the lillits Boffin had sent with him were further back with the other wagons, which were soon under siege from hungry people demanding their share. It was a welcome sight, given that our food stores were running low. My farm had expanded to six plots, and most crops would mature in a day if I stayed around them continuously, but I had other things to do.
The rate at which plants grew around me was phenomenal, but not instantaneous. I''d harvested cabbages, peas, and beats, but it was still short of what we needed. Lillits, fortunately, both because of their diminutive statures and subtly supernatural constitutions, could survive on a lot less food than a normal human. My aura, or whatever caused monsters to spawn and plants to speed run through their life cycles in my vicinity, extended well over a hundred feet in every direction from wherever I was. That meant that when the area around my shelter was fully utilized, I would supercharge more than an acre of farmland. If I stayed in one place and kept adding to the plots, it would be possible for me to support the entire community as it was on a subsistence diet with the farm alone, especially if I figured out how to stack on a second level without killing all my plants. But we weren¡¯t there yet.
The wagons were being pulled by a mix of horses and oxen, and there were a half dozen cows leashed together at the end of the train, so it looked like Dongle had taken it upon himself to provide us with more livestock. What use six cows would be to a thousand lillits was an open question, but it was a start.
The crowd made way for me, and Esmelda kept close to my side as we reached the lead wagon. Dongle paused in his Santa Claus act to greet us.
¡°Baron,¡± he said, waving a hand that was once again studded with rings. ¡°I have returned.¡±
¡°I can see that,¡± I said. ¡°Do you think we could do this in a more organized way?¡±
¡°Aha,¡± he clutched his ample belly. ¡°I¡¯m afraid I got caught up in the moment. Listen up!¡± he called to the crowd. ¡°The Baron and Mayor Boffin are here. They say we need to wait before I give anything else.¡±
There was considerable grumbling at this, and a few sour looks around us. Esmelda scowled.
She turned around to address the group. ¡°Everything¡¯s going to be brought to the great hall,¡± she said, ¡°and we can begin distributing rations in an hour.¡±
Her voice didn¡¯t carry as well as Dongle¡¯s, but people got the idea and dispersed. There were a handful still trying to get food from the wagons further back, but Boffin¡¯s people were fending them off. Dongle was grinning to himself, and I hopped up onto the wagon beside him. The sudden movement startled him, and I grabbed his arm to prevent him from falling off.
¡°We¡¯re incredibly grateful to you for doing this,¡± I said.
¡°But of course,¡± Dongle said, ¡°I am only doing my part.¡±
¡°We can work out your compensation later, but for now, I need you to go along with the program. Don¡¯t make us look like the bad guys.¡±
¡°What?¡± Dongle said, feigning shock. ¡°I assure you, that was not my intent. I just want to help our people any way I can.¡±
I had spent little time with Dongle personally, but he had always given me sneaky vibes. Dongle''s attitude during his initial introduction to me had bordered on hero worship, but I suspected that was a veneer. If he was giving away his wealth, it wasn¡¯t out of the goodness of his heart. This was a way of establishing himself as an important figure in the new community. On the whole, I was fine with having him play a big role in the growing town, but not if he got there by undermining my authority.
¡°Good. I¡¯m glad to hear that you did this with no thought to the cost. As your Baron, I am happy to accept this generous gift, and I will look on you with favor in the future.¡±
¡°Oh, well.¡± Dongle said quickly, ¡°you did mention compensation.¡±
¡°I did, but that¡¯s contingent on you not stirring up conflict where there doesn¡¯t need to be any.¡±
¡°Of course,¡± he adjusted his tunic, which looked new, ¡°let¡¯s get all this to the hall where it can be distributed properly.¡±
With hundreds of lillits at work every day and all the materials I had taken from the way station at our disposal, our various construction projects were proceeding at a galloping pace. The longhouse was complete, its walls filled in with wattle and daub, and Boffin had designated it as the town hall. The well was in operation, and the shacks around the mine were shored up and refinished. My role in these projects had been less direct than I was used to, aside from crafting more tools and dropping raw materials. I¡¯d also made Duad an anvil, and his forge was coming along.
As insufferable as Dongle might be, if his actions meant we could make it through this establishing phase of the town with no one starving to death, I was happy to have him around and play whatever role he liked. Esmelda, Brenys, and a few others were quickly at work sorting through what he had brought from Henterfell, and I was briefly left alone with nothing to do. Or rather, I had so many things I could do that I wasn¡¯t sure where I was most needed at that very moment.
The former Baron still hadn''t made an appearance. He might have been waiting until I sent someone to collect taxes to make a scene. Midway through our first week in the settlement, a messenger from Henterfell had brought documents detailing the specifics of my holdings. Baronies divided up into smaller regions called manors, which could vary in size but averaged around three thousand acres. It was hard for me to visualize in my head what that translated to, but Godwod had been kind enough to include a map with the relevant territories noted and labeled. I was now officially the Baron of Eastmine, which included three "manors," which worked out to something like fifteen square miles of land. Only one of those regions had been developed, the previous baron¡¯s home and the hamlet surrounding it. It was a lot of room to work with, and I had to wonder if this was a sign of Godwod¡¯s trust in me or whether he was just making the best of an underutilized territory.
If we established ourselves here, it could only benefit him. If we failed, he hadn¡¯t really lost anything. I wasn¡¯t fond of being in debt to people who had the authority to strip property out from under me, but giving him what he wanted was a nonissue. Otto would be by every couple of weeks to collect the margrave''s share of gold, and as long as I didn''t start throwing my wealth around, the amount he expected was minimal.
I spent the next hour at the crafting table producing building materials, mostly planks and shingles, and the lillits gathered around the hall for their allotment of foodstuffs. Boffin had completed his census, and he had our entire population recorded by household. Each family designated someone to collect their portion of the food, and that person got checked off his list as they went along. Dividing up resources in a way that would both keep everyone happy and alive was an impossible task, and there had been more than a few heated exchanges over the last few days as supplies ran low.
It rarely required my input, but lillits had been coming to me with complaints and requests whenever I was in sight. The miracle of my crafting process was now commonplace to them, and over the course of the hour I was regularly interrupted by men and women who were concerned that families who had already gotten bags from Dongle would end up with more than their fair share when the rest was distributed. I directed them to Esmelda, who, though she had a kind heart, was very good at shutting people down when they were wasting her time. Dongle''s behavior was annoying, but there was nothing we could do about it now.
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Pastor Tipple approached me as the rationing came underway. He actually looked healthier than he had in Erihseht. While being captured and marched off to Dargoth couldn¡¯t have been a pleasant experience for him, it had forced him to at least temporarily give up drinking, and he¡¯d lost a good bit of weight.
¡°William,¡± he said. ¡°I was planning on holding a service after the food is given out. Will you be able to attend?¡±
I glanced up at the sun. There was still plenty of distance for it to travel before it sank below the horizon. Not for the first time, I longed for a watch. The lillits had various means of keeping a relatively accurate track of time; sundials and water clocks and hourglasses, but there wasn¡¯t much of that here, so we were mostly functioning on best guesses.
¡°I need to get back to the farm,¡± I said. ¡°The longer I spend there, the better.¡±
He nodded. ¡°I understand the importance of what you are doing. But our faith is important as well, and the citizens of Williamsburg would benefit from seeing you there. I can promise it won¡¯t be overlong. Esmelda has mentioned that you promised her to join us at some point,¡± he winked at me, ¡°why not today?¡±
Esmelda had previously insisted that I attend church with her, and thus far, I had largely avoided it. Though she hadn¡¯t done more than tease me about the agreement, I knew that lillit traditions, and their faith in particular, mattered a great deal to her. It wouldn¡¯t hurt for me to sit through one service.
¡°Okay,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯ll be there.¡±
¡°Praise the goddess. It won¡¯t be long now. I¡¯ll let you get back to your work.¡±
As the last of the sacks was handed out, the crowd was dispersing. Esmelda came to find me and we took our seats on one of the wooden benches in the hall. Though it was primarily a community center, and many people were sleeping in there, it had the air of a church. The structure was essentially a nave, a big rectangle with a high ceiling and a place at one end for someone to stand and address the congregation. Being that it was newly completed, up to now, Tipple had been playing the role of an itinerant priest, wandering among the camps and giving people comfort where he could. He wasn''t the only pastor, but the community viewed Tipple as a leader due both to his own personality and his relationship with Esmelda and me.
Somewhere around a hundred lillits had shown up for his inaugural service, a fraction of the total population, but plenty for the size of the hall. He began by thanking them all for coming, and saying a few words about the necessity of faith in hard times, and the usual stuff about gods working in mysterious ways. On earth, I had been a lifelong atheist. Religion had never made sense to me, even as a child, and being dragged to church had done nothing but make me resentful of the institution. As I got older, I had learned to appreciate the value it had for others, for society, and I no longer begrudged people for their beliefs, but I had never shared in them.
In prison, I had attended a variety of religious services, more out of boredom than anything else. Whatever people were supposed to feel in those situations, entering a church, or bowing their heads in prayer, I had never felt it. Being that I''d met a goddess and reincarnated in another world, strict atheism was no longer a tenable position for me to take. But that gods of some kind clearly existed didn¡¯t mean that anything people said about them was accurate or useful. Did Mizu hear the lillits'' prayers, or even care whether they worshiped her? Were the other gods, the ones humans worshiped in Drom, real as well, or were they just social constructs? I didn¡¯t have any answers to those questions, and given everything else that had been going on since my arrival in Plana, answering them had not been a priority for me.
Esmelda sidled closer, smelling like flowers. ¡°You aren¡¯t listening,¡± she whispered. ¡°Listening is the point.¡±
She had me there. I tried to be more present.
The building held the scents of fresh timber, mixed with the earthier notes of the clay and grass that had gone into the walls. I¡¯d filled out the floor with planks myself, and a pair of Eternal Torches hung on ropes from the rafters. One of them hung just ahead of Tipple, who was standing on a bench to give himself some elevation over the congregants, and it bathed his heavy face in light.
¡°The marks of the past are with us still,¡± he said. ¡°Mizu sent her heroes to bring us out of Dargoth, but in the peace we have enjoyed in the generations since she brought out of the dark lands, some have wondered why our goddess would grow silent. It seemed to many that we had been left to fend for ourselves, and that there was no more purpose in the old prayers and old songs. In my lifetime, I have observed that the Shui is seen less and less as a source of inspiration, and more a simple record of history that we no longer have cause to think about.¡±
His gaze traveled over the hall, and then fell. ¡°I am forced to admit to my own doubts. For much of my life, I have felt a lack of purpose. Erihseht flourished, its people were productive, and it appeared that there was little use for a man in my profession. But even if we let ourselves slip away from her, Mizu did not forget us. When the Dark Lord stirred again and sent his demon across the wastes to claim us for his own, Mizu saw fit to intervene. She sent us a new hero, different from the ones who came before, it is true; but no less miraculous.¡±
I felt a lot of eyes on my back.
¡°It¡¯s easy to lose sight of what matters most in days like these.¡± Tipple continued. ¡°We have been tested, and will continue to be. Many of you are hungry, but the days of hunger will end. Our individual desires are insignificant in the face of the needs of the community, and if we are to survive what is coming, it will only be through unity. Unity of purpose, of will, and of faith. The Dark Lord stirs in his dark lands, and we have not seen that last of his aychar. Only one demon crossed into the Free Kingdoms to take us, and without Mizu¡¯s aid, that would have been enough. More will come, and it is only with the guidance of the goddess, and that of her servant among us, that we will pass through this shadow in our history and into the bright dawn of our future.¡±
It was a better speech than the one I had been planning on making. If this is what Tipple had been going around telling people, then I owed him a drink as soon as we got around to distilling one.
He gave his words a moment to sink before stepping down from the bench. ¡°Go forward carrying love for each other and devotion to the goddess. She is not only our past, but our present, and our salvation. Now, let us pray.¡±
The prayer itself was simple, reminiscent of the words I¡¯d heard recited in Sunday school so often. But it was impossible to forget that in this case, there was incontrovertible evidence of the being to whom the ritual words were being directed. Mizu had played a role in the history of these people, and unless there was another divine presence mucking around in the background, she was the one who had given me my second life.
After the service, lillits came and went, thanking the pastor or asking for his advice. Most of them stopped to greet me and Esmelda, and though I lost track of how many hands took mine, she seemed to know every one of them by name. We spoke with Tipple for a moment, and he thanked me for attending the service, then Esmelda and I walked together toward the farm.
She said little on the way, and I had the impression that something was weighing heavily on her mind, but I let her have her silence. It was nice walking with her, and she would tell me whatever it was when she was ready. The night was almost upon us when we reached the shelter. I¡¯d crafted and enchanted a new set of torches, and I was planning on starting two new plots before I retired, but first we shared a meal together. It wasn¡¯t much; more flatbread and cabbage soup, but having her with me made it special.
As we finished, I felt her looking at me strangely.
¡°Is it the eyes?¡± I asked. ¡°They¡¯re weird, right?¡±
She shook her head. ¡°They¡¯re different, but they¡¯re still your eyes.¡±
¡°Just don¡¯t shine a light in my face. That¡¯s when things get crazy.¡±
She smiled, still preoccupied. ¡°William...¡± she trailed off.
¡°What is it?¡±
¡°I¡¯m pregnant.¡±
I blinked. ¡°What?" The first time we had known each other in the biblical sense had been what, two weeks ago? That was way too fast for her to be this certain. There had been no kids in my previous life, and I didn''t not want one, hypothetically speaking. It was, however, a major complication, considering that we were expecting an invasion. The harpies had seen no armies on the horizon, but Dargoth had to have some kind of response brewing for the death of Beleth and the lillit''s escape.
"How are you sure?¡±
She raised an eyebrow. ¡°There¡¯s a life growing inside of me. I know.¡±
"Is that how that works?" I was pretty sure it wasn''t.
Esmelda looked at her empty bowl like it held the secrets of the universe. "I had another dream," she said. "There is still fire and shadow beyond the mountains, but now we have a child. I know it, even if I can''t explain to you how I know it."
More meddling from Mizu. Could she really not just talk to people?
¡°But¡humans and lillits. Can we, I mean, is it going to be okay?¡±
Esmelda nodded, and a weight seemed to lift off of her. ¡°It will be. It¡¯s happened before. Our kind are not incompatible.¡±
I was still having trouble getting my head around it. ¡°We just got here,¡± I said, stupidly.
"I know." She laughed. ¡°But you shouldn''t worry. Whatever magic is making the plants grow around you hasn¡¯t had the same effect on me.¡±
That actually was a relief. In Maincraft, both animals and villagers spawned juvenile versions of themselves a moment after being fed. That would have been horrifying to see play out in reality.
¡°I know you have to work,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°but for tonight, could you stay with me?¡±
¡°I will.¡±
My stolen bed wasn''t spacious, but it didn''t have to be. I held Esmelda as she went to sleep, and my thoughts drifted to the future. A child, our child, coming into the world. Would he have powers like mine? That didn¡¯t seem likely, otherwise, there would have been people with Systems running around all over Plana who descended from previous transmigrators. What Tipple had said was true. There would be more demons coming now that I had defied the Dark Lord. Maybe Kevin himself. It was a frightening thought, but there was something stronger than fear stirring in my chest, the knowledge that I had something to protect.
61: My Dream (Rewrite)
I knew I was dreaming. An outcrop of sandstone extended ahead of me, terminating on a point. Beyond that was space. Galaxies wheeled, and nebulas blossomed amid a tapestry of sparkling stars. The outcrop looked choppy, distorted, like the output of early AI generated videos. The flipbook effect. A sign hung floating in the void, the words "Quit Game" in the 8-bit font of NES video games. I turned around.
There was a centaur, a cyclops; a one-eyed horse man. He was either annoyed or constipated. As he approached me, he flickered, the same low-resolution flipbook effect as the rest of the world. Behind him was another sign, "Continue." The entire set-up was deeply familiar. It wasn''t just the words, which were stolen right out of the death screen of Maincraft, but the demi-human as well. I felt like I''d been here before. The memory teased at the edge of my mind, and I knew it was important, incredibly so. There was knowledge locked away in some burnt-out corner of my brain, but as soon as I got close to it, the scene melted away.
I was floating in darkness, a disembodied consciousness.
Had I died again? I didn''t remember dying. Things had been going pretty well for me. The town was coming along, and Esmelda and I were living together in the shelter I had built for us. I''d finally been making progress. Why would the goddess choose this moment to take it all away?
The nothingness exploded below me, and for a moment, there was raw chaos. Light and shadow, ghostly, ephemeral shapes. Landscapes, weather patterns, living beings, the limbs and faces of entities born at an impossible scale. The galaxies were alive, moving like amoebas, devouring each other. A riot of color and sound assaulted my non-existent eyes and ears, and I felt myself rising and falling at once. If I had possessed a stomach, it would have ejected its contents immediately. As a mote of consciousness in an infinite cosmos, there was no action I could take. I was simply along for the ride.
The chaos formed a nearly comprehensible picture below me. It was still abstract, but I had the impression that two distinct sides existed, two competing patterns. One was jagged and harsh, fast moving and aggressive nebula; purple red and black. The other was more sedate, but also more solid, and composed of comforting pastels. Two different species competing for the cosmos.
Within the light side, I could make out a model of heavenly spheres. It reminded me of the diagrams medieval scholars had used to describe the universe. At its center was a green and blue ball that looked suspiciously like Earth, but there was no sun. Other worlds orbited the familiar planet, some of them normal looking, some flat or cubic. One was a Mobius strip, and another was clearly a tree. The farther out from the Earth-like planet they orbited, the weirder they got.
Tendrils of the dark side were tunneling into the system, many close enough to touch the outermost worlds. There were creatures in that darkness, unfathomably large; forms of madness, developing endlessly. The entities arranged on the other side seemed puny in comparison.
The vision dissolved, and I was falling. A world nearest the edge of the darkness expanded until it was all that I could see. Calling it a world was generous. It was basically half of a map with torn edges. A single continent dominated the center, surrounded by oceans that wrapped around underneath, with a moon and a sun of nearly equal size circling it in succession.
Without eyelids, I couldn''t blink, but my awareness stuttered, and I drifted in the ceiling of a grand cathedral. A man dressed in armor styled after what Sauron had worn in the Lord of the Rings movies was sitting in a chair that looked like an even edgier version of the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones. Animals were bowing to him, a horse, a frog, a crow, and then he looked up. Though his face hid behind a coal black visor, I felt our eyes meet, and the scene vanished like those before it.
What followed was a series of jumbled images; a mountain crumbling, an army marching, more monsters than I could count. Shadow followed flame, leading a column of lillits in chains.
Then I woke up.
My bedroom was basic, just the bed I had stolen from the way station, a washstand, and a dresser Esmelda had gotten as a gift from Perrin Perrinson, the town''s foremost carpenter. An Eternal Torch hung from one wall, its quartz tip bathing the room in white light. It was irritating, but having the light up through the night was the only way to ensure that mobs wouldn''t spawn around me while I slept other than taking my siestas in a sarcophagus. The light didn''t keep me up. For the nearly thirteen years of my previous life that I had spent incarcerated, total darkness had never been an option. Fluorescents were always active in the dorms, though they dimmed them after the evening count. Corrections officers needed to see you in your cell when they did their rounds, so I was accustomed to ambient brightness.
What bothered me was that Esmelda had to put up with my System nonsense. She was sleeping on her side, wearing a silk sleep mask Brenys had tailored for her. Her shoulders rose and fell peacefully, her long, chestnut brown hair pouring down onto her pillow. Our marriage had been a matter of convenience, and not much in the way of romance had ensued, but somehow, it worked. Our relationship felt natural, at least to me. That wasn''t saying much, considering that before I met her, I''d been single for the entirety of my adult life. My previous relationship had ended after I got myself locked up, and prison had not been conducive to any kind of romance that would have interested me.
Of all the gifts my second life had offered, this one was the most precious to me. Esmelda was carrying our child. Love, a family, these things made magic powers seem small in comparison. That being said, I was still pretty stoked about the magic powers.
I slipped out of bed, moving cautiously so as not to wake my sleeping wife. Her lovely, heart-shaped face was half concealed by the silk mask, and I took a moment to watch her before letting myself out of the room. It still didn''t feel real, our relationship, my powers. Everything was too good to be true.
The dream had not been my first. I''d been having it, or one similar, on and off for the last week. Mizu, the goddess who had sent me to this world, was giving me a warning. That was the only explanation. As ominous and confusing as these visitations were, a part of me found them comforting. The idea that something terrible was coming our way was the only thing in this world that made perfect sense to me.
The iron door creaked as it opened, and I paused, but the noise hadn''t woken Esmelda. Beyond it was a series of short halls and barred gates, my crafting room and the escape tunnels. Digging was easy, and I was paranoid, so while we had a cozy, single room cottage on ground level as a decoy, our actual home was underground.
The equipment I had stolen from Kevin was still better than anything I could make. My crafting room looked very similar to the one I''d found in the way station, with each corner taken up by a piece of equipment; a furnace, the crafting and enchanting tables, and an anvil. My list of enchantments was short; Protection, Unbreaking, Feather Fall, Efficiency, Aqua Affinity and Shadowbane. Of those, all I''d been focusing on so far was producing as many Shadowbane torches as I could afford. To that end, I''d spent enough experience to reduce my level back under ten, and I had more than a dozen Eternal Torches ready to push back the darkness to show for it. Crafting the torches themselves cost a modicum of experience, with the enchantment process having taken the lion''s share. The only difference between the enchanting table and the entire underground chamber dedicated to enchanting I''d found before was that the full chamber was more efficient. The cost in experience lessened when I used it instead of the table. Regardless; Boffin, Esmelda, and Gastard all had torches of their own, and the rest were around the shelter and protecting the farms. Regular light could prevent spawns, but the enchantment actually held mobs back.
Anvils were extremely useful in the game. They repair or enchant items, as well as name them, though that feature was just for aesthetics. Mine looked essentially like a blown-up version of the one in Maincraft, a big iron rectangle on a dark stand. I had no idea how much it weighed, but I wouldn''t have been able to get it in my workroom outside of carrying it around as a medallion. Unlike the Mojang version, this anvil came with a set of slots cut out of its flat top, as well as a rotating lever on one side like the one attached to the worktable. I''d left it alone since bringing it into the room, as there had been no items in need of repair and I could use the table to enchant. But now I wanted to play with it a little.
It had too many slots. Two squares to place medallions, and one for output. That wasn''t hard to figure out, as there was a plus sign engraved between the first and second square and an equals sign leading to the third. The slot above them was a thin rectangle, the name box. Only there was no way for me to type in a name. After giving it some thought, I tore out a page out of a blank enchanting book and wrote out a word in ink. I could harvest ink from books, but Esmelda had bought a few quills and bottles in Eerb for both of us. Running a town required you to write things down. Scratching out the letters with a quill was a serious downgrade from using a modern pen, but it got the job done. Rolling up the paper, I placed it along with the sword medallion in their respective slots.
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It was my sword, as I didn''t want to risk Kevin¡¯s disappearing in case the anvil used up materials on a failed attempt like the work table did. But when I pulled the lever, nothing happened. Either naming an item didn''t work, which wouldn''t have surprised me, or I''d used the wrong materials. At least the medallion hadn''t vanished. Next, I wrote out the name again on the front of the empty tome and rested its spine in the slot. It fit snugly, standing straight up, and this time when I pulled the lever, both the sword and the book vanished. A new medallion appeared in the output slot in the same instant..
Ding
Tapping my elder sign brought up the status screen.
|
Name: William
System Type: Survivor
Level: 14
Advancement: 37%
Attributes:
Might: E
Speed: F+
Presence: F (E)
Armor Rating: 1
Traits: Darkvision, Immunity to natural Poison and Disease
|
After making the torches, I''d recovered some of my levels by mining and clearing spawns from around the farm. Naming the item had brought me down from fifteen to fourteen. Aside from that, there had been no changes to my statistics since settling in Williamsburg except for the double entry to my Presence attribute, which had resulted from two recent achievements. I tabbed over to the notifications screen.
| Journal |
Quests |
Notifications |
Materials |
Crafting |
|
Achievement: Sheltered (2)
A real home? From vagrant, to peasant, to landowner, where will your journey end? Possibly in a ditch, but for now, you gain a bonus to social interaction while at home. Every man should be a king in his own house.
Achievement: Sheltered (3)
Congratulations, you have made yourself the cornerstone of a local community. A home is more than the roof over your head, it is the society that surrounds you. Gain increased respect and resources as your town continues to grow. The members of your community will naturally look to you for guidance, viewing you favorably as long as you retain your position.
|
The System had rewarded me for helping build a town. It made me a little uncomfortable to think that the way the lillits treated me was partially because of a benefit of my class. Mind-altering effects were morally dubious but there was nothing I could do about it, and there was no way to know how much my Presence score played a role in daily interactions with the people who had settled on my land. Attribute scores seemed pretty arbitrary. It was always satisfying to see numbers go up, but hard to guess what they really meant. Relative to Might and Speed, F seemed to be an average score for an adult human male in good shape, someone who exercised, but wasn''t a gym rat. My attributes were well above average, but still within human limits. I knew I could easily beat Gastard in an arm-wrestle; we had tried, but it wasn''t like I could rip his arm off. With Presence functioning as an E with the townsfolk, that probably gave me the built-in charisma of a celebrity, but my followers would not jump off a cliff simply because I asked them to. At least not yet.
Scrolling down to the bottom of the list, I found the new entry.
|
Achievement: Crafty (3)
Using an anvil is the first step on the road to becoming a master smith. This hunk of metal is the perfect tool to modify or repair existing items. Try out different combinations of materials to see what works. What have you got to lose? Well, components, obviously, but aside from that?
Achievement: Reader (3)
You have collected your first named item. Any named item acquired will be recorded in a new tab of your journal, along with its attributes.
|
So did the anvil ruin materials the same way a crafting table or not? Maybe you needed to put components in both slots for the waste to occur. The phrase "modify or repair" stuck out to me. ¡°Modify¡± might have been a reference to the naming process, but then what was that note about trying out different materials? It was possible the anvil could do a lot more than I had assumed. Why naming my sword on the anvil counted as a "Reader" achievement, I had no idea, but I was excited to finally get a little more transparency from the System. So far, the only information I had gotten on items I crafted was the very basic descriptions that got added to my logs whenever I crafted a new one for the first time.
There was indeed a new tab, but the information it provided was a disappointment. I had, of course, named the sword "Sting."
| Journal |
Quests |
Notifications |
Materials |
Crafting |
|
Sting
[Iron Sword]
Damage Rating: 6
Speed: Average
Enchantments: None
Durability: 85/100
|
My logs already recorded the Damage rating and Speed of weapons that I crafted, and I could get a general sense of how close they were to breaking just by looking at them. I''d gone through plenty of picks and shovels, but I hadn''t broken a sword yet. I''d used this one in a few fights before liberating Kevin''s, and it looked like it would last for quite a while before repair became absolutely necessary. Being able to see what enchantments were active on a given piece of equipment was a minor point for items I enhanced myself. I''d almost stepped away from the anvil before I realized how nifty a feature this actually was.
Kevin''s tools were a mystery. I could use them, but I didn''t even know what he''d made them out of. If the anvil could give them a name, it would serve as a roundabout Identify spell. My excitement at the prospect fell as quickly as it had risen. In order to modify the tools, I had to first convert them into medallion form, which had so far been impossible. My Miner skill had been stuck at level twenty-nine for what felt like forever. The advancement percentage had ticked up ever so slowly as I dug out new sections of the mine. While I didn''t know if the next level would allow me to work with whatever material Kevin had used for his tools, raising it was the only method I knew of unlocking new materials. It would take as long as it took.
Since settling in Williamsburg, I''d been dedicating less time to mining than grinding my Artisan skill. It needed to be higher in order for me to craft more complicated apparatus like pistons and powered rails, and I was keen on building some automated functions into my workflow. It also gave me something to do while hanging around the farm, waiting for crops to grow. But this took priority. I was right on the edge of advancing Miner to thirty, and as long as there were no interruptions, I could probably raise it by the end of the day.
I went to tell Esmelda where I would be, but stopped in the hall as I heard someone banging on the trapdoor in the floor of the cottage. Few people came to visit the farm. I''d made it clear to the townsfolk that it wasn''t safe to do so, especially not this early in the morning when there could still be spawns around. It took me a few moments to unbar the gate that led to the stair, and the banging grew more insistent.
"Whose there?" I called.
"Brenys, you smelly oaf! Open up!"
The seamstress, Esmelda''s aunt, wasn''t afraid of monsters. It was hard to be sure if that was bravery or senility at work, but I pressed the button that flipped up the trapdoor and found her staring down at me with her hands on her hips in the room above. Her green felt hat was askew, a wild bush of gray hair branching out from underneath its brim. Her wrinkled face was stern and disapproving.
"Took you long enough," she said. "Don''t you have any manners? I could have been eaten while I was waiting for you."
"That''s why no one''s supposed to come here," I said. The cottage door was closed, and I didn''t hear any zombies moaning outside. But you couldn''t be too careful with spawns. They''d surprised me before. "What''s up?"
"Someone had to come," she said. "There''s a man in town looking for you, says he works for Gent."
A day of uninterrupted mining was looking less likely by the second.
62: My Interruptions (Rewrite)
Brenys tapped her foot the entire time we were getting dressed. Esmelda washed her face and threw on a tan riding dress before declaring she was ready to go into town. My own preparations were more involved. Getting my armor on involved a lot of clasping and unclasping, and I''d finally traded in the ugly zombie boots for a set of iron footwear.
"You look like a proper knight now," Esmelda said as I strapped on Kevin''s sword. For all the unexpected gifts of my System, belts were not a built-in formula. Brenys had given me a leather one, as well as a proper sheath, as a late wedding present. No matter what kind of attitude she put on, the old woman supported me. Or at least she supported Esmelda with such tenacity that I was the recipient of a little of that overflow. "Much better than the tunic."
My original set of zombie leathers had been disturbing to look at, and carried an inerasable mustiness that had not been pleasing to the nose, but they had been comfortable. I shifted in my boots, feeling the weight of iron on my shoulders, and almost missed the old gear.
"It''s not terribly impressive," Brenys said, "but it''s better than anything Gent has."
"Thanks," I said, "that means a lot."
Her gaze narrowed as she contemplated whether I was getting snippy with her, but I had long ago mastered the art of dead pan delivery, and she let it pass. Brenys had brought along a set of horses from the village to speed our return, and they were waiting for us tied to the posts of one of my vegetable plots. The gardens encircled cottage, something like a dozen acres of land given over to carrots, beets, wheat, and cabbage. The lillits didn''t grow potatoes, but Gastard had assured me they were a staple of the human diet in Drom, so I was bound to grow those as well eventually.
After some experimentation, we''d determined that my reality distortion field extended roughly one hundred and twenty meters in every direction. This was the radius within which crop growth was accelerated and monsters would spawn. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn''t have been enough to feed a growing town on its own. We had a harvest every day. The crops would spring up around me as long as there was sufficient light, and the condition was satisfied by Eternal Torches as well as the sun, so they could mature overnight. There was still an element of randomness. Not every square foot was green and leafy by the morning, but it was enough. A lot of my time, far more than I would have liked, was spent harvesting vegetables and replanting them. If someone else did the planting, they still grew fast, but not at the same incredible rate. It had impeded some of my other goals, and I had more than once considered opening up the flow of gold to simply purchase what the town needed until they had enough fields prepared to feed themselves.
Godwod was still expecting a steep percentage of the "revenue" from the mine, so for the time being, I was keeping my spending to a minimum. With Williamsburg still in its infancy and war on the horizon, it was important to me to maintain a good relationship with my liege lord. In the long term, it wouldn''t be necessary, but it felt good to be feeding people.
There wasn''t any shade on the farm where monsters could shelter after the sun came up. The risk of someone being attacked during the daytime was actually near zero, especially with harpies in charge of massacring the phantoms, but I still felt there was always a chance something could go wrong. A new monster could spawn, one I didn''t know how to deal with, or something that knew how to dig. It was safer to tell everyone to keep away.
The farm was a couple of miles from town, though still within my barony, and the ride was easy. Esmelda and Brenys discussed the management of the town. Initially, there had been a lot of talk about making me mayor, but that role had passed back into Boffin''s hands. I had enough on my plate, and I avoided dealing with the day-to-day planning and squabbles as far as I could. Esmelda held authority as the Baroness, and the lillits were happy enough to bother her instead of me.
"You should have seen Dongle''s face," Brenys said, as pleased as a witch brewing puppies. "Perrin told him a jeweler''s storefront was not a town priority."
"I''m sure it was something to behold," Esmelda said. She didn''t care for Dongle any more than Brenys did. My own feelings were mixed. The man was useful, if self-serving, and though he''d done a few things I disagreed with, the jeweler had come through for us when it counted.
"The man Gent sent," both women shot me exasperated glances as I interrupted them, "what did he say, exactly?"
Brenys tilted her head back as if she was looking down at the man already. "Nothing much. Just that he carried a message from the former baron, and he wouldn''t share it with anyone but you."
"Do you think it''s anything serious?"
"The games of nobles," Esmelda said. "You shouldn''t worry overmuch."
Considering Gent had threatened our lives in the not too distant past, the situation did seem to call for concern, but she was probably right. Godwod was backing me, and there was nothing Gent could do about it. He was probably just seeing if he could throw his former weight around with me.
"What was his name?"
Brenys shrugged. "Something awful. Duug, I think."
Williamsburg had done a lot of growing in the weeks since our arrival. A bevy of buildings had sprung up around the side of the ridge with the mine, though most of the construction had shifted to be closer to the wells I had dug and a stream that wasn''t quite prodigious enough to be called a river. It bothered me that the town spread so thin. It would make it harder to defend. I would have to talk to Perrin and Boffin about that.
A longhouse served as a community center and church for the town. People who didn''t have homes of their own yet slept there as well, so one side of the hall was jammed with the belongings of families who didn''t have anywhere else to put them. Bedrolls, tools and hand-me-down clothing that they had brought with them from Eerb or collected since their arrival. Tipple was at the end of the hall, deep in discussion with one of his parishioners, while Duug was scowling near the entrance.
He looked rough, his clothes patched and worn from years of outdoor living, his face red from sunburn. A skinning knife hung from his belt, and a crossbow was slung over his back. He didn''t lose his scowl as we turned to him, instead crossing his arms defensively. I was sure he was one of the men Gent had brought to accost us outside the mine when we first visited.
"About time you showed up," he said gruffly.
I raised an eyebrow at his impatience. "Apologies for the delay," I replied, meeting his gaze head-on. "You must be Duug."
Duug blinked hard when he saw my eyes, his arms dropping. The lillits were accustomed to my appearance, but it was fun to see how new people reacted. "Uh," he said, losing some of his steam, "Baron Gent requests your presence at his manor. He wants to discuss the state of the barony going forward."
Brenys chimed in, her voice firm and tinged with annoyance. "Gent is no longer the Baron," she reminded Duug.
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Duug glowered at Brenys, unimpressed by her remark. "Even so, Gent still holds influence over these lands."
There wasn''t much to influence. The former Baron could boss around the people who lived around his manor. They probably didn''t realize he''d been replaced, but there weren''t any other settlements in the area apart from Williamsburg, and no one here was going to recognize him as an authority. The way peerage worked in the Free Kingdoms, Gent had little status to fall back on. He wasn''t from an important family; he was just a guy who had done enough favors for Godwod to be awarded a title, and now that accommodation was gone.
The manor he lived in belonged to him, but the land under it was mine. I was happy to let him keep managing his little fiefdom, but could kick him out if he didn''t pay a tithe. Playing politics with an elevated merchant didn''t interest me. Gent was going to have to learn that his best option was to stay out of my way. It wouldn''t hurt to pay him a visit, if nothing else, to ensure that his subjects realized they were actually my subjects now.
"Sure," I said, "I''ll meet with him, but it''s going to be on my schedule. He can''t summon me. Was that all you had to say?"
Duug grumbled something under his breath, clearly unhappy with my response. But he gave a begrudging nod.
"You could have told all that to Brenys," I said. "Go back and tell Gent that I''ll come see him when I feel like it."
His jawline hardened, but he nodded again, and I stepped aside so he could leave. We watched him walking away through the village from the door of a hall, and I flagged down a harpy who was overhead. It landed on top of a pile of building supplies beside the longhouse, thoroughly startling a lillit who was counting planks. The bird wasn''t one I recognized. Celaeno was often asleep during the day, roosting near the farm, and most of the rest of the flock appeared interchangeable to me.
"Hey," I said, pointing at Duug''s diminishing back, "can you monitor him? Make sure he leaves town and heads back to the other town."
The harpy croaked a response that I took as a "yes" before flapping back off.
Esmelda was frowning. "If Gent still has men calling him Baron, it could develop into a serious conflict."
"A petty man with petty dreams," Brenys said. "He''s going to waste your time."
I agreed with her, but we still had to do something. "Let''s see what else is on the docket for today. We can plan for a day-trip later this week."
Brenys had recently gotten her hands on a loom. Neither Perrin nor the other carpenters had been able to spare the time to make her a new one, so she had gotten it on loan from a tailor in Eerb, and now spent most of each day hard at work rebuilding her business. With Duug gone, she bid us goodbye and returned to the hut which served both as her home and workshop. Esmelda and I walked through the village together, her hand warm and small in mine.
Lillits paused in their labor to greet us, and she knew all of them by name. There was a formula to these interactions: the more faithful members of the community asked me for blessings. Tipple had assured me I could say something like "May the goddess be with you," and call it a day. My words didn''t carry any power, and the act felt hollow to me, but it meant a lot to those who asked.
They would respond with a gesture I''d seen Esmelda and Tipple make many times, touching their index and middle fingers to their foreheads in the same manner Catholics made the sign of the cross. Apart from sending heroes and the occasional dream, Mizu didn''t take direct action in Plana as far as I had observed. But maybe she heard their prayers, it wasn''t for me to say.
Lillits had cleared a path to serve as a principal street. We had little in the way of shops, but people were practicing their crafts in their homes if they had them. I was no longer providing all the building materials. Trees were being chopped and processed, bricks were being fired from my clay, and more tools had come from Eerb to speed the work.
The stream, such as it was, was dammed and diverted for irrigation and to collect drinking water. I could see the ground being prepared for what would one day be wide swaths of farmland. The soil wasn''t great here, but they could make it work for beans and root vegetables at least, and we had a growing supply of sheep and cows.
Amid all the activity, the only area free of bustle was my mine. The lillits of Erihseht had little experience in mining, and they generally regarded it as being my place alone. We hadn''t made the gold or the underground base public knowledge, but there were plenty of rumors circulating that I had something special going on beneath the town.
We''d almost made it to the entrance when Perrin and Duad came hustling up to bring me a problem.
"Baron," Perrin said, his mouth barely visible under the bush of his mustache, "there''s something that needs to be brought to your attention."
Duad was just behind him. The squat, muscular lillit would have passed for a dwarf if he''d come with a beard. Did Plana have dwarves? No one had mentioned any races apart from humans and lillits and things that came from Bedlam, which was a bit of a gyp as far as fantasy worlds went.
Duad''s face was clean shaven, and I suspected he wouldn''t have much to show for it if he ever let it grow. Lillits were mostly free of facial hair, with Perrin''s mustache being the fabulous exception. The smith had a sour expression on his face.
"There''s a thief in town," he spat.
Esmelda and I came to a stop. "What''s gone missing?" She asked.
"Tools, mostly," Perrin said, "and some building materials."
That was annoying, and also very odd. The lillit community was tight-knit, and extraordinarily cooperative. With limited resources, I''d expected more conflict than we''d had. But aside from grumblings about the distribution of the food, everyone seemed to get along. Or else, the disputes there were didn''t escalate to the level that would require the attention of the baron.
"Are we running short?"
Duad shook his head. "My forge is coming along, and we had some from Eerb. We won¡¯t run out."
"Then what''s the problem?"
The edges of Perrin''s mouth turned down. "It''s only what you gave us that''s gone missing. No one remembers seeing where the tools you made on the first day got off to, and the same is true of some planks and shingles. A chest as well. The counts are off. We can make more, but I think someone''s hoarding anything that came directly from you."
"Keepsakes?" Esmelda asked. It was a possibility, with my position in the community and connection to the goddess, some people might have been willing to steal to claim an object associated with me for themselves.
"Maybe," Perrin said, "but I don''t like it either way. Your tools have a certain look to them. They''re simple, but fine. Someone might think to sell them."
"Are they that valuable?"
"Valuable enough for someone who lost everything in Erihseht. The axes are worth good coin. But we''re also short a sword."
That was definitely an issue. After returning from the Wastes, I''d made certain we kept an exact count of the weapons we''d taken from the Dargothian soldiers. Only a few lillits had them, men who''d been a part of the town guard in the other village. The rest were with Tipple and Boffin, ready to be handed out if there was need. It surprised me one of them hadn''t come to me about it.
Aside from providing him with gold, keeping Dargothian steel off the market was the one thing Godwod had demanded of me. If new swords showed up in a market in Henterfell, he would not be pleased. One might go overlooked, but if it kept happening, he would ask questions.
"Are you sure?" I asked. "Who lost it?"
"One of Tipple''s," Perrin said. "I don''t think he realized it was gone. Duad noticed."
The muscular lillit nodded. "I don''t approve of your methods," he said, "but I can''t argue with the results. I''ve spent some time examining them. If you actually knew how to forge that steel properly, it would be a true blessing."
"That''s unacceptable." Esmelda sounded genuinely angry. "We''ll have to lock the rest away. Do you have any idea who might have done it?"
"None," Perrin said.
"We don''t have to hide them." I wanted them to be readily available in case of an attack. Keeping them at the farm would put the swords too far away from the hands that would need them. "Leave them where they are and don''t make a fuss. Make sure everyone acts like we haven''t noticed it''s gone, and I''ll ask Celaeno to have the flock keep an eye on them. If there is a thief, they''ll want more than one. When they try again, we''ll know."
"Are you sure about those crows?" Duad looked up as if he expected to see a black-winged raptor swooping down that instant. Like many lillits, he was less than comfortable with the constant presence of giant, predatory birds around a town of little folk.
"I trust them," I said.
¡°Good," Esmelda said, her tone still tinged with vexation. "Both of you keep this to yourselves. If we catch the culprit, we may recover the first sword as well."
"Yes, mam." Perrin said, and the pair of them took their leave.
"Alright," I said, "I want to get some mining done before anything else comes up." Level thirty was just around the corner, and potentially, a better understanding of Kevin''s tools.
"Very well," Esmelda got on her tip-toes to kiss me on the cheek. "I''m sure I can find something to occupy me. I''ve been putting off updating father''s ledgers."
"Can''t he do that himself?"
"He could, but he wouldn''t get it right."
We parted, and I went underground.
63: My Mining Grind (Rewrite)
I missed mining. The way station had provided me with such a substantial quantity of stone that harvesting it myself had seemed like a waste of time. But though farming used the same mechanic, collecting carrots was nowhere near as satisfying as making stone disappear. For most of my career as a Survivor, I''d been using my tools lightly, with about the same force as I would swipe grass with my hand.
Swiping faster would increase the pace of the skill, so I''d developed a habit of using my pick in the same way, holding it close to its head and doing little taps in quick succession. It worked, and it kept me from tiring myself out, but I''d recently discovered that a few hard hits were worth a dozen gentle taps. If I used my pickax like a real miner, at least like the ones I''d seen in movies, then I could mine the blocks even faster. It was also more fun, and fantastic exercise.
The tunnel zigzagged as it went deeper, but I didn''t want to do any additions to the passages above the old base. Instead, I walked down to the first switchback and dug out through that corner. There might be iron for me to find, or quartz, but it didn''t really matter. I was just here to grind my skill the last of the way to its next level.
I swung the pickaxe overhead with both hands and brought it down against the wall. Cracks appeared instantly, spidering out from the point of contact, and I hit it again before they receded. Of course, it wasn''t only the change in method that had sped up my workflow. Kevin''s pickax cut the time required to harvest stone down to a third of what it would be if I was using a regular iron pick.
Plep.
The first block was now a coin in my hand. I dropped it into a pouch at my belt and continued. More iron would have been nice, but I already had several hundred ingots at my disposal. Back at the bunker, I''d dedicated an entire room to furnaces and kept them burning continuously as long as I was home.
One was for turning logs into charcoal. Another converted the dark sands of the Wastes into glass shards and iron nuggets. The third combined those nuggets into ingots. The shards were useful as well. At a worktable, I could combine them into blocks or panes, which came into being with the uneven texture of stained glass, though it was all clear instead of colored. The blocks crafted into bottles, which were handy.
The lillits had little glass, and from what I''d gathered, neither did the rest of Drom. Something as simple as a bottle was a rare item. If I ever needed another source of income, we could have a few lillits set up shop in Henterfell and corner the market. Not that I was terribly interested in that, but the glass blocks potentially had another use.
I was planning on building a room with a glass floor. In Maincraft, mobs didn''t spawn on glass. There might have been a few exceptions, but I remembered it being pretty foolproof, so that might be another way to reduce spawns aside from keeping torches burning everywhere.
Stone vanished beneath my pick, and my mind wandered. I was carving out a tunnel that would look very odd to anyone unaware of how my skill worked. Normal people didn''t leave behind perfectly flat surfaces when they hacked out rock. In case Otto or Godwod ever wanted to tour the mine, maybe I would pay lillits to come down here and make it look more natural.
As I was working, I had an epiphany.
There were several environments where mobs in the game wouldn''t spawn. Only one kind of monster appeared on lava. Lava was not a viable construction material for me, but it wasn''t just glass that stopped mobs from spawning, it was any transparent block. That included leaves. I hadn''t bothered using leaves since I¡¯d tested them out on my first day. The blocks were unstable, and you could push right through them. But I had stacks of leaf coins I''d collected while harvesting trees.
It might not work, it was a quirk of a game, and the way my System functioned split on from Maincraft in several functions. Still, it was easy to test, and worth a try. Eternal Torches required both gems and experience to craft, so any cheaper alternative to spawn-proofing a location put me one step closer to being able to live in town.
Ding.
At the sound of the notification, I dropped the pick and tapped my elder sign, summoning the status screen and selecting the appropriate tab.
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Achievement: Crafty (4)
Well done, through hard work, dedication, and anti-social tendencies, you have unlocked new harvestable materials. You can now collect meat, water and meta-materials. While meta-materials are not found in most Realms, they are essential for expanding the crafting capabilities of any Survivor, opening the door to many advanced formulas and superior equipment.
Congratulations, you have reached the maximum level of your first skill. Further advancement of [Miner] has paused pending entity assessment.
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Heck yeah. Meat. It was a minor point, considering everything else mentioned in the notification, but I was still stoked about it. Vegetables and bread were fine, but I was excited to add some protein to my diet. Meat and fish were also quicker to spoil than the foods I could harvest already, so extending its shelf-life to indefinite proportions was a nutritional game changer.
Water was different. You didn''t really harvest water in the game, but you could pick it up in bottles and buckets by the block. Did that mean I could create water source-blocks now? Would liquids I poured out flow endlessly downhill? With the right angle, you could fill an entire pond with a single bucket in the game. I almost didn''t want it to work that way. The entire concept of liquid source-blocks was too ridiculous for the real world. But I was sure going to check.
Meta-materials had to refer to whatever special metal Kevin''s tools were made of. I immediately crouched down to swat at the pick and was gratified by the resulting pop as it converted into a new medallion. With the naming function of the anvil, I could finally get some insight into his tools, hopefully including a notification about the qualities of whatever the material was.
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I practically ran back up the tunnel. That last comment about having reached the maximum skill level concerned me. Normally, I would have been happy to hear that I''d reached the pinnacle of something. If only in one minor aspect, I was Kevin''s equal. Or I would have been. What was an entity assessment? Had Kevin gotten one? If he had, there was no way for me to catch up to his skill level unless I figured out how to get assessed myself.
Esmelda was waiting for me at the mouth of the tunnel, which was pleasant enough, except that Otto was with her. His black beard looked freshly oiled, and though he wasn''t armored, he was sporting his red and blue doublet emblazoned with the sign of Henterfell. It was only his second visit to Williamsburg, and he looked about as happy to be there as I was to see him. His craggy face had locked in a frown, and his dark eyes narrowed as they took me in.
It was hard to look casual when it was obvious you''d been hurrying. I dropped my pace and waved.
"Sup, Otto."
"It is Sir Otto," he said. "Your wife was just trying to prevent me from entering the mine without you. Is there something you don''t want me to see?"
"She''s very protective," I said, casting Esmelda a grateful glance. Lord Godwod suspected there was more to me than met the eye, but he didn''t know about my powers, and I preferred to keep it that way. There was no telling what kind of demands the Margrave would make of me if he fully understood what I was capable of. "Sorry about that."
Otto took in my backpack, the sword at my hip, and my lack of mining equipment of any kind. "Where are the workers?" He asked.
"It''s a lillit holiday," Esmelda said brightly, "but they have been hard at work for the Margrave."
Otto gave her a dubious look. "Do you have anything to show for it?"
"Don''t worry, I have some gold for you already. It''s in storage."
He looked past me to the opening of the tunnel as I came out. No doubt, Otto was curious about the condition of the mine, but the mention of gold had gotten his attention.
"Show me."
As far as Otto knew, I was staying in a house in town that had actually gone to Boffin. It wasn''t as large or as nice as his previous home, but it was solid, as I''d raised the walls myself out of granite blocks. Lillits had filled in the roof with thatch over a wooden framework, and I''d added a couple of glass windows, which were practically a luxury item in its otherwise nondescript exterior.
Boffin was out, so we let ourselves in. If the town¡¯s progress impressed Otto, he didn''t show it. Esmelda used a key to open the basement storeroom. It had a proper lock, which we''d had Duad make for us. All I could craft were automatic buttons, which would have begged the question of how in the heck something like that worked.
The storeroom was basically a walk-in closet full of mostly empty shelves. Boffin kept food in there, as well as a small chest of silver that served as the town coffer. My chest was in a place of prominence, on the dirt floor at the end of the room. We kept the extra swords in Boffin''s bedroom upstairs. Otto stepped to the side so I could enter. There had been a lengthy discussion regarding how much gold we should hand over to the Lord of Henterfell, as well as what condition it should be in.
Initially, I had vastly overestimated how much gold would be expected of me. The lillits had never mined it before, but Dongle had given us some insights. Gold was worth roughly ten times as much as silver by weight, and a small mine could produce five pounds in a year and chalk it up as a win. The sword I had offered Godwod was even more valuable than I''d realized. The raw material was almost worth the title he had given me by itself.
Opening the chest, I brought out a handful of gold nuggets wrapped in cloth and brought them over to Otto for his approval. Duad had made a small mound of them for me out of an ingot to use as samples. The ingots were too big, and we didn''t want it to look like we had too professional of a set-up or were on the verge of minting our own coins. Otto''s eyes widened a fraction as he felt the weight in his hands and looked them over.
"It will serve." He shifted a satchel from over his shoulder and placed them carefully within it before brushing past me to get a look inside the chest. Officially, I was entitled to a quarter of what the mine produced. King Egard would get another quarter on account of him being King, assuming Godwod was playing honest. The rest belonged to the Margrave according to the agreement we had signed as a part of my becoming a baron.
It was a raw deal, though Boffin had suggested it could have been worse. It would have bothered me if I didn''t have Scrooge McDuck levels of wealth to call upon to continue with this charade. In the future, we could negotiate a better agreement. Aside from that, there were plenty of ways to launder the gold once the town established itself and its citizens were engaged in legitimate trades of their own.
I''d given Otto about a pound, and there were only a couple of ounces nestled in linen left in the chest. He grunted.
"If you are cheating the Margrave, there will be consequences."
"I know," I said. This was essentially an honor system. It wasn''t like they could track my credit cards or monitor my bank account. Probably there were lillits in Williamsburg who were already on the Henterfell payroll or soon would be. Godwod wasn''t the sort of man to run a business entirely on trust, but that was why we were being careful.
Esmelda was less demure. "That''s insulting. Will has been nothing but a faithful vassal to the Margrave. He''s already accomplished more for him than you ever could."
Otto''s face darkened. "Watch your tongue," he said, "before you lose it."
I pushed him. It was an impulse that came on too fast and hot for me to stifle, and it wasn''t paired with the forethought to moderate the force I applied. My System hadn''t made me a superhero, but I was stronger than I''d ever been in my previous life, and sometimes I forgot. Otto''s back slammed into the shelves, disturbing a bundle of carrots, and his hand fell to the sword at his waist, but he didn''t draw.
His face bunched up into a snarl. "Wretch. I could take your hands for that."
"No, you couldn''t," I said, ignoring the way my heart was beating in my ears. "I outrank you. And you threatened my wife. You''re lucky if I don''t complain to Godwod."
Prison is a very controlled environment, at least since they started putting in cameras. People still got into fights, robbed each other, dealt drugs and made a hundred other poor decisions while they were in there, but that usually came with consequences. A lot of guys had seen me as weak because I didn''t do those things, and they hadn''t been entirely wrong. It had been in my nature to do whatever I thought I needed to get along.
For nearly thirteen years, I had been legitimately terrified that anything I did could make my bad situation worse. Plenty of guys in there extended their sentences over nonsense. Conflict makes me uncomfortable anyway, and I''m naturally inclined to smooth things rather than to escalate. Of course, I''d broken some minor rules and done other stupid things while I was in, but mostly, I''d learned to keep a tight lid on my impulses.
Dying and being reborn with magic powers had changed me. It would have been weird if it hadn''t. Since coming into this world, I''d more and more found myself saying and doing the things I would have previously held back. Being more confident was an improvement, but there was a dark side to that kind of freedom. A part of me wanted to put my sword through Otto. I could have gotten away with it. I was worth a lot more to Godwod than he was, and someone else could deliver the gold.
Killing monsters was one thing. But I''d killed soldiers too, human beings. I felt like that should have weighed on me more than it did. This situation was very different. Otto wasn''t attacking me. There was no way to frame this as self-defense. It scared me that a corner of my mind was totally cool with that.
Otto''s cheeks reddened as the truth of my words sank in. He struck me as the sort of guy who enjoyed bullying people beneath him, and until recently, I would have fallen into that category. He adjusted his surcoat.
"A man who doesn''t defend his wife is a cur," he said, his hand drifting to the lump in his satchel as if to remind himself why he was here. "I can overlook this slight for now, under the circumstances. Godwod looks for my return."
"That''s great," I said. ¡°Have a safe trip."
He met my gaze and glanced away. I''d seen this a lot in prison, too. Guys acted like they hated each other, threw a few punches, then whoever lost changed his attitude. Instead of leading to more conflict, a lot of fights were nothing more than a means of establishing hierarchy. If one man pushes, and the other doesn''t push back, the pecking order establishes itself, and everyone gets along fine. It probably didn''t hurt that I had the eyes of a demon.
"We look forward to your next visit," Esmelda said as Otto walked out of the room. He didn''t respond, and she grinned at me.
I shrugged.
64: My Money (Rewrite)
The notification about harvesting water turned out to be nothing world-breaking. If I swiped a bowl or a bucket at a pool of liquid, it would instantly fill, and I could then convert the receptacle along with the water into a coin. It was a more convenient method of storing potable water, for sure, but it didn''t result in any source-block shenanigans. The System wasn''t that crazy, at least.
"Can you explain shillings to me again?"
Esmelda, Boffin and I gathered for tea after Otto left the village with his ruffian retinue. His men had been lounging around the longhouse, and I had a feeling he would not be telling them about our spat.
While money wasn''t my primary concern, I at least needed to get the rate of exchange down to help me keep track of things. I''d been relying on Esmelda to handle business with the townsfolk, but as Williamsburg grew and we started trading with Henterfell it was important for me to not make a fool of myself during negotiations.
Esmelda gave a long-suffering sigh. "It''s simple," she said. ¡°There are twenty shillings to a pound, and twelve pennies to a shilling."
"It is simple," I said, "but weird. Why twelve and twenty?" I was pretty sure it was the same monetary system practiced in medieval Europe, though I couldn''t remember if the number equivalencies were identical.
Boffin cleared his throat. "The units were established by the first king of Drom. They''ve been using them ever since. It''s convenient enough. Twelve and twenty are both easy to divide. In Erihseht, a lot of the townsfolk didn''t use coins daily. Silver was only necessary for trade with outsiders and taxes for the Margrave."
"At least I don''t have to worry about that."
"About taxes?" Boffin asked. "Won''t Godwod be expecting a portion of the rents when you collect them?"
"Nope." I shook my head. "As long as he gets his chunk of gold, we''re good, and I''m technically a knight or something, so I owe him military service if he needs it. We''re watching the border for him, too."
Boffin sucked on his lower lip, exchanging a glance with Esmelda.
"Money might be better," she said. "We''ll stand against the Dark Lord when he comes regardless of what Godwod wants, but he could call on you for a less noble purpose as well. Lords squabble."
"I''m not super worried about it. He thinks of me as a cash cow, not a front line grunt. But speaking of taxes, we should do something about Gent. Do you think I should visit him sooner or later?"
"Sooner," Esmelda said. "The longer he''s left to himself, the more confident he''ll grow that you aren''t willing to assert your rank."
Boffin sipped at his tea, savoring it. There wasn''t much left of the leaves they''d brought from Eerb. I could always add the crop to my farm, but not until I knew food was no longer an issue.
"If you intend to allow him to continue managing the land around his manor, you''ll need to settle on payment."
"How much do you think?" I asked.
"I''d say a third of the rents would be more than generous," Boffin said, and Esmelda nodded her agreement.
"Sounds fine." It didn''t really matter to me how much we got from Gent as long as he knew I was in charge. From what I''d heard, Williamsburg was already bigger and more productive than the hamlet around the previous Baron''s manor. They were a side note. My cup was half empty and I downed the rest to get it over with. Lillit tea had a very distinct taste, extra bitter, and a tad fermented. Maybe we could start brewing beer as an alternative.
"I wanted to talk to you about the set-up of the town. It looks like it''s spreading all over the place."
Boffin frowned. "We tend to spread ourselves thin. You have plenty of land, but people are competing for positions closest to the water."
"I''m worried about defense," I said. "Dargoth will come, and I can''t afford to take the time to build a wall around everything we have now, let alone what''s still being built."
Esmelda brushed a few errant hairs from her face and adjusted her comb to keep them in place. "There''s always the mine," she said, thoughtfully. "If you open the ruins, that, along with the existing tunnels, would at least give everyone a place to shelter. We can start using it to store food as well, so it will be there if we need to use it."
Trapping the population underground would limit our options somewhat in the event of a siege, but the tunnels were more defensible than a keep, and I could connect it to one of the wells.
"We can work that out," I said, sliding my chair out. "Do you mind getting Dongle to send one of his pigeons to Henterfell about the gold? I want to get some work done at the farm."
"Of course," Esmelda said, "I''ll see you before nightfall."
"Looking forward to it." Dongle had his hands in a lot of pies. Though his jewelry business wasn''t fully back to speed, he''d gotten his hands on half a dozen messenger pigeons, and was acting as the local postal service.
They only flew to Eerb and Henterfell, but that was all we needed for the moment. He was charging for the service, but I hadn''t expected him to do it for free. Running the town as something of a commune was fine for the short term, but eventually, I hoped all the lillits had thriving businesses of their own. I didn''t want Esmelda and Boffin to be micromanaging all the resources forever.
At a brisk pace, it only took me about twenty minutes to get back to home base. I longed for the days of keeping exact time. The formula for a clock was four gold ingots and redstone dust. Redstone was sure to count as a meta-material, and if I ever got my hands on any, at least I knew I could use it now.
Brenys had come to fetch us before I''d done my harvesting for the day, so I saw a lot of vegetables ready to be plucked in my plots, but they might have to sit until tomorrow. My anvil was waiting for me.
A sword, a pick, a shovel, and an ax. Those were the tools that Kevin had left behind in the way station. I stored them in a chest in the bedroom, but I''d used them all since coming to Williamsburg, and not a one was showing any sign of wear. Whether because of the white-gold metal that composed them or an enchantment, their durability seemed unlimited. But now, I could know for sure.
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The shovel would come first. It was the least important to me, and for all I knew, a basic anvil couldn''t handle what made up these tools. I collected an armful of blank tomes and wrote the first names I could think of on their covers. Scrapper for the shovel, after the leader of the Constructicons from Transformers. Stormbreaker for the ax, because Thor. The sword''s name was obvious, of course, but nothing great jumped out at me for the pickaxe, so if this worked it would be forever branded as "Pickle Rick." The medallion fit snugly in its slot, as did the first book, and I pulled the lever.
Plep.
Ding.
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Scrapper
[Orichalcum Shovel]
Damage Rating: 6
Speed: Average
Enchantments: Unbreaking (II), Efficiency (I)
Durability: 99/100
Orichalcum is a rare meta-material said to result from the fossilization of the bones of the greater entities of Bedlam. Harder than steel or even diamond, it is one of the most sought after materials in all of Eternity.
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Well, that wasn''t an overwhelming amount of information, but at least I knew what to call it now. The new material appeared automatically in my logs, as did the enchantment, as if I had harvested a book. Did that mean I could make more of them? Unbreaking tomes had come with the underground base, but not an unlimited supply, and this was a higher level version. The shovel itself was intriguing; it did as much damage as my iron sword, and was just as fast, so I could fight with it in a pinch. With its durability at ninety-nine, it might not last forever, but considering the hundreds of blocks of dirt it had excavated for me already, I didn''t have to worry about it breaking soon.
That had to be because of the quality orichalcum. Going up one rank in an enchantment couldn''t have that much of an effect on the lifespan of a tool. Assured that the other items wouldn¡¯t perish because of a quirk of the System, I named the other three in quick succession. The ax was about the same as the shovel, though it did twice as much damage. The other two, however, came with benefits.
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Pickle Rick
[Orichalcum Pickax]
Damage Rating: 6
Speed: Fast
Durability: 92/100
Enchantments: Unbreaking (II), Efficiency (I), Fortune (I), Mending (I)
[Fortune I]
Tools imbued with the Fortune enchantment help guide the bearer to valuable materials. Looking for diamonds? Try waving your pick around and see how that feels. While Fortune will not lead you to a specific material, you will feel a stronger tug toward rarer resources than iron or coal.
[Mending]
Tools imbued with Mending will never break as long as they are put to good use. They absorb some of the essence that would otherwise add to your pool to repair themselves. If you waste them hacking away at worthless materials, however, the enchantment will have nothing to fuel itself and durability will not recover.
Excalibur
[Orichalcum Sword]
Damage Rating: 10
Speed: Very Fast
Durability: 100/100
Enchantments: Unbreaking (II), Shadowbane (II), Looting (II), Mending (I)
[Looting II]
Weapons imbued with looting will absorb additional essence from entities, storing it for later use.
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Mending was essentially unchanged from how it worked in the game, but the other two were way off. Fortune was supposed to give the player a chance of receiving extra drops from the blocks they mined. It was one of the most useful enchantments in Maincraft, but the altered version wasn''t bad either. I had felt no tug in particular while using it, but that just meant there weren''t any rare resources nearby in the areas I had been mining. All the gold that had been below was now in my coffers, but I could try holding it next to the diamond case to see how dramatic the effect was.
Pickle Rick''s durability had dropped. I''d mostly been using it to clear passages out of the rock. Mining basalt gave me some experience, but apparently, what it offered wasn''t significant enough to feed the mending enchantment. It was something to monitor.
Looting was supposed to be the same as Fortune, except it worked for mob item drops instead of blocks. As mobs dropped nothing when they died in the real world, the change made sense, and it explained what the gem was doing. Most of the essence the sword had absorbed from killing monsters at the way station was still there. It had stopped glowing, but the gem had originally been a clear diamond, and now it was as red as a ruby.
¡°Storing it for later use.¡± Could I use the essence in the sword instead of experience to enchant items? That was a major win. I''d been so set on pumping out Shadowbane torches that I''d never bothered trying to make new enchanted books. There had been no need, given the supply that we''d collected from the library of an earlier Survivor. But now I had three new enchantments on my list, and no way to replicate them unless I could craft more books.
Amethyst had worked fine for enchanting my equipment, so it should do the same for tomes. I spent a few minutes getting supplies together, piling blank books beside the enchanting table and digging out my amethyst coins before trying it. As soon as I placed the book alongside the crystals in the table''s slots, glowing runes appeared in the air above them. That was new.
The runes were violet, as translucent as my screens, and completely unintelligible. Drawn in similar brush strokes to the elder sign on my hand, they were each as distinct as they were complex. Dozens of lines went into each, curves and sharp points, their forms giving no hint as to their meaning.
Creating enchanted books was a somewhat random process. The game gave you choices that would hint at what the final product would be, and I assumed these three runes were the choices written in alien characters. I touched one at random. It was warm, though insubstantial. The other two vanished. When I pulled the table''s lever, I had Excalibur in my other hand, and the amethyst coin popped out of existence as well. The rune floated down onto the cover of the book.
It stayed there a moment, a thin tendril of smoke rising from the leather as it inscribed itself, and then faded. The symbol had changed slightly, and now I recognized it: Protection (I). Several questions presented themselves.
Would the table only generate enchantments I already knew? Did my current level matter, or only how much power was in the sword? And most significantly, did I need bookshelves?
Checking my status screen, I found that my level had not changed. The gem''s color was nearly the same, but the tip had become clear. The sword worked. I had a ready supply of experience to enchant with without reducing my overall level. But what about the bookshelves?
In Maincraft, surrounding an enchanting table with full bookshelves increased the level of the enchantments you could access. I looked around my workroom. Things would need to be shifted around a bit, but I could definitely fit in some shelves. And I would need more books to fill them. At least zombie leather was easy to come by. Esmelda could get me a parchment. I sighed, thinking how yet another project was not what I needed right now. But upgraded enchantments were exactly what I needed when the next demon showed up. There were still crops to harvest. It was going to be a long night.
65: My Biggest Fan (Rewrite)
The path that led from Williamsburg to the former baron''s manor was little more than a wagon trail. It strayed around the patches of woodland, with no signs of any serious attempts at upkeep. It would have been too generous to describe it as a road, but the ruts were a clear indicator that we headed in the right direction.
Gastard, Esmelda and I were making the trip together, and we had left early enough in the morning that there wouldn''t be any risk of not making it home before nightfall. Whatever Gent wanted from me, it shouldn''t take all day.
Wildflowers lined the path, rose-purple, swaying in a chilling breeze. The scent was faint, but pleasant, with the faintest hint of mint. It wouldn''t be long before the colors faded from the landscape. It would be my first winter in Plana.
"How cold does it get here?" I asked.
"Not cold at all," Gastard said. "Winters are harder in Flossmund."
He and Esmelda were both riding, while I had opted to go on foot. It wasn''t a lordly thing to do, but I wasn''t as comfortable in the saddle as they were. Besides, I''d already abandoned one horse before entering the Wastes, and I felt kind of bad about it. We''d never seen Bongo again after that.
"I''d like to see snow again," Esmelda said. "It''s been a few years since we had any worth mentioning."
We followed the trail around an island of trees, the green of their leaves in the process of being swallowed by oranges and browns, as Gent''s village came into view. A collection of thatched cottages and small, haphazard looking stone buildings.
The construction was probably fine, but compared to the perfect lines of crafted blocks, these buildings looked like piles of rocks to me. A woman looked up from tossing feed to a family of chickens beside her home. When she saw us, her face went through a series of changes.
At first, there was alarm, but when her gaze focused on me, she seemed to calm. She curtseyed as we rode around. Did she know who I was, or was she just being prudently polite to men in armor?
The path through the village was more pronounced, and there was even an attempt at proper cobbles as it approached the baron''s manner. We received more curtseys and bows, though there were no shouted greetings, and none of the villagers attempted to engage us in conversation.
Most of them appeared more interested in the harpies than in us, pointing and whispering to each other. A pair of the oversized birds had followed us out of Williamsburg, and they certainly would have seemed ominous to anyone who wasn''t used to seeing them around. Vultures were uncommon in the area, and they looked like vultures on steroids.
It was a quiet place; a few fields carrying what must have been the last harvest expected for the year, a handful of grazing cows. Men and women were hard at work with daily chores, though I heard the shrill voices of children playing not far off.
A little boy ran across the path ahead of us, intent on some mission known only to him, and Esmelda smiled. It was still early enough in her pregnancy that there had been no significant change in her appearance, but I had noticed her eyes lingering on the children in town before.
Would we have a son or a daughter? It didn''t really matter, as long as we could keep them safe.
"And you''re sure this isn''t a trap?" I asked Gastard for the third or fourth time since leaving.
He grunted.
"Gent is too cautious to try anything rash. Godwod would not reward him for causing you harm."
I''d briefly considered bringing a troop of lillits with us as a show of force, but Esmelda and Gastard had both nixed the idea. For one thing, lillits weren''t terribly intimidating, even well-armed, and it might have set the wrong tone.
Gent didn''t need to think I was afraid of him.
The manor rose above the town, ivy creeping up its worn stone walls. Constructed on a hill overlooking the rest, the tall, arched windows above the entrance perched like a pair of watchful eyes. We hadn''t sent word ahead of our arrival, so there was no one waiting to receive us.
We reached the door, and Esmelda slid down off of her horse, Fuzzu, while I took advantage of the bronze knocker set into the wood.
A woman opened it. She was almost as tall as Gastard, her long dark hair streaked with gray, the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth suggesting she was in her forties. Her gaze widened as she took us in.
"You must be Sir William," she said, then blinked down at Esmelda, "and his lady, of course. It''s good of you to come. My name is Mirella."
The woman beckoned for us to enter, though she didn''t so much as acknowledge Gastard. Her dress was plain but fine, dark blue, with long sleeves, and fitted to match her slim frame. I didn''t think she was a servant.
"Thank you," I said, "are you Gent''s wife?"
"I am. Why don''t you rest in the parlor while I fetch him?" She was a little on edge, though that was understandable given who had appeared on her doorstep unannounced, and she hurried out of the room.
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"I''ll watch the horses," Gastard said. "Call for me if I am needed."
The interior of the manor wasn''t luxurious, though it struck me as somewhat aspirational. A pair of tapestries added warmth to the walls, pastoral scenes that looked like they may have spent some time in an attic in a previous life.
An iron chandelier, tinged with rust, hung unlit from the rafters, and what light there was filtered in through the pair of front-facing windows. The glass might have been the most expensive thing they owned. Mismatched furniture was arranged around a threadbare rug whose design was no longer clear. Trinkets rested on a mantle above a fireplace that, like the chandelier, was unlit.
As Esmelda and I sat, my eyes were drawn to a wooden carving that hung above the mantle. It depicted a rabbit leaping over a twisted tree, a stylization of Gent''s family sign. It was good quality, and I wondered if my artisan Skill was developed enough to replicate it.
A girl peeked in on us from another room, a mop of curly hair and a pinched face. Esmelda waved at her, and she ducked out of sight.
"They seem friendly," I said, and Esmelda gave me a look.
"What?"
"Don''t make this harder than it has to be," she said.
¡°Of course not.¡±
Mirella returned soon after to take a seat facing us. Her smile was chilly.
"My husband will join us in a moment. He''s thrilled that you''re here. There''s so much for us to talk about."
As if in direct contradiction to her words, we spent the next several moments in silence. Esmelda broke it with a question about the girl we had seen, and Mirella warmed a fraction. It had been her daughter. She called her in to introduce herself.
"Elara," the girl said, curtseying neatly, "pleased to make your acquaintance."
An older woman entered with a plate of refreshments. Small wedges of cheese and thin-sliced, cured meats, along with a crusty loaf of bread that seemed to have been sitting around for a few days. We took a few samples. The cheese was tangy, and though the meat tasted like pure salt, it wasn''t altogether bad.
I wasn''t sure what I had been expecting out of this visit, but definitely not appetizers. Elara stayed around to snack, gazing curiously at the ruby in the pommel of my blade.
"That''s spooky," she said. At a guess, she might have been about ten, and she seemed more comfortable with the idea of strangers in the house than her mother did.
"Don''t be rude," Mirella said, then to me, "it''s a lovely gem. Was it a gift from Lord Godwod?"
Did the Margrave give people expensive gifts? It had only been the other way around with us.
"No," I patted the sheath, which was hanging off the edge of my chair, ¡°but she''s right. It is spooky." Leaning toward the girl, I lowered my voice. "It has the soul of a demon trapped inside of it."
Mirella blanched, her gaze flickering to my eyes and then away. She hadn''t commented on my appearance, so either they had been forewarned or were afraid to ask. Esmelda pinched my arm, frowning hard. Even though it was a factual statement, I had assumed they would have taken it as a joke, a ghost story for a child.
"It does?" Elara asked, her already wide eyes growing larger still.
"Of course not," Esmelda said quickly, "he''s being foolish."
"Is that why¡ª" Elara cut her question short at the clomp of boots in the hall, saving me from any further explanation.
Gent entered, slightly unsteady on his feet. His hair was uncombed, and his pockmarked face looked splotchy. He had put on a fancy doublet over his sleeping clothes, the mark of his family standing out in gold embroidery on his chest.
"So you''ve come," he said, before slumping into a chair beside his wife.
"I meant to drop by sooner," I said, "but we''ve been busy."
"Of course." Gent glanced around. The woman who had brought in the tray was hovering in the room''s corner. "Wine," he told her, "for me and our guests."
It looked like he had already had some, or else he was recovering from a late night.
"When you asked for the Baron," Esmelda wasted no time in establishing the hierarchy, "what did you have in mind?"
Mirella cast a worried glance at her husband, whose face had darkened. But it wasn''t as if he could correct the statement. Whatever his men thought, he was no longer in charge of this land.
"I''m told you brought gold out of my mine," he said. "We should discuss compensation."
Did he really think he was entitled to something, or was he just seeing how I would handle the demand? Esmelda responded for me before I had my thoughts together.
"It isn''t your mine," she said. "It belongs to the Margrave, and the rights have fallen to Will."
"Now, perhaps," Gent searched for an angle, "but when you found the gold, I was still the lord here. A portion was owed to me, and never paid."
"All of that went into Godwod''s sword," I said. "If you want some of it, you can take it up with him."
Gent practically growled, but his wife spoke over it.
"We understand the Margrave will do as he wishes. What my husband meant to discuss was his future role in Westmine." She laced one of her hands in Gent''s, and the former baron sobered.
"That''s right," he said. "You''re new to the position. You need my guidance. We''ve done well here for ourselves, and I''m willing to help you do the same."
Considering our last encounter, it was an odd position to take, but I guessed he''d already concluded that the best thing he could do for himself was to go with the flow instead of antagonizing me. I doubted he had much to offer, and wouldn''t have been interested in working with him even if he had.
"You''re free to keep managing things on this side of the territory," I said, "but I don''t want you in Williamsburg. The land belongs to me now, and I''ll start sending someone to collect on my behalf."
"You can''t do that." Elara put her hands on her hips. "Daddy''s the Baron. You''re supposed to pay him."
"Go to your room," Gent said, refusing to look at his daughter.
"But¡ª-"
"Now!" So they hadn''t told her. Elara left with tears in her eyes just as the maid was returning with another tray. She placed it on a side table and poured the wine from a carafe into pewter cups for the four of us. It was dead silent.
Gent grabbed his cup out of the woman''s hands and drained it. Her shoulders were taut as she passed out the rest. I accepted my portion, but didn''t drink. Neither did Esmelda.
"How much?" He asked.
"A third of the yield of the land," Esmelda said, "or equal value in silver."
"So be it," Gent had gone quiet, "you won''t hold the title long, anyway."
"What do you mean by that?" His family seemed like good people, but if he was threatening me, I couldn''t let the remark pass.
Mirella tried to take his hand again, but he shook her off. Gent''s mouth stretched into something that wasn''t quite a smile.
"You may want people to think those eyes make you a templar, but I know better. You''re tainted. Godwod will toss you aside as soon as you outlive your usefulness."
Esmelda set her cup aside and stood. "I think this meeting is at an end," she said, nodding to Mirella. "Thank you for sharing your home with us."
"Of course," the woman stood as well, though Gent remained seated. "The Baron is welcome to visit whenever he likes."
66: My Thief (Rewrite)
We returned in time to find Duad, Perrin, and Dongle arguing outside of the longhouse. They made for an odd picture, being that they were standing in height order. Perrin was looming over Dongle, looking like a stern teacher who had caught a student cheating. Dongle was waving an arm as he excused himself, but he couldn''t get away.
Duad was keeping himself behind the jeweler, a few inches shorter, but broader and more muscular. Every time Dongle tried to slip to one side, the smith was there to intercept him. A small crowd of lillits had gathered to watch the confrontation, no doubt drawn by the cries of the harpy perched atop the longhouse.
It was one of Celaeno''s sisters, who I only recognized because of her voice. She spoke about as well and with the same raspy tone as a trained parrot, and she was screaming at the top of her lungs.
"Thief! Fat little thief! Tried to run on his fat little legs!"
I put some hustle in my step, and Esmelda spurred her mount to ride ahead of me. Gastard appeared only mildly interested in the commotion until he spotted the bundle of cloth Dongle was clutching to his left side.
"That''s a sword," he said.
"That bird is a menace!" Dongle thrust an accusing finger at the harpy in question as Esmelda rode up. "It attacked me!"
"Detained!" the harpy shrieked.
"Show me what you''re carrying," Esmelda said, calm but firm.
"That''s not what this is about." Dongle shifted the wrapped object protectively under his arm.
Duad grabbed the end that was sticking out behind the jeweler, then cursed as his palm came away bloody. The blade had sliced clean through the cloth when he tried to pull it.
Perrin crossed his arms over his chest. "You''re only making things harder on yourself."
"Hey, buddy," I caught up to the huddle and dropped a hand on the jeweler''s shoulder. "Mind if I look."
Dongle stiffened under my fingers, then meekly handed over the bundle. I unwrapped the sword, which was unmistakeably one of mine, and looked him dead in the face.
"So, what was the plan here?"
Dongle jowls quivered. "I merely intended to have it properly appraised."
"What about the other one?" Duad moved around to be on the jeweler''s other side. "You have that ''appraised'' too?"
"What?" Dongle looked genuinely baffled. "What other one?"
"A sword already went missing," Esmelda said, "as well as other tools. Do we really have to search your home?"
"That wasn''t me," Dongle pressed his middle and index finger to his forehead. "I swear on Mizu''s name."
Esmelda''s frown deepened. "Don''t use her name so lightly."
"Can we get out of the street?" I said. "This is turning into a scene."
Esmelda nodded after glancing around. Whatever the other townsfolk had been doing before the argument started, they were all glued to the spectacle now. There were at least twenty lillits gathered now, and it was clear from their expressions that communal judgement was already being passed.
We filed into the longhouse to discuss things further. Tipple was inside, and he shooed out a few parishioners to ensure we had a relatively private space to talk. The hefty pastor was sweating through his tunic.
"It''s my fault," he said. "You trusted me, and I failed to protect your gifts."
"It''s alright," I said. "I didn''t expect you to keep your eyes on the swords at all times." Though it was surprising Dongle had been confident enough to make off with one in the middle of the day, this had worked out as well as we could have hoped. The thief had returned, and the harpy on watch had sounded an alarm. Only things weren''t wrapped up as neatly as I supposed.
Dongle pressed a cloth to his scalp, stemming a thin trickle of blood. Apparently, the harpy had swooped down on him the moment he came out of the storage shed with a blade, keeping him occupied until Perrin arrived.
"I swear to you," he pleaded, "if another is missing, I wasn''t the one to take to. You can search my belongings, question my helpers. It wasn''t me."
He could have still been lying. That was certainly Duad''s perspective, but I wasn''t so sure. Dongle might have already found a buyer for the first blade and hidden it, along with the other tools, somewhere we weren''t likely to look. His tone, however, struck me as being legitimately contrite.
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We trekked across town to investigate the one-room cottage he called home. It served as a workspace as well, with the tools of his trade on proud display atop a wooden crate. His pigeons were living in cages in a covered wagon outside his home. Their coos, and their smell, had followed us inside.
"I don''t have your tools," Dongle repeated, "see for yourself."
There really wasn''t much to search through, but Gastard set to turning the place over with gusto. Dongle''s son, Quentin came in from tending to the pigeons and took up position in front of his bed as if to guard it.
A lot of the townsfolk were sleeping on mats on the ground, the carpenters had too much to do to spare the effort to construct frames, but the jeweler and his son had more furnished living space, and theirs lined up along the back wall of the cottage. Gastard eyed the young man, then pushed past him to kneel and look under the bed.
"Don''t," Quentin pleaded, running his hands through his dark, curly hair, his face pinched by anxiety. I had seen little of the young lillit since we''d settled in Westmine. Officially, he was his father''s apprentice, and he wasn''t known for a lot of other useful skills.
Gastard grunted, lowered himself further, and started pulling out tools. Two shovels, and then the missing sword. Dongle choked on his next denial.
"Like father, like son," Duad said, sounding satisfied.
There was hardly room for everyone in the house, but Dongle and his son ended up sitting on their beds while the rest of us circled around. Perrin and Duad were both glowering like bulldogs, and when Boffin showed up, we had a genuine crowd.
"So what do we do with them?" I asked. It was our first serious crime, and we had never discussed what our legal system should look like, but I assumed the lillits had their own traditions for handling these kinds of things.
"Is this everything?" Esmelda said. "Weren''t we missing axes as well?"
"I sold them," Quentin''s voice was barely audible. "On our last trip into Henterfell."
Well, that was an issue, but at least it wasn''t the sword. Boffin took over the interrogation after that, spiced with the occasional condemnation from Duad. Tipple paced in what little space there was, still blaming himself. The ax blades had a similar pattern in the metal to what appeared on the swords. I didn''t know if there was such a thing as a Dargothian ax market, and Godwod technically hadn''t forbidden me from making them. There would have to be a lot of intervening steps between the axes being sold and their existence somehow being traced back to me.
Dongle had done business with several merchants in the city, and apparently, Quentin had gone around his back to sell the axes to one of his old contacts. It didn''t really matter. Just the fact that they had both independently stolen from me was mind-boggling.
"Take one hand from each," Gastard said. "That would be the most fair."
The lillits looked at him with varying degrees of alarm, Quentin especially.
"That isn''t our way," Esmelda said.
"Hanging, then?" Gastard raised an eyebrow. "That seems extreme." It was difficult to tell if he was joking or if that was just how they did things in Drom.
"Compensation for what was taken," Boffin said, "and a Fool''s Walk."
"A what?" That was a new one for me.
"The community will be informed of their deeds," Boffin explained, "and these two will have to make a circuit around town."
"Their punishment is exercise?"
"Naked," Boffin clarified.
"It''s a public shaming," Esmelda sighed. "I suppose we have to decide on the fine as well. There isn''t an established value for what they took. What did you get for the axes?"
Quentin''s head couldn''t hang any lower. "A pound," he said. "It''s under my pillow."
That was a lot higher than the going rate for an ax, but whoever he sold them to must have recognized the value of the steel. In which case, he probably should have asked for more. I had no interest in seeing Dongle or his son strip down to nothing, and in any case, it would be night before long. Esmelda and I left the details to Boffin and the others to figure out. The evening was chill, and Esmelda bundled herself in her traveling cloak.
"I hate not being able to trust my own people," she said. We''d left Fuzzu back at the longhouse, but she was well looked after. The horses were shared around. Keeping the mare at home base would have been a lot of extra hassle. It seemed wrong to keep her underground, and I didn''t completely trust the torches to keep the animal safe. So we walked.
"It''s not too bad," I glanced up at the call of a harpy, but the bird was barely a shadow in the sky over the ridge of the mine. "Maybe they''ll learn their lesson."
"I suppose it''s a small thing, but I don''t enjoy having to worry about what Dongle is up to along with everything else."
"Yeah, I get that. What bothers me is that these day-to-day issues impede my prep work. I''ve made some progress, but I know it''s not enough."
She looked thoughtful. "You said naming your tools showed you their enchantments. Did the knowledge help you?"
"Not yet. Crafting enchanted books is a whole mess, and if I want any more special materials, I''m going to have to turn on the Stargate." I hadn''t tried activating it yet, but in Maincraft, all you had to do was hit a Nether Portal with a spark from flint and steel and it would spring to life. Maybe it didn''t work that way here, but I''d been holding myself back from making the attempt. If it functioned the way I thought it did, then it would take me to where the mobs came from. My feelings on that possibility were mixed.
"In the ruins? How do you know where it leads?"
"If it''s anywhere other than Bedlam, I''ll be shocked."
Esmelda looked down at her boots in the grass. I hadn''t bothered laying out a road between the town and the farm, clearing several miles of path would wear through a pile of shovels and wasn''t worth wasting a day on.
"Do you think it''s wise to go?"
The cry of the harpy came again, closer than before.
"Wise? Who knows? But I need to learn more about my System, see what else I can make, and if there''s a way to get at that armor behind the diamond. It''s the natural next step."
"Do you think you''re ready?"
We both stopped. There was no way for me to answer that until I saw what was on the other side of the gate. The harpy was getting bigger. More dark shapes were circling, exchanging greetings in the croaking language known only to themselves. It did not feel like a good omen. There were no trees within a stone''s throw of us, so Celaeno landed on a low stone to the side of our path.
She preened herself, waiting regally for us to approach.
"What''s going on?" I asked.
The harpy''s eyes flashed in the fading light, violet coals amid the glossy black of her feathers.
"Shadows on the mountains. The Dark Lord extends his hand."
67: My Marker (Rewrite)
"Where are you going?"
Esmelda was worried. It was the only time her face showed any hint of her true age. The slight crease in her brow, the faintest lines around her eyes. Lillits aged slowly, but they weren''t immortal. She was a few years older than me. I hadn''t pushed her for an exact number and she hadn''t offered one. Not that it mattered, but I did sometimes wonder what that meant for our future together. Boffin was well over a hundred and he could have passed for someone in his fifties. Was I going to be decrepit when she was only middle-aged?
I didn''t even know if I would get older. Maybe I was immortal. Kevin had been around for centuries, but was that a feature of our shared System or the result of some other magic? He worked with demons. They might have given him eternal youth in exchange for him joining the forces of darkness.
Esmelda could always remarry. And it would all be moot if I couldn''t do something about Kevin. There had to be a way to stop Survivors from coming back, otherwise, the previous heroes would still be around to fight him themselves. If there was no limit to respawns, then imprisonment was the only other option.
I''d thought about it. Defeating Kevin once wouldn''t be enough if he came back to life every morning. We''d have to find his respawn point and box it in with a material he couldn''t harvest by hand. That, or drown it in lava.
He would have something along those lines prepared for dealing with me as well.
We were home, and I was going from room to room collecting the materials and tools I thought I might need. Esmelda was trailing behind me.
"I want to see what''s coming I said. A little scouting, that''s all."
Esmelda slipped in front of me as I went for a chest full of wood coins. Her hands went to her hips, and she frowned, hard.
"That''s what you said last time."
"This is different." I knew I was in too much of a hurry, and my preoccupation was stressing her out. A few minutes was not too much to spare for her peace of mind. "The harpies can do a few flyovers to get us a better estimate of what we''re up against, but I want to go back to my point of origin."
"Why?"
"Because I''m going to dig a shelter there. A secret one. That way, if something happens to the town, and Drom isn''t safe anymore, you''ll have a place to go."
Her face softened, but the worry was still there. She was too lovely for words.
"You think we''re going to be separated?"
"It''s possible. We need a backup in case we can''t defend the town, and if I die, I want equipment to be handy when I wake back up. It''s important for there to be a place we can always find each other, and right now, my starting zone is just an empty field."
"I should go with you."
"The town needs you to help prepare. You''re a lot better at that sort of thing than I am. Send messages to Godwod. You''re the Baroness, and you need to fill in for me while I''m off digging holes." I smiled at her, trying to pretend this wasn''t as serious as it was. We weren''t ready. Why couldn''t we have had more time?
Celaeno''s explanation of what was coming over the mountain had sounded like a fever dream. Fire and smoke and a boxy monster that was eating the mountain, widening a pass large enough for an army to pass through. My assumption was that Kevin had thrown together a machine that could do some of the harvesting for him.
Esmelda didn''t return my smile.
"Promise me you won''t try to face him alone if it is the Dark Lord. Promise me you won''t risk yourself against a demon, or try to sabotage an army. You will build a shelter, see what there is to see, and come back to me. Then we can go together to make sure Godwod does his duty as the Margrave."
She was really covering all the bases, but it hadn''t been my intention to wage a one-man campaign.
"I promise I won''t do any of those things. I promise I''m coming back." God, I shouldn''t have said that. What a jinx. It seemed to do Esmelda some good though. She allowed me to finish collecting supplies, but stopped me before I could leave.
Her hand was cool around my wrist.
"Go in the morning," she said, her gray eyes holding mine. "You can take Fuzzu. We may not have many restful nights ahead of us, and if you stop sleeping now, you won''t be of any use when the fighting starts."
A part of me was desperate to be moving, to act. I felt like I''d already wasted so much time that would have been better spent building defenses. Carving figurines, harvesting crops. What was the Artisan skill going to do for me when the next demon arrived? Sure, it would be allow me to craft more complicated items in the future, but would we live that long?
Still, I couldn''t bring myself to tell her no. I wasn''t even sure if going immediately was the right choice, or if I was just panicking. It was hard to sleep that night, but holding her as we lay together, I was more certain than I had ever been about anything. I would do whatever was necessary to keep her safe.
***
The Fortune enchantment worked as advertised. My orichalcum pick gravitated toward the diamond coffin like they were magnets, even from across the room. The range wasn''t incredible. If I went back into the central chamber of the underground base where the Stargate rested upon its dais, I couldn''t even feel a tug. In the hall leading to the treasure room, it just felt like the pickaxe was a little lighter when it pointed toward the diamonds.
The range would increase if I got my hands on a higher level version of the enchantment. As it was, it would still be useful. Resources in the real world were a lot more spread out than they were in computer games. A dowsing rod for gems would be an enormous advantage.
Diamond blocks had so far resisted all my harvest attempts, regardless of what tool I used, but that had been before my Miner skill reached level thirty. The orichalcum full-plate rested within a clear crystal box, composed of the same metal as Kevin''s tools. Iron armor was good, but if I could get my hands on the orichalcum, it would be a game-changer.
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I hesitated over the diamond coffin, contemplating the treasure it contained. The artistry was otherworldly. As a set, it fit together in the same fashion as what I crafted, but the cool factor was times a million. Sleek, golden-white. It looked more like a miniature Gundam than a set of armor. This was a power suit.
Raising the pickaxe, I took a deep breath and sent a prayer off to Mizu. Why not? I swung down as hard as I could, and a tiny crack appeared where the tip struck the crystal.
My heart skipped a beat. It had worked. I could harvest diamonds now. But my celebratory feelings were short-lived.
The crack disappeared quickly. In itself, that wasn''t a problem. Materials recovered if I didn''t finish mining them. But runes like those that protected the chests on the back wall of the treasure room had appeared all along the edges of the showcase.
It wasn''t just a diamond box; it was an enchanted diamond box.
I tried anyway.
With a few swings, I could get a single block about halfway to shattering, but that was as far as it went. With every blow, the runes glowed brighter, and the material recovery quickened. Worse, it was damaging my pick.
Pulling up the System screens, I saw that Pickle Rick had lost five points of durability from thirty seconds of attempted mining. Even with a maxed skill and a meta-material tool, it would break before the box did.
The pick would mend itself if I used it to mine valuable materials, but if I kept flailing away at the diamond box, I would lose it. So close. There had to be a way to deal with the runes, but it was out of my skill set. A mentor would have been nice. Even a kindly old wizard that only came on screen for a single episode to give some cryptic advice would have been something. For all the gifts my System had given me, it was still stingy with explanations.
So the armor wouldn''t be a part of my next adventure. I could still try the Stargate.
Esmelda and I had come back to town at first light. She was handling Boffin and the others for now, and I was grateful to her for that. They all had questions I couldn''t answer.
When would the enemy arrive? How many monsters were there? Was Kevin leading them, a demon, or both?
Hopefully, the lillits keeping watch near the mountain would arrive with more information soon. Unless scouts had captured them. Eaten by zombies. There were a lot of ways that could go wrong. I would see for myself soon enough.
The pale glowstones dimly illuminated the aquamarine stone of the Stargate room on each corner of the dais. Their light played across the glossy black exterior of the gate, which was unsettling, because their glow was too steady to play across anything. The reflected light was too mobile, shifting along the circular obsidian arch, making it seem alive.
Flint and steel in hand, I stepped up onto the dais and approached the base of the gate. Striking a spark against the obsidian, I jumped back in case the activation of the portal came with a suction effect.
Nothing happened. On my second and third attempts, I was less cautious, but no amount of sparks turned this thing on. It was almost a relief. Now wasn''t the time to go on my first adventure in Bedlam, but it would have been good to know I had the option.
The Stargate was like the other treasures, right in front of me and out of my reach.
¡
I got out of town without having to deal with anybody. Boffin and the other influential lillits were holding a meeting in the longhouse. It would have been proper for me to attend, but I wasn''t ready to address the villagers yet. News of the impending invasion hadn''t spread yet, so no one tried to stop me as I rode out of Williamsburg. It was just the Baron on a day trip.
Lillits waved, and I waved back. Nothing the matter.
Fuzzu wasn''t happy to have me as a rider. Esmelda''s horse was accustomed to a significantly lighter burden, but she was going to have to make do. Though it wasn¡¯t a gallop, we kept up a good pace and left the town behind us. Traveling was another example of a waste of time, considering how much else there was for me to do. But no one could build the bunker for me.
It was something I''d meant to put together for a while, but getting the lillits settled and the farm running had kept me too busy to sacrifice a day or two of progress revisiting my spawn point. Following Whiskywend was like working backward in time. We passed the patch of forest where I''d harvested my first rock, then the site of the house I''d lost to a troll''s rampage.
My stone box was there, both the sleep coffin I''d made for myself and the cube that contained a very special zombie. Soil covered most of the cube, and the original basement had partially filled in, but one wall was still visible. Pulling Fuzzu to a stop, I went down and spent a few minutes looking to see if there was any sign that Bill had escaped.
Tapping didn''t elicit a response, or else I couldn''t hear him through the stone. There were no breaks or gaps that I could see. Trapping him called into question whether the zombies needed to eat to survive or if they could persist forever living on spite alone. Bill hadn''t reappeared, so I assumed he was still inside. Cutting out a hole to check on him was a temptation, but I didn''t want to spare the time or the risk of doing so.
If he was gone, I wouldn''t see him again until he came for me.
The river branched, and I followed the lesser of the two streams. The wind felt good, and the air was clean, but there was smoke over the mountains. At first, it appeared to be a few low clouds over the peaks, but they were too dark and too loose to be a storm. Thin columns rose among the passes, mingling in a dour mass above. It gave me a general idea of where they were crossing, a different point from the pass Gastard and I had taken to reach the Wastes.
Why bother with mining out a section of the mountain when there was nothing to stop soldiers from marching over in single file? Pigeons were already flying to Henterfell to warn Godwod of what the harpies had seen. But from what we''d experienced last time, the nobles of Drom would be slow to respond. Though my town wasn''t far from Henterfell, Eerb was on its own.
The other lillit village was farther north along the mountains. The Dargothians could pass them by or wipe them out just as easily. If they followed the same track as before, they would miss Eerb entirely, but it was unlikely they would be so fortunate twice. One of Dongle¡¯s messenger pigeons was already flying there. Would it be better to warn them myself?
On the way to spawn, I half-expected to see the lillits who had volunteered to keep watch by the mountains headed back to Williamsburg with a warning on their own, but there was no one. They could have gone to Eerb first. They could have been taken. There was no way for me to know for sure yet.
My original shelter was still intact, though it was barely more than a pair of walls with planks strung between them for a cover. Finding it gave me the relative position of origin, and after Fuzzu had a drink from the stream, we headed for where I remembered leaving a marker.
The vegetation was surprisingly thick. Not just the grass, which was a foot taller than it should have been in a large swath and as tight-packed as a snowbank, there we trees as well. Fuzzu had trouble placing her hooves among the stalks, so I slid down to lead her and harvested my way through it.
The grass wasn''t a special species. It was simply overgrown. The trees looked like they had been maturing for decades, though I was sure they hadn¡¯t been there a few months ago. It would have taken me what little remained of the day to find the obsidian block, but the stone marker I had left was still in place and inscribed with a message every bit as inscrutable as the one left for me.
In answer to "You are not alone," I had carved, "Who dis?"
As of yet, this conversation of competing monuments appeared to be finished. No other Survivors had wandered by and added to the dialogue.
There was another reason than what I''d explained to Esmelda for coming back here. A previous survivor had left the obsidian block behind for a reason, and it might have been more than a simple greeting. Digging underneath it had never occurred to me while I was still busy trying to survive the night.
We''d found one underground base already. What if whoever had intended to help me find my place in this world had left behind supplies?
They hadn''t. At least not here. Clearing grass was the work of moments, and my shovel bit squares out of the surrounding dirt faster than an excavator. The obsidian was three blocks deep, so it may have sat higher at some period in its history, but it didn¡¯t lead to any new secret cache of artifacts. You could only get lucky so many times.
Mildly disappointed, I continued to dig. Fuzzu and I both needed a place to sleep for the night.
68: My Squid (Rewrite)
Celaeno was squawking to get my attention as soon as the sun rose.
I''d built myself a bomb shelter. It wasn''t anything fancy, a few rooms equipped with Eternal Torches, extra tools, and the materials left over from construction. A worktable was a must, and a bed. That was basically the extent of all the furniture I knew how to craft. Three wool and three planks was all the bed formula called for. If I hadn''t spent so many nights confining myself to a sleeping coffin, I would have made them sooner.
They didn''t reset my respawn point, but they were comfortable.
"I hear you!" I called, and Fuzzu snorted in disapproval. Esmelda''s horse had spent the night standing in a corner, visibly displeased with the entire situation. She was tense being underground.
Celaeno was topside, so to get to her I had to mine out the blocks I''d used to seal myself in with a horse for the night. I''d brought enough stone to fill in the entire shelter, but the entrance would always be a weak point. Once it was clear, I took Fuzzu by the reins and led her up. She didn''t love the stairs, but navigated them without incident, and we shortly faced with a small gang of harpies roosting in the surrounding grass.
"A new meat," Celaeno said. One of her talons was resting atop what looked to be half of a green and yellow squid. "It has excellent flavor."
Fuzzu trotted off to one side, not wanting to be near either the harpies or their gruesome trophy. I squatted down to get a better look.
The remains were about two feet long, missing most of its arms. Each limb ended on a round mouth, the same thing that hid under the skin-cloaks of the zombies. They''d already eaten its eyes.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Kulu," Celaeno preened herself. "We have not seen them in this lifetime, but my kind remembers."
"Were there a lot of them?"
"Some, they hid in the trees. We caught them. It was enjoyable."
"I''m glad you had fun." The harpies never tired of hunting mobs. Their only regret seemed to be that they weren''t big enough to take on trolls.
"In the night," Celaeno said, "shadows spread from the mountain. Searching."
"Zombies?"
She poofed her feathers. "No. Taller, faster, darker. We did not know them, so we did not attack. Their movement was disturbing."
"So that''s two new monsters." The humanoids they were describing would have come with the army. But the squid things had spawned around me. It had been a while since anything new had spawned around me, but the fact that it was happening now didn''t strike me as a good omen. I checked for notifications.
| Journal |
Quests |
Notifications |
Materials |
Crafting |
|
Achievement: Survivor (3)
You have lived for three consecutive months. Congratulations. Base physiology adjusted accordingly.
The veil of the world around you will continue to weaken as you advance. Discuss solutions with your mentor.
|
"Hey," I said, shifting my arm so that Celaeno could see the screen. "Do you know anything about this?"
The harpies violet gaze shifted from me to the floating blue dialog box and back again.
"I cannot read."
"It''s talking about the veil weakening. Mobs spawn around me because something about my existence is bad for the fabric of reality, right?" There was no point in asking her about a mentor. The System had mentioned that before, but I didn''t have one, and I didn''t expect anyone to show up with answers soon.
"That is true," she said. "Magic weakens the world. It is our joy and our duty to devour it."
That was a fresh idea. Did the harpies see themselves as the winged version of a templar?
"Then why have you never tried to devour me?"
"Your kind is different. Chosen by the Blue Lady. If you find your path, you will give strength instead of stealing it."
"How?"
She lifted her wings in the bird equivalent of a shrug. "The Dark Lord knows. He turned aside."
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So the only one who could tell me how to be less of a problem was the biggest problem on Plana. Perfect.
"Did you get a better look at the army? Or the machine?"
Celaeno bobbed her head. "Two demons are among them. Perhaps three. We did not fly close. The machine worked through the night, and an army stands behind. More than before. They are laying a road."
The delay that came with that kind of project was fortunate, but if they were going through all that trouble, it meant they were preparing the groundwork for an actual invasion. Hopefully, Godwod would take it seriously enough not to expect me to hold the line with a troop of lillits while he talked things over with the peerage.
"Thank you," I said. "I''ll be heading back to town soon, but I''d like you to keep monitoring the situation here."
The harpies took off. As far as I could tell, they never slept. Either that, or they could nap in the air.
For the entrance to the shelter, I placed a door flat against the ground and attached buttons on either side. It wasn''t as secure as I would have liked. Anyone could press the button, but the mechanical lock Kevin had used in the way station was still beyond my skill set. If it came down to it, the button on the outside could be removed so only someone below could open and shut the door. It would function as a safe room.
The best defense this place had was that it was a random stretch of overgrown field. Thanks to the grass, the stone marker wasn''t visible from a distance. There was always a risk that Kevin knew this was a spawn point, but I deemed that to be unlikely. If he had been aware that a Survivor had come into the world here, he could have already sent minions to camp the area. That''s what I would have done.
It was early afternoon when I returned to town, dropped Fuzzu off at the communal stable, and went looking for Esmelda. The various construction projects, new homes, and our first official shop, were not in progress. A few lillits were tending animals or fields, but most of the activity was around the mine. People were porting supplies and furniture into the tunnel.
A lillit woman I didn''t recognize stopped me. She looked frazzled, her hair half in a bun, with worry adding lines to her face.
"Baron," she said. "Is it true? Is the Dark Lord coming for us?"
"I don''t know," I said. "But there are Dargothians on the mountain. I''m going to speak with Godwod, and we''ll do everything we can to keep the people here safe." I would, anyway. Godwod had never expressed an immense amount of sympathy for the lillits.
"But are they coming here?" She held onto the sleeve of my tunic like it was a lifeline. I hadn''t worn armor on the trip out, mostly to show Esmelda that I didn''t intend to start a fight, as well as spare Fuzzu the extra weight.
Perrin detached himself from a conversation with some of his apprentices and hurried over.
"Dayla," he said, "don''t bother the Baron. He''s going to do everything he can."
The woman''s cheeks reddened, and she stepped away.
"It''s alright," I said. "There''s plenty of reason to be concerned."
"It isn''t seemly," Perrin smoothed his hefty mustache. "The more we panic, the more panic there will be." He put his arm around the woman, who I assumed was his wife, and led her away.
"Gastard''s looking for you," he said as he turned. "I think he''s walking the ridge."
The mine was dug out of a rocky fold of land that made up the long side of Williamsburg. The town had largely been built along its lee. Though it offered little protection, going back and forth across the ridge was too much of an inconvenience for much work to have been done on the other side when there was plenty of space where we were.
I spotted Gastard, backlit by the sun, as the lone elevated figure. He came down before I climbed up, already decked out in the iron suit I had crafted for him, everything but the helmet. His dirty blonde hair was cut short, and he''d recently shaved. There was a burn mark on his jaw, a dark patch of skin that was the only visible reminder of when he had been nearly killed by Beleth''s lightning.
"You went without me." He said.
"It was a build project. I didn''t get close to the enemy."
His brow furrowed, his blue eyes narrowing. "What were you building?"
"A hideaway. I''ve told Esmelda how to find it, no one else. If something happens to me, or the town, I want you to take her there."
He straightened, bringing a gauntleted fist to his chest. "Of course. The duty is an honor."
"You''re the only one I would trust to do it," I said.
He nodded, taking the statement as a given. "The townsfolk are preparing to shelter in the mine," he said. "What would you have me do?"
"I need to see Godwod. Letters are one thing, but I won''t be sure of what he''s going to do unless we can talk in person."
"You can''t trust him," Gastard said.
"He''s all we''ve got. At the very least, he''s on the side of the kingdom. I know you have a history with him, but he hasn''t screwed me over yet, aside from demanding all my gold."
"Shall I accompany you?"
"I would prefer if you stayed with the lillits. They aren''t exactly an organized fighting force, and I want you to keep an eye on things."
He grunted. "I''ve been training a group that fancied themselves the town guard. Their progress disappoints me."
"As bad as me?"
"Yes and no," a slight quirk of the mouth, almost a smile. "You have improved. And your strength makes up for some of your lack in skill. The little folk do not have that advantage."
"How is their archery?" I asked. "I could pump out as many bows as we needed."
He shook his head. "They are excellent marksmen, but the bows you craft have to heavy a draw for even the larger men. They have some of their own, and I expect them to make good use of them when there is need."
I had an early dinner with Esmelda before setting out to Henterfell. We didn''t go all the way back to the farm, instead making a picnic for ourselves atop the ridge. There wasn''t a lot of room for that sort of thing, but plenty of rocks to sit on, and it gave us a good view of the town. The ridge itself was only high enough to put us at a level with the roof of the longhouse, which was still the highest structure in town.
Esmelda''s hair was down, and the light cast gold highlights along the edges of its profile. We were having egg sandwiches. Chickens were a recent addition to the livestock of the town, and they had quickly become a primary source of protein.
"I was thinking about names," she said, placing her barely nibbled sandwich in the basket beside her.
"For the baby?"
"Hmm. I like Zeraphine for a girl."
"That''s¡unique. What if it''s a boy?"
"I''m not sure. Zaren, maybe. Would you want him to have your name? That''s common in Drom. Less common here, though the Perrinson family certainly sticks to the tradition."
"No." I said. We would not go the route of Perrin Perrinson. "I''ve always liked Leto, and I''m pretty sure it works for either a boy or a girl."
She tilted her head thoughtfully. "I''ve never heard it."
"It''s from my world''s mythology." Leto was the mother of Apollo and Artemis, but that wasn''t actually why I liked the name. It belonged to my favorite character in the Dune series. That wasn''t a great reference, given that the Leto of fiction had turned into a giant space worm monster and ruled half a galaxy as a tyrant for thousands of years, but it had stuck with me. My other preference for naming a child was "Starscream," but no one was ever going to go for that.
"I don''t hate it," she said, smiling. "But we should discuss a few other options as well."
We did.
69: My Margrave (Rewrite)
The margrave wasn¡¯t in his garden, but an attendant led me to the dining hall where I had given him his sword. Drab stone walls and limited lighting. No meal sat on the long table down the center of the room, but there was a decanter of wine and a set of pewter cups on the far end.
Godwod was already in discussion with a fiercely bearded man in a burgundy tunic, and Otto was slouching several steps behind the seated lord. His eyes trained on me as I entered and the servant announced my presence.
Our last encounter had been less than friendly, but it wasn¡¯t the sort of thing he would bring up.
The bearded man glanced toward me as my name rang in the hall, then immediately dismissed me as unimportant and continued his discussion.
¡°What you ask is too much,¡± the bearded man said. ¡°I will not risk my men while others remain behind.¡±
¡°It is no more than you promised when you became my vassal,¡± Godwod said, sounding like the lord he was supposed to be.
¡°What¡¯s the problem?¡± I asked.
The bearded man shot me a harsh look, but his mouth dropped open slightly when our gazes met, and his overbearing attitude took a hit. Godwod looked pleased.
¡°Ah, Baron Smith, how good of you to make an appearance!¡± He stood. ¡°Let me introduce you to Count Duku, one of my most illustrious and loyal servants.¡± The bearded man frowned so deeply at this description that I thought he was on the verge of breaking his face.
¡°Count Duku, this is my friend and stalwart retainer, Master William Smith.¡±
¡°What a ridiculous name,¡± the count declared, recovering. ¡°Smiths do not become barons. But I suppose you are the would-be templar? You fought a demon?¡±
Well, the name was ridiculous, but not for the reasons he thought. ¡°That''s about right," I said. "Nice to meet you. So what¡¯s the problem?¡±
¡°It¡¯s none of your concern,¡± Duku said. He was two categories above me as far as nobility went, just one degree below Godwod, which meant he was one of my liege¡¯s most influential vassals.
¡°I thought I might help.¡±
¡°Unlikely. Will you be sending lillits to the battlefront?"
Godwod snorted. ¡°I asked Count Duku to take his men to the field and test the Dark Lord¡¯s advance.¡±
¡°Then you got my letters."
"I did indeed," Godwod waved me in and poured a cup for me himself. The servant who had announced me, a young man in white livery, seemed ready to lunge forward and do it for him, but thought better of it. "This is most serious. Despite what I said to you about serving as a first line of defense for the kingdom, I have been preparing for this moment since you returned from the Wastes. The lillits have many appreciable qualities, but soldiers, they are not."
There was an empty chair beside the Count, so I took it and accepted the cup. The wine was dark and dry. It probably wasn''t possible for me to get properly drunk. My Purifier achievement had granted me immunity to most poisons, and alcohol definitely fell into that list. I was a little sad about that. The flavor really wasn''t worth it if it didn''t come with the hope of a buzz.
¡°I took a trip closer to the border to see them," I said. "The Dargothians were still on the mountain when I left, but we can''t have long. I''m not sure how many there were, but I saw a lot of fires." My relationship with the harpies wasn''t something I wanted to bring up with company, so I wouldn''t go into more detail unless it was necessary.
Godwod sat back in his seat and spent a moment in contemplation of his cup, and the Count shifted to address me.
"How close did you come to them?"
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"Not close. But the last time, their force was split between men and monsters."
"Dargothians are men, like any other," the Count''s lips turned down. "The talk of monsters is more legend than truth."
"I was there," I pointed at my eyes, "there were monsters. And a demon."
He seemed inclined to disagree, but turned away from me instead. Novelty contacts didn''t exist in this world, so he couldn''t argue that something hadn''t happened to me.
"We will go together," Godwod said at last. "The three of us, and whatever men we can muster. I want to see what we face for myself. It has been too long since I left these halls."
"Margrave," the Count''s voice pitched low, "what do you expect us to do? My retainers number in the dozens, not the hundreds."
Godwod waved the concern away. "We won''t take them head on, I assure you. But as brave Will has done before us, we will see what there is to see. Messengers are already running across the march, and I will remain in communication with the other barons. If anything, I believe it will inspire them to follow my example. Their liege seeking fate on his own. How could anyone who calls themselves a knight resist the urge to join me?"
I could think of a few different ways that could go, none of them positive. Otto had remained silent since my arrival, and I thought he should look worried, given that he was certainly a man Godwod would take along for the ride. Instead, he was smirking. I didn''t like that. Was there some kind of joke going on here I wasn''t catching on to? Godwod''s manner was a tad dramatic, but his eccentricity made him hard to read.
Count Duku excused himself, claiming he needed to prepare, and Godwod gestured for me to take more wine. Reluctantly, I did so, barely tasting it.
¡°There''s no need for you to rally the little folk,¡± he said. ¡°As amusing as that would be, we might as well be arming children. But I am interested to see what a man like you can accomplish, given your experience."
"It was mostly luck before," I said. While I didn''t agree with his opinion of the lillits, I wasn''t opposed to letting them stay home. Kevin had some kind of fixation on them, and the farther they stayed from the front, the better.
¡°Fortune is a rare thing. A man who can defy it, rarer still. It has occurred to me that this attack would not be happening if not for your miracle, bringing those villagers out of the Wastes. Dargoth has been quiet for so long, and the Dark Lord might have been satisfied with his playthings.¡±
¡°It was only a start,¡± I said. "He would have come back."
"I agree," Godwod sighed, and adjusted the silver circlet that rested atop his head, "but not everyone is of the same mind. Regardless, the enemy has arrived, and even King Egard will have to take notice. It will do me good to have a reason to raise that wonderful sword you made for me, even if it never draws blood. This keep has felt confining. My daughter has been making a nuisance of herself of late."
"Johanna?" I looked around as if the girl was to be found peeking around a doorway, but there was no one in the hall with us but Otto and the servant.
"Yes. She caught wind of Gastard''s part in your little adventure when the lillits were staying in the city. Johanna seems to think he is a hero and deserves to be welcomed back into my service. It was, however, his choice to leave."
Why was he telling me this?
¡°I had dared to dream that he was gone forever. The fears of my father and grandfather, dead and gone." For a moment, I thought he was talking about Gastard, but then I realized he meant Kevin. "They talked about this, you know, that when the trade stopped, he would come again with his armies. But it never happened, and I thought for sure he must have been dead.¡± His eyes dropped to my hand around the cup, and the elder sign.
¡°That Count of yours,¡± I said, changing the subject, ¡°he seems like a handful.¡±
Godwod shrugged. ¡°It is the nature of our relationship. The dukes think I am a handful, and the king thinks the same of the dukes. Everyone bristles at the boot, while pressing their own on the backs below. Despite all that you are capable of, I find myself less concerned about your motives than I am of a number of my other vassals.
¡°I want peace,¡± I said. ¡°I don¡¯t have time to jockey for position.¡±
¡°Ah, yes, the baroness is with child, is she not?¡±
"She is." I had not told him that.
¡°Congratulations, the joy of it dulls with time, but there are bright moments to be had between now and then, yes?¡± He lifted his cup again, saw that it was empty, and set it down. ¡°After this is done with, you can go back to your family, your lillits, and perhaps you can make me another sword.¡±
There was something he wasn¡¯t telling me, but I chalked it up to the stress of the invasion. ¡°How long until we go?¡± I asked.
¡°Tomorrow.¡± Godwod¡¯s eyes were glassy. He had been drinking long before he invited me to join him. The carafe was as empty as his cup, and he threw it at the nearest doorway. It shattered on the stone tiles of the floor, the sound ringing through the empty hall. Otto didn''t flinch.
¡°Are you okay?¡± He was always strange, but I had never seen him genuinely upset before.
¡°Yes.¡±
"Tomorrow, as in the morning?"
"Yes." The margrave always placed himself beneath the light of a window, and that light was fading against his blonde hair. He looked up. ¡°Ah, you never stay in the city at night, do you? One of the many mysteries of Will Smith.¡±
"Shall I meet you at the gate in the morning?" When had he noticed that? I hadn''t ever told him I couldn''t sleep at the keep, and I had never had a reason to before.
"So be it."
70: My Railroad (Rewrite)
We surveyed the Dark Lord''s army from atop a hill more than a mile from where they camped. It was a mass of men and monsters large enough that I couldn''t estimate their number. It was like looking at an old photograph of a political rally, or a march. Was that what ten-thousand people looked like or twenty? Godwod, Count Duku, and I had arrived with a retinue of fifty mounted men. There were a hundred more on foot, still hours behind us, and in the face of this, there might as well have been none.
"What is that?" Godwod said. "I have never seen a road like it."
The Dargothians had crossed the mountain and appeared to have settled in the foothills. It was hard to make out at this distance, but the trail that snaked behind them and up into the pass appeared to be a train track. A yellow mist obscured much of the enemy force, two distinct clumps, making it even harder to guess at their total number. Even as we watched, the engine of the train came slowly around the peaks, its iron face dull and soot stained, black smoke spewing out of its stack.
We''d ridden straight from Henterfell as soon as the sun rose, and I would soon have to make excuses for why I needed to be by myself when the sun went down. Keeping watch? Scouting? We''d traveled faster than I''d expected, and the animals were weary. They''d lent me a horse, and the poor creature was half-dead under my legs.
"That''s a mechanical carriage," I said, "and it can only run along that track. Depending on how many cars there are, it could carry hundreds more soldiers. Plus supplies for the entire army."
Duku made a choking noise, but Godwod looked more excited than afraid.
"Incredible," he said. "My father spoke of such things existing in Dargoth, but I believed them to be mere tales. Even before Egard banned trade, there were no such carriages bringing goods into our land."
"We''re going to need a much bigger army," I said.
Godwod didn''t answer, and silence descended on our little group at the fore of the riders. Otto pulled his horse forward, a wicked grin painted across his face, and Duku was motioning for some of his retainers to come forward.
"Dismount," Godwod said, "we will share an oath."
The others immediately complied, hopping off of their saddles without a word. I followed suit, though in a less practiced manner, being careful not to get my boots tangled in the stirrups.
"Your armor''s something," Otto said. "I wouldn''t mind a set like that. Did you make that too?"
"What oath?" I asked, ignoring Otto.
There was a gasp from among the retainers as Godwod drew his sword. A blade of gold, its edge gleaming like fire. The weapon was the prettiest thing I''d ever crafted. I almost regretted giving it to him.
"This is a momentous occasion, one that will be spoken of for generations to come. Upon this blade, we will swear to uphold the kingdom of Gotte, and hold it fast against the shadow."
He''d never seemed even mildly religious before, but he sounded serious. Otto''s grin faded, and he gave his lord a questioning look, but Godwod wasn''t paying attention to him. His gaze settled on me.
"Please, my loyal vassal, remove your right glove."
So we were starting with me. Okay. I unclasped my gauntlet as the others watched. Most of the riders were farther down the hill, but four men had brought their horses up behind Duku. One of them eased forward to take the reins of the horse I had ridden and lead it to stand with the rest. It clopped away, no doubt relieved it wasn''t being asked to run anymore.
"Hold out your hand."
I did. Godwod was holding the sword vertically, and he brought it down with a swift motion. Reflexively, I pulled my hand back, but not fast enough. The edge of the golden blade went clean through three of my fingers at the knuckle and shaved off the tip of my pinky as well. For a second, I was too stunned to react. It didn''t even hurt. How could it be that sharp?
Then Otto tackled me. I tried to catch myself, and it didn''t go well. The pain of landing on my partially severed fingers was sufficiently shocking that I felt like I lost a few seconds of time. More men were piling on to help Otto, grabbing my legs and arms. Individually, I was stronger than them. Against a group, with a messed up hand, I had no chance. Wriggling and kicking, I tried to roll out from under Otto, but they pulled both my arms behind my back and had one man on each of my legs.
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Godwod stepped in front of me, all I could see was his shoes and the hem of his garish yellow robe. His tongue clicked.
"I owe you a thousand apologies, Mr. Will, but this will work out the best for everyone."
"Why¡ª-" Otto pressed my head down, and I got a mouth full of dirt. My hand was on fire, but the feeling was secondary to the anger roiling inside of me. Godwod had made a deal with Dargoth. There was no other explanation, and all my plans were moot. I''d never imagined he was a kind or caring person, but this seemed extreme. We''d had a good working relationship that was very profitable for him, and I''d thought that would be enough.
He wasn''t just betraying me; he was betraying his kingdom. Did he think Kevin would be satisfied with my capture and leave Drom alone?
"I''m sure you have questions," he said, as casually as if we were sitting together in his garden. "Understand that this isn''t about you."
I could feel ropes being tied around my arms and legs. They were hog-tying me. Rather than bother trying to plead, I continued to struggle, rocking and jerking. Otto had to shift off my back to allow the others to work, but he kept a hand on the back of my head. The grass and dirt mingled in my mouth with the copper taste of blood.
"Bind his hand," Godwod said, "and be certain he doesn''t die. The Dark Lord stipulated that he be brought to him alive. If we lose him, there will be war."
"He won''t stop!" I yelled through a mouthful of ground. "It''s a trap!"
Otto shoved a rag in my mouth, and they quickly finished binding me. A few moments later, they lifted me onto the back of a horse and cinched me in place. I could see the sky. High overhead, dark shapes were outlined against the deep blue of fading day.
Godwod leaned down to whisper in my ear. "Don''t worry, Will. I''m not a fool. I know he won''t stop. But now I will have an exalted position in the world that is to come. I couldn''t be more grateful to you."
The sounds that came through the gag in my mouth were not words, but he got the gist.
Godwod straightened. "There''s no call to be rude," he said, and then a harpy sank its claws into his face.
Curses and shouts, feathers and swords. From my position, I couldn''t watch the fight after Godwod stumbled out of my line of sight. All I saw was the sky. Screeches mingled with screams, and orders were shouted to the waiting men. It was nice of my homies to jump in, but they were just a scouting group. Even if the entire flock had been here, it wouldn''t have been enough to overcome fifty armored soldiers.
The altercation lasted under thirty seconds. Harpies wheeled away, rising beyond the reach of swords, and headed west. They were smart enough to know they couldn''t win. At least I knew my friends would learn what had happened to me. Esmelda had a place to go.
And I had a way out of this.
"Take him," Godwod said, out of my sight. "We have to finish this before more come."
"What the hell?" It was Otto. "Does he control birds?"
"No. But the harpies are his allies. Will is a sorcerer, and he has sold himself to the Shadow. He belongs to the Dark Lord, and when we return him, this land will be safe once more."
So, he was lying to Otto as well. Or was that statement for the benefit of the Count and the other soldiers?
"Of course," Count Duku said. "There was no way a man like him could have killed a demon. The Dark Lord knows he cannot defeat the might of a united Free Kingdoms. You are sagacious as always, my lord."
What was he talking about? If Kevin was afraid of the kingdoms, he wouldn''t be rolling in with a train. Whatever. He was just trying to make the situation make sense to himself. The cloth in my mouth was clean, at least. I tried moving it around with my tongue, but it was in there deep. It would be easier to choke on it than spit it out.
They started leading the horse forward. With only a mile between us and the enemy encampment, if I was going to enact my escape, I would have to do it quickly. My sword was still in its sheathe, but there was no way for me to get to it. They tied my wrists tight enough that the rope was doubling as a tourniquet. My fingers were still burning, but mostly, my hand felt numb. Fortunately, there was another option to get out of this.
I held my breath.
For about thirty seconds, nothing happened. Then the heart bar in the corner of my vision started to blink. Ten more seconds went by, and there was a change.
When I was younger, I''d gotten really into holding my breath. A weird hobby for a weird kid. My record was three minutes. The goal here wasn''t to last as long as I could, though, it was to die. You could drown in Maincraft. When you went underwater, a bubble bar appeared, and when that timed out, you lost health instead. Under normal circumstances, there was no way I could hold my breath until it killed me.
Even if you passed out, your body would breath on its own, and I wouldn''t get to that point. As the oxygen levels in my blood dropped, my chest spasmed. That''s what happens when you hold your breath for a long time. You don''t get light-headed, your vision doesn''t fade. Instead, your whole body wakes up and tells you it''s pissed. I''ve never tried free-diving, but what I''ve read about the experience is that it''s less about conditioning your body to go longer without air than it is about learning to remain calm despite the sensation of slowly dying. The more relaxed you are, the more still, the fewer demands your muscles make for oxygen.
Suffocating is not peaceful. It sucks.
My chest spasmed again. My head hurt. Another heart flickered away. I wriggled to distract myself from the discomfort. A few spasms later, my willpower gave out to the desperation of my panicking flesh and I drew in a sharp breath through my nose. My brain didn''t know that dying right now would actually be best for us, and it was hard to argue with your brain.
But I had lost hearts, and I could do it again.
The grassland bobbed up and down from my upside down perspective. My captors had to be watching me, but there was no way for them to tell that I was making progress, and they expected me to struggle. Struggling was futile.
After three more attempts, I was down to two hearts.
"Hail!" Godwod called. "And well met. I have brought you what you desired."
71: My Centaur (Rewrite)
¡°Hail, and welcome, human. I am Malphas, 39th Harbinger of the One Who Knocks, and I will accept your gift on behalf of the Dark Lord." The voice was annoying, scratchy and uneven.
Otto dragged me off the back of the horse and dropped me on the grass at Godwod''s feet. No one was holding me down, but with the way they had tied me, the best position I could hope for was rolling half onto my side so I could get a look at the demon. There were two of them, and a troll.
Malphas was wearing dark robes, full on wizard stuff. The bone structure of his face was a mixture of avian and human, with a bone-white beak and small, deep-set eyes. More feathers than skin. But not totally a bird. A crow demon.
"It isn''t a gift," Godwod said, "we had an agreement."
The other demon was wearing a toga and sandals, and what I could see of his body was covered in short, brown fur. His head was full horse, and when he spoke, all I could think of was the Bojack Horseman cartoon.
"Of course. You have fulfilled your oath. If he is what we believe, then your future is assured." It even sounded like Will Arnett. Wild. That was enough of this. I stopped breathing.
The demons had met my captors halfway between their force and Godwod''s. Though the sun was still out, they didn''t seem to suffer for it. The troll behind them was tarred from head to toe in the monstrous equivalent of sunscreen. It was one of the largest examples of the species I had ever seen, and it was carrying a box.
Were they going to put me in a box?
It didn''t look big enough to hold a person, unless they were planning on chopping me up and stacking my pieces inside. A two-by-two obsidian cube, banded with gold, and etched with softly glowing runes. Crimson like the gem in the pommel of my sword.
Malphas came forward and knelt beside me. His hands were the most human thing about him, clean and petite. They didn''t go with the rest. He grabbed my shoulder and rolled me on my face so he could get a look at my elder sign.
"You nearly cut it off," he said. "That would have been unfortunate."
"I would have brought you the hand if he lost it," Godwod said. "Are you convinced he is the one?"
"I am," the demon I was thinking of as Bojack said, "his essence has a flavor like that of the Dark Lord. They are of the same class."
Nice to have the confirmation. Could he taste my essence? That was a line of questioning we didn''t need to go down. My chest was already aching as my lungs fought me. They wanted to breathe. My whole body did, but I wouldn''t let it. Losing Kevin''s sword was a setback, but I could make more armor. Knowing Godwod had switched sides, I could run to Williamsburg as soon as I woke up and have the lillits evacuate.
Henterfell might belong to Godwod, but there were other cities in Drom. When the war started, my people needed to be out of the way. I could reveal myself to the king. Egard was against magic, but when Dargoth invaded, how could he refuse the help of a hero? If he killed or imprisoned me, then I would just try something else.
My last heart flashed, and my chest spasmed for the last time.
"What are you doing?" The crow demon crouched over me. "Do you weep for yourself? You should. There is nothing but sorrow ahead of you."
I died.
***
It was cold, and I was a ghost. Being a ghost was cold. That made little sense. Wait, had I been here before?
A stone outcrop stretched ahead of me, thrusting into the vastness of space. Nebula bloomed like so many liquid flowers, pink and green and white. It was a lovely, and frightening, and reminded me I was small.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Beside me, a centaur stood. He only had one eye, so I guess that made him a cyclops as well. It was too big, and set in the center of his face above his nose. It was also hard to look at, as his iris swirled with the same bright forces that dominated the void.
"Do you remember me?" He asked.
The name came to me. "Limnos?"
His broad face relaxed a fraction. "Good, your soul is more intact than it appears. Are you ready to leave?"
An anachronism floated in the void among the swirling stars, a gray bar inscribed with simple white letters.
Quit Game.
I was mildly offended. My life was not a game. The stakes I''d left behind me were real. Other lives than my own hung in the balance. But I suspected the scenery had more to do with my imagination than the state of spiritual reality. Whatever this place was, it was being presented to me in a manner I could understand. I''d been reincarnated with Maincraft in mind, and now I was getting a version of the death screen.
"Do you think I''d make it through?"
"You always ask me that. I cannot answer you."
Always? How many times had I been here? Limnos was patient. I knew he would not rush me. We''d had conversations before, possibly a lot of them, and though I couldn''t recall the details, impressions remained. Life was a test. The afterlife was a test. It was tests all the way down. All to see if you were worthy of being inducted into something called the Hierarchy.
"What are the bad guys named again?"
"Discord."
"And the good ones?"
"Harmony."
He wasn''t annoyed with the simple questions. He got those all the time. My body was translucent, ragged. I looked like a moth-eaten jacket, fraying around the edges, spotted with holes.
"I''m getting weaker."
"Yes," the guardian was utterly still. Even his mouth barely moved when he spoke. "Your lives are brief, without the opportunity to gather enough essence to develop your soul into a proper core. Each time you return here, you are less capable of braving the celestial forge. But it does not seem that your situation in Plana is improving. You may never be stronger than you are now."
"I think I''ve got diamond hands."
"You¡" he glanced down, "what?"
"Sorry, it''s a crypto thing. Guys hold on to bad investments hoping that they''ll swing back up. They don¡¯t swing though, so they lose everything instead of selling at a loss. But if they happen to get lucky and it pops back up, they can say they had diamond hands like it''s a good thing, instead of an excuse for a gambling addiction."
My monologue won me a frown from the space centaur.
"I don''t understand what you are saying. What is crypto?"
"It''s fake money. Doesn''t matter. The point is, I can''t let go."
"Why?"
"Esmelda, can you tell me if she''s alive?"
"She is."
"What about our child?"
Limnos looked past me into nothing. He looked for a long time, then focused back on me.
"He will soon be born."
"He? I''m going to have a son?" Something about being a dis-incorporated spirit made it hard to get excited. The notion was a bright point in the space where my heart was supposed to be. It felt far away because it was.
"It is, as always, your choice to return."
"Why did Mizu do this? Send me alone? The other heroes had help, didn''t they, mentors, or a team?"
The centaur was a long time in answering. "There was a mentor assigned to you," he said, slowly, "but Discord intervened. My vision of the matter is clouded."
"Have we talked about this before?"
"We have."
"Do I get some kind of compensation for the screw-up?"
"You do."
It felt like the guardian was messing with me. Did he draw out conversations out of spite, or was he just lonely out here? He was waiting for me to ask. The jerk.
"Please explain it to me."
"Mizu made an alteration to your mind. Your profile contains a note that you requested the alteration, though I assume you were not fully aware of the implications."
"I have a profile?"
"Of course. You are in the System." Limnos trotted further down the outcrop, which distorted his silhouette. There was some odd space twisting effect going on the further down the platform you went. "You do not remember your deaths. Even apart from the pieces of yourself that you lose when you die with insufficient essence to sustain your coherence, those moments are taken from you."
"And that''s a good thing?"
"The psychological damage that would normally accompany the repeated traumas you have endured is absent. It is relevant to your current predicament. Without the alteration, you would have broken many iterations ago."
The trap. The egg. The demon. It was all waiting for me if I pressed the "continue" button. Again and again and again. Godwod, if I ever got out, had some trouble coming for him.
"That still doesn''t seem very fair," I said, "considering the disadvantage I''m at without a mentor."
Limnos came back around to face me, clopping up close enough so that my head was at a few inches from his hairy chest.
"I have already granted you additional essence. Full System access will not come until the preconditions are met." He placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. "A complaint has been filed on your behalf. The Hierarchy is slow to act, as they are closer to the Center."
"It sounds like you said "center" with a capital C."
"You are merely delaying the decision. Nothing you learn from me will be carried back with you into Plana."
He had me there.
"Hey, I thought we were friends. I''m not going to see you for a while after this."
His hand slipped off my shoulder. The void wheeled. A tiny piece of my soul flaked off and evaporated.
"You have said that before."
"I think I''ve got him this time, I''ve been leaving myself notes."
Continue.
72: My Diamond Egg (Rewrite)
Okay, so I had died. Waking up after a death wasn''t new to me, but this was not my spawn point. Instead of a field of grass, what greeted me was a rocky wasteland of black and red granite. A ravine bordered by sharp cliffs. Aside from being devoid of life, the ground was unnaturally flat. It was a floor. Either a mad emperor had enlisted an army of serfs to sand down the landscape, or this was the construct of a Survivor. My eyes struggled to adjust to the dim light filtering through an improbably hazy sky. What the hell was I doing here? And also, where was here?
I couldn''t see the sun, and what light there was seemed distorted as if I was looking up at it through water. The ravine had a ceiling, but that made little sense. How could the sky be a ceiling?
It was at least eighty degrees out, so at least I wasn¡¯t freezing, but that was meager consolation. The last thing I remembered clearly was Godwod talking about an oath. Freaking Godwod. Why was I so mad at him? He''d done something to me. Time had passed, but that time was a blur. Dark shapes, dreams. This ravine. I''d been in this ravine for a while. And I''d been dying. Dying screwed with my memory. But I remembered the important stuff, who I was, who I''d met in this world. My past, my other life, it wasn''t as important anymore.
It mattered, my original family, but I would never see them again. I could never tell them about any of this, or ask for their advice. My brothers, what were they doing? What had they thought after I disappeared? Did they think I was on the run? Given my background, it wasn''t an impossible stretch. God. My mind was all over the place. It felt like this was my first day as an isekai. But it wasn''t. Get centered. Figure this out. Focus on what you know.
It was warm, and it was morning. Had to be morning, because that was when I respawned. The sky was glass. No, not glass. It was diamond. And above it was a storm, but the clouds were cast in shades of red and brown instead of gray. The air smelled like it did when I''d been carving stone. Dust. Minerals. And I was naked. That was nothing new, but it was a problem if this was some kind of Survivor prison. Prison sucked. That I remembered. My body felt good, weirdly good. Respawning always put me at full health, but this was something else. Had the System made more changes to my physiology?
A diamond box, similar to what encased the orichalcum armor in the underground base, sat in the center of the ravine. Inside the box was another box, this one made of obsidian. Gold bands, red glowing runes, it should have been in the arms of a troll. Godwod had betrayed me to the demons. The demons had brought a troll, and the troll had been holding this box.
Oh. Oh, shoot. In Maincraft, there was an item called a Respawn Anchor. You powered it with glowstones, and it was the only way to set your respawn point in the Nether, because you couldn''t sleep there. It wasn''t a great leap of the imagination that something similar was going on here. Without the right tools, there was no way for me to mine my way through diamond.
A quick glance was enough to assure me that the box containing a box was complete. Six sides, no way to dig under it and come up through the underside.
The ravine wasn''t enormous, about the length of a football field from end to end, and as dim as an alley. Two cliffs, and two diamond barriers. Crevices and caves pockmarked the rock walls all along their lengths. Surely, whatever had happened to me was worthy of a notification. The elder sign on my hand looked as fresh as the day it had appeared, and I tapped it to bring up my status screens.
The latest journal entry told me everything I needed to know.
| Journal |
Quests |
Notifications |
Materials |
Crafting |
|
Captain''s Log: Hey, bud. It''s me, you.
Don''t bother reading through all the old journal entries, with the exception of the escape file. It''s mostly the same stuff over and over and I''ve summarized them here. You don''t have a lot of time. Please do not make new log entries unless you have something useful to add (Thanks, mom). It''s distracting and clutters up the tab. At the time of writing, we''ve been locked in a diamond stadium for over a month (Hey, future-past version of us here with an edit, check your notifications, it''s actually been over three months now.)
You die most nights. Bill is here with us. (Bill is a dick!) He either escaped or was released, and he''s a lot smarter now. Full sentences, tool use. We''re just lucky he hasn''t developed magic powers. Bojack shows up before morning to collect monsters. It''s the only time the stadium opens. There''s no door, and it goes all the way around, so don''t bother trying to dig through the cliffs or underground. The horse demon has elemental magic (Earthbender!), and we are not sure of his limitations, but his spells involve incantations and Naruto-style hand nonsense.
We have shelters in the cliffs with one block openings. They can keep Bill out, but if you survive too long, Bojack comes for you (Bojack is a dick!). We don''t live through those encounters, but from the log entries that exist, it looks like normal weapons aren''t enough to hurt him. Look at your crafting log. There''s no wood here, (but as much rock as you can drink!) but the System has allowed for some workarounds. The mobs congregate around the East end after they spawn and don''t always hunt you. I think the demon is giving them instructions even when he''s not here. (He is, they gather there before he lets them out.)
We don''t know what happened to everyone else after we were captured. Nothing we have scratches the diamonds. Escape attempts have not gone well. Bojack knows the only way out is the opening he makes for the mobs, and he will expect you when you get there.
The memory loss mostly affects short-term stuff, the moments just before we die. But it is getting worse. After thirty deaths, I''m already noticing more disorientation, and I assume that''s going to escalate. Being higher level when you die helps mitigate the effect, but even if you die with no experience, you will still come back. Some of us made notes about talking to a space centaur in their dreams, so make of that what you will. We definitely go somewhere in between being murdered and waking back up, but we''ve never had clear details about it.
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
Good luck. Don''t give up. (Ganbate! (Come on us, stop with the weeb stuff, this is serious. (There''s nothing more serious than the power of friendship.(these comments seem to fall under the "don''t clutter up the tab" rule. (It''s the end of the message. We can stop reading if we want. (Does it count as having friends if your friends are other versions of you that exist only briefly and you never meet them? (Of course it does. Plus, we''ve got Bojack. I think he''s growing on me. (And Bill, don''t forget good old Bill. (Let''s make this the last addendum. (Nope, still here. (Last! (Last! (Last!¡
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The mention of Bill had caused me to jerk up and look around, but my immediate surroundings were clear. The cliffs would have blocked the sun even if the clouds hadn''t, so the ravine was thick with shade. However, one end was distinctly brighter than the other, so I headed for that side of the canyon while I continued to read.
Bill was either getting let in and out by Bojack or sheltering in the caves during the day. If a previous me had killed him the night before, he wouldn''t reappear until sunset at the earliest, but there was no note about that. I would err on the side of caution and assume he was in here with me already. The ravine was twenty paces wide at its thickest, and thinner toward the ends.
As Bill had once survived by hiding in the lee of one of my shelters after sunrise, I had no doubt that he could act freely in the shadier areas, and I moved through them as quickly as I could without either tripping or losing sight of my surroundings. There was a pool of brightness at the barrier, and through it, I could get my first glimpse of the environment around my cage.
It wasn''t the sun providing the small safe zone, it was an Eternal Torch planted a few feet beyond the diamond. Was the light a lure? I spun back around, expecting to see a zombie wearing my face sneaking up behind me, but I was alone. The land was straight-up Mordor, vast and desolate beneath an endless storm.
In the distance, a volcanic mountain, its peak shrouded in smoke, tipped above the horizon. Flashes of crimson and orange lightning contrasted with the dark landscape, but they were eerily silent. No grass or shrub had taken root in the cracked earth that I could see, but there were patches of what appeared to be giant mushrooms. This was Dargoth. I''d been captured and brought within the bounds of Kevin''s evil empire. Did the Anchor cause any hero who died near it to respawn beside it the next day, or had they done something else to keep my soul with them while they crossed the Wastes? If I did get out of here, would my spawn point still be linked to the Anchor until I found a way to reassign it?
The "Last" comments in my journal went on for a while, and didn''t include any answers to my questions. Before checking the other tabs, I added one more "Last" to the log entry. Why not? We had a tradition going. The "Formulas" tab included a lot of new entries. They were all new versions of things I''d made in the past, but with bones substituting for sticks.
It looked like I could make a full tool set as long as I killed enough zombies to supply me with the materials. While that was a relief, it wasn''t exactly something to celebrate about if I couldn''t use them to dig my way out or so much as wound the demon who was running this show. My notifications were surprisingly sparse, but they did contain some interesting information.
| Journal |
Quests |
Notifications |
Materials |
Crafting |
|
Achievement: Survivor (3) You have died ten times. This may not be entirely your fault, as your environment appears to be set to a non-standard difficulty. Base physiology has been adjusted accordingly.
Achievement: Survivor (4) You have died one-hundred times. Consider reassessing your strategy. Base physiology has been adjusted accordingly.
****** encountered an error. Automatic send report. Physiology locked pending assessment. Survivor Achievement Tree locked pending assessment.
|
A hundred-times. Past me had said that we died almost every night, and I''d been here for over three months, so that checked out. It was still a lot to get my head around. It looked like the upper limit to respawns, if there was one, did not depend on the number of deaths. If that was the case, why did I keep coming back? The other heroes were gone. What had caused them to leave the world for good?
Kevin was using me to farm mobs. That much was obvious. Monsters were a useful resource to a Dark Lord, and having them appear around heroes at night was a convenience for him rather than a curse. He was incentivized to keep me around and producing zombies for as long as possible.
Was the Anchor what was causing me to keep coming back?
Not that I wanted to permanently die, but the idea of being indefinitely trapped in a personal purgatory was not attractive. It would have been nice to know there was an "Quit Game" button somewhere, but it didn''t look like there was.
|
Name: William
Class Assignment: Survivor
Level: 1
Advancement: 0%
Attributes:
Might: E+
Speed: E
Presence: F-
Armor Rating: 3
Traits: Darkvision, Immunity to Poison and Disease
|
Might and Speed had both gone up, and I did feel light on my feet. While this wasn''t the time to run around testing the limits of my improved body, I gave myself a look-over.
Abs, very little body fat. My legs and arms were definitely bigger than they should have been. Bulging would not have been an inappropriate adjective to apply. I gave myself a moment to be pleased about that before letting myself wonder what it meant that my Presence had actually gone down.
It wasn''t just that I had lost the bonus from having a town; Presence was back to the level of the penalty I had started with. That wasn''t a good sign. Apparently, my "base physiology" was locked now, which might have been a positive thing if there were negative consequences from so many repeated deaths. But it also meant I wouldn''t be getting any new notifications about the exact number of demises I endured.
How long had I really been here? I wouldn''t be holding out hope that my "pending assessment" would provide any kind of solution. The System was good at a lot of things, but there were clearly some flaws in the programming.
Tapping off the screen, I looked the valley up and down. The locations of my shelters were supposedly marked with single block openings. If the area closest to the torch was safe, it would have made sense to put one nearby. Sure enough, there was a missing block in the wall right at the edge of the light. I stepped over to it, already nervous about having my back exposed, and swiped at the rock above the hole.
Cracks formed in seconds, and my shoulders relaxed. At least, the Mining skill was operating properly. Having the first block pop and become a coin in my hand filled me with satisfaction. Whatever else had gone wrong, I was still me, still a Survivor. Naked and afraid I might be, but not without power.
A laugh echoed in the ravine, high and wild.
73: My Hole in the Wall (Rewrite)
The laughter sent a chill up my spine, and my hand froze against the rock I''d been in the middle of harvesting. Bill hopped out from a crevice amid the cliffs like a street performer, his arms spread wide, giving me jazz hands. Unlike me, he wasn''t naked. He was clad head to toe in zombie leathers, no doubt crafted by one of my previous lives.
For a long second, all I could do was look at him. Bill was in great shape. No skin flaps, no hunch, but definitely the same monster that I had trapped in a stone cube. Now I was the one who couldn''t get out. He was grinning at me like we were best friends, and there were only a few tells that he wasn''t wearing his original face. We had different head shapes, so his face was longer than mine, and the cheeks looked stretch. Other than that, we could have been twins.
He broke into a sprint. The opening in the wall wasn''t wide enough for me to squeeze through yet, and without a pick, there was no way I could widen it sufficiently before he got to me. Even if I could, he could squeeze in after me. There was a tunnel on the other side of the wall. It was pitch black. Safety, and whatever equipment I had left for myself, were only a few feet away. Tantalizing, and out of reach.
Bill was fast, and I had frozen in place. He had a rock in his hand, and I barely got it up in time to avoid being brained. His mouth stretched impossibly wide in an expression of ecstasy, revealing yellow, uneven teeth that looked sharper than they had any right to be. The rock thumped my forearm, and I lashed out instinctively, punching him in the jaw. The coin in my hand bit into my palm.
The glancing blow from his rock hadn''t caused my heart bar to flash. I''d noticed my status had listed an armor rating even though I wasn''t wearing any. It could have been a benefit of having a higher Might attribute, or some other bonus from the System. But I didn''t think it would have helped me if his blow had landed as intended.
He reeled back, giggling insanely, and tried to hit me again. I ducked and fumbled the next punch, my knuckles brushing the leather of his tunic. He was attacking wildly, joyously, and I could barely keep up. I''d just come back to life, naked, unarmed; not prepared for this.
Bill lunged for me, pressing my back against the cliff, and I thrust my hand against his chest to keep him back as he angled to bite my throat.
Plep.
The coin in my hands converted into a block between us, pushing him back. It didn¡¯t retain any momentum or stick to the face-stealer, but he danced away to avoid having it land on his foot. The block chipped against the ground, and he lunged again. I dropped, grabbing him around the waist and picking him up in one motion.
He smashed his rock into my back, and the heart bar appeared with one missing. If I held onto him, he would bite me, so I tossed him one side. His free hand scratched my shoulder, but he hadn''t gotten a good grip, and he flew a lot farther than I was expecting.
Bill landed on the smooth ground a few paces away and rolled, his laughter cut short as the air was knocked out of him.
How strong was I? I squatted, grabbed the top of the fallen block, and tilted it so I could get my fingers under its base. It was probably a hundred-and fifty pounds, if not more, but I barely had to strain to get it up. Bill was back on his feet in an instant, and I lifted the block over my head in both hands as he rushed me again.
He twisted out of the way of a headshot, but the block came down on his shoulder, and he crumpled. His inertia carried him forward into me, and already off-balance from the weight of my makeshift bludgeon, I lost my footing. The block slipped out of my hands, its rough surface scraping my fingertips, and turned end over end.
It all happened too fast for me to keep track, but the next thing I knew, we were both on the ground. The block was half-on his back, and he was half on top of me, his mouth at a level with my chest. His teeth sank into my skin, and I grabbed his head, frantically trying to separate us. Bill''s mouth came away bloody, but I barely felt the wound even as my hearts dropped.
We wrestled for a moment, but I was stronger than he was, and there was definitely something wrong with the side of his body that had taken the block hit. A few seconds later, I was overtop of him, my hands around his neck, looking myself in the face.
"So stwong," he croaked, "you got so stwong." His words sounded childlike, and I wasn¡¯t sure what was worse; if he actually had a childlike mind or he was doing that on purpose to make fun of me. His follow-up giggle stuttered as I pressed my thumbs into his larynx.
"You talk now?" I panted. "You should stop."
He jabbed his thumb at my eye. Nothing popped, but it got me off of him fast. He was slow to stand, and I kicked him in the chest, half-blind, tears forming. Bill coughed, grinning up at me like a lunatic. I kicked him again and again.
"Doesn''t matter what you do," he gasped, "I''ll be seeing you."
The face-stealer tried to scramble up, and I kept kicking him. After a while, he stopped attempting to stand. His breath was ragged, and his eyes never left me as I picked up the block and brought it down on his head.
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There was a crunch.
My chest was bleeding, and I had nothing to eat to heal myself. No water, no food. No problem, I wasn¡¯t going to be here long enough to worry about starvation. One way or another. The bite wasn''t terribly deep, but there was a small flap of skin hanging. Fortunately, the System bonus still protected me from infection.
I didn''t look at what was left of Bill. How many times had this played out? How many times had it gone the other way? If not for the block, he might have had me. And if he had attacked me moments after I had woken up, I wouldn''t have had a chance.
Opening the shelter felt like it took a long time. The canyon was silent except for the rapping of my knuckles against the stone. My mind felt clear, or else I was in shock. The tunnel was only three feet wide, and studded with odd blocks that I realized were intended to hinder spawns. No coal for torches. There could have easily been zombies waiting for me inside.
The interior was quiet, dry, and dusty. Barely any light filtered in through the entrance, but the tunnel wasn''t deep and my eyes adjusted quickly. Thanks, Beleth. It opened onto a room studded with enough columns that only the smallest mobs would have a chance of spawning inside. Maybe one of those weird squids. I had to squeeze through the gaps in the stone to reach the worktable.
It was sitting in a lone shaft of light, a bare break in what was otherwise utter darkness. A chimney was cut out of the ceiling, running all the way up to the top of the cliff. It was only a foot wide. Maybe it had started as a stair before being filled in, because I couldn¡¯t dig like that. Some version of me had been busy.
The worktable was interesting, a granite slab resting on two blocks with a leather apron draped across its surface. Cuts in the leather formed a crafting grid, and the lever was pure stone, ground as smooth as glass. Coins were stacked along the edges of the table, their etchings barely distinguishable in the illumination filtering down from an already filtered sky, even with my demonic eyes.
Rock and bone and leather. There was nothing else. No extra gear, but plenty of raw material. Should I have harvested Bill''s body? I didn''t want to. Enough coins were already here to get me started.
Bone tools were really just stone tools, but with different handles. The shafts didn''t feel as solid as the ones I''d made from sticks, and they lacked the texture of wood grain. No need for a hoe or a shovel. There was no dirt here, no crops. I made a pick, a sword, a full set of leathers, and a shield.
Normally, a shield called for planks and an iron ingot, but my formulas tab informed me we''d discovered a variation. More bone, of course, secured by leather strips. It had some bend to it, and I doubted it would hold up as well as the wood equivalent. The crafting process transformed bones as it did other materials. .
Though the coins were uniform, the bones came out differently depending on the product. The pick looked like a couple of stone shards strapped onto a femur. The shield could have been made from a rib cage. It all felt lighter than it should have.
There were many hours between me and nightfall. I sucked it up and stripped Bill, bringing the leather inside, then making more from his skin. Ninety percent of his body was harvestable. Meat and bone. Had I been eating zombies?
I wasn''t hungry enough for that, and it wouldn''t have helped my thirst. Exploring the cliffs gave me something to do. There were three other shelters, each concealed like the one I''d already made use of. More coins and spare worktables, a few extra tools. There were also many folds and breaks in the cliff that looked more natural, places for Bill to hide, or other monsters, but I was alone.
Bojack had been clearing out the cage every morning. Any monster they left behind with me would be a waste.
But if this was just a mob farm, why was it the size of a stadium? Couldn''t they have locked me in a coffin with the Anchor and let the mobs spawn around it? I spent some time scrolling through my journal. It was mostly confusion, repetitive observations, and dumb jokes. But the promised ¡°Escape Files¡± held some useful information.
The storm above was soundless, or else the diamond muffled the thunder and the wind. Brown, ruddy clouds boiled like a soup. Would Bojack come as soon as the sun set, or did he wait for the end of the night? From the notes, it seemed like I would be on my own with the mobs until it was nearly morning. Was my goal to kill as many as possible so there would be fewer monsters to contend with when the demon appeared, or find a spot to hide and try to slip out when the opening appeared.
The major journal entry hadn''t described how Bojack crafted his entrance. He was an Earthbender, apparently, so I assumed he could tell the diamond to move aside and then close it back up when the mobs were all out. Any door he made would have to be big enough for a troll to get through. That was something, but sneaking through would be tough.
|
Captain¡¯s Log: The Escape Files
We don''t have a lot of details on Bojack because he usually kills us before we can make notes. But here''s a summary of the records we do have.
Bojack: Eight foot tall horse man. No armor or weapons. Doesn''t need them. Scratched him with a sword. It was a solid slash, but he blocked it with his arm and barely noticed. He can make the ground melt around your feet and get us stuck. Throws rocks like missiles. Commands the mobs telepathically? Gives verbal commands sometimes, but they definitely act different when he''s around whether or not he says anything.
Mobs that have spawned: Zombies, Phantoms, Trolls and a bunch of those little squids. (Watch out, they stick to the cliffs.) More rarely, a chimera. At least once, there was a wyvern. Then a wolf-horse. (Basically a horse with teeth. Very fast.) It hasn''t happened often, but there''s something that is basically an Voidman. It''s tall, dark, and can move around so fast over short distances that it might as well be teleporting. On its own, it doesn''t attack right away, but it will come for us if we see it fighting. Long arms and claws, but easier to kill than a troll.
Escape attempts: We''ve tried fighting our way out a bunch of times. Ambushing from the cliffs, building a shelter right next to the entrance and slipping out. Once, we had a lucky night and killed ALL the spawns. Don''t know what happened when Bojack came, but obviously, we are still here. He may know where we are without seeing us, because he always finds our shelters.
The entrance is not a consistent size, but always on the opposite end of the torch.
|
At least that answered my question about the opening. My first thought had been to dig under the area in front of the barrier and pop out to make a run for it, but if Bojack had a sixth sense for where I was, that wouldn''t work. Still, I had one admittedly terribly idea that hadn''t been mentioned anywhere. It was so bad, we might have never tried it before.
74: My Wet Suit (Rewrite)
Breathe in, breathe out.
It was still warm, though I hadn''t seen the sun all day. Even when it should have been at its apex, the clouds had kept it hidden. The storm was magic, you could tell that by looking at it, what with the red lightning and the fact it went on forever in every direction, but it was looking like the clouds were a permanent feature of Dargoth rather than an inclement weather pattern.
Alone, passing the time with a few minor projects, it had been a contemplative day. Death wasn''t permanent for me, but the memory loss probably was. Sure, I would come back if I died again, but this day would be gone. Everything I had experienced in the months since my capture was only words on a screen. My encounter with Bill wasn''t something I wanted to keep in my head for all time, but I didn''t like the idea that the fight, or one like it, had happened a hundred times before and it had still felt like a first.
If this was all my life could be, Groundhog day reimagined as a horror survival flick, it would have been better if I could really die.
The situation called into question the nature of the self. Like, if someone hacked off a piece of your brain, and you survived, would you still be you? That was like what was happening here. Tiny pieces of myself were lost with each replay, and I had no way of knowing how much was gone already. How did you know if you were a different person without having reference to the original?
I''d spent the last hour as the sky darkened sitting with my back against the cliff near the torchlight. My world was reduced to a narrow lane, a shadowed alley that would soon crawl with monsters. The prospect neither scared nor excited me.
In normal life, people forgot more than they remembered. There was nothing special about it. But this felt different. It wasn''t that I couldn''t list off what I''d eaten for the last three breakfasts. It was more like the last several months of my life had been surgically excised from the timeline. I knew it had happened. No one was hacking my journal to tell me lies, though that would have been an intriguing conspiracy. This was all real.
I pictured Esmelda''s face. It wasn''t difficult. I''ve always had a very visual imagination. But what if I was wrong about the way she looked? Were there really freckles over her nose? Did her cheeks dimple when she smiled, and if they did, would I ever see that smile again? These were idle thoughts, and not as painful as they could have been. My emotions felt muted. While it was a positive that I wasn''t experiencing anxiety, it was also an early warning sign of depression.
It felt like there was something missing in my gut apart from food and water. My brothers had all looked like me, or I had looked like them, depending on how you thought about it. People had always commented on how similar we were when we were out together. But now, when I tried to think about them, their faces so similar to mine, all I saw was Bill. This was not the second life I¡¯d dreamt of.
I hoped they were okay. If I could have asked the goddess for a favor, it would have been to tell them I was too, even if it wasn''t true. They would have loved the idea of me going on an adventure in another world. They didn''t need to know about this.
Leather armor and bone tools. They hadn''t been enough for the other mes, but maybe they would be tonight.
The first spawn of the night was a phantom. Despite the lack of starlight, the absence of the moon, I could see it clearly, outlined against the blackness of the sky. Had Beleth''s eyes always worked that way? This seemed like more than simple low-light vision.
It dove, the air rushing through the ridges of its wings and its complicated mouth parts generating the familiar scream. Unlike Bill''s laughter, the sound had no effect on me.
I stood up, my back still against the cliff, and hopped to one side. Instead of ramming into my chest, it went face first into the rock and bounced off. My sword seemed to move on its own, the stone blade cutting clean through its wing, and then its spine. Gastard wouldn''t have been proud of my technique, but the weapon felt comfortable in my hand.
The extra weight was no longer an issue, but more than that, it felt like I''d done this a thousand times. Probably because I had. The mind wipe didn''t extend to muscle memory, and I''d been killing monsters every night for months. Another phantom had to die before the first zombie appeared. I chopped its head off and dragged it into my cave.
Harvesting leather with my skill processed it into a finished material, which wasn''t what I wanted here. Hacking up its body the old-fashioned way should have been a decidedly unpleasant experience, but I was numb to it. It had plenty of skin, which hung loosely on its bony frame. As many zombies as I''d killed in the past, I''d never really examined them all that closely.
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The teeth were more canine than human, the insides more fungal than flesh. Its eyes were milky enough that it should have been blind. I''d noted things like that about them before, but now it made me wonder how these monsters really worked. Did they follow me by smell? One of my oldest notifications had suggested they had a sixth sense for finding Survivors, and that had chimed with my experience. But how clear was that sense?
Could they be tricked?
Ten minutes later, I walked out of the shelter wearing a skin cloak. I''d covered my armor in the fluids that passed for its blood, and made a strap to hang my shield on my back under the disguise. It gave me a hump. The Tainted Leather Cap was already a zombie mask, and that had never felt like a convenience before, but here we were.
Another zombie had already spawned around the anchor. It was shuffling around the diamond case like a drunk security guard at an outdoor museum. It moaned as I came close, but it wasn''t aggressive. I tried to shuffle like they did, dragging my feet and letting my head droop. When I was a few paces away, I stopped and waited.
It ignored me.
The journal had said the mobs acted odd here. It could have been a coincidence. There was a squid clamped onto the cliff thirty or forty feet up. They could change their skin color. I''d never noticed that before, but it had camouflaged itself almost perfectly against the grays of the granite. But I could see it. Like the phantom, it stood out to me.
There wasn''t a glow or a floating target, and for some reason, I didn''t think this was a previously unknown class skill. I just knew it was there. Maybe I was developing the same sense the monsters had. But if that was how it worked, how could a disguise help me?
I walked over to the cliff and stood directly under the squid. A minute stretched out, then two. It didn''t drop. Maybe this could work.
Mobs continued to appear. More of the same. The spawn rate seemed higher than I remembered it being when Gastard and I had shared a vigil. There were still gaps between appearances, but zombies and phantoms were appearing with disturbing regularity over the course of the next few hours. Then there was something new.
A horse-hound. As the journal had described, a horse with a wolf''s shaggy head. Its front legs had paws, but the back pair was hooved. It appeared near the torch, casually stepping out of the cliff, though there was no cave there that it could have hidden in. The entire area was dark, but most of the spawns were happening on the slightly lighter side.
The torch wasn''t for my convenience. Mobs didn''t spawn in total darkness. They needed a hint of light; they needed shadows. That had been a hard lesson to learn, but an important one. It also wasn''t a mechanic I''d ever totally relied on. The home I''d built for myself and Esmelda was underground, and therefore might have been safe without torches.
But I trusted the light more than I trusted the darkness.
The horse-hound padded up to me, showing more interest than any of the other mobs, and sniffed. Its head was bigger than mine, and its lips curled back to reveal altogether too many teeth. A low growl emanated from its throat, and I remained motionless, not even breathing, awaiting the promised bite. It never came.
After another sniff, the monster tossed its head and wandered off.
Without a moon, time stood still. My only sign that the night was, in fact, passing, was the ever-growing supply of mobs. When Bojack arrived, the valley was practically crowded. The zombies stopped shambling, and the phantoms flocked to the far end of the alley. When they flew in unison, it was almost beautiful.
They swam through the air, forming a loose ball as they spun around and around like a school of fish. The zombies were much less organized. Shamblers be shambling. They stumbled into and over each other as they moved toward the barrier, while squids squelched along the cliffs. The horse-hound leapt over a crowd of zombies, covering twenty feet, and loped easily the rest of the way.
For a monster, it was actually kind of cute. Even when they were evil, you couldn''t go wrong with dogs.
I moved with the zombies, keeping toward the back of the pack, but with a few stragglers trailing behind me. The diamond wall briefly caught the gleam of a distant red flash from among the clouds, and I caught sight of a humanoid shape beyond the translucent barrier. Eight feet tall had been a conservative estimate.
If this was the same horse demon that had been present for my capture, he had gotten bigger. My eyes were drawn to him. The sense of his presence, whatever I was feeling, was a lot stronger than for any of the regular mobs. He parted the diamond like Moses parting the sea.
Crystal became liquid, sweeping aside in a wave that left a gap ten feet tall and half as wide. The demon entered and stepped to one side of the opening, dressed like a Roman senator in a white toga and sandals. Though it was hard to tell what a horse might have been feeling, he looked bored as the zombies filed out in front of him.
Tucking my sword under the flaps of my zombie cloak, I ducked my head and adopted my best shamble. The mobs were treating me like I was one of their own, and I didn''t want to break the illusion by paying too much attention to the demon. Progress forward was agonizingly slow, but it was surprisingly easy to remain calm. My breathing was regular, and my heart was quiet.
Shuffle, sway, slouch, just one of the gang.
I didn''t dare look at the opening, but it was drawing closer. Could this actually work? Had we really never tried this before? I''d watched the Walking Dead. It seemed like an obvious hack. It occurred to me that there may have been more at work here than a disguise. Maybe being in this place so long really had changed me. Maybe I had lost enough of myself that the zombies couldn''t tell the difference anymore.
The demon wasn''t saying anything. Definitely mental commands. I could feel myself getting closer to him, even without looking. How was it possible that he couldn''t feel me too?
The opening was only a few paces away, clogged with zombies. If I tried to rush through, Bojack would catch me.
Keep calm. The plan is working.
The plan is working!
A heavy hand dropped on my shoulder, clamping like a vise.
"William," the demon said, "we need to talk."
75: My Demon (Rewrite)
My body went rigid. This was the unkillable evil I''d been warned about, and his hand was on my shoulder. He''d seen through my disguise, of course he had, and the zombies in front of me had stopped moving. If they stayed that way, I could climb over them, but I doubted either the demon or the mobs would let me scramble away. My hand tightened around the hilt of my sword.
Did Bojack have a soft spot? No matter how tough his skin was, wasn''t I strong enough to drive the point into his throat?
Why wasn''t I afraid? Even knowing I would come back, there had to be something seriously wrong with me if this situation didn''t result in at least a little stress.
Bojack turned me. Irresistible, and yet almost gentle. His other hand went under my chin, and he lifted my face so that our eyes met. His were huge, a brown so dark that the irises blended with the pupils.
"Do you remember me?" He asked. In the moment, all I could think was how surreal it looked for a horse''s mouth to move and a human voice to come out.
"Sort of," I said. He wasn''t killing me yet. If the demon liked to play with his prey, there could be an opportunity for me to attack. It wasn''t hopeless, yet. "We took notes."
"Ah, the famous Captain''s log." Bojack''s nostrils twitched.
"How do you know I call it that?"
"We have spoken before. Come sit with me, and we will do so again."
The remaining zombies parted to let us pass, and Bojack led me back to the Anchor, his fingers still tight around my shoulder. In my mind, I brought up the sword and drove it into his neck, but in reality, I walked.
"My notes didn''t say we had talked."
"They wouldn''t," he said. "I usually rip off your hand before we do. That has tiresome consequences. I''d rather we spoke without violence."
The demon who was holding me captive would rather we spoke without violence. He let me go and sat on the diamond cube that contained the anchor, patting the space beside him. There was enough room for us to sit side by side, though it was a little high for me. I hesitated, still keeping my sword hidden and close, but my curiosity was too powerful to resist.
I took the seat.
"You usually have questions," Bojack said.
"I assumed you would tell me what this was about."
"Interesting." A phantom wheeled overhead, accompanied by a light shriek. The demon snorted. "My name is Orobas, Fifty-Fifth Harbinger of the One Who Knocks."
This was no time for a Breaking Bad reference. The silence stretched.
"What did you want to talk about?" I said.
"The future, the past. Everything."
Was the demon uncomfortable? His body was tense beside me, but I didn''t feel like he was about to attack. What was he dithering about?
"Come on, Bojack, how long have we known each other? You can tell me anything."
His lips curled back from large, square teeth.
"That name. You always call me that."
"I don''t know many people with horse heads. You remind me of¡ª-"
"Yes," he spoke over me. "There was a performer in your world who looked like me, a humorous, weeping clown."
That was¡basically an accurate description of the show. We really had been talking. There was one question at the forefront of my mind.
"How long have I been here?"
Bojack leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. It was obvious he did not see me as a threat.
"Five months, or thereabouts. The Dark Lord tasked me with breaking you. We have not had a hero in captivity in so long. My counsel was to treat you more softly, keep you in this world as long as possible, and deal the greatest possible blow to the veil, but he would not hear of it. He is afraid of anyone who shares his power."
Five months was a long time, but it could have been worse. Esmelda wouldn''t have had our baby yet. The Free Kingdoms could still be resisting Dargoth.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"To make you an offer, as I have made before. The current Dark Lord is unsatisfactory. He has held his seat for too long, and become complacent, or worse, subversive. Discord flourishes in flux, and its hold upon this world has become stagnant. Those who are already high among the Harbingers collude to maintain the order as it is. They will not risk their positions in a coup. But in you, I see opportunity."
That was a lot to take in. The demons were not a perfectly unified coalition. They had politics. Well, demons would have politics. And some of them were unhappy with Kevin.
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"You''re saying I could be the next Dark Lord?"
"I am."
Any route that led out of this valley was enticing, but not if it meant becoming like Kevin.
"You said you were supposed to break me. What does that mean? Like, mentally?"
Bojack shook his head. "The Dark Lord calls it griefing. Whenever one of Mizu''s chosen are captured, a Harbinger is tasked with maintaining their confinement. It strains the veil, and provides us with a valuable resource, the lesser entities you insist on referring to as mobs. All heroes resist, for a time. Eventually, they all stop choosing to return."
I sat straight up. "What do you mean, choosing to return? Since when have I had a choice?"
The demon turned his gaze on me, his oversized eyes regarding me placidly. "When one of her champions dies, Mizu plucks them out of the stream of souls and offers them a choice. To continue onto the paths of the dead, or to defy nature and return. When this life grows too painful for them to endure, the cycle of rebirth is broken, and they move on. But you will not move on. No matter what I do, no matter the torment I inflict. You return without your memories; without the knowledge of what has come before and what will come again. It¡¯s been deeply frustrating for me, William, to have to wage a war of the mind with one whose mind is too fragmented to admit defeat.¡±
It took a while for that to sink in. I stood up, then sat down again. Reincarnation was optional? The only one who was keeping me locked in this game was me. Did I have my memories on the other side? It sounded like other heroes hadn''t shared my forgetting things problem. But I kept choosing to come back, and apparently, choosing to refuse to join in Bojack''s conspiracy. The first one I could understand. There were still people that mattered to me here, people I needed to protect. The second was more confusing.
If the demon let me out, made me Emperor of Dargoth, or whatever, couldn''t I just betray him later? Kevin was acting against their wishes. Why not accept the proposal now and go back on it when I was in a better position?
"Sorry torturing me is so inconvenient for you. Who''s the One Who Knocks?"
"Our master. It is our duty as Harbingers to prepare the world for his arrival. To that end, we need the aid of a hero. When he cooperates, the Dark Lord''s power is ideally suited to preparing the path. We have waited many years for another like him to appear. Without that cooperation, it would be another age before we were ready. Corrupting an agent of Harmony makes the transition vastly more attainable."
"So you want me to be one of the bad guys?"
Bojack shrugged. "Kevin''s language, the one you share, is rich in artifacts of a mythology that has nothing to do with reality as we see it. You call us demons. What are demons to you?"
"It depends. In popular culture, demons are evil spirits, or sometimes, just magic people with horns. It''s lost a lot of its original context." I didn''t really feel like explaining Earth religions to my captor, but the longer we talked, the more I might learn. "Listen, if we''re going to have this conversation, I have a condition."
"Name it."
"Let me take notes." I expected him to refuse. There was no record of conversations like this in my journal, which meant he had never let me keep my hand long enough to make one. No way this was the first time I''d made the request. Bojack, however, merely snorted.
"Very well."
I popped up my Journal and started recording a new "Captain''s Log" entry. It wouldn''t transcribe what he said, but as long as I kept it open, it would create a record of my half of the conversation.
"Okay," I said, watching to see if he looked like he was about to tear my head off. "On Earth, the word ''demon'' comes from one of our religions. God made the universe and everything in it. His servants were called angels, and one of them rebelled. That angel became the devil, and all the other angels that joined him were called demons. They try to tempt humans away from God so we go to hell instead of heaven." It was a gross oversimplification, but I wasn''t a religious scholar, and the details would just get us bogged down. "Everything I''ve heard about you, and the little mentions I''ve gotten of Harmony and Discord, seems to fit pretty easily into that narrative. So Harmony is like God, and The One Who Knocks is like the devil. Am I wrong about that?"
Bojack slid his hand onto the diamond case and leaned back to stretch his spine. A troll appeared twenty paces away from us. It was as tall as Bojack, but thicker limbed, and twice as broad. With heavy fists, it beat its chest in a threat display before getting a confused look on its dog-like face and shuffling off.
"There is consonance between the tales." He said. "But Harmony did not create the universe. You could say that the One Who Knocks is a fallen angel, that isn''t too far from the truth. And there is no point in denying that I am playing the role of a tempter here. Our goal is to prepare this world for His arrival, to wrest it from Harmony, and bring it into the embrace of Discord. It is a war, but not one that will end in the erasure of humanity. Humankind is as useful to us as it is to the angels. The two sides are not as simple as evil and good incarnate."
"Are you going to tell me that Discord isn''t evil? You''re attacking Plana. The mobs literally eat people."
"Good and evil are relative. You name your enemies evil, and your allies good. One can easily become the other."
When had this turned into a Ethics 101 debate? "What you''re doing is evil," I said. "What Kevin''s doing is evil. He was going to enslave the lillits, wasn''t he? There''s no gray area about that."
"Humans commit evil acts and good ones. Were you to take the Throne of Shadows, you could treat the lillits however you saw fit."
"And what about the rest of the people on this planet? What happens when your dark god breaks through the veil?"
"Discord is change, evolution. It will be painful for many. But change is not destruction. The people of this world will be more than what they are now, not less. We seek to make them free."
"Free from what?"
"The tyranny of Harmony."
This really was sounding like a fallen angel speech. I didn''t buy it. When one side was normal human life, and the other was a menagerie of nightmares, it was hard to take the "we''re not so different, you and I" angle seriously.
"Why did Kevin join you?"
Bojack shrugged. "The title appealed to him. He cares less about humanity than you seem to. When offered power, most will accept it. We made a pact."
There had to be more to it than that. Why would Mizu send someone like that to be a hero? Something had made Kevin the way he was.
"What kind of pact?"
"In exchange for siding with Discord, we made him a king. We serve him within the bounds of our oaths, and he was allowed the freedom to pursue his own interests. Too much freedom. The result has been centuries of delays."
It sounded like Kevin wasn''t following their game-plan. Did that mean he wasn''t all bad? Postponing Armageddon was a noble pursuit, but the Dark Lord could do it for selfish reasons. I paused the conversation to summarize everything he had told me so far in my journal, and Bojack didn''t stop me. That brought us to the central question.
"I''ve refused you before," I said. "Do you know why?"
His long face drooped. The demon looked tired. "I will require you to swear an oath. If you seek to hinder our efforts or refuse to use your power to aid us, the oath will afflict you with a curse. For as long as you resist, the curse will weaken you. Eventually, it would kill you. I have learned from the mistake of my predecessors, and the terms will bind you more tightly than Kevin was bound."
"Why do you think I would accept that now?"
"Because we have your wife."
76: My Bargain (Rewrite)
My breath caught in my throat. This was no longer a casual chat. I could go on dying and respawning, if not forever, then for a long time. Unless the goddess took a personal interest in her soul, Esmelda had only one life. Our child had only one life. My body wanted to run, to fight, but my mind knew better. Bojack had me completely in his power. My hands were shaking, and I brought them together to keep them still, looking at the ground.
Flat stone. Shadows, my leather clad-feet. I had prepared a place for her, hadn''t I? A shelter. Somewhere underground. My memory problems were worse than I had imagined if I couldn''t recall the location.
"Where did you find her?"
"A forest north of your town. The Lord who betrayed you has declared himself a king, and he was eager to be of service in exchange for our continued support. Kevin has done little to advance Dargoth''s cause in the region. All he wanted was the lillits. The man is fighting a war on our behalf, even if he does not realize it."
"Why does Kevin care about the lillits? What is it with him?"
"He is a creature of whims. He has been building a train, and he wanted the little folk to operate it. They are like dolls to him."
"And now he has Esmelda."
"No." Bojack stood, looming over me. "The Dark Lord has forgotten you, assuming you will soon break. One of my kin asked the new king of Henterfell to find your mate. He has her now, awaiting your decision."
"You''re going to kill her?" The words were toneless. I felt like I was already dead.
"Of course not. She can only be killed once, and you might still refuse me. But she will suffer, and I am told she is with child."
"You really are a demon."
"I am merely your enemy. Do you think a human would be any less despicable?"
I wanted to say he was wrong, but he wasn''t. People took hostages all the time. My mind didn''t race. My hands weren''t even shaking anymore. A fiery ball of anger was forming in my gut, but I couldn''t act on it now. Whatever came after this, Bojack would not get the ending that he wanted. For now, though, he had given me no choice. Allowing Esmelda to be tortured was not an option.
He might be lying. She might be safe. I had no way of knowing what had happened to her as long as I was stuck in this cage.
"What''s the oath?"
Bojack reached under one of the loose sleeves of his toga and produced a dagger. It looked like a miniature version of Kevin''s sword, complete with a pale diamond, though the gem was set into the center of its cross-guard instead of at the end of its pommel.
"Swear upon the blade that you will follow my commands."
"So you can tell me to do anything? I''m going to be your slave?"
"I am not unreasonable. An oath must have two sides to be binding. I will speak the beginning, all you need to do is accept the terms as I describe them."
It wasn''t like I was going to turn him down. Either I found a way out of this after I was in a better position to bargain, or there was no reason for me to keep fighting.
"Start it then."
"Swear to be my servant, bound to follow my orders as you understand them. In turn, I promise never to harm your family, and to do whatever is in my power to keep them safe. Nor will I demand you take action that endangers them directly."
A red mote bloomed in the heart of the gem set in the blade.
"That still sounds like I''m going to be your slave."
"If you refuse to follow my commands, the oath will punish you. If I cannot hold my end, the oath will sunder. I have no intention of reducing you to simple servitude. My goal is to bring you into the willing service of my master, but for now, the binding is necessary. There are no other Survivors in this world. I need you to accomplish my goals and therefore cannot treat you as a disposable tool. These are the most generous terms I can offer and still ensure you will not turn against me at the first opportunity."
This situation was uncomfortably close to what I had gone through with Godwod. Bojack was basically becoming my new liege lord. Only in this case, the pact would be magically enforced. I didn''t like it, but every moment I delayed was a moment that Esmelda was at the mercy of a demon. At least he had promised to keep her safe.
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I extended my hand. The metal was cool under my fingertips.
"I swear."
As soon as I spoke the words, I felt something shift inside of me, a faint pressure, then release, and the gem burned brighter. My Journal screen was still floating over my arm, and it flashed automatically over to the notifications tab.
| Journal |
Quests |
Notifications |
Materials |
Crafting |
| You are Bound. Contracts sworn upon an Oathblade are imposed under the Celestial Compact. Violation of the contract will result in the activation of a Curse of Weakening, which can only be lifted via expiation, by express permission of the holder of the contract, or destruction of the binding blade. |
Bojack returned the dagger to his sleeve as I read. I didn''t know what ''expiation'' entailed, but if breaking the blade itself could get me out of the bargain, this wouldn¡¯t be so bad after all. The demon could have me as his servant for now, but eventually, I was going to have the equipment I needed to take him down. Then I could snap the dagger over my knee before the curse did too much damage.
Something told me it was going to be more complicated than that, but it was satisfying to think about as I tapped off the screen.
"What now?"
"Move away from the box." Bojack made a shooing motion.
It sounded like an order. There was no compulsion attached, and I wondered how long I would have to sit in place before refusing to move would count as a violation of my oath. I couldn''t effectively subvert his commands until I understood how tight my chains really were. Did simply deciding not to obey trigger the curse, or would I need to take action?
"What if I don''t?" I asked. "What happens?"
The demon''s nostrils flared. "This is not a game, human. Oaths are not toys to be played with."
"You said you want me to work with you willingly, explaining what I just agreed to would go a long way to making me more comfortable."
Bojack considered my statement, his dark, overlarge eyes unreadable. "Intention is as important as action. You cannot violate the contract by accident. But if you set your will against mine, your System will respond."
"Wait, you know about Systems? Do demons have them too?"
He let out an exaggerated breath. "A System is a means of structuring magic. They are a tool more common to Harmony than to Discord. Our power is fluid, but it is still bound by rules. If you become a loyal servant of the One Who Knocks, I will freely share with you what I know of the nature of things. For now, remove yourself from that surface, unless you wish to become trapped within it."
I got up. I wasn''t sure what I had been expecting the demons to be like. The monsters were mindless or at the level of animals. Beleth might as well have been a human with a cat''s face, and aside from his appearance, Bojack felt very human to me as well. Evil might not have been the right word for him. He was amoral.
Bojack had no limits on his behavior. He could be cruel or kind, whatever suited the situation. I didn''t think he was a sadist. The way he had talked about killing me, torturing me, it was like he was referencing a day-to-day task at a boring job. Moral values, moral boundaries, meant nothing to him.
The line between amorality and evil is thin enough that most people probably wouldn''t bother differentiating between them, but the distinction has predictive value. Bill was pure evil. Eating people made him happy, and there was no common ground between us. He couldn''t be reasoned with. Bojack, however, had a clearly defined motivation which he was pursuing in a rational manner.
That was something I could work with.
While I thought about this, the demon was busily casting a spell. His incantation was guttural and grating, and a series of hand signs accompanied it. He could issue mental commands to the mobs, but in the terms of Dungeons and Dragons, his spells involved both verbal and somatic components. A limitation.
The diamond case parted like water, the crystal surging to either side and reforming into a pair of pillars on either side of the Anchor. The troll that had appeared during our conversation knuckled over to pick up the obsidian cube.
"How does it work?" I asked. "How did you change my spawn point?"
Bojack''s horse-lips raised in something that I could not in good conscience call a smile. "I will not share its secrets with you. You would only use that knowledge to escape. As long as this Anchor exists, you will return to it every time you are reborn."
"What if it breaks?"
"This is an official command. You are never to strike, harvest, or otherwise attempt to damage or destroy this Anchor."
"Got it." What if I had someone else break it? Was that covered by his edict? Asking would only cause him to make the order even more specific. He''d said intention mattered, so enlisting Gastard to smash it up would almost certainly trigger my curse. Was he even alive? If Esmelda had been captured, the outlook wasn''t good for my friend. He would have defended Esmelda with his life.
"If we move quickly," Bojack said, "we can reach the Wastes by the next sunset."
"The Wastes?" We were already in Dargoth. That would go in the wrong direction. "Is Kevin in the Free Kingdoms?"
"No, but the resources we need are."
"Is Esmelda in Henterfell? Will you let me see her?"
"After you have taken the Throne of Shadows, you are free to be reunited with your mate. Until then, do not pursue her."
"You''re a dick, Bojack."
"She is safe. That is all you need to know."
That was absolutely not all I needed to know, but it wasn''t like I could beat the information out of him.
"What resources are we talking about?"
"As you are now, you will never be able to face the Dark Lord. But the power of Survivors is in their panoply. You are not skilled enough to craft what you need, but those who came before left some of their weapons behind. The armor you found, I know a way to retrieve it."
"I told you about that?" It must have been a previous life.
"You did." He motioned toward the re-solidified diamonds. "If the runes that protect it are as potent as I suspect, I cannot command the crystals that surround it as I do these. There is, however, another way. An atreanum tool will disrupt any runic formation that a human could craft."
"What''s atreanum?"
"A rare material. To collect it, you will have to use the gate left in those same ruins."
My heart dropped. Somehow, going head-to-head with Kevin had seemed less daunting than the idea of visiting the place where monsters came from. The tasks I had to complete before I got to see Esmelda again were already compounding.
"I don''t know how to activate it."
"It is a minor matter." Bojack began walking toward the exit, the troll following him automatically. "All it requires is blood."
77: My Flight (Rewrite)
The storm had a purpose. Under the sky of Dargoth, mobs did not despawn during the day. Bojack and I exited the valley together, giving me a broader impression of the landscape than I''d gotten looking through the diamond barriers. The country was uneven; the land rising and falling, punctuated by the scattered knuckles and spikes of jagged rock formations. Fungal colonies sprawled in place of forests, breaking up the brown and grey earth with sickly shades of purple and red.
"How does anyone live here?" I asked. "Aren''t those mushrooms deadly?"
Monsters milled around us, grunting and hooting. I''d taken off my mask and discarded the skin cloak, but the zombies nearby made no move to attack me, and the phantoms swimming in the air appeared almost playful. I couldn''t forget that it was the demon''s influence keeping the mobs peaceful. Every one of these creatures was an aggressive predator.
"This is Golgoth," Bojack said, absently pushing aside a zombie that shambled too close. "Humans live within cities and fortresses warded against the wart spores. There are other regions the sun touches. They would look more hospitable to you. But this is our foothold in the world. The storm rises from Mount Doom."
I resisted the urge to facepalm upon hearing that Kevin had actually called his base Mount Doom. When had he been born? Lord of the Rings was published in the fifties, but Kevin had been here for centuries. Either Mizu had sent him back in time, or there was some serious dilation going on between Plana and Earth.
"How far are we from the Wastes?"
"Not so far as the taiva flies."
The natural question died on my lips as three wyverns curved around the cliffs. Their wings were immense, but with bodies as big as horses, there was no way their flight was completely natural. They came down a comfortable distance away from the mob of mobs around us, and a rider dismounted from the lead beast.
He was obviously a demon, the most inhuman example that I had seen. His head was lopsided and soft, mottled like the skin of an octopus, and a short curtain of tentacles hung down over his mouth. A long-sleeved robe mostly hid his body and hands, and the fingers peeking out from under the dark cloth looked boneless and slick.
The newcomer and Bojack exchanged a few words in the same guttural tongue he had used to cast his spell, and the cephalopod turned his gaze on me. His eyes were the size of saucers, glossy blue. He seemed to size me up for a moment, then dismiss me entirely. A bubbly noise issued from behind the tentacles,
"This is Vepar," Bojack said, "one of our conspirators."
The assembled mobs, zombies, phantoms, and the lone horse-hound, began to move. They weren''t as organized as an army of soldiers would have been, but they were all pointed in the same direction, the column of smoke on the horizon that I now knew to be Mount Doom. The troll carried the Anchor over to the wyverns and deposited it beside the lead before following the crowd.
After another terse exchange I couldn''t understand, Vepar went with the mobs.
¡°This tribute will go to the Dark Lord," Bojack said, "so for the time being, neither he nor my kin will know that there had been any change here. But the deception will not hold forever. We must hurry."
As we approached the wyverns, one of them yawned, revealing a maw lined with dull triangular teeth. They would have a bite like a shark, and I doubted zombie leathers would offer anything in the way of protection. Bojack waved his hand, and the trio lowered their angular heads. He lifted the Anchor and strapped it atop the largest of the three.
"Mount that one," he said, pointing at the third and smallest of the wyverns. "It is the most docile."
As if to contradict him, the beast used its knife-like talons to scrape deep furrows in the soil, but its head remained bowed. There was no saddle, but the creature was equipped with a harness and a set of straps that I could use to tie myself on. The thought of riding one of these monsters did not fill me with excitement, but if it got us out of Dargoth that much faster, I was happy to do it. The beast lowered its body to allow me to climb up, and I took a position behind its wings. I had barely finished figuring out the ties when Bojack hopped atop the last wyvern and all three began flapping their wings.
They didn''t lift straight up, instead taking off at a lope as they gathered the wind and began to fly. I bounced up and down on the wyvern''s back, feeling the tension in the straps and praying that they held as we rose. As the ground dropped away, I felt my stomach drop with it. While heights didn''t terrify me, I had never been the sort of person to hang off ledges for fun.
The wind rushed by my ears, and its heavy wingbeats found a steady rhythm. This wasn''t a leisurely horse ride. Bojack and I would not be chatting along the way, and the wyverns separated as we ascended, giving each other plenty of room to maneuver. As we approached the low-hanging clouds, the sky was anything but peaceful.
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Crimson tendrils flashed amid the roiling storm, tracing a skeletal hand, but the lightning came and went without the accompaniment of thunder. The wyverns picked up speed, and soon the earth slid underneath us as we left the valley behind. Twisting in my harness to get a good look at the cage that had held me for the past five months, I drew in a sharp breath.
It really was a giant diamond box, encasing both cliffs as large as a football stadium. Under the dark sky, the structure was barely visible, one end illuminated by the lone torch, the rest blushing as lightning flashed once more.
How could there be that much diamond in one world, let alone all in one place? If he''d crafted it himself, the time investment for placing all those blocks alone was staggering. I didn''t even try to do the math. It would have taken years.
Kevin had sent a machine to dig through the mountain, so it was likely he had ways of automating large-scale builds as well. That was a trick I needed to learn.
We reached the Wastes in a few hours.
The wyverns were tireless and carried us at a pace that couldn''t have been matched by the fastest horses in Drom taking turns to bear us. Most of Dargoth was barren, but we had passed over a handful of towers constructed after the fashion of the way-stations, and at one point I thought I''d seen a black city in the embrace of a distant mountain range.
The desert was bright in comparison, as the storm halted along its edge. As if I had needed any more proof that the clouds were not of natural origin, here it was. The edge of the storm was a nearly perfect line running beside the sands.
A way-station, and Redroad beyond it, had already come into clear view as the wyverns began their descent. The tower was identical to the one that I had hijacked what was now literally a hundred lifetimes ago. Our landing was surprisingly elegant. Though the wyverns seemed like they shouldn''t have been able to fly, they were masters of their element, and came down as gently as doves.
As soon as we were on the ground, I worked at the knots holding my legs and waist in place. They had tightened during our journey, and I had to spend several minutes working at them while the wyvern underneath me grew increasingly agitated. By the time I slid off its back, it was hissing like an angry lizard.
"Sorry," I said. "I''d give you a treat if I had one."
It bared its teeth at me, and I realized I did have something. The materials I''d gathered in the valley weren''t of any value. Leather and stone could be found anywhere, and they wouldn''t serve to craft the tools I needed now, but I''d kept the coins out of habit. I worked one out from my leggings and slapped it into my palm.
Plep.
A slab of zombie meat appeared in my palm, hanging out over the edges of my hand like a porterhouse steak that had gone very, very bad.
The wyvern reacted so suddenly that I had to drop the meat for fear of losing my hand at the wrist, and its toothy maw darted out to snatch the snack before it hit the ground. The meat disappeared down its gullet, and the beast eyed me curiously, as if wondering how many more slabs I could cause to appear.
One moment, its eyes were beady and black and anything but friendly. The next, they softened, a faint green line appearing around its pupils. It looked confused.
Had I just tamed this wyvern? In Maincraft, not all animals could be tamed. For those that could, however, all you had to do was give them the right kind of food. If you gave bones to wolves, they would follow you around and defend you from mobs. I''d definitely fed a horse before, and nothing special had happened. I hadn''t bothered experimenting with other animals. The harpies had accepted food from me as well, and though they were my allies, they were anything but tame.
Maybe I had imagined that its eyes hadn''t had any color in them before.
"Sit." I said.
The wyvern hissed at me.
"What are you doing?" Bojack had long finished untying the Anchor, and he was holding it with visible effort.
"Just feeding him," I said. "He deserved it."
Bojack muttered a word in his demonic tongue that caused the wyverns to take off as a unit. I was a little disappointed to see them go. When monsters weren''t trying to eat you, they were kind of nice.
"Do you still have your mask?" The demon asked.
"Yeah, why?"
"Put it on. The soldiers will believe you to be an advanced Koroshai."
Ugh. "You mean like Bill."
"The same."
I did as he asked, and we took the ramp that led up to the back gate of the waystation. It was better manned than the other had been. There were faces watching up from the arrow slits. But I didn''t think we were in any danger. Bojack might have been low-ranked, but he was still a demon, and they served directly under Kevin.
"How does that work, anyway? Do zombies level up from eating people?"
"Lesser entities can accrue essence," Bojack said, laboring under the weight of the Anchor. It had to be significantly heavier than a granite block if it was giving him trouble. He was at least as strong as I was. "They do not advance as easily as a hero, but they all have higher forms."
That was something to worry about. Though if I became the Dark Lord, mobs wouldn''t be a threat to me anymore. They would be a tool.
I quickly grabbed onto that train of thought and tossed it to the back of my mind. What was I thinking? This thing with Bojack was going to be as temporary as I could make it. The demons were here to destroy the world, and I was here to protect it. While the idea of having a horde of monsters at my beck and call had its appeal, what would I even use them for? Subjugating humanity?
Coexistence wasn''t an option when one side was trying to turn the planet into a hellscape, so it would be nice and comfy for the devil when he got here.
Chains clanked as the gate lifted, and a group of Dargothians welcomed us in identical iron suits. We didn''t stay long. Bojack started giving orders as soon as we were inside the main hall, and the soldiers rushed to accommodate him. They kept a few horses for running messages between the way-stations, and we took all of them. The animals weren''t big enough to carry the demon, but the soldiers rigged up a sled for the Anchor in a matter of minutes. I barely had enough time to ask for waterskins. The soldiers didn''t question the request, though it had to have struck them as unusual for a koroshai to be thirsty, and soon we were exiting the other side of the waystation and on our way to Drom.
78: My Town Isnt My Town (Rewrite)
My town was full of humans.
Admittedly, there is nothing inherently sinister about human beings in a peaceful settlement at any given location, but it was a final nail in the coffin of the little world I had thought I was building. Free of the valley, with my memory of the intervening time mostly blank, a childish corner of my mind had kept thinking that coming home would be coming home. But five months had passed, and Godwod had taken up with the enemy. My home was gone.
The village sprawl had been curtailed out of apparent necessity. Riding in, most of the nascent fields the lillits had been working on looked abandoned, and the more far-flung structures reduced to burnt out frames. They had constructed a wooden palisade around the town center and the longhouse, so the mine and those that lived there were screened behind tall wooden stakes.
Above the stakes, a flag hung limply, folding around the eagle sign of Henterfell. Beside it was a black pennant embroidered with the red sigil of Dargoth, a mark almost identical to my elder sign.
Those who were working outside of the wall dropped to their knees at the sight of my demonic companion. Bojack walked beside me as I rode, leading the horse burdened with the obsidian Anchor. The gatehouse was just large enough to admit a wagon, a short wooden hall built into the palisade with a heavy door reinforced by iron bands.
A Dargothian man, marked by his standard issue armor, stood beside the gatehouse. His face was pasty pale except where it was pink with sunburn, and long strands of oily hair slipped out from under his metal cap. He''d caught sight of Bojack from a mile away, and opened the door for us.
I dismounted. The gatehouse was a little short for someone on horseback. Someone was galloping down the only street to meet us. A familiar, pockmarked face. As he pulled his mount to a halt, the man nearly broke his neck coming down as fast as he could to avoid sitting with his head higher than Bojack''s. He stumbled the landing, then turned it into a bow.
Gent looked about the same as the last time I''d seen him. His pants were dusty and serviceable, but he had thrown on a blue doublet stitched with his house sign in gold thread over his linen tunic. A leaping rabbit. He barely spared a glance for me. In my zombie mask, there was no way he would recognize me unless we spoke, instead focusing on the demon.
"Your eminence," he said, nervously. "To what do I owe the honor of your company?"
"We are here to inspect the mine," Bojack said, continuing forward. I followed him. "Your presence is not required."
Godwod had reinstated Gent as the Baron. It shouldn''t have come as a surprise. Looking around, I kept hoping to spy lillit faces, but there were none to be found. The little folk were all either in hiding or in Dargoth. The people who lived here had either come from Gent''s hamlet or immigrated from across the Wastes. I saw more soldiers than laborers. Lots of new buildings had been constructed, though their purpose wasn''t immediately obvious.
Williamsburg was now less a bustling town and more a military outpost.
"Whatever you wish," Gent said, keeping up. "There''s work going on in the shaft. Would you like me to clear them out?"
"You may."
"I don''t know what there could interest you down there. The yield has been disappointing. Lord Godwod didn''t mention that you would be coming."
Bojack paused long enough to glare at the Baron. "Your place is to obey, not to question."
Gent withered under his gaze. It was satisfying to see, but it didn''t make the situation any more palatable. Everything the lillits had worked for, the community we had strived to create, was gone. I wasn''t angry at Gent. The man was just a pawn being maneuvered by Godwod. Instead of a tight ball of fury in my chest, all I felt was emptiness.
The mine looked much as I had left it, though the entrance was supported by new beams. Gent gave orders to the laborers, who quickly spread the word that a demon was on the premises and came filing out of the tunnel over the course of the next few minutes.
"Is there any other way I can be of service?" Gent asked.
"Yes," Bojack said, not deigning to look at the baron, "do not speak of this visit to anyone. Not even your Lord."
"Your eminence," Gent stammered, "that is very unu¡ª"
Bojack dropped his hand on the baron''s shoulder, nearly causing his knees to buckle. "Not to anyone. Do you understand?"
"Of course," Gent''s mouth hung open, "as you say." His gaze drifted to the Anchor strapped to the back of a tired horse, its edges shining with ruddy runes. He excused himself and bowed away.
I tied off the horses at the post beside the mine, and we entered the tunnel together. The workers had taken their lanterns with them, but even as the light fell behind us, the interior was clearly visible to me in shades of gray. Bojack had to lower his head, hunching over to accommodate the low ceiling. At eight feet tall, he made me feel like a lillit. Beleth had been within normal human proportions. Were more powerful demons bigger?
"Bojack," I asked we he headed deeper into the mine, "where do you fit into the demon power scheme? Are you above or below average?"
"I am the fifty-fifth harbinger," Bojack said. "The last to arrive so far."
"Okay, but what level does that make you?"
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"In terms of raw essence, I am among the least of my kin. But many of those who occupy higher seats have grown complacent. There are only a few that I fear."
"Could you have beaten Beleth?"
His expression was placid, but there was a hint of annoyance in his tone as he answered. "I could tear him apart if we came close, but his affinity would allow him to keep me at a distance. For most opponents, demon and human alike, circumstance dictates the outcome more than simple strength."
I could relate to that. If you stabbed someone in the back, it didn''t really matter how tough they were. Godwod had cut off my fingers because I''d held them out for him. The siege on the way-station had gone as well as it had because the road and the tower had allowed me to split up the enemy into more manageable chunks. Bojack seemed unkillable when all I had to work with was stone, whereas Excalibur could have chopped him to pieces.
If Gent had kept digging down, he would have eventually found the underground base. Instead, he''d focused all of his efforts on the side tunnel I''d dug halfway down, assuming I''d come across a vein of gold there. That section of the mine had expanded significantly, but the lower tunnels were essentially as I had left them.
I mined out the blocks that hid the entrance to the base by hand and found my supply depot untouched. The lillits had been preparing to use the mine as a holdout when the town came under attack. Obviously, they hadn''t been able to last forever, and their equipment and food stores had all been cleared out in the months since. But my area, the domed chamber above the base, was lined with chests.
All the extra material from the farm was here, including my workroom set-up, and most importantly, Kevin''s tools. I''d lost Excalibur when I was captured, but I''d left the orichalcum pick, shovel, and ax behind on the way to war. Death had always been a possibility, it was the imprisonment that had come as a surprise.
I gave Bojack a quick tour of the base. He had no interest in the library, but he spent a long moment of contemplation over the diamond encased armor. It was in stasis. Five months was nothing compared to however long ago its original crafter had left it down here.
"Can you do anything about the case?" I asked.
His hands moved in a series of precise gestures, and he muttered an incantation in the demonic tongue. My breath caught as the crystalline surface rippled like the surface of a pool. Then the runes flared, and the diamond cubes reasserted their solidity.
"It is beyond me," he said. "You will need the atreanum."
"And we''re sure that''s where the Stargate opens to?"
"The inscriptions make it clear. More, there are no other realms near enough to this one for so simple a portal to be effective."
"Can you explain the realms thing to me? Are we in a different universe, or on different planets, or what? Where is Earth?"
"Far away." Bojack turned from the treasure room and strode back into the central chamber, his long legs forcing me to hustle to keep up.
"Far away in distance? Like, if wyverns could fly in space, could one of them eventually get there?"
The dark hoop of the Stargate gleamed in the pale aquamarine light of the glowstones on each corner of its dais. Bojack had no trouble stretching his back in this chamber. The ceiling was twenty feet above us, crafted of the same bluish stone as the rest of the base.
"Plana is small," Bojack said, "and fragile. If you could fly above the world, beyond the moon, you would eventually reach a boundary."
"What''s on the other side of the boundary?"
"Nothing. The realm curves, and to approach its end would return you to the beginning."
So the universe was an old-school side-scrolling video game. Good to know.
"Then where is Bedlam? Where is Earth?"
"The realms are layered. In a sense, we are standing in Bedlam now." Bojack made a sharp motion with one hand, and a chunk of stone broke off of the edge of the dais and rose to hover over his palm. He muttered under his breath, and the chunk broke into fragments arranged in a vertical tower, each rotating at a different speed. The bottom fragment was the thickest, and didn''t move at all.
"At the bottom of everything is Harmony," Bojack said, "unable to change, frozen, and dead. At the very top, and surrounding everything, is Discord. The Realm of Eternal evolution." He touched the second lowest stone, which completed its first rotation in about ten seconds. "Your homeworld is like this, close enough to Harmony to be the keystone of this dimension, but touched with enough Discord to be a living realm."
His finger moved to the top of the tower, a pebble without a regular rhythm. It spun, jerked, or held still, seemingly at random." This is Bedlam, at the very cusp of true Discord, with Plana below."
"Earth is a keystone? So if your god eats its way through all the realms and gets to earth, the whole universe breaks apart?"
Bojack''s hand dropped, and the assorted stones clattered to the floor. "The One Who Knocks does not seek dissolution. Nor do we. Discord itself wants for nothing. It simply exists. The same can be said of Harmony. When you activate this portal, the veil will draw aside, allowing you to walk from this realm to the next. That is all."
"So, is it possible to make a portal that would take me home?"
"Not directly." Bojack shrugged. "But you could create a ladder of sorts. Crafting a portal that would bring you closer to Harmony instead of farther away is more difficult than anything a hero of this realm could achieve. The Survivor who built this place could not have done it." His gaze locked onto mine. "But the One Who Knocks has that power, and the knowledge you would need to craft such a portal."
Of course he did, at the cost of tearing Plana apart, and every other world on the way down. The idea of returning to my true home, seeing my family again, was enticing, but I couldn''t forget who I was talking to.
"Let''s start with getting me that armor."
Bojack nodded. ¡°Opening the portal is not so demanding. It requires a small sacrifice, and it becomes keyed to the individual who pays the price. It is what you will find on the other side that will be more likely to trouble you.¡±
¡°Monsters, right? Can¡¯t you just keep them off of me?¡±
¡°I could. But the environment itself is treacherous, and though I will advise you, I cannot accompany you.¡±
¡°Why not?¡±
"Were I to travel through Bedlam in your company, it would not go unnoticed. Other demons, or even the One Who Knocks, would question why I had left my post. We are bound to him, and he sees us wherever we go when we occupy the same realm. Here, he has only the dimmest sense of me, but were I to return before my time, he would sense it immediately. Your Presence is still ephemeral enough to be overlooked or mistaken for a lesser entity."
Monsters had a spiritual sense, and I was pretty sure I was developing something like that myself. In zombies, it was weak enough that my bloody costume had fooled them, but Bojack had had no trouble seeing through it.
"How could they think I was a mob? You can sense me, can''t you, even if you don''t see me?"
"I can. But at a distance, you are still indistinct. As long as you approach nothing more powerful than a taiva or a koloss, the background of chaos that fills Bedlam will disguise your presence."
"Isn''t Bedlam swarming with demons, though?"
"The realm is broad, and we are not so numerous. It is home to many formidable entities, most of whom serve only themselves. I do not know what lies on the other side of this portal, but the Survivor who built it will have crafted themselves a holdfast. I can instruct you in how to find atreanum, but the realm is too unstable for anything as convenient as a map."
¡°So you¡¯re saying I¡¯m going to be going alone into dangerous, unknown and possibly unknowable territory, under-equipped and under-informed, searching for something I¡¯ve never seen, assailed by forces I cannot fathom?¡±
"Yes."
79: My Portal (Rewrite)
Leather armor would not cut it. I decked myself out in a new set of iron, and contemplated enchantments. Kevin''s tools were better than anything I could craft, and I''d use the ax as a primary weapon. Taking them with me into Bedlam risked losing them, but Bojack assured me that atreanum could not be harvested with a simple iron pickax. The orichalcum pick was a must, so I was only going to have one shot at this, and I had to maximize my chances. All the best tools or nothing.
Killing Bill and a few other mobs hadn''t netted me much in the way of experience, which limited my options. Bojack didn''t like it, but I spent several hours mining to get myself up to level fifteen, at which point the experience I gained from harvesting stone dropped off sharply. Being a Survivor meant being prepared. Equipment was everything.
The demon watched me place amethyst blocks to power the enchanting room.
"I''m thinking torches," I said, "the more Shadowbane the better."
"No."
I glanced over at the word. Bojack was standing under the archway with his arms folded over his chest. He looked to be a few minutes away from tapping his foot with impatience.
"Why not?"
"The torch would dissuade lesser entities while attracting more powerful foes. You should seek to disturb the realm as little as possible while you are there."
"Well, that sucks." My level was too low for me to create enchanted books that were any better than the ones I already had, though that supply was dwindling. Most of the blank books were still at the farm, assuming they hadn''t been looted, but I was down to my last two Protection I tomes. Converting my new equipment into medallions, I slotted the ingredients and quickly applied what I had.
The Protection went to the chestplate and leggings. My boots got Featherfall, and I put Aqua Affinity on my helmet, because why not? Featherfall had come in handy before, and though I hadn''t had to fight in an aquatic environment yet, Bojack had informed me the atreanum deposit he knew of was in a Bedlam swamp. While swimming shouldn''t be called for, I needed to be ready for anything.
Once the enchantments were applied and my gear was back on, I checked my status.
Name: William
Class Assignment: Survivor
Level: 11
Advancement: 12%
Attributes:
Might: E+
Speed: E
Presence: F-
Armor Rating: 21
Traits: Darkvision, Immunity to Poison and Disease
Even fully decked out in enchanted plate, my Armor Rating had never been that high. I''d assumed it capped out at twenty. In the game, your defence was represented by little chest plates over the health bar. The max was ten, but they were counted up in halves, so if that had been written as a number instead of a visual, the top value would have been a twenty. In terms of mechanics, it worked out to an eighty percent damage reduction.
Because of the modifications the Survivor achievement had made to my body, my Armor Rating was a three standing around naked. Obviously, damage reduction for me didn''t work exactly the same way as it did in Maincraft. Whatever the System did to calculate how many hearts I lost when a zombie bit me was more complicated than that. But I was stoked to see the number go up.
I walked past Bojack and made my way back to the upper chamber where I''d dropped a work table. Six wood planks and one iron ingot converted into a shield, and I grabbed some fresh amethyst to recharge the enchanting room and add Unbreaking I to the item. I wasn''t worried about my armor being ruined. I''d be decked out in orichalcum if this ill-advised adventure panned out. But the shield was wood, and its entire job was taking hits, so I didn''t have to. It would fall apart a lot faster than my other gear without enhancement.
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"Are you finished?" Bojack asked as I strapped on the shield.
"I think so. I''ve been wondering, does using the Stargate weaken the veil?" A small excursion as a warm-up would have been nice. "Would it be bad if I hopped in, looked around, and came back to prepare some more?"
"A portal can damage the veil." He sounded amused. "Use it as freely as you like."
In the grand scheme, it likely wouldn''t make much of a difference to the fate of the world if I hopped back and forth between realms, but anything that made it harder for Plana to maintain its integrity against the incursion of Bedlam needed to be minimized. I might do Bojack''s bidding, but I didn''t share his goals. We reentered the central chamber and stepped up onto the dais together.
"How do I turn it on?" I asked, looking the glossy monument up and down. There were no levers or buttons, and I already knew a spark wouldn''t do it.
"Bleed," he said. "A few drops will suffice. Some of your essence will go to fuel the reaction, nothing you can''t recover."
I had a fresh leather pack over my shoulder, but I was keeping my tools strapped on instead of storing them in medallion form. The shovel and pick were on my back, and the ax was at my hip. I pulled it out, and then must have spent too much time examining its edge for Bojack''s liking.
"You are forbidden from assaulting me, or even planning such an assault." He said, stepping back. "Merely deciding to do so will be enough to enact the curse."
It had crossed my mind. The ax wasn''t Shadowbane, but the meta-material could hurt him. If he hadn''t reacted that way, I wouldn''t have been sure.
"I get it. No killing you." Though if I did, couldn''t I break the oathblade before the curse took me out? For now, our agreement helped me as much as it did him. He was a wealth of information, and I didn''t think I could sneak into Mount Doom and kill Kevin on my own. At least that far, we shared a goal. Not being able to go after Esmelda hurt, but the safest world for her and the rest of the lillits was one where Kevin was out of the picture, however it happened.
"How far away is this magic swamp?"
Bojack relaxed, brushing off his toga as if brushing away the idea that he had been in danger. "The environment shifts. But despite its breadth and depth, in a sense, every region of Bedlam is near to every other. Space and time are warped, and you will do well to avoid the extremes of both. Distances shrink, and your predecessors may have used the realm for travel. You could walk for a day in Bedlam, enter another portal, and return to Plana on the other side of the wastes. That brings me to my next dictum. You may not use any portal to leave Bedlam other than this one."
"The distance thing makes this sound more and more like the Nether."
Bojack''s mouth twitched. "The Dark Lord uses that word as well. He has his own portal, but he rarely uses it. Bedlam does not suit his sensitive nature."
"Sensitive nature" was not a phrase that would have been on my bingo card of things a demon says about the Dark Lord, but okay.
"What about time? You said that warped too? How warped?" Did this have something to do with why Kevin was a thousand years old and making 20th century pop-culture references?
¡°Days flow more swiftly in Bedlam than it does on this plane, though the variance is not severe." Bojack made a noncommittal gesture with one hand. "Time bends the closer you travel to either pole, Discord or Harmony. It moves faster here than in the realm from which you came. Bedlam is unstable enough that it can move faster or slower, and there are pools of extremity even within Bedlam, places where the laws break, and madness reigns. It is possible to live a year in one of those pools when only a day has passed here.¡±
Hyperbolic Time Chamber, here we come.
¡°If there are places like that, and you have access to them, why don¡¯t demons use them to train and become the perfect versions of themselves before attacking a new world? You¡¯re all immortal, right?¡±
Bojack actually shuddered.
¡°To enter one of those regions is to invite dissolution, or something worse. They are almost inescapable, and exceedingly unpleasant.¡±
¡°If no one comes back, how do you know anything about what goes on inside them?¡±
¡°Almost inescapable. It is said the One Who Knocks first emerged from such a pool." Bojack looked away. Was he uncomfortable? "There are stories of others. But you would do well to consider them black holes.¡±
I rounded on the demon. ¡°How the holy fudge do you know about black holes? Do you have demonic astronomy or something?¡±
Bojack whinnied. Was that his version of a laugh? ¡°The Dark Lord is the one who made the comparison, and I assumed you would share his frame of reference. But we know more of what is possible than you have dreamt of, or could imagine, human. Our kind was born in the seas of chaos, while yours evolved in the slow morass of concrete reality. Regardless, if you want to return to see your family again, avoid the distortions."
"How do I know if I''m near one?"
"There will be signs. Bedlam is in constant motion. Watch what the air carries, and the native entities. Do not enter a region that appears to shift at an impossible pace, or any that appear frozen."
This sounded like a major issue, but I had always planned on exploring Bedlam at some point, and now I felt lucky that the flint and steel hadn''t worked. Going in without this warning could have been a disaster.
I pressed the blade of my ax into the meat of my palm and pulled. It barely stung. The cut wasn''t deep, but blood welled up. More than the few drops that had been called for.
"Last question. What happens if I die?"
"The anchor will draw your soul," Bojack said. "You cannot escape me so easily."
I held my hand over the base of the portal and let the blood drip. As soon as it touched the obsidian, the air within the circle opened like an eye, revealing pure chaos.
80: My Push (Rewrite)
I jerked back as the veil of the world tore open in front of me. On a basic level, the result reminded me of the "snow" on old TVs when they weren''t receiving a broadcast signal. The thin gap of air between me and the open portal seemed to vibrate, and the overall impression was purple. But the color was more complicated than that. My eyes were kind of averaging ten thousand swirling tones so that my brain could say "purple," even though that didn''t do it justice at all. I was pretty sure some colors in there didn''t actually exist. They were more like ideas about color that the creator of the universe had brainstormed but never gotten around to finishing.
Shapes formed and died, jagged and smooth. Patterns and the absence of patterns. Storm spirals, lightning arcs, alien faces and alien tongues. There was a looming sense of a presence or presences on the other side, of being seen by things that I never wanted to notice me. They came and went too fast to track, too fast for me to decide if I was really seeing anything. It also had a smell.
Ozone, maybe, but with undertones of sweetness like crushed fruit. The scents came and went, replaced by the odor of burnt meat, eggs, and then back to sweetness again. Despite the visual display, there was no sound. The silence of the portal was almost as disturbing as the non-images playing across its turbulent surface. I was afraid to look away. A tiny animal in my skull was telling me that the moment I did, this torrent of mad energy was going to reach out and swallow me.
"I''m supposed to walk into this?" I asked.
"It''s perfectly safe," Bojack assured me. "The Survivors who came before would not have used it if it led to certain death."
"What if they died the first time they went through and never used it again? Or what if there''s one of those time prisons on the other side, and that''s why there''s no one here?"
Bojack chuckled. "That would be delightfully unfortunate. But I believe all the Dark Lord''s predecessors are accounted for, griefed from this world in the usual way. Whatever waits for you beyond, we cannot overthrow the Dark Lord and the demons who support him without atreanum and the resources it will provide you. Bedlam is its only source. You must proceed."
My mind raced to come up with an alternative that did not involve me walking through a maw of raw chaos. "Doesn''t Kevin have some we could steal?"
"Atreanum is brittle. Tools and weapons crafted from it do not last. The Dark Lord may have a supply, but as he rarely ventures into Bedlam himself, it will not be much, and I have no sure means of finding it."
"Could we try?"
Bojack pushed me.
It was like being thrust under a waterfall. Reflexively, I tried to go back, but there was no back to go to. The Stargate chamber was gone, the world was gone, and reality had been replaced by ten thousand shades of what my brain kept insisting was purple. All I could see was eldritch snow, even when I shut my eyes. Liquid currents flowed across my body, pulling me in every direction at once. My ax was still in my hand, and I squeezed the haft so tightly that my tendons threatened to pop. Breathing was out of the question.
The transition lasted ten furious heartbeats. Not long objectively, but a long time to be outside of the world, of any world. If that was Discord, I wanted no part of it. My first normal sensation was smacking my face into a stone floor. It stung, and for a while I just lay there. It was solid and cool and very real. Even if using the Stargate hadn''t risked damaging Plana''s veil, I had no intention of going through the portal again until I had what I''d come for.
No wonder Kevin found "Bedlam" disturbing. Just getting there was traumatic enough.
Bojack was right about there being a shelter on this side. I was in an octagonal room crafted from the same bluish stone as the underground base. It was so similar to the chamber I had just exited that for a moment; I imagined that being pushed through the portal had literally pushed me through the portal, and I had never left.
The same dais, the same gate alive with otherworldly energy, but no Bojack. Four glowstones, as before, but this set had been cranked to eleven. They were bright enough that no shadows pooled in the corners of the broad, square room, reflecting harshly off the four iron doors set in cardinal directions. I picked myself up.
As uncomfortable as the trans-dimensional journey had been, it had done no harm. My equipment was intact, even my pack, ready to be filled with coins. The ax was fine. It hadn''t disappeared into unknowable chaos, and the other tools, Pickle Rick and Scrapper, were still medallions tucked into one of several leather pouches I''d tied to my waist.
The doors were plain, little more than iron slabs attached to a hinge, without handles or bars. I went to the nearest one and pressed the button affixed to the wall beside it. Raising my ax proved an unnecessary precaution. It swung open without so much as a whisper, revealing a bedroom.
It looked cozy. A bed that could have been a twin of the one I''d stolen from Kevin, a few chests, and a nightstand. The room wasn''t much bigger than a prison cell, but it had a lovely, plush carpet patterned with arcane looking geometry in gold thread. Instead of torches, a glass lamp hung from the wall by a wrought-iron claw. There was a switch beside it, and when I flicked it on, a warm ball of yellow light burst to life within the glass. The lamp connected to the switch by what looked like a red neon tube.
It glowed. Had I just discovered redstone? I had to hold myself back from trying to harvest it to find out. I''d just gotten here. It probably wasn''t a good idea to immediately start breaking things. The first chest was full of totally normal looking clothes, normal for Plana. Tunics and trousers and a cloak. Folded neatly instead of converted into medallions, I ran my hand over the fabric. It felt like silk. Certainly nicer than anything I''d made for myself.
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The second chest subdivided into half a dozen compartments, each stocked with a different coin. I took one of each and brought them over to the nightstand beside the bed. Setting them down, the steel thermos balanced on the stand distracted me. It looked modern in its design, a sleek cylinder with a screw-on cap.
Opening it, I sniffed at the liquid inside. It didn''t smell like anything, so I took a sip, prepared to spit out the contents after a quick swish. It was just water. Cool, tasteless and clear. The thermos came with a handy clip that allowed me to attach it to my leggings. I''d been using a rope belt for convenience to keep pouches on me, but apparently, there was a way to craft objects that matched the armor.
I stowed the coins in an extra pouch and went to explore the rest of the building. The next room contained a furnace, but the area wasn''t set up for crafting. There was a surprisingly normal looking table, complete with the stains and scratches one would expect of a kitchen counter that had been put to good use for an extended period. No matter your intentions, someone would eventually forget to use a cutting board. A cabinet hung over the table, but it wasn''t what caught my attention.
A double-length chest inscribed with runes took up most of one wall. I rushed over, surprised to find that it was unlocked. A blast of cold air washed over my face as I threw up the lid. Empty. This dude had crafted himself a cooler.
Perfectly ordinary household goods took most of the cabinet up; cups and plates and utensils, as well as a hotplate. It looked like what it was, a flat chunk of metal with a heating element underneath, except with a magic-steampunk vibe. Bringing it down to the table, I flipped a switch on its side and was treated to the sight of redstone tubes lighting up throughout the apparatus.
After only a few moments, the plate heated. A little longer, and it was too hot to touch. I turned it off. Someone had been here long enough to make themselves comfortable, and they had known a lot more about crafting than me.
Before leaving the kitchen, my eyes settled on a lonely button sticking out of the wall opposite the chest. That area was otherwise clear. Though this place had thus far been trap free, I played it safe and used the head of the ax to press the button, standing as far away as I could from that wall and still reach it.
It clicked, and a single block slid to one side to the right of the button. Blazing heat, and red-orange light, poured out. No horrific monsters followed, so after spending a few moments standing absolutely still, ax still extended, I approached close enough to look inside.
The hole opened onto a stubby shaft that ended on lava. They''d put lava on the wall. I knew what this was.
In Maincraft, if you didn''t feel like organizing scrap materials, you could keep some lava nearby and use it to throw anything away you didn''t want floating around you and jumping back into your inventory. Lava destroyed anything that fell into it. This was a super-heated trash-can.
I tapped the button again, and the block slid shut. Back in the central chamber, the door facing the portal had a pressure plate beside it instead of a button, so I was going to save it for last. The third door led to a bathroom, which was impressive in its own way. It had a fully functioning toilet, uncomfortably reminiscent of the "silver bullet" single units common to holding tanks in jail, with a sink built into the body and the bowl jutting out to one side.
And a shower. Like the toilet, it had a sleek, modular look that suggested the Survivor System either came with formulas for a complete bathroom experience, or someone had invented them. Since waking up in a new world, I''d given up on running water and a proper restroom in the short term. The shower was tempting, but I had stuff to do.
The absence of a workroom was a little odd, but given that a crafter could convert all their tables into medallions and carry them in their pockets, I could see why a dedicated space wasn''t required. Heading back into the kitchen, I gathered the new coins in one hand and began slamming them on the table like magic Pogs with the other.
My first prize was a bowl of mushroom stew. It didn''t look bad, but the mushroom chunks collectively made up all the shades of a developing bruise. But a Survivor had made this, so it had to be safe to eat, right? I found it fiendishly appetizing. It was odd. I hadn''t felt hungry until the moment I was presented with a meal. But I hadn''t eaten at all since coming back to life. Was that an enhanced physiology thing?
The stew was cold, but I had a hotplate. The metal grew hot enough to for the bowl to be simmering in a couple of minutes. While waiting, I checked out the other resources.
A blue block of the same rock that made up the base, my System informed me it was Warp Stone, and gave a useless description. ¡°Very solid.¡± That was all. The next coin yielded a coarser rock that looked like it would crumble at a touch, though it didn¡¯t. Its shape and texture were somewhere between sandstone and swiss cheese. Rough to the touch, and full of holes.
| Journal |
Quests |
Notifications |
Materials |
Crafting |
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Bedlamite
Porous and brittle, this mineral composes a major portion of the land masses in Bedlam. Not recommended for tool recipes. Beware of Beddlemites, which often nest in the cavities of the rock.
|
Those sounded horrible, but the harvested blocks would be free of parasites. Should be free. I didn¡¯t know how it worked. The remaining coins yielded amethyst, something my System informed me was Dream Sand, and some Bedlam Wart. Mushrooms here must have grown to legitimately worrisome proportions, as chunks of the stalks and caps were entire blocks unto themselves. The entry for Dream Sand was just a dash, which took first place for unhelpfulness among all the unhelpful notifications I¡¯d gotten so far.
I returned to the bedroom and filled one pouch with Bedlamite and another with Warp Stone on the principle that you could never have too many rocks. I''d brought some wood with me, but not nearly as many raw materials as I would have liked.
My stew was ready. Little curlicues of steam rose from the bowl, and I grabbed a spoon from the cabinet after deactivating the hotplate. It didn¡¯t have much aroma, which I was grateful for. The mushrooms themselves were, if anything, too juicy. They popped in my mouth like berries, but they had the normal umami mushroom thing going on for flavor, so I wasn¡¯t too worried. Could have used some hot sauce.
With a belly full of what was almost certainly dangerous alien fungus, I grabbed Kevin''s ax, Stormbringer, and went to the last door. An elder sign was engraved on the pressure plate, and when I held the flat of my hand against the square, the sign glowed green. My guess was that this was a security System. Anyone could press a button. Only heroes, and maybe only Survivors, could activate a pressure plate marked with this rune. Maybe.
It took a few seconds to activate, but once the plate depressed, the door swung open as cleanly and easily as all the others. I looked outside.
Bedlam was insane.
81: My Space Trolley (Rewrite)
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82: My Swamp (Rewrite)
Infinity was boring. Most of the islands were too far away to look like anything other than blurry shapes. The cart sped up as it went along, but after a few minutes, it seemed to reach its maximum speed. Not that I could be sure what that speed was, given the lack of reference points and how weird everything looked without a proper horizon. The void was cold, though not uncomfortably so. Actual space would have had my eyes freezing over as the air ejected from my lungs, but the between space of Bedlam felt like a temperate evening. Besides the unmitigated silence, the air was unnervingly unscented.
I don''t normally pay that much attention to background odors unless something really stood out. But being outdoors comes with a lot of atmospheric baggage. The scents of grass, of floating pollen, the earth itself. Here there was nothing. A faintly tinny scent emanated from the redstone tubes underneath the cart. Aside from that, it was like I was breathing sterilized air, except without the residuals of a sterilizing agent.
The Dragon Ball island was shaped like a sword, not too wide, but extending basically forever on its long side. It gradually reduced in size until it was just one more textured shape in a sea of distant geometric figures. The desert was a saucer and took longer to become indistinct. My car was getting nowhere fast. I could flick it into reverse, but that wouldn''t get me any closer to my goal. But whoever had put this mode of locomotion in place had done so with a destination in mind, hadn¡¯t they?
How had they navigated this place before they installed a magic cart? I''d been thinking of Bedlam as the Nether, which was basically Maincraft hell. But it was reminding me more of the End. That biome had islands like these, though those were less varied in their composition, and if you fell off, you died. Maincraft was an unusual game in that the world was truly open. It generated procedurally. The farther you traveled, the more it expanded. It was the same for the End as the Overworld. You could keep exploring forever.
I didn''t want to do that. To island hop in the End, you could use an item called an Elytra. It was basically a jetpack powered by fireworks, and it had a limited range, so if you weren''t paying attention, it was a good way to lose all your gear by dropping into the void. From what I could recall, you couldn¡¯t craft Elytra. You had to find them in the End. Had they found some here?
Though I was thinking of my predecessors as a group instead of an individual Survivor, for all I knew, what I''d discovered could have been crafted by one guy. The amenities at the base were definitely more of a one-man thing. But I wanted to think of myself as part of a community, a brotherhood, even if everybody else was dead. Everybody but Kevin.
There had been other Survivors, once, and then other heroes. And now there were none. Was Kevin himself that dangerous, or was it that aligning himself with the demons had given him advantages Mizu''s champions couldn''t match? The System had compensated for all my deaths by adjusting my attributes until I was legitimately superhuman. Not a top level cape, of course, but probably around Captain America levels. But before my deaths had triggered the System''s intervention, it had been rewarding me for how long I survived.
The original achievement had come after only a day. Then a week. Then it had slowed down. But when was the last time Kevin had died? Being the Dark Lord of an empire that wasn''t actively at war had to be relatively safe. The bad guys weren''t trying to kill him, he was the bad guys. How many achievements would the System grant me if I lived for a century? Was there an upper limit, or did you keep getting stronger?
The last thing I needed was to find out that Kevin was Superman. I would have to ask Bojack if he had ever seen the Dark Lord do a deadlift. Until then, I was happy to be able to swing a stone sword around like it was a toy.
Another asteroid grew ahead of me, identical to the first. It contained a similar junction, though this one only had three directions; forward, back, and to the right. No extra supplies, but as the cart ground to a stop, I spotted a framed parchment resting on the wall beside the junction switch. I''d never been so relieved to see a map.
It wasn''t incredibly detailed, but the location of the base was marked with the word "Portal," and the islands I''d already passed had labels as well, and were loosely outlined in the drawing. They''d named Dragon Ball Island ¡°The Roost¡±, and the desert was ¡°Skyworms¡±. That was about right. But the map¡¯s scale was either way off or the positions of the islands had changed drastically since their survey. I assumed both. There was supposed to be another island right next to the portal, ¡°Snakehouse¡±, but I hadn''t seen it. Not that I would have been enthusiastic about visiting a region named Snakehouse, anyway.
So the islands did move, but maybe they did so in constellations, caught in each other''s gravity. The map looked old, its ink faded in places to near transparency. Was there something keeping the asteroids at a stable position, or was the cart keyed to seek them out even when they shifted? Either way, there was a network in place, and it seemed to be in working order.
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Five more islands were labeled, but the only one that mattered to me was "Zombie Swamp." The zombie part wasn''t great, but of all the monsters that Bedlam offered, they would be the easiest to deal with. The kraken looking drawing above the swamp on the map gave me pause. Could it be ornamental? A kind of generalized, "here be monsters" like what you saw on fantasy maps?
I doubted it. But that''s where I needed to go. Pulling the lever beside the map caused the track to clank into a new position. I was going right. A moment later, the cart was once again flying into the darkness.
The wheels continued to squeak as they spun pointlessly beneath the cart. Either the void was extremely quiet, or the sound didn''t travel well here. The journey went on and on, and as the cart didn''t require a pilot, I sat down and rested my head against the back of the iron basin. Above me, clusters of floating islands hung frozen in the darkness. Not that they weren''t moving relative to me, but they were so far away that they appeared stationary. The jostling of the cart, it behaved like it was traveling along an actual track, was somewhat soothing, rocking me from side to side. My eyes drifted shut.
Thump.
Had I actually fallen asleep? That was a stupid move. If nothing else, the cart could have run into something, or taken me to the wrong junction. I jumped to my feet. This wasn''t the void anymore.
The air was so pungent that it made me miss the emptiness. "Earthy" would have been a generous description of the malodorous environment, and a more honest one would have been "corpse-like." A short tunnel, open on both ends, provided some cover as I climbed out of the minecart and surveyed my surroundings. Dark waters and fungal colonies doing their best to LARP as trees. The stalks were bone white, but the caps ranged from brown to pink and purple and blue. Drawn in the right style, it could have been a happy-looking place, a pastel fairy kingdom.
It wasn''t.
The colors, for all their variety, were muted, as if a painter had gotten his palette together and then accidentally spilled gray over the entire wheel. I glanced at the cart. It had landed on the tracks, and a pair of fences had automatically popped out to keep it from bouncing back into space. The fences attached to the tunnel, with buttons so they could be opened and shut manually. Despite being made of wood, the dampness of the swamp hadn''t affected them, and nothing was growing across their sanded planks. A rune stood out from each of their rungs, the meanings unguessable, though the purpose was unmistakable.
A preservation effect. I needed to get me some runes.
Beyond the tunnel, the ground was a soggy mix of decomposing, better left unknown, organic matter and shallow pools of stagnant water. The solid areas seemed to be mostly mycelium, the root structures of the mushrooms, and the air was thick with spores. Breathing it in settled a bitter taste on the back of my tongue and dried out my throat. My status screen had long claimed I was immune to poison and disease, and it looked like I was going to be putting that to the test.
Just in case it would help, I pulled the hem of my tunic out from under my chest-plate and tore off a section to use as a bandana to cover my mouth, because iron headgear alone wasn¡¯t doing the job. It was better than nothing. I tested the path forward with my boot, and aside from the squelching, it seemed stable enough. From what I could see, "Zombie Swamp" had been an apt designation for this place.
There were shamblers mixed in among the vegetation, mostly dormant, but some of them were moving about in their awkward shuffle, occasionally grabbing for whatever morsels they saw floating in the water. Glowing green moss provided a hint of illumination among the stalks, but if Beleth hadn''t given me his eyes, I would have been blind. No sun in Bedlam, only darkness and bioluminescent fungus. And lightning, but this island didn''t have a storm.
Except for the sloshing water and the occasional moan of a shamblers, the swamp was deathly quiet. I heard frog-like croaking, but the sound was intermittent, as it attracted the shamblers. A group of them were swiping at the water, splashing around like a bunch of drunk guys at a pool party. I kept my distance, wondering why they weren''t gunning for me the way they did when they appeared in Plana. The closest zombie was a hundred feet away, and I intended to keep it that way.
So far, nothing had spawned around me.
The swamp was overgrown, odd bulbs and things that weren''t quite flowers rising out of the shallows. More spores puffed when they were stepped on, but I was either resistant to infestation or setting myself up for a very uncomfortable death. It was a lot warmer on the island than in the void. Heat was a byproduct of decaying matter, and under my armor, I was sweating.
Stormbringer was in my hand, and as I went along, I harvested a few of the different varieties of fungus on principle. It all showed up as either "Bedlam Wart Stalk" or "Bedlam Wart Cap" in my materials log. The colors didn''t seem to matter. I found a mushroom that was as thick as a redwood and cut myself a staircase to climb to the top and try to get the lay of the land.
The flesh of the fungus was softer than wood, but sturdy enough to support my weight. My boots left imprints, but didn¡¯t sink, and from the top I could see what I was looking for. The swamp was broad, and it centered on a body of water as black as the void. The lake ran up against a mycelium ridge that had grown up around a sinkhole the size of a quarry. It looked barren, but there could always be monsters hiding in the bottom of the hole.
A kraken could hide in that lake, too. I would steer clear. It had been smooth sailing so far, not even a single phantom to harrass me, so maybe I could find what I was looking for without a catastrophe. My biggest worry was that there had been atreanum here once, but the previous Survivors had already stripped it all. If that was the case, I was screwed. It wasn''t like I could build my own invisible rail system to fly around to the other islands. Bedlam might have been infinite, but my patience wasn''t.
I spent a few minutes picking out a route to the sinkhole with my eyes and set off.
83: My Quarry (Rewrite)
I was just thinking how weird it was that I hadn''t had any trouble from spawns when a squid attacked me. After picking out a route through the swamp, I''d climbed down from the mushroom cap and returned to trudging through murky, ankle-deep water and spongy fungal ground. Zombies splashed around the shallows, hunting whatever they were hunting, ignoring me, and one of them disappeared.
It looked like it tripped and went under, but it didn''t resurface. The water rippled and stilled. One more reason to avoid swimming, but I''d been staying away from deep pools already. Watching the water made me less cognizant of the canopy. This biome didn''t have birds or squirrels, though it included gnats the size of horseflies. The insects were distracting and, I assumed, poisonous, but they had yet to figure out how to crawl into the gaps in my armor.
Clouds of them flowed through the swamp, and I batted the stragglers that took an interest in me. Then a squid fell on my head. It wrapped its arms around my helm and squeezed. There was a grating sound that made me glad I''d opted for full iron rather than venturing out in another Walking Dead disguise. These things had beaks.
I''d been keeping my ax at the ready since arriving at Zombie Island, and I swung up at my head a little harder than was advisable. It cut into the body of the squid thing, which I was now wearing like the extravagant crown of an insane marine biologist, and the impact had me clenching my teeth. Fortunately, I didn''t do any damage to myself, and after a few less vigorous chops, was able to scrape the still wriggling mob off to plop into the shallow water.
The squid''s coloration matched the Bedlam Wart exactly, even mimicking the grainy texture of the stalks. Another overhand swing was enough to finish it before it could slip away, and when it stopped moving, I grabbed one of its tentacles and picked it up to examine it. Dead, its skin smoothed, and the camouflage shifted to a mottled yellow-green.
What had Celaeno called these things? Kulu. I thought it was a little bigger than the one that had attacked me on Plana, or that I''d seen in the valley. Seven arms, all of different lengths, and a nasty beak. The grinding sound had been its attempt to bite through my helmet. How big could they grow to be? The kraken drawing on the map was getting more and more ominous.
Harvesting the squid got me two coins, leather and ink. Cool. At least it hadn''t sprayed me. Over the next half hour, I spotted a few more of them hiding among the caps. Their camouflage was perfect, but as long as I let my eyes relax as I scanned the areas ahead of me, their presence was obvious. If I was developing a spiritual sense like the demons had, it was subtle. Kind of like staring at one of those images that looks like a vase until you realize its two faces in profile. Once you see the trick, you can''t unsee it.
I reached the mycelium ridge that shared a border with the lake and spotted an easily climbable section. Though cutting out a staircase was always an option, I preferred making as little an impact on the environment as possible. For all I knew, the squid I killed had sent out some ultra-sonic screams to its momma. Hopefully not, but you never knew.
Half-formed stalks bulged out of the ridge, serving as convenient handholds to get me to the top. When I arrived, the area looked relatively clear of monsters. While I wasn''t about to complain about the absence of spawns, it was bothering me. Why would monsters appear around me in Plana and not here? In the Nether, skeletons and ghasts popped up all over, making crossing any kind of distance a massive hassle.
Comparatively, my swamp journey had been smooth sailing. Too smooth. Was there a day and night cycle in play despite the absence of a sun and moon? That was something I would have to ask Bojack about when I got back.
To my left, the lake appeared peaceful. There were gnats flying across it in swarms, and a few spots where vibrant pink mushrooms peeked out of the water. Otherwise, it was an undifferentiated surface, a flat plane of black glass that covered a few square miles. Zombies had been common around the edges of the swamp, but there were none on the shore of the lake.
Out of curiosity, I hacked off a piece of the fungal ridge and tossed it into the water.
The pale clump of mycelium barely splashed, bobbing on the glassy surface. For long seconds, nothing else happened, and I considered chopping a few more chunks to continue the test. Then it went under. While I had seen nothing grab it, I was sure it hadn¡¯t sunk. It had been pulled.
A moment later, it popped back up; still buoyant and bobbing more dramatically than ever. I tossed another chunk and was rewarded with a repeat performance. This time, I saw what was doing the grabbing. I only saw the edge of it; a tentacle as thick as my leg, with suckers as wide as my fist. I was pretty sure I¡¯d read somewhere that an octopus could taste with its suckers. Is that what the kulu was doing, tasting whatever caused a disturbance, and releasing what it found to be unappetizing?
The portion of the ridge I was occupying was about ten paces across, rising well above the water. Still, there was no way to guess how far a giant kulu could stretch its arms. I moved away from the verge and got a good look at the sinkhole.
It was several hundred feet in diameter, but narrowed quickly, and the bottom occupied by a layer of stagnant water. The upper layers appeared to be a mixture of bedlamite and mycelium cake, many portions of which appeared dead; dry and bone white, almost like bleached coral. Fifty feet below me, on the opposite side of the sinkhole, was a cave.
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The ridge narrowed as it curved along the sinkhole, but mushrooms jutted at odd angles all along its circumference. Not wanting to get any closer to the lake than I had to, I grabbed a few wood tokens out of my pack, quickly converted them into coins, and made myself a worktable. I crafted a plank bridge a few feet across and ten feet long, then dragged it along the ridge to get the to first mushroom.
Bringing the bridge upright, I edged my way onto the stalk, and it dipped a few inched under my weight. It was a part of the ridge, and didn''t seem to be in any danger of popping off, so I got a few feet further out and let the bridge fall onto the next mushroom. That one was growing straight up out of the sinkhole, and the cap took the weight of the other end of the bridge with the barest puff of spores.
I walked across, squatted down, and pulled the plank bridge over to me. Repeating the process got me around the sinkhole without having to come within hopping distance of the lake, and once I was above the cave, I switched the ax out for the pick and mined my way down. So far, there hadn''t been any obvious signs of other Survivors having been in this area. But that was likely because of the growth and regrowth of the fungus, which could have easily covered over any changes they made to the landscape.
The cave, however, was too squared off to be natural, or whatever passed for natural in Bedlam. Its sides were flat, and there was no fungal growth inside. The tunnel ran about thirty paces deep, pure bedlamite, but the far wall was patched with Warp Stone. Maybe they''d run into water and plugged the holes. Side passages had been dug out at regular intervals, packed close together, and I explored a few dead ends before finding something promising.
Most of the side passages ended as they began, channels cut just wide enough to walk down. One, however, had been expanded. A stair led downward, and a torch hung affixed to the wall at the lower landing. It wasn''t as bright as it should have been, as if the gloom of Bedlam had disheartened it to the point where it was barely willing to glow, but I collected it anyway.
I estimated the stair had brought me roughly to the level of the base of the sinkhole, and the next passage led back toward the outside. At its end, I found a large chamber, twenty paces wide and half as deep, completely mined out. No mobs, no artifacts. The walls themselves were blank bedlamite, but the room came with an unusual sensation.
It wasn''t anxiety, exactly. A sense of wrongness, of being out of place. The feeling was localized, becoming stronger the closer I came to the far wall. Pickle Rick was giving me a tug that corresponded with the feeling. The Fortune enchantment at work.
I set the torch on the floor and started mining toward the wrongness. Bedlamite left behind thin clouds of dust after being mined. They settled quickly, but it was a unique feature. Either Bedlam prevented my abilities from working perfectly, or there was something up with the material itself. After harvesting ten blocks, I was rewarded with something other than a coin.
It looked like a house centipede, gray, leggy, and unsettling. Also, it was eight inches long. It appeared in the space the block I was mining had occupied, made a noise like two rakes rubbing together, and scuttled at me.
Stabbing it with a pickax seemed like the only reasonable response. The point went through its body with a crunch, but its legs kept scrambling, and it made the sound again. I lifted the pick and hit it repeatedly. Bug juice squished out around what had been its head, and I felt bile rising in my throat. Zombies were one thing, trolls, sure. But giant bugs; count me out.
The thing, which must have been the Beddlemite the materials log had mentioned, was disgusting and disturbing in a way that no other mobs had been. I could imagine myself keeping a wyvern as a pet. Even trolls, with their canine features, had a certain appeal if they weren''t trying to smash your brains out, but there was nothing redeemable about a giant house centipede.
Maincraft had an equivalent mob called a Silverfish. They infested certain blocks, and they would come to each other''s aid if you didn''t kill them in one blow.
Fiddlesticks.
The rakes-having-intercourse sound came again, this time from multiple directions. Four more of the things had popped out of the walls, the nearest one close enough to land on my boot.
"Butternuts!" I swore, attempting to shake it off. The Beddlemite refused to be dislodged, instead crawling up to my ankle and spitting a viscous fluid that sizzled and steamed against the iron of my boot. I kicked it with my other foot, and it bounced away. The others were already closing, and what commenced was the most horrifying game of whack-a-mole imaginable.
They weren''t tough, but they were fast. Killing one gave another the moment it needed to hop onto the back of my leg. The super-suit stuck in a diamond box back on Plana came with gauntlets, but none of the armor I''d crafted myself had included gloves. Grabbing a ten-legged, acid spitting insect the size of a cat was out of the question, so I awkwardly slapped at it with the pick while hustling to the exit as quickly as I could.
I knocked it off and stomped it like an avenging angel that had had it up to here with sinners. More appeared, though thankfully not in the tunnel itself. Half a dozen of the noisy, skittering awfuls were rushing me from every corner of the room. I used the pick like a golf club to knock one away and stomped another, only to have a third make it all the way to my abdomen.
Acid steamed against the lower section of my chestplate, and I scraped it off with the pick before hopping onto its segmented body with both feet. The battle was heated, frantic, and small-scale, and I''d never been more freaked out by a fight. I couldn''t stop to think. They just kept coming, and by the end, I''d smashed at least twenty of the chitinous mobs.
The rake sounds finally subsided, and I held my pick up in both hands as my head swiveled to look for more. I tasted blood, but only because I''d bitten my tongue. My jaw gradually unclenched as I realized the room was vacant once more. There was discoloration all over my armor where their acid had done its work. It hadn''t eaten completely through, and the metal wasn''t steaming anymore, but those spots were definitely weak points.
If I had bothered to name any pieces of the set at an anvil, the System would have shown me the damage to its durability. As things were, I would just have to avoid getting hit any more.
Continuing to mine was nerve-wracking, and I paused as each block popped to make sure no more beddlemites had appeared, but I seemed to have triggered all the mobs in the vicinity. The sense of wrongness drew me on, and after mining out a stunted passage for myself in the back wall, I found what I was looking for.
It looked like bedlamite, but with all the cavities and pores filled in by obsidian. Only the ore was darker than obsidian. Black glass without the glossy reflective quality. This metal absorbed light and gave nothing back.
Atreanum.
84: My Twin (Rewrite)
As far as I knew, the System didn''t care if I was careful or not when I harvested fragile materials, but I was going to go about this cautiously, anyway. Tiny taps, never touching the crystalline structures themselves. It took a while for cracks to form, but a maxed out Mining skill and Pickle Rick were enough to do the job. The cracks widened, spidering across the block, and the atreanum wailed.
The sound began as a distant ringing, dissonant, grating, and increased in volume as the block continued to break apart. That was fine. This was fine. I kept tapping.
Plep.
A single atreanum coin was as big as a combined token. Might have been a meta-material thing. It looked more like solid ink than metal, and if there was an etching, I couldn''t make it out. Light would have had to reflect off of its surface for me to see whatever symbol was baked in. Under my thumb, it felt like there was something there, but the coin looked like a hole in my hand. A cartoon cut-out. An absence in the world.
The surrounding rock was all bedlamite, but the sense of wrongness was still present to my left. I dug out a few more blocks, bug-free, and found a second slab of atreanum. Following this procedure, I harvested a total of four blocks of the rare material, the leftovers, as the main deposit must have been in the cleared room behind me.
If Atreanum formed where a massive entity died, why wasn''t there more of it, and why was it so spread out? With four coins, my crafting options were limited. The sense of wrongness was gone, though, and I had no other information to go on to locate more of the meta-material. My pick wasn''t giving me any indication that there were valuable materials in the vicinity. This was the place, and its supply was tapped out.
Four would have to be enough.
I converted the pick back to medallion form after noting a chip in its edge. Mining atreanum was rough, even on a tool made by the Dark Lord. With the torch and my ax in my hands, I made my way back out of the hole, found no monsters waiting for me, and had to repeat my performance with the plank bridge to get back around to the safer section of the ridge.
Rather than reharvesting all the planks, I left it leaned up against the mycelium hill. The less time I spent here, the better. The humid environment was causing me to sweat through my tunic, and I didn''t smell any better than the swamp. But there weren''t any lillits around to be bothered by the failings of human biology.
Esmelda was in another world. I didn''t really hate demons, at least not in principle, any more than I hated monsters. I hated they were trying to kill me and ruin my adopted world, but I struggled to think of any sapient individual as all good or all bad. Zombies could suck it, of course, but they were basically hungry fungus robots, not people. I''d spent most of my life around individuals that could have easily been labeled "bad" by society, and they wouldn''t have been entirely wrong. But most of them had been pretty chill.
One of my friends in prison had been a murderer. I''d known a lot of murderers, actually, but not all of them had been friends. He''d been an interesting guy, and he was already around sixty when I met him, so he''d calmed down and accrued some perspective on life. That happened a lot. Young guys did crazy stuff, awful stuff sometimes, and then they got locked up. Prisons don''t rehabilitate anyone per se, but if you put a kid in a cage for long enough, they will eventually grow up. Or most of them will.
To be fair, some guys never grew up. The murderer, Richie, had done a lot of harm. And he definitely had some mental health issues, but we got along fine. Of course, Richie had been human. Demons were supposed to be evil by nature. Normally, I wouldn''t say that any group was evil by nature, but if there was going to be an exception to that, demons were an excellent candidate.
Bojack had done a lot of evil that specifically affected me. He''d kept me captive, and was holding my wife as a hostage to ensure my good behavior. The holding me captive bit didn''t bother me. It wasn''t like I''d ever blamed the prison guards for doing their jobs. Of course, they''d never cut my hand off or murdered me over and over, but this was a very different context.
If it had just been me, I could have seen Bojack as redeemable, horse-head and all. But what he was doing with Esmelda was unforgivable. Were all demons like him, though? Bedlam wasn''t actually hell. The One Who Knocks wasn''t actually the devil, despite some behavioral overlap. With no help forthcoming from Mizu or other heroes, was it possible that somewhere in Bedlam, there were entities who didn''t have to be my enemies? Who could be reasoned with?
I hooked my ax around a nub of fungus and pulled myself up onto the ridge. There was someone waiting there who looked a lot like me.
"Felt you," Bill said, giggling. "Felt you so good."
He was naked, and without leather armor to cover his body, the similarity in our appearance dropped off sharply. He might have been man shaped, but the human skin was mixed with patches of grey-green rhino hide, and the single, lamprey-mouthed tentacle looped around his waist grew out of his navel. Bill was sexless, like a Ken doll. Count the small blessings. At least I didn''t have to see zombie genitalia.
Why hadn''t he attacked me while I was climbing up the ridge?
"What happens if I kill you here?" I asked, getting the ax up in front of me. I¡¯d stuck the dim torch through my belt, putting Bill at the edge of a thin circle of light. Keeping it had been a reflex, but Bojack had said torches would attract entities. I''d ditch it after this. "Do you die for real?"
"Never." Bill''s mouth split in a wide grin, exposing his uneven teeth. "We live forever, together, here."
"No, thanks." I inched forward, and Bill inched back, placing himself near the opposite side of the ridge. Should have brought a bow. I didn''t want to get that close to the water.
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"Are you not trying to eat me?" I asked.
"William," he said, it sounded like he was tasting the word, "friend."
I''d just been thinking about the possibility of there being a potential ally for me in Bedlam, but this was a hard pass. Bill wasn''t exactly a zombie anymore, but I couldn''t imagine this being anything other than a trap.
"Sure," I said, "let''s be friends." I edged forward until we were only a couple of paces apart. Instead of moving away, my doppelg?nger giggled to himself, his head bobbing from side to side like he was listening to a K-pop jam. His tentacle remained wrapped around his torso, which would considerably slow down any attack from that limb.
I went for it, hoping to lop off his head with the first swipe. Using Stormbringer was, if anything, overkill. Bill ducked, slipping under the ax and hugging me like we really were besties. He couldn''t bite through my armor, and shouldn''t have been a threat on his own. Maybe he knew that. Leaning forward put me off balance, and Bill twisted his body, half-switching our positions relative to the verge.
I got my free arm between us and pushed, swinging the ax down with the other. There wasn''t much force behind it, but the blade buried itself in his calf, hitting bone.
"Hah!" Bill cried, like he''d found had a welcome surprise. Instead of fighting to hold on to me, he crouch and rammed my midsection with his entire weight. It wasn''t enough to make me fall. I knew it wasn''t. There was still room between me and the edge of the ridge. But the mycelium shifted under our feet, the spongy ground suddenly offering no more support than a moist paper bag.
A cloud of spores poofed around us, and we tumbled together, rejected by the ridge. Feather Fall kicked in, and Bill wasn''t holding onto me. I heard him say "together" before falling past me into the water. I tried to hook my ax on a mushroom nub as I went by and ripped right through it, leaving me a few seconds to contemplate my fate as I dropped gently toward the freshly disturbed surface of the lake.
Fiddlesticks.
I was still close to the edge of the water, and could either try climbing up the ridge, which I no longer trusted, or swimming to the shore a few dozen yards away. In heavy armor. Bill hadn''t resurfaced, but he probably didn''t need to breathe.
My feet went in, and I felt the lake filling up my boots as the rest of me followed. Adjusting my grip up to be just under the head of the ax, I tried kicking and stroking to keep above the surface and immediately failed. This was it. I''d dressed in plate and I was going to drown before the kulu nabbed me.
My head went under. I held my breath.
It was fine.
The water didn''t enter my helm. Instead, there was a thin barrier of air between my face and the lake that allowed me to breathe normally. Maybe it would run out in a few seconds, but the Aqua Affinity enchantment on my headgear was at least giving me a chance. I was sinking, but not as fast as I should have been, and when I tried to swim forward instead of straight up, it at least got me moving.
Captain''s log, before going diving, put Aqua Affinity on all your armor, not just your head.
The lake water was too murky for me to see much beyond my body. It wasn''t a light issue. The torch was illuminating surrounding area, there was just too much detritus in the water. Something grabbed my foot, but it wasn''t a tentacle. As I looked down, Bill''s grinning face greeted me. I gave up on swimming just long enough to swing the ax.
It dragged, but it was still absurdly sharp, and it took off a few of his fingers. Bubbles escaped his mouth in a cloud as he tried to laugh, and I kicked him in the head.
Bill went away.
The shore wasn''t far, and I hadn''t run out of air. I pumped my legs as hard as I could and the lakebed rose us to meet me. It wasn''t that deep, at least not here. And so far, no squids.
Shouldn''t have jinxed it.
Once I hit bottom, it was easier to walk than to swim. No fish and no seaweed in my way, but plenty of fungi. I kept glancing back. The visibility here was a little better than where I''d fallen in, and Bill wasn''t coming after me. The lakebed was rising; I was almost to the shore. Then one of my legs jerked out from under me.
It wasn''t Bill. I flipped myself over to see a tentacle as thick as my arm had latched onto my greaves and was dragging me into the deep end. One hit from the ax opened a gaping wound in its rubbery flesh, but its grip didn''t weaken. I sat up, my butt bouncing along the lake bottom like I was on a carnival ride as it pulled me deeper, and hacked it off.
The severed appendage remained suckered to my leg, its end writhing as inky blood further clouded the water. Ahead of me was darkness. I grabbed the torch from my belt and launched it forward like one of those rubber torpedo toys for a pool. It went faster and farther than I could have hoped, revealing the chasm a few yards ahead of me, and a forest of tentacles swaying like stalks of grass in the wind.
I tried to run, not terribly buoyant, but still bouncing across the lakebed. It was the slowest moonwalk ever. I glanced back in time to see another limb reaching for me. My ax glanced off its skin as it snaked in, barely leaving a scratch. It grabbed my waist, which at least put me in an excellent position to chop at the pink rubbery line that stretched into the abyss.
More limbs were incoming, and the torch was doing something odd. It had lost its momentum and floated down toward the chasm, but now it seemed to be stuck on something. None of the arms had grabbed it, but if it was still sinking, it did so in slow motion. It was mostly wood, though, so maybe it could float. Only, if it floated, why would it sink first?
Too many tentacles around for me to ponder the physics. I walked backwards, swinging the ax and taking chunks out of the grasping meat tubes as they came. At least they didn''t have mouths. The field of swaying limbs stretched on for hundreds of yards. There had to be thousands of them. Could they all belong to one monster?
Thankfully, the majority were minding their business, but just the edge of the forest still comprised dozens of twisting, sinuous limbs, all acting as if they had minds of their own. Some of them had eyeballs mixed in with their suckers, which explained how they could react to me the way they were while the main body hid below.
I was moving back a step at a time, unable to turn and moonwalk away. My air hadn''t given out. Thank the goddess for magic helmets, but fighting in the water came with a lot of extra resistance. My arms were burning, my armor was fully saturated below the neck, and the limbs didn''t let go even after they were severed.
One of them grabbed the butt end of the ax and tugged. I kept my grip, but it pulled me forward and made it impossible for me to attack until I freed the weapon. Then a second got my arm, and I became the pool torpedo.
It didn''t drag me down, instead lifting me up into the forest, spinning me around to wrap me like a boa constrictor intent on suffocating its prey. I couldn''t see the kulu. The limbs sprouted out of pure darkness that the nearly immobile torch did nothing to illuminate.
With my free hand, I dug a fistful of coins out of my Warp Stone pouch and tossed them down. If I couldn''t ax the giant squid, at least I could drop some rocks. The tentacle grappling me didn''t draw itself down into the blackness. Instead, once its grip was secure, it arched, punching down like I was its fist and the darkness was my face.
It was fast. Coins were still tumbling through the water, and it pushed me past them into the black. Then I was spinning again as its grip on me unwound. The tentacle whipped, flinging me like a fast-ball, sending me careening into the deep.
85: My Tentacular Problem (Rewrite)
I hit darkness, and for an instant, my entire body felt like it was trapped in a vise. My flesh squeezed against my bones, and my ears popped. Couldn¡¯t move. Couldn¡¯t breathe. Then it was over, and I was on the other side. The water was still murky, but I was within the lower region of the forest of tentacles. They stretched dozens of meters further to their source, the kulu, a titanic blob of flesh resting at the bottom of the lake. Dozens of eyes speckled its vast body, but there was only one mouth, a toothy cavern large enough to swallow a bus.
This was a problem. Still spinning, I flung out my arms and legs to stabilize myself. The fast-ball momentum had mostly dissipated, but I was sinking fast, weighed down by armor and the partial limbs that were still slithering over my body.
My hangers-on seemed to lose steam, and the one around my waist slipped off, finally dead. But the kulu had more tentacles down here, and they were already reaching for me.
The wall of darkness wasn¡¯t darkness anymore. It was a kaleidoscope of shifting forms and light, too indistinct for me to make out what was happening on the other side. I didn¡¯t have time to ponder what that meant. Only a few seconds into my arrival, a zombie slammed through the barrier, spinning as I had been, and much less able to deal with it.
Hacking at the tip of the first tentacle to approach me, I tried to kick up, but the best I could do was mitigate my descent. Too heavy. Not enough enchantments. Another limb snagged the zombie almost immediately, dragging it down toward the kulu¡¯s waiting maw. Instead of fighting to swim up, I maneuvered toward the outer rim of the pit. It was more of a cliff than a slope, but if I mined my way inside, I could get myself away from the tentacles and dig up.
Another zombie popped through the kaleidoscope. Where were they all coming from? The mobs avoided the lake, and there had been none in the water with me. Fighting off another tentacle slowed me down, but the kulu seemed more interested in the ongoing rain of zombies than it was in me. I came down on the edge of the pit, a wall of pure bedlamite, and hacked it with my ax. It wasn¡¯t as efficient as the pick would have been, but I wasn¡¯t going to mess around switching tools while I was still being harried by a sea monster.
The first block popped, and I had to turn to defend myself again. A tentacle snaked out of the way of my swing and wrapped around me like a sash. This again. One blow severed it cleanly, and I got back to work. A couple more blocks, and more limbs were coming. It was taking me too long to dig out a hollow.
A flash caught my eye, one of the coins I had thrown, rotating as it sank. I crouched down with my back against the rise, dug a handful of Warp Stone out of a pouch, and started laying a wall. Fighting off kulu limbs was still a problem, but at least I could work facing the monster. Once I had a four-foot screen covering my position, I quickly filled in the sides and the top, putting me completely out of reach of the nightmare squid.
It was a tiny box, not even big enough to stand in, but I shifted myself around and went back to tapping out a section of bedlamite. Over the course of a few minutes, my private space expanded, and with no fresh assaults from the kulu, I felt comfortable enough to switch the ax out for Pickle Rick.
Bedlamite vanished under its touch, thankfully bug-free, as I mined out a channel to take me back to the upper lakebed. Things were going great until my heart bar started flashing. My helmet was still clear of water, but the air tasted wrong.
I was hyperventilating; shallow, quick breaths. My heart beat faster and faster. Aqua Affinity had reached its limit. There was air, but no oxygen. Why was I still underwater? Each block I cleared created a gap of air, but the gaps filled in seconds, even though the channel had no openings connected it to the lake beyond.
Bedlamite was porous. Warp stone wasn¡¯t.
My channel was a dozen feet high, and I was climbing by pressing my back to the wall while planting my feet on its opposite. Adrenaline was pumping so hard I could barely control my fingers, and I didn¡¯t apply the first coin correctly. It floated down, and I felt fascinated, watching it fall away for far too long. My head hurt.
Focus.
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I stuck a coin to the wall directly beneath me, and a bluish block popped into existence. One more, and I had a seat. Crafting a floor only took a few more seconds. Then a ceiling. The channel was too thin for me to box myself in without expanding it first.
My vision was already fading, narrowing to a tunnel, but I mined a layer deeper into the bedlamite all around me and filled it back in with Warp Stone. My head kept nodding, and my breathing slowed even as my heart continued to ticker-tap madly in my chest.
I didn¡¯t realize I had finished at first, my hand running on automatic, applying another stone to a corner I¡¯d already filled in. My box was in place, but it was still full of water. My body was screaming at me, but it was a quiet scream. I was going to sleep.
Focus.
I could harvest water. Needed a bottle. Didn¡¯t have a bottle. Thermos. Had a thermos. The thermos was already full of water. Didn¡¯t matter. Try it anyway.
I unclipped the thermos from my waist. Throughout my extended wrestling match with various tentacles, it had remained in place. Excellant design. Uncapping it, I swiped at the water, and the top layer disappeared. A few square feet of air that wasn¡¯t filling back in.
I sat up straight, getting my head out of the water, and breathed.
Immediate relief. Still dizzy and weak, but so much euphoria was flooding my brain that all I could feel was good. For long moments, I just breathed.
The thermos was officially full. When I swiped again, the water level didn¡¯t go down. That meant my air supply was still finite. The moment I opened my box, it would be gone. I waited until my body felt like it was functioning normally again, lifted the thermos, and upended it in the open space, which was instantly filled with water.
That was a good thing. After swiping it again, the water cleared, and I once again had fresh air to breathe. It wasn''t an ideal solution, but I was going to survive. I could keep working my way up, craft a new airlock when I ran out of oxygen, and make it back to the surface. Well, not the surface, but the upper lakebed.
I''d still have tentacles to deal with, but if I was careful, I could work my way back to the shore using the same method once I saw what direction I needed to go. Ten minutes later, a problem presented itself. The barrier extended through the bedlamite, though here there was no kaleidoscope effect. It looked like regular rock, only it wouldn''t mine, and when I touched it, my hand went numb.
The air in my helmet tasted stale. I would need to make another airlock soon. Pins and needles in my hand told me the brief contact with whatever this was hadn''t done inalterable damage, and I could open and close it normally. I gripped the pick and tried hitting it harder. Nothing happened.
Up was a no-go, so I mined a few more layers to the side away from the pit and ran into the same issue. It was difficult not to panic. Creating bubbles of air for myself with the thermos was not a permanent solution. There was something magical going on here, and I didn''t like it. My first thought was of Bojack''s warning, inescapable pools of altered time. However, there had been no obvious distortion.
The kulu was active both above and below the barrier. One creature on both sides. So that couldn''t be what this was. Maybe the elder squid had an ability that allowed it to create a protective bubble, something like the runic force fields, but one that it could freely pass through. I dug my way back to the pit and mined a window to look out.
Still a giant squid there, busily eating a zombie, tentacles everywhere, and a kaleidoscope barrier just above. It was the same barrier, even though it looked different underground. There had to be a way out of this. I swam back to my first airlock, let myself in, and went through the entire process of reoxygenating my bloodstream before returning to the window.
One after another, I went through every tool at my disposal, and none of them could harvest, or even scratch, the blocks above me. If the squid was responsible, I was going to have to kill the squid. With my helmet refreshed, I could breathe for a while at least. Had to harvest the Warp Stone to get back to the bottom of the channel. Then that left the question of how to get across the bottom of the pit without the kulu wrapping me up and treating me like finger-food. Then what? Fill its mouth with rock?
There wasn''t much I could do to something that size. If it had a brain, it was buried somewhere in a hill of flesh, and for all I knew, the tentacles would keep doing their thing even if the main body died. Another zombie came tumbling through the barrier only to be summarily devoured. The kaleidoscope was acting up, becoming brighter near the center, the drab color-scape taking on blue tones.
Any change was good change from my perspective. Was the spell wearing out? Or did the kulu dismiss the barrier when it didn''t feel threatened? If it weakened, this could be my shot. And if I wanted to swim properly, ditching most of my armor was a must. That would make me more vulnerable, but did I have another choice?
What if I didn¡¯t have to kill the squid. This was a magic problem, and I had recently acquired a magic eating metal. Four coins should be more than enough for a knife. A crafting table first, and then I would be out of here.
The blue got brighter and brighter, as if a sapphire sun was blazing on the other side. It was mesmerizing.
A lance of azure light pierced the barrier, and instead of shooting straight down into the massive body sprawled across the pit, it curved, arcing for my window. I lacked the presence of mind to duck. The world turned blue, blinding bright, and then went black.
86: My God (Rewrite)
Brenys opened the door to my bedroom as if this was her house and she was just allowing me to visit. The old seamstress could be infuriating, but I knew she meant well, and she was genuinely fond of my wife, if not me. I couldn¡¯t see her face, only the frizzy halo of her graying hair.
Beyond the door was a room that had more of Esmelda in it than me. I¡¯d made the entire keep by hand, placing every stone, but I hadn¡¯t filled it with furniture. This wasn¡¯t one of my workrooms, so the bed, the vanity, the wardrobe; all of it had been crafted by a Perrinson and his apprentices.
The curtains, the carpet, the furniture, even the washing bowls, had been gifts from the lillit craftspeople of Williamsburg. They revered me because of who I was and what I had done, but they loved my wife, who had taken an active role in the social life of the town. She knew half the populace by name.
Esmelda looked tired. Of course she did. There were shadows under her eyes, and her hair was a matted mess, but she was glowing. She was beautiful, and when she smiled at me, a weight lifted off of my chest that I hadn¡¯t realized I¡¯d been carrying. There were other people in the room, the women who had helped with the delivery, but I couldn¡¯t see them. They were just foggy shapes and muted voices around the single point of clarity that had become my new reality.
¡°You look terrible,¡± she said. ¡°Who let you grow out your hair like that?¡±
I ran my hand over my scalp, pulling my bangs back out of my eyes. ¡°I have great hair,¡± I said. ¡°You know I have great hair.¡± My hand came away wet, almost dripping. Had I been sweating that much?
¡°What are you talking about hair for?¡± she asked, her gray gaze calm, playful, and somewhat smug. ¡°Your son is here. Don¡¯t you want to meet him?¡±
Leto was in her arms, and when I crossed the room, she lifted him up so I could take him into mine. He was somehow small and huge at the same time, with dark eyes that looked up into mine and blinked, full of an impossible, unearned trust. I didn¡¯t deserve this. I would never deserve it.
Newborns can¡¯t really focus properly, so I wondered what he saw. What would he think of my eyes when he could see them, slitted and bright? I guess he would think it was normal for people to have eyes like that. His were more like mine from before my encounter with Beleth than they were like Esmelda¡¯s. And he had red hair. I remembered seeing pictures of myself as a toddler. I¡¯d started out life as a full-fledged ginger, but it had darkened to brown as I¡¯d gotten older. Would his do the same?
He was only about five pounds, and more slender than I thought a baby should be, but the midwives assured us he looked healthy. He was half-lillit, after all, and though he¡¯d arrived early, there was no cause for alarm.
I sat down on the bed beside Esmelda, cradling our son in both my arms, and she leaned into me.
¡°See,¡± she said, ¡°you¡¯re not the only one who can make things.¡±
"I guess I¡¯m not.¡±
There was water on the floor. Why was there water in our bedroom?
¡°Esmelda,¡± I said, ¡°do you think Mizu really cares about what happens to us?¡±
¡°Of course she does. She brought us together, didn¡¯t she?¡± My little wife had already closed her eyes, and her voice was growing softer, her words slurring slightly. The door to our room shut, and we were alone. Where had everyone gone? Not that I was complaining, it just seemed odd that the midwives should disappear so quickly. Wasn¡¯t there more for them to do?
¡°Kevin is going to come for me,¡± I said. ¡°I don¡¯t think he¡¯s going to forgive me for what I did. If he comes, or if I have to go, I need to know that you¡¯re both safe. This keep isn¡¯t enough. It¡¯s too obvious. There needs to be another place. Somewhere secret. Somewhere far from here, where no one knows who you are.¡±
Esmelda didn¡¯t answer. She was already asleep. Why was I saying that, anyway? We''d already had a conversation like that, and Kevin had come, hadn''t he? It was difficult to think clearly. Had I just died? If I had died, I should wake up in a field, not walking into our bedroom.
The water was rising. It had almost gotten to the level of the bed, but I couldn¡¯t stand. I was sinking into the mattress, too heavy to move. My armor was weighing me down.
¡°Esmelda,¡± I said, my voice hoarse. ¡°We have to go. It isn¡¯t safe here.¡± My baby lifted one chubby hand toward my face, but he was getting farther away. My arms were stretching out until they weren¡¯t my arms anymore. They were a river, and my son was drifting on the current.
I tried to move again, but I could barely turn my head. Esmelda wasn¡¯t beside me anymore. There was another woman. She had impossibly white skin, and neon blue hair, and eyes like sapphires. The water rose past her, but she didn¡¯t seem bothered by it at all. Then it was over my head too.
********
I was on my hands and knees, vomiting up brackish brown liquid onto a platform of mycelium, and I had no idea how I¡¯d gotten there. Stormbringer was on the ground beside me, and so were my coin pack and all my extra pouches. Esmelda''s comb was by itself, as if it had been deliberately set apart from the rest of my equipment. I picked it up and held it to my chest.
My throat burned, my chest ached, and an acrid mixture of swamp water and stomach acid coated my mouth. Everything was shaking.
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I looked up, and there was the woman. She was standing easily on top of the placid water, clad in a white and blue dress with a sash of solid mist tied tightly around her waist. Her face was youthful, immaculate, and sad. Mizu. Why was Mizu sad?
Then she was gone. Had that been a dream, a glimpse into an alternate timeline, the future? My son hadn''t been born yet. The lake monster hadn''t eaten me. Mizu had intervened. She could do that?
I was too wrung out to be angry that she had never done so before. There had been plenty of occasions where a little divine backup would have gone a long way. Maybe the nature of Bedlam made it easier for her to act on a hero''s behalf. There was no veil here for her to worry about ripping. I grabbed my pouches, heedless of my proximity to the lake. If the atreanum was gone, all of this had been for nothing.
The coins were still there, frozen drops of void. I gathered my things and hiked back into the swamps as fast as my weary legs would carry me,
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
I stopped. The sounds of the swamp, zombie moans and frog calls, had returned, assuring me I was out of range of the kulu. Leaning against a brown, fibrous mushroom stalk, I checked my notifications. Had the goddess left me a message?
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|
Error report received and forwarded to the Hierarchy. Congratulations! The local adjustor has unlocked your Survivor achievement tree. Assessment still pending.
Achievement: Survivor (3)
Surviving for six consecutive months suggests you are not a complete waste of investment. As you have already received the attribute adjustment associated with this rank, no changes to your base physiology are necessary at this time.
Achievement: Survivor (4)
Well done! Two years? It''s almost like you don''t want to die anymore. As you have already received the attribute adjustment associated with this rank, no changes to your base physiology are necessary at this time.
Achievement: Survivor (5)
William, I apologize for the frivolity of the previous notifications. They are generated automatically by the System. Your case has been exceptional in more ways than one, and not all exceptions are positive. There is some debate as to whether being trapped in a Harmonic Anomaly for ten years qualifies as "surviving" as it is defined under the regulations of your assigned class. However, I have overridden those objections in your favor. Your base physiology will be adjusted accordingly.
There is a limit to the information I can share with you under the terms of your assessment. Even stating that much strains those limits. I can give you only the standardized mollifications and hope they are enough to keep you on the flashgr;gakjhg[ouvh. The road is treacherous and long. Do not despair. ;slakvhr;ouga;j5n4fubvs[ofna4poff. The path of righteousness is its own reward.
Be well.
|
No.
That¡
No.
I checked my status.
|
Name: William
Class Assignment: Survivor
Level: 13
Advancement: 22%
Attributes:
Might: D-
Speed: E+
Presence: E-
Armor Rating: 21
Traits: Darkvision, Immunity to Poison and Disease
|
Number go up. Or in this case, the letter grade. It was simple enough to work out what happened. I just didn''t want to work it out. I''d been caught in one of the black holes Bojack had warned me about, only instead of a hyperbolic time chamber where a year passed for me while a day passed for the rest of the world, it had been a freeze.
But that didn''t make any sense. If the kulu was hunkering down in a black hole, how had it been able to grab me and pull me in? This had to be another error, another mistake of the System, brought on by the chaos poisoned environment of Bedlam.
I threw the pack over my shoulder and ran.
My armor was no longer waterlogged, but the swamp still slowed me down. The mushrooms had moved, and the marks I had left behind me on my way in were gone, so I climbed on to one of the higher caps and looked for the stone hut where I''d left the minecart. There it was, only a few miles away through zombie infested wilderness. It hadn''t disappeared or been overgrown. The runes must have kept the fungus from swallowing the structure.
I jumped back down, trusting Featherfall to give me a soft landing, and jogged non-stop through the muck. Water sucked at my boots, but I didn''t slow. When a zombie reared up in front of me, I hacked it in half. When a squid dropped out of the canopy, I grabbed it before it landed, spun it around my head, and threw it at a mushroom.
Its color changed from slate gray to hot pink as it bounced off the cap and landed in a shallow pool. I didn''t bother killing it, instead charging headlong into a swarm of giant gnats. One of them slipped in through my visor. I opened my mouth, sucked in, bit down on it, and kept going. Its bitter insides covered my tongue, mingling with the bile that had already risen in my throat.
The cart was still in place, the gates and levers in working order. Its wheels spun when I flipped its switch, and it carried me off of the island and back into the space between. As there was no way for me to increase its speed, I ground my teeth and stewed until it arrived at the first asteroid. Nothing had changed. If a decade had passed, the map on the wall could be wrong. All the islands could be in new positions. But I''d taken a right to get to Zombie Island, and the cart was keyed to the asteroid regardless of their actual location. So I left the track in its current position and kept going.
Ten years. What would the world look like when I got back? Had Dargoth conquered the Free Kingdoms? Had Bojack decided Esmelda had outlived her usefulness?
I was going to kill him. But that had already been the plan. If he had hurt her, there had to be something worse you could do to a demon than kill them. Take his hands, keep him in a box. Let him see me rid Plana of Bedlam''s infestation.
If Esmelda was gone, did I even care about that anymore?
She wasn''t gone. I wouldn''t accept that as a possibility. There were plenty of reasons for Bojack to keep her around as insurance against my return. No particular reason to kill her, even if he sent her to join the rest of the lillits as one of Kevin''s slaves. And if ten years had really passed, she wouldn''t be alone. She would be with our son.
The dream hadn''t been real. But I believed there had been some truth in it, a gift, if a twisted one, from Mizu. We had a son.
The ride back to base was a long one.
87: My Dark Metal Phase (Rewrite)
As I was riding back to the Stargate, I had plenty of opportunity to look out at the islands of Bedlam, and they had changed. The desert island had drifted closer to the base asteroid, near enough that I could have fired an arrow from the landing platform and planted it in a dune. A wind tunnel worm writhed along the verge of the storm above it as if waiting for the moment it could reach out and swallow the base. It was hard to guess if it was an actual entity or merely an environmental hazard.
For all I knew, the storm itself was alive and conscious, a semi-substantial being that had grown to proportions that made the kulu a tadpole in comparison. "The Roost," AKA Dragon Ball Island, was so far off that I couldn''t be sure it was the same celestial body, no more than a gray, sword-shaped scar in the void. In its place was a spherical landmass, covered from top to bottom in what looked to be actual trees, a first for Bedlam. It had the look of a tropical jungle, and there was pale light emanating from beneath the trees. While that was interesting, I was in no mood to explore. My mission was complete, and the full price had yet to be revealed.
The minecart squeaked down onto the platform track, and I threw on the brake before it could bounce off the steps and send me flying back to the first asteroid junction. Hopping out, I briefly considered harvesting the cart and taking it with me. But while it was possible for me to lose my equipment, everything on the base seemed to have been here for a long time, and I could be relatively sure it would still be here if I came back. Redstone tubes were tempting, but if the previous owner had collected any more, it was likely to be stored behind the runic barrier on the other side of the Stargate.
There was a lot for me to still do on this side, or at least to collect, but the only thing on my mind was getting back and figuring out what year it was. The pressure plate beside the entrance responded to my hand, and the interior appeared to have been untouched in my absence, however lengthy that absence had been. In the central chamber, the obsidian arc of the Stargate was silent and empty. While I didn''t relish the thought of making the crossing again, I didn''t hesitate to nick my palm and let a few red drops fall upon its glossy surface. It was the same as before, an eye-opening into chaos. Ten thousand swirling hues that could loosely be articulated as "purple." The scent of ozone, followed by raw eggs. Hints of otherworldly intelligences lurking just beyond the scrim of what we thought was reality. My heart rate didn''t even go up. I''d have enough of this place. No longer in need of a demon to shove me, I stepped into the gap between worlds and let it swallow me. The transition didn''t seem to last as long this time, or else I didn''t care as much. Raw chaos eddied and churned around me, and then it fell away.
The portal room on Plana was dimmer than its counterpart in Bedlam, it was also occupied. Someone had brought down a table and chairs, and it appeared that I had interrupted a game. Cards were scattered over the table, along with dice and coins. A man in a green surcoat bearing the sign of Dargoth stood with one hand on the table, his mouth hanging open. He was extremely pale, a combination of shock and the result of a life spent under the eternal storm.
I heard receding footsteps to my right. The door to the southern hall was open, and a second man was throwing himself onto a ladder that would take him up to the domed chamber where I had first mined my way into this base. The man at the table wasn''t armed, but as I came to the edge of the platform, he seemed to remember his duty.
"Stay where you are!" The words were strained. He still looked like he''d seen a ghost. "I am ordering you to remain in place until the Baron arrives."
"Whose the Baron?" I hopped down, already headed for the treasure room.
"Baron Gent. This ruin is under his authority."
That caused me to lose a step.
"Are you freaking kidding me? Gent is a baron again?"
The man''s hands rose and fell like he wasn''t sure what to do with them. He swallowed.
"He is the Baron of Westmine, yes, under the rule of High King Godwod, of Henterfell." His back straightened. "My name is Naifan Keeper, Captain of the Gatewatch. It is my duty to detain you until the Baron arrives."
"Good for you." I walked under the arch that should have led to the treasure room, only to discover that the hall was now a dead end. It hadn''t been walled off by a crafter. The stone looked like it had melted, with areas creased like a curtain, dotted with solidified drips. Bojack. At least he''d been keeping people away from my stuff.
"There''s nothing here," Naifan said, hurrying to catch up with me. "If you would please return to the Gatechamber, I''m sure the Baron will be along shortly."
"What did they tell you about me?" I asked, pulling a medallion out of its pouch and slapping Pickle Rick into my hand.
"It is not my place too¡ª-" his sentence ended on a high note as the orichalcum pick appeared in my grasp. He instantly dropped to one knee, bowing his head.
"A thousand apologies, my Dark. We were told only to watch the Gate, and to inform the Baron if it ever activated. I had no idea it would be you who arrived." "What?" I glanced down at him. Naifan was shaking, utterly terrified. Did he think I was Kevin? Dargothians must have all heard stories about what their Dark Lord could do, and having weapons and tools appear out of thin air was definitely a Survivor signature move.
"A thousand apologies," he repeated, lowering his head further. "Please forgive my insolence. I was only acting on my orders."
No reason to tell him he was wrong, at least if he thought I was Kevin, he wouldn''t get in my way.
"Return to the Gatechamber," I said, "and warn me as soon as anyone shows up."
He scrambled to obey, leaving me alone with the wall. It was only two feet of basalt, and mining out an entrance took less than a minute. The treasure room was unchanged. Most of the amethyst blocks were still in place on the right wall, as I''d been removing them when they were needed for enchanting.
The gold blocks were all gone, but the coins were in a chest beside the entrance. I''d always wanted a chest full of gold coins, and a quick look reassured me they hadn''t been looted. Not that gold was particularly useful as far as materials went, though it would allow me to craft clocks once I had some redstone of my own to fill out the recipe. Money couldn''t help me right now.
All my resources should have been lost in the lake, but when I poured out my pack and my pouches on top of the diamond sarcophagus, I found that I had all the resources that I''d brought with me to Bedlam at my disposal, as well as what I''d harvested there. Mizu had picked up after me. It was a small blessing, but I would take it.
Four wood planks to a worktable. I hadn''t noticed it before, but there was a bit of filagree around the rim of my worktables now. As my Artisan skill rose, the items I crafted would get fancier. At another time, I would have wondered if there was a way for me to take more deliberate control of the appearance of System-generated objects, but for now, I was only concerned with getting what I needed as fast as possible.
Four atreanum coins to work with, and if I tried to craft them as they were, they would be wasted. Metal needed to be smelted, so I set up a furnace beside the chest of gold and quickly realized I had a problem. Plenty of wood was available, but the furnace needed coal, charcoal, or lava to run. The wood could provide me with as much charcoal as I wanted, but not without at least one piece to get the furnace started.
I could always start a fire with flint and produce charcoal the natural way, but that would slow me down considerably.
"Naifan!" I shouted, and the man came running.
"My dark," he bowed, "how can I be of service?"
Did Kevin actually force people to call him "My Dark?" He was more messed up than I had ever imagined.
"In the chamber above these ruins, there used to be chests filled with coins. Are they still there?"
I''d thought his face couldn''t get any paler, but he was now practically translucent. He shut his eyes as if he were expecting a guillotine to fall on his head at any moment.
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"There are, my Dark. The Aychar left instructions that they were not to be touched. Some members of the Gatewatch did not take the interdiction to heart, and over the years, their contents have been reduced." Now he was squirming, poor guy. "Aychar" sounded familiar, but I couldn''t ask what it meant if I was pretending to be the Dark Lord. "Though I have never taken any myself, I am guilty of misuse." Naifan knelt again, his knee hitting the floor so hard I heard a crack. "I am ready for your judgment."
Most of the resource tokens would have no value to a normal human other than as curiosities. But people liked keepsakes, especially if they were mysterious and easily transportable. The iron coins could have been sold as raw material. What would happen if you tried to melt down a resource coin? I''d never thought to try.
The card game. Had they been using my coins as gambling chits? I walked around Naifan and went down the hall to the Stargate room. The cards themselves were interesting, the designs looked like they were from an old Tarot deck. Simplistic, but still, somebody had put a lot of time into painting them. And the coins were my coins.
Grass, planks, sticks¡and charcoal. I took what I needed and told Naifan to return to his post. He did so hastily. One unit of charcoal was more than sufficient to smelt four ingots. The furnace heated up, and I slipped all four into the slot on the top oven. After tapping my feet for a few minutes, the conversion was finished.
Atreanum ingots looked identical to Atreanum ore in coin form, but the pattern on their surface felt different under my thumb. More right angles. My materials log generated a new entry.
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| Atreanum: One of the five meta-materials, Atreanum grants distinct properties to any item that incorporates it. This material is primarily found in Bedlam, generated by the death of high-energy entities or the destruction of powerful artifacts. It is brittle, sharp, and unstable. Large quantities of this material disrupt local aetheric fields, and atreanum weapons are the anathema of magical entities of all kinds. |
That was what I''d bought the ticket for. The brittle part is what worried me.
Four coins. Axes and picks required three blocks or ingots of whatever material the head was going to be made of. Hoes and swords took two, whereas shovels and knives only required one. While I would have preferred to make as many atreanum tools as possible, retrieving the armor called for mining diamond blocks, so crafting a pick seemed like my only option. It would leave me with enough left over for a demon-stabbing knife.
Three ingots across the top of the crafting grid, two sticks down the center. I pulled the lever.
The resulting medallion was engraved in the same fashion as my other picks, a crescent bisected by a line, but it appeared to be made of smoked glass. My status screen was still active, and it flickered over to a new notification.
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Achievement: Crafty (5)
You have successfully crafted your first item utilizing meta-materials. Resist the urge to celebrate. For a Survivor of your age, you are well behind the curve. Quest log updated.
|
The System was back to auto-generating notifications, I assumed. By "age," it had to mean how long I''d had my class, which, from its perspective, was over ten years. Switching tabs only took a second.
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Quest: Kevin.
Objective: Kevin.
Reward: Your geas will be lifted.
Quest: Complete one hundred enchantments to unlock your reward
Quest: Craft items with all five meta-materials to unlock advanced options.
|
I''d completely forgotten about the enchantment thing. The Quest Log was so useless that I never looked at it, and that one had popped up during my original exploration of this site with Esmelda and Gastard. There was no associated counter visible on any of my screens, but presumably, the System was keeping track. Most of my enchantment work had been Shadowbane torches for safeguarding Williamsburg and the farm, and I estimated that I was still another fifty or so off from reaching the goal. I''d eventually get there going about business as usual, grinding experience and enchanting items purely for the sake of racking up numbers could wait until I had my family. As for the meta-materials, I didn''t even know what they all were.
Orichalcum was the superdense white-gold metal that seemed to be the peak medium for crafting tools and armor. Atreanum was one of the five, and my notifications had mentioned sanguinum before, which had to be the technical term for redstone. That left two more. Was there Netherite, like in Maincraft? Did lapis-lazuli count? It wasn''t something I could address right now. The pale, aquamarine light of the glowstones in the Stargate chamber didn''t reach the treasure room. Beleth''s eyes had made me less reliant on torches. My view of the room was all in shades of gray, and depending on what time of day it was, spawns might be an issue before Gent arrived. When I slapped the pick medallion into my other hand, I was rewarded with a mostly normal-looking tool.
A wooden haft, smooth-grained, and a simple head with a three-inch blade flaring out on the front end. The spike was thinner than on the other versions, suspiciously reminiscent of an insect''s stinger. It would certainly puncture a zombie''s skull if it came to that, but I wasn''t going to be fighting with a tool that came with the word "brittle" in the description. Especially not one as hard to replace as this.
Even in the darkened room, the atreanum was outlined in shadow. A reverse glow. If I had been waving a torch, there would have been no reflections or highlights on its surface.
With gentle taps, careful not to abuse my new tool, I began to harvest the diamond blocks that had kept the suit of orichalcum armor from my hands for so long. Cracks formed slowly, and the runes within the blocks flared to life. Their golden auras cast me in shadow, but the pick cut through that meager light, refusing to be touched. The cracks began to recede, and my throat tightened.
I''d lost ten years for this tool. It had to work. As I continued tapping, the runes flickered, and the regeneration of the block began to lose ground. Spiderweb fractures filled the cube from edge to edge.
Plep.
The diamond became a coin, and the runes running around the frame of the sarcophagus disintegrated into yellow motes of light, fading like embers shedding their last defiance to the supremacy of the void. Without the protection of the runes, the diamond was just diamond, and I switched to Pickle Rick to clear the rest of the blocks and save the durability of the atreanum.
Once the top of the case was removed, I wasted no more time in unequipping my current set. Harvesting it off of my body was quicker than removing it the old-fashioned way, so I swiped until my chest plate, leggings, boots, and helm had reverted to medallions and set them aside. Now that I could get close to it, the orichalcum armor looked somewhat more complicated to put on than anything I had crafted.
The plating was more complete, with hardly a seam in sight, and it included a set of gauntlets to go with the extended bracers. Every piece was carefully articulated with overlapping plates that made the more flexible sections look more like dragon scales than traditional plate armor. Rather than try to figure out how to take it all apart and put it back together, I converted the set to medallions and slapped each item onto the appropriate part of my body.
I''d never actually tried donning armor that way, and it worked out better than I expected. Starting with the chest plate, I found that it fit me snugly, but not tight enough to limit my movement, and the interior was padded. The gauntlets, which came along as a part of the chest plate, felt like they had been made for my hands. As I flexed them, admiring the intricately jointed fingers, I noticed the elder sign painted onto the back of the right gauntlet.
Tapping it summoned my status screen, just as it would have if I''d been able to reach my tattoo. Checking my armor rating could wait until the entire set was on. Facepalming a medallion onto my forehead felt a bit silly, but it worked. The helm fit as perfectly as the gloves, with a visor that hinged at the center so I could uncover just my eyes or my mouth if I wanted. The extra moving parts seemed like a weakness in the design, though with equipment this magical, that probably didn''t matter. When the whole suit was on, it didn''t feel any heavier than leather, and as I walked around the treasure room windmilling my arms, it didn''t limit my mobility at all. This genuinely was power armor.
It also came with a convenient set of loops and clasps around the waist for tools and pouches. I clipped the thermos onto one.
"My dark!" Naifain ran down the hall and skidded to a stop when he reached the hole in the wall. Seeing me in the new regalia caused him to forget what he''d been doing, his mouth hanging open as took in the design of the helm, which was ridged in a way that gave the impression of a platinum crown.
"Yes?" I said.
"Your pardon," he dipped his head, "but the Baron has arrived."
88: My Alloy (Rewrite)
The years had not been kind to Gent. His hair was gray and thinning, tied back in a ponytail. His wide, pockmarked face held deep-sunken eyes that hinted at almost as much weariness and stress as he deserved. Either Naifan''s interpretation of the situation had spread, or Bojack had lied to the baron about who he was expecting to come out of the portal. He adjusted his surcoat, his hand brushing over the sign of a leaping rabbit emblazoned over his right breast, and instead of bowing, pressed his fist over his heart.
"It is an honor to be graced with your presence," he said.
"Where is Orobas?" I demanded. Though the helm hid my face, I wondered if he would recognize my voice. But there was no recognition in his expression, only weariness, and a little fear.
"The Aychar is in Henterfell," he said, "advising the High King in regards to the war."
"Good," I said. The statement jogged my memory. Aychar was the word for Kevin''s demonic generals, Gastard had used it once. Was he still fighting somewhere, resisting Dargoth? Or had he been killed defending Esmelda? Five months had been a big question mark, and now I had ten years of history to worry about. "You are dismissed."
Gent blinked. "My Lord, I''m afraid my instructions were not as clear as they could have been. Orobas merely asked that I inform him if the portal ever became active, he did not tell me it was you he was waiting for. May I ask what I can do for you, and what your purpose is here, after all this time."
"No. Go home, Gent." The baron was a jerk, and probably fit the criteria for a sociopath, but on the scale of evil, he was a small fry. This wasn''t my town anymore, and he could keep it. Bojack was in Henterfell, which meant I could pay a visit to Godwod as soon I''d finished looting this place, and my feelings about him were less forgiving. The next time Godwod saw me, it was not going to be a good day for him.
Gent started to talk again, stuttering to a stop as I turned my back on him, headed back into the treasure room, and re-equipped the atreanum pick. Halting in front of the storage system against the back wall, I put out my fancy new boot, and the runic force field activated just like old times. A pale blue, semi-transparent shield shimmered up from the floor. It was darkest around my foot, responding to the pressure of my toe.
This wasn''t a resource block that could be harvested, but to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. With quick, light strokes, I assaulted. The field fizzed and sparked wherever the edge of my pick landed, which struck me as a positive indicator that this would work. Monitoring my tool for any signs of damage, I kept it up for nearly a full minute, during which the glow of the runes grew in intensity. Their hues brightened from a calm navy to an alarmed powder blue before shorting out.
Simple as that, the wealth of my predecessors was free for the taking. It had better be worth it.
Stacks of medallions subdivided into neat, square cubbies filled the first chest. It was all standard equipment; picks, shovels, hoes, axes, and shields, a lot of shields. No special materials. Stuff I could have made myself. The chests were attached to a track on the wall around a hopper and could be rotated employing a lever installed to the left of the collection.
Disappointed, I cycled to the next box.
The follow-up was more interesting. Three chests filled with arrows, indistinguishable except for their fletching; white feathers, red, and gray. They wouldn''t be convenient to carry. As finished items, they converted into medallions when they were harvested, and couldn''t be merged into anything more compact. But I could collect them, and figure out what the color coding meant, after investigating the remaining chests.
Gems. Opening a box filled with high-quality jewels caught me off guard, and it took me a second to realize that these were cabochons, the most compact form of resource management I was aware of. Each gem represented over seven hundred units of whatever it was. I picked one up and threw it on the floor to break it into medallions. Nine, wide, ornately detailed coins scattered from the point of impact.
Basalt. They''d also stored wood in a second compartment. Piles of cabochons worked out to¡I had no idea. Thousands and thousands of blocks and logs. It was even more material than there had been in the workroom at the way station. Enough to build a keep, if not a castle. But that wasn''t what I needed, and it was also nothing worth sealing behind a force field.
The final box was mostly empty, containing only a few oilcloth purses tied with silk string. Each one of them was worth more than all the rest of the chests combined. Meta-material coins were oversized, and it appeared that like item medallions, could not be merged. Either that or these had been left as individual units out of respect for the effort that had been required to collect them.
Thirty-five ingots of orichalcum, a little more than it would take to craft a full set of armor and tools. Two atreanum ingots, which gave me a sliver of breathing room as far as crafting anti-magic tools went. The third purse had something new. The medallions were royal blue, their edges etched with swirls. There were just as many of these as the orichalcum, but the bag felt like it weighed half as much.
Ding.
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| Cerulium: One of the five meta-materials, Cerulium is a lustrous, azure mineral known for its light weight and flexibility. Its high aetheric conductivity increases the likelihood of synergistic effects when enchanted. Cerulium is predominately found in the veins of celestial bodies, and when alloyed with orichalcum, the result is blades of surpassing sharpness. |
Given the origin of atreanum, the phrase "celestial bodies" probably meant something very different from the moon or other planets. Maybe you had to mine angel hearts, or something equally ridiculous. Synergistic effects sounded fun, but I was particularly pleased by the mention of an alloy. If mixing metals was an option, that opened up an entirely new world of crafting recipes. Four out of five meta-materials accounted for. If I went back to Bedlam to ransack the redstone there, I would be well on the way to completing the Crafty quest.
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For now, I would settle for replacing Kevin''s sword.
Neither Gent nor Naifan had disturbed me while I was pillaging the chests, but now I was interrupted by a shout of alarm that could have come from either of them. Walking back to the central chamber, I found Naifan struggling manfully with a zombie that was busily attempting to eat Gent''s face. The gray, hunched form had pounced on the baron, who was mostly hidden by the skin flaps hanging from the mob''s arms.
Naifan plunged a knife into the monster''s back, successfully engaging its attention. With a moan, it lurched off of the baron and sank its teeth into its attacker''s shoulder. I crossed the room, palmed the back of the zombie''s head like a basketball, and tugged, intending to separate them before I finished it. The mob''s neck snapped, and I looked it in the face, genuinely befuddled for a long moment, as I held it up with one hand.
Its ragged mouth gaped, a horror show of rotten teeth and fungal growth, as its half-blind eyes rolled back in its head. I was way, way, stronger.
"Thank you, my Dark." Naifan was once again kneeling, and it looked like he would be fine. The zombie hadn''t had time to chew through his surcoat. Gent, however, had a nasty-looking bite on his cheek. It must be nighttime.
"You should get that looked at," I said and returned to the treasure room.
How did alloys work? A mismatched arrangement on the crafting grid would result in lost materials. With wood or iron, that was no longer a big deal. But the meta-materials were too precious to waste.
A quick test with stone and iron proved the point. Placing a stone coin beneath an iron piece in the pattern for a sword caused all the materials to vanish as soon as I pulled the worktable lever. No big surprise. You couldn¡¯t melt down a rock and smelt it with metal.
Still, for the sake of completeness, I attempted one more formulation. The Maincraft crafting grid had only nine slots. The total number of available arrangements was enormous, even in that small space, but still finite. As most of the existing recipes involved placing materials in a shape that was at least roughly indicative of what you were trying to make, the number of potentially sensible recipes shrank much further.
The grid in the game, however, was two-dimensional. My worktable had depth, and the slots could fit at least two coins if they were stacked on top of each other.
Two basalt, two iron, one stick. It was the sword formula with the blade portion doubled up.
I pulled the lever and lost the resources. Obviously, I was overthinking this.
This was the wrong way to go about crafting an alloy. The ingot had to come first. Raw ore was smelted in a furnace, not at the worktable. But furnaces only had one slot for the resource being smelted. Or did they? There was only one place to put in a coin, but you could put in as many as nine at a time. I¡¯d been thinking of them as stacking together in a single ¡°slot,¡± though the furnace didn¡¯t have any kind of visible grid to work with.
Mixing stone with iron was a reach, especially when there was much lower hanging conceptual fruit to be plucked.
One iron ingot and one coal in the top slot, along with more fuel to keep the furnace running. Not long after, a single coin rolled out of the dispenser.
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Achievement: Crafty (6)
Took you long enough. There¡¯s smelting, and then there¡¯s smelting. Steel is a quotidian. Use your imagination, and try combining different materials for more noteworthy results.
Steel: The cornerstone of any crafter¡¯s material log. Weapons and armor crafted from steel will have increased durability and sharpness compared to iron.
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You don¡¯t have to tell me twice.
The orichalcum-cerulium alloy took much longer to smelt, long enough that I began to worry that it wouldn¡¯t work, but the System had never been big on fanfare. The coin rolled out, just like any other, and the new type of ingot was added to my log.
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| Xanthium: An alloy of two meta-materials, Xanthium inherits some of the best qualities of each. Though not as durable as orichalcum, it makes up for it with reduced weight, increased flexibility, and surpassing sharpness. Equipment crafted from Xanthium is also more aetherically conductive than orichalcum alone, though not to the extent of pure cerulium. |
Not long after, I had my second coin. With limited supplies, it wouldn¡¯t be economical to go crazy with alloying the meta-materials, as the smelting process essentially turned two ingots into one. But I could afford to splurge on a sword.
As always, the actual crafting part was instantaneous.
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[Xanthium Sword]
Damage Rating: 12
Speed: Insane
Enchantments: None
Durability: 100/100
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An anvil would be required to officially grant the item a name, but as I¡¯d already had an Excalibur, I was thinking of this as Caliburn. Basically the same thing, but it sounded cooler. More damage than an orichalcum sword, and that speed rating. The System had a sense of humor somewhere, buried deep down.
I used the rest of my atreanum to craft knives. With as easy as they were supposed to be to break, I wanted as many backups as possible, and knives required half the material investment of swords.
Before leaving the base, I lost several hours to resource collections, mostly converting arrows into medallions and stuffing them into sacks. Mobs spawned and died. Caliburn treated troll hide like paper, and it was virtually weightless. It felt like I was wielding a light-saber.
The extra experience would go to enchanting. Gent and Naifan were long gone, and there were no enchanted books with my chests in the upper chamber. If there were any that hadn¡¯t been looted since my trip to Bedlam, they would be at the farm.
My list of goals was short.
Prep.
Find Bojack.
Kill Kevin.
Meet my son.
89: My Books (Rewrite)
The farm had been stripped, and the trap door busted open. All my fields were dead, bereft of torches, and nothing was left of the home I had built for myself and Esmelda apart from empty rooms. They had even taken the bed. Furnaces remained, lonely stone monoliths in the basement. Too big to move, and of no use to anyone but a Survivor.
Bojack hadn¡¯t bothered telling people to keep their hands off this place, if he had even known where it was. The sun hadn¡¯t risen yet, but the square moon of Plana was beginning its descent to the horizon.
As I came back up, a phantom dive-bombed me, the air screaming through the ventricles in its wings, and I cut it in half. Between Caliburn and my upgraded armor, I felt invincible, but it wasn¡¯t satisfying.
Mobs didn¡¯t matter. Packs full of cabochons and medallions; they were just extra weight. All garbage, if I couldn¡¯t get Esmelda back. If the child I had never met was not okay.
A winged shape stood out against the stars, far larger than the phantoms, and a second followed close behind. Wyverns. The monsters could get bigger, but they would die just the same.
I¡¯d crafted myself a bow to test out the arrows, and this seemed like a good opportunity. Starting with one with red fletching, I aimed for the first wyvern and noticed the rider.
He looked oversized even on the back of an oversized monster, and the shape of his head was wrong. I lowered the bow as the wyverns circled to descend. They weren¡¯t being aggressive. This was Bojack.
¡°How did you find me?¡± I demanded as soon as the horse-man swung his leg over the back of the winged lizard and slid down. The creature rasped, flexing its neck and stretching as if grateful to be rid of its burden.
¡°You are bound to me,¡± Bojack said, ¡°I sensed you as soon as you returned to the world.¡±
Caliburn was in my hand, less than ten paces separated me from the demon. Did I really need him to deal with Kevin?
¡°Where¡¯s the oathknife?¡± I asked. ¡°Is that what tells you where I am?¡±
¡°Hidden,¡± Bojack¡¯s gaze was empty, ¡°if you kill me, the curse will strip you of your blessings, and eventually, crush your soul until it is too mangled and weak to be reborn.¡±
That answered the question I hadn¡¯t asked. The sword slipped into its corresponding hoop on my waist. It wasn¡¯t exactly a sheathe, but it wasn¡¯t like I needed to worry about cutting myself.
¡°Where¡¯s Esmelda?¡±
¡°Living a peaceful life with her child.¡± He raised his hand to stave off my follow-ups. ¡°No. I will not bring you to her. Not until the throne is yours. You would be too difficult to manage if I did.¡±
¡°How can I trust you if you won¡¯t give me any proof.¡±
The demon shrugged. He was still a giant, but I no longer found him intimidating. There were much bigger monsters out there. ¡°Simple reasoning should lead you to conclude that she is well. I had nothing to gain from handing her to the Dark Lord, your wife and child were insurance against your return, and that did not change when you did not come back immediately. I see that you were successful at long last.¡± His ears twitched. ¡°What happened?¡±
¡°Got stuck in a time sink,¡± I said, ¡°the goddess got me out.¡±
¡°Intriguing.¡±
¡°That¡¯s it? Intriguing? That¡¯s all you have to say after sending me into that trap?¡±
Bojack¡¯s long face moved from side to side. He was still wearing a toga and sandals, demonic casual. I wondered if it was actually the same outfit, or if he had a closet full somewhere.
¡°It was always a possibility that you would fall prey to the perils of Bedlam,¡± he said. ¡°What is intriguing to me is that the goddess still supports you to that extent. Effecting such change so far from the center of her authority will have been costly, and could even have exposed her to attack from the deep entities, if not the One Who Knocks himself.¡±
¡°You said it was almost impossible to get out of one of those time sinks. You were wrong.¡±
¡°The direct intervention from an entity of that scale qualifies as an exception.¡±
¡°That¡¯s not what I mean. There was a squid in there with me, a kulu. And it had tentacles on both sides. It was in and out of it at the same time. How is that possible?¡±
¡°More intriguing still.¡± The demons said. ¡°It must have been an exceptional being.¡±
¡°It was a giant squid. Not even smart. Its tentacles did most of the work, and it just sat at the bottom of the lake, stuffing its face with zombies.¡±
Bojack¡¯s heavy lips raised in something like a smile. ¡°Intelligence is not a requisite for power. There are several possible explanations. Chaos is chaos, and the distortion may have had weak points which the creature learned to exploit through long familiarity. Otherwise, it may have grown in potency to the point where it could create small tears in the boundary, enough to slip through a limb, but lacked the power to free itself entirely. However it managed the trick, there was always a chance that something would trap you on the other side, and I will consider your absence excused.¡±
Was killing him now really not an option? ¡°Did you actually expect me to come back,¡± I said, ¡°after all this time?¡±
¡°I am immortal, and monitoring your family costs me nothing. Your return indeed grew less and less likely as the years went on, but no other candidate has presented themselves, and the Dark Lord¡¯s usurpation is more necessary than ever.¡±
That didn¡¯t sound good. A lot could happen in a decade. High King Godwod, for example. What a joke.
¡°What did I miss?¡±
¡°Ride with me,¡± Bojack said, gesturing to the wyverns. Both beasts were watching me with black, beady eyes as if deciding whether or not they could pry me out of my armor and eat me like a prawn.
¡°Right now?¡±
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¡°The night wanes. When we pause for the day, I will tell you all there is to tell. I take it you have recovered all there was to recover from the ruins?¡±
¡°Yeah, everything but the enchanted books. They were missing. And my enchanting table. Though I can still use the room in the base.¡±
¡°Ah, that is simple enough. Gent has your books, and the table as well, unless he sold it. Do you need them? I can¡¯t imagine you have the skill to improve the armor.¡±
¡°The sword is new,¡± I said, ¡°and if Gent has any of my stuff, I want it back.¡±
¡°Very well.¡± The demon chuckled. ¡°We will stop at Westmine before setting out to Dargoth.¡± He grabbed the back of his wyvern¡¯s head and forced it down, causing the beast to lower itself into a position that would allow him to mount. He got on, and I had no reason to linger at the farm. It wasn¡¯t my home anymore.
It was a quick flight back to the mine. Williamsburg, now Westmine, had grown significantly in my absence. There were two palisades now, an outer and an inner ring, and Gent had settled his family in a large house near its center.
There were still signs of what had been, the longhouse was left standing, but most of the lillit homes had been torn down and replaced. It was still well before morning, so there were no locals out and about to react when we landed in the street.
A horn sounded when we passed over the palisade, more a greeting than an alarm. This region belonged to Godwod, and Godwod belonged to Dargoth. I doubted they saw many mobs, as there was no storm to protect monsters from being banished by the sun, but when you allied yourself with a Dark Lord, monsters were a part of the deal.
We didn¡¯t stop for tea. A tall, older woman with long white hair answered the door. Mirella, Gent¡¯s wife. She squeaked at the sight of a demon and a heavily armored stranger on her stoop, before sputtering out welcomes and apologies.
Bojack had to bend nearly double to get under the lintel. The baron was hiding in his bedroom, and Mirella said something about a surgeon treating his wounds. There was no need to ask for his permission, and I didn¡¯t care if the zombie bite killed him or not.
My books were in the library, as well as Kevin¡¯s enchanting table. I converted them all into medallions, and Mirella very helpfully provided me with yet another purse to carry.
A young woman in a night dress spied on us as I worked. Thin face, and a dark mop of wavy hair. She looked vaguely familiar, and it wasn¡¯t until we left that I realized who she was.
Elara, Gent¡¯s daughter. She had grown up. Somehow that, more than anything else, brought home the reality of the time I had lost.
When I had gotten myself locked up in a previous life, my little brothers had been kids in Middle School. There had been periods when visits were scarce, for a variety of reasons, and I had seen them become adults in skips and spurts. At some point, they both got taller than me.
Not having a child of my own was something that I¡¯d been grateful for. So many men didn¡¯t see their kids, communicating through letters or phone calls, if at all. In some cases, the kids were better off without them, some people truly do need to be quarantined from society. But that in no way applied to everyone who happened to be incarcerated.
I¡¯d always thought I would have children someday, but being childless had been a blessing then. Now, in another world, circumstances had conspired to bring about a similar situation. For me, the experience of that time was either erased from my memory or lost to dilation. But my son was somewhere in the world, and he had never had a father.
¡°Let¡¯s go,¡± I said to Bojack, tying shut the last purse. ¡°We¡¯re wasting time.¡±
¡°My thoughts exactly.¡± The demon stood in a corner of the library, his mane brushing against the ceiling. A heavy, dark presence that I could feel even when my back was turned.
Soon we were flying again. The experience brought me no joy. I gripped the wyvern¡¯s harness and watched the gray world flow beneath me. The wind didn¡¯t touch me, though I heard it rushing across the metal encasing my body. My new helm may have been imbued with Aqua Affinity, or something similar, because the air tasted of nothing, as if it were being filtered.
The wyverns were swift, covering in a few hours a distance that would have been more than a day of travel on horseback. We reached the mountains that separated the wastes from Drom, or what had been Drom, and landed in a steep ravine.
Bojack directed me to mine a shelter for the wyverns, and I complied. If they got us to our destinations faster, their survival was important to me.
¡°Exactly how long has it been since I left,¡± I said as blocks vanished under my pick. His answer came immediately.
¡°Ten years, three hundred and twenty-two days.¡±
I paused. ¡°That¡¯s¡precise.¡± Leto was ten years old. Two digits. What did he look like? Aside from height, there weren¡¯t obvious physical differences between lillits and humans. How much of him was his mother, and how much was me?
¡°I keep a journal,¡± Bojack said. A trio of phantoms shrieked down into the ravine, and I tensed, but they were under his control. They hovered around the demon, and he made a slight ¡°go-on¡± gesture to the wyverns.
Like a pair of well-trained dogs, they took the signal from their master and lunged for the phantoms snapping up the manta-like mobs and swallowing them whole. His mount, the larger of the pair, took the third for itself. The phantoms didn¡¯t even try to get away.
As disturbing as the scene was, it couldn¡¯t distract me from the fact that Bojack kept a journal. There were saddlebags as a part of his wyvern¡¯s harness, but if I¡¯d had ten guesses as to their contents, demonic diaries would not have been on the list.
Whatever.
¡°My son,¡± I said. ¡°Can you tell me about him?¡±
Bojack¡¯s ears pricked forward. ¡°How did you know you had a son?¡±
¡°A dream. Please, tell me about him.¡±
¡°There is not much for me to tell,¡± the demon looked like he was chewing. ¡°A boy. Healthy. We have never spoken.¡±
¡°What does he look like?¡±
Bojack shrugged. ¡°Thin, with dark hair. Humans all look very similar to me. There is nothing to remark upon.¡±
¡°But how is he? What kind of place are you keeping them in? Are they isolated?¡± Is it a prison, I didn¡¯t ask.
¡°Any details I give you could make you believe you could find them. They are not in a cage, and I have never raised a hand against them, nor have any who serve me. That is as much as I will say.¡±
It was something, though his statement did beg the question of how he could have captured them and kept them in one place for all this time without resorting to violence. I let it lie. If I knew too much about what he had done, I really might kill him, curse or no curse.
¡°What¡¯s been going on with Dargoth and the Free Kingdoms? How is Godwod the High King of anything?¡±
Bojack snorted, amused. ¡°It is a self-proclaimed title. Godwod rules in Henterfell and has a tenuous control over the surrounding regions. Every spring, the king of Drom sends a force to oust him, and he has remained in place only due to our aid. But the Dark Lord has not chosen to expand the storm or his empire, satisfied to occupy himself with his hobbies in defiance of Bael¡¯s counsel.¡±
¡°Hobbies?¡±
¡°He is fond of his train.¡±
I had more questions, a lot more. Bojack and I talked well into the morning after the wyverns were secured from the sun. Kevin was stubbornly refusing to do what the demons wanted, and he had grown too powerful for them to force the issue without risking what they had already gained. Most of them were content to wait it out. Demons were immortal, but many were unhappy with the status quo.
Bojack had allies who would support a change in leadership in exchange for new positions in a political structure that sounded as convoluted as complicated as any human government. Bojack was cagey about why having a Survivor on their side was so important. With the rest of the heroes gone, why didn¡¯t the demons conquer Plana themselves?
There had to be a reason, but the demon wasn¡¯t sharing it with me. He¡¯d said before that my power set was useful to them, but useful wasn¡¯t the same as necessary. Without an answer forthcoming, I spent most of the day trying and failing to sleep. With evening approaching, I gave up on proper rest and dropped the enchantment table. It was time to gamble.
90: My Friends in All the Wrong Places (Rewrite)
For the first few hours of the night, Bojack helped me grind experience. The demon knew a spell that increased the rate of spawns, and I was able to slaughter a host of zombies, phantoms, and trolls in record time, as well as a single chimera. The killing spree brought me to level twenty, at which point the flow of experience dropped to a trickle. By level twenty-three, killing weak mobs didn¡¯t bring me even a single percentage point closer to advancement.
We could stay in the ravine for days and it might never be enough to get me to level thirty, so I would work with what I had. On the off chance that it mattered, I crafted bookshelves out of planks, arranged them around the enchanting table, and filled them with all the tomes I had.
My one previous attempt at enchanting blank books had been underwhelming. The table gave me three options in the form of glowing runes, but I couldn¡¯t read them. As I was deliberating between the first set of squiggly shapes, Bojack spoke up from behind me.
¡°Impaling, Mending, Infinity.¡±
I spun around. ¡°You know how to read the runes?¡±
His ears relaxed, falling sideways. ¡°To an extent. They are close, but not identical, to our runic System. Harmony binds, and Discord evolves, after all.¡±
While I wasn¡¯t enthusiastic about our relationship in general, it was useful to have a demon around. Impaling had to do with throwing tridents in Maincraft, and though its applications would likely be more extensive in real life, it wasn¡¯t my first choice.
Infinity was fantastic. When applied to a bow, it gave you unlimited ammunition. It was tempting, but without other enchantments, they would just be normal arrows, and I had a big supply of enhanced ammunition to draw from.
During the mob round-up, I¡¯d tested out the three types from the treasure room. Red was Flame, it made zombies go up like a Wicker Man festival. White indicated Shadowbane, and Gray had a knockback effect, which worked great against anything with two legs.
Infinity was tempting, but mending was a necessity.
¡°How do I tell what level they are?¡±
¡°The brighter the stronger,¡± Bojack said, ¡°the runes themselves do not denote a ranking.¡±
Of the three violet symbols hovering over the enchantment table, Mending had the weakest glow. Even so, with the randomized nature of the table, there was no way to be sure I¡¯d get another chance at it before burning through all of my experience.
I selected mending, and the rune flowed down onto the cover of the book, burning itself into the leather. Switching it out for a fresh one, along with more amethyst to catalyze the exchange, I moved on to generating the next set.
After three more attempts, I¡¯d collected enough enchantments to be satisfied that my sword would be able to perform. Aside from the first selection, the variety was mostly limited to enchantments I¡¯d already seen. My new books included Unbreaking II, Protection II, and Sharpness I.
Protection could go on a shield, as my armor was already imbued with better magic than I could muster. Fighting the mobs had been illuminating in that it revealed the orichalcum set not only made me nigh invulnerable; it came with some additional perks.
Monsters that struck me ended up with cuts on their limbs. The feedback didn¡¯t occur one hundred percent of the time, but it suggested there was a Thorns enchantment on at least one of the pieces. It had always been one of my favorite additions to armor in the game because monsters could literally kill themselves by hitting you.
My jumps were higher than even my improved Might accounted for, and came with gentle landings. Possibly an improved version of Feather Fall. My armor rating was up to twenty-five, which may well have been the maximum value the System would currently allow.
Mending went to the atreanum pick, so it would repair itself if I used it to mine valuable resources. Caliburn received Unbreaking and Sharpness as well as an official name after I crafted an anvil to give it one. Sharpness increased its damage to fourteen, and though it couldn¡¯t fix itself, I hoped Unbreaking would keep it around for a long time. Breaking weapons hadn¡¯t been an issue for me so far, they were usually replaced before they lost much durability, but I intended for Caliburn to be my mainstay from here on out.
Hoping to get the stats on my armor, I prepped the anvil to name my helm, but when I pulled the lever, all I got was a notification. It already had one.
| Journal |
Quests |
Notifications |
Materials |
Crafting |
|
Your aetheric presence is insufficient to rename this item.
[Helm of the Deep]
Orichalcum Helmet
Armor Rating: 3
Enchantments: Protection IV, Aqua Affinity III, Unbreaking III, Mending II
Durability: 100/100
|
So I couldn''t name something that already had a name, or I could, but only if I was higher level? The enchantments were about what I¡¯d been expecting. Repeating the process added the rest of the set to my crafting log so I could see what each piece had to offer. Thorns came with the chestplate, Heartguard of the Valiant, and Feather Fall was on the boots. Protection, Unbreaking, and Mending seemed to be the standard, and the only surprise came from the leggings.
| Journal |
Quests |
Notifications |
Materials |
Crafting |
| Fire Resistance IV: This enchantment grants near immunity to heat and flame, though its protection is not without limits. Don¡¯t go swimming in lava, for example, or make a habit of being struck by lightning bolts. Traveling to the surface of the sun is out of the question. |
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Good to know that space travel was an option. I was as prepared as I was going to be, and though Bojack had remained stoic throughout my crafting sideshow, his impatience was growing palpable.
¡°Is that necessary,¡± he asked as I began converting the remaining books back into medallions. ¡°We need to reach the other side of the Wastes by sunrise.¡±
¡°It¡¯ll only take a few minutes,¡± I said, ¡°and I don¡¯t have paper to make more.¡±
Bojack snorted irritably. ¡°Those are low stakes. The one who sits on the Throne of Shadows has as much paper as he likes. I won¡¯t trade the wyverns for those books.¡±
It didn¡¯t take that long for me to get all my goods back together. As we rose out of the ravine, the moon was at its apex, obscured by a few trailing clouds. The world rushed silently by, and the Wastes stretched out before us, a sea of rolling sands as black as the sky above.
Redroad stood out as a solitary stripe across the landscape, parallel to us. We didn¡¯t fly close, but I could see that its texture had changed. A train track had been laid along its surface, and the supporting columns were reinforced. Kevin liked trains.
We didn¡¯t speak as we rode, the wyvern''s wings beating out the seconds of the remaining night. The first waystation appeared; a bleak spire in a bleak landscape, and soon fell behind. It was as far as I had ever voluntarily traveled into Dargoth.
A second waystation came and went, and the horizon changed. Dargoth¡¯s eternal storm blanketed the sky ahead, laced with intermittent flashes like crimson veins amid the thunderheads. With the moon at our backs, and the first gray of dawn touching the sands of the Wastes, the wyverns brought us under the dubious protection of the clouds.
A third waystation stood sentinel at the border of the desert and the cracked clay of southern Dargoth. The railroad continued, splitting in two directions. We did not stop, though the wyverns lost some of their speed. Even under the storm, they were weaker during the day, and our headlong rush across the Wastes had taxed them, but Bojack didn¡¯t let them rest until Mount Doom came into view.
A gray, treeless slope, blemished by a black stone fortress. Smoke rose in a vast column from the caldera at its peak, the source and the renewal of the unending storm. That was not our destination.
Ruins stood out against the flat expanse of the wretched lands, a degraded castle surrounded by the remains of an abandoned town. Bojack brought the wyverns down into the courtyard behind the curtain wall. No soldiers or servants waited there, whatever purpose this stronghold had once served was long neglected, but it was not completely empty.
¡°We wait here,¡± Bojack said, summoning a few phantoms that had spawned during our ride and lagged behind. They floated down, destined to fill the wyvern¡¯s bellies, and I looked around.
All that was left of this place was stone. The door to the keep had rotted off, with only a few fallen planks remaining. No lights illuminated the windows higher up, and no plants sprouted in the courtyard. Even the fungal forests that spotted the wider landscape of Dargoth were absent. The air was dry and smelled of dust.
¡°What for?¡±
¡°Vepar,¡± his response was curt, and I paced to stretch my legs, tight and cramping from spending so many hours strapped to the back of a winged shark.
A few minutes later, the second demon entered under the half-crumbled arch of the courtyard. Having only seen him once before, I¡¯d forgotten how unsettling his appearance was. Mottled, rubber skin, a lopsided skull, and a curtain of stubby tentacles covering his mouth.
The sight brought me back to the swamp, and my heart beat a little faster. This was no kulu, but the similarities in their anatomy were too numerous to be ignored. His long black robe trailed along the ground as he shuffled forward, the fabric splotched with pale stains.
¡°So we move at last,¡± Vepar sounded like he was talking with water in his mouth, ¡°I thought the day would never come.¡±
¡°The plan hasn¡¯t changed,¡± Bojack said, ¡°it was merely delayed.¡±
¡°And what is the plan, exactly?¡± I asked.
The demons and I spent the remainder of the day in the courtyard, going over details. We discussed the layout of the citadel on Mount Doom, the presence of human soldiers, and what mobs I was likely to encounter, as well as Kevin¡¯s schedule.
¡°He has been in Nargul of late,¡± Vepar said, ¡°enjoying his toys. He returned a few days ago to reinvest the cauldron.¡±
¡°Can you explain all of that? Nargul? Reinvest?¡± The demons had been talking to each other as much as to me, and they both made regular references to things I had never heard of.
¡°Nargul is a city,¡± Bojack explained, ¡°the largest human population in this region, and the site of an extensive mine. The cauldron is the source of the storm, the magic of which degrades the artifact over time. Maintaining the cauldron is one of the few duties the Dark Lord does not neglect.¡±
¡°We will come to Mount Doom with an offering for Bael,¡± Vepar bubbled, ¡°and you will hide among the lesser entities to enter the pens below the mountain.¡±
¡°Then I dig up to his forge and we ambush him, right?¡± The demons nodded, and I pressed on to a follow-up question. ¡°Are there lillits in the citadel?¡±
¡°What does it matter?¡± Vepar¡¯s tentacles stirred as he raised his voice, and one of the wyverns hissed in response. The beasts were napping and didn¡¯t appreciate being disturbed.
Bojack had made a seat out of one of the broad stones that littered the courtyard, fragments fallen from the walls. It had molded itself for his comfort, complete with armrests, more a throne than a chair, given his size. Bojack was the largest demon I¡¯d met. Vepar, though alien in appearance, was a few inches shorter than me.
¡°A few,¡± the horse-man said, ¡°he keeps them as personal servants. The rest are in Nargul. They are not the ones you care for.¡±
He was wrong about that, I cared about all of the lillits. They had become my people. Still, I wasn¡¯t going to go rushing off to Nargul to help them. The quickest way to improve their condition was to get rid of Kevin. Then I could order their release. It wasn¡¯t as if the demons had any preferences or prejudices when it came to the treatment of the mortal races. Human and lillit lives were equally unimportant to them.
¡°Just asking,¡± I said. ¡°What else do I need to know?¡±
We continued to talk, there was nothing else to do while we waited for night to descend and mobs to spawn. That was the tribute Vepar had mentioned, which would go to Bael, the head demon, who operated as Kevin¡¯s manager.
The offering would grease the wheels for Bojack to seek an audience with the Dark Lord under the pretense of requesting aid for Henterfell. According to the demons, Kevin had shown no interest in expanding the empire in over a century, and as he was the commander-in-chief, major military operations required his, or Bael¡¯s, approval.
¡°What can Kevin do?¡± I asked. ¡°What powers does he have that I don¡¯t?¡±
Bojack and Vepar shared a glance, and the horse-man made a noncommittal gesture. ¡°The Dark Lord has not visited a battlefield since before I entered this world. He favors a greatsword and makes use of potions to enhance his capabilities. From what is spoken of his performance, he is neither a skilled tactician nor combatant, relying on his equipment to overwhelm his foes.¡±
We had that in common then. It was a very strange set of circumstances that could cause me to regret not investing time into the alchemy aspect of Maincraft. That part of the game had never interested me much, and aside from making use of the occasional healing potion, I¡¯d never bothered with it.
Healing, Water-Breathing, Darkvision, what else was there? Google would have made this so much easier. Playing the game had been a lifetime ago, a hundred lifetimes, if you wanted to get technical, and my memory had more than a few holes poked out of it.
Neither Bojack nor Vepar knew much about the alchemy aspect of the Survivor System, though they mentioned Kevin had been fond of throwing poison bottles at groups of enemy soldiers when Dargoth was still becoming Dargoth. Poison, at least, was one thing I didn¡¯t have to be too concerned about.
¡°Is there any chance we could catch him out of his armor, or sleeping?¡±
¡°Hardly,¡± Vepar burbled, ¡°the Dark Lord rarely sleeps.¡± Bojack¡¯s lips turned up at the mention of this quirk.
¡°The One Who Knocks punishes him for his disobedience,¡± he added. ¡°He is plagued by nightmares, unable to rest. Insomnia weighs on his mind, making him spiteful and foolish, but even though he does not fight, he is rarely without his armor. Paranoia has made him cautious in that regard.¡±
Given that we were currently plotting his downfall, the paranoia could be justified. Demons couldn¡¯t be trusted any further than their self-interest. It grated on me that I was in the position of taking Bojack on his word that Esmelda and my son were okay, but it wouldn¡¯t be long before the truth came out.
If Bojack didn¡¯t fulfill his promise to let me see my family after Kevin was deposed, I was going to break my oath and do what I could to make things right before the curse made me an invalid.
Since we were keeping the mobs to bring with us to Mount Doom, there was nothing for me to do that night but try to rest. No god of chaos was sending me nightmares, but I wasn¡¯t sleeping much better than Kevin. After laying down with my pack under my head, I became, if anything, more awake.
The night passed slowly, but it did pass.
91: My Rise (Rewrite)
Once again, I was draped in shambler skin, my one consolation being that this time, I didn¡¯t have to feel it. Monsters came in all shapes and sizes, and Vepar provided me with cloth to add to the disguise. Vepar and Bojack both, by virtue of being demons, outranked any human officer in Dargoth, and no one would be inspecting the small horde they brought with them to the gates of Mount Doom too closely.
The aychar, harbingers, whatever they chose to call themselves, were entitled to collect minions according to their rank. Bojack had won himself a measure of clout for the service of griefing me out of existence, as well as being put in charge of babysitting Godwod and overseeing the ongoing conflict with the Free Kingdoms.
I thought they could bring monsters into the world on their own, that was one of the things Bojack had been unwilling to clarify, but it was difficult. They needed to make use of areas where the veil was damaged or weak, and that made them reliant on people like me and Kevin to replenish their ranks.
It seemed like Mizu¡¯s solution to the Bedlam incursion, sending heroes, was as much a cause as a cure, but it had to be more complicated than that. If demons had no other way into the world, there wouldn¡¯t have been any need to send heroes to fight them in the first place.
Traveling on foot, marching at the speed of zombies, was vastly inferior to flight. Hoofing it to Mount Doom took as long as the entirety of our previous journey, despite being a fraction of the distance. My main complaint was the heat.
Dargoth was sweltering, and Fire Resistance¡¯s job was to protect me from damage, not to keep me comfortable. The padding under seemed to resist being soiled, which was nice, but it left me stewing in my juices.
Kevin¡¯s kingdom was so reminiscent of what I¡¯d always imagined Mordor to be like that I had to wonder if he¡¯d done the landscaping himself. The earth looked like it had been gone over with a blowtorch, and my boots crunched on the dry ground with every step. The train tracks didn¡¯t help us, and no locomotives were in sight, the road itself was simply hard soil scraped flat. Wind brushed up clouds of dust and ash across our path.
Human settlements existed in Dargoth, but I had no idea where, or how any city would sustain itself in a blasted, ruined land like this. Kevin simply could not be growing that much food in his basement to make up for an environment this destitute.
At least feeding the monsters was no mystery. They didn¡¯t need to eat as much as natural animals would have, but they did require some sustenance to keep going. They weren¡¯t picky. The shamblers preferred meat, but they could chow down on just about anything organic, fungus included. The trolls were more particular, but they would tear apart the shamblers for snacks when the demons let them. It was the circle of life.
I walked among a field of zombies as we approached the fortress built into the mountain, a structure large enough to qualify as a city in its own right. Vast gates at the base of the mountain groaned as they reluctantly opened to admit us. Behind the walls, trolls worked huge iron wheels wrapped with thick iron chains to operate the gates. I couldn¡¯t help but feel that there was something in the air here, a wrongness like what surrounded atreanum, the thinning of the veil.
It wasn¡¯t a sensation I¡¯d experienced before, but I¡¯d never been so close to another Survivor. Once we were past the gates, Bojack went up a rising road to the right toward Kevin¡¯s fortress, while Vepar and my group went under an arch that led underground. The tunnel was large enough for a wagon train, opening onto a colossal hall.
A massive cavern, its full scale hidden in shadow. Wide, granite columns upheld a soaring ceiling, dwarfing even the trolls. Torches high on the walls highlighted glyphs carved into the stone, stark, geometric figures that drew the eye back into darkness.
The floor was a series of chiseled stone blocks, each marked by a spiral pattern, extending hundreds of feet to the end of the hall, marred here and there by claw marks. On either side of us, the walls were cut back into alcoves, stalls for groups of mobs, cordoned by fences.
There were armies in the shadow. The voices of the mobs echoed in the great space; the moans of shamblers mingling with the hoots of the trolls, punctuated by the screeches and growls from deeper regions that I didn¡¯t recognize.
While men had stood at the arch, there were no humans in sight in this gigantic hall. Vepar led our group to an empty pen, pressing a stone button beside the gate.
I entered with the zombies slowly filing through the gap. Under the influence of a demon, the mobs were docile, going wherever they were led. Vepar shut the gate and drew close to me, the zombies ambling out of his path.
¡°The Dark Lord will meet with Orobas in the throne room after Bael gives his approval. If you climb from the end of this pen, you should reach a hall connected to his forge.¡±
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Kevin didn¡¯t bring mobs into his workroom, and soldiers weren¡¯t allowed in any of his personal spaces, so if I could sneak in, it would be a chance to have some alone time with the Dark Lord. Neither Bojack nor Vepar were intimately familiar with whatever traps or defenses were in place to protect the private rooms, as they had never been summoned to attend Kevin there, but they were both of the opinion that the security was negligible. It had been a long time since anyone threatened Kevin.
We had arrived close to dawn, so random spawns wouldn¡¯t be a problem. We weren¡¯t being watched. Bael had a private tower, but he viewed Mount Doom as his fiefdom and other demons rarely lingered there.
With Pickle Rick in hand, and my Mining skill at level thirty, regular stone blocks disappeared at a touch. Still, this hall was more than fifty feet high, and a big build was a big build. There was no way for us to be sure about the timing.
Bojack had to talk to Bael first, and then Kevin would come to the throne room when he felt like it. I could be relatively sure that I was digging straight up, but the demons were only broadly aware of the layout of the citadel. Once I got close to Kevin¡¯s rooms, the Fortune enchantment on my pick could direct me to rare minerals, which would likely be concentrated in the forge, but a lot of this was guesswork.
Stone blocks vanished as I swung the pick, and I worked my way up in a spiral. There was lava somewhere, and that worried me. Digging straight up or down in Maincraft was a good way to die. The forge overlooked the cauldron, and the cauldron was hanging in the caldera. We were starting at the bottom, and it was a long way to go.
Eventually, Pickle Rick started giving me a slight tug, hinting at the presence of rare materials. I shifted the path of my stairs, building it deeper into the mountain before resuming my climb. I ran across a vein of iron, but that wasn¡¯t what was triggering the Fortune enchantment.
The pick was still telling me to go up. How long I spent mining, I had no idea. The orichalcum held out, and any durability loss it suffered was counteracted by the iron vein. My arms felt tireless, and I was on a mission. As boring as the process was, this was what would get us to the end game. Harvesting stone, blank, featureless blocks, over and over and over.
I wasn¡¯t even bothering to store the coins, letting them slip from my hand as they collected in my palm. There were thousands of blocks in my pack already, and Kevin undoubtedly had stores of resources that would make my hoard seem like a hobby.
Eventually, the tug on my pick leveled out. I hadn¡¯t reached a passage, but the enchantment was telling me there was loot to be had ahead. It was as good a sign that the forge was near as I was going to get.
When I broke through into an actual passage, I was met with a soldier in full iron plate wearing the Dargothian insignia on his shoulder.
¡°My¡my lord,¡± he stammered, ¡°I heard something in the walls. I..I didn¡¯t realize.¡± There hadn¡¯t been another Survivor to contend with since before this man was born. When he saw someone in fanciful armor cutting through the walls, the natural assumption would have to be that it was Kevin working on a project.
¡°As you were,¡± I said. I quickly finished mining out an opening so I could step into the hall. It was a U bend, with the corridor ending on a turn about twenty paces away on both sides. There was another guard at the corner on my right, studiously trying not to look at me. I held the pick out like a dowsing rod, it was telling me to go left.
The first guard was still staring at me, so I affected a less casual tone.
¡°I said as you were.¡±
He saluted and walked stiffly over to the opposite corner from the other guard to resume his watch. There couldn¡¯t be two dark lords wandering the halls, so this charade wasn¡¯t going to hold up for long, but I ignored them both and followed the tug.
It led me to what initially struck me as a museum for clocks. The center of the chamber was dominated by what looked like a miniaturized version of Big Ben, with four analog faces. Sanguinum lines ran from the base of the tower to smaller clocks and dozens of what appeared to be automated systems around the room involving pistons, stamps, hoppers, dispensers and sensors all working in synchrony.
Much of what they were doing was out of view, but I heard the clink of coins being dispensed on one side of the room before being shuttled along a track via a minecart. At the end of this Rube Goldberg set-up was a chest sorting system, and when I checked its contents, I found that it was gradually being filled with a kind of coin that was new to me. It was metallic, but with a wooden edge, and marked with what my brain told me was a hashtag, though that couldn¡¯t be right.
I took one of the coins to an open section, threw it down, and was rewarded with a complete section of railroad track. It was only a foot long, but wide enough to accommodate an actual train. Kevin had managed to automate at least some aspects of crafting, opening the door to truly industrial-sized projects.
The reason Fortune had brought me here was quickly apparent. In addition to the assembly line, there were sanguinum-powered lamps instead of torches. There were also several whole blocks of the material stacked in one corner. They weren¡¯t stone blocks with mineral veins, but actual pure redstone.
As interesting as the room was, investigating the mechanics could wait until after I was king. Aside from the hall I¡¯d entered from, there were two other doors in the room. One was behind me, oversized and barred by a system almost identical to the locking mechanisms identical to what had been present in the waystation.
The other door was normal looking; crafted from pale wood with a regular brass handle. I let myself through and explored the area beyond. Kevin had a factory complex. There were several other automated chambers like the one I¡¯d left behind that I didn¡¯t stop to examine.
Making my way back to the locked door, I found a coin resting in a dish on a stand beside it. The coin converted into a notched stick that fit perfectly into the lock, and after it was turned, the chains and gears spun and wound to undo the bars that were blocking the door.
The next hall that ended in a blank wall, but as approached it, I felt a pressure plate sink under my foot. Jumping back was an unnecessary reflex. Instead of poisoned arrows or a swinging pendulum blade, the plate triggered pistons to split the wall open like a set of sliding doors, revealing a softly lit chamber beyond.
92: My Boss Fight? (Rewrite)
An antechamber, lit by an eternal torch the size of a candle. This room was brickwork, the same ruddy red on all sides, with a stair ahead that I hoped would take me closer to the forge. An arch on my left opened onto a long warpstone corridor. The hall was unadorned and ended on a door sealed in the same overcomplicated fashion as the one I had just entered through. What would Kevin need to lock up in an area only he could enter?
A treasure room, or an alchemy lab? Some secret project he wanted to keep from the demons? The same notched stick fit the lock, and when turned, caused the gears to spin. I heard clanks on the other side as the bars disengaged and the door swung open automatically.
It was Kevin¡¯s bedroom, and for being the private chambers of the Dark Lord of Dargoth, decidedly underwhelming. He¡¯d crafted himself an efficiency apartment, with painted white walls, a messy twin bed, and a nightstand. Though I didn¡¯t require the light to see, I flipped the switch of the redstone lamp resting beside the bed to get a better look.
The stand was simply three oak blocks stacked on top of each other, no eldritch carvings, no tapestries on the walls. There was a bookshelf lined with enchanted tomes begging to be stolen, but aside from that, no obvious loot. A wooden door on the far side of the room led into the bathroom, a carbon copy of what I had discovered in the Bedlam base.
I wasn¡¯t sure what I¡¯d been expecting, but it wasn¡¯t this. Kevin had modeled Dargoth after Mordor. Though the natural features of the region lent themselves to the comparison, he¡¯d put a lot of work into the dark lord schtick over the centuries, and it showed. The rest of the fortress suited that model perfectly, and the mountain itself. But the little space he had carved for himself, only himself, was inarguably mundane.
A reminder of his previous life? Did the simplicity of the space comfort him? The tousled sheets suggested this room was in regular use, there was a layer of dust on top of the bookshelf, but the floor was clean and the sink in the bathroom had droplets of water around the drain.
If I waited long enough, he would come back here. A prime site for an ambush, though there was no way for me to coordinate that with the demons unless I went back down to talk to Vepar. Bojack was planning to follow Kevin to the forge, not to read him bedtime stories.
Still, it couldn¡¯t hurt to set a trap.
What I envisioned as a quick build took me almost an hour, and I spent the time rushing to complete a set-up I wasn¡¯t completely sure would function, delayed by several mistakes and a workflow that involved glances up every ten seconds afraid that Kevin would catch me half-finished.
The warpstone corridor was more than thirty paces long, and six blocks wide, a lot of space to manage. The distance had to be related to spawn mechanics. He didn¡¯t want mobs appearing around him while he slept, so the hall likely served as a corral for the creatures before they could be mind-controlled by Bael and added to the menagerie.
I did a quick inventory. Caliburn was my primary weapon, but if I was lucky I might get a few shots off with the bow before engaging him in melee. Shadowbane arrows wouldn¡¯t carry any extra oomf against a Survivor, and I had to assume his armor was as or more fire resistant than mine was. Knockback, though, could be very useful.
With as long as it had taken me to install the trap, Kevin had to have already gone to the throne room to talk to Bojack, if he wasn¡¯t coming back down already. If I could find or craft a place in the forge to pop out of at an opportune moment, that would be ideal. However, Bojack had seemed confident that the Dark Lord could be overcome as long as we could face him alone.
Survivor was a utility class. No matter how far he¡¯d advanced, he was still a crafter, not a sorcerer or a more traditional hero with flashy combat abilities. It was the equipment we had to worry about, I didn¡¯t have potions, and his weapon was bound to be better enchanted than mine.
The stairs spiraled through several landings, ending on a stone arch that included all the melodramatic finishings that had been absent from the bedroom. Heavy, dark blocks chiseled with sharp patterns made up the frame, which was surmounted by curved iron spikes like the spines on a dragon¡¯s back.
Kevin¡¯s workroom, his forge, was located in the caldera of Mount Doom. A flat, andesite platform extended from the arch, a crescent overlooking a pool of lava far below. Heat radiated upwards, as well as smoke, but it wasn¡¯t those fumes that filled the sky.
A cauldron hung over the pit suspended by thick chains, its belly stamped with unrecognizable runes. From its mouth, a vast black column issued, rising to the open sky above. Was this even a real volcano, or had he imported that lava and mined out a caldera to recreate the ambiance of the fictional Mount Doom?
The glow of the lava cast a brooding, orange light over the forge. Gleaming metal and gray stone, racks of tools, and a rail system complete with minecarts carrying chests. Furnaces, and anvils, one of which was crafted from diamond. That seemed like a terrible material to use for an anvil, but the System had never been meaningfully invested in realism. A section of the platform was squared off, an enchanting formation every bit as large as the one I¡¯d used in the underground base. Its corners were marked with diamond blocks, their edges gleaming in the hellish light.
I¡¯d paused to absorb the setting, and had to do a double-take when I noticed the figure standing at the edge of the crescent, his head bowed as he gazed down into the flaming pool below.
He was smaller than you would expect a dark lord to be, well under six feet. His armor was a mirror to mine, though if it was orichalcum, the metal had been painted black. Heavy, interlocking plates encased his body, his shoulders and arms studded with spikes, and his helm surmounted by a curving pair of horns.
No weapons were clipped to his waist, and his barbed gauntlets were empty. My breath caught, and for a long moment, I froze.
He hadn¡¯t noticed me. If this was a trap, it should have already been sprung. Kevin was here, pondering god knew what, lost to the world. Had he not been called to the throne room yet? Maybe Bael had made Bojack wait, or they had already had their meeting, and my horse-faced backer hadn¡¯t been allowed down to the forge.
Without demons to even the odds, Kevin was too much for me. Recent upgrades aside, there was no way I was anywhere near reaching the apex of what my class could offer. Attacking him alone was stupid, and yet, here he was; standing with his back turned on the precipice of a serious environmental hazard.
¡°Don¡¯t go swimming in lava,¡± the Fire Resistance notification had said. There are limits to protection. In the game, with the right gear, you could indeed go swimming in lava, for a while. It would still kill you if you didn¡¯t escape before your heart bar ran out.
The air was hot and tasted of ash. If Kevin burned to death, we¡¯d have time to prepare for the return of a naked Dark Lord. The location of his point of origin was a secret, but we had a trick for that. A second Anchor. An entire set of them had been sitting around since the last batch of heroes was griefed off of Plana, and Bojack had taken an extra when he was assigned the one my soul was tied to.
He was still just standing there.
I had a few Knockback arrows hanging through a loop, and I pulled the first to line up my shot. Kevin wasn¡¯t moving, and at this distance, his back may as well have been the side of a barn. The missile crossed the distance in a fraction of a second, striking the Dark Lord between his shoulder blades.
It didn¡¯t so much as scratch the cuirass, but that wasn¡¯t the point. Its point bounced off, but contact triggered the enchantment. It was a nonlethal effect, but only in the loosest sense of the term. Knockback hit with the force of a troll¡¯s fist.
Kevin stumbled forward, not quite thrown off his feet. He spun, keeping his footing by the toes of his boots as his heels hung over the edge of the pit, but didn¡¯t fall. No time to freak out. My hand was already moving, nocking the arrow and pulling back again in a single motion. I wasn¡¯t sure why using a bow came to me so much more naturally than a sword, but this was one thing I could do without looking like a fool. It was almost point-and-click.
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His hand snapped up as I loosed. His timing was perfect, and he was fast enough to catch an arrow, but he overshot it. The iron head hit his wrist, ricocheting to one side. The Knockback effect went off on his arm, and his gauntlet snapped back, smacking him in the grill of his helm. It couldn¡¯t have been hard enough to hurt him, but it was the last straw for his already precarious balance.
He fell, and for about two seconds, I was too stunned to move. Had that actually worked? Sprinting to the verge, I looked down, expecting to see his armored form descending slowing toward a liquid inferno. But he had already hit the lava.
Bro didn¡¯t even have Feather Fall.
The platform was five blocks thick, and the rest was a sheer drop. A hundred feet below, the Dark Lord was dog paddling in a two-thousand-degree hot tub.
It wasn¡¯t instant death, but at the very least, he was taking damage. Targeting him required me to shoot almost straight down, leaning in a decidedly unsafe manner over the edge of the platform, and I missed. The arrow disappeared into the superheated rock to one side of the bobbing dark lord. I dug out another handful of medallions to convert, but by the time I was ready to try again, he had swum beneath the platform.
If he didn¡¯t have a ladder down there, these could be his last moments, at least in this life. I fished out an obsidian token from my pack. It wasn¡¯t unusually large, but it had to weigh at least five pounds. I threw the coin, and the glowing, rune-ridden block came into existence beside the diamond anvil.
Its range was finite. If the lava pit was too far down for it to suck in his essence, or however it worked, then we were going to be in for a major problem. Still, even if Kevin did come back tomorrow, at least I could steal all his stuff before he did.
I got down on my stomach and looked over the edge, craning my neck to get a look under the platform.
Problem.
Kevin did not have a ladder, but he was building himself a stair. The lava couldn¡¯t be very deep, more evidence that this was not a real volcano, because he had to have planted the bottom block somewhere, and he was not crafting a stone helix to make his way back up.
Moving midway back to the entrance, I produced Pickle Rick and quickly dug through the platform at an incline to avoid dropping through my own hole. I was mining at breakneck speed, hitting the blocks so hard that they popped at a single strike, and I broke through at an angle where I could see Kevin, but not line up a good shot.
He was more than halfway up. I kept digging, mining out a wider shooting range, and he either didn¡¯t see me yet or didn¡¯t care. My hands were shaking as I switched out the pick for my bow and tried to aim. As I took a few breaths to calm myself, he rose a few feet higher.
The first arrow took him in the shoulder. He spun, slipped off the helix, and caught hold of a block on his way down. It barely phased him, and my next shot whizzed between his horns as he pulled himself back up and continued crafting. There were no coins involved. He was just pointing, and blocks appeared. It was faster than fiddling with coins, and there was nothing for him to drop. Kevin had an inventory.
Not fair.
I managed to hit him one more time on his way up, but he shrugged it off. It wasn¡¯t difficult to guess where he was going to come through the platform, so I shouldered the bow and slipped on a shield, drawing Caliburn as I ran into position. It was a tense few breaths as I waited, second-guessing myself. The surprise attack hadn¡¯t worked, and it didn¡¯t count as an ambush if I was the only one here. Bojack was in the wind, either delayed by Bael or waiting around in the throne room with Vepar. Maybe I should make a run for it.
Two blocks vanished almost in the same instant a few paces to my right, in front of the bank of furnaces. I¡¯d been slightly off on the location, and another block had disappeared before I even moved. I jumped, I don¡¯t know why, but my leap carried me to the opening and I drove Caliburn blindly down.
The blue-gold edge of the blade scraped his helm and pinked against the top of his chestplate. His armor was scratched, or at least, I¡¯d scraped the paint off, revealing the orichalcum beneath. A sword appeared, a really big sword. He thrust it up, and I hopped back to avoid it. A second later, he was halfway out of the hole, and I lunged in, hoping for the miracle thrust that would drive in through the thin eye slit in his visor.
I wasn¡¯t that lucky. The jab knocked his head back, but he didn¡¯t stop coming, and as soon as he had room to swing I was forced to duck under that ridiculous blade. Bojack had said Kevin favored a greatsword, but this was a straight-up buster blade, right out of Final Fantasy. Six feet long, at least a foot wide, no normal human being couldn¡¯t have used it effectively, and Kevin was holding it like it was made of foam.
¡°Jason?¡± His voice sounded higher than I expected. ¡°Is that you?¡±
Who? Still, whoever he was thinking of was probably a lot more intimidating than me. It could even be the guy whose armor I was wearing.
¡°What if it is?¡± I asked.
Kevin gripped his buster in both hands, holding it out in front of him so I had to back off to avoid him resting it on my head. Was he even hurt? His armor looked fine except for where I¡¯d scratched it. Had the lava done nothing?
¡°One shall stand, one shall fall.¡± His tone dropped like he was doing a dramatic movie voice.
I backed away, trying to visualize how far I was from the entrance without looking. The bedroom was a dead end, but if my trap worked, at least it would buy me some time. What would Jason say in this situation? No idea.
¡°So it¡¯s been a while,¡± I said, taking another step, ¡°how have you been?¡±
¡°I have become more powerful than you could ever imagine.¡± Kevin was motionless, maintaining his pose. Classic villain dialogue; had to give him that. There was a little more distance between us now.
¡°Are you afraid of me, Jason? Have you finally learned fear?¡±
¡°Not afraid,¡± I said, ¡°just concerned.¡± If he wanted to talk, we could talk. ¡°Plana¡¯s not doing too well. Have you ever considered dropping the Dark Lord bit and fixing things?¡±
¡°There¡¯s nothing to drop,¡± he said. ¡°This is who I am. What brought you out of hiding? There hasn¡¯t been a new Survivor in ten years. You¡¯re too late to save anyone.¡±
My heel bumped the minecart track, and he chose that moment to attack. I brought my shield up as he leaped forward, a small defense against a weapon that size, and it shattered on the first blow. The impact jarred my shoulder, but no hearts were lost. The poor little buckler had given its life in the service, and now there were a few useless shards of wood strapped to my forearm.
To fight him, I needed to get in under that weapon. It would be incredibly difficult to use a buster at close range, but the blue corridor, and the stairwell, would be just as bad for him. If he didn¡¯t have room to swing, it would take a lot of the power out of those blows.
I jumped back, the enchantments on my boots giving me extra air as well as a light landing, and moved under the arch onto the stairs. He rushed forward, thrusting with both arms, and I parried it to one side. More than half my brain was required to keep me from tripping down the steps as I descended backward, continuing to fend him off, but he kept talking.
¡°You can¡¯t win,¡± he declared, ¡°I have the high ground.¡±
Star Wars? Was he quoting Star Wars? We hit the first landing, and I ducked around the curve to avoid his next jab. He had the range, but he fouled more than one swing by scraping his sword against the walls. Kevin was stronger than me, but the difference wasn¡¯t as great as I¡¯d been worried it could be. Also, he kind of sucked at sword-fighting.
It wasn¡¯t that I was a master by any means, and maybe the nature of his weapon made it harder to keep things clean, but at least I had drilled some basics with Gastard. How do you live a thousand years, or however long he had been here, in a fantasy world without learning how to fight properly?
Since my mind was on Star Wars, all I could think about was the scene in the original movies where Obi-Wan and Darth Vader clumsily poke at each other like two old, confused men rather than the Jedis they were supposed to be. Down the staircase, landing after landing, I kept up my defense. Caliburn was holding up, and the difference in the speed ratings of our weapons was stark. My sword wouldn¡¯t hold up in a full-strength collision with his, but my blade was dancing around like a hummingbird, tapping his where I wanted it to go. Though he¡¯d tagged my armor a few times, I hadn¡¯t taken any damage.
How had this guy taken out all the other heroes?
"You¡¯re better than I remember," he taunted, ¡°but you can¡¯t keep this up forever. I have survived countless battles. You are nothing but a speck in the grand tapestry of time."
The sheer melodrama. Was Kevin¡LARPing? And how was I better than he remembered? Had Jason not learned how to fight either?
We reached the antechamber lit by a miniature torch, and I sliced it in half before backing into the warpstone corridor. With the shaft broken, the gem winked out. An incomplete item did not function.
¡°You think darkness is your ally? You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it¡¡± He trailed off, likely forgetting the rest of the quote, or else realizing it wasn¡¯t appropriate.
I had no trouble seeing him, and despite his words, Kevin did hesitate before entering the corridor. He let his sword droop, relegating it to his left hand, and a new torch appeared in his right. Was he left-handed, or could he only summon objects from his inventory with his right?
He followed me as I continued my slow retreat. Maybe he thought he was herding me to an inescapable position. We were a third of the way down the corridor when the floor sank under my backfoot, a pressure plate, and the ceiling opened overtop of him. Sliding doors in a new home.
A column of stone, several tons, dropped on the Dark Lord like a hammer. There was a thunderous thud, followed by silence.
93: My Nevermind, This is the Boss Fight (Rewrite)
Sliding doors were a fun feature in Maincraft. You needed sticky pistons, which were just regular pistons crafted with a slime ball, and redstone to work the activators. Then you could have a wall open and close in your base at the touch of a pressure plate or the flick of a switch. It was a neat way to incorporate a secret door into a build.
While I hadn¡¯t run into any slimes on Plana, they had to exist somewhere, because I¡¯d come through just such a wall on my way to the forge. I could only imagine the nasty kind of Bedlam environment that the real-world slime equivalent would spawn in, but happily, Kevin had done that work for me.
Breaking down the wall had been quick work, three pistons on each side attached to the blocks that made up the door, with a redstone line running underneath, connected to the pressure plate. I¡¯d have to grind the Artisan skill if I wanted to craft pistons for myself, but I could harvest the already completed parts and move them with no problem.
It was clearing out the rock above the warpstone corridor, as well as getting everything to connect with limited redstone, that had taken me so much time. So the automatic door had become a drop-trap. When the plate under my foot depressed, it slid open and dropped a five-by-four basalt cuboid on top of the Dark Lord.
He could have avoided it. He was fast enough. Instead, Kevin looked up when the ceiling opened, hesitated, and got smashed. His current pose looked deeply uncomfortable. The cuboid was leaning forward, caught on the opening it had dropped through. It was on his back and head, forcing him into a painful seiza, the way characters bow on their knees in anime. Kevin¡¯s legs were trapped under his body, his arms at his sides, his head crushed between the rock and the floor.
There was just enough room for me to shimmy around the block and get a look at him from the back. Kevin wasn¡¯t moving, but I didn¡¯t think he was dead, and his arms weren¡¯t trapped. It would be awkward, but he could still use his hands to mine, assuming he was conscious.
¡°Hey buddy,¡± I said, ¡°you okay?¡±
No answer. If he had been in iron, then I was sure he would have been pancaked. His body, and the armor, looked to have compressed somewhat but were otherwise still person-shaped. Orichalcum was serious business.
His giant sword had been ripped out of his grip, and the blade was pinned under the forward edge of the blocks. The weapon didn¡¯t concern me, but I needed to make sure he couldn¡¯t use his hands. Unshouldering my pack, I grabbed an amber cabochon and broke it for tokens. Maybe he was dead, maybe he was playing possum, either way, I was going to be sure he was immobile.
I had to crawl under the blocks to wedge logs under his arms, but by the time I was done, he was penned in on both sides and if he woke up, he wouldn¡¯t be able to achieve anything even approximating a swiping motion. The mining skill didn¡¯t require a full swing, but you had to move your hand a little, and he was stuck.
Was this it?
I¡¯d gone into this assuming even odds at best, demons or no demons. Kevin had so much experience, so much knowledge, a quantity of prep time that was hard to contemplate. Beating him had been¡too easy. Not that I wanted to come up against an opponent I couldn¡¯t handle, but this felt wrong.
He should have had every advantage. This was his home turf, he had access to skills and resources that I didn¡¯t even know about. Was our shared class just that limited, could I already do about as much as there was to do? That seemed unlikely. It wasn¡¯t only that I¡¯d been lucky, though luck had something to do with it. Kevin was incompetent.
So how had he managed to beat all the other heroes?
In case distance mattered and Kevin wasn¡¯t already dead, I brought the anchor down and placed it behind him. It was time to find Bojack.
I¡¯d come in through the back door of the forge, there was a much larger entrance at the far end of the crescent platform, an arch ten feet high. As doors were crafted at a uniform size, this was another sticky piston set-up, a wall of red granite that split down the center, operated by a lever beside the arch.
When it opened, I found myself visor to visor with a Dargothian soldier.
¡°My Dark,¡± he saluted with a fist to his chest, taking a step back. ¡°Forgive me, but Aychar Orobas is awaiting you in the great hall.¡±
I didn¡¯t even hesitate.
¡°Very well. Bring me to him.¡±
¡°As you wish.¡± The guard spun on his heel and marched. No questions. No doubts. My armor wasn¡¯t black, but it was the same style as Kevin¡¯s, and who else would be coming out of the Dark Lord¡¯s forge but the Dark Lord?
So Bojack had gotten permission to speak with Kevin, but the messenger had been stuck waiting outside the Dark Lord¡¯s door until Kevin came out on his own. That seemed inefficient, but Kevin probably didn¡¯t take much interest in the day-to-day management of Mount Doom, it didn¡¯t matter if there was no way for his subjects to get his attention right away.
I followed the soldier down corridor after corridor, and several more flights of stairs. The fortress was massive, and I wondered what was behind every door that we passed, but a full exploration could wait until I knew my victory was actually a victory. The soldier walked in silence, and I did the same. Kevin didn¡¯t make small talk with his subordinates, did he? Outside of the forge, the mountain was cool. Our boots echoed in the halls, and I kept expecting someone to jump out and reveal me as a pretender, but no one did. We reached another door, and the soldier opened it for me, saluting again as I walked through.
Great Hall was an understatement. The throne room was even larger than the cavern where the mobs were penned. Columns rose like redwoods, supporting a vaulted ceiling that felt high enough to warrant clouds. I emerged at the end of the hall onto a dais that was empty apart from a single grandiose furnishing.
Bojack had mentioned a ¡°Throne of Shadows,¡± and the reality was as ostentatious as the name. It had serious Iron Throne vibes, but even spikier, and crafted entirely of obsidian. The seat was large enough for someone as big as Bojack to fit comfortably, and its points gleamed under a candelabra of eternal torches.
There were no soldiers in the hall, only a trio of demons, who stood together at the foot of the steps leading up to the dais. Vepar, Bojack, and a toad.
The third demon was almost as short as a lillit, barely above five feet tall. He had broad shoulders, and a heavy belly, a similar body type to Tipple, though that is where the similarities ended. His head was full amphibian, with a mouth that stretched to either side of his slimy face, and a pair of bulbous eyes that stuck out beyond the ridges of his skull.
Bael. He wore robes like Vepar, though of a shorter cut, and trimmed with gold. The trio had been locked in an uncomfortable silence, but the toad looked up as soon as I entered, his mouth splitting open in a wretched croak.
¡°What is this?¡±
Bojack uttered a demonic phrase, his hands swiftly shifting through a sequence of arcane gestures, and a section of the stair morphed into a spear, jutting up to stab the toad. Bael squatted, and the stone point thrust over his head. His webbed fingers were moving in the same instant, and bright gold flames sprang up to consume his body,
The toad had an affinity for fire. Vepar backed away from the blazing demon, casting a spell of his own, and water jetted from pouches hanging from his waist, transforming to steam the instant they reached Bael.
The Dargothian holding the door said something, but I didn¡¯t hear him, I was already drawing my sword and charging the enemy demon. Bojack took a fireball to his chest. It exploded in a blinding flash, and the horse-man was thrown back. I jumped down the steps, intending to bring Caliburn down on Bael¡¯s broad head, but he came out of his crouch in a hop that took him ten paces down the hall.
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Vepar continued to spray the toad, resulting in a cloud of steam that reduced visibility on our side of the hall to nil. Bael was bright enough that he was easy to target through the mist, but before I could reach him, a lithe, shadowy shape interposed itself.
An Voidman. Of all the monsters I had faced so far, it was the most identifiable as a Maincraft mob. Nearly as tall as Bojack, with overlong limbs and jet-black skin. It appeared in front of me as if it had teleported, and its talons raked across my chestplate, moving faster than I could follow.
My armor was tougher than its claws, and Caliburn slashed a purple line across its abdomen. I would have cut it in half, but it slipped just far enough away to avoid being bisected. It coughed like a raptor in Jurassic Park and blinked behind me.
Its long fingers wrapped around my helm, and I flipped Caliburn in my hand, thrusting it behind me. The blade buried itself in the mob, which coughed again, its talons scrabbling at my armor. I ripped my sword free, turning to finish the Voidman, and an explosion threw me off of my feet and onto the steps.
The mist had been burned away. Bojack was spellcasting from the ground, and Bael sank an inch into the floor before hopping away, droplets of liquefied stone dropping from his feet. A barb of ice was in Vepar¡¯s hand, and he threw it at Bael like a javelin, but it evaporated before it could touch him.
The toad was a vaguely humanoid pillar of fire.
¡°Such insolence,¡± he said. ¡°You will suffer for it.¡±
I didn¡¯t know if he was talking to me or the demons, and it didn¡¯t matter. The Voidman reached for me again, and I slashed his arm as I rose, severing it at the elbow. The mob coughed, blinking away. Was it teleporting, or could it move faster than I could see? Regardless, the Voidman wasn¡¯t the threat here.
I rushed at the flaming toad, and a whip burning bright enough to make a Balrog jealous extended from his hands to wrap around Caliburn. The sword jerked out of my grip, and I kept charging. Bael squatted again, preparing to leap away, but a stone spike erupted from the flagstones to penetrate his calf.
He croaked in surprise, and I hit him like a linebacker. The demon and I went down together, and I felt his aura burning me through my armor. My skin sizzled, it was too hot to breathe. If not for the protective enchantments encasing me, tackling him might have meant instant death. Hearts disappeared in the corner of my vision, the bar flashing.
There was an atreanum knife in a clip on my waist. I grabbed it and jabbed it into the toad¡¯s fat belly. A second later, I was flying through the air, propelled by an eruption of fire, and bounced across the stone slabs of the floor until I hit a column.
Three demons engaged in a duel of magic. Stone, ice, water, and flame, flashed across the hall at the base of a dais. The wounded Voidman assaulted Bojack, only to have its feet trapped in the floor as the horse-man paced out of its reach. The aura surrounding Bael flickered, weakening, as Vepar hurled javelin after javelin, each failing to find its target.
The soldier who had led me to the hall stood frozen at the door, a sword in his hand, unsure of who to attack. More Dargothians poured into the hall from the far side, then paused, caught in the same dilemma. This was a contest of demons, and they had received no orders as to how to proceed. A group rushed me as I got back to my feet.
¡°My Dark,¡± the first man to reach me said. ¡°What is your will?¡±
They all thought I was Kevin. Fantastic.
¡°Toad bad,¡± I said, my throat raw. ¡°Kill toad.¡±
The soldier saluted. They all looked the same, covered from head to toe in identical iron plates. Kevin¡¯s version of Stormtroops.
¡°Understood.¡±
A few soldiers remained with me, taking defensive positions, while others rushed Bael. A couple of them had crossbows, which sent quarrels whistling across the hall. One bolt met its mark, and a moment later, the soldier who had made the shot was consumed in a pillar of flame.
I spotted Caliburn on the steps and sprinted to retrieve it. The voices of the demons mingled, chanting in their alien tongue, and a second Voidman appeared among the soldiers, stifling their charge. This time, I saw where it came from. The mob had been concealing itself in the shadow of a pillar across the hall. It moved in a stutter step, lightning quick for short bursts, fast enough that it seemed like a close-range teleport if you weren¡¯t paying attention.
As my hand closed around the hilt of my sword, I had to duck under a flying demon. Vepar flew over my head and hit the upper tier of the steps like a rag-doll that had been used to test a grenade. His robes were cinders, exposing the semi-translucent flesh beneath. Sections of skin were missing, the gashes red and weeping, and the demon gurgled in pain.
While I didn¡¯t feel terribly sorry for him, it was a disturbing sight. Bael outclassed the newer harbingers by a wide margin, and it looked like it was down to me and Bojack now. The horse-man crouched behind a three-inch stone bulwark he had caused to rise from the floor, his broad shoulders slumped with weariness. His toga had been obliterated, though thankfully the section that covered his lower regions was upheld by a belt and still intact enough for dignity. A third of the hair covering his body had been singed away, revealing otherwise human-looking skin, though there was a scattering of blisters across his chest.
Bael wasn¡¯t jumping around anymore, there was a shard of stone sticking through one of his legs, but with Vepar down and Bojack taking a breather, he was free to make an announcement.
¡°Imposter!¡± the toad¡¯s voice boomed, echoing down the hall as he pointed at me. ¡°That is not your Dark Lord!¡±
I saw a soldier lower his crossbow and a few more break off from fighting the Voidman. They weren¡¯t attacking me yet, but I had no idea how to prove to them I was who I wasn¡¯t. The Dargothians weren¡¯t the enemy here, and managing them could wait until after Bael was dealt with.
A fireball went off against my chest plate as I charged the toad. I lost another heart, but the enchantments held. His whip didn¡¯t get me this time, I slashed through it as it arced for my weapon, and the serpentine length of plasma disintegrated. Instead of retreating, Bael stepped into my charge, grabbing my gauntlet and pushing Caliburn aside.
¡°Survivor,¡± he rumbled, ¡°you have chosen the wrong demon.¡±
Maybe. The heat was unbearable, and Bael was a lot stronger than he looked. His spindly arm held mine back with a grip of iron. The hilt of my atreanum dagger protruded from his stomach. It was supposed to eat magic, was it weakening him at all?
I took it with my free hand and ripped the blade out sideways, opening a long, deep wound in his abdomen. Bael croaked, reflexively gripping his open belly, and I drove the dagger down into one of his bulging eyes.
The flames died, and so did the toad. As I staggered away from his falling form, my body still felt like it was on fire. Every inch of me stung, and my armor felt intolerably tight. An arrow plinked off my pauldron, so at least one soldier had realized I was the bad guy here. The good guy. Whatever, not the Dark Lord.
¡°Stay your weapons!¡± Bojack bellowed, ¡°Bael betrayed his master.¡± Another word followed under his breath, and the Voidman appeared beside me, facing the soldiers, more of whom were streaming into the hall. It coughed angrily, holding its clawed hands out in a confident T-pose. Without Bael to override him, Bojack could claim the mobs for his own. The first Voidman reappeared as well. Missing an arm, and hunching over its wound, it was less imposing than the first, but its presence helped send the right message.
¡°Harbinger!¡± A soldier with the Dargothian sigil stamped in red on his shoulder strode ahead of the line forming halfway down the hall. ¡°What is the meaning of this?¡± He lifted his visor, revealing a weathered face and a stubbly white beard.
My hand was halfway to removing my helm when I stopped it. I needed out of this armor, but surely, someone here knew what Kevin actually looked like. My ears were ringing, and Bojack had stalked in close to whisper something to me. He had to repeat himself.
¡°Take the throne,¡± he said. ¡°Sit in it now.¡±
It was an order I had no reason to refuse. That was why we were here, to take Kevin out and put me in his place. If the officer didn¡¯t think I was his dark lord, I didn¡¯t see how sitting down was going to convince him, but as no one was attacking yet, I ascended the dais.
Every step hurt. My health bar was still flashing, though it appeared to have stabilized at two hearts. Bread would be nice. I¡¯d happily wolf down a few beets if that meant my skin would no longer feel like it was stretched to the point of tearing. But eating would show my face.
¡°Why would Bael rebel?¡± I heard the officer demand. ¡°Is that not our Lord?¡±
The Throne of Shadows, huge, ominous, its obsidian surface flickered as a tapestry burned behind it. Banners were hanging in the hall, displaying complex geometric patterns that somehow felt off. Like the lines bent in ways that lines weren¡¯t supposed to bend.
I sat down. Despite the hard seat, it felt comfortable. The throne pulsed, an invisible wave that extended throughout the hall. The ringing in my ears stopped, and the officer looked up at me, the anger and confusion on his face falling away, replaced by awe.
He went to one knee, and scores of men in identical armor followed his example.
Ding.
94: My Realm (Rewrite)
I ignored the notification ding in favor of taking in the scene before me. Down the length of the hall, armored Dargothians were kneeling to me as their Dark Lord. That had been Bojack¡¯s plan, but thinking about taking on a role and having it appear in my lap were two entirely different things. It shouldn¡¯t have been this easy.
My encounter with Kevin had been anticlimactic, and though Bael had proved a more formidable opponent, our skirmish had played out in a few frantic minutes. It had been sketchy, the outcome uncertain, and we¡¯d lost a demon in the process, but I wouldn¡¯t be shedding tears over Vepar. The journey here had been long, and the climax had come and gone almost before I had a chance to register what was happening. Now it appeared that physically occupying the Throne of Shadows was enough for the people of Mount Doon to recognize me as their master.
It felt wrong on a lot of levels. Was this really all it took to overthrow a Dark Lord?
Bojack ascended the dais to take a position beside the throne. His burns looked painful, but there was no weakness in his voice when he addressed the kneeling crowd.
¡°Bael betrayed his oaths, plotting to take Dargoth for his own.¡± The demon¡¯s voice, rolled through the hall, as loud as if he was using a megaphone. ¡°When his schemes were uncovered, he attacked your Lord, and now he has paid the price of treachery.¡±
Bojack gestured to the remains of the toad demon, a flabby, murk-green body in torn robes with a dagger in his eye. ¡°All of you have borne witness, and the throne remains intact. Return to your posts, there is no more to be done here.¡±
The officer stood first, turning to address his men.
¡°You heard the Aychar, march.¡± His voice wasn¡¯t as strong as Bojack¡¯s, but he sounded accustomed to addressing a parade field. As the soldiers left the hall, the officer faced us again, his gaze wandering over the demon, me, and the banner still burning behind the throne. His face clouded for a moment, and then he shook his head, thumping his fist against his breastplate in a gesture of respect.
¡°It is my honor to serve the throne,¡± he said, the words almost lost to the bootsteps echoing in the hall. There was a pause that begged for a response, and I gave him a thumbs-up. I didn¡¯t mean to, it just happened. The old soldier, whoever he was, furrowed his brow, gave a deep bow, and followed his men out.
Then it was only me and Bojack and a couple of Voidmen, one of which was leaking purple fluids.
¡°Who was that?¡± I asked.
¡°I have no idea,¡± Bojack said, slumping. The fight had taken a toll on him, and with no other witnesses, he allowed his exhaustion to show. As most of his clothing had been blasted off, I could see there was no oathdagger strapped to his arm. He¡¯d said it was hidden, which meant that if killed him now, the curse would cripple me long before I found the dagger.
Was it in Henterfell? He wouldn¡¯t have entrusted Godwod with something that important, would he? The demon looked at me with an expression that suggested he had guessed my thoughts, his ears pinned back against his skull.
¡°Where is your predecessor?¡± He asked. ¡°Did you kill him?¡±
¡°No,¡± I shook my head. ¡°He¡¯s trapped in a hallway below the forge.¡±
¡°Show me.¡±
Wearily, I levered myself out of the throne. My skin was still stinging, and the strap that held my coin pack in place was reduced to a blackened thread. It was a wonder it hadn¡¯t fallen off. The Dargothian who had led me to the great hall was nowhere to be seen. I didn¡¯t know if he¡¯d taken part in the fighting and been cooked by Bael or simply left with the others. The soldiers had taken Bojack¡¯s order seriously, not so much as stopping to collect their dead. In addition to Bael, there were several charred suits of armor below the steps.
Clean-up could wait. Bojack followed me out the side door that I¡¯d entered from, and we walked the halls together. Many of the passages had been mined out of the mountain, with natural walls cut unnaturally smooth. The floors, however, were all crafted stone. Kevin hadn¡¯t been particular about his material usage. The blocks were uniform within the bounds of each hall and floor; basalt, granite, andesite, varying shades of gray.
¡°What happens when a demon dies?¡± I asked, tired of hearing Bojack¡¯s sandals slap as we walked. ¡°How easy is it for them to respawn?¡±
¡°We do not cross the boundary of the veil as easily as the lesser entities,¡± Bojack said. ¡°The more essence we possess, the more difficult it is to return. Bael will require months to reincorporate, if not years, and that is only if our master does not send him elsewhere.¡±
¡°Elsewhere? Like other worlds?¡±
¡°Other realms, yes. Plana is but one battleground among many.¡±
Did that have something to do with why there were so few heroes on Plana? Mizu, goddess or not, did not have unlimited power. She invested resources to give someone a new life and a System, and there was only so much of her to go around. She¡¯d intervened to get me out of a time sink, not as quickly as I would have liked, but she had done it. The goddess couldn¡¯t be completely derelict in her duties, as much as it seemed like she was an absentee.
¡°How many realms are there?¡±
¡°In this sector? Hundreds, though most of them are beyond our reach.¡±
At least we weren¡¯t dealing with an infinite assortment of parallel worlds. Hundreds was a lot, but it was still finite.
¡°What do you mean by sector?¡±
Bojack snorted. ¡°Does Harmony tell you nothing? By sector, I mean the collection of worlds under the governance of a single dominant entity. Your Mizu.¡±
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
¡°How many sectors are there?¡±
Bojack was silent for a while, and by the time we reached the forge, I assumed he didn¡¯t intend to respond. Smoke still billowed from the cauldron suspended over the lava pit, and a minecart bounced back and forth between the furnaces and an anvil on a powered rail. There were no hoppers or other signs of automation, the cart was just caught in a loop.
¡°That is not something I can answer,¡± Bojack said as we crossed the platform. ¡°Discord is infinite, or close enough to infinity that there is no call for distinction. The Hierarchy is vast enough to oppose it.¡±
It didn¡¯t matter how big the universe was. In my original life, I¡¯d been comfortable assuming that the cosmos went on forever and that there were probably aliens out there doing alien things, but space was big enough for their shenanigans not to influence what happened on Earth. Dying and having my soul shunted into another world had changed my mental model of reality, but the basics were unchanged. I needed to worry about what was going on around me, the reality I could touch. Everything else was theoretical.
The conflict between Discord and Harmony extended into a distance I couldn¡¯t imagine, but my small slice of that conflict was here, on Plana. And a big part of that was hinging on a single guy, who was currently face down, butt up, in a warpstone corridor.
When Bojack saw Kevin, he laughed, the sound booming in the confined space.
A part of me had expected Kevin to be gone, his defeat an illusion. But the Dark Lord, or former Dark Lord, was exactly where I¡¯d left him. The obsidian anchor rested against the wall, its runes glowing and dimming in a steady rhythm, almost as if it was breathing.
¡°Can you tell if he¡¯s alive?¡± I asked.
¡°He is,¡± Bojack said, still chuckling. ¡°His essence had not left his body yet.¡±
¡°Then what do we do?¡±
The demon moved past me to kneel beside the anchor, running one hand over its, dark, pulsing surface. ¡°I will bury him, to ensure he suffocates. It will be your task to construct a prison.¡±
I thought about the diamond egg that Kevin had trapped me in. A build like that could not be replicated overnight. But we didn¡¯t need to craft a diamond stadium. The demons had been griefing people for a long time, and they knew the respawn rules a lot better than I did. We could only come back on solid ground, relatively close to our point of origin.
If we put the anchor on top of a high enough pillar, we could limit his potential spawning ground to a small platform. You couldn¡¯t break diamond by hand. That wasn¡¯t strictly in keeping with Maincraft mechanics, but it was the reason my cage had been built the way it had. In the game, you could break a block without tools. It would be slow, and you wouldn¡¯t be rewarded with a drop, but you could do it. Here, though, the mining skill simply didn¡¯t function on diamond without a tool.
¡°I can do that,¡± I said. ¡°And when he¡¯s trapped, will you tell me where Esmelda is?¡±
¡°She is living in a forest,¡± Bojack said, rising, ¡°with her son and a retainer. I have monitored her location since I discovered her, but have never had reason to interfere.¡±
¡°What?¡± My heart jumped into my throat. Esmelda hadn¡¯t been captured? It was the best possible version of this scenario, but it also came with questions.
¡°Then why did you have her comb?¡±
¡°Heroes without personal connections to this world are less likely to return, and your resilience prompted me to question Godwod about your relationships. Esmelda was already gone when your town was sacked and the lillits were taken, but the comb was one among many items that were recovered from your home. It took me several months, and a great many kilahoro, what you call phantoms, to locate her. No one else was looking, and it suited my purposes to leave her as she was.¡±
I wasn¡¯t sure how I felt about this revelation. On one hand, it meant that Esmelda hadn¡¯t been subject to capture or imprisonment. Bojack lying, or at least misleading me, wasn¡¯t a shock, but it meant that I could have found her without his help or permission. There was only one place Esmelda would have gone after things went south, the shelter I had prepared for her. My original spawn point.
¡°The retainer,¡± I said. ¡°Is it Gastard?¡±
Bojack shrugged. ¡°A man. A knight of Drom, from his appearance. I do not know his name.¡±
It had to be Gastard. My friend was alive. My wife, my child, they were okay. They hadn¡¯t been subjected to torture or imprisonment. Life couldn¡¯t have been easy for them, but they had been spared the worst of conquest.
The demon took a step closer to me. His huge, dark eyes, locked onto mine.
¡°You can go to them, if you choose, as soon as Kevin is secure. But there is more for you to consider.¡±
¡°Like what?¡± He wasn¡¯t ordering me to stay. Maybe he knew that I would risk a curse to have my family. He needed me to play his game, and he knew he couldn¡¯t keep dragging this out forever. Bojack wanted me to be a willing partner, and admittedly, finding out that he¡¯d never actually harmed or threatened my family was a point in his favor, but the threat was still there. He¡¯d left them alone because it was convenient to leave them alone, not because he harbored a compassionate heart.
¡°Your wife is comfortable enough, and you have been gone for ten years, a few more weeks will make little difference to you or her. But there are the other lillits to consider, those you claim to care for. Their fate has not been as kind.¡±
¡°What are you talking about?¡±
¡°Most of your wife¡¯s people are in Nargul, chattel slaves. Kevin used them to operate his train, and that is where they will remain until you free them. Dargoth is rife with evils that you would not abide. Will you let those evils stand while you travel to reunite with her? What would Esmelda think of such a choice?¡±
It wasn¡¯t a fair question. I wasn¡¯t responsible for everything Kevin had been doing for the last ten years, or the last ten centuries. But he had a point. What would Esmelda think about me being oathbound to a demon? She was a reasonable woman. She would understand, right?
What about Boffin and Brenys? Esmelda¡¯s father and aunt would be with the rest of the lillits. Finding out what had happened to them, and getting them out of whatever predicament they were in, took priority over my desire to see her again, didn¡¯t it?
A part of me didn¡¯t care. Having her with me, and meeting my son, were my only immediate priorities. Another part was afraid of what she would think about me taking Kevin¡¯s place. As the lord of Dargoth, I could make life better for the lillits, and change the empire however I liked, up to whatever limits Bojack put in place.
I was compromised.
¡°Tell me exactly where she is,¡± I said. Bojack could still be lying. Suggesting I delay the trip did not improve my confidence that he was being transparent.
Bojack¡¯s ears relaxed, and his eyes softened. ¡°A stream runs from the mountains to what was once Ehriseht, the forest where she resides is south of that stream, a day¡¯s ride from the abandoned village. I can draw you a map if you like.¡±
I didn¡¯t need a map. It was my point of origin, I was sure of it. She¡¯d been right where I¡¯d hoped she would go, all this time.
¡°We secure Kevin,¡± I said, ¡°and you get me information on the lillits. Then I¡¯m going to find my family.¡±
¡°Of course,¡± Bojack said. ¡°That is our agreement.¡±
Why did I get the feeling that it wouldn¡¯t be that simple?
95: My Cube (Rewrite)
Kevin woke up in a diamond box ten feet to the side. There was no rulebook for Survivors explaining respawn mechanics, so I¡¯d constructed his prison according to Bojack''s knowledge of how heroes had been captured in the past. The purgatory Kevin had prepared for me had been overkill. You could downsize, but even the downsized version was a serious undertaking.
Technically, a coffin and an array of torches were enough. However, we didn¡¯t want the residents of Mount Doom to see him, and dropping him in the wilderness would have been too insecure. He needed to be monitored. That, and Bojack wanted his spawns. Mobs were the cornerstone of Dargoth¡¯s armies, a resource no other nation possessed. We¡¯d argued about it, more monsters meant more risks, and if another demon appeared, Kevin could bargain with them for his freedom.
But Bojack was adamant that we needed more monsters, and if I pushed the issue, he was just going to give me an official order. I preferred to keep the active constraints of my oath to a minimum.
A single torch on the roof of the cell illuminated the center of a massive cube, making Kevin¡¯s meager living space the focal point of an otherwise lightless space. The former Dark Lord had appeared with the dawn, not that the sun could reach him here. Bojack and I were standing at the end of a granite corridor I¡¯d tacked onto the citadel, watching as the blue glow of a System screen appeared above Kevin¡¯s arm.
¡°He looks pretty bummed,¡± I said.
¡°A success,¡± Bojack said.
¡°You could say that.¡±
There was a fifty-foot air gap between the cell and where we were standing, so unless Kevin¡¯s dark vision was as good as mine, it was unlikely he could see us. If he was speaking, we couldn¡¯t hear him. His cell was unbroken, as this had been a rush job, and I would figure out the amenities later.
His new home rested atop a pillar, placing it in the exact center of the larger cube, with the spawn anchor set beneath it, hidden within the pillar. The suspension was necessary, as well as the cavernous space, because he couldn¡¯t come back to life in open air. It was still a gamble, the chances of him returning to the world farther away from the anchor were low, but not nil. Bojack wasn¡¯t sure if transparent blocks interfered with reincarnating heroes the same way they did with mobs, but I would soon be covering the floor with glass to be safe.
Two sides of the cube were just the mountain, it had been faster to use the landscape than create the entire structure from scratch, and the floor was natural stone. Setting this up had still required the better part of a day and a full night, ceaselessly laying blocks, and occasionally shoving a loaf of bread down my throat to keep my energy up. I¡¯d tasked soldiers with collecting torches from around Mount Doom, so the outside of the cube, as well as the surrounding area, was studded with them.
Not one of them had questioned my orders. Dargothians were not accustomed to arguing with their Dark Lord, and the cube couldn¡¯t have been the first odd build project they¡¯d seen around the mountain.
I was exhausted, and the result was unsatisfying. Kevin was here, trapped, dethroned, but the quest in my log remained incomplete. Capturing him didn¡¯t fulfill the goddess''s wishes, not that she had made any effort to make those wishes clear to me.
¡°How long until the demons get here?¡± I asked.
¡°A few that I trust are already en route,¡± Bojack¡¯s hand drifted to an Oathdagger at his hip. It wasn¡¯t mine, it was Bael¡¯s, a curvy Kris with a black gem set in the center of its crossguard. The toad had been the one to make a bargain with Kevin, as well as other demons. Apparently, it was common practice for them to magically reinforce their hierarchy. Not every demon on Plana had been bound to Bael, but all the important ones had.
As soon as he broke the blade, they would feel their release, and a struggle for dominance would ensue, both with us and with each other. Before he did that, we were going to collect a few allies from the more recently arrived harbingers, who had less to lose and more to gain from a shake-up in the power structure of Dargoth.
Making new demonic acquaintances was not a pleasant prospect. It would dig me deeper into my relationship with Discord, but it was necessary if I was going to keep the throne. Not that I was entirely sold on the idea that taking Kevin¡¯s place was the best way to go about saving Plana, it almost certainly wasn¡¯t, but until a more permanent solution to my prisoner problem presented itself, that was what we were going with.
For now, working with the demons would allow me to help the people I cared about. If Esmelda had any better ideas, she could tell me about them when I had her back.
¡°Is there anything else I need to do here?¡± I said, waving a gauntlet at the naked man in the cell.
¡°I will watch him,¡± Bojack said. ¡°I believe you have an appointment with the viziers.¡±
¡°Yeah, I guess I do.¡± What I wanted to do was pass out, but I¡¯d agreed to talk to some of Mount Doom¡¯s functionaries before I ran off to find Esmelda. While Kevin had occupied himself with his hobbies, Bael had acted as the defacto ruler, and a team of scribes had served under him managing the logistics of the empire. They could tell me everything I wanted to know about the fate of the lillits.
I left Bojack, my boots dragging as I shuffled down the corridor. It reminded me of a passenger boarding bridge, though of course, it was stone instead of whatever those were made of, attached to the east flank of the citadel. I¡¯d mined out a section of the outer wall and installed one of Kevin¡¯s fancy steampunk doors to keep it private. Thank the goddess, crafted objects were modular.
I couldn¡¯t stop thinking about how we¡¯d killed him.
Getting him out of his armor had proved impossible, as I didn¡¯t want to destroy it or otherwise risk him being able to move. Bojack had suffocated him in liquid stone. Not a pleasant way to die. It wasn¡¯t that I felt much sympathy for him, but I didn¡¯t like how callous it felt. Having my first act as ruler be an act of calculated murder didn¡¯t bode well for my intentions to help Dargoth become something other than an objectively evil empire.
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I still hadn¡¯t buried his body. It was in his bedroom. Once he was dead, removing the armor had been easy. I¡¯d harvested it, and the resulting medallions were now in a pouch on the nightstand. Seeing his face had left me with mixed feelings.
He had dark, oily hair and pale skin. Not traditionally handsome by any means, with fish lips and a weak chin. It was surreal to see him this way, the man who had betrayed the heroes and become the most feared ruler in the world before cloistering himself in this mountain to dedicate his life to what amounted to an assortment of obscure hobbies. He¡¯d been younger than me when he was isekaied, and that youth had never vanished from his face, even in death. He looked like a teenager.
His eyes had been wide open, staring at nothing, and they exhibited a severe case of heterochromia. One looked normal, as blue as Gastard¡¯s, and the other was so dark it was hard to tell the iris from the pupil. It might have been a sign of Beldam¡¯s taint. My eyes had changed differently, but this didn¡¯t look any more natural than my slit pupils. Aside from that, he could have been a normal person, a person who was too young to be the Dark Lord.
I¡¯d asked Bojack about it, and he¡¯d confirmed that heroes don''t age normally. Immortality, just like I¡¯d asked the goddess for. Except there was a drawback. Kevin hadn¡¯t acted like someone with centuries of experience and wisdom. He¡¯d acted like a kid, screwing around and quoting movies as we fought.
The person he was supposed to be should have been able to beat me easily. But in all the time he¡¯d been on Plana, he hadn¡¯t grown, at least not mentally. He¡¯d learned new things, sure, but no matter how much knowledge or power he amassed, Kevin had still been operating with the brain of a teenager. Impulsive, short-sighted. Of course, those could have just been personality traits. Some people were like that at any age. But the goddess¡¯s gifts were two-sided.
At some point, I needed to talk to him. He was the only other living Survivor, as far as I knew, and he had to understand the System better than I did. But leveling up hadn¡¯t given him his inventory, a piece of equipment did.
There had been a ring on his right hand; gold, and inscribed with lettering that looked suspiciously elvish. If there was one thing I could say for Kevin, it was that he¡¯d been dedicated to the dark lord shtick well beyond the level of a casual fan. It was clearly the One Ring, and picking it up had triggered a new entry in my crafting log.
| Journal |
Quests |
Notifications |
Materials |
Crafting |
|
Storage Ring
The Storage Ring grants its bearer access to an extradimensional space capable of containing a vast array of items and materials without affecting its external appearance or weight. After attuning the ring, the wearer can mentally access its contents. Only the bearer can perceive or retrieve the objects contained within.
Formula access denied. Criteria unmet.
|
This was his inventory. I had an inventory. It was one of the most common and most casually abusable mechanics in any LitRPG system, and until seeing Kevin use it during our fight, I¡¯d assumed it was something that I would never have. Maincraft, of course, used inventories, but the Survivor System was, at best, Maincraft adjacent, and I¡¯d reconciled myself to doing without. The coin conversion mechanic; combining individual units of a given material into tokens, medallions, and cabochons, was a functional substitute for an inventory as far as carrying around massive amounts of harvested resources. This, however, was going to put me on another level entirely.
If I could use it.
The formula was redacted, so the System wanted me to discover that for myself, or earn it in some way. And how exactly was I supposed to attune the ring? The notifications sometimes came with hints, but they still fell far short of a proper instruction manual. The ring was on my finger now, but putting it on hadn¡¯t given me the sense that there was a magical connection being made.
No other weapon or tool had required attunement, everything had worked on its own as soon as it was equipped. Was I going to have to meditate? Talk to it? The situation was frustrating, but the existence of a Storage Ring had at least assured me that Kevin wouldn¡¯t have access to hidden resources when he woke up in his box.
The viziers lived in the lower levels of Bael¡¯s tower. As I made my way through the citadel, the soldiers I passed saluted, and the servants bowed. Slipping into Kevin¡¯s place had been as simple as sitting down. I was still wearing my armor, but I wondered if hiding my face was even necessary. The System had recognized me as the master of this citadel, and the result had been the men in the great hall immediately accepting me as who Bojack claimed I was.
The achievement that had come with it implied there was some mind-altering going on.
| Journal |
Quests |
Notifications |
Materials |
Crafting |
|
Achievement: Sheltered (6)
Congratulations, you¡¯ve skipped some steps! Your stronghold is a marvel of architecture and artisanry. As a lord of a Domain, your reputation will attract followers from far and wide. Those who swear themselves to the seat of your power will display unquestioning loyalty. Try to be worthy of their fealty.
|
I wasn¡¯t sure how I felt about that. While exceedingly convenient, the note came with a host of moral implications that I did not have the mental energy to work through at the moment. Achievements didn¡¯t typically come with extra superpowers attached. Maincraft had villagers, and they were essentially passive mobs with some additional features. They operated on a simple set of rules, and you could do what you wanted with them.
People were not Maincraft villagers, though Kevin might have treated them like they were. Using magic to influence human minds was a slippery slope toward something worse than simple tyranny. There were a lot of arguments to be made about that. Is psychic influence all that different from simply being charismatic? Human decision-making is influenced by all sorts of things, and some people are better at pushing those buttons than others. Two-thirds of all Presidential elections are won by the taller man. But it felt wrong to know that the System was the one pushing buttons.
Bael¡¯s tower was set apart from the main fortress, a soaring spire situated on a stark cliff. As I followed the cobbled path, a boy dressed in a gray livery exited the tower, saw me, and froze.
¡°You''re fine,¡± I said, ¡°continue doing whatever you were doing.¡± People here had jobs, I didn¡¯t need them to be freaking out every time they saw me passing by.
The kid bowed deeply and then ran off. An ornate brass knocker hung from the door at the base of the tower, but I ignored it, and let myself in. I was the Dark Lord, after all.
96: My Viziers (Rewrite)
Gargoyles ringed the entrance hall, tall, winged statues posed as if ready to spring upon unwelcome guests. Each statue was unique, a family of different monsters, though all of the same species. Some crouched, frowning and watchful, while others loomed with their mouths open to display fangs as thick as my thumb. There were no windows on the ground floor, but a single torch rested on a pillar in the hall''s center, its light casting huge shadows behind the gargoyles along the curving wall. If these represented real beasts, I was glad nothing like them had ever spawned around me.
One of Kevin¡¯s, now my, stormtroopers stood beside the door, a halberd planted in the smooth stone floor. He saluted with a fist to his chest, and I nodded in acknowledgment.
¡°Where are my viziers?¡± I asked. The gargoyles were the only other occupants of the hall, circling to flank the enclosed spiral stair at the opposite end.
¡°Shall I fetch them, my Dark?¡± His voice sounded tinny from behind his visor. I was going to have to do something about the ¡°my dark¡± thing, being addressed that way was ridiculous.
¡°No,¡± I said. ¡°Bring me to them.¡±
¡°As you wish.¡± The soldier instantly obeyed, striding to the stairs, and I followed. I saw there was a lower level as well, but he led me up. The next floor was a war room, complete with the viziers I was looking for.
The scent of old parchment and aged leather filled the air, a testament to Kevin¡¯s completionist bent. Numerous maps adorned the walls, each meticulously detailing the lands under Dargoth¡¯s sway, the free kingdoms, and other realms that I didn¡¯t recognize.
The heart of the room was a massive, red granite table. A world map stretched across its surface, an intricate landscape rendered in three-dimensional topography. The table was dotted with miniature figures representing armies, fortifications, and strongholds, waiting to be manipulated like pieces in a set-up for the most elaborate game of Warhammer ever devised.
Aside from the maps and the table, bookshelves lined the edge of the room, brimming with leather-bound tomes. If I was lucky, they were filled with ancient knowledge and forbidden powers, but it was more likely they were blanks placed for decoration. Kevin hadn¡¯t struck me as a big reader.
The pieces of the gameboard were not labeled, so I was probably expected to recognize them all by sight. The three men in tan robes standing around it certainly seemed to know what they were looking at.
One was broad and fat, with a wide face and mouth that made him appear almost to be a human version of the toad demon. His dark hair was tied back in a ponytail, and his wrinkled eyes widened when he saw me.
The stormtrooper tapped the butt of his weapon on the tiles.
¡°All hail the Lord of Dargoth,¡± he announced.
The trio bowed, though the fat man was the slowest to do so, keeping his head up as if he didn¡¯t want to let me out of his sight.
¡°Thank you,¡± I said to the soldier, ¡°you¡¯re dismissed.¡±
The man saluted again and tramped back down the stairs. While there were a lot of issues with my current place in the world, it was certainly nice to be obeyed.
¡°There is much you don¡¯t know,¡± I¡¯d never heard how Kevin spoke to his subordinates, but since I was LARPing as a guy who¡¯d been LARPing as a Dark Lord, I found myself automatically adopting a more formal speech pattern, as well as slipping into my lower register. ¡°Bael is no longer first among the demons. He was part of a plot to usurp me, and Orobas, who proved instrumental in uncovering it, is now foremost among my advisors.¡±
The far man narrowed his eyes. On the other side of the table, a gangly, bald man with a goatee took in a sharp breath. The last of the three, an octogenarian supporting himself with a cane, either nodded in understanding or because he was having trouble holding his head up.
¡°Bael was allowed too much influence for too long,¡± I continued, ¡°as I have been absorbed by my own designs. That changes today. Give me a briefing, one of you. What are the most pressing issues facing my empire?¡± I approached the table, ¡°and introduce yourselves, you¡¯ve never been important enough for me to learn your names before. But as I¡¯m taking a more hands-on approach, I may as well hear them again.¡±
It was a bit of a giveaway, but I genuinely doubted that Kevin would have bothered to learn any of these men¡¯s names, however often he may have heard them. Throughout his reign, he¡¯d probably had scores of people serving as viziers, and they didn¡¯t even work for him directly.
The man with a goatee shot the fat one a concerned look, and the elderly gentleman looked confused.
¡°I am Hildar,¡± the frog-faced vizier said, gesturing to a part of the map I recognized, the strip of land representing the region controlled by Henterfell, including my original spawn point. Plana, or at least Dargoth¡¯s understanding of it, seemed to be limited to a single continent reminiscent of Australia with an archipelago to the east of the main body of land. It wasn¡¯t difficult to pick out the areas I knew, though there was more that was new to me than what I could recognize. The Wastes were obvious, being a pool of actual sand running up against a set of uncannily detailed clay mountains. And I was pretty sure I could pick out Williamsburg, its location marked by an iron coin close to a toy castle I took to be Henterfell.
¡°I assume Orobas has already spoken to you regarding your vassal, Godwod. We heard the call for aid, and we await your decision. Would you like our advice on the matter?¡±
¡°We can come back to that,¡± I said. ¡°What else threatens my kingdom?¡±
Dargoth¡¯s borders were marked by tiny flags, it was a lot of land, but mostly empty. Mount Doom stood out in a vast reddish region with only a handful of significant markers. There were more cities to the north, as well as what looked like swaths of farms, and a scattering of coins representing mines. A big castle in the south had several of those around it; iron, coal, and gold.
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Hildar waved his hand toward the archipelago.
¡°Thalasso has been quiet for some time,¡± the vizier answered, ¡°though they share King Egard¡¯s enthusiasm for embargo. Atlan, however, has grown restless. The Orkhans make regular raids across the border. They ignore our fortresses, content to harass less well-defended settlements and pillage our supply lines. The nomads are difficult to pin down, as they do not build true cities of their own, so your generals in the region are forced to deal with them piecemeal. As you can see, the bulk of our forces are stationed to protect the farmlands. Dargoth cannot feed itself without the north.¡±
Many of the markers were silver tokens inscribed with a sigil like something out of the Goetia, and I assumed they kept track of demons. A stack of them rested beside the largest northern castle, close to the border of a yellow region painted to look like an endless field of high grass.
That must have been Atlan. It was interesting to learn that Dargoth was at odds with more than just the Free Kingdoms, but I didn¡¯t care about that now.
¡°What of the lillits?¡± I said.
It was a non-sequitur, and it won a surprised look from the vizier, though it quickly reverted to blank professionalism.
¡°What do you mean?¡±
Before I could think of a way to ask where they were and how they were doing without revealing that I didn¡¯t know as much as I should, the bald vizier cut in.
¡°The lillits are in Nargul, as you commanded. They maintain the Eternal Engine and have not slacked in their duty. Ah, um, Zareth, my Dark.¡± He gave a curt bow along with his name. I noticed he was holding a scroll and a pen that looked suspiciously modern in one hand, while the others held nothing. Maybe he was in charge of keeping the minutes of their meetings. His expression was more curious than anything, asking a question that his words did not.
¡°How long would it take to have them brought here?¡±
The old man coughed, and Hildar¡¯s expression turned sour. Zareth pointed to Mount Doom and then moved his finger to target the castle surrounded by mines. ¡°Ah,¡± he said, knitting his brows, ¡°all of them?¡±
¡°All of them.¡±
¡°Not more than a week or two, I should think. Would you like me to send a wyvern to Duke Agares commanding they be moved?¡±
¡°Yes..¡± My first instinct was to ride there myself, but if Duke Agares was the demon in charge of the city, he wasn¡¯t likely to respond well to a personal visit. Until Bojack brought more of the harbingers on board with me being the new dark lord, I would have to be careful. The fight with Bael had been three-on-one, and it had felt like it could have gone either way. Now Vepar was dead or banished back to Bedlam, however that worked, and I needed Bojack to stick around Mount Doom to keep an eye on Kevin.
There wasn¡¯t anyone else I could trust to keep him in his cage.
How would Agares feel about the coup? Flying monsters were still spawning around Kevin at night, and Bojack was taking control of them, just like he did for everything that spawned around me. Given that they treated the monsters like currency, that would give us some leverage as far as winning the loyalties of the demons, but they could also see this as an opportunity to replace Bael as the number one if they restored Kevin to power. If I showed up at Nargul unannounced, there was every chance that Agares would treat me as the usurper I was. Right now, however, the other demons shouldn¡¯t be aware that Kevin had been overthrown. It was business as usual, and he¡¯d always been particular about the lillits, for whatever reason.
The vizier opened his mouth to say something, and closed it, seemingly conflicted. These men knew everything I needed to know about Dargoth, but so much of it was information Kevin would already have, so I couldn¡¯t ask Zareth for details without breaking the illusion that I was him.
¡°Speak your mind,¡± I said.
¡°It is merely¡± the vizier looked at me directly for the first time, ¡°you are so different than the last time we spoke, my lord.¡± He bowed his head quickly. ¡°Forgive me for my impertinence.¡±
Hildar shot him a mean look, his expression souring further, but held his tongue. The old man raised his eyebrows, startled, looking from me to the others in succession. What was his deal?
¡°Forgiven. With Bael indisposed, I need advisors who can be honest with me.¡±
¡°I am sure that is true, my lord. It is not merely your armor, which is magnificent, but I feel almost as if I am met with a different person entirely.¡± His eyes darted up again before returning to the table. Well, if I was going to have a vizier, it was probably a good thing that he wasn¡¯t stupid. The common soldiers wouldn¡¯t be able to tell the difference, but if this man had spent any significant amount of time with Kevin, he might have realized something was going on as soon as I started speaking.
¡°There is only one Dark Lord,¡± I said firmly.
Zareth came around the table, stepping wide to avoid bumping into Hildar, who seemed to be about to croak. ¡°I have sworn my life to the Dark Lord¡¯s service, and I would do so again. Please do not doubt my loyalty.¡±
Did he know or not? Was he just paranoid? I held out a gauntlet.
¡°Swear to me.¡±
He took my gauntlet in both his hands and recited an oath.
¡°By my life and the realm, I swear fealty to the Dark Lord of Mount Doom. My skills, knowledge, and counsel are yours to command. I pledge to serve you faithfully and keep your secrets close, as long as you sit the Throne of Shadows. May my every act be in service to your designs, and no thought of betrayal cross my heart, my essence be forfeit.¡±
That was quite specific; as long as I sat the Throne of Shadows, not a moment more.
¡°I accept your oath,¡± I said solemnly, ¡°you may rise.¡±
¡°Excellent,¡± he got back to his feet, his gaze suddenly direct, and his manner less cautious. ¡°If you would forgive my impertinence once more, you should be aware that a message has already been sent to Agares¡ª¡±
¡°Silence, you fool!¡± Hildar lunged at Zareth¡¯s back, and I reacted on instinct, grabbing Zareth¡¯s shoulder and pulling him to one side. Hildar had pulled a knife, barely more than a letter opener, out of his sleeve. Instead of plunging into Zareth¡¯s back, it snapped against my breastplate.
Hildar looked up at me in open horror, while Zareth continued speaking as if he hadn¡¯t just been assaulted and manhandled out of the way in the same instant.
¡°¨Cindicating suspicion of a coup. While my devotion has been steadfast, I fear my colleagues are prone to doubt, as their first loyalty was to Bael.¡±
¡°Lies,¡± Hildar said, desperate, ¡°he speaks only lies. I am loyal to you, of course.¡±
The old man was visibly shaking. ¡°I know nothing about any of this,¡± he said.
Zareth remained calm, though he did take a polite step back, inclining his head to me. While the fact that he had instantly sold out his fellow viziers was worthy of note, he¡¯d done so after swearing to me. He¡¯d already indicated that he knew I wasn¡¯t Kevin, and sworn anyway. Even if he was merely being opportunistic, he¡¯d chosen the right horse to back, and I had to give him credit for that.
¡°Do we have dungeons?¡± I asked.
¡°We do my Dark,¡± though his head remained bowed, a slight smile played at the edges of his lips.
¡°Alright,¡± I said, ¡°you two are coming with me until we get this sorted out.¡±
They weren¡¯t happy about it, but resistance was futile. I didn¡¯t have time or the inclination to mess around with oaths or try to magically enforce the loyalty of Hildar and the old guy right now. The pair could sit still for a while. Zareth seemed amenable, and one vizier was just as good as three for my purposes.
¡°There are holding cells beneath the tower,¡± Zareth said.
¡°Perfect.¡±
97: My Aery (Rewrite)
The boy I had seen exiting Bael¡¯s tower had carried a missive bound for Nargul. As soon as Hildar and Keller, the old man, were on their way to confinement, Zareth led me to the aery to stop the letter from being sent. Dargoth was a broad, mostly empty, kingdom, and the Dark Lord used wyverns to deliver messages swiftly across its desolate spans.
Zareth took the lead as we exited the tower and crossed the fortress. Servants bowed, and soldiers saluted as we made our way across the open paths and into the labyrinthine corridors of Kevin¡¯s stronghold. I didn¡¯t bother to keep track of the turns and arches, focusing on our destination. The vizier did not directly address the fact that I was not the same man he had served mere hours before, but he kept up an informative narrative as we went that was clearly for my benefit.
"Our kingdom''s finest wyverns are kept for your personal use, my Dark. They are well-trained, clever, and swift. At least one is kept ready to ride at all times."
The aery was a towering cylinder of gray stone high in the mountain, open to the sky. The wyverns perched on rocky ledges, their beady eyes watching us intently. Their scales glimmered softly in the ambient light of the eternal storm, and it was immediately apparent that something was terribly wrong.
Three human bodies were strewn across the aery, their blood spattered like paint, stray limbs dropped at random. Some pieces were recognizable, while others looked like ground beef. The wyverns were ungainly on the ground, with only a tiny pair of back legs to support their weight along with their oversized thumb claws. They were basically pterodactyls, but they had broad, tubular heads, and jaws like sharks, brimming with triangular teeth. Most of them were chained beside water troughs, but one was free, and it shrieked a challenge as soon as we ascended to the aery.
¡°Get back on the stairs,¡± I told Zareth, and he didn¡¯t ask questions. While it didn¡¯t make me happy to realize that the kid I¡¯d seen had been torn apart, I assumed the message meant for Agares was somewhere in the mess. It wasn¡¯t hard to guess what had happened, these mobs had been under Bael¡¯s control, and when he died, they¡¯d reverted to instinct.
My sword came out the next instant, accompanied by the ring of xanthium. The free wyvern didn¡¯t waste any time in coming for me. It had more than enough room to spread its wings, getting itself off the ground with a few beats of the massive, membraned limbs. It wasn¡¯t trying to fly, more of a controlled glide that would end with its mouth clamped around my head. I stepped forward under its lunge, jabbing up with my sword, and the blade entered smoothly, ripping it open.
Its momentum carried it over me, and the wyvern slammed into the wall beside the opening to the stair. The wound to its throat and belly was gruesome, blood and organs already spilling out as it rolled to get back on its thumbs. Its eyes, glossy black marbles set on either side of its ghastly maw, locked onto me, and it leaped again.
With a cross stroke, I severed the top half of its jaws, before it could ram into me. My armor kept me from harm, and I was strong enough to push it off. The wyverns seemed massive, but that was mostly their wings. It might have weighed around five hundred pounds, which was a lot in general, but well within my shoving capacity.
I made sure it was dead by driving my blade into what remained of its skull.
¡°My lord?¡± The vizier said, his voice trembling, and his face pale.
¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± I said, ¡°we just need to get Boja¡ªuh, Orobas. He can fix this.¡± I considered the vizier for a long moment before telling him where to find the demon. The man was either trustworthy or not, and swearing to me before outing his colleagues suggested he¡¯d picked a side.
Zerath was happy to have a task that got him away from the aery as quickly as possible.
¡°As you command,¡± he sketched a bow before rushing down the stairs, leaving me to wipe off my sword on one of the creature''s wings.
The remaining mobs eyed me warily, flexing their wings and scraping their claws along the stones where they were chained. Despite their attitudes, I didn¡¯t feel as antagonistic toward these beasts as I would have toward zombies or trolls. They seemed like animals, big and ferocious, but not inherently malevolent. If they were used to carry messengers, they had to be trainable on some level.
The biggest wyvern hissed at me, opening a cavernous maw to reveal multiple rows of triangular teeth as threatening as any Great White shark¡¯s.
¡°Hey there buddy,¡± I said. ¡°Chill out.¡±
It closed its mouth and glared at me.
Bojack arrived a few minutes later with Zareth at his heels, and approached each wyvern in turn, speaking to them in the guttural tongue of the aychar. I had to check if there were any books written in that language that I could absorb because for now he just sounded like a growling hippopotamus.
Previously, when I had seen him take control of mobs, it had required little more than a look or a word. But the wyverns seemed more independent-minded. They hissed at him, gnashed their teeth, and strained against their chains. Still, after a few minutes of literal horse whispering, they had all given in.
¡°They remember the voice of Bael.¡± He said, coming to my side. ¡°The taivas are cunning, and I think they sense his blood on you.¡±
¡°I thought you took control of all the monsters in the fortress already.¡± I gestured to the spilled blood and human remains scattered around the aery. ¡°This shouldn¡¯t have happened.¡±
¡°We have more handlers,¡± Zareth said helpfully. ¡°These can be replaced.¡±
¡°That¡¯s not the point,¡± I shot him a glare, though the effect was surely lessened by the fact that my eyes were hidden behind a visor. ¡°We can¡¯t put people in danger like this.¡±
Zareth gazed at me for a long moment, his expression blank, before inclining his head,
¡°Apologies, my lord. Of course, I grieve for them, I am merely speaking to expedience. Your errand will not be delayed.¡±
He didn¡¯t sound like he was grieving, but I supposed a counselor of the Dark Lord of Mount Doom wouldn¡¯t necessarily be the most sympathetic person around. He certainly hadn¡¯t shed any tears over his colleagues. Either that or it had never behooved him to express sympathy before. Kevin and Bael wouldn¡¯t have cared about these people¡¯s lives except in terms of resource management.
¡°Fine, get us a messenger. I¡¯ll clean this up.¡±
Zareth looked a tad scandalized at the suggestion that I would do the cleaning, but he rushed off to do what I asked, and I started harvesting. Wyvern skin came up in swathes, followed by meat and bone. I could have harvested the human remains as well, but I stopped myself. Whoever they had been, they deserved a burial.
¡°I will return to my watch,¡± Bojack said, seeing that I was occupied.
¡°You didn¡¯t answer my question.¡± I tucked the coins I¡¯d collected into my pack. Monster meat had never been useful, but you never knew when a material would come in handy.
Bojack shrugged. ¡°This is the first occasion I have had call to hold so many lesser entities under my sway, it requires immense focus, and these beasts are restive. They will not break from my will again.¡± He paused as if considering whether to tell me more, then nodded to himself. ¡°They should recognize your authority as well.¡±
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It was the first evidence I¡¯d gotten that there were limits to the extent of a demon¡¯s control over the mobs. I filed the observation away and looked from one side of the aery to the other. There were five more wyverns, a resource as valuable as any tokens in my backpack.
¡°Your predecessor has been trying to mine the diamonds with his hands,¡± Bojack said. ¡°There is no sign of progress. Still, we are not in a position to leave him unobserved.¡±
¡°I know,¡± I said. ¡°Go watch him. How long before more demons show up?¡± He hadn¡¯t given me a clear answer before.
¡°They are coming,¡± Bojack¡¯s lips pulled back from his teeth. ¡°do not doubt it. But not all of them will be trustworthy.¡±
¡°None of them are trustworthy,¡± I threw up my arms in exasperation. ¡°Jeez, you¡¯re not trustworthy, we just share mutual interests.¡±
¡°That is correct.¡± Bojack left me to wait for Zareth alone, and I approached the nearest wyvern to see how it would react to my presence. It wheezed at me but lowered its head and presented its neck in what I took to be a gesture of obedience. I patted its nose.
Its menacing appearance didn¡¯t bother me. I¡¯ve always liked monsters in principle, they had just never not been trying to kill me before.
¡°Do you have a name?¡± I asked. The creature stilled at my touch, a thin line of drool trailing from between its triangular teeth. The last Purifier achievement I¡¯d gotten had said that monsters would go out of their way to attack me, instantly marking me as an enemy of Discord, but the wyverns seemed pretty chill. That was probably Bojack¡¯s influence at work, but maybe they were just less naturally evil than some of the other mobs.
¡°You should have a name,¡± I said. ¡°How about Noivern?¡±
The wyvern shivered. Noivern was a somewhat obscure Pokemon, and I thought it sounded cool and suitably fantasy-appropriate for a monster like this. I petted its snout, and it didn¡¯t try to bite my hand off, which seemed like a good sign.
Zareth came back within a few minutes, leading a timid-looking young man in a leather outfit that reminded me of a suit for a motorcyclist. He remained a pace behind the vizier, who presented me with a small parchment, its edges adorned with elaborate curlicues that reminded me of kulu tentacles. I took it, skimming the flowing script of the note. My vizier had some top-grade calligraphy skills.
"The Dark Lord commands thee to send the lillits forthwith to Mount Doom,¡± I read.
"That''s it? You think that''s enough to get Agares to do what I want?"
Zareth bowed. "The Dark Lord has never been known for his verbosity. You are accustomed to being obeyed."
He was giving me sly lessons. I liked this guy.
¡°Is that how you use forthwith?¡±
¡°It is.¡±
I shook my head, turning to him. "Ignore the mess," I said, keeping my voice gentle. "They¡¯re under control." That might have been putting too much trust in Bojack, but they¡¯d been using the wyverns to deliver mail since long before my arrival, so presumably, this would work out.
The young man had a sharp intake of breath, his eyes darting nervously between the torso that had once belonged to a person and the wyverns that were watching him from their chains. He looked so pale that he might faint.
It was a horrifying tableau, and it should have bothered me more. Despite my time in prison, it wasn¡¯t like I¡¯d experienced a lot of hyperviolence. People got into fights, got hurt, but they hadn¡¯t been going around disemboweling each other on the yard. Maybe I¡¯d spent too much time dissecting zombies. Maybe there was something more to the taint of Bedlam than altering my eyes. Either way, coming upon the scene in the aery had barely made me blink.
Zareth passed the note to the messenger, who took it in unsteady hands. He shot a look at me as if trying to decide whether he was more afraid of me or the monsters. I didn''t blame him for being scared, I blamed myself for not getting the place properly cleaned before summoning a messenger, but he was here now.
"Make sure this gets to Agares," I told him. "Tell him it''s urgent."
The messenger swallowed visibly, nodding his head.
"Y-yes, my Lord." He approached one of the other wyverns, careful not to make eye contact, and I was surprised to see him bow before the monster and utter a short phrase in the language of demons. It didn¡¯t sound the same as when Bojack spoke that way, there was no magic behind the words, but the wyvern responded by presenting one of its legs to be unchained.
The messenger produced a key and stepped beneath the wing of the beast to unlock its manacle. Zareth was tense beside me, understandably so, given what he¡¯d seen scant minutes before, but the wyvern didn¡¯t attack. Instead, it bent its head to the ground and allowed the young man to attach a thin harness that had been hanging from the wall beside the entrance. He worked swiftly and had soon mounted. A precarious perch if I¡¯d ever seen one, but the mob took his weight without complaint. He said something else in the demonic tongue, and it flapped its great wings, rising in a circular path until it disappeared over the lip of the silo high above.
Zareth sighed in relief.
¡°Nothing to worry about,¡± I said. ¡°Orobas calmed them down.¡±
¡°Of course, my lord, it is merely that¡I had never seen them so wild before.¡±
¡°It wasn¡¯t pretty,¡± I agreed. One of the wyverns was edging toward a severed hand, its chains preventing it from snapping it up. Feeding them humans would have been a step beyond the pale, but mobs had no problem eating mobs. I reconstituted a slab of wyvern meat and tossed the slick red hunk to Noivern.
Its head jerked, its mouth opening and shutting, swallowing the piece whole.
¡°Do me a favor, Zareth,¡± I said. ¡°Get someone to collect these bodies and give them a burial.¡±
Zareth¡¯s face colored with surprise, and he bowed deeply to cover it.
¡°Of course, as you wish.¡± He rustled away.
Noivern had a tremendous appetite. Chunk after chunk disappeared into its maw, and the other wyverns grew agitated as they saw him being fed while they remained unrewarded. After the fourth portion, Noivern gave a birdlike trill, clearly pleased with the situation, and I got a ding.
| Journal |
Quests |
Notifications |
Materials |
Crafting |
| Though it has taken you far longer to do so than even the most pessimistic estimate would allow, you have unlocked a new skill: Tamer. By feeding and caring for beasts, you can convert otherwise dangerous animals into helpful companions. Not all monsters can be tamed, but you¡¯ll have to discover the ins and outs for yourself. Good luck! A world of potential allies awaits you. |
Sure enough, my Skills log had a new line beneath Miner and Artisan. Tamer was at level one, and already showing progress toward advancement. I looked more closely at Noivern and saw that his, I was thinking of him as a ¡°he¡± now, eyes had lightened a few shades; closer to green than to black.
I switched to feeding the other monsters, going down the line until they¡¯d devoured all the meat coins I had on me. There was no noticeable change in their appearance or further notifications, but I got the sense that they were looking at me differently now. While I¡¯d never gone out of my way to test for a taming mechanic, it wasn¡¯t like I hadn¡¯t fed animals before. The harpies had eaten food from me, and I¡¯d briefly had a horse, but none of that had triggered the skill.
Did it only work on mobs, and then, only certain mobs? Not natural animals. I was going to have to try to find a dog. I had no choice.
It was only after I was out of meat that I realized Zareth had returned to the entrance.
¡°What do they usually eat?¡± I asked.
¡°Offal, primarily,¡± the vizier said.
¡°Animal guts? From what? I haven¡¯t seen any cattle around the fortress. Do we have livestock here?¡±
¡°Yes, my lord. Would you like to tour the farms?¡±
While it was an interesting prospect, I wanted to be on my way as soon as possible, preferably on the back of a wyvern.
¡°How long will it be before we hear back from Nargul?¡±
¡°No more than two days,¡± Zareth¡¯s reply was immediate, ¡°as long as Agares chooses to reply directly. Perhaps even sooner, the wyverns are unmatched on the wing.¡±
I needed to be able to tell Esmelda that her father was safe, or at least what had happened to him and the rest of her people. Even then, it would also be hard for me to assert that Mount Doom was the best place to bring her and our son. A few preparations, and then I would go. Kevin had farms, what other resources did this fortress have to offer?
I turned to the vizier, who had a bundle of scrolls tucked under his arm. His cheeks were pale, and his gaze still drifted across the remnants of the carnage we had found.
He cleared his throat. ¡°The sexton is on his way to attend to the victims.¡±
¡°Good,¡± I said. It was a bare minimum effort, but at least I could say I hadn¡¯t used the bodies as feed. ¡°Show me some cows.¡±
98: My Farms (Rewrite)
Kevin had repurposed a cavern system running along Mount Doom¡¯s eastern flank for food production. Beneath the fortress, above the pens under the mountain, Zareth led me through a narrow passage that opened into a multilayered factory farm. Each broad chamber, illuminated by yellow lamps, housed a different crop or animal.
The potato room was compact, the sprouts showing above tiers of wooden shelves connected to an irrigation system. Water flowed continuously through channels encircling the rows, and I suspected the source was a device similar to my limitless thermos hidden in the walls.
A farmer in a linen tunic and a straw hat moved among the planters. She stopped dead when she saw us enter the chamber, dropping to her knees in a bow. It hit me like a slap, Kevin had dressed his farmers as if they were Maincraft villagers.
¡°Don¡¯t mind us,¡± I said, ¡°this isn¡¯t an official inspection.¡±
The farmer glanced up, sweat glistening on her shaved head. Confusion wrinkled her brow.
¡°Please continue your work,¡± Zareth said, and we moved on.
The beet and carrot rooms were identical to the first, a hydroponic set-up supported by the odd mechanics of the Survivor System. The crops wouldn¡¯t grow at super-speeds unless Kevin made a habit of hanging out down here, but it was still a magical greenhouse.
¡°Do the workers handle the planting and harvesting?¡± I asked Zareth, keeping my voice low to not further confuse the Dargothians managing their assigned sections. The chambers were interconnected, a minecart track weaving through the walls, and I saw someone pushing a mound of wheat. The sound of the squeaking wheels was an unexpected reminder of Bedlam.
¡°Of course,¡± Zareth said, his sandals clopping as we walked. ¡°The farms are sufficient to support the population of the mountain while being tended by mortal hands. I can produce the yield records for you if you would like.¡±
¡°No thanks, I¡¯ll take your word on that.¡± My statement seemed to please him, though it had come more from disinterest than trust.
I was wondering about the lack of automation. In the game, redstone devices could be arranged so that some crops continued to produce indefinitely without the need for villagers. It would have surprised me if Kevin hadn¡¯t invested some time in reproducing those builds, and the melon room did not disappoint.
A narrow platform of vines with just enough room for a melon to mature before it was smashed by one of the pistons placed above each patch. Realistically, it shouldn¡¯t have worked. The piston would just crush the melon. Though most of the mechanisms of automation were hidden behind stone, I could see a hopper attached to a chest as an output.
Sure enough, the chest was half full of coins. Though I didn¡¯t wait around to watch the melons grow, it was an easy assumption to make that being hit by a piston converted them into a coin, and the coins rolled down into a cart system concealed beneath the platform. Pistons acting as a tool to convert raw materials into coins went a long way to explaining how Kevin¡¯s other factories worked.
The wheat chamber was an immense, ten feet high, arcing along the curve of what must have been the edge of the mountain. There were dozens of workers here; checking progress, planting seeds, using sickles to harvest mature stalks, and bundling them for transport all under the unremitting glow of a host of eternal torches.
Every time we passed by a farmer, they dropped to their knees. Rather than go through the whole conversation again, I just kept walking. They got back to work faster if they were ignored.
The livestock were housed in a series of barns similar to the monster pens below the mountain. Chickens pecked away at the ground in large coops, their clucking echoing throughout the chambers. A pump system provided them with water, while excess seeds from the farms were used as feed. There was no automation, real animals would have been hard to fit to the mechanics of a game that lacked collision rules. In Maincraft, you could cram unlimited pigs into a tiny pit and convert them to meat by exposing them to lava. That would have been more problematic in this case.
The cattle were free range, if you could count a tremendous enclosed cavern as free. It had grass, at least.
They were not normal cows.
The animals looked healthy enough, but there were mantles of brown-capped mushrooms sprouting from their backs. Mooshrooms? It was a passive mob from the game.
¡°Are those poisonous?¡± I asked.
¡°No, my Dark,¡± Zareth stroked his goatee. ¡°Despite their appearance, these animals are untainted.¡±
¡°That¡¯s hard to believe.¡± The mushrooms didn¡¯t have the same coloration as Bedlam Wart, they looked like something that could have appeared in any natural pasture, but the fact that they were sprouting out of the hides of these animals implied there was nothing natural about this.
¡°That looks uncomfortable,¡± I said.
As we made our way through the livestock enclosures, the cows, or rather, the mooshrooms, became gradually aware of our presence. They were big, some of their heads hanging as high as my shoulders, and close up it looked like mycelium was wrinkling their hides. Their eyes, large and placid, showed no signs of aggression or pain.
Despite their unusual appearance, they acted much like any other cow. Their movements were unhurried, ambling through their enclosure and gathering around water channels to drink. A group of them raised their heads in unison, watching us approach with clear interest, their wide nostrils flaring as they took in our scent.
One cow, even bigger than the rest, made its way towards us. It was an impressive specimen, with a towering rack of mushrooms arching from its back. It ambled forward across the grassy enclosure.
When I held out my gauntlet, it moved closer, extending its thick neck and lowering its massive head. Its wet nose pushed against the metal of my palm, snorting softly as it sniffed. The touch was gentle.
¡°They seem happy,¡± I said.
¡°Of course,¡± Zareth agreed, ¡°they are your subjects.¡±
That was a non-sequitur if I¡¯ve ever heard one.
¡°I assume there is a slaughterhouse of some kind.¡±
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¡°Naturally, is it your desire to continue the inspection?¡±
¡°No, this is enough.¡±
Zareth suggested we visit the garrison, and I saw no reason to disagree. We still hadn¡¯t discussed the fact that I wasn¡¯t Kevin, and my vizier made no move to broach the subject. The details may have been secondary to him. The Dark Lord was the Dark Lord, and Zareth wasn¡¯t interested in seeing the face behind the mask.
Mount Doom¡¯s fortress was a multilayered complex sprawled across the front face of the mountain. Constructed in tiers, with multiple walls and chokepoints, it was essentially Minis Tirith painted black. An entire town¡¯s worth of people resided behind those walls, mostly the families of the soldiers. As we made our way down to the outer wall, it gave me the impression of a bustling village, though there was no public market, and the residents kept dropping to their knees whenever they saw me.
We were going to have to put out a memo or something. Abject obeisance was not necessary, and if I was going to be spending my days here, the practice would continually interrupt everybody¡¯s day, aside from making me uncomfortable.
The main garrison was located beside the outermost gate, a tremendous set of stone doors that could only be opened by a pair of massive wheels operated by trolls. When we arrived, someone had already warned the Major that I was on a walkabout, and we were met by the same man who had questioned Bojack in the great hall.
Major Garron was a silver-haired soldier with broad shoulders and perpetual stubble. He might have been physically past his prime, but he held himself erect and clearly adhered to a training regimen as strict as that he enforced on his recruits. He wasn¡¯t decked out in stormtrooper gear today, wearing a functional tunic instead, but the epaulet on his shoulder was marked with the insignia of his rank.
¡°Your darkness,¡± he put his fist over his heart for the fourth or fifth time, ¡°We were not expecting you. May I assemble the men for your approval on the parade grounds?¡±
¡°The secondary field, if you would, Major,¡± Zareth answered for me. I¡¯d been letting him lead. If I was going to play the role of the Dark Lord, as well as bring my family here, it was important for me to know as much as possible about Mount Doom and its occupants. Letting the garrison get used to me was a good thing.
"Of course, Vizier. Immediately." Garron saluted again, then pivoted on his heel and fast-walked away.
Zareth and I stood in silence for a moment, watching the Major''s retreating figure. His back was stiff, his steps firm and precise. I felt a pang of respect for the man. His loyalty was clear, even if it was to someone else. That wasn¡¯t quite right, while there was no reason to complicate matters with explanations about the coup, I suspected that like the vizier, Garron¡¯s attachment was to the throne, not the man who sat on it. In the minds of my subjects, there was no separation between the two.
"The first public act of this new phase in your rulership," Zareth broke the silence, though his words were barely above a whisper. He was not speaking to the Dark Lord but to the man beneath the helmet. "Do you have any questions as to what is expected of you?."
I did, indeed. "What do I normally do in situations like these?"
Zareth''s lips twitched in what could have been a smile. "Nothing too taxing, my lord. Stand tall, as you are, a symbol of the might and invincibility of our nation. They will not expect an oration.¡±
I nodded, falling into step beside him as we followed the path Major Garron had taken. "And after the inspection?"
"We can meet with the other officers if you wish,¡± Zareth said, his hand brushing over a sheaf of scrolls he carried. ¡°Or visit the storerooms or the stables. I am completely at your service, though being the only acting vizier, several clerical matters are pending my attention. Most of what occurs in the fortress is beneath the interest of our Dark Lord, if you would forgive my impertinence for saying so.¡±
¡°You have my permission to find yourself some help.¡±
¡°Thank you,¡± he said, inclining his head, ¡°I will draw from among the scribes.¡± It was risky to rely so much on one man, but the last thing I wanted was to get bogged down in a bureaucratic day job. General management of the fortress was not my priority right now.
The training field was on the other side of the second wall, a flat arena of white stone with a dark pillar flying the flag of Dargoth in each corner. There were already soldiers pouring out of a tunnel that connected to the barracks, swiftly assuming ready positions. I threw back my shoulders, as I ascended a low stage set between two of the pillars, trying to look the part, though my armor did all of the work for me.
Zareth offered me a small, approving nod before announcing our arrival. ¡°Behold, the Dark Lord!¡±
Captain Garron echoed the announcement, his voice carrying over the field, and the soldiers straightened in their formation, their gazes locked on the mountain behind me. It took about five more minutes for the entire garrison to file out and get into position, at which point they saluted me with their spears, and Garron led them in a round of hoo-haas. This was followed by a shift in formation, going from a square to a wedge, which then spun around. They marched back and forth for a bit before returning to a square and saluting me in unison.
They were a well-disciplined group, but only about a third of them were wearing the steel plate and chain combo that I¡¯d come to think of as stormtrooper armor. The rest were in black tabards, presumably rousted out of the barracks or from non-active duty to put on a show.
I¡¯d killed hundreds of men like this while trying to save the lillits from capture. They¡¯d been soldiers for the enemy under the command of a literal demon, and I hadn¡¯t felt sorry for their fates. Now I was the one consorting with demons. These soldiers had a cushy post, here at Mount Doom, considering active conflicts were going on in the north, and there was an impending battle in the west. So many others were not so fortunate, and I was suddenly the one responsible for them.
Could I just pull our forces out of Henterfell and tell King Egard he could have the border back? The idea of leaving Godwod to his fate at the hands of a vengeful king was an appealing one. If Egard wanted to retaliate after that, he¡¯d have a hell of a time trying to cross the desert that separated our kingdoms. Bojack wanted me to expand Dargoth, but he hadn¡¯t given me any commands regarding Henterfell specifically. What would he say to pulling out of the west so we could focus on the Orkhans in the north who were actively encroaching on our territory?
The display lasted a few more minutes, at the end of which, Major Garron dismissed the men and strode over to the stage to salute me himself.
¡°Do you have any words for us, my Dark?¡±
¡°Very impressive, Captain. The fortress is in good hands.¡±
The major beamed, saluted again, and marched off after Zareth gestured to show he was dismissed.
¡°When was the last time these men had to fight to defend the mountain?¡± I asked the vizier.
¡°These men?¡± He raised an eyebrow. ¡°Never. Mount Doom has not been assaulted in living memory.¡±
Kevin¡¯s empire had been peaceful, in its way.
¡°I¡¯m going to speak with Orobas. If I need you, will you be in the tower?¡±
¡°I will,¡± Zareth bowed deeply, ¡°send for me whenever you desire.¡±
I went to check on Kevin. In a sense, taking his place as the Dark Lord had catapulted me into the endgame. If I had been playing Maincraft, it was hard to imagine where I would go from here. I could build monuments, but Kevin had already built them. Collect more resources? He already had everything that could be found on Plana. If this had been a game, I would have been at the point of considering starting a new seed. Surviving, building a shelter, crafting your way up the tech tree, that was the fun. I hadn¡¯t gotten into alchemy yet, but there had to be a brewing station around the fortress somewhere.
Of course, having material wealth wasn¡¯t the ultimate goal in life. Wealth was only useful insofar as it provided for the things that truly mattered; family, friendship, and health. The former Dark Lord had been healthy enough, but as far as I could tell, he hadn¡¯t forged any real bonds with the people around him. His relationship with the demons had been entirely transactional, and aside from that, surrounded by servants and soldiers, he had been almost as alone as he was now.
Kevin huddled in a corner of the diamond box, and Bojack watched him, as patient as a stone. That sort of thing was probably normal for a demon, though I did wonder what he was thinking about. It was weird to consider a demon¡¯s internal life, but they had to have them.
¡°Any progress,¡± I asked.
¡°No,¡± the demon chuckled. ¡°He has been crying.¡±
¡°I get that,¡± I said. Solitary was rough.
99: My Demons (Rewrite)
Beneath the soaring arches of his grand hall, the Dark Lord sat upon an obsidian throne, exuding an air of regal authority. Or that was the impression I was going for at least. Demon Prince Orobas, AKA Bojack, loomed at my right hand, while my vizier waited at the base of the steps leading up to the throne, ready to greet our visitors.
The towering doors of the hall groaned as the guards dragged them open, revealing a trio of imposing demi-humans wreathed in an eerie mist. Demons weren¡¯t banished by the sun, so one of them had to be doing the mist thing purely for dramatic effect. I could appreciate that.
Bojack and Zareth had prepped me on their arrival, so I at least knew which monster was which. The first demon had the head of a tiger, his orange and black fur as glossy and full as if he had used an entire bottle of conditioner. He surveyed the room with an intense gaze, his eyes eerily similar to my own, sizing up the guards with an arrogant sniff. The trio took their time walking down the long, empty hall to approach the throne. The doors shut as the Dargothians sealed themselves outside.
Zareth, a man on a schedule, took a step forward and addressed the visitors
.
"Who comes before the Dark Lord?" the Vizier called.
He knew who, obviously, but that was the formula.
"I am Duke Berith, master of dark waters and hunter of hidden terrors," the tiger declared in a booming voice that made Zareth¡¯s seem shrill and small in comparison.
As the echoes of Berith''s introduction faded, the second visitor moved forward gracefully, putting himself a step ahead of Berith. He was smaller than the tiger, but his long neck added a full foot of height. A cobra, his brown-gold hood unfurled. The knives on his belt, hanging without sheathes, shimmered with latent magic. Zareth''s pen was already at work, taking notes on the new arrivals.
"I am Asmodeus, the King," he announced. "Master of the metals dwelling within the dark regions of the earth.¡±
While the hood lent him a regal air, their titles were all nonsense. Status among demonkind was decided by their rank as harbingers. Aside from that, they called themselves whatever they wanted. Bojack referred to himself as a prince. He hadn¡¯t explained the reason, and it didn¡¯t make any difference to me.
The horse-man shifted beside me, restraining a snort. I couldn¡¯t help but notice that both the newcomers had used the word ¡°dark¡± in their self-descriptions, not that I could point fingers in that department. The third emerged from behind the other two, speed walking to get around and ahead of them, the mist coming with him to carpet the blocks of the floor. With the lively gait of the baboon he resembled, he pranced directly in front of Berith.
"President Gaap," he said with a wide, toothy grin. "Air is my dark domain. Keeper of hidden truths, whisperer of dark designs, and curator of mysteries."
Three for three, Gaap had managed to work ¡°dark¡± into his intro twice. No one had elected Gaap president, and no one had died to make Asmodeus king. Maybe they thought the appellations were humorous.
Horn tooting aside, they were formidable entities. All three of them had come into the world earlier than Bojack, but late enough to be dissatisfied with the pecking order under Kevin and Bael.
"What business brings you before the Throne of Shadows?" Zareth inquired, though he knew they were only here because Bojack had invited them.
"We come seeking an audience with the Dark Lord, offering our counsel and wisdom to aid in his reign," Berith spoke first, grabbing Gaap by one shoulder and pulling him out of his way. The ape yelped in surprise and tripped back behind the tiger.
"Indeed,¡± Asmodeus added, forked tongue flickering, ¡°when properly valued, we are most excellent servants."
The ape coughed loudly.
¡°Let the record reflect that I, President Gaap, thirty-third harbinger of the One Who Knocks, come bearing the most knowledge and wisdom and power to lay at the feet of the Dark Lord. More than anybody¡±
Berith growled, flashing his teeth at the other demon. "Dark Lord, we have come to offer our allegiance and aid. However, in return for our acknowledgment of your authority, we seek concessions."
Zareth was the only other human allowed to remain in the hall for this meeting. He already knew that I wasn¡¯t the original Dark Lord, but as far as the rest of Mount Doom was concerned, Kevin had just gotten a new suit of armor. The demons, on the other hand, all needed to make fresh
bonds with me before they could even be remotely trusted, as this trio seemed game to do. Bojack had sorted through his contacts and picked the names he believed would be most open to his proposal. Four harbingers were only a fraction of the total, but apart from one major stronghold in the north, they tended to work alone or in pairs. Four, and one Survivor, would be enough to hold our own for now.
The demons came to the base of the steps, ignoring Zareth. Asmodeus raised his serpent¡¯s gaze to me.
"Our cooperation will prove invaluable, but we cannot be bought with trifles.¡±
Gaap didn¡¯t say anything, but his grin faltered as he touched the edge of the light of the Everburning Torches that now lined the dais. The Shadowbane enchantment wasn¡¯t strong enough to stop a demon in its tracks, but it would make them uncomfortable.
Bojack was hiding the effect the light had on him, but he had confirmed that it taxed him mentally and physically to be as close to the enchanted torches as he was.
I leaned forward in my seat. "I understand your position. We are willing to offer you the sixth, seventh, and eighth seats, respectively.¡±
The demonic power structure loosely translated to the feudal system of a king handing out territory to dukes and counts and so on. The first ten slots were the equivalent of duchies, and therefore the most prized. Up to now, every demon had been assigned a seat on a first come first serve basis. Bael had been the original harbinger, or at least the only original that lasted this long. He¡¯d made the deal with Kevin and kept himself on top of the hierarchy ever since.
That was Bojack¡¯s place now, and if these guys agreed to what we were offering, it meant they were all jumping the line by at least twenty spots from where they had been in the original ranking.
¡°It¡¯s not enough,¡± Berith declared. ¡°I demand the second seat.¡±
¡°I should be second,¡± Asmodeus hissed, ¡°my powers exceed his.¡±
Gaap glanced between the other two, Bojack, and myself. I could almost see the gears turning behind his wide, wild eyes. ¡°I accept your offer, the sixth seat will be mine.¡±
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¡°Ridiculous,¡± Berith growled at the ape again. ¡°We have accepted nothing.¡±
¡°Welcome to the fold,¡± I told Gaap. ¡°You will be given one of the towers in this fortress to make your own, as well as the rights to a supply of lesser entities suited to your new station. Zareth will be able to show you your new territory when we retire to the war room, though it may have to be taken from one of the other demons before you can claim it officially.¡±
The ape demon bounced on the balls of his feet, his grin returning. He was wearing iron armor scratched with seals, as well as a long cape, which he swept around him in a dramatic bow after my announcement.
¡°Thank you for your generosity.¡±
¡°Unacceptable!¡± Berith took a step toward the throne, then hesitated as he felt the sting of Shadowbane against his skin. He dressed like a barbarian, wearing leathers and furs, with a broad-headed ax strapped to his back. Instead of more weapons, there was a set of water skins and gourds at his hips, which struck me as an odd accouterment for a demon. ¡°I came before Gaap, there can be no question.¡±
¡°The seventh and eighth seats are still available,¡± I said, keeping my tone level.
¡°What of the second seat? The third? Who have you given them to? I see no other demons.¡±
¡°You came here in good faith,¡± I said, ignoring his question, ¡° so if you choose to refuse my offer, you will be allowed to leave. But consider it carefully, because this is the best deal you¡¯re going to get. Mount Doom is mine, and others have already agreed to support me.¡±
That wasn¡¯t true, but Bojack had insisted we keep the best seats open to tempt the bigger players, and it was the right move. The demons who already ruled cities wouldn¡¯t give up their privileges just because there was a new sheriff in town. We wanted the less influential demons to rush to swear allegiance because they knew they could better their positions, but the choicest appointments and territories had to be held back for when we needed a bigger bargaining chip.
On one level, none of this mattered to me. The end goal was executing every one of these monsters and ridding the world of Bedlam¡¯s taint. But as long as we were here playing Bojack¡¯s game, we had to play it right.
Though Berith didn¡¯t like what he was hearing, he wasn¡¯t stupid. Advancement was advancement, and this was the first shot he¡¯d ever had of being at the big table. He bowed his head.
¡°Very well, though you will soon see that I am worth far more¡¡±
¡°I will take the seventh,¡± Asmodeus interjected, ¡°should it please my lord.¡±
He was a snake in more ways than one. Berith rounded on him, ready to draw his ax then and there. ¡°How dare you? It is mine.¡±
While I did want to reward a willingness to cooperate, it did seem like a dick move to let the snake win when Berith had been in the middle of an acquiescence speech.
¡°I don¡¯t care which of you is seventh and which is eighth.¡± There wasn¡¯t much difference in the allotment, and the territories the positions would eventually entail were of a similar size. This was just a status squabble between two demons. ¡°I will accept both your oaths, and you will accept equal allotments for the time being. Your seats will be assigned according to which of you proves the better servant in the coming days.¡±
¡°Very well,¡± Asmodeus hissed, and Berith tensed. He had to be smart enough to understand that if he complained, I would just give the seventh seat to his rival for being more cooperative. There was murderous intent in his glare when he answered, but it was directed at Asmodeus, not at me, which was perfectly fine.
¡°You will come to see my worth,¡± the tiger said, ¡°one way or another.¡± A little ominous for my tastes, but it would do.
¡°Orobas,¡± I commanded, ¡°present the oathblade.¡±
I¡¯d made a new one according to the demon¡¯s instructions. It was a sword, rather than a dagger, crafted with meta-materials and set with a diamond the size of an egg at the center of its crossguard. They could have made bargains with him instead of with me, but Bojack seemed to want me to have as many direct ties with other demons as possible, which aligned with his broader aim of bringing me willingly into the dark side.
I still had to follow his orders, so it didn¡¯t make a difference to him if the other harbingers were technically under my command.
The sword had been enchanted with Unbreaking using Kevin¡¯s massive table in the forge, and it was as strong as I could make it. The formula had been simple, following the arrangement of a sword of any material on a crafting grid, with the addition of a diamond in one corner and cerulium in the other.
Bojack descended the steps and presented the blade to Gaap, who pressed his palm into the tip until it drew blood.
¡°I, President Gaap, hereby swear upon the oathblade to offer my allegiance in exchange for the privileges and rights of the sixth seat. I shall lend my counsel and strength to uphold the empire''s dominion over Dargoth and beyond. My loyalty is steadfast, my powers at your command."
The diamond pulsed, beating like a heart as he spoke, flashing brighter for a moment when he finished. The other two followed up in the same fashion, though the phrasing was a little different to accommodate the fact that they hadn¡¯t been promised a specific position yet. Zareth took notes while they talked.
My side of the oath was simple. I promised to grant them the resources and privileges afforded by their new ranks as long as they served me faithfully. Nothing about bringing on the end of the world. They assumed I was already on board for that, or maybe they didn¡¯t care. Plana had been in a stalemate for centuries, and the demons had to be almost as derelict in their duties as Kevin had been.
We moved the meeting to the war room after that, and Zareth went over details with them, pointing out the areas on the main map that they were ostensibly going to rule. There was a lot more to Dargoth than there had seemed to be on the march in. Mount Doom and Nargul were located in its most desolate territories. At some point, I would assign a demon to have dominion over the Wastes, as that region had been freed up with the death of Beleth, but it wasn¡¯t prime real estate.
They wanted cities and fortresses to call their own, and we were going to have to oust the current rulers to give them what they wanted. By handing out these seats, I was effectively declaring war on the demons that had held those positions under Kevin, but I¡¯d already thought about that.
If everything went the way I wanted, Dargoth was going to expand to the north. The orkhans had to be dealt with, and that meant there were going to be new territories to dole out in exchange for cooperation in the war effort. I hadn¡¯t memorized the names of the demons we were going to be negotiating with, that¡¯s what viziers were for, but if they were clever, they would see what way the winds were blowing and get on board while favorable offers were still on the table.
From what Bojack had told me, we were unlikely to face much of a united front. The most powerful demons usually had two or three of lower rank working for them for scraps, and the rest were all out for themselves, so I didn¡¯t need a true majority to be the strongest party.
It was hard to pay attention to the conversation now that my part had been played. It had been almost two days since we sent a messenger to Nargul, and so far, there had been no reply. I¡¯d spent the time making finishing touches to the cube and touring the fortress. When the response came, I needed to be here, but if it took much longer, I was grabbing Noivern and flying to my spawn point anyway.
The trip had already been delayed longer than it should have been. If Bojack was lying about Esmelda and my son, I didn¡¯t know what I¡¯d do. A part of me was afraid of learning the truth. After all this time, knowing the compromises I had made, would she even still want to see me?
Zareth had been unable to explain Kevin¡¯s fascination with the lillits, and my predecessor had refused to talk to me since being confined. They were operating and maintaining his Eternal Engine, which, from how it had been described to me, was just a train that never stopped moving based out of Nargul. Why he had needed the lillits specifically to do this wasn¡¯t clear, but I would find out soon enough.
If I could trust someone other than Bojack to watch Kevin, things would have been easier, but I wasn¡¯t ready to pass that duty onto any of my new vassals.
So far, it didn¡¯t seem like there had been any suicide attempts, so he at least believed he was stuck, but there was no way for me to be one hundred percent sure a respawn wouldn¡¯t drop him outside of his cell. Maybe he thought the demons would rescue him. Maybe they would.
I hadn¡¯t made any progress with the Storage Ring either. Holding it over a fire hadn¡¯t caused any new words or clues to appear in glowing letters on its surface. Dripping blood onto it hadn¡¯t had any effect other than making it slippery. I guessed that there was a ritual or diagram of some kind involved in the attunement process, but I hadn¡¯t stumbled across any instructions while raiding Kevin¡¯s supplies.
The conversation paused when there was a knock at the door to the war room. I opened it myself and was met with a nervous-looking scribe bowing and making apologies for the interruption. Behind him was the messenger.
100: My Return to Sender (Rewrite)
¡°You may go,¡± I said, dismissing the scribe. She bowed sharply and hustled off down the dimly lit corridor. Turning back to the war room, I gave a command.
¡°Continue without me.¡±
Zareth bowed in acknowledgment, seemingly unperturbed at the prospect of being left alone with three demons.
¡°Walk with me,¡± I said, beckoning to the messenger. He looked like he''d had a rough time since I''d seen him last. His eyes were deeply shadowed, and a fresh cut marked his face, vivid red against his dusky skin. I walked down to the entrance hall of Bael¡¯s tower and told the guard to step outside. It was just us and the gargoyles.
The messenger''s hands trembled, his lips quivering as if he was afraid I was about to order his execution.
¡°What happened?¡± I demanded, harsher than I¡¯d intended to be. The kid hadn¡¯t done anything wrong.
¡°Agares¡¡± the young man stammered, ¡°he asked me to deliver a response.¡± His eyes darted as if searching for escape.
¡°Just give it to me,¡± I said, trying to moderate my tone. This response was all I¡¯d been able to think about for the past two days, and now I was on edge.
¡°It¡ it isn''t written, my lord.¡± It was almost a plea.
¡°Tell me.¡±
His short-cropped hair slick with sweat, the young man unhitched an oilskin pack from his back, his movements awkward and hesitant.
¡°Forgive me, my lord.¡± He untied the pack, and what hit me first was the smell. Decay; a nauseating, pungent odor that suddenly filled the chamber. I took the pouch from his trembling hands and looked inside.
The demon had sent me a head. The head of a lillit, its lifeless eyes staring, mouth agape. It wasn''t anyone I recognized, the casual victim of a cruel master, caught in the heartless games of kings. My throat tightened, but I forced myself to breathe. Anger, hot and primal, rose from my belly and filled my head until it was hard for me to see.
I closed the pack, my hands steadier than I felt. My voice went flat.
¡°What did he say?¡±
The messenger swallowed hard, his eyes wide and white. He wasn¡¯t afraid of what he¡¯d seen, I realized, he was afraid of me. But I couldn¡¯t bring myself to say anything to alleviate his fear.
¡°Duke Agares said that he was happy to comply with your request¡¡± he swallowed. ¡°And that he would be delivering the rest of the lillits this way unless you came to Nargul to command him otherwise.¡±
The words hung in the air as I felt the blood drain from my face. My anger wasn¡¯t gone, but it felt as distant as if it were a separate entity hovering just outside of a body that had gone numb.
¡°Thank you for your service,¡± I said. ¡°Did the wyvern give you any trouble?¡±
¡°No, my lord.¡± The young man bobbed his head, unsure of what I was getting at, but I wasn¡¯t getting at anything, my mouth was just running on automatic. I waved toward the door, and he took that as his sign to leave.
I was in the war room again, and I couldn¡¯t remember climbing the stairs to get there. That wasn¡¯t a good sign. It wasn¡¯t like I had blackouts, I could just get so deep into my head sometimes that my body went on autopilot and I didn¡¯t notice what was going on around me.
¡°Bojack,¡± I said, ¡°we need to talk.¡±
The other demons looked confused, and Bojack¡¯s ears flattened in annoyance as he crossed the room. ¡°What was that?¡±
¡°I¡¯m going to go kill Agares.¡±
He stopped midstep. The room was silent. ¡°Perhaps we can discuss this privately.¡±
¡°Nothing to discuss. Agares knows about me, and he¡¯s using the lillits as hostages.¡± Hildar¡¯s message had never left Mount Doom, but there must have been someone else to pass the information. ¡°I need you to watch the prisoner while I¡¯m gone. The new guys are coming with me.¡± I looked past him to the demonic trio watching us with varying degrees of interest. Gaap was grinning, which may have just been his way of hiding his true thoughts, and Berith was gazing at me with narrowed eyes. Asmodeus had closed his hood, his face too reptilian to reveal any inner feelings.
¡°This will be a good exercise for them, see where they¡¯re at.¡±
Bojack crossed his arms. ¡°Why?¡±
I was still holding the pack, so I handed it to him. Bojack looked inside and sighed. He wasn¡¯t upset by what it contained, of course, just the knowledge that this was going to make me harder to manage. He lowered his voice.
¡°I could insist you remain.¡±
¡°That would be inconvenient for both of us,¡± I said, brushing past him. ¡°Zareth, I need a tactical summary of Nargul. It¡¯s layout, and the monsters I¡¯m going to find there.¡±
Zareth stepped around the map table and gave a deep bow. ¡°As you wish, my lord,¡± he said, not missing a beat. ¡°Nargul is generally considered the heart of Dargoth. Its towers and fortresses are crafted from black iron, obsidian, and stone. Much of the construction was completed by mortal laborers, of course, but your predecessor spent years overseeing the process, laying the foundations with his own hand.
It is home to numerous mines, and the Eternal Engine, of course, which circles it night and day. Agares resides in the Dread Keep at the heart of the city.¡±
He paused, it was the first time he¡¯d ever openly referred to the fact that there had been a Dark Lord before me, and I wondered if he was just realizing that he¡¯d done so.
¡°I can collect the appropriate records for your review, but in short, the city''s defenses are daunting, and its gates are reinforced by runes. There are three entrances, each guarded by a battalion of five hundred soldiers, and scores of watchtowers manned by crossbowmen. Inside the city, there is a standing army of five thousand men, and easily as many lesser entities under Agares¡¯s control.
The men are sworn to you, of course, but if it comes to a public confrontation, Agares may be able to convince them that you are not the master they know. They will have served the demons all their lives, while many have never personally seen their Dark Lord.¡±
The numbers didn¡¯t mean much to me, I wasn¡¯t as if I was planning on engaging them in a mass battle.
¡°What about the other demons, how many are there?¡±
¡°A moment,¡± Zareth said, walking to a shelf along the wall and quickly retrieving several scrolls. He carried them to a bare table further in the room and unrolled the first one, revealing a map of the city in question. I approached to examine it as he consulted one of the other scrolls. Nargul
was as he described, and even in two dimensions, it was obvious that it had been designed with defense in mind. There was a second wall around the heart of the city, encircling what had to be the Dread Keep. If the scale was accurate, the structure would be the size of a small mountain.
¡°Astaroth and Forneus serve under Agares,¡± Zareth said, looking up from the scroll. ¡°Both of them likely remain within the city to aid in its administration.¡±
¡°What do you think?¡± I asked, rounding on the trio of demons that had sworn allegiance to me less than half an hour ago. ¡°You know those names, are you as strong as they are?¡±
Berith actually purred. ¡°I could kill them both myself.¡±
Asmodeus extended his hood again, giving Berith a sidelong glance before he answered me.
¡°They are not foes to be taken lightly, but I would consider myself a match for either one. Agares is another matter, he is the second harbinger of the One Who Knocks. He is older than us, and his
magic runs deep.¡±
¡°I¡¯m going to be dealing with Agares myself,¡± I said, ¡°but I can¡¯t go in worrying about fighting more than one demon at a time. What are their elemental affinities?¡±
Bojack shook his head, his mane swaying. ¡°This is too reckless. Agares and I share an affinity for earth. I could counter him, but I will not be there to help you.¡±
¡°So he can do everything you can do?¡±
¡°More than him,¡± Berith said, sneering, and Bojack bristled, but didn¡¯t disagree. Bael had been powerful enough to take on Bojack and Vepar together, and I had to assume that Agares was operating at that level as well.
¡°Where am I likely to find him? Does he live in the keep?¡± As far as I knew, demons never slept, so catching him in bed wasn¡¯t an option, but I would prefer sneaking in and taking him by surprise to announcing ourselves at the gate.
¡°Agares takes an active role in governing the city,¡± Zareth said. ¡°It is my understanding that he regularly holds court during the day, much as a human king would do.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t suppose that you guys have some kind of trial-by-combat tradition, do you? Can we just call him out for a duel?¡±
Gaap cackled at the suggestion, and Bojack snorted.
¡°He would be under no obligation to agree to single combat. If you demand an audience as a supplicant he would be happy to accept, that would certainly suit his ego, but you would be facing him without us, surrounded by entities and guards.¡±
¡°Do you think he would be open to bargaining with me?¡± I had no intention of allowing Agares to continue his rule, but he didn¡¯t have to know that until after I¡¯d stabbed him a few times.
Bojack sighed. ¡°Our kind is always open to negotiation, but Agares is cunning, and you will not find him unprepared.¡±
¡°If I kill him for you,¡± Berith began, ¡°will you promise to grant me his seat in return?¡±
¡°Agares would crush you to dust,¡± Asmodeus hissed.
Berith spun, growling from deep in his throat. ¡°Do you require a demonstration of my strength?¡±
¡°You are not above me anymore,¡± Asmodeus said, showing his fangs.
The tiger took a pace closer to the snake, preparing to draw his ax.
Asmodeus was physically less imposing than the other demon, but there was a fancy chain shirt beneath his tunic and a pair of wavy Kris daggers at his hips, and I had a feeling he knew how to use them. ¡°Our rivalry need not stretch on,¡± he said softly, ¡°why not decide it between ourselves when the moon rises?¡±
¡°I forbid it,¡± I said, seeing Berith was about to draw. ¡°I forbid you to fight amongst yourselves. You are sworn to me, and I need you both alive for this.¡±
Asmodeus closed his hood, and Berith stalked to the other side of the room to cool off. Gaap had been grinning through the entire conversation, and it occurred to me that apes didn¡¯t actually smile like people did. Smiling was a sign of aggression for them.
¡°What part would you have me play?¡± He asked, ignoring the other two.
¡°A diversion,¡± I said. ¡°I want you to march to the front of the city with an army at your back. Get the attention of the defenders so I can sneak in with Berith and Asmodeus.¡±
¡°You want me to attack Nargul?¡± There was a dangerous light in his eyes, the prospect seemed to excite him.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
¡°No, I want you to make them think you might attack. Demand entrance, demand to be acknowledged, say you speak with the authority of the Dark Lord, that sort of thing. The bigger the scene, the better. The more of the defenders that are focused on you, the fewer people I might have to hurt. If Agares comes out to the walls to deal with you, then at least we know
where he is and we can keep an eye on him until the moment¡¯s right.¡±
I looked at Zareth. ¡°We¡¯re leaving in the morning. I want you to help these three make an army out of the monsters in the basement. Pick out a few officers and the soldiers that should go with them to manage the supplies, they won¡¯t be expected to fight.¡±
My eyes fell to the stained pouch hanging from Bojack¡¯s huge, hairy hand. I took it back from him and gave it to Zareth.
¡°Whatever you do for soldiers that have died in battle. Please do that for him. Full honors. Twenty-one gun salute. I don¡¯t know. Make it nice.¡±
¡°Twenty-one gun salute?¡± Zareth¡¯s brows furrowed.
¡°Forget that part,¡± my head was pounding, and I felt a little manic. It was hard to organize my thoughts. ¡°Just honor him.¡±
¡°Of course,¡± my vizier bowed, and I walked out of the room with Bojack close at my heels, even gloomier than usual.
¡°This is rash,¡± he said.
¡°Yep. It¡¯s a snap decision, and not all of my snap decisions have been good ones, sure, but I¡¯m the Dark Lord now, so this is what we¡¯re going with. That¡¯s what you wanted right, me committing to the role?¡±
He made a rumble deep in his chest, not quite disagreeing.
There had to be a smarter way to go about this, but I was too worked up to think it through. The lillits needed to be out of Nargul, and Agares needed to die. There was a straight line through those two objectives. It looked like the master of Nargul had wanted to make a point and show he knew I wasn¡¯t Kevin and couldn¡¯t be ordered around.
That point had been made, but he¡¯d chosen the wrong way to go about it. I wasn¡¯t going to be intimidated, and I wasn¡¯t going to let him hold the lillits hostage. Seventy-two demons needed to come into the world to make the way for the One Who Knocks, but Agares didn¡¯t have to be one of them.
I was supposed to expand Dargoth¡¯s influence to allow more demons to spawn, but killing Bael had opened up a spot, so there was a chance that another demon would slip through the veil any night now. Killing Agares wouldn¡¯t set back the cause, because any demons that were killed could be replaced. Bojack had been pretty cagey about how all of that worked, but he had so far refrained from giving me a general order not to kill demons.
¡°There is too much that still has to be done here.¡± He said. ¡°The prison is not fully secure, and Mount Doom will be vulnerable to assault without you to defend it.¡±
He wasn¡¯t wrong. There was a chance that Agares had sent the head to goad me out of Mount Doom. But staying home while he sent bundles of heads to my door was not an option.
¡°You¡¯ll just have to hold down the fort until I get back. Why don¡¯t you check on Kevin, I¡¯ve got some crafting to do.¡±
I had one more idea about the Storage Ring, and it was a dud. When I tried to rename the ring on the anvil, the System refused to oblige, giving an error message about not having sufficient aetheric presence.
I doubted simply continuing to wear the ring would lead to attunement. That would have been too easy. Over the past few days, I¡¯d found myself becoming progressively more aware of its existence in an odd way. Usually, if you wore jewelry for a while, you stopped noticing it. But the ring wasn¡¯t uncomfortable, and it fit my finger fine.
This awareness was more like what allowed me to notice mobs that were hiding from me. An almost spiritual sense. I stared at the cauldron pouring acrid smoke into the sky. The lava below gave the underbelly of the column an ill-tempered, ruddy glow. I felt its warmth seeping through my armor.
There were no Storage Rings in Maincraft. You had an inventory, but it wasn¡¯t an item that gave it to you. Storage Rings were a trope in cultivation novels and xianxia, though they were also called by different names. The Survivor class wasn¡¯t Maincraft, even if it was Maincraft adjacent. There were no magic runes in the game either, and I¡¯d already run into those a few times.
My class was one version of a System that had a lot of other stuff going on with it. Other heroes had been wizards, shapeshifters, healers, and who knew what else. Kevin had killed them off, and the ring could have belonged to one of them.
What if this wasn¡¯t a crafting thing? I sat down on an anvil made of diamond and closed my eyes. The image of a dead lillit, mouth open, eyes rolled back, appeared in my mind. I let it sit there, and it slid away. Intrusive thoughts were a feedback loop. If you tried to focus too much on controlling them or let them upset you, it was adding fuel to the part of your brain that kept pumping out bad thoughts.
I¡¯d attended a variety of religious services in prison. It had been something to do. By law, they had to let any recognized religion run services. Plenty of Christian stuff, obviously, but also Buddhist groups, Wiccans, and some pretty obscure variants as well. I¡¯d tried them all.
Meditation was a helpful practice when you lived in a stressful environment. I couldn¡¯t remember the mantras, but mantras were simply a tool to help you get centered. The idea was to stop thinking and try to experience existence in the moment. In cultivation novels, characters could do a lot more than that.
Even in the real world, some people believed in ki, life energy, whatever. I¡¯d dabbled in that sort of thing when I was younger, and my conclusion had been that the sensations you experienced while practicing ¡°energy arts¡± were entirely psychosomatic. Magic wasn¡¯t real, and Taoist immortals had been old guys sipping mercury.
Except that here, magic was real.
Let the thoughts flow in and out. Demons, lillits, Esmelda. The fate of an entire world that was somehow resting on the shoulders of an ex-felon with professional experience as a sandwich artist.
Mizu had made some questionable choices.
I tried to be aware of my body, starting with my toes, and felt a tingle. That was a normal, psychosomatic response, no different from when I¡¯d been a kid reading my older brother¡¯s books on the occult, imagining I could learn to shoot energy blasts like on DBZ. Moving my mental focus, I brought the tingling feeling up through my body to my head. Nothing special there. Dumb chakra stuff. The sort of thing that convinced gullible people that acupuncture and healing crystals could cure cancer.
Deep breaths. Thoughts flow in and out. I moved my mental focus onto the ring. It wasn¡¯t a part of my body, but I could almost convince myself that I was experiencing it as an extension of myself.
This was silly. Lillits were going to die while I tried to remember a breathing method written by someone who had the sheer lack of self-consciousness to call himself a ¡°Chaos Magician.¡±
But I felt the ring, and something else, almost like there was another finger on top of my finger. A spirit finger. That was weird. Without really thinking about it, I flexed the imaginary digit, and something ridiculous happened.
A grayish, semi-transparent line of squares appeared in front of my hand, all of them filled with symbols and odd-looking numbers. When I moved my hand, the line moved with it, staying in the same relative position. I could stretch the phantom digit to touch any of the boxes, and when I did, it was highlighted. I selected the first item in the line and tried a few different motions with my hand.
A block of black bricks appeared on the platform in front of me.
That worked?
For a moment, I was stunned, still seated on the anvil and staring stupidly at the stack of bricks at my feet. Then I hopped up and got to work.
There were only nine slots in total, so the ring gave me a hot bar, not the full twenty-seven-slot inventory of a Maincraft player. That was still a lot of extradimensional space to work with. The first four boxes were taken up by building materials that were common all over Mount Doom; basalt bricks, chiseled andesite, obsidian, and sandstone. There was also a stack of torches, though they didn¡¯t appear to be enchanted with any extra effects.
The gesture that brought items out of the inventory was more subtle than tossing a coin, and though it required concentration, by the time I¡¯d run through the ring¡¯s contents, the process was already becoming second nature.
The symbols in the display were meaningless to me, and the numbers were only superficially similar to the one through nine I was used to, but it was obviously a counting system because the superscript label above the brick symbol changed every time I dropped one. Not all of the items in my inventory had a superscript like that. The last three slots were taken up by a crossbow, a pickaxe, and a glass orb. Only one slot was empty. He must have used that one for the buster sword that was currently residing in his old bedroom.
When I converted a material into a coin, or an item into a medallion, it automatically sorted itself into an available inventory slot. Rummaging through my pack, I found that any resource unit could be swiped into the ring, but tokens, medallions, and cabochons were all treated as different kinds of items than regular coins, refusing to share a slot.
Each slot could contain up to eighty-one units of whatever it was holding as long as they were identical. The alien numbering system was a little annoying, but it wouldn¡¯t take too long to get used to it.
How this was going to help me kill Agares, I wasn¡¯t sure yet, but I was stoked.
The crossbow looked pretty scary, dark wood, with spiky designs engraved along the stock. It didn¡¯t come with ammunition, but it looked like it would take my arrows. Kevin¡¯s pick looked just like my pick, which made sense, given that he had crafted them both. The orb was more interesting.
A sphere of glass the size of a cantaloupe, with motes of light like fireflies floating within.
I used the anvil to identify all three items.
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Boltcaster
[Ironwood Crossbow]
Damage Rating: 8
Speed: Slow
Durability: 74/100
Enchantments: Piercing (III), Quick Charge (IV), Unbreaking (III)
[Quick Charge] allows you to reload 25% faster for each level of the enchantment.
[Piercing] grants ammunition a 20% chance of passing through its target to strike whatever is directly behind it. Use with appropriate caution.
Durin¡¯s Digger
[Orichalcum Pickaxe]
Damage Rating: 6
Speed: Fast
Durability: 99/100
Enchantments: Unbreaking (IV), Efficiency (IV), Fortune (II), Mending (II)
Mako Eater
[Essence Stone]
Essence Stones will draw in ambient spirit energy from the environment over time in addition to capturing additional energy from slain entities. Great for an enchanter on the go!
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The pick was an improvement over Pickle Rick, and it would be great to have a high-quality backup. Though I now had access to orichalcum, the enchantments were much harder to replace, so I could leave Pickle Rick at home and not have to worry so much about losing one or the other if I died.
While Boltcaster did a little less damage than a bow, [Piercing] was a fantastic add-on. The warning wasn¡¯t necessary. Shooting into a crowd was never a good idea unless everyone involved was a potential target, and I didn¡¯t expect my enemies to be standing in front of my allies too often.
Of the three, the Essence Stone was the best find. Kevin¡¯s sword had won me extra experience from killing monsters with its [Looting] enchantment, and it looked like the stone would act as a general purpose [Looting] effect no matter what weapon I was using. Getting bonus ambient mana was even better, depending on how quickly it accrued. It was like enchanting for free.
With limited slots to work with, I preferred to keep as much of my equipment outside of the ring as I could afford to. Caliburn was going to stay on my hip, and the crossbow came with an attachment that allowed it to hang from the other side. I¡¯d be putting arrows in the ring, as they were awkward to deal with in large numbers, and being able to have them appear in my hand was wildly convenient. The orb could stay in storage as well, as it looked fragile, though I¡¯d have to check on it to make sure it operated while in extradimensional space.
Keeping more than one slot full of rocks seemed like a waste, so most of the raw materials could be relegated to my pouches and pack, but having a full stack of torches handy was fantastic. I spent about an hour applying [Shadowbane] to as many of them as I could.
Kevin had left me with a supply of enchanted books, though not as many or as much variety as I would have liked. As I saw no reason to hoard levels before going into battle, I expended all the experience I¡¯d accrued making torches and enchanting new books.
The books were a wash, redundant or irrelevant enchantments. But after I¡¯d thrown away my last available level on a [Lure I] book, which was only good for fishing, the System saw fit to reward me.
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Quest Completed: Journeyman
After a mere decade, you have completed your one-hundredth enchantment. This calls for celebration! A new recipe has been added to your crafting log, the [Infusion Chamber]. Infusion chambers reduce the aetheric strain of enchantment and open the door to the generation of truly wondrous items.
In addition, an Enchanting dictionary has been added to your journal. Never again will you be befuddled by those squiggly lines. Enjoy.
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For my first ever completed quest, it felt anti-climactic.
Had that really been my one-hundredth enchantment? I wasn¡¯t keeping a tally, so I would trust the System on that one. Almost the entirety of the total number would be Shadowbane torches, of which I¡¯d just created an additional twenty. The Infusion Chamber had to be the proper name for the room-sized enchanting tables. As I already had access to Kevin¡¯s, as well as its twin in the base under the mine, that wasn¡¯t a huge deal, but being able to accurately select what I wanted from the randomly generated enchantments without Bojack¡¯s help was a nice bonus.
For the moment, however, I was out of juice. Though the smoke gushing out of the caldera prevented me from seeing the sky, I knew that night would soon arrive, and I was leaving in the morning.
I¡¯d been sleeping in Kevin¡¯s old room. It had been a pleasant revelation that monsters did not spawn on warpstone, which meant the corridor that led to it was safe. There was a chamber beneath the bedroom that Bael had used to collect the Dark Lord¡¯s nightly spawns.
When I had Esmelda back, we could work out different accommodations. When I had her back.
Nargul was yet another detour, but in this case, I didn¡¯t have a choice. There was no question in my mind what Esmelda would want me to do in this situation.
One more night, then one more mission, and I would find her again.
101: My Flight (Rewrite)
First thing in the morning, I checked on Kevin. Bojack was still standing in the entrance to the cube-like Edward watching Bella sleep, and the former Dark Lord was curled up under the small opening I¡¯d made in the cell for air and food drops, as far away as he could get from the waste hole.
¡°I take it you haven¡¯t reconsidered.¡± Bojack said, hearing my footsteps.¡±
¡°Nope. How¡¯s our boy?¡±
¡°Restless.¡± The demon made a noncommittal gesture. ¡°A taivas spawned, and he called it down to him. It attacked the cell, but its claws weren¡¯t strong enough to mar the diamonds.¡±
A wyvern? I rarely got those, but Kevin¡¯s spawns were probably better than mine, or worse, depending on how you looked at it.
¡°You got it under control?¡± Knowing he could influence mobs was a little unsettling, but that was why Bojack had to stay nearby.
¡°Of course.¡±
¡°Good work, keep it up. I¡¯ll see you in a few days.¡±
My vizier had done an admirable job. Surely other people were working to keep the fortress running, but I didn¡¯t know any of them, so Zareth could have all the credit. His competence was uncanny, and when things settled down, I would have to find some way to reward him for his help. A troop of soldiers with wagon loads of supplies was already waiting at the lower gates when I arrived.
¡°My lord,¡± he said, bowing, ¡°I have done as you asked.¡±
¡°I can see that. Where are the demons?¡±
¡°Still in the caverns, awaiting your order to march.¡± His expression became pained. ¡°There was some, ah, bickering over the selection of the entities, but it has been sorted out.¡±
¡°That¡¯s not surprising.¡± I had a feeling the demons would be at each other''s throats until they¡¯d settled into the new hierarchy. ¡°Tell everyone to get on the road, I¡¯ll meet them outside after I¡¯ve saddled my ride.¡±
¡°As you wish.¡± Zareth didn¡¯t ask any questions, a dark lord could get used to that kind of service. My next stop was the aery. The servants had already brought up breakfast for the wyverns, including the new addition, mostly organ meat mixed with fungus. Over the last couple of days, I¡¯d been having them let me handle the meals.
Hand-feeding a small stable of monsters that size was time-consuming, but also oddly satisfying. It was nice to be able to think of these monsters as pets rather than mobs that needed to be killed and harvested, even if they were closer to the second than the first.
They still weren¡¯t exactly friendly, but they tolerated my attention, even to the point of letting me scratch behind their ear holes. Noivern in particular responded to me better than the others, straining against his chains to greet me and even eating the offal out of my hands without trying to bite them off. The Tamer skill was up to level three.
I equipped Noivern with a harness and removed his manacle. When his wings flared out, it seemed like he might be making a break for it, but he was only stretching.
¡°That¡¯s a good boy,¡± I said. ¡°Good Noivern.¡±
His shark-like maw hung open in a yawn, revealing circular rows of blood-stained teeth with a few scraps of flesh trapped between their serrated edges.
¡°Your breath is not great, my man.¡±
Noivern made a trilling sound I would normally associate with small birds. It was kind of cute. If my armor was too heavy for him, I might have had to rethink this, but the wyverns were sturdy, and after a short charge across the aery he was able to lift off and take us in a lazy circle up and out of the silo into the open sky. I could tell he was having to work hard to get us out, but it was easier for him once we were over the mountain, and I used the reins to guide him down to where forces were gathering outside the main gate of the fortress.
We landed at the head of a column of shamblers. Berith and Asmodeus were already arguing.
Berith''s eyes flared with blue-white essence as he unslung the massive ax from his back, letting it rest by his side. "I should lead the column," he growled, his whiskers twitching with annoyance. "My presence will let Nargul know that we are a force to be reckoned with."
Asmodeus narrowed his already narrow gaze, crossing his arms as he leaned against a convenient boulder. The gleam of his wavy Kris daggers seemed exaggerated in the pale light that penetrated the everpresent storm.
"Do you think Agares will be impressed by your lustrous mane?"
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So I wasn¡¯t the only one who noticed how pretty Berith was. The tiger demon sniffed angrily, his powerful body tense with barely contained rage. "Watch your forked tongue, before I decide to remove it from your mouth."
Asmodeus slowly rose to his full height, his neck extending far enough to make him taller than his rival, his gaze never leaving Berith''s. "I watch everything, sweet Duke, no need to show such concern for me."
The nearby shamblers were getting agitated, picking up on the aggressive energy of the demons. Those in the forward line were starting to moan and jostle each other like they were at a rock concert.
I slid down off of Noivern, who took the opportunity to stretch his legs while I approached the demons. It was too early for this.
"Enough!" I shouted, silencing the demons. Even the shamblers stilled.
"Neither one of you is going to lead. Gaap is heading the army, so cede control of the mobs to him."
Berith growled in response. I looked at him, my gaze traveling down to the ax head resting on the ground. ¡°And put that up. This is getting ridiculous. Both of you are going to enter the city with me, and we aren¡¯t taking the army with us. Isn¡¯t there more honor in being the one to kill an enemy general than just standing at the head of the column?¡±
¡°Of course, my lord,¡± Asmodeus said softly, ¡°I was about to make the same point.¡±
¡°You were triggering him,¡± I raised my hands, feeling like I was dealing with children instead of ageless entities from another dimension, ¡°quit it.¡±
Berith put up his ax, turning from us and crossing his arms as if he was lost in contemplation of the horizon instead of just sulking. Asmodeus gave a slight nod, he had heard me.
"Very well," Berith conceded, his voice edged with frustration, still facing away. ¡°Gaap will head the column, as the aychar of the sixth seat should.¡±
The ape in question was conferring with the human officers, and when I told him the news, he was happy to ride a varghest to the front of our forces, a flag bearing the red eye of Dargoth attached to his saddle. Most of Bael¡¯s garrison had come out to play, including examples of every creature of Bedlam I¡¯d encountered so far. The vast majority were shamblers, but we had an entire squad of trolls pulling a couple of catapults, a smattering of chimeras, wyverns, and Voidmen, and a cavalry unit composed of what appeared to be heavily armored skeletons riding varghests.
¡°What are those?¡± I said, pointing out the riders.
Gaap giggled. ¡°Hollow Knights. The first I have ever had under my command. Very obedient, skilled warriors. You will find them useful should Agares send his men to meet us on the field.¡±
¡°This isn¡¯t going to be that kind of battle,¡± I said. But it was nice to know that we had cavalry if it did come to that. I¡¯d never had one of them spawn around me, so they must have been very rare. Though Kevin¡¯s spawns were more varied than mine, presumably, more and more of that sort of thing would start appearing the longer I played the role of the Dark Lord.
¡°You have the helm, Gaap, get everyone moving.¡±
Zerath would send another convoy of supplies a day after we left Mount Doom, but we had enough to make it to Nargul without the army having to cannibalize itself. This wasn¡¯t meant to turn into an extended siege, and based on the information my vizier had presented, we were still going to be outnumbered by the defenders by a wide margin. Flying was cool though.
Noivern and I went ahead of the army. Being active during the day supposedly weakened the wyverns, even with the cloud cover protecting them from the sun, but once my mount started soaring, it could keep up aloft for hours with little effort. Finding Nargul was as simple as following the train tracks Kevin had laid between Mount Doom and the city, but I had another stop to make first. Noivern responded to tugs on its harness to get us going in the right direction, and soon, we were within sight of Sentinel Bleak.
Most of the landmarks in Dargoth had names that could have come out of a hat full of Disney bad-guy adjectives, but at least they were easy to remember. Sentinel Bleak was a pair of towers in the middle of nowhere that marked the start of the road to Mount Doom. Bojack and I had bypassed it on our way into Dargoth, but as long as I was out and about, it was probably a good idea to make sure any garrison we came across recognized my authority.
There was a platform near the top of the eastern tower where a wyvern could land, and an attendant rushed out to meet me as soon as Noivern touched down. To avoid any confusion, I spoke first.
¡°Tell whoever¡¯s in charge here that the Dark Lord has arrived.¡±
The attendant dropped to his knees. He was wearing a light tunic and a tabard emblazoned with the red eye of Dargoth, not a bad look overall. Kevin had liked keeping everyone in uniform.
¡°As you wish, my lord. May I have your mount tended to as well?¡±
¡°Give him some water,¡± I said, ¡°but I will feed him myself.¡±
The man rushed off, and a girl dressed in the heavy leather gear of a wyvern groom rushed over with a platter of somewhat rancid-looking meat. She offered it to me with her head bowed, and I dismissed her before giving Noivern his meal by hand. His eyes seemed more expressive than the other wyverns. He didn¡¯t have eyebrows, but the skin over his brow ridges shifted as a sign of his eagerness.
The groom brought a bucket of water, and my wyvern sucked it up like a hose.
¡°Another,¡± I said.
It was only a few minutes before a man in stormtrooper armor with his helmet off appeared to give me a smart salute.
¡°Captain Ashley,¡± he introduced himself, ¡°at your service.¡± Was Ashley a guy''s name in Dargoth? Maybe it was a surname. Didn¡¯t matter. He was a handsome man, square-jawed, with light brown skin and a high and tight haircut that wouldn¡¯t have looked out of place on a marine.
¡°Nice to meet you,¡± I said, tossing the last few tidbits from the platter for Noivern to catch. ¡°We have a division approaching on the road, and they¡¯re going to be resting here when night falls. I want you to give me a summary of everything you have here, food, weapons, men. We¡¯re going to need it.¡±
He saluted again. ¡°As the Dark Lord wills.¡±
Well, that was easy.
102: My Urban Stroll (Rewrite)
Clutching Noivern¡¯s saddle, I soared above Nargul, the wind howling around my helm. The city spread beneath me, a patchwork of shadowy spires and iron-shod warehouses slick with mildly acidic rain. At my request, Gaap had summoned a storm. Of course, there was already a storm, as Dargoth was perpetually shrouded by brown-black clouds, but he had made it rain.
The droplets didn¡¯t seem to bother Noivern, but they hissed when they came in contact with my armor. They were tainted, as most everything else in this blighted land. I¡¯d neglected to ask Zareth about the water situation for a population like this. It wasn¡¯t important for the assault, but the logistics of keeping people alive in a realm like Dargoth had to be staggering.
Lights burned in the city below, and heavy plumes of smoke rose, further obscuring the sky. Torches in the windows of the towers and along the walls generated small fields of unimpeachable light, unaffected by the rain. Kevin had to have produced thousands of them to illuminate Nargul like this, the presence of their steady glow almost giving the impression of a modern city.
As Noivern and I wove through the smoke and the rain and the lower hanging clouds, I smelled burnt ozone and ash even stronger than the musk of the wyvern. Nargul was oppressive, bleak, dystopian. Kevin had designed this place, he had wanted to give it the aesthetic of a dark city in a darker land, and he had succeeded. Points for artistry.
The lights were mesmerizing, and many of them were moving, especially around the center of the city. Were people marching with torches? Were the soldiers on patrol? The lights seemed too numerous and too steady for that. The closer we flew to the center of the city, the more unease settled into my stomach. I had expected to see Dread Keep, but what was ahead of me wasn¡¯t quite right. The towers weren¡¯t where they were supposed to be, and there were railroad tracks where there should have been streets or open squares; Zareth¡¯s map was outdated.
The inner wall was there, even higher than the curtain of black stone that encircled the rest of Nargul. But behind it was something my brain didn¡¯t want to accept. It was the Dread Keep, but the moving lights weren¡¯t an army marching across its bridges and ramparts. The structure itself was moving. Towers turned, and walls shifted, entire buildings were drifting like the backs of whales on the open sea. I blinked. This wasn¡¯t a trick of the rain or the darkness of night. The Dread Keep was there, but it wasn¡¯t a single solid structure at all, it had been fragmented, and those fragments were in motion.
Noivern tensed beneath me, his broad wings beating to give us altitude. Gaap was drawing the army up to Nargul¡¯s great gate; he had already sent messengers ahead of him announcing his arrival. While the watchers on the outer wall were focused on his approach, I¡¯d assigned myself the task of scouting the city, and I didn¡¯t like what I was seeing.
There was still some distance between us and the keep, but from the heights where Noivern had taken me, I had a panoramic view of Kevin¡¯s creation. Zareth had talked about the Eternal Engine, and I had expected to see it running along a track beside the city''s walls; a toy train set writ large, the legacy of a railfan with the powers of a crafter and effectively unlimited time and resources on his hands. I hadn¡¯t been wrong, exactly, but I¡¯d underestimated the level of Kevin¡¯s commitment to this project.
He had transformed an entire castle into a locomotive.
The Dread Keep, the Eternal Engine, was a monstrosity of iron and stone. The cars of the train were the size of buildings, they were buildings, topped with battlements. The rain fell in sheets, here and there striking chimneys hot enough to convert the droplets into steam, further shrouding the air. It was a leviathan, a mythical creature; a single heaving, breathing machine, belching smoke. Heated by fires unseen. The clank and clang of machinery reached me even in the sky. At ground level, it would have to be deafening.
People were moving on top of the cars, soldiers patrolling as if they were atop the walls of a castle, which, I supposed, they were. I was so intent on the sight that I didn¡¯t even notice the other wyvern, but Noivern did. He trilled a warning below me, shifting the angle of our flight so that we were headed directly toward it. I tugged on the reins for him to take us higher, into the denser cover of the clouds, but it was too late.
Had it spawned because of my presence, or did it belong to Agares? Phantoms were hunting the skies, and I¡¯d already had to fend off a few of them, but they weren¡¯t as fast as Noivern, so we¡¯d been able to fly mostly unmolested.
The other wyvern called out a challenge, shrieking like a hawk, and veered toward us. It didn¡¯t have a rider, but as I couldn¡¯t know for sure it was one of my spawns, I had to assume it was under the control of Agares, guided by his will. As far as I knew, the demons weren¡¯t able to use the monsters they controlled as eyes and ears, at least not in the sense of being able to
possess them directly, but they were unquestionably able to communicate. Trolls and shamblers could only grunt and hoot, but I¡¯d seen Bojack ask them questions before, and he¡¯d always seemed to understand their responses. I had every reason to believe this wyvern could report back to Agares that there was a stranger in his airspace.
Noivern met the challenging call with an almost identical shriek. His wings flared, catching the wind, and our approach slowed. The other wyvern was coming towards us. Kevin¡¯s crossbow was at hand, and my own bow was ready to be called from the Storage Ring, but I didn¡¯t want to shoot it down. A few enchanted arrows would certainly do the job of taking it out of the sky, but I didn¡¯t want the thing to hit the ground looking like a pincushion. It would be as good as announcing my presence above the city.
But it had already seen us. Letting it go was not an option. Did the monsters fight amongst themselves? If they were controlled by adversarial demons, they certainly might. The second wyvern rose to match our height, and though I couldn¡¯t make out its eyes, I felt like they were locked onto me. It banked sharply, turning away from us and dropping toward the inner wall of the city.
¡°Catch it,¡± I shouted over the wind, squeezing with my knees, and Noivern shifted into high gear. I still wasn¡¯t sure how well my mount could understand me, but it certainly seemed to agree with my intent. With a mighty pump of its wings, we dove after the retreating wyvern, and I called Kevin¡¯s buster sword out of my inventory.
It was an incredibly awkward weapon, though not as heavy as it should have been, and I had witnessed firsthand how ineffective it could be when one was confined to fighting in a hallway. Out here, however, on the back of a flying beast, there was no ceiling to scrape, no wall to stop a swing. It was the perfect environment for an improbably proportioned sword.
The white gold metal of the blade caught the light of a lightning flash behind us, and a heartbeat later, the thunder covered Noivern¡¯s screech as we gave chase. The extra weight of carrying me didn¡¯t appear to be putting Noivern at a disadvantage, and we closed the gap a moment later.
Coming at the second wyvern from above, Noivern chomped down on one of its
wings in an upbeat. The buster sword was as long as a spear, so I didn¡¯t have any trouble jabbing its tip into the beast¡¯s back.
There¡¯s no such thing as a flying grapple. What ensued was a tangle of wings and claws and two gaping, toothy maws as we fell. But the second wyvern didn¡¯t have a rider to defend it, and when I stabbed it again, it let out a final piercing cry and stopped fighting. We were too low, even with the cover of darkness and the rain, I was sure that at least some of the soldiers on the inner wall would see what was happening. But it was over in another second.
Noivern released the wyvern and let it fall while he labored to ascend. I returned the sword to the ring and tried to look to see where the monster had fallen, but it was already lost in the maze of the streets below.
The scene of our struggle, and the deep wound I had given the beast, were hardly less conspicuous than a few arrows would have been. It was probably more conspicuous overall, but I chalked it up to the mistakes of a new dark lord. It was practically my first day.
Agares was sure to soon realize I was here and up to no good either way.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
The train whistled, and the sound filled the sky, echoing over the city, loud enough to hurt my eardrums. Noivern screeched in response, sounding more annoyed than pained, and I tugged on the harness to take us over the Dread Keep and to the back side of the city. The whistle didn¡¯t repeat, and I didn¡¯t think it was an alarm. Kevin liked trains, and trains whistled sometimes. There was nothing I could do about it now.
There didn¡¯t appear to be any other sentinels in the air, and I had two demons waiting for me in the quarries behind the city. When we reached them, Noivern¡¯s landing was impressively delicate.
Berith was an easy silhouette to spot, standing tall, with his arms crossed over his chest, ignoring the rain and what it was doing to the ruff of fur around his face. As I dropped to the ground, giving Noivern an appreciative pat for his good work, Asmodeus separated himself from a nearby shadow. He¡¯d blended into his environment perfectly. The snake, at least, knew how to be stealthy.
A pair of varghests were resting near Berith, they¡¯d ridden the creatures hard to come ahead of the army and around the city in time to meet me. The monster''s tongues lolled out of their long snouts as they panted, looking for all the world like a couple of lovable canines that just happened to be the size of horses and equipped with teeth that could shear through chainmail like it was chicken skin.
Berith didn¡¯t waste any time on formalities. ¡°What did you see?¡±
¡°It¡¯s basically like Zareth said.¡± I paused to roll my shoulders and stretch my back, riding a wyvern was not a leisure activity, and I was still new at it. ¡°Aside from the fact that the Dread Keep and the Eternal Engine are the same thing. That was a bit of an oversight.¡±
¡°What?¡± Berith scrunched up his face in confusion. It was actually kind of cute, being that he was basically a big cat and all. ¡°What are you saying?¡±
¡°Kevin converted the keep into a train. Did you guys not know about this? I get that Orobas was out of the loop for a while, but how did you guys not tell me about it?¡± It wasn¡¯t exactly a small project, Kevin would have spent months on the build, if not years. Zareth hadn¡¯t done anything so far to make me doubt his worth as a vizier, but this was a pretty big change for him not to have noticed, and I intended to bring it up with him as soon as we got back.
¡°This isn¡¯t my territory,¡± Berith growled, ¡°I haven¡¯t been inside Nargul in decades.¡±
¡°A mobile fortress,¡± Asmodeus said in a soft voice, ¡°that complicates things, doesn¡¯t it?¡±
¡°I¡¯m not sure,¡± I said. ¡°Even though it¡¯s moving, the whole thing just looked like it was spinning around the center of the city. It may not make that much of a difference. At least it gives me a good idea of where the lillits are.¡± Of course, they could be spread around hundreds of cars, and Agares was probably in there with them, but that was just par for the course at this point.
I gave my full attention to Noivern, taking his wide head in both my gauntleted hands. He met my gaze, more intelligent than anything that looked like that had a right to be.
¡°Go back to the army,¡± I said, ¡°go to Gaap. I want you to wait for me at the front. And keep yourself safe, okay? There¡¯s plenty of other monsters to do the fighting if there¡¯s fighting to be done.¡±
He chirped at me in response, and when I let him go, he was back in the air in a few wingbeats. I watched him for a moment, and another lighting flash illuminated the broad span of his wings as he circled back above the city''s outer wall, and then I turned back to the demons.
¡°You should send your mounts back too. They¡¯ll just get in the way in the city.¡±
Berith muttered a few words in the demonic tongue, and the varghests picked themselves up to trot off into the night.
¡°Your plan hasn¡¯t changed?¡± Asmodeus asked, slipping closer to me. If I hadn¡¯t known any better, I would have said he was about to assassinate me, but the snake demon always looked like he was about to assassinate someone, so no worries there.
Honestly, calling my plan a plan was too generous, but here we were.
¡°Berith,¡± I said, ¡°cue the mist.¡±
The tiger nodded and uncorked a water jug. His hands cycled through a series of intricate movements while he muttered under his breath. Liquid spurted from the jug at his hip, dispersing into a cloud as more moisture rose from our surroundings. A thick, yellowish mist materialized, and in a few more seconds, we were completely shrouded. I couldn¡¯t see much farther than the stretch of my hands.
¡°Will that do?¡± Berith asked.
¡°It¡¯ll do.¡±
This quarry wasn¡¯t far from the outer wall, and I set the pace to as fast as I could walk without stomping with metal-shod feet. As we reached the barrier, I summoned my new pick, Durin¡¯s Digger, and drilled through. The stones of the wall vanished under its touch, and the coins they produced were automatically funneled into the last open slot in my inventory hot bar. I''d made some last-minute decisions about what I would need to have instant access to, and I''d settled on the buster, my bow, and stacks of arrows as well as the orb, torches, and my remaining atreanum knives. The knife I¡¯d used to kill Bael had been ruined, shattering into dust when I tried to recover it. Also, I was bringing grass mattresses.
There were basic materials in my pack, but they weren¡¯t essential to our mission.
I dug out just enough space for me to move forward, there was no call for crafting a fancy arch here, though it was tempting to think about, and I¡¯d mined out a tunnel to the other side after only a few minutes of work.
Mining was always a relaxing activity, and for a moment, I could almost pretend I was back home under Williamsburg, collecting material for another build, but it was over quickly.
Emerging on the other side, the haze of Berith¡¯s spell poured through behind us. Amid the tightly packed buildings and the cobblestone streets, a movement caught my eye.
There was a man twenty paces from us, dressed in the clothes of a laborer, holding what appeared to be a flagon in one hand. He¡¯d emerged from an alley and frozen in place as soon as he saw us, his mouth opened, but he didn¡¯t call out an alarm.
Before I could react, a flash of silver streaked through the dim light from the torches on the wall high above. Asmodeus¡¯s knife shot as straight as an arrow, coming to rest in the man¡¯s chest. He crumpled silently, like a doll whose strings had been cut, and then the mist covered everything.
I heard the flagon hit the cobblestones, a little lonely sound.
I rounded on the snake demon, anger building in my chest.
¡°What are you doing?¡±
¡°Killing a witness,¡± he answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world. There was a sucking sound, and then the knife reappeared in his hand.
¡°He wasn¡¯t a threat,¡± I said, forcing myself to keep my voice down.
¡°He saw us. I killed him.¡± Asmodeus¡¯s head tilted quizzically, his hood flaring out briefly before closing again.
He may have made a prudent choice, but that man obviously hadn¡¯t been on guard duty. He had been a bystander, and he was a citizen of the empire I was nominally in charge of. That made him my citizen, or at least he would be once Agares was deposed. I wanted to prevent unnecessary deaths where I could if I could, and this seemed like an obvious example.
¡°He was a man of Dargoth,¡± I said. ¡°Don¡¯t kill anyone who isn¡¯t a threat to us. That¡¯s an order.¡±
The demon¡¯s tongue flickered out, tasting the air. ¡°Everyone is a threat,¡± he said.
I punched him in the chest. He staggered back, his hood flaring again, gripping the Kris like he meant to use it.
¡°Do better,¡± I said, and after a pause, he nodded in acquiescence. Berith looked like he was enjoying the exchange.
¡°As you say,¡± the tiger agreed, ¡°we will act with discretion.¡±
The mist pulled more tightly around us, and we made our way further into the city. The journey to the inner wall was dreamlike, silent except for the distant chugging of the great machine at Nargul¡¯s heart and the clip of our feet. The noise made it easy to navigate.
Buildings appeared and disappeared in the swirl, visible only in parts and pieces; a hanging sign, a jagged fence, a cornice, a stoop. There were no more people, maybe Nargul had a curfew, or maybe it was just luck. Shamblers groaned in the fog, and I couldn¡¯t be sure if they belonged to the city or if they were coming into being because of me.
No one tried to stop us, and we kept to side streets and alleys. I heard someone laugh, but they were far away, and the sound was disconnected from any possible context, just another figment of the dream. Humans were living ordinary lives in this city. Dark lord or no dark lord, demons or no demons, people just lived. The man Asmodeus had killed had a family somewhere among this maze of streets, and he would not come home to them. Did he have a wife who was waiting for him, a child? It was easy not to think about those things when you were dealing with a platoon of soldiers in matching stormtrooper helmets, but it was different when you killed a guy who could have just been out having a drink.
The wall of the inner city appeared before us, a sheer face of granite that rose higher than I could see in the mist. I pressed my hand against it, and even through my gauntlet, I could feel the thrum of the Eternal Engine on the other side.
The stillness of the moment was interrupted by an eerie, two-toned cough.
An Voidman appeared next to me, its long-fingered hands reaching for my neck.
103: My First Car (Rewrite)
The Voidman moved in flashes and jerks, grabbing my helm and attempting to rip it off of my head. I moved to unclip my sword, but Berith acted first. He uttered something in the guttural tongue of demons, and the Voidman blinked back a pace. Asmodeus added his voice to the command, and the monster froze in place, visibly struggling against the force of their combined wills.
Its violet eyes blazed, and its toothless mouth opened impossibly wide, emitting another echoing cough, but Berith continued to speak, forcing it to its knees.
My sword slipped free, ringing as it arced toward the creature''s neck, decapitating the Voidman in a single stroke. Its tall, dark body slumped as the head rolled free, and Berith growled in annoyance.
¡°Why did you kill it?¡± He demanded, ¡°It was under our control.¡±
¡°The Vierimaa are valuable tools,¡± Asmodeus hissed.
¡°We can¡¯t take it with us,¡± I replied. ¡°You stopped it here, but are you telling me that Agares wouldn¡¯t have been able to take it back from you? Astaroth and Forneus are around too, if we face them together, any entity we have with us becomes a liability.¡±
¡°Perhaps,¡± Asmodeus said, his head lowering on his long neck, ¡°but we could have sent it back to the others. It would have been yours then.¡±
I was uncomfortably aware of how similar this discussion was to the argument I¡¯d just had with the snake demon about killing people who weren¡¯t a threat. Of course, the Voidman was not a person, it was a monster that had attacked me; but the threat had been removed, so there was something to their position.
¡°We¡¯re too deep in the city to send monsters running around,¡± I said. ¡°We kill whatever fights us, but don¡¯t worry, you¡¯ll both be rewarded for what you do here. One, what did you call it, Vierimaa? One of these won¡¯t compare to what you¡¯ll both soon have under your command.¡±
It bothered me that I was having to have this conversation, but the demons seemed placated. I turned my attention to the wall. Exchanging the sword with my pick, I mined out a passage.
¡°Who¡¯s down there? Announce yourselves!¡±
The voice was human, coming down from the rampart high above. We were still concealed by Berith¡¯s mist, and that concealment went both ways, but Asmodeus muttered a spell, and both his daggers flew out of sight. There was a scream, and the soldier came tumbling down off the wall, landing face first and laying still. Both the scream and the landing were far from silent, and soon there were more shouts from above. By the time I was through the wall, a warning bell had started to ring. I gritted my teeth at the death. We were going to have to address Asmodeus¡¯s trigger finger at some point.
Past the curtain wall, the noise of the Eternal Engine was almost enough to drown out the bell, a mechanical cacophony that filled the air and shook the ground beneath my greaves. Gears chugged and metal clanged, generating a relentless rhythm underscored by periodic hisses of steam and the long, drawn-out groans of straining iron. As if to announce our arrival, the great whistle pierced the night again, so loud that I felt it in my chest.
The mist was blocking my view, turning the Engine into a vast, mysterious form in constant motion, with the scattered points of the torches transformed into will-o-the-wisps.
¡°Can you clear a line of sight?¡± I asked Berith. ¡°We need to be able to see this thing.¡±
Berith¡¯s hands sprang into motion, and the fog shaped itself into a tunnel, clearing a view of the Engine while keeping us concealed. Its body stretched out before us, too large to take in all at once, a seemingly endless serpent coiling around itself at the heart of Nargul. Gargantuan wheels, each taller than a man, spun ceaselessly, bearing the burden of the colossal structure as it ran its never-ending course.
Gothic architecture had been fused with an industrial nightmare. Towers and buttresses jutted from the tall cars, giving it the air of a cathedral on wheels. Chains connected the structures, rattling and clanking, many apparently with no purpose other than to enhance the ambiance.
Smokestacks poked from the back of a car, spewing ash and cinders into the air to mix with the dark clouds above. The rain had abated, but the train was still glistening and wet as it rattled along, its head nowhere in sight, but what had to be the caboose was trundling our way.
It was even blockier and more ungainly than the other cars, looking like nothing so much as a mobile prison fortress. There were slitted windows along the upper level, but the lower half of the car was completely sealed. This hardly constituted proof that the lillits were being kept there, but it was as good a place to start as any, and if we worked our way forward from the back of the train, we at least wouldn¡¯t miss anything.
¡°All aboard,¡± I called to the demons and jogged forward. The guards on the wall already knew something was up, so stealth was over with. My boots clomped along the cobbles, but the armor felt light. It had taken me too long to get this far, and I was energized by the thought of finding the lillits.
The Eternal Engine was churning along at a little over a walking pace, its path perpendicular to us, so it didn¡¯t take long to close the gap and catch up. There wasn¡¯t any reasonable way to climb the wheels, but one of the heavy chains hanging from the side of the caboose was swinging low enough for me to hop up and grab it. Scaling the chain only took a few seconds, and then I was awkwardly tapping my way through the outer plating of the car.
Asmodeus appeared beside me, holding on to the siding as easily as a gecko, and watched me work. Berith caught up a moment later, ascending a different chain. The alarm bell continued to ring, and an arrow plunked into the side of the caboose as I worked, missing me by a wide margin. I wasn¡¯t worried about the soldiers, their weapons couldn''t dent my armor even if they shot me point blank, but they could still get in the way.
The outer shell of the caboose was made up of a shell of iron slabs, and when the first square disappeared, I saw the layer behind it was stone. Harvesting enough of the plating to get through was going to take longer than I wanted to spend hanging by a chain on the outside of this train.
¡°Asmodeus, can you do something about this?¡± I said, gesturing to the section of iron siding I was trying to harvest.
¡°As you wish,¡± the serpent hissed. He needed his hands to cast spells, but he partially detached himself from the side of the car, somehow hanging on by his toes alone. After a few words and gestures from the demon, the iron plates nearest me peeled away like flakes of dead skin. I tore at them to speed the process, and with one arm wrapped around the chain that supported me, retrieved my pick to mine through the stone beneath.
Once the hole was a few feet in diameter, I crawled through, falling unceremoniously onto the floor within. The interior was a claustrophobic space, reverberating with the heavy churn of the wheels. The clink and clatter of machinery was oppressive, and through the filter of my visor, I tasted air that was thick with the tang of metal and sweat.
At least a dozen lillits were cramped in the space, staring at me with wide, glassy eyes. They were chained to their stations, imprisoned amid valves and levers, though their work stopped at my appearance. A maze of pipes rose around and above them, glowing with sanguinum, interconnecting in a complex network without an apparent beginning or end.
Their faces were pale and drawn, their skin stretched tightly over fragile bones. I¡¯d never seen unhealthy lillits before, they were a supernaturally hale, clean, and long-lived race, but the men and women I saw here had been reduced to playing the role of cogs in a tremendous, uncaring machine, and it showed.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
There didn¡¯t appear to be any guards in the chamber, but they wouldn¡¯t need to be guarded, confined as they were. As I got to my feet, Asmodeus slithered in behind me, and one of the women wailed in despair at the sight of the demon.
¡°No,¡± I said, holding up my hands, one of which still clutched the pickaxe, ¡°I¡¯m not going to hurt you. I¡¯m here to help.¡±
They didn¡¯t seem comforted by that declaration, and when I started harvesting their chains, they watched me with confusion. ¡°The Dark Lord is gone,¡± I said, not feeling like this was the moment to explain that I was the new Dark Lord, ¡°I¡¯m here to stop this. Whatever this is, it¡¯s going to stop. You¡¯re all getting out of here.¡±
¡°Who are you?¡± One of the men asked. I didn¡¯t recognize him, but there was a spark of defiance in his eyes that was heartening to see. His hair was matted to his forehead with sweat and grime, and there was peach fuzz along his jawline, the closest thing I¡¯d ever seen to a full beard on a lillit.
There was something about the way he held himself that set him apart from the others, signs of resilience. The look he gave me was unwavering, though there were lines of exhaustion etched deep into his face.
¡°My name is William,¡± I said. ¡°I don¡¯t know if you remember me.¡±
There were a few scattered gasps from the others, and the man¡¯s eyes widened.
¡°We thought you were dead.¡±
¡°I was dead,¡± I said, ¡°a bunch of times. But I¡¯m here now, and I¡¯m sorry it took so long.¡±
The chain and manacle disappeared from his leg, converted into a medallion that I didn¡¯t bother storing, leaving only the ring where it had been attached to the wall. The woman who had wailed before started to cry.
Berith climbed in after Asmodeus, and both of them looked impatient for us to move on, but I wasn¡¯t going to leave these people in chains.
¡°What¡¯s your name?¡± I asked the man who had spoken up, moving on to free the next lillit.
¡°Falmon,¡± he said, rubbing the place on his ankle where the manacle had been. He looked like he couldn¡¯t believe that it was gone.
¡°What can you tell me about the Engine? Are all the lillits here, or are there housing facilities somewhere else in Nargul?¡±
¡°We are all here,¡± he said, then his brow furrowed. ¡°I think. There are pens all along the train, and the guards collect us to lock us in our stations every morning, then they put us away at night. They treat us like we¡¯re a part of the machinery.¡±
My jaw clenched, and I tried not to think about slaughtering every guard on the train. The soldiers were just following orders. That excuse might have been a cliche, but it was also the reality of how human beings worked, at least as far as I¡¯d ever observed or experienced. People like to think that they are special, that if they had been born in a different time or place, they wouldn¡¯t have taken part in whatever injustice or atrocity that period of history was known for. But most people, most of the time, will just go along with the program, no matter how insane or monstrous that program obviously is the moment you step outside of it.
Having spent most of my previous adult life as a prisoner, my opinions on the matter of humanity''s moral nature were probably biased, but in general, if human beings were inherently heroic in the way that most people thought about heroism, history would have involved way fewer genocides. This was a city ruled by literal demons. The men who served them probably weren¡¯t happy about what they were doing, but they would find ways to cope. It was Kevin who was at fault here. He¡¯d created this system. He¡¯d set the machine in motion, and I doubted he had shown a lot of lenience to anyone who had stood up to him over the last few centuries.
I suddenly didn¡¯t feel as bad about keeping him in a box.
¡°Where are the soldiers now?¡± I asked Falmon, keeping my tone level. ¡°They have keys, right? If I take care of them, can you help free everyone else in this car?¡±
The lillit stood up. Despite his obvious malnourishment, he looked strong, and there was fire in his eyes.
¡°I¡¯ll do whatever I can,¡± he said, then pointed to a door at the back of the compartment. ¡°There¡¯s a guard station at the rear end of this car, and at least three more rooms like this with more of us in chains.¡±
As if on cue, the locking mechanism in the door clicked and spun, lifting an iron bar. A man in full plate stepped through holding a cudgel.
¡°What¡¯s going on in¡¡± he trailed off when he saw me and the demons.
Asmodeus¡¯s knife leaped from his hands, slipping under the man¡¯s chin and into his throat. For once, I wasn¡¯t upset with the demon for shooting first and asking questions later. I left the lillits to step over the guard and found myself in a rec room full of soldiers hurriedly putting their helmets on.
I returned the pick to my inventory.
¡°Hold it, all of you. I am your Dark Lord, Emperor of Dargoth, who sits upon the Throne of Shadows. I demand your obedience.¡±
One of the soldiers was quicker than the others, he already had his sword out. ¡°You are no Dark Lord, you are an imposter. Duke Agares has already warned us against your lies.¡±
Well, it couldn¡¯t work every time, I guess. I hefted Kevin¡¯s crossbow.
¡°Put down your weapons. One of these bolts will tear through that armor like tissue paper.¡±
The metaphor was probably lost on them, given that tissue paper didn¡¯t exist in this world, but they would get the gist.
¡°More lies,¡± the man scoffed, taking a step toward me. ¡°This armor came from the forges of Mount Doom, it is blessed by the craft of our Dark Lord, and no mere crossbow bolt can pierce it.¡±
It seemed like he was buying time for his fellows to get themselves ready. They would be suited up and prepared to mob me in a few more seconds. I shot him in the leg. The bolt went in with a satisfying plunk, penetrating the steel plate as if it were the aforementioned tissue.
Thank you, [Piercing]. The man cried out in pain and surprise, stumbling back, and the others froze.
¡°Listen,¡± I said, ¡°listen, I am the Dark Lord now.¡± Two demons entered the room behind me, lending their authority to my declaration. ¡°Agares is going to be dead before the end of the night. You can all surrender or you can die. I would prefer having you work for me over having to clean up your bodies, but I¡¯ll be fine either way. What do you say?¡±
The men looked from their leader to me and the monstrous faces of the demons behind me. A few of them still looked ready to fight, but when one dropped his sword, several more followed. Then someone knelt.
¡°What are you doing?¡± The injured man shouted. ¡°He is an imposter.¡± Even with a crossbow bolt in his leg, he managed to lunge at me. His sword scraped harmlessly off of my breastplate, and rather than shoot him again, I backhanded him with my other hand, and he went down hard.
¡°Anybody else?¡± I asked.
¡°Long live the Dark Lord,¡± the kneeling soldier said.
Someone else repeated it, and soon the whole room was doing a weird culty chant thing. I raised my hand to silence them.
¡°I will accept all of your oaths of allegiance when this is finished. For now, here are my orders. Every lillit on this train is to be freed. Who has the keys?¡±
As it turned out, the man who had tried to fight me was the sergeant in charge of this car. He tried to get up, and I knocked him down again, ripping the ring of keys from his belt clip.
¡°Restrain him,¡± I commanded the others, and they hopped to it. In the other room, Falmon accepted the keys from me with an air of reverence.
¡°You have twice freed us,¡± he said.
¡°Not yet, but that¡¯s the idea.¡±
There was a long way to go before we reached the head of the train, and there were probably dozens more soldiers on the upper level of this car alone, but I didn¡¯t think the soldiers would be the problem.
Agares could have monsters serving him I¡¯d never seen, magics I¡¯d never heard of, and worst of all, he already knew that the lillits were important to me. The chances of this not developing into a hostage situation were very low. The best thing I could do was move fast, reaching the Duke before he had a chance to create a situation where I would be forced to sacrifice lives to stop him.
I grabbed one of the soldiers.
¡°Which car does the Duke stay in? Do you know where he is?¡±
This soldier hadn¡¯t had a chance to get his helmet on. His face was younger than I had expected, with the smooth complexion of a boy who had barely left adolescence. Wide dark eyes, framed by messy brown hair, met mine with a mix of fear and awe. Sweat beaded on his pale forehead, making his skin gleam faintly in the dim light of the train car. His lips trembled.
¡°I¡I know where he resides, my lord. I do not know if he is there.¡±
¡°Tell me.¡±
104: My Chat with Agares (Rewrite)
Each car included a catwalk that ran its entire length set snugly between the imposing wheel hubs below the main body of the cars. It was probably for maintenance, but in this case, it provided a few intruders with an avenue for direct crossing from one car to the next. A minecart transport system, humming with the energy of the sanguinum-powered rails, was attached to the catwalk, allowing Berith, Asmodeus, and myself to traverse the grim metal leviathan in what could almost be described as style.
Our minecart sped along the tracks, and the rhythmic clattering combined with the whoosh of air had a carnival feel, reminding me of the little roller coasters in the state fair from when I was a kid. As we whisked by, I spotted more lillits engrossed in their work beneath the cars. Their dull gazes and emaciated frames mirrored the state of the men and women I''d liberated in the caboose. There was a pit in my stomach, a knot of anger and frustration, each time we passed another group.
My hands itched to jerk the brake handle, to halt our momentum and complete the rescue. That would have been the heroic thing to do, but also futile. If we didn''t beat Duke Agares, none of them would ever make it out of Nargul, chains or no chains. With alarm bells ringing outside, we were on a clock.
With each passing moment, our minecart devoured more distance, gaining velocity every time it crossed another powered rail. The cars were numbered, and I watched as the painted signs became a blur, each one zipping by faster than the last. The sensation of speed was intoxicating. It felt like I was seated on Noivern¡¯s back again, gripping the harness as we sped into a dive.
There were soldiers stationed intermittently, their faces registering a comical mix of bewilderment and alarm as we sped by. The sight of a heavily armored man, flanked by two demons racing along in a minecart was not a normal part of their daily duties. Yet, somewhere in that stream of bolts and gears, comprehension had to dawn on someone.
By the time we approached car thirty, the cart jolted with a sudden drop in speed. The hum of the sanguinum-powered rails faded. Ahead, a trio of soldiers yanked down the connection hatch, barring our path. The defenders were finally catching on.
In the face of the rapidly descending gate, I resisted the impulse to ram straight into it. Instead, with a firm grip, I yanked back on the brake lever. The cart''s wheels screamed against the rails, friction producing a dazzling spray of orange sparks as we juddered to a stop. As the lingering aroma of burnt metal filled the air, Berith gripped his hefty ax and disembarked, the worn leather of his boots slapping against the catwalk''s steel surface.
My attention was diverted by a soldier at the gate. He was murmuring into an odd-looking communication device that, preposterously enough, seemed to be nothing more sophisticated than a tin can tethered to a string. It was hard not to smirk at the juxtaposition of the perfection of the crafted minecart system and what amounted to a child¡¯s toy being used for troop coordination. Without hesitation, I raised Kevin¡¯s repeating crossbow and called an arrow from my inventory. Cocking the crossbow was only a hair slower than using my regular bow would have been, and the arrow lodged itself into the talking soldier¡¯s shoulder. The Knockback effect slammed him into the wall, and the can dropped, swinging on the end of its string.
Asmodeus took the hint. His knives soared through the air, attacking like they had minds of their own, spinning and slashing like a pair of the most terrifying birds imaginable. By the time we reached the gate, the other two soldiers were already incapacitated. Berith¡¯s face twisted with annoyance; he had been cheated out of the action once again.
¡°How fast can you open this?¡± I inquired, nodding towards the gate.
Asmodeus, his serpent¡¯s mouth locked into an eternal smile, acknowledged my request with a nod. His twin knives returned to him like hunting hawks, and after taking a moment to sheathe them, he whispered an incantation. The metal gate curled up on itself, rising as though it was nothing more than an old scroll being rolled up, but creaking and snapping like the steel that it was.
Impatient, maybe eager to prove himself, Berith lunged ahead, his battlecry resonating through the confined space. But as we followed him into the maintenance channel beneath the next car, it was apparent that his thirst for combat would remain unquenched a little longer; the area ahead was deserted.
Abandoning the rails lost us a little time and the clatter of the minecart was replaced by the rhythm of our jogging feet. We weren¡¯t exactly slow, but it felt like a snail''s pace compared to the previous headlong plunge.
From cars thirty to forty, the path was eerily quiet. Each hatch we encountered was firmly sealed. They had to know it wouldn¡¯t stop us, this was a deliberate delay, and I expected to find them consolidating their forces further in.
As we broke through the heavy door leading into the underbelly of car forty-one, a torrent of crossbow bolts greeted us. The shafts whizzed and their iron tips plinked against my armor, followed by a chorus of clatters as they bounced off and fell to the catwalk. Beside me, a few bolts swerved around Asmodeus, deflected by a magnetic shield that shimmered faintly with its activation. Berith tanked a few hits. The missiles didn¡¯t bounce off of him, but they could barely penetrate his skin. One lodged itself in his chest, and another hung from his arm, that had to be annoying at least.
He was a thoroughly pissed-off cat.
We were met with a formidable redoubt. Soldiers had fortified the catwalk with barricade after barricade, positioning themselves for a last stand. Only a few paces in, entirely blocking the rail, was an armored troll. Its getup was an improvised mishmash; bits of plate armor awkwardly strapped together, interspersed with loosely draped chain mail. The creature¡¯s gnarled paw clutched a fearsome, battle-worn mace. I''d killed plenty of trolls, but this was a first. Some of them were smarter than others, and this one looked less bulky and animalistic than usual.
Berith didn''t waste a breath considering his options. No subtle strategies, no attempt at wresting control of the troll''s mind. With a deep-throated roar, he surged forward, the glint of his ax tracing a deadly arc toward the monster''s thick neck. The troll, despite its cumbersome size and the tight quarters of the undercarriage, managed a last-second sidestep. Instead of its neck, Berith¡¯s blade bit into its shoulder, rending the mismatched chain and sinking cruelly into the creature''s gray, leathery flesh.
It hooted in response as it retaliated, swinging its mace with surprising swiftness. The weapon connected with Berith¡¯s unprotected side, and I winced in sympathy at the impact. The mace''s flanged edges sank into the tiger demon''s flesh, drawing dark blood. Rather than weakening him, the pain only seemed to stoke Berith''s fury. He attacked the troll with a fervor that was a little terrifying, hacking at it like he was chopping down a tree, and instantly putting the giant on the defensive.
Tearing my eyes away from the scene, I aimed the crossbow at an encroaching soldier, but he was too quick, taking refuge behind one of the barricades as my bolt whistled by where his head had been. It was easy enough to reload, but none of the soldiers seemed keen to present me with a target. Asmodeus dashed forward, twin wavy Kris knives gleaming in his grasp. He vaulted the first barrier, laying into the soldiers behind like a dervish monk.
These barricades, cobbled together from planks and barrels, seemed haphazard, but there was more to their placement than had been immediately apparent. Once Asmodeus was past the first, it animated, wooden boards stretching and contorting like the tentacles of a kulu. They ensnared Asmodeus just as he dispatched a second stormtrooper, locking around both his legs and capturing one of his arms.
A hiss of vexation escaped Asmodeus as the animated barricade constricted him, his struggles against the unyielding wood proving fruitless. Demonic magic, as far as I had observed, was extremely limited along the themes of a material affinity, and Asmodeus couldn¡¯t do anything with wood. My gaze caught a flicker of movement at the car''s far end. There, partially concealed by a stack of crates, was another demon, akin to Asmodeus in species, yet distinct in kind. Unlike my snake demon¡¯s regal hood and golden cobra mystique, this one bore the broad brown-black face of a boa.
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I¡¯d never had an excuse to use flaming arrows before. They would have been useless against Kevin, and Shadowbane was the better tool for dealing with monsters, but this was the perfect opportunity to give them a showcase. I had a sizable supply leftover from the Bedlam base, and as long as I had them highlighted in my inventory hot bar, they popped into place as soon as I pulled back the string on my bow.
The crate wall was a broad target, like shooting at the proverbial side of a barn, almost begging to be set aflame. The first arrow thudded into the timber, immediately enveloping the crate in red-orange tendrils. A few more releases and an inferno raged, consuming the entire stack.
Soldiers, blindly persistent, continued to loose volleys at me. But against orichalcum armor, their bolts were as effective as paper planes. Berith yowled his clash with the troll the centerpiece in a chaotic table setting.
The hulking mob, once towering, now knelt, one leg gruesomely severed by Berith''s unrelenting assault. A second later, Berith¡¯s ax found its mark on the creature¡¯s skull. With the troll done for, the tiger demon unleashed his inner berserker on the remaining soldiers.
The opposing demon, who I knew by description as Forneus, momentarily emerged from the roaring inferno of the crate wall. His head flicked back and forth, taking in the full scene, before he made a run for an overhead hatch. With a swift gesture, he released a concealed ladder just as my next arrow took flight.
The fiery missile found its mark. Rather than wearing armor, the demon had come to this battle wearing full-on, billowing wizard robes, and he went up like a pile of tinder. But despite being actively on fire, he swiftly climbed through the hatch, abandoning his subordinates.
The subsequent clash was a blur of steel, flame, and shadows. And with me stuck in one area and night outside, shamblers were spawning, adding to the chaos. Some soldiers, seeing the tables turning, dropped their weapons in surrender. Asmodeus, in a burst of power and irritation, tore free from the wooden limbs ensnaring him, his gaze fixed upward. Without a glance or word in my direction, he pursued Forneus, scaling the ladder with supernatural speed.
¡°Wait!¡± I shouted after him, Forneus wasn''t the primary objective here. But Asmodeus was already gone, vanishing into the hatch.
That left Berith and me to break into the next car, but he was still hot from the fight, and he battered through the iron gate like it was cardboard. This defensive position hadn¡¯t been chosen at random. Duke Agares had made the tower above car forty-two his home. We left behind the wounded and surrendered soldiers along with a set of newly spawned zombies, which Berith had swiftly brought to heel.
The next maintenance channel greeted us with a return to silence, though there were still moans and calls echoing from the previous car. Finding no opposition, we promptly pried open the overhead hatch, ascending into the dim confines of car forty-two. The clatter of the train''s wheels was the only sound that reminded us we were still onboard a locomotive, the clangor only somewhat muted by the confined space.
The interior was more like a medieval keep than a train, with ornate stonework and torch-lit walls, and at its heart was a spiraling stone stairway that beckoned us upward, leading deeper into the demon¡¯s chosen abode.
We quickly cleared the adjoining chambers as we ascended. Many rooms stood barren, void of any furniture or ornamentation, a hollow home. But not all were abandoned: a dimly lit study held leather-bound tomes and dusty scrolls, and multiple private rooms suggested the presence of regular inhabitants, although none were currently in residence. The higher we climbed, the more we felt the sway of the train, a reminder of its endless journey, as tireless as it was pointless.
Reaching the pinnacle, a trap door opened upon a broad platform under an arching stone canopy. Rough stone columns stood tall at each corner, supporting the structure while providing a panoramic view of the sky. Phantoms were circling in the night, as well as other, larger, winged shapes too numerous to be wyverns.
We came up near the center, and Duke Agares was waiting for us not more than ten paces away. He was a minotaur clad in stone slabs, rough-hewn armor that left only his head and muscular forearms exposed. A massive granite sledgehammer rested at his side, its broad head touching the platform, its handle leaning against his thigh.
Beside him, looking every bit as commanding, was Astaroth. The second demon had the head of a peacock, covered in bright blue feathers with gilded yellow outlines accentuating his eyes. He had the appearance of a nobleman attending an opulent feast: dressed in a lavish suit with a cloak that mimicked the flamboyant tail feathers of a true peacock.
The pair was not alone. A gargoyle stood sentinel beside each pillar, but these were not the statues in Bael¡¯s tower. Craggy flesh and dim yellow eyes, they stood as tall as trolls. Though their overall build was more slender, the strength in their limbs was obvious, as was the vicious nature of their claws and fangs.
A small crowd of lillits stood around Agares, none of whom looked particularly enthusiastic about being involved. More lillits were forced to stand in a line ringing the tower, their heels up against the verge, each a step away from a deadly fall.
Two faces stood out to me among the rest. Mayor Boffin, Esmelda¡¯s father, and the tailor, Brenys. For as long as I had known them, they had both appeared to be in their fifties or sixties, though I knew Boffin had lived for well over a century before I met him. Lillits were exceptionally long-lived, and they retained a youthful appearance through most of their lives. But now, after a decade of servitude, Boffin looked exactly as old as he was.
They didn¡¯t gaze at me with hope in their eyes, and there was no sign of recognition in their grim expressions. To them, I was a stranger in strange armor, arriving in the company of a demon. I didn¡¯t know what Agares had told them, or if he had told them anything, and this wasn¡¯t the moment to explain.
¡°I know who you are,¡± Agares said, his voice as deep and resonant as you would expect from an eight-foot-tall, infernal minotaur. ¡°And I felt it the moment Bael fell. Orobas has long been dissatisfied with his position, and the Dark Lord put more faith in him than he deserved. But you,¡± his gaze shifted to the serpent at my side, ¡°Asmodeus, how disappointing. I thought you knew better than to rebel against the natural order.¡±
¡°Order is not our way,¡± my companion said, his sibilant voice barely audible above the din of the train.
¡°What¡¯s your plan here?¡± I said, watching the dark shapes in the sky, distant, yet familiar. They weren¡¯t wyverns, and some of them were attacking the phantoms, descending on the manta-like spawns in gangs and ripping them apart in midair. There were dozens of them at least, and one circled closer as I watched. My eyes widened.
What were they doing here?
¡°Are you trying to make a deal with me?¡± I demanded. ¡°What you did¡your message. I can¡¯t forgive that.¡±
Agares snorted, his nostrils flaring. ¡°The Dark Lord has a weak mind. It made him biddable, but he was also incurious. The mess you made in the Wastes was sufficient to spur him into action, something we appreciated, but he never bothered to learn more. He didn¡¯t care to after you were captured. But I did. New survivors are always a matter of interest. I made a point of interrogating the lord who gave you to us, and your attachment to the lillits was made apparent. From everything I learned of you, it was clear that you wouldn¡¯t make a suitable candidate for the Throne of Shadows.¡±
¡°A suitable candidate? You wanted to replace Kevin too?¡±
Agares drummed his fingers against the handle of his hammer. It probably weighed a hundred pounds, but I did not doubt that he could wield it with ease. ¡°We all considered finding a replacement as the years dragged on. The Dark Lord has many flaws, but at least he is not¡sentimental.¡±
¡°Are you saying you don¡¯t want a deal? A place in the new seating arrangement?¡± Not that I was planning on doing him any favors, but letting him think I was open to a bargain would at least give me a chance to get the lillits to safety.
¡°No, there will be no agreement between us, human, though I should thank you for removing Bael from the first seat for me. I sent the head knowing you would come. I do not fear you, and even now, there are forces en route to retake Mount Doom. It may be mine already.¡±
Well, that sucked. I looked past the demon and shouted a single word at the top of my lungs.
¡°HOMIES!¡±
Duke Agares, second harbinger of the One Who Knocks, heard my cry and appeared genuinely baffled. He looked around. Nothing immediately happened.
¡°What? What is that word? Is it meant as a curse? You have no power to curse me, human.¡±
Behind my visor, I couldn¡¯t help but grin. It was nice to see old friends again. The shapes in the sky were harpies, and there were lots and lots of them. Agares may not have understood the cue, but it was on.
105: My Homies (Rewrite)
A strange look crossed the face of the former mayor as realization dawned on him. Whether he recognized my voice or my habit of calling the harpies my homies, he knew who I was, and I saw my name being formed on his lips.
¡°Get the lillits out of here!¡± I shouted to the flocking birds. They weren¡¯t as big as the eagles in the Lord of the Rings, but they were big enough to snatch up a half-starved lillit.
Berith gave me a quizzical look, his whiskers twitching. ¡°Are you talking to me?¡±
¡°The lillits aren¡¯t going anywhere,¡± Agares said before I could reply. ¡°And neither are you.¡±
With a casual gesture, he caused the stones under my feet to soften until they had the consistency of mud. It was one of Bojack¡¯s favorite tricks as well, hence the grass mattresses in my inventory. I dropped one directly in front of me and did a Legend of Zelda style roll onto it out of the semi-fluid stones.
The platform sucked at my boots, and I carried a bit of splatter with me, but I was free. As I came up on my knees, I twisted around just enough to give Berith his marching orders.
¡°You handle Astaroth, I¡¯ve got the rest.¡±
Agares snorted in derision.
¡°Surrender,¡± he said, ¡°or the lillits all die.¡±
It was at that moment that the first harpy reached the tower. Its arrival was followed by the terrified squeal of a lillit child being snatched from the verge and taken into the sky. Due to the precarious positioning of the other lillits lining the edge of the tower, the sudden kidnapping caused a few to bump into each other and lose their balance. It happened too fast for me to react, and one of them fell backward into open space.
The moment seemed to last forever, but a breath later, the lillit who had fallen rose again, a harpy pulling him up by his shirt.
¡°Kill them!¡± Agares bellowed, and the peacock beside him began casting a spell. Like Bael, Astaroth had an affinity for fire. Red gold tendrils burst into life between his hands, which he shaped into a ball. As he drew his hands apart, the ball increased in size, blooming at an alarming rate.
Rather than charging ahead with his ax, Berith tore the cap off of a water gourd at his hip, and a fountain of clear liquid shot across the tower, striking Astaroth on his beak with the force of a punch. His spell was disrupted, and the fireball lost its coherence, exploding in his face. I was aiming the crossbow, highlighting the Shadowbane arrows in my inventory, and ripping back the string.
Agares charged, bowling over the lillits in front of him, hefting his oversized hammer as he came. I only had enough time to shoot once. The enchanted arrow bounced off his stone breastplate, and he was on me. The bull demon swung the hammer up, its head striking my right arm at the elbow, jarring the weapon out of my hands. The armor absorbed most of the damage, but it still hurt, and my arm went numb. As strong as I had become, this demon was stronger.
Still on my knees from the roll, I used my legs to throw myself into him shoulder first, hoping to knock him off balance, but I may as well have been slamming into a mountain. He stepped away to give himself room to swing, and I barely managed to avoid being knocked on my back, ducking under his hammer at the last instant.
The gargoyles sprang forward. Their wings were too stunted to allow them to fly, but the monsters could hop. I rolled away from Agares, dropping another grass mat as I went, trying to get back on my feet, and the first gargoyle grabbed me. Its claws dug into my pauldrons, smart enough to know that the worst it could do to me was hold me in place and allow Agares to crack me open. Rather than resisting, I twitched my spirit finger to spin through my inventory and dropped magic torches.
The gray-skinned mob made a pained noise as Shadowbane took effect, its grip falling away as it shielded its eyes while the other balked at the edge of the illuminated circle. The enchantment was enough to even give Agares pause, affording me the second I needed to rise. The bull demon snarled, mastering the pain of the torch in an instant, and attacked again.
I sidestepped, and the hammer came down on the grass mat, the sound of the stone cracking underneath cutting the air like lightning. The lillits were in chaos. It wouldn¡¯t be obvious to them that the harpies were their salvation, but there was nowhere to run. Most of them pressed in around the pillars, avoiding the very edge of the tower.
Brenys alone remained motionless. She had always looked like an old woman, for all I knew, even older than Boffin, and she had never been the type to take guff from anyone. Even when I had brought the lillits back from the wastes and founded Williamsburg, she had never been subservient or obsequious, treating me like a son-in-law whom she wasn¡¯t quite sure about. Now, caught in a conflict of monsters and demons, her eyes narrowed, and she smiled.
¡°The Mayor has returned,¡± she shouted. ¡°The harpies are our friends!¡±
Then she held out both her arms and very deliberately stepped off the tower.
Astaroth blinked away the aftereffects of his botched spell, pointing at Berith. A line of bright white flame erupted from his outstretched finger, forcing the tiger demon to duck. With most of the lillits out of the way, Berith was free to charge. He roared a challenge and attacked Astaroth with the same fervor he had shown against the troll. The peacock danced away from his ax, summoning more fire, and the two of them went back and forth, evading and striking with neither being able to land a decisive blow.
I drew my sword, and Agares knocked it out of my hand a moment later. He was too strong for me to parry his blows. There was no point in trying to match him in a fair fight, and even orichalcum full plate wasn¡¯t enough to completely protect me from the force of his hammer. But any weapon that size was at a disadvantage if you could get close enough.
I jumped up and hugged him.
My arms wrapped around his shoulders, and I called the atreanum dagger from my inventory. He spun us around. He was so tall that my feet were off the ground, but he was forced to let go of his hammer with one hand to pry me off.
I jabbed the dagger into the back of his neck.
It wasn¡¯t a well-aimed strike, but the blade of black metal slid into his flesh, and the meta-material did its work. Agares bellowed in anguish, thrusting me away, and I landed on my back on the tower stones. He raised his hammer in both hands, and it came down with the force of an avalanche on my chest. The orichalcum breastplate dented but didn¡¯t entirely cave. I felt the impact through my entire body, and he raised the hammer again for a second blow.
I rolled onto my side out of the way, forcing my numb hands to push me up.
Brenys returned into view, held aloft by a harpy, and cackling like the Wicked Witch of the West. The shamblers, pushed to the edge of the tower by the enchanted light, were attacking the lillits. The little people caught between a precipice and certain death at the hands of murderous space zombies, followed her example, throwing themselves from the tower en masse.
Agares paused to pull the dagger from his neck, and Kevin¡¯s sword appeared in my grasp. I swung it with everything I had left, barely aiming, and the tip sliced open his cheek. The bull demon staggered back, ripping the dagger free, but the hammer slipped from his other hand. Black blood was spouting from his neck, pouring down his jaw, and he looked at me with wild, furious eyes.
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¡°You are not the Dark Lord,¡± he said, his words slurring. ¡°But perhaps we can come to an understanding.¡±
I brought Kevin¡¯s sword down on top of his head, embedding it in his skull.
¡°Understanding reached,¡± I said, and the bull demon fell to his knees. Still alive, he gripped the sword in both his hands, ignoring the bite of the blade, and I jerked it back, pulling him forward. The buster was stuck in his head, so I let it go, but Caliburn¡¯s glimmering edge a pace away caught my eye.
Berith and Astaroth were locked in their dance. He had lost some of his fur, but he refused to allow the peacock demon to cast his most powerful spells. Astaroth threw out his arms, summoning a blazing aura like the one Bael had used to protect himself from Vepar, but Berith tanked it. Ignoring the wave of flame, he buried his ax in the bird demon¡¯s belly, and Astaroth collapsed.
Agares was leaning forward as if supported by the buster lodged in his head. His mouth moved in an incantation, and the stones of the platform rose in his defense, but his control was slacking. A half wall slumped into shape around him, and granite spikes erupted, one of them scraping the plate covering my upper thigh.
I lifted Caliburn in both hands, pointed down, and drove it into the base of the demon¡¯s skull.
¡°Bael was tougher,¡± I said and heard a scream.
A gargoyle had a lillit on the ground. The little person nearly disappeared under the monster¡¯s broad frame, but I could hear him. Ripping my sword free, I sprinted over and thrust it into the gargoyle¡¯s back. The monster reared up, forgetting the lillit as it howled. It tried to turn, caught on my blade, and collapsed when I tore Caliburn free.
The lillit wasn¡¯t in great shape, but he was alive.
Another face I didn¡¯t recognize. Esmelda might have known his name. She¡¯d had a knack for remembering seemingly everyone in Williamsburg she had ever interacted with, whereas I had taken our citizens for granted.
With a few brusque commands, Berith was able to stop the remaining gargoyles from assaulting anyone else, and he sent them down the trapdoor into the tower to get them out of the way and block any train guards from coming up. Not all the lillits had jumped, but a lot of them were in the air in the talons of harpies, and most of those were not nearly as pleased about the situation as Brenys seemed to be.
¡°Homies!¡± I shouted. ¡°Bring everyone in! It¡¯s over!¡±
Berith approached Agares body with caution, and with a growl that came from deep in his throat, hacked off the bull demon¡¯s head. He presented it to me like a trophy, holding it by one horn.
¡°Uh, thanks,¡± I said, neither wanting to offend Berith nor accept the grisly offering. ¡°You can keep that, though. Consider it a token of my appreciation. The seventh seat is yours, by the way. You did what I asked, and you were here when I needed you.¡±
Berith raised the face and roared in triumph. In the grand scheme of things, the demons weren¡¯t that hard to please. My eyes roved the platform, the grass mat, the morphed stones, and saw that the knife had fractured into pieces when Agares threw it away. Atreanum was as fragile as advertised. I collected the pieces anyway.
A massive black bird flapped in and landed a pace away from me, almost as big as a wyvern. I recognized her by her eyes, violet orbs eerily similar to the gaze of an Voidman.
¡°We have long awaited your return,¡± Celaeno said.
I wanted to shake her hand, but she didn¡¯t have one, so I touched her beak instead, and she warbled her appreciation.
¡°You came at just the right time. How did you know I would be here?¡±
¡°We are connected, blood to blood, flock to flock.¡± She croaked in agitation. ¡°You were gone for so long, and I could not feel you. Then you returned, and we followed.¡±
Creepy, but awesome.
¡°I am grateful,¡± I said. ¡°I didn¡¯t know if you would remember me.¡±
Celaeno cawed in a way that I interpreted as a scoff. ¡°I see far,¡± she said, ¡°even through the years, and we do not forget. We fed well in the green lands of the man who betrayed you, and the flock has grown.¡±
The flock certainly had grown, a curtain of wings ringed the air around the tower, and they were dropping off lillits left and right. Brenys landed and came to stand directly in front of me with her hands on her hips.
¡°Have you gotten taller?¡± she demanded, looking up at me. ¡°Take that helmet off, I want to see that it¡¯s you.¡±
Even with Agares dead, we weren¡¯t entirely safe. The mobs would soon be running amok until my demons were able to corral them, and as far as the soldiers of the city were concerned, Nargul was still under attack. Any stray arrow could take me out, but I wanted the lillits to see me, to know that I was who they believed me to be, and that their bondage was really at an end.
I tapped my helm until it vanished.
Berys hugged me. I couldn¡¯t feel her through my plate, but it was a nice gesture nonetheless, only slightly mitigated by the comment that followed.
¡°You still smell bad, vagabond,¡± she said, pulling away with a frown on her deeply lined face. ¡°But I suppose it is you.¡±
¡°I suppose it is.¡±
The other lillits crowded around me, giving thanks, touching my armor, many of them in tears. It was an overwhelming feeling, to be needed by these people, respected, even loved. My memories were still fractured, a hundred deaths in Kevin¡¯s diamond egg had taken away a lot of who I was, of who I had been during my first year in this world. But that version of myself must have done something right, to earn the admiration that I felt all around me now. The lillits were giving Berith a wide berth, and otherwise pretending he wasn¡¯t there. He lowered the head of Agares once it was clear that his moment of triumph wasn¡¯t being appreciated by our audience.
¡°What now?¡± He asked, the two of us were like giants among the crowd of lillits.
¡°Hang the head from the tower,¡± I told him. ¡°We¡¯ll put torches around it. We need the garrison to see what has become of their Duke.¡± The train would probably keep moving for a while, and everyone on the walls would have an opportunity to bear witness to the demon¡¯s fate. Berith seemed to approve of the idea, and it gave him something to do while I engaged with the lillits.
The crowd gave way as Boffin approached. He had a limp that I didn¡¯t remember, but he stood tall when he faced me, as tall as a lillit could stand.
¡°I had almost lost hope,¡± he said, sounding tired. The years had gone by in a blink for me, but he had lived every day.
¡°It¡¯s been ten years,¡± I said. ¡°Anyone would have lost hope.¡±
He shook his head. ¡°The goddess is wise, and our lives are long. We talked about this day¡¡± he lost his voice for a moment, ¡°even if you never returned. I would still be grateful to you. When Dargothians came with Godwod¡¯s men to round us up, my daughter and my grandson were already gone. When we ran, and they hunted us, I trusted they were safe. It kept me going, all this time.¡±
A lump formed in my throat.
¡°Do you know where they went?¡±
His eyes widened. ¡°You don¡¯t know?¡±
¡°I think I do,¡± I said. ¡°But I¡¯m trusting the word of a demon, and if you know, I can be sure.¡±
Boffin¡¯s face paled at my words, and he shook his head. ¡°I don¡¯t know what choices you made that brought you here, but I see what stands beside you. Esmelda didn¡¯t tell me where she was going. If the Dark Lord thought to torture me, I don¡¯t know that I could have kept the secret.¡±
I was almost afraid to ask. ¡°Did he?¡± I said, ¡°Torture you?¡±
The former mayor looked away, his gaze growing distant. ¡°Not for that. We were never asked about her. If you aren¡¯t sure¡¡± his voice trailed away.
I felt myself grow cold. Kevin deserved more than I could ever do to him. But a full recounting of what had been suffered for his whims could wait.
¡°She¡¯s okay,¡± I said, unwilling to believe anything else. ¡°You have a grandson, and I¡¯m going to get them as soon as you¡¯re all off this train.¡±
¡°A grandson,¡± Boffin was barely audible. Tears formed at the corners of his eyes.
¡°What are you waiting for?¡± Brenys grabbed my hand. ¡°We won¡¯t all be murdered tonight. You can¡¯t trust a demon¡¯s word, so if you think you know where they are, you have to go to them. I won¡¯t sleep until I know what¡¯s happened to my niece.¡±
As much as I wanted to, I couldn¡¯t leave that instant. The rest of the night was lost to pacifying the city. We marched up and down the train, freeing lillits, cowing soldiers, and claiming monsters. The alarm bells rang for hours, but once the officers started swearing fealty to me, it was just a matter of getting the word out.
The Dark Lord was here, Agares had been a traitor to Dargoth, and a new demon would be taking charge of Nargul. Asmodeus had killed Forneus, but Astaroth was still clinging to life, so I sent them both back to Gaap and the army at the gates with orders to return to Mount Doom and make sure it still belonged to me. Agares could have been bluffing about sending forces to
take it back, but I doubted it. I was putting my faith in Bojack and Zareth to keep the fortress intact and Kevin in his cage until reinforcements arrived.
Berith would be managing Nargul for the time being, but I ordered him to defer to Boffin when it came to the lillits. I wasn¡¯t going back to Mount Doom yet. When the sun rose again, the light of morning sickly and weak as it filtered through the clouds; I found Noivern, and we flew for the Wastes.
I was going home.
106: My Reunion (Rewrite)
The Wastes were a sea of shadows beneath me. The wind rushed by to the beat of Noivern¡¯s powerful wings, carrying me either to the future I hoped for or utter despair. More than a decade had gone by since I¡¯d seen my wife. Even if it hadn¡¯t been that long subjectively for me, there was weight in the knowledge. Seeing Boffin and Brenys again had more than made the point of how much had changed.
Crossing the Wastes on foot took at least three days if you were willing to go with very little rest and a good hiking pace. The waystations had been built about twenty miles apart, so a platoon of soldiers on the march could conceivably make it from one to the next in a single day. It was impossible to be sure exactly how fast my wyvern could fly, probably not as fast as if he hadn¡¯t been burdened by a man in full metal gear on his back, but it got me where I was going.
The warm air from the sand filled his wide, leathery wings and allowed us to soar across the Wastes in a single night. The clouds that rose from Mount Doom didn¡¯t extend past the sands, which meant I¡¯d had to spend several hours waiting for the sun to set before it was safe for Noivern to fly again. It gave him a chance to rest, but I couldn¡¯t, so I¡¯d passed the time pacing and second-guessing myself.
I was a free man, given magic to wield and a kingdom to command, but a part of me felt like I was still in a holding cell. A lot of life in prison is just sitting and waiting, whether for the next meal, the next letter, or the results of a parole hearing.
In my previous life, after I¡¯d gotten out, I¡¯d spent a lot of time pushing the past from my mind. I¡¯d cut off my connections to the friends I¡¯d made behind bars, not because I hadn¡¯t liked them, but because I couldn¡¯t be in contact with them without thinking about everything that had come before. It¡¯s a funny comparison to make, considering I¡¯d now literally been transported to another world, but being locked up is a little bit like being isekaied.
Being in prison severs you from normal life. The rules are not the same. It sounds stupid to say it, but confinement is confining; it limits you in ways that most people in the modern world will never have to think about.
Getting out and being handed a smartphone felt like being given a superpower. I¡¯d done everything I could to put that period of my life behind me, to just not have to think about it; working all the time, drinking myself to sleep. It hadn¡¯t been healthy, but I hadn¡¯t been totally mentally together to start with, and being incarcerated hadn¡¯t helped.
People in jail are always talking about what they did to get in there, but the people who have been down a while rarely do. I had been a bipolar nineteen-year-old who¡¯d had a breakdown, quit his job, run out of money, and gone on a crime spree. I¡¯d driven into a neighboring state and started robbing banks for reasons I could never fully explain. Sure, I could make up reasons, and tell a story about it that would halfway make sense, but it would just be made-up excuses. Sometimes, people do things just to do them, and then they have to live with the consequences. I had been a teenager one day, and a thirty-year-old man the next, released early on what amounted to a stroke of luck, trying to figure out how to start over.
Now I had been reborn, given gifts straight out of a fantasy, but I was still me, still making mistakes, and reckless decisions that risked more than my own life. If I¡¯d been more careful, I never would have had to be separated from my new family. Whatever had happened to Esmelda in the intervening time, whatever had happened to my son, it was my fault. Standing outside of the nest I¡¯d made for Noivern, watching the shadows thicken over the mountain as the sun began to fall behind the dunes of the Wastes, I made a promise to myself. If I got another chance, if Esmelda was safe, things were going to be different. I was going to be different, and I would never leave my family behind again.
As the sands rushed beneath me, I hoped it was a promise I could keep.
A flight of harpies accompanied us on the journey. Celaeno took most of the flock to help with the situation at Mount Doom, but she insisted that I not travel alone. My new homies were young. They had been born in the years of my absence, and they didn¡¯t talk much. Harpies had their own language, and only the oldest and cleverest of them could speak English well enough to hold a conversation.
The birds arrived at the border after us, as they couldn¡¯t match the wyvern¡¯s speed. They were wary of the wyvern but seemed to respect our relationship. These harpies had never fed from my hands, but they still accepted me as their alpha, or whatever the bird equivalent of an alpha was.
The mountains came and went, and the region beyond the mountains was a completely different climate from the Wastes; temperate and green, with wide fields and scattered stands of old-growth trees. As we descended, I directed Noivern to follow a river that flowed down from the icy caps of the taller peaks. While the exact location of my original spawn point had been obscured by countless deaths and rebirths, there were notes in my journal about the area, and being back on this side of the world was already stirring memories in me.
Dargoth¡¯s influence hadn¡¯t completely extended into this land, aside from the single train track, now overgrown, the land was unchanged. A river grew weaker as the miles passed away, becoming no more than a stream, and I knew that I was close.
Then I saw the shelter, or what was left of it. My first few days in this world had been spent entirely alone, surviving for survival¡¯s sake, crafting and harvesting by myself, and figuring out how my System worked. Long abandonment can wreak havoc on any structure, and my original shelter had been crafted primarily out of wooden logs and planks.
Vines covered the exterior, and one of the walls was just gone, rotted away. It had barely been more than a lean-to to begin with, and the fact that it still existed at all was a testament to how the System fortified crafted building materials. Somewhere nearby was my own grave, but nature had taken over, erasing nearly every sign of what had transpired in those early days of survival.
They weren¡¯t here, but the remains of the shelter were as good as an arrow pointing to where I needed to go. I stood by the stream where I had first discovered that I could turn grass into coins, lined myself up according to the placement of the last standing wall and the position of the square, falling moon, and looked toward a line of trees.
It was more trees than I remembered. I¡¯d spawned in an open field, but a patch of forest had sprung up in the middle of the grassland. Putting my feet back in the straps of Noivern¡¯s harness, I spurred the wyvern to take flight once more. We rose over the abandoned shelter, circled it once, and headed for my origin.
It was only a few miles, but covering the distance seemed to take as long as crossing all of the Wastes. A faint glow hid within the cover of the wood, as bright as a beacon to my eyes. Flying overhead, gaps in the canopy revealed the edge of a cottage, a scrap of garden, and two figures. A man and a boy in martial stances, each holding a sword. It looked like a training session.
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My heart beat faster. I was too high to make them out clearly, but I did not doubt who they were. The way the man stood, his broad shoulders and confident air, was deeply familiar to me.
The boy spotted me first, shouting and pointing, and the pair retreated into the cottage. I guided Noivern away from the trees and landed him just outside of the small wood.
Taking Noivern¡¯s broad, toothy head in both my hands, I gave him a stern warning.
¡°Don¡¯t attack anyone here. If you feel threatened, fly away. Do you hear me?¡±
The wyvern trilled in what I took to be assent.
¡°Stay,¡± I said and took a few steps. Noivern didn¡¯t move. ¡°Good boy.¡±
The light was gone, so I dropped torches around me as I entered the trees. A single monster spawning could destroy the peace I hoped to find. The harpies wouldn¡¯t catch up to us for a while yet, and there was already a phantom crying somewhere above, though it had yet to dive. A horse was munching on the grass beside the cottage, utterly unperturbed by the presence of an armored stranger throwing around magic lights.
The door creaked open as I dropped another torch, blanketing the little clearing in enchanted light. A simple building with a thatch roof, it wasn''t my work. My shelter here had been underground. The man stepped out, staggeringly handsome, with a chiseled jawline and a mane of blonde hair. Time had weathered him, adding wrinkles around his eyes and creases around his mouth, but I would have recognized that Chad anywhere.
¡°Who are you?¡± Gastard demanded, his voice ringing clear and unafraid. He¡¯d thrown on a chain shirt, and he held his sword in a low-guard position, but he was still in trousers.
I removed my helmet, and his eyes widened. The sword wavered and fell.
¡°William?¡±
¡°Yeah,¡± I said, feeling weak. ¡°It¡¯s a long story, but I¡¯m here.¡±
Gastard sheathed his sword in a practiced motion, and strode forward, throwing his arms around me in a manful embrace.
¡°By Gotte,¡± he said, ¡°it is you.¡±
I patted his shoulder, taken aback by this show of affection. Gastard was not a hugger. My gaze fixed on the doorway behind him and the delicate figure revealed within it. At four and a half feet, Esmelda was actually tall for a lillit woman. Her long chestnut brown hair was loose, and there was a scattering of freckles across her slightly upturned nose and beneath her bright, gray eyes.
¡°Esmelda,¡± I breathed, my heart aching at the sight of her. Gastard let me go, allowing me to step forward.
¡°Hello, Will,¡± she said, and then I was holding her.
It didn¡¯t feel real, I was floating outside of my body. I needed to get out of my armor. To have a wall of metal separating us now was almost too much. I needed to feel her head resting against my chest.
¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± I said, my voice thick, ¡°I¡¯m sorry I didn¡¯t come home.¡±
¡°I knew that you would,¡± she said softly, ¡°eventually.¡±
There was light in the cottage, an Eternal Torch, illuminating a single-room living space. The boy was there, it could only be Leto, watching us warily. He was taller than his mother, with auburn hair and hazel eyes. His lillit blood was evident in his delicate features, but I saw myself in him as well.
¡°Leto,¡± Esmelda said, still holding onto me with one arm. ¡°This is your father.¡±
My heart swelled, but he didn¡¯t come forward.
¡°You didn¡¯t tell me he had horns,¡± my son said, and for a moment, I was baffled. Then I touched my head. There were hard nubs on both of my temples. Killing Beleth had left me with cat-like eyes, and it seemed that killing Agares had made a similar alteration to my appearance. I hadn¡¯t looked in a mirror since leaving Mount Doom, and though my head had been aching over the last few days, the nubs were new.
¡°You do, don¡¯t you,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Well, that¡¯s new.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know what to say,¡± I told my son. ¡°I¡¯ve wanted to meet you for a long time.¡±
The boy blinked, then closed the door. My heart ached.
¡°Give him some time,¡± Esmelda said, her brows dropping in concern. She looked exactly as I remembered her. Time moved more slowly for the lillits. ¡°It¡¯s been¡difficult for him.¡±
Of course, it had, and I was the one to blame for that.
¡°Is there anyone else here?¡± I asked, looking around the clearing, the cottage, the garden, the simple life they had built out in the middle of nowhere.
Esmelda shook her head. ¡°It¡¯s just been the three of us.¡±
Gastard stepped closer, his square jaw set, his blue eyes serious. ¡°When you didn¡¯t return, we traveled here together. Apart from reconnaissance, and fetching additional supplies, I have not left her side.¡±
His words were simple, but they spoke of a bond of loyalty and friendship that I did not deserve.
¡°Thank you,¡± I said. ¡°I owe you more than I can ever repay.¡±
He shook his head. ¡°It was my duty. There was fighting to be done, but I knew there was nothing I could do that was more important than this.¡±
I was at a loss for words.
¡°Come inside,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°I¡¯m sure there¡¯s a lot to tell.¡±
The interior was plain, little more than a dining room and a hearth. A bearskin rug had been thrown to one side on the floor, revealing a trapdoor, the entrance to the original shelter. Had Gastard killed a bear? I unequipped my armor, and we sat together around a bare oak table.
Once my hand was free of its gauntlet, Esmelda wouldn¡¯t let it go, and I didn¡¯t want her to. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.
¡°What happened to you?¡±
¡°A lot.¡±
She gave a small smile, not trying to force it out of me.
¡°Have you been all right out here?¡± I asked. ¡°Did the Dargothians come looking for you?¡±
¡°Soldiers did find us, once,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°They weren¡¯t Dargothians. Godwod¡¯s men were roaming the countryside looking for lillits, and we hid in the cellar while Gastard spoke with them.¡±
At the mention of Lord Godwod, a hot pit of anger knotted in my belly, but I let it dissolve. There was no need for that here, and I would deal with the margrave when the time came. Everything that mattered was in this place with me.
I told them everything, at least as much as I knew. Waking up in the diamond egg, making a deal with the demon who had held me captive, and all that had come after. They listened without interrupting, though it was obvious that Gastard was upset by the revelation that I was now actively consorting with his sworn enemies. His frown was sharp enough to cut rock. Esmelda took it all in with a clear expression. She had always been strong, and I hadn¡¯t realized exactly how strong until this moment.
¡°So,¡± she said, squeezing my hand. ¡°My husband is the Dark Lord. Mizu works in mysterious ways.¡±
107: My Future (Rewrite)
Leto hefted a travel pack over his shoulder, taking one last look around the cottage. It had been his home for his entire life, and he wasn¡¯t keen to leave. They¡¯d subdivided the bunker to allow for privacy, an amenity I hadn¡¯t included in the original dugout, and Esmelda had spent much of the night debating with him in his room about the subject.
We couldn¡¯t all ride on Noivern, so I sent the wyvern home ahead of us with a letter for Zareth explaining where I was and what I was doing. The plan was to travel on foot until we reached the first waystation in the Wastes and I could use my authority as the Dark Lord to requisition us some mounts. In the days between now and then, there was going to be a lot going on back at Mount Doom. I might even lose it, but I couldn¡¯t help feeling optimistic about the future.
Not knowing what had become of my family had been a burden in the back of my mind ever since I¡¯d started my most recent life cycle. Now that I knew they were okay, I felt like there wasn¡¯t anything ahead of us we couldn¡¯t handle.
¡°Are you ready to go?¡± I asked Leto, and he nodded. I¡¯d spent the night at the cottage, but he¡¯d avoided me.
There was a long road ahead to gain his trust, and the effect Bedlam''s taint was having on my appearance probably didn¡¯t help matters, but there was no comparison between having this chance to build a relationship with him and not having it. The gap between us was as wide as the years we¡¯d spent apart, but it was bridgeable, and that was what mattered.
He glanced at his mother. ¡°Do we have to? Couldn¡¯t we just stay here?¡±
¡°You¡¯ve never met your grandfather,¡± she said, touching his cheek. ¡°Or your cousins, or any of our people. This has been a good home to us, but it isn¡¯t our forever home. How many times have you said you wanted to see the world outside our little wood? I have been waiting for this, and I think you have too if you would care to admit it.¡±
¡°I was a kid when I said those things.¡±
I couldn¡¯t help but smile at that. It seemed impossible that he had grown so much, but he was still a child. As far as I knew, he didn¡¯t have any cousins, as Esmelda didn¡¯t have any siblings of her own, but the lillits had an extended sense of kinship. They lived in tightly knit communities, and it must have been difficult for her to have gone so long without any communication from her father or any connection to her friends from Williamsburg.
Gastard knelt in front of him, wearing a serious expression.
¡°It is as you say. You are almost a man now, and you should put away childish fears. Your father is with us, at long last, and we must move forward.¡±
Leto straightened his back, taking strength from the words of the knight. Gastard had helped raise him, and I could never thank him enough for the role he had played in caring for my family, but it did hurt to see that he already had the kind of relationship with my son that I wanted to have. I was Leto¡¯s father. Gastard had been his dad. He ruffled the boy¡¯s hair, and we left.
Sending Noivern away meant we could travel during the day. The air here tasted cleaner than it had in Dargoth, and there was no perpetual gloom to contend with. The sun was out, and the sky was clear.
While none of them could travel as quickly as I would have alone, they were all in good physical condition, and I let Gastard set the pace. Leto walked a step behind him, apparently preferring not to have me in his direct line of sight, and Esmelda stayed at my side.
Leto kept looking up at the harpies. Admittedly, a gang of oversized vultures following you everywhere would seem pretty ominous if you weren¡¯t used to them.
¡°You don¡¯t have to be afraid of them,¡± I said. ¡°They¡¯re my friends.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not afraid,¡± Leto said. ¡°I just don¡¯t like them.¡±
It was the most he¡¯d said to me all day. Progress.
¡°How long before we get to Dargoth?¡± he asked Gastard.
¡°Days,¡± the knight replied, ¡°but there¡¯s much to see before then, and we can keep up with your training along the way.¡±
¡°I was wondering about that,¡± I said. ¡°What were you doing sparring in the middle of the night?¡±
Esmelda touched my arm. ¡°Leto doesn¡¯t always sleep well. It helps to tire him out.¡±
Insomnia was something I could relate to. Hopefully, he hadn¡¯t inherited too many of my other undesirable traits.
¡°I¡¯d like to watch you train. I could join in if you don¡¯t mind. It¡¯s been a while since I¡¯ve had any formal practice.¡±
Leto¡¯s back stiffened at the suggestion that I would be participating, but Gastard looked back at me with a broad grin.
¡°You were a good student, as I recall. Not much talent, of course, but you persisted, and never hesitated to rise when you were knocked down.¡±
¡°Not much talent,¡± I said, ¡°that¡¯s me. Bullheadedness is about the only talent I have.¡±
Esmelda hummed for a moment. ¡°Perhaps a few more,¡± she said.
We reached the stream well before midday. A few hours more, and we were well on our way to the mountains.
They¡¯d brought along bread and some dried meats, and I¡¯d converted every vegetable in the cottage larder into coins to bring with us. The weight of a sack of pans and cooking implements meant nothing to me, so with Esmelda to cook, we would be eating better than I ever had on the road.
Leto¡¯s eyes widened when he saw me produce a few logs and with a single scratch of flint on steel, set them alight. It was one of the least magical things I could do, but it was impressive enough in context. I¡¯d lived with the conveniences of my System since arriving on Plana, but this was my son¡¯s first exposure to them.
¡°You didn¡¯t use tinder,¡± he said. ¡°How did you do that?¡±
¡°Honestly, I¡¯m not sure. It just works for me. Do you want to try?¡±
Producing another log, I set it apart from the cookfire and handed him the flint and steel. Though I had crafted them, they weren¡¯t magical in and of themselves. If a person without the Survivor class used one of my picks or shovels, they didn¡¯t provide any special benefit aside from being well-made tools. While I could start a blaze in an instant, anyone else would be stuck striking sparks at a piece of wood without at least a bit of dry grass to get things started.
Esmelda knitted her brows as Leto knelt, shooting me a questioning look. It wasn¡¯t my intention to show off or set him up for failure, I was genuinely curious what would happen. Systems weren¡¯t heritable, otherwise, there would have been heroes running around all over Plana, but I couldn¡¯t help but feel that things might be more complicated than that. Magic wouldn¡¯t be illegal in Drom if there had only ever been a dozen people in history who could use it.
Leto rasped the small steel rod across the flint, resulting in a shower of sparks. A few of them touched the upright log, and it burst into flames.
Esmelda¡¯s mouth dropped open, and I looked at her sharply.
¡°Can he¨Cdoes he¡¡±
She shook her head, stunned. ¡°He¡¯s never¡he doesn¡¯t have your gifts.¡±
Gastard rubbed his chin thoughtfully as Leto, with a whoop of delight, rushed over to the nearest patch of tall grass and set it on fire.
¡°Don¡¯t!¡± I don¡¯t think I¡¯d ever heard Esmelda¡¯s voice reach that high a pitch. She wrested the flint and steel from Leto before he could start a wildfire.
¡°I was just testing,¡± he complained as I harvested the burning grass and kicked his log over to mingle with mine.
¡°Testing is good,¡± I said, ¡°but let¡¯s try something safer.¡±
I had to do a bit of sorting through my pack to find the right medallion, but I was soon able to present him with an orichalcum shovel. He gazed in open wonder at the tool. I¡¯d become jaded by the quality of Kevin¡¯s work, but for a shovel, it was impressive. Orichalcum looked as much like marble as metal, and the handle was engraved with an intricate spiral pattern.
¡°Its name is Scrapper,¡± I said.
He accepted it reverently, and we all held our breath as he walked a few paces and found a relatively bare spot of dirt to plunge it into. Its tip bit the soil, and nothing special happened.
¡°Try tapping the ground with it,¡± I said.
¡°It¡¯s heavy.¡± Leto frowned, but did as I suggested, patting the soil with its blade. We tried a few more things, but it quickly became clear that my son could not harvest materials like I could. He was dejected, but Esmelda actually looked a little relieved.
¡°Curious,¡± Gastard said. ¡°Why the flint?¡±
¡°The System doesn¡¯t answer questions,¡± I said, sighing.
The vegetable pot simmered, and we spent an hour or so in relatively easy companionship by the river. Leto couldn¡¯t harvest or craft the way I could, but was it possible there were other advantages to being my child? The Survivor System had already enhanced my physiology before Esmelda and I were together, though not nearly to the level it had now. If it was a purely magical boost, there was nothing inheritable about that, but if it had altered me on a genetic level, then my son would be stronger and fitter than a boy his age should have been. I asked Gastard about it.
¡°He is hale,¡± he said, ¡°strong for his size, perhaps, but not to the extent that I suspected a blessing at work.¡±
¡°I¡¯m right here,¡± Leto said. ¡°You don¡¯t have to talk about me.¡± He was watching the flames like he wanted to make more of them.
I started securing a shelter well before the sun went down. As much as I wanted to speed our progress to Mount Doom, getting an extra hour or so of travel out of the day wouldn¡¯t be worth the risk.
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Leto watched me set up a perimeter of torches before I used Scrapper to dig out a full basement. It was faster than laying blocks, and I quickly filled in the ceiling with granite. It was nothing fancy, but it was amazing enough for someone who had never seen a crafter at work before. Leto was already looking at me differently. Not with love, certainly, but some of his distaste had been replaced with awe, which was better than nothing.
¡°You should tell him about Beleth,¡± Esmelda said, as we settled around the fire, cradling bowls of vegetable soup. ¡°How you defeated the demon and rescued my father from the Dargothians.¡±
¡°It¡¯s a good story,¡± Gastard agreed.
¡°I know it already,¡± Leto complained.
¡°You¡¯ve heard me tell it,¡± Esmelda chided him. ¡°You have never heard it from the mouth of someone who was there, let alone the hero of Williamsburg.¡±
That last bit was an old joke. Esmelda knew I thought having a town named after me was cringy. It had been Boffin¡¯s idea to begin with, but I¡¯d gone along with it.
Telling the story was difficult for a variety of reasons. For one, my memory was foggy, and a lot of what I could recall was like snippets from a dream. The other issue was that much of what stood out in my mind about that whole adventure were things my son didn¡¯t need to know. Killing unprepared soldiers in a barracks. Trapping men with trolls. The mistakes I had made along the way that had put lillit lives at risk.
What kind of story had Esmelda been telling instead?
¡°Well,¡± I said. ¡°It started while I was mining outside of Henterfell. We didn¡¯t know Erihseht had been raided until we got back to the city. I¡¯m still not sure why Kevin picked that time to start rounding people up.¡±
¡°Kevin?¡± Leto asked. When his brows furrowed, I saw the shadow of the wrinkle between them that I had seen in the mirror a thousand times before. Our faces were different. His was thinner and more refined, but the resemblance I saw in that expression was so uncanny that I lost my train of thought.
¡°The Dark Lord,¡± Gastard supplied. ¡°Your father has never hesitated to speak his name.¡±
¡°The former Dark Lord,¡± Esmelda said, then glanced at me, her gaze unreadable. She¡¯d accepted my ascension to the throne at face value, but she might have been holding back her more critical opinions for a more convenient airing.
¡°Oh,¡± Leto blinked. ¡°Kevin, like Kevinian. Why is the language named after him? He didn¡¯t invent it, did he?¡±
This was an odd tangent, but it was one I was more comfortable talking about than what had happened at the way station.
¡°He didn¡¯t invent it. He forced everyone in Dargoth to learn it, so now it¡¯s their native tongue, and everyone else thinks of it as his.¡±
¡°We always knew better,¡± Esmelda said, tapping our son on his shoulder to get his attention. ¡°We¡¯ve talked about this, you know. Kevinian, or a version of it, was also the language of the heroes. It was the only tongue your father spoke when he came into our world.¡±
The words that were added to my vocabulary when I harvested books felt as natural as the ones I¡¯d grown up speaking, so I tended to switch between languages depending on who I was speaking to without really thinking about it. We¡¯d been conversing lillant since we¡¯d left the cottage, even Gastard, though he probably would have felt better using Sprache, which was more common in the Free Kingdoms. On the scale of miracles, it wasn¡¯t top tier, but language barriers would have been a massive obstacle otherwise.
¡°What¡¯s it called then?¡± Leto asked.
¡°English,¡± I said. ¡°Where I came from, most people spoke English. And Kevin came from the same part of my world, I guess, though we¡¯ve never talked about it. There are a lot of other languages there, hundreds, actually, but I never learned any of them. Sprache sounds a lot like German did, now that I¡¯m thinking about it, which was another one from my world.¡± Not that I knew more than a few words in German, so it might have been a coincidence, but another isekai could have been an influence there. Mizu had been playing this transmigration of souls game for a long time.
¡°Where did you come from, then? Mom said it was a place called Earth, but she couldn¡¯t tell me much about it.¡±
Esmelda and I hadn¡¯t spoken a lot about my previous life, not because she hadn¡¯t been interested, but because I had been cagey on the subject. It wasn¡¯t like my previous existence had been something to brag about, and I generally avoided thinking about the people I¡¯d left behind. Things were easier that way. If Leto wanted to know, though, I was happy to be able to share something with him.
¡°Earth is the name of my home world, and I lived in a nation called America. It was very different from Plana, mostly because technology was different. The people there built
some amazing things.¡±
¡°Like what?¡± Leto asked curiously.
Bombs, guns, tanks. Human invention certainly had its dark side, but there were also things that a boy could appreciate. ¡°They made a way for people to fly. They would board ships called planes that took them across the sky.¡±
¡°Were they hot air balloons?¡± Esmelda asked, catching me off guard.
¡°Wait, you guys have hot air balloons?¡±
She shook her head. ¡°It¡¯s something Fladnag talked about once when he came through Erihseht when I was younger. He said he could fill a big cloth sail with hot air from a flame, and that it would be light enough to carry a person into the sky.¡±
The name sounded familiar. Had we talked about him before? ¡°Who was Fladnag again?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know that I mentioned him.¡± She frowned. ¡°I haven¡¯t thought about the man in years. When I was a child, he visited Erihseht every summer, telling stories, and doing tricks. Fladnag was a traveling entertainer, but he was already older then, he must have retired.¡±
¡°I know of him,¡± Gastard said, a nostalgic look softening the hard planes of his face. ¡°He visited Henterfell when I was a boy. Johanna loved his illuminators.¡±
¡°They were wondrous,¡± Esmelda said, wistfully.
Leto was looking back and forth between them, even more lost than I was.
¡°Illuminators?¡±
¡°They looked like wooden candles,¡± Gastard said, ¡°with a wick at the bottom. When they were lit, they sent lines of fire into the air that burst in colorful sparks.¡±
An old man going from village to village with fireworks. His name was Fladnag. Fladnag. I spelled it out in my head and felt like screaming. There was absolutely zero chance that the similarities to Gandalf were a coincidence. Another hero was wandering around, and he knew how to make gunpowder.
There were fireworks in Maincraft, but you made them with gunpowder that dropped from dead creepers, a mob I¡¯d never encountered. Not that I wanted to run into an exploding cactus, but the resource would have come in handy.
What did you need to craft gunpowder? The System would almost certainly allow it. I had a vague notion of the ingredients; charcoal, sulphur. Guano? I¡¯d never mined any sulfur, but maybe Kevin had some lying around, and with a kingdom at my disposal, I was sure to be able to get my hands on some guano. Did you have to use bats, or would any fertilizer do?
¡°Do you know what happened to him?¡± I asked Gastard.
His chain shirt clinked as he shrugged. ¡°Godwod offered him money for the secret of the illuminators. When the old man refused, he was accused of sorcery, but he fled Henterfell before he could be arrested. I don¡¯t know what became of him after that.¡±
There wasn¡¯t a lot to go on, and we were headed in the wrong direction. I couldn¡¯t decide if this was good news or not. Another hero, but one who¡¯d shirked his duty, cosplaying as a character from Lord of the Rings. That was beginning to seem like a trend.
The conversation returned to hot air balloons and planes. I will share my suspicions later.
¡°Did you fly in them?¡± Leto asked.
¡°I¡¯ve been on a plane before, but I wasn¡¯t a pilot or anything like that.¡±
¡°What else did the people build?¡± Leto leaned forward, his curiosity piqued by the idea of a flying boat. Magic exists in this world, and monsters, but most people live ordinary lives without much interaction with either. My son in particular had led a very sheltered existence, and a plane would seem like a fantastical artifact to him. Having one to ride on would have certainly been very convenient for us now.
After retiring to the shelter, the four of us talked well into the night, and I did my best to explain cell phones and computers and big cities thrumming with electricity. Out of context, modern conveniences sounded pretty mystical. It was an odd juxtaposition, considering that Plana was a world being invaded by demons who could cast actual spells.
Gastard and Esmelda shared a look, and she declared that we needed to sleep if we were going to get anywhere the next day. Leto wrapped himself in a bedroll facing the dirt wall, a cloth over his head to block the torchlight. Gastard took the opposite corner and displayed the enviable skill of nodding off on command. Either that, or he was pretending to sleep for our benefit.
Esmelda and I shared a grass mat. I held her close, feeling the warmth of her back against my chest. She smelled like a flower, that had to be a lillit magic.
¡°I missed you,¡± she murmured.
¡°You too,¡± I said. Something was nagging at the back of my mind that I¡¯d been trying not to think about. Esmelda and Gastard, alone in the woods for ten years, raising my son. It was an intimate situation that had gone on for a very long time. Our reunion had felt almost as easy as if I¡¯d only been gone for a few months instead of a decade, with astonishingly little awkwardness. Of course, that was likely because, from my perspective, that¡¯s all it had been.
For them, time had passed at its accustomed rate. They had to have doubted that I would ever come back. Gastard was a man of honor, and Esmelda no less, but everyone had limits.
¡°This may be a crazy question,¡± I said, keeping my voice low, ¡°but do you still want to be married to me?¡±
¡°Pardon?¡± I felt her tense.
¡°I just¡I mean, it¡¯s been a long time. If something happened, if there was someone else¡¡± I trailed off. This was drifting perilously close to an accusation that I had no right to make.
Esmelda turned over, adjusting her position so that we were face to face. Her eyes, gray like a morning mist, were the most lovely things I had ever seen.
¡°William,¡± she said, managing to sound stern despite speaking at a barely audible level. ¡°We were married under the gaze of the goddess. That is not something to be undone, and Gastard is your loyal friend.¡± She paused, suddenly amused. ¡°Though I¡¯m not sure if that loyalty would prevent him from attacking you if you insulted his honor to the point where suggesting what I think you¡¯re suggesting would.¡±
Something unknotted in my chest.
¡°Sorry,¡± I said. ¡°Maybe I¡¯m projecting. I can¡¯t imagine being stuck in a cabin in the woods with you for ten years and not having some ideas.¡±
¡°If that logic extends to any other woman you happen to be trapped with in the future, there will be consequences.¡± She was frowning, but there was humor in her eyes.
¡°Not what I meant.¡±
¡°I know.¡±
We were silent for a while, looking at one another. I could see the question forming on her lips.
¡°What have you done?¡±
¡°You mean the demon thing?¡±
¡°Yes, the demon thing,¡± she said, a hint of annoyance in her voice.
¡°I know what it looks like, but I¡¯m not going to be another Kevin. We¡¯ll find a way out of the oath. There wasn¡¯t another way out of that egg, and I thought Bojack was holding you captive.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not as important as Plana¡¯s fate.¡±
¡°You are to me,¡± I said, and it was true. It wasn¡¯t the most heroic perspective, but the instinct to protect someone I loved was more viscerally powerful than a theoretical moral duty to defend the world.
¡°Be that as it may,¡± her cheeks colored, ¡°you have placed us in a precarious position. I support you, Dark Lord or not, but Gastard will be less willing to accept compromises, and I fear the compromises the demon will demand of you will soon become untenable.¡±
¡°Fixing the world is a big project,¡± I said. ¡°There are going to be steps forward and steps back. But Kevin¡¯s in a box, and I¡¯ve got more resources than I know what to do with. We may have a demonic civil war on our hands, and that¡¯s good for us. It means more of them will die. At some point, Bojack¡¯s going to ask too much, and I¡¯ll have to put my foot down and take the consequences. We can prepare for that.¡±
I felt something inside of me twinge at the thought of killing Bojack. The bond I have made with him was tied to my essence, my soul. With the commands he had given me, even planning to betray him could potentially trigger the curse. That was going to make things difficult.
¡°The goddess is with us,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°She brought you out of Bedlam, and she would not have done so if your oath with the demon went too far for grace. But it will be a difficult path to walk.¡±
¡°Do you believe in me?¡±
Esmelda tucked her head under mine, her breath soft against my chest.
¡°I believe in us.¡±
It would have to be enough.
108: My Return (Rewrite)
As we approached the way station, the sky faded from gold into the melancholy shades of sunset. Even as the world darkened, my eyes, Beleth¡¯s parting gift, adjusted to present me with new clarity. They drank in the fading colors, even those reflected from the orichalcum of my armor, transforming the landscape into a field of shining grays.
Our trek from the homestead had gone by too quickly. Leto was warming up to me, and with what was potentially waiting for us in Dargoth, I had considered not returning to Mount Doom. If Bojack died with his oathblade intact, I would still be bound to our agreement, and there was no way to escape its strictures without finding the blade. If he wasn¡¯t around to clarify the orders he had given me, they were open to interpretation. Killing individual demons wouldn¡¯t break our pact and initiate the curse, but wiping them all out would.
Intent also had to be taken into account. I couldn¡¯t with the sole purpose of purifying Plana. Any progress I made on that front would have to be incidental, and that would quickly become a balancing act too complicated to manage.
If he was dead.
We had been walking on the red granite road all day, a straight shot through an endless stretch of black and gray sand. The way station loomed, a finger of dark stone stabbing up into the sky and casting a long shadow over the sands.
Esmelda¡¯s long, chestnut brown hair swayed with her steps, as Leto was currently riding Marie. Her dress was simple but fine, like most everything she wore, clothes that made her look like she belonged in some elegant drawing room, not in the middle of an apocalyptic desert. Was it a leftover from our previous life, or had she been making dresses in a cabin in the woods? The fading light gave her heart-shaped face an almost ethereal glow.
Leto had been trying to act independent, but I¡¯d often seen him watching his mother for cues and reassurance. He looked uncomfortable atop the horse. Not because he couldn¡¯t ride, he¡¯d been doing that his entire life, but the Wastes made him nervous. For someone who had known only a temperate little patch of the world as home, the desert had to seem like a hellscape.
Gastard trailed a few paces behind us, his eyes trained on the tower, scrutinizing it as if he expected arrows to begin whizzing out at any moment. If it came to that, I had my own bow and magic arrows, and more than enough stone to throw up a bulwark for my family while I dealt with whoever had decided to give us a problem. On our last visit, taking over the way station had been touch and go. With my new armor, however, regular soldiers weren¡¯t much of a threat to me anymore.
As we got closer, a sense of unease knotted up in my gut. This was the moment of truth. Would the soldiers recognize me as their Dark Lord, or were they still operating under old orders? After what had happened last time, Kevin was sure to have warned his gatekeepers about the threat of
other Survivors. I didn¡¯t want to have to kill anyone today.
My eyes darted to the guards standing on either side of the portcullis at the end of a drawbridge. They stood stiffly, their mail painted white, with polearms at rest. They had to see us, and they weren¡¯t sounding any alarms. That was a good sign, right?
As we came within throwing distance, still without a response from the guards, the heavy iron portcullis lifted. Chains rattled and gears turned somewhere in the darkness of the tower, hoisting the gate inch by inch until it was high enough for us to pass beneath.
My shoulders relaxed. It felt like someone had just removed a fifty-pound weight, or a hundred pounds, considering how much I could carry now. They knew who I was supposed to be. There was no other reason to welcome a man in magical full-plate into your garrison. No arrows were flying through the air, and the guards, if anything, stood a little stiffer, as if they were expecting an inspection.
I shared a glance with Esmelda, and even though she tried to hide it, I saw my relief mirrored in her eyes. We stepped under the towering gate and into the way station, walking unimpeded through a short tunnel vault lined with murder holes, exchanging the heat of the desert for the mildly hospitable air of the tower.
The double doors beyond the vault were already open, and another set of guards approached; an entire team of them, at least twenty, lined up to salute me. Whenever I saw Kevin¡¯s soldiers in a group, I couldn¡¯t help being reminded of the Stormtroopers from Star Wars. Their armor was that uniform.
Of course, they weren¡¯t Kevin¡¯s Stormtroopers anymore, they were mine, and they didn¡¯t pull a single blaster rifle on us.
"Dark Lord, we were informed of your arrival by Vizier Zareth," one of them said, his voice sounding tinny through the helmet. "Your wyverns are prepared and ready for travel."
My wyverns, as in, more than one. "Lead the way," I replied, improvising an imperious wave of my hand.
The mobs were huddling under a marquee on the roof of the way station, protected from the dying light. My mount had come back, and he lifted his head, flexing his wide maw in an expression that would have been terrifying if I hadn¡¯t grown accustomed to the beast''s quirks. There were four other wyverns beside him, looking cramped and irritable after spending the day unable to stretch their wings.
Sure, they were monsters, and they could eat people, but they were kind of cute after you got to know them.
Esmelda looked at the creatures with suspicion, her gray eyes narrowed and uncertain. Leto, on the other hand, seemed more curious than afraid, tugging at his mother''s hand as if asking to go closer. Whenever monsters weren¡¯t trying to kill me, I rather liked them, and my son seemed to share that affinity.
Esmelda''s fingers tightened around our son¡¯s hand as she stared at the wyverns.
"They''re...intimidating," she said, choosing her words with care.
Leto was more vocal about his reservations. "Aren''t they evil?" he asked, pulling his gaze away from the wyverns to look up at me. His eyes filled with a blend of excitement and apprehension that only a child could muster.
"Up for debate,¡± I said, trying to ease the tension. ¡°They are dangerous, though.¡± I frowned, turning back to the soldier. ¡°Where¡¯s the handler, or did they fly here by themselves?¡±
¡°She¡¯s with us, lord.¡± The man saluted, calling down the shaft that led to the roof. Shortly after, a woman in riding leathers climbed up to the roof with a stuffed sack slung over her back. She bowed deeply to me, and inclined her head to each of my companions.
¡°May I speak?¡± She asked, keeping her gaze down.
¡°Sure,¡± I said. ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡±
¡°Lenda.¡± The woman was whip-thin, with muscle corded on her forearms. She¡¯d shaved the sides of her head, and what remained of her hair was braided in the back, less a stylistic choice than something that would tighten the fit of her riding cap. ¡°I am the Wyvern Marshall of Mount Doom, and Vizier Zareth asked me to bring the beasts here and keep them ready for your use.¡±
¡°I¡¯ve ridden them before,¡± I said, ¡°but would they be safe for my companions?¡±
The woman¡¯s gaze flitted back to Esmelda and Leto, curious. Whatever questions she had, she kept to herself.
¡°Perfectly so. The gear I have with me should suit them,¡± she dropped her pack and began sorting out leathers, then looked over at Gastard. ¡°Though I¡¯m afraid I don¡¯t have anything in his size.¡±
Messengers were generally on the small side, like jockeys. The less of a burden the wyverns carried, the faster and farther they could fly. My knightly friend stood apart from us, his expression twisted into a scowl. Though he hadn¡¯t said anything, I knew he wasn''t thrilled about the wyverns, or what their presence entailed. Gastard was a loyal man, but I could recognize how far it would be pushing that loyalty to command him to ride a creature he would see as fit only for extermination, or to entrust Emselda¡¯s well-being to the same.
I walked under the marquee to eyeball the monsters, looking for signs of aggression. They were trained to carry messengers, and as long as they were under a demon¡¯s control, they wouldn¡¯t randomly attack humans, but I¡¯d already seen the consequences of that control slipping. I touched each of them in turn, looking into their beady eyes. Even if they were trained, I didn¡¯t want to risk my family on the whims of a beast I wasn¡¯t intimately familiar with. Noivern didn¡¯t belong to Orobas, he¡¯d been tamed by my System.
I crouched down to be at eye level with Leto. ¡°I¡¯d like you and your mother to go together on my mount. There are extra straps on the saddles to accommodate two riders, and I trust him. As long as you are respectful, he shouldn¡¯t give you any trouble.¡±
¡°This isn¡¯t wise,¡± Gastard broke his silence. ¡°These beasts aren¡¯t horses, they are man killers.¡±
Hearing that, Leto took a step back. He looked up to Gastard, and he would probably agree with whatever decision the templar made.
¡°From the look of you,¡± Lenda bristled, ¡°you are a man-killer. But you serve the Dark Lord, as we all do. These beasts are to be treated with caution, it is true, but I have tended them for years, and they know their duty.¡±
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Gastard¡¯s face darkened at the ¡°man-killer¡± comment, but I stepped between them.
¡°How urgent is our return?¡± I asked the marshall, ¡°What was the state of Mount Doom when you left? Is it under attack?¡±
¡°Very likely, my Dark,¡± Lenda bowed again. ¡°The enemy''s forces had not arrived when I departed, but by now, the mountain will be under siege.¡±
¡°What are we up against?¡±
¡°From our flyovers, we estimated the enemy army well outnumbers the garrison at Mount Doom. There is at least one rebel demon among them. A raven. He commands the winds, and brought down several of our scouts.
"I hate putting this on you," I said to Esmelda. "Wyverns aren''t very cuddly, but Mount Doom is under siege, and they need me back as soon as possible. If you don¡¯t feel comfortable riding, I can go ahead while you three stay here. I wouldn¡¯t want you to follow on the ground with Dargoth in the state it is.¡±
¡°That is acceptable,¡± Gastard said. ¡°I am not afraid to see battle, and would relish the opportunity to fight at your side once more, but my other obligations take precedence.¡±
"I don¡¯t want to be separated again,¡± Esmelda said, her face drawn. ¡°If these beasts are meant to be ridden, we can ride them. You said Leto and I could be carried together?¡±
¡°Yes,¡± I gestured at Noivern, ¡°that one¡¯s mine.¡±
The wyvern may have mistaken the motion of my hand as a treat toss, as he chose that moment to gape his razor-lined maw and trill. Esmelda stiffened, and Leto took a step back, though they were well out of reach of the wyverns.
¡°We¡¯ll feed them first,¡± Lenda said, ¡°and then I¡¯ll show you how to mount and teach you the basic commands. These beasts are smarter than they look, and they listen to everything we say. You don¡¯t have to be afraid.¡±
With night minutes away, I placed torches around the roof. Shadowbane would have hurt the wyverns, but simple light was enough to prevent spawns while the wyverns had dinner and Lenda commenced a coaching session.
Gastard wasn¡¯t happy, but he didn¡¯t argue further. As much as I didn¡¯t want to be separated again, if he had put his foot down on the issue, I would have gone on alone. With what we were flying into, I was already worried that this was the wrong choice.
An extra-large harpy landed on a crenelation near me, and when I met her eyes, I knew it was Celaeno.
¡°You make strange allies,¡± she said.
¡°You¡¯re one to talk,¡± I replied. Was riding a wyverns any stranger than having harpies follow me wherever I went? ¡°Is the flock with you? I thought you would all be on the mountain.¡±
¡°Most remain.¡± She preened her glossy black plumage, pulling an unruly feather through her beak. ¡°I came in warning. Your foes are encamped, and their demon keeps us away.¡±
¡°What are they doing?¡±
¡°Building stone tossers. They brought a feast with them, more than the flock could ever eat.¡±
She meant the mobs. ¡°If we fly through the night,¡± I said, ¡°can you keep up with the wyverns? There¡¯s going to be phantoms.¡±
¡°They are swift,¡± Celaeno said, continuing to groom herself. ¡°As are we.¡±
Not long after that, we were soaring through the air, and a journey that would have eaten days was reduced to hours overnight. The harpies were keeping pace with us, and even when phantoms did spawn, they couldn¡¯t keep up. Those that appeared close enough to us to be a threat attacked me exclusively, my Purifier status making me the most tempting target. The achievement causing me to aggro hostile mobs had seemed like a drawback at first, but when there were people nearby I wanted to protect, it was a blessing.
The wyverns'' powerful wings beat against the swirling air currents, the gusts of wind tinged with acrid fumes. I glanced over at Leto. He and his mother had both donned the protective gear of messengers, his eyes wide and exhilarated.
¡°Is this what planes were like?¡± Leto yelled over the howling winds, his voice tinged with awe.
"Not really!" I shouted back.
The leathers shielded them from the worst of the windburn, and the wyverns were well adapted to the inhospitable atmospheric conditions. I felt a rush of adrenaline as we banked around a sagging cloud that had suddenly erupted with multi-colored lightning. I¡¯d never seen it strike the ground or a flying creature, but now I worried that the storm itself was a greater risk than any mob while we were in the air.
The scarred, fungal-infested landscape of Dargoth rolled away beneath us as Mount Doom materialized ahead, the fortress a dark smudge along its flanks. Plumes of smoke rose from cracked plains around the mountain, signs of the invading army at rest. That smoke was set against the backdrop of the black-brown column pouring from the mountain''s caldera, the emissions of the cauldron in the forge.
A wave of relief washed over me when I saw that the walls were intact, their ramparts unbroken and manned with soldiers. Defensive turrets jutted out at intervals along the fortification, with catapults at the ready secured on broad platforms. They might be under siege, but Mount Doom was anything but a soft target.
Siege engines had been raised among the enemy lines, tall, wheeled wooden towers, and trebuchets. The army sprawled across the foothills, with strings of supplies still approaching, what must have been their last support from Nargul before Berith took over for me.
A rough estimate told me their numbers were in the thousands, including the usual menagerie from Bedlam. Trolls stalked about, some aiding in construction. They had a varghest cavalry division, and more than their share of shamblers, stationed in eerie stillness to either side of the main force. Human soldiers filled several full companies, though they weren¡¯t positioned for a march on the walls. Much of the encampment was asleep.
As my gaze swept over the army, I searched for the presence of Malphas, the raven demon I¡¯d been warned about. But no magical winds assailed us as we cut a long arc around the enemy to bring us to the mountain. As the wyverns descended the aery, the wyverns spread out in a line so as not to jostle each other. One by one, we spiraled into the silo.
Noivern let out a satisfied screech, happy to be home. As we dismounted, grooms were already running with buckets of water and offal for the beasts.
Zareth was the first to greet me. I hadn¡¯t been gone all that long, but he seemed even slenderer than the last time I¡¯d seen him. The stress of the siege was getting to him, even his goatee looked out of sorts, the braid at his chin frizzed without oil.
Bojack came next, wearing a red toga and a golden stash. His wardrobe had expanded since we came to Mount Doom and he became the head demon in Dargoth. He didn¡¯t look happy, but that was nothing new.
Zareth pulled me aside immediately, urgency written on his face. "My lord, the situation grows dire," he said, keeping his voice low. "No doubt you observed the weapons they are constructing. Given their size, and Malphas¡¯s magic, I have no doubt they will outrange our catapults by a significant margin. In another day at the most, they will begin battering the walls."
That news wasn¡¯t great, but I¡¯d had worse. The walls of Mount Doom could survive a little battering, and now that I was back, I could do something about those trebuchets. If we had delayed our return any longer, it could have been a catastrophe, but now it was just one more problem to be solved.
¡°I¡¯ll take care of it,¡± I said.
Zareth visibly relaxed, looking as if he was about to collapse.
Bojack spoke over us. "Your expedition to Nargul left us thinly staffed here," he said in a gravelly voice. "Most of the lesser entities and foot soldiers went with you. It didn¡¯t seem prudent to face the enemy in the field.¡±
Was he apologizing for not already having the situation wrapped up? It was hard to tell with Bojack.
¡°They should already be back,¡± I said. ¡°Nargul is ours, and Gaap was supposed to bring the army here. Where are they?¡±
¡°Ah,¡± Zareth sighed, ¡°that is good news. Our scouts did report another force approaching, but they took it to be reinforcements for Malphas.¡±
¡°Well, if they¡¯ve got a monkey leading them, then they¡¯re ours.¡± Unless other demons were involved, Malphas wasn¡¯t getting any help, and we would be able to hit him from both sides.
"Anything else to report?¡± I asked. ¡°Have they just been camping out there?"
Bojack answered me without inflection. "Malphas attempted an infiltration. A squad of Voidmen breached the fortress, intent on freeing Kevin. I dealt with them myself."
That was a scary thought. I didn¡¯t know if Voidmen would have been able to break Kevin out of his cage, but they certainly could have caused havoc within the walls. Kevin getting out would be worse than ten armies joining the siege.
I saw Esmelda take Leto to a quieter corner of the aery. She wrapped her arms around him and whispered something in his ear. Leto glanced at Bojack before he looked back at his mother. His face was tight.
Oh, right.
They had never seen a demon before, and demons were the most feared servants of the Dark Lord. They were also the lillit equivalent of Boogeymen. This was going to take some adjustment for them both.
Gastard, who had been increasingly tense ever since I¡¯d asked him to ride a wyvern, was ready to unsheathe his sword the moment Bojack set foot on the aery. His hand remained on the hilt of his weapon as he hovered protectively near Esmelda and Leto. I¡¯d been so caught up that I had practically forgotten about my family''s presence.
Maybe it was time for introductions. I turned to Esmelda, Leto, and Gastard.
"This is Zareth, my vizier, and this is Bojack, my right-hand horseman.¡±
Zareth bowed deeply, his eyes meeting each of theirs in turn. "It is a true honor to stand in the presence of the Dark Lord''s family," he said, his voice full of genuine respect.
Bojack snorted and offered nothing more than a dismissive wave, a clear contrast to Zareth''s decorum.
Esmelda''s shoulders relaxed a fraction. "The honor is ours," she told the vizier.
"Make sure they have somewhere secure to stay,¡± I said, ¡°We can talk strategy when they¡¯re settled."
"Of course, my lord," Zareth responded, already moving to execute my orders. He turned to Esmelda, Leto, and Gastard. "If you would be so kind as to follow me, I''ll escort you to your chambers. They have been prepared to the utmost standards, befitting those beloved of our Dark Lord."
Esmelda shot me a glance, her eyes filled with lingering worry. She gripped Leto''s hand more tightly, reassuring both him and herself. Gastard remained as taut as a bowstring, his fingers grazing the hilt of his sword, but he nodded ever so slightly at Zareth¡¯s words, accepting the situation for the moment.
As they began to follow Zareth away from the landing platform, Esmelda turned back, a fleeting instant. Our eyes met, and then, she turned away.
As soon as we were alone, Bojack snorted.
"While you were out, something else of note occurred," he said.
¡°What?¡±
"A harbinger appeared in Kevin¡¯s cell.¡±
109: My New Scribe (Rewrite)
Walking around the fortress with Orobas was a surreal experience. He¡¯d threatened my family, imprisoned me, bound me in a magical contract, and his explicit goal was turning Plana into something objectively worse than what it was. I had every reason to hate him, but I didn¡¯t. The demons interested me. Being around them felt like observing an obscure natural phenomenon.
¡°Gremory ignores Kevin,¡± Bojack said, his sandals lightly tapping on the floor of the stone hall. ¡°He entered Plana already aware that he was not the Dark Lord.¡±
¡°Why didn¡¯t you get him out of the cell?¡± I asked.
¡°I prefer to have the other harbingers see you as the ultimate authority here, rather than as my reluctant appendage. They will be less likely to doubt your commitment to Discord.¡±
Bojack had placed a small desk at the end of the tunnel connecting the fortress to the cube, perpendicular to the opening. It came with what appeared to be a stone birdbath he was using as a stool. The desk was plain, and a leather-bound journal rested on its surface. If there hadn¡¯t been more important things going on, I would have been extremely curious about its contents, but I had a new demon to meet.
Kevin¡¯s cell was a diamond enclosure within a much larger stone cube. The single torch placed atop the cell was meant to prevent any mobs from appearing inside with the former dark lord. Up to this point, the torch had done its job. The cell wasn¡¯t completely without shadow, but there shouldn¡¯t have been anything large enough for a mob to use to slip through, let alone a full demon.
An air gap separated the cell from the entrance to the cube, which meant I had to lay down a bridge whenever I wanted to talk to Kevin and pick it up again when I left. I interrogated Bojack as I crafted the path.
¡°How did he spawn in the cell?¡±
¡°Fascinating, isn¡¯t it?¡± The demon replied, ¡°It shouldn¡¯t have been possible.¡±
¡°Don¡¯t play with me, man. How did it happen? This is a security risk.¡±
Bojack sat on his stool, resting one muscular arm on the edge of the desk. ¡°Our material forms are more malleable than those of the lesser entities, who have no say in their appearance. A harbinger also has the will and presence necessary to widen a small gap in the veil sufficiently to pass through, though it would be costly to do so. We take out opportunities to cross when they come.¡±
Did that mean the normal precautions against spawns went out the window when it came to demons? Even if they could appear in a smaller patch of darkness than a zombie, a completely illuminated space would still be out of bounds. It was something to take into account when I crafted shelters.
Looking at the cell, I didn¡¯t immediately see the demon. Kevin was standing dead center behind the wall facing us, blocking my view of what had to be the smallest harbinger yet. Short enough that it could hide behind the former dark lord. I saw the hem of a robe, a slim shoulder. Gremory wasn¡¯t a fighter then, the opposite end of the physical spectrum from Bojack.
¡°Are you telling me you chose to have a horse¡¯s head?¡±
¡°In Bedlam, I would appear to you as a great stallion with hooves of stone. Human appendages are useful, however, so I made this body to suit my convenience.¡±
I still wasn¡¯t as fast with the storage ring as Kevin would have been, and I had a few misfires placing the blocks of my bridge, dropping them to crash to the floor far below. Still, the build only took a few minutes, and I was soon standing face-to-face with Kevin, separated by a diamond barrier.
The first thing I noticed was that Kevin¡¯s heterochromia looked worse. It was like the darkness in his right eye had been straining at the bounds of his iris, and now tendrils had broken free to contaminate the surrounding white.
He¡¯d never been handsome, and confinement hadn¡¯t done him any favors. Tired, messy, naked, and covered in purple bruises. Had he and Gremory gotten into a fistfight? He was still in amazing shape, but that was a System thing. Both he and I looked human, but the Survivor achievements did something to our bodies to make us supernaturally fit and healthy. I could have given him pants, but any resource he had access to in his cell was a potential problem.
He didn¡¯t say anything, glaring at me with a sour expression. I looked past him to the demon, and my mouth dropped open.
Gremory was a she, and she was not a therian. Instead of a person with an animal head, I was looking at a beautiful woman who was eerily similar in appearance to my wife. She was half a foot taller, and her hair was curly and black, cut at her shoulders, but her face was so akin to Esmelda¡¯s that the similarity could not be a coincidence. It wasn¡¯t that they looked related, it was like someone had taken Esmelda¡¯s face and applied a Snapchat filter to create what a computer algorithm thought was a more perfect human.
Then there were the ears. Furry, brown, sticking out from the sides of her head. They weren¡¯t cat ears, I had no idea what animal they had come from. It might have been a cute feature on an anime girl, but seeing it in real life was nothing short of disturbing. What worked in a cartoon did not translate well to realism.
"Greetings," she said, stepping to one side so that Kevin was no longer blocking her. "I am the Duchess Gremory, advisor to kings and emperors, the fifty-sixth harbinger of the One Who Knocks.¡±
Her voice was muffled by the cell, I could barely hear what she was saying.
¡°Bojack,¡± I said, ¡°lock Kevin in place. I¡¯m going to let her out.¡±
The demon uttered a few mystic phrases, and Kevin¡¯s feet sank into the diamond he was standing on. His expression soured further, but he didn¡¯t try to free himself, and I climbed up to the top of the cell to mine out an opening for Gremory. The demon held up a hand expectantly, and I had to reach in to pull her up, she couldn¡¯t have weighed more than a hundred pounds.
¡°Traitor,¡± Kevin called after her, ¡°wait until I¡¯m out of here. I¡¯ll send you back to Bedlam. I¡¯ll send you into the barathrum at the edge of everything. You¡¯re dead already, you don¡¯t exist.¡±
Gremory stood calmly to one side as I filled the blocks back in.
¡°Why do you look like that?¡± I said.
¡°I chose a form I thought would please you,¡± she replied, smiling in an uncannily familiar way. ¡°You are the Dark Lord of this realm, are you not?¡±
¡°I am not pleased,¡± I said, avoiding eye contact. It was too weird. ¡°And what did you do to Kevin?¡±
¡°The pretender?¡± Gremory asked, her eyebrows raising. ¡°We disagreed. It seems that he believes himself to be the true Dark Lord of this realm, an impossibility, in my opinion, seeing how he sits, bereft of resources and support, while you stride free and powerful, with my cousin at your side.¡±
I glanced at Bojack. ¡°Cousin?¡±
¡°Not literally,¡± the demon said, snorting, ¡°it is a form of address among the more unctuous of our kind.¡±
¡°Got it,¡± I turned my attention back to Gremory. ¡°You¡¯re telling me you have no intention of trying to free him? He might make you his first seat if you did, you know.¡±
"I have no wish to align with a fallen Dark Lord; it serves no purpose," her gaze was unblinking, ¡°the lost is lost, and the found is found. The One Who Knocks is aware of you, and he approves. I am prepared to take on the role of your chief administrator immediately.¡±
¡°Sorry,¡± I said. ¡°That position is occupied. You can serve under Zareth if you like. With everything that¡¯s going on around here, I¡¯m sure he¡¯d appreciate the help.¡±
The One Who Knocks approved of me? How much could he know about me, about what was happening on this side of the veil? Enough to send me an anime girl. Jesus. Esmelda was not going to be enthusiastic about this.
"Serve under a human?" Gremory¡¯s eyes narrowed, her lips thinning in displeasure. "I have no desire to degrade myself to such an extent."
"Would you rather join the fighting in the North? The more demons I have to help with Atlan, the better.¡±
¡°Would it mean I could be at your side?¡± She shifted closer to me, her gaze turning sultry, and I took a quick step back. Freaking demons. I would have preferred she had the head of a camel or something.
¡°Absolutely not. You¡¯d be on the front lines with the zombies.¡±
¡°Direct warfare is not my passion,¡± she said, ¡°I am more suited to administration, rulership. If you insist that I work under a human, I will simply have to prove my worth. You will learn to value me soon enough.¡±
¡°Great,¡± I said, hopping back down to the bridge. ¡°You and Zareth can work out the details, as long as you accept that he¡¯s in charge.¡±
We went to the throne room for her formal commitment, one more mote of essence added to the oathblade. Zareth was appropriately alarmed at the prospect of being put in charge of a demon, though he didn¡¯t openly object, and the pair went off together to do whatever he did to keep the mountain running smoothly.
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The entire situation made me uncomfortable. Gremory hadn¡¯t made any propositions, but I got the feeling that Walter White was trying to honeypot me, and that was weird on several levels. For one, if you were going the temptation route, why send someone who was basically a demonic version of the woman I already loved? A weird flex, or a message, but not a clear one. Having her appear in the cell with Kevin and instantly reject him in favor of me was an excellent way of either showing that I was accepted as the new Dark Lord or lulling me into a false sense of security, I wasn¡¯t sure which. There was still an army at our doorstep. If the One Who Knocks saw me as a suitable replacement, shouldn¡¯t all of the demons have fallen in line?
I spent a little time in the forge, checking supplies and thinking about the battle to come, mostly experimenting with leaves. Way back on my first day in the world, I¡¯d placed a block to see how they worked, and the result had been nothing special. Harvested leaves reconstituted in a loose cube of suspended plant matter, semi-transparent, and the crafting force that held the individual leaves in position wasn¡¯t nearly as strong as what held building materials together. You could use your hand to push through the block.
They were aesthetically appealing, but even the System had called them useless. However, when I slapped one of the coins onto my hand, something interesting happened. A cubic foot of foliage appeared, weightless. I removed my hand from under the block, and it remained floating in midair.
Shoving my arm through the block caused it to collapse, and the leaves drifted to the floor as if they had never been bound in position by magic. It didn¡¯t take a lot of pressure to break them apart, but it did take some. Using the Storage Ring, I could target a point in space and have a block of material appear wherever I wanted within ten feet. It worked with stone and wood, but they would fall as soon as they came into existence. Only the leaves behaved differently.
¡°Huh.¡±
***
Our suite was more luxurious than I had anticipated, even given Zareth''s zealous nature. The arched entryway led into an expansive antechamber, its walls adorned with fine tapestries depicting Dargoth¡¯s varied landscapes, some that no longer existed; dark forests and imposing mountain ranges, black towers beneath a brooding sky. An intricate chandelier, a fusion of crystal and gold, hung from the high ceiling, filling the room with a warm glow. It was lit with actual candles, not Everburning Torches, lending a softer cast to the light.
The antechamber opened into a generous living area, complete with plush sofas and a low wooden table that featured ornate geometric carvings. A fireplace carved with runic symbols stood on one wall, its controlled flame producing neither smoke nor scent. Bookshelves, containing everything from treatises on magical theory to historical records, occupied another wall, inviting hours of study or minutes of harvest and absorption. Since coming to Mount Doom, I hadn¡¯t given much thought to raiding the libraries, or even considered that there were
libraries to raid, but that was an oversight in need of remedy. Unless Kevin decided to take on the role of a mentor, I was going to have to learn as much as I could about Dargoth and Plana on my own.
To the left was a grand master bedroom, furnished with a king-sized bed with a baroque frame that reminded me uncomfortably of Bedlam flora and fauna. Nightstands flanked the bed, and a plush rug on the floor seemed to welcome tired feet, it was enough to tempt me to remove my boots. A walk-in closet was already filled with a range of clothing options for both
Esmelda and I, from casual to extremely formal wear, the sort of thing a Dark Lord and his Lady might wear at a public function.
To the right, a room had been prepared for Leto. It featured a single bed with a sturdy frame, well made but unadorned. A desk laden with paper, quills, and ink suggested a space for study, and bookshelves filled with age-appropriate literature, from adventure stories to basic educational texts, covered one wall.
The suite also included a bathroom accessible from both the master bedroom and Leto''s room. It featured a massive brass tub complete with a set of clawed feet. The faucets appeared to be made of gold, though the material component was less impressive than the fact that there were
faucets at all. After a few centuries, Kevin must have insisted that someone figure out running water, or else the sink was attached to something akin to a source block.
I walked through the living area hearing voices from the attached balcony, and felt a sense of unreality pressing down on me. It seemed impossible that I could simply open a door and my family would be on the other side. It was a gift I didn¡¯t deserve. A part of me believed this was all an illusion, that I would open my eyes to find I was still inside the diamond egg, and my heart beat a little faster as I followed the sound of their voices. I stopped just before opening the door to the outside. Something was wrong.
Returning to the master bedroom, I removed my helm, followed by the rest of my armor, piece by piece. I had sweated through my shirt, so I visited the bathroom and spent a few minutes cleaning myself up. Normal human things. Had to remember to do those.
Pushing open the door to the balcony, I stepped outside and found Esmelda, Zareth, and Leto overlooking the expanse of Mount Doom. The balcony offered a commanding view of the fortress below, the soldiers on the ramparts, and the swirling activity within the courtyard. The light of torches and the occluded sun emphasized the functional, militaristic design of the fortress, contrasting sharply with the opulence of our suite.
Beyond the fortress, in the twilight haze, an ominous sea of tents, fires, and banners stood; a vast army assembled to lay siege to our home. Yet, despite the menacing view, there was an air of tranquility on this balcony. Esmelda turned her face toward me, her gray eyes reflecting the soft light emanating from the sanguinum lanterns that adorned the balcony''s perimeter.
"There you are, why don¡¯t you join us?" she beckoned. Zareth, holding his ever-present scrolls, offered me a respectful nod. Gremory wasn¡¯t with them, which was a relief. I wanted to warn Esmelda about her before they met.
¡°It¡¯s good to see you out of your armor, my lord,¡± he said.
Esmelda took my hand. ¡°I couldn¡¯t agree more. I was worried you had some more surprises for us under there.¡±
I touched the bony knubs growing out of my temples, was it my imagination, or were they bigger than they had been the day before?
¡°Nope,¡± I said, ¡°you¡¯ve seen it all.¡±
¡°Hello, father,¡± Leto said awkwardly. Had Esmelda asked him to call me that? Better not to read too much into it. I wanted to hug him, but I also didn¡¯t want to force a connection that wasn¡¯t there. It needed to happen naturally.
¡°Hey,¡± I said, ¡°did Zareth find you some new clothes? They look good.¡±
He had on navy silk trousers, paired with soft leather boots that reached up to his mid-calf. His tunic was deep green, embroidered with silver thread around the collar and cuffs. The outfit was completed by a half cloak with a red and yellow stripe. Gryffindor colors, I thought, though no one here would have any idea what that meant. It suited him.
¡°Yeah,¡± he said, ¡°they¡¯re okay.¡±
¡°There is an entire wardrobe for each of you,¡± Zareth said. ¡°I¡¯m also looking into having a footman and a handmaid assigned to this room, but wanted to receive your permission before I did so. I will only select those I trust with the confidence of my lord and lady, I assure you.¡±
¡°I saw the clothes,¡± I said, ¡°thank you. And that¡¯s fine, as long as Esmelda wants a handmaid, that is.¡±
¡°I wouldn¡¯t refuse,¡± she said. ¡°We were well off in Erihseht, and rich in Williamsburg, but nothing like this. You have an excellent vizier, but he shouldn¡¯t waste so much of his time looking after us, and it will be good for me to get to know the staff.¡±
Zareth nodded, ¡°I was just pointing out some of the features of the fortress.¡±
¡°You can see the whole army from up here,¡± Leto said. ¡°There are so many people.¡±
¡°Zareth doesn¡¯t think that Malphas will surrender,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°What are you going to do?¡±
The sight before us put only a slight damper on my mood. As long as my family was safe, I could do whatever needed to be done.
¡°I¡¯m going to take care of it,¡± I said.
Gastard was down in the training yard, and Leto talked about wanting to learn from the soldiers, but I wasn¡¯t sure about having him running around the fortress. We hadn¡¯t made an official announcement about Esmelda and our son, but Lenda had flown back with us and heard Zareth¡¯s greeting, so unless we swore her to secrecy, word of their existence would undoubtedly spread. It wasn¡¯t people at Mount Doom that I was worried about, but now that they were here, demons would see getting to them as a means of getting to me. There wasn¡¯t much I could do about that aside from hiding them away somewhere. Once Malphas was dealt with, we would have to figure out where the other harbingers stood on the matter of my ascension to the throne to know how much danger simply being around me put them in.
Leto seemed delighted both with the fortress and the suite, entirely forgetting that he was supposed to be mad at me for forcing him to leave his childhood home. Worn out from days of travel, he threw himself on his new bed shortly after dinner, which gave Esmelda and me some space to talk.
¡°So she looks like me?¡± Esmelda sipped a cooling cup of tea. Somehow, Zareth had come up with a supply of the odd, fermented variety that lillits favored.
¡°An inferior version.¡±
¡°Bedlam doesn¡¯t create,¡± she said as if we were discussing something entirely academic, ¡°it mirrors and twists what is natural and wonderful, attempting to steal what it can never make for itself. Did she truly claim that their god has given you his blessing?¡±
¡°Or he¡¯s tolerating me.¡± We were sharing a sofa in the living room, and I let myself slide down on the cushion. They were absurdly soft. Goose down, maybe.
¡°I suppose I should be flattered,¡± Esmelda sighed. ¡°The great and terrible entity that the demons serve bothered to learn what I look like, or his creatures did. What an honor.¡±
¡°He didn¡¯t give her any instructions as far as bringing me deeper into the fold,¡± I said, ¡°or she didn¡¯t tell me about them. Gremory was happy to take an oath. All she asked for was the twentieth seat. Zareth had to look up who that belonged to.¡±
¡°Temptation takes many forms, and an offer does not always have to be spoken aloud.¡± Esmelda set her cup down on the table and leaned into my side, a casual intimacy that I had sorely missed. ¡°Perhaps they believe you will imagine for yourself how much they could do for you. How many fantasies could be fulfilled. Power tends to corrupt on its own, and you have been handed the seat of a king, wealth and subjects, ancient entities at your beck and call. Threat is only necessary if reward alone will not suffice.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t really care about the power,¡± I said. ¡°It¡¯s cool and all, and I need it to complete Mizu¡¯s quest. I¡¯m not saying I don¡¯t want to be rich, and I definitely wouldn¡¯t want to give up my System, but it¡¯s not super important in the scheme of things. When I was younger, I had all kinds of daydreams about being someone important. Then I lived with very little for a long time. It put those fantasies in perspective. I wouldn¡¯t mind a simpler life, as long as I get to keep you to share it with.¡±
¡°After we save the world¡¡± Esmelda released a soft breath. ¡°Simpler may be a possibility.¡±
¡°Yeah, after that,¡± I said. ¡°I guess I need to deal with that army first, at least.¡±
¡°They aren¡¯t attacking yet,¡± Esmelda placed her hand over mine. ¡°You need rest as much as any of us, blessings or no.¡±
¡°This part of the fortress isn¡¯t spawn-proof.¡± I didn¡¯t think it would be difficult to make it safe for me to stay in the suite, but it was yet another chore on a growing list.
¡°The sun won¡¯t set for a few more hours,¡± Esmelda said, standing. ¡°And that bed looked exquisitely comfortable. I think I would like to test it.¡± She gave me a loaded glance and slipped away toward the bedroom. A moment later, I followed.
110: My trebuchet Problem (Rewrite)
Noivern took me over the battlefield, his muscular back flexing as his wide wings beat the air in a steady rhythm. Flying just below the brooding storm, well out of range of any bowshot from the forces arrayed below, I observed the field.
My homies swooped and shrieked around us, a spiraling fortress of black feathers and sharp talons. Their cries echoed above the wind. As we shadowed the rear of Malphas¡¯s army, I relaxed my grip on the reins, holding myself in place with my knees.
Firing a bow from atop a wyvern wasn¡¯t easy, but the war machines below provided an ample target. Rolling through my inventory boxes, the first flame arrow materialized in my hand, already notched as I pulled back my bowstring. Light glimmered along its tip, and I took a deep breath before releasing. It loosed with a twang.
More arrows followed, their red fletching streaking through the air. My aim wasn¡¯t perfect, and the first shot went wide, but the second and third hit their marks. The arrows burst, setting the first trebuchet alight, and the flames spread greedily. The soldiers stationed around the war machines had already been loading their baskets. Now they scattered in a panic, some trying to smother the fires, others running for water and support, but the blaze grew faster than they could manage. I sent down a few more arrows, completing the immolation as Noivern circled to get us over the next machine.
Phantoms rose silently from the ranks of monsters among the enemy encampment, their wings undulating. They usually only screamed when they were diving. There were scores of them, but the rising host didn¡¯t worry me. My homies were calling to each other in excitement. The harpies were ready for a feast.
Slightly more concerning was a pair of wyverns laboriously beating their way up to meet us. They were big enough to barrel through my cordon of birds, and they could bite a harpy in half if it got too close to their wide, toothy maws.
No reason to give them a chance to come close. Cycling through the inventory bar hanging in my vision over my hand, I switched from flaming arrows to Shadowbane. It took me longer to sight the wyverns with my bow than it had the trebuchets. Noivern was circling, and these were moving targets, but they were below me, and a strike to the broad expanse of their wings could be as good as one to their heads. It didn¡¯t matter if they survived as long as I took them out of the sky.
Noivern surged beneath me, issuing a shrill challenge to its rivals. My first shot took one of them in the shoulder, and its flight weakened. The wyvern emitted a cry of pain but kept coming. I missed on the second attempt as Noivern banked. The harpies were already dropping to engage the phantoms, further complicating my aim. A third attempt cut through the flesh of my target¡¯s other wing, tearing all the way through, and it lost altitude.
The second wyvern hit a harpy, slamming into it in mid-air and seizing the poor bird in its oversized maw. We were flying perpendicular to each other, and I had to twist in my harness, gripping Noivern with my legs, targeting the space just ahead of it. The missile whistled through the air, striking near its tail.
It released the harpy, winging sharply to face me and Noivern, still a hundred feet below. The black bird fell from its mouth, one of its wings hanging uselessly, and plummeted to the battlefield below.
I gritted my teeth at the loss. There were a lot of harpies, and I didn¡¯t know more than a handful of them personally, but I hated to see them die for me. Noivern adjusted our course so that we were bound for a head-on collision with the second wyvern, his jaws gaping and his claws extended.
The angle gave me a straight shot into its open mouth. As the arrow disappeared down its gullet, the Shadowbane took full effect. The beast convulsed, then went still, falling like a stone.
I steadied my breathing, glancing up at the grays and browns of the stormy sky roiling violently above as a flash of soundless lighting illuminated us all. The massive silhouette of Mount Doom dominated the horizon, smoke billowing from its caldera. The gates of the fortress were shut.
I¡¯d sent a messenger to Gaap, telling him to advance at full speed to the mountain. Major Garron and the garrison forces were waiting behind the walls for his arrival.
With only the slightest cue from me, Noivern banked once more, taking us back around to the next trebuchet. They were still loading it, and as I watched, its massive counterbalance was released, causing the great arm of the machine to swing up, flinging its ammunition toward the fortress.
The massive stone arced through the sky, impossibly far, smashing into the rampart well to the left of the gate. A section of the crenelation crumbled, easy to repair with my abilities, but it still pissed me off.
My hand moved with practiced ease, drawing back the string as another flame arrow appeared in place. I was using the Tainted Bow instead of Kevin¡¯s crossbow for better range. It had a heavy draw, but I could have held it taut for minutes on end, my fingers protected by the finely articulated metal segments of an orichalcum gauntlet.
I took my time lining up the shot, ignoring the chaos in the air around me as the harpies mobbed the incoming phantoms, tearing them apart. My vision narrowed, and this time, I had it on the first shot. A few moments later, the second trebuchet went up in flames, its operators scurrying for cover.
The phantoms couldn¡¯t break through the savage defensive cordon of the harpies. More of a distraction than a threat, only one approached close enough for Noivern to take a bite out of it. But more trebuchets were threatening the fortress.
The wind picked up suddenly, nearly flipping us upside down, and I was forced to put the bombardment on hold, gripping the harness to avoid being unseated. A dark shape shot up from the enemy army faster than any wyvern or harpy, a black cloak billowing behind it.
Malphas had the head of a raven and an affinity for air. He didn¡¯t need wings to fly, and as Noivern righted himself, the demon approached too swiftly for me to line up a shot. He came level with us a few seconds later, hanging in the air as if suspended by wires, his hands contorting in a series of arcane gestures.
At least as long as he was holding still, I had a chance to hit him. Switching back to Shadowbane arrows, I aimed for his chest. The shot was good, with Noivern headed for the demon, my target was directly in front of me. But the arrow veered aside, caught in a sudden gust.
The demon had protected himself with a spell. I tried again, but the second missile was as ineffective as the first, so I replaced the bow in my inventory and drew the blue-edged sword from my hip. With Noivern rushing at top speed, we would be on him in seconds.
A gang of harpies swarmed Malphas, but he sent them spiraling away with a broad gesture backed by a vicious wind. The swirl around him expanded, and the nearest harpies were thrown into disarray, fighting to stay aloft. The milling phantoms didn¡¯t fare any better, tossed like rags, whatever magic they used to swim through the air was no match for the forces generated around the demon.
I shouted against the wind, urging Noivern on, and my wyvern folded his wings back, taking us forward on sheer momentum, cutting through the last of the distance between us and the demon in an instant. Malphas gestured, and a column of air hit us head-on, as solid as a battering ram.
Noivern twisted, flipping nearly vertically, and I almost slashed through his wing. My legs tightened, barely holding on as Noivern turned onto his side and tried to right us.
His wings stretched out again, fighting to hold against the chaotic currents in the air, and we passed below Malphas, who was already at work on another spell.
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¡°One more time,¡± I shouted at Noivern, ¡°Let¡¯s get him.¡±
Noivern trilled, agitated by the difficult air currents, but always eager for the prospect of a kill. Fighting Malphas this way put us at a severe disadvantage, but it wouldn¡¯t be any better on the ground. Bojack had warned me that the demon could fly, and if I wasn¡¯t on the back of a wyvern, he would be free to hound me from above, sending spell after spell to bog me down. The remaining trebuchet teams were hard at work, lobbing boulders at the high walls of Mount Doom. They wouldn¡¯t dismantle it any time soon, but they couldn¡¯t be allowed free reign to assault the fortress.
I considered retreating. Baal would have to arrive at some point, and then we could move in on Malphas¡¯s army from two sides. But I hated the idea of wasting my forces that way when it was possible for me to end this right here.
We circled up and around the raven demon, Noivern navigating the wild gusts that protected him, unable to bring us within melee range. His massive wings battled against the oppressive winds. My mount was a flying machine, and he was going to get some choice treats when this was over. Maybe some cow hearts or something.
The wyverns weren¡¯t picky about what they ate, but there had to be a meat hierarchy of some kind.
He managed to bring us above the demon, angling down for a sheer dive. The wyvern let out a shrill cry as we bulleted through the buffeting winds, and I held my sword out ahead of me like a lance. We came close, and the Raven dropped, turning upside down as if he was suspended by his feet alone, and we streaked by him.
In the next second, a solid column of air struck Noivern in the belly, and before I knew it, I was falling, knocked clean out of the harness. Though this was way too high for Feather Fall to save me, the enchantment gave me a few seconds to think before gravity kicked in. An image flashed through my mind, summoning a bucket of water, depositing it on the earth below, and landing safely. That was how it worked in Maincraft.
This was definitely not Maincraft, but it was Maincraft-adjacent.
Thrusting my arm out, I used the Storage Ring to build a column of leaf blocks at the limit of its range below me. They collapsed the instant I fell into them, but I continued to empty the stack of leaves in my inventory as I went down.
It wasn¡¯t a parachute, not even close, but the floating blocks did slow me down as I plowed through them.
The ground slapped me like a divine palm, and I bounced, once, twice, rolling helplessly to the side. My armor was magic, and so was I, but there had to be limits to the enchantments. Protection and Unbreaking were well and good for fist-fighting a troll, not that I would want to, but falling hundreds of feet onto solid ground in a suit of heavy armor was not an ideal method of testing the damage absorption parameters of my equipment.
The rolling hadn¡¯t been on purpose, it was completely out of my control. To say I was sore would miss the mark. I felt like someone who had just dropped off of a wyvern to certain death and then not died.
My ears were ringing too badly to hear much, but soldiers surrounded me. They looked confused. One of them poked me with a spear. Their voices gradually penetrated the fog of my concussion.
¡°Is¡is he dead?¡± The man asked.
¡°Has to be,¡± another replied, ¡°did you see that?¡±
The spear nudged me again, its tip clinking against my cuirass. I took a deep breath, and the man holding the spear dropped it, jumping back.
¡°He moved! I saw him move!¡±
¡°There¡¯s no way.¡±
My sword was gone, who knew where, but there was a backup in my inventory. Kevin¡¯s buster. A wide-open field, surrounded by enemies, was the ideal place to put that ungainly superweapon to good use. I lifted my hand to look at the inventory bar. It hurt, and the soldiers freaked out. One of them cracked his sword against my helm.
It was annoying.
Selecting the item took more concentration than it should have, but a beat later, the oversized blade appeared in my hand, and I swung it casually, still on my back, just trying to make some space.
I didn¡¯t hit anyone, and the immediate response was a mixed bag of ¡°attack¡± and ¡°run for your lives,¡± which suggested that at least a few of these guys had some sense. I rose, clay and grit clinging to my armor, and stretched a bit to make sure nothing was broken. Miraculously, nothing was.
I noticed that the soldiers surrounding me weren¡¯t wearing stormtrooper armor. They had on more traditional hauberks and metal caps. They¡¯d come from Nargul, so maybe only the train guards had the privilege of wearing what the Dark Lord had crafted himself.
Even Kevin¡¯s obsession with uniform production standards had to end somewhere, I supposed.
¡°For the record,¡± I announced, ¡°I am your new Dark Lord. If you surrender to me now, this is going to go great. If you fight me, I will mess you up.¡±
¡°For the Throne!¡± Someone screamed, and others took up the cry. Malphas or Agares must have told them that their ruler was trapped, and I was an imposter. That was inconvenient. One man got ahead of the others, charging in with a spear and a wild shout, so I cut him in half.
I hadn¡¯t been trying to cut him in half, but the buster sword made it hard not to. It seemed to have been designed for turning people into people pieces, as well as swinging to hit multiple opponents at once. It certainly treated the man¡¯s armor like more of a suggestion to pause rather than an actual impediment.
As the two halves of the man plopped to the ground, the sight was enough to give the others a reason to reconsider their life choices, and it wasn¡¯t a good moment for me either. Bile rose in my throat, and I couldn¡¯t help but focus on the entrails, the expression on his face as what seemed to be every ounce of blood in his body drained out into the dry soil of Dargoth. I¡¯d killed people before, lots of people, but almost always at a distance, or with traps. This was gruesome.
The soldiers hesitated, but the monsters did not. A hoard of shamblers had been headed in my direction since I landed, and there were trolls out in front, rolling in like tanks. The humans made way for them, warding with their spears as reinforcements gathered behind them. I¡¯d landed at the back of Malphas¡¯s force, closer to the siege weapons and the supply wagons than the assault force, but they were coming.
I glanced up. Mount Doom was straight ahead of me, something like half a mile. Even their monstrous trebuchets, enhanced by demonic runes, couldn¡¯t throw farther than that. It wouldn¡¯t take me more than a few minutes to jog back to the safety of the fortress, or at least the outermost gate. But there was an entire army in my way.
A troll came barreling in, hooting mad, and I stepped to one side, chopping its neck with the buster blade like an executioner. Its head came off, and the big body skidded to a stop just beyond me. Then a column of semisolid air smashed into me from above, driving me to my knees.
¡°Kill him!¡± Came the screech of the raven demon, hovering high above. My homies, bless their hearts, were still trying to jump him, but the chaotic forces he had summoned around himself kept them at bay. We were at a bit of a stalemate here. As long as I was on the ground, there was no way he could kill me with wind magic, at least not with the spells he¡¯d displayed so far. But he could sure make a nuisance of himself while his army did the grunt work of bringing me down.
They came, a relentless tide of shamblers, their forms twisting and snarling in the storm¡¯s gloom. I was spinning, slicing, and probably looked ridiculous. This kind of main-strength swordplay wouldn¡¯t have been very effective against highly skilled opponents, but these were just mobs, and I mowed them down, trying to press closer to Mount Doom step by labored step. They were swarming me, and the fighting was a blur. I was swinging as fast as my enhanced physiology would allow, and soon I was walking over bodies, zombies and humans alike.
My world narrowed to the pulse of the fight, the howling trolls, the moaning shamblers, and the cries of the human soldiers brave or stupid enough to get in my way. Weapons bounced off of my armor, and the occasional gust threw me off balance, but Malphas¡¯s spells weren¡¯t very precise, and they caused more trouble for the enemies around me, who weren¡¯t encased in a suit of invulnerable orichalcum, than they did for me.
Agares had managed to dent my breastplate with his hammer, but no mortal weapon had so much as left a scratch.
Each heartbeat became a marker of time, and the sound of my panting breath within the full helm, ticking away moments that stretched into eternity. I found a grim clarity, a flow. Once or twice, I caught sight of Malphas, but there was nothing I could do about him from here, so I didn¡¯t bother trying to follow his movements.
My arms were getting heavy, and when I paused to summon a torch for my belt to discourage the monsters, a sudden rush from the soldiers took me off my feet. They dog-piled me, not even bothering to try to cut me anymore, instead climbing onto my chest and arms to hold me down.
With a mental flex, the buster popped back into my inventory. I didn¡¯t want to lose it in the struggle. They got me on my back, their hands scrabbling for the clasps of my helm, but some of them let go quickly, screaming in pain as cuts appeared on their limbs.
My chestplate included the Thorns enchantment. It would have been more effective if the other pieces of my armor included it as well, but regardless, grappling me was not fun for anyone.
Distant horns. The gates of Mount Doom had opened, and though I couldn¡¯t see it through the mountain of soldiers on top of me, I knew that Major Garren was leading the garrison out onto the field. Gaap hadn¡¯t arrived yet, but they must have seen me fall and decided to take action.
The real battle was just beginning.
111: My Dogpile (Rewrite)
The solidity of my suit meant that it was easy to breathe, even beneath an ever-growing pile of overzealous soldiers. Their sheer number, and lack of coordination, meant that it was nearly impossible for the men at the bottom to begin the process of stripping me of my invincibility, or to escape when wounded by Thorns.
Fingers scrabbled at the plates and latches without finding purchase, giving me time to think. Despite my strength, I didn¡¯t have the leverage to do much with my arms. Throwing off a few of them would have been straightforward enough, but there were a few more on top of that few, and a few more on top of them, and so on.
What I could do was turn over my fist, clenching it as if I were still gripping a weapon. The buster sword was back in my inventory, and though I couldn¡¯t look to see it, I could visualize in my mind where it was. There were only nine boxes total, and the last item stack I¡¯d selected had been my torches. Assuming the sword had popped back into its usual spot, that meant I needed to move the selection over two spaces. It was the softest possible feeling, moving a finger that didn¡¯t exist to highlight a box that I couldn¡¯t see.
The summoning would probably fail. I couldn¡¯t call a block of stone from my inventory to place it into an already existing wall, and a person would be pushed back if I converted a coin against them. But human bodies were a lot softer than a sword. Items could be recalled underwater, which would make room for whatever I was pulling out of my inventory. From the System¡¯s perspective, was this any different?
I selected and called what I hoped was the buster sword, and a familiar hilt materialized in my hand. The blade was five feet long. The shouts and orders, grunts and cries of the soldiers pinning me down were quickly overwhelmed by some truly horrible screams. Some of them tried to get away. Some of them couldn¡¯t, because they had been impaled. No one was piling on now.
I put the sword back in my inventory, adjusted the angle of my fist, and did it again. The weight began to lift, and no one was fighting me anymore. Dog piling a usurper was one thing, waiting in line to be skewered was quite another. The courage and loyalty of these men was already astounding, but there had to be limits. After dismissing the buster once more, I was barely able to roll onto my side, and from there push myself up out of the small mountain of gruesomely wounded men.
There were still plenty of soldiers who hadn¡¯t been touched, especially around my legs, but they were panicking now, and as I stood up, there was only one very brave man who rose with me, still valiantly holding on to one of my arms.
¡°You¡¯re going to want to let that go,¡± I said. His face was white as a sheet, his eyes wild, and it looked like he hadn¡¯t understood what I¡¯d said. I punched him with my other hand, breaking his nose and possibly a cheekbone, and he staggered away.
Surrounded by the dead and dying, drenched in their blood, I glanced down to see that the torch was still clipped into my belt. Summoning it had caused all this, but its glow was keeping the monsters back. Shamblers were mixed in with the soldiers, their mouths gaping open, hands and tentacles extending, but they didn¡¯t have the will to press into the circle of enchanted light even with a demon demanding it of them.
Another column of super dense air crashed down around me, but I withstood it as the men at my feet cried out anew. Malphas couldn¡¯t stop me, and neither could his army. I walked forward out of the pile, and the soldiers parted ahead of me. They still held weapons, spears, and swords, trembling in their hands, but when the buster sword reappeared, those nearest to me completely lost their nerve.
Those who had seen what happened broke and ran, and I took the opportunity to shove a loaf of bread into my mouth and chew, restoring some of the damage from the fall.
I could see that Major Garron was just beginning to clash with the leading battalion of Malphas¡¯s force. Even if I was virtually invulnerable, one man couldn¡¯t overcome an army of thousands. There were more soldiers, more monsters, so many more, and I was tired. What had happened to Noivern? I hoped my wyvern wasn¡¯t dead, but I wouldn¡¯t know until this was over.
Even as I walked, slashing at the occasional troll trying to brute force its way into the protective circle of my torch, there was another group of soldiers wheeling around to meet me. They were either too dumb or too loyal to have learned the lesson of their comrades. Crossbow bolts pelted me, bouncing off or shattering against my cuirass. A smaller group riding horses galloped by me, and one of them tossed a pot full of viscous liquid.
Almost in the same instant, torches were thrown, and it turned out the liquid had been oil. Flames sprang up around me, covering most of my right side. The suit had a Fire Resistance enchantment, not as strong as Kevin¡¯s which had allowed him to swim through lava, but effective enough that the flames licking my armor just felt warm.
It had been a good idea, and whoever had come up with it deserved a medal. I was going to have to ask about that whenever they surrendered. But the result of the maneuver was that they had made me look even scarier.
Dargoth¡¯s banners were flying ahead of me, my banners now, the red eye on a black field. Horns sounded again, this time from behind. A column of cavalry was riding in from the south, and I readied my sword to meet them before realizing what they were.
Hollow knights. The demons had told me about them, but I¡¯d never actually met any. Skeletal figures in mismatched armor, waving old swords.
Blackened skulls and dried skin riding varghests. The beasts moved faster than horses, running down the disorganized groups of soldiers that were still milling around the siege weapons at the rear of the army. At the head of the column was Asmodeus, his hood open, and a blade flying from his hands.
The knife spun out in an arc, cutting down a fleeing man, before returning like a boomerang.
The hollow knights, hollows, were certainly ugly, their bones blackened, and ragged remnants of armor hanging off their withered frames, but they exhibited consummate skill as they engaged the monstrous rabble around me. Their swords swung in eerily perfect unison, scything through the press of panicked soldiers and moaning shamblers with ruthless efficiency.
Throughout it all, the hollows remained utterly silent, a stark contrast to the screams of their victims and the bloodthirsty barks of their mounts. Capitalizing on the chaos pandemonium resulting from the charge, Asmodeus raised his hands, fingers writhing in complex gestures.
With rasps and hisses spewing from his fanged maw, the demon called upon his elemental mastery. The crude swords and spears of the soldiers nearby shuddered violently, wrested from their owners'' grasp by invisible forces. Then, guided by Asmodeus'' shifting fingers, the weapons smoothly slid to a halt in mid-air before shooting forward in a deadly volley. Metal rang on metal as the impromptu projectiles slammed hauberk and chain, into the vulnerable bodies beneath.
The slaughter didn¡¯t make me happy, but it was oddly satisfying to watch the enemy ranks fall en masse. The display of power was precisely the diversion I needed to finally get moving at a faster pace. Maybe the carnage had overwhelmed my sensibilities, and I was in shock, or maybe there was something deeper wrong with me, but the violence didn¡¯t touch me in the way killing the first soldier had. I felt numb.
Asmodeus came to a halt, allowing me to catch up with him as the hollows continued to carve a swath into the army beyond us.
"Not exactly a rescue," I said, raising my voice over the din. ¡°But it¡¯ll do. Good to see you Kaa.¡±
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Asmodeus dipped his hooded head in acknowledgment, serpents'' eyes glinting with ancient intellect. "We serve the will of the Dark Lord," he rasped, forked tongue dancing. ¡°Though I would prefer he did not refer to me as Kaa.¡±
¡°It¡¯s affectionate,¡± I said, taking a moment to survey the field. Who didn¡¯t love The Jungle Book? The hollows were formidable, but there were only around a hundred of them. If they stopped moving, they could be overwhelmed. The rest of Gaap¡¯s army was nowhere to be seen. Asmodeus and this group had ridden ahead of the main force.
¡°I need a mount,¡± I said, ¡°can I borrow yours?¡±
Asmodeus¡¯s eyes were slitted. ¡°You¡¯re on fire, my Dark.¡±
¡°Oh, yeah,¡± I patted at the flames running up my right arm, spreading the oil further, and doing nothing to stop them. ¡°It¡¯s only a little fire, though,¡± I said.
¡°The varghests will not agree.¡±
The beast he was riding was licking blood off of its snout, looking like it was having the time of its life. I shrugged.
¡°Fair enough. Now that you¡¯re here, we can finish off the remaining trebuchets. Call the hollow knights back to come with me, and see if you can do something about Malphas.¡±
Even as I said the name, a torrent of wind ripped through the field, taking some of the hollows off of their mounts, and disrupting the formation of the column as it shaved off a slice of the opposing army.
¡°With pleasure,¡± Asmodeus said. He sheathed both of his daggers and produced a small metallic sphere. It was cracked and pitted, a rusted iron ball, and I had no idea what he meant to do with it.
At an unseen signal, the sphere shot high into the air above us. It hung for a moment, a tiny, dull thing, and then erupted into a dazzling constellation. A hundred minuscule shards of metal careened through the sky, too fast and small for me to follow. Asmodeus glared up at Malphas, who had positioned himself over the hollows, sending gust after gust to interfere with their maneuvers. He was giving the soldiers, and his monsters, a chance to respond to the knights, boxing them in so that they could be overwhelmed.
Suddenly, he spasmed. The fragments of the sphere must have been too small for him to notice, and Asmodeus, whose hands were dancing again, had been able to force them through the swirls of air that protected the raven demon from normal projectiles. Malphas spun in the air, soaring higher, scanning for the source of his pain. When he spotted Asmodeus beside me, he paused in his ascent for a moment, then shot straight up into the clouds.
Two trebuchets remained, the men around them working with admirable diligence to keep up the assault. Now that I wasn¡¯t otherwise occupied, I could hear the boulders as they crashed against the walls of my fortress. That was enough of that. I didn¡¯t need to ride a wolf. As Asmodeus commanded the hollows to follow me, I took off at a sprint.
The buster sword could hack through wood well enough, but I had a more direct solution. Bowling over anyone who tried to get in my way, I switched it out for Agare¡¯s hammer. The massive stone weapon was even more ungainly than the giant sword, but it came with a more satisfying crunch. Swinging it like a maniac, I had the nearest trebuchet collapsing onto its side in no time and was free to charge on to the final siege weapon.
The crew there had witnessed my assault on their sister machine, and they scattered as I thundered in. The hollows rode ahead, cutting them down. At another time, I might have ordered them to stop, to accept surrender, but I was too caught up in the battle.
Wood splintered, and the towering machine teetered like a felled tree, crashing down around me after I bashed through its supports. There was still an army to deal with, but as far as I was concerned, the siege was finished.
¡°You, Skelly Number One!¡± I shouted at the nearest hollow. ¡°Come here.¡±
It obeyed, sheathing its weapon as it caused the varghest it was riding to trot over to meet me. The entity hesitated at the edge of the light of my torch, so I returned it to my inventory. The Hollow did not comment, regarding me with empty sockets, its mount breathing hard from the run.
¡°Give me your varghest,¡± I commanded, and the hollow nodded before dismounting. The fire on my armor had burned itself out, so I grabbed the wolf-like monster by the scruff of its neck and drew it close.
¡°I¡¯m going to ride you,¡± I said, ¡°you okay with that?¡±
It barked at me, which I took for agreement, releasing its scruff. It took my weight with a minor growl and responded to the pressure of my knees to turn it around. Dismissing the hammer, I shouted for the hollows to follow as we rode around the enemy to join with the garrison forces at the front.
The varghests moved with a predator¡¯s grace, and the column formed a wall of black fur and old blades that mowed down anything in its path.
Major Garron appeared to be an able leader. Despite being outnumbered, he and the garrison were holding their own. It helped that his men were better equipped than Malphas¡¯s, their stormtrooper armor gleaming under the occasional flash of lightning high above. They worked in concert, hacking away at the enemy with swords in front and halberds reaching through the ranks from behind. The garrison may have never engaged in a battle like this before, but they had trained religiously, and it showed.
Garron was giving orders from the middle of the formation, his standard flying, a black triangle on a red background representing the summit of Mount Doom. I spurred the varghest on, and the garrison greeted my arrival with a cheer, knowing me by my armor. I¡¯d only given one inspection, but it had apparently been enough.
Shouts of ¡°Dark Lord¡± and ¡°For the Throne¡± filled the air as I arrived. Within moments, I stood before Garron himself. The gray-haired veteran saluted me with a fist to his chest.
¡°The siege weapons are done,¡± I said, ¡°we should pull back.¡±
¡°As you wish,¡± Garron saluted again before shouting a few orders. Flags were raised across the formation, signaling an orderly withdrawal.
¡°We will defend you with our lives,¡± he said.
¡°No need,¡± I replied, ¡°I¡¯m going to give you guys some breathing room.¡±
¡°My Lord?¡± His eyes held the question. He wouldn¡¯t contradict me, but he saw it as his duty, and that of his men, to act as my defenders, not the other way around.
I clasped his shoulder. ¡°Keep the men alive. Get them back within the walls.¡±
He saluted once more, and I turned to the waiting hollows.
¡°To the front,¡± I said, swinging back up on the varghest. Skelly Number One, I was pretty sure it was him, nodded, and the column rode with me to meet the main line of Malphas¡¯s army. Our forces moved aside so we could pass, taking a new formation better suited to a withdrawal.
They continued to fight, but they were already backing toward Mount Doom.
Spears lowered to meet our charge, and then the air was filled with a host of unearthly cries. A flock of phantoms descended ahead of us, hundreds of them, as well as a flight of wyverns. With a glance behind, I caught a glimpse of Orobas standing at the rampart above the gate, directing the mobs.
The enemy¡¯s front line fell into disarray, and I, along with the hollows, barreled into them. The buster sword was in my hand again, swinging in wide arcs. The extra height afforded by my mount was perfect for lopping off heads. The blade cleaved through armor and bone with equal ease, decapitating soldiers left and right. The varghest proved hard to control as it lunged and snapped with fanged jaws, ripping out a soldier''s throat as he came in under my sword to try to pull me out of the saddle. All around me the hollow knights fought in perfect synchronicity, their pitted blades rising and falling in an inexorable rhythm.
Overhead, the phantoms and wyverns harried the enemy ranks. Their shrieks and roars lent an extra dimension to the madness of the battle. Spears and arrows darted up to try and bring them down, but it was a haphazard resistance. They swooped in again and again, further disrupting the ranks.
Malphas was nowhere to be seen, and in his absence, his officers continued to direct the attack. I pulled the varghest up short and exchanged the buster for my bow. Nargul had its own flag, a crown over a diamond, and I started targeting anyone who stood near them with flaming arrows.
The soldiers of Dargoth were accustomed to fighting alongside monsters, not against them. With the force becoming increasingly disorganized, it wasn¡¯t long before they were in a rout.
Asmodeus rode through the chaos on his varghest to sit beside me, the hollows forming up once more around us, ready for another charge. With Malphas gone, the mobs that had been under the demon¡¯s control were beginning to break ranks, attacking any human nearby, which happened to be the enemy.
¡°Shall we pursue?¡± Asmodeus asked me, his voice a quiet sibilance amid the din.
¡°No,¡± I said, ¡°bring the hollows into Mount Doom, following the garrison.¡± My goal here was not to kill every enemy soldier. They were my soldiers, really, they just didn¡¯t know it yet. Gaap would arrive within hours, bringing the main force with him. At that point, we would be in an ideal position to negotiate a surrender.
112: My Brewing Stand (Rewrite)
I held the oathblade, the diamond in its hilt swirling with crimson motes of demonic essence. It was a physical reminder of the growing interconnection between me and the demons. A practical necessity, but not one I was happy about. While Esmelda had been outwardly supportive, as she always had, I knew she didn¡¯t feel good about the compromises I had made to get here.
Gastard had been less discrete, telling me outright that I had to abandon this path before I succumbed to the taint of Bedlam and became a demon myself. Though he hadn¡¯t said it in front of my son, I was afraid Leto might come to a similar conclusion. He was sensitive enough to pick up on their opinions whether or not they shared them with him.
Could I become a demon? That wasn¡¯t how it worked, as far as I knew, but if Bedlam¡¯s taint could change me sufficiently, there might not be enough of a difference to matter. What if they had been human once? My horns, thankfully, seemed to have stopped growing, so at least they didn¡¯t interfere with me wearing a helmet.
Malphas¡¯ forces surrendered soon after Gaap had appeared on the horizon with our army at his back. The raven demon had come alone to the gates of Mount Doom, wounded and willing to talk. Asmodeus and a troop of hollows had escorted him to the throne room. The skeletal warriors crowded close to him, their pitted weapons drawn, still marked by drying blood.
Malphas would be one more mote in the diamond, one more tie to the demons, one step closer to becoming someone I didn¡¯t want to be.
¡°Are you ready to acknowledge me?¡± I said.
Malphas walked with a limp. Shards of metal from Asmodeus¡¯s orb were still lodged in his leg, but he was not cowed. ¡°I am Malphas, thirty-ninth harbinger of the One Who Knocks, and I come before the one who would be Dark Lord to gauge his worthiness.¡±
¡°Gauge my worthiness?¡± What was this bird getting high and mighty about? ¡°You already lost. The men have surrendered, and Bojack is rounding up the entities. Offer me your allegiance, and you can continue to exist on this plane. Otherwise, we cut you down and wait for your replacement to spawn.¡±
¡°What do you have to offer me in return for my loyalty?¡± He asked, black eyes glittering. I stood up. All the demons were the same, and it was getting on my nerves.
¡°I just said what I have to offer you, your life. You¡¯ve caused me enough problems. If you want to join the team, you¡¯re welcome to. You can keep your seat, 39th, but I¡¯m not going to give you anything in the top ten. You don¡¯t have a city or reinforcements. You have nothing left to give me other than yourself.¡±
¡°He is insolent, your darkness,¡± Asmodeus hissed. ¡°Allow me to end his wretched existence. There are many demons more suited to your service than this one.¡±
¡°I have knowledge,¡± Malphas said quickly, ¡°I know secrets none of your vaunted councilors possess.¡±
¡°Like what?¡±
¡°The previous Dark Lord had worked wonders you cannot. He could become invisible, heal himself, even throw fire from his hands.¡±
¡°How do you know I can¡¯t?¡±
¡°Because you didn¡¯t.¡± Malphas croaked. ¡°You are strong enough to wield his sword and wear armor like his, but if you had his other weapons at your disposal, you would have used them.¡±
He was right. Kevin¡¯s brewing stand was nowhere to be found in Mount Doom, and I had no idea how to make one of my own, or what ingredients would have resulted in what potions if there had been a stand to use. Potions were a game changer in Maincraft, and they would be one for me too.
The demons knew plenty about their magic, but little about the Survivor System. Bojack had learned the recipe for an oathblade, but he hadn¡¯t been able to give me much else.
¡°What can you teach me?¡± I asked.
¡°Alchemy. That was his secret, and it can be yours as well.¡±
¡°How would you have learned alchemy? It isn¡¯t demonic magic, it has nothing to do with you.¡±
¡°Ah, but he taught me. Despite my low seat, the Dark Lord found me to be an adept assistant. My memory is perfect, and his was not.¡±
¡°Do you know the formula for a brewing stand?¡±
¡°I do.¡±
¡°Then tell it to me and consider your life saved.¡±
¡°That is not enough.¡±
¡°I think it¡¯s more than you deserve.¡±
¡°This is a simple bargain. You have the power to kill me, that is true, but that is not so great a threat to our kind. When my body is destroyed, my spirit will return to Bedlam. It will regenerate, in time, and I will be sent to some other world to further the designs of the One Who Knocks. I am not so proud as some of the others,¡± he inclined his beak toward Asmodeus, who flickered his tongue in response. ¡°I am willing to accept that I have failed in this world and seek the justice of Bedlam. But I do not believe that I have failed, not yet. Because you need what I have to offer you.¡±
¡°And what do you want in return?¡±
¡°Lands of my own, authority, a stipend of lesser entities. The tenth seat will suffice. I do not ask so much of you.¡±
He was more reasonable than Berith had been, at least, and if he was telling the truth, he was going to be more useful than any other demon had been so far. Still, I didn¡¯t want to give in too easily.
¡°There are going to be lands available in Atlan. Would you settle for that?¡±
Malphas clicked his beak. ¡°I have no interest in being promised what is not yet yours to give.¡±
¡°Tell me how to craft a brewing stand, and I will consider being more generous. As it is now, I have no reason to believe you know anything worthwhile.¡±
Malphas ruffled his feathers. ¡°Your distrust wounds me, but I suppose I can give you that much enticement. A brewing stand is simple enough to construct; three stone blocks, a steel rod, and the core of a fire elemental.¡±
That sounded right. In Maincraft, you needed a blaze rod to craft a brewing stand. You got blaze rods by killing blazes, which were fiery mobs floating around the Nether. They could easily be described as fire elementals, but I¡¯d never seen anything like them on Plana or in Bedlam.
¡°Where am I supposed to get the core of a fire elemental?¡± I said. ¡°There aren¡¯t any here. You could still be making this up.¡±
Malphas croaked in agitation. ¡°They exist in Bedlam.¡±
I looked at Asmodeus, who had closed his hood and was watching Malphas through slitted eyes.
¡°Is that true? Are there fire elementals in Bedlam with cores that can be harvested?¡±
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¡°It is,¡± Asmodeus hissed, somewhat reluctantly. ¡°Though I cannot confirm that his formula is a true one.¡±
Kevin¡¯s Bedlam portal had not been hidden. It occupied an entire cathedral on the eastern flank of Mount Doom, but I¡¯d never tried using it. Bedlam was a rough place, and I had no intention of going back if I could help it. My one previous visit to the alien realm had cost me too much.
Was Kevin¡¯s alchemy lab on the other side of that portal?
¡°Okay,¡± I said, ¡°I can take a trip into Bedlam to look for a fire elemental core. Until the formula is confirmed, you¡¯re going to be considered a prisoner. It¡¯ll only take a few minutes to craft a nice box to put you in before I go.¡±
The hollows pressed in around Malphas, ready to restrain him, but he held up his arms in protest.
¡°No need. There is no need for that. There is a core here that you can use.¡±
¡°I doubt it. I¡¯ve already gone through the storage complex. There weren¡¯t any flaming orbs to be found.¡± Aside from the mysterious orb in my inventory, which was overflowing with the essences of all the monsters I¡¯d killed the previous day, but I wasn¡¯t about to try to break it down for components, and I doubted it was made from a fire elemental core anyway.
¡°The sanguinum factories,¡± Malphas said. ¡°Among them is a furnace that burns hot enough to craft diamonds out of coal. It is powered by an elemental core of the kind you need.¡±
I¡¯d seen the furnace. It wasn¡¯t automated like the rest of the machines in the factories, but given the sheer quantity of diamonds in the chests around the furnace, its use hadn¡¯t been hard to guess.
¡°Alright,¡± I said, ¡°let¡¯s pay it a visit.¡±
The sanguinum factories were no longer active, as they¡¯d eventually run out of the various materials they needed, and I had never bothered to refill their dispensers. I suppose you could never have too much iron, and there was one machine that converted the dark sands of the wastes into ingots which I did plan on using when I got around to it. The room dedicated to producing railroad tracks, however, had fallen silent, and the central hub of the factory that looked like a collection of clocks was ticking the time away with nothing to do.
The blast furnace was huge, fifteen feet high, and winged by rows of pipes that gave it the air of a church organ. Even though it was inactive, it still radiated enough warmth to make the room uncomfortable.
¡°Okay,¡± I said. ¡°Let¡¯s break this thing down.¡±
Summoning Durin¡¯s Digger, the pick I¡¯d stolen from Kevin, I tapped at the side of the furnace to harvest some of its panels. Its guts were more complicated than I expected, coal got fed in through the pipes pressed together by super-heated pistons, then regurgitated as diamond through the pipes of the other wing. The engine that powered the whole thing was built into its base, a nest of sanguinum power lines attached to the elemental core. The entire apparatus was more complicated than Survivor crafting was supposed to be. But Kevin had been around so long, I wasn¡¯t surprised he¡¯d found ways to play with the System until it could do things it had never been meant to do.
The core was the size of my fist, and though it had a coherent shape, a perfect sphere, it looked liquid. It was like someone had convinced a handful of lava to curl up into a ball and stay that way, still shifting and churning as its cooling exterior cycled inward and the liquid at its blazing heart bled up to replace it.
I poked it, and seeing as my finger didn¡¯t disintegrate, picked it up. It was heavy, at least fifty pounds, and if I hadn¡¯t been wearing gauntlets, it would have charred my hands off. The heat was stinging me even through the protection as I carried it back to the forge with Malphas, Asmodeus, and the hollows in tow.
The other components Malphas had mentioned were readily available, so I picked a spot near the lip of the cliff overlooking the magic cauldron to place it, and a minute later, had myself a brewing stand. The formula resulted in a sturdy column segmented into three equal parts. Within this stone cage, the core was suspended on the steel rod which had come into being inscribed with arcane runes.
The columns were decked out like a Christmas tree with holsters of vials, tubing, and compartments for storage, even though no glass or rubber had been included in the crafting formula. It looked primed and ready for alchemy, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Not having access to potions had been frustrating, and if Malphas knew a few functional recipes, then I was going to be in business very soon.
¡°Good news,¡± I said, turning to the raven demon. ¡°You can live.¡±
He nodded. ¡°This is only the beginning,¡± he said. ¡°You have no idea what wonders this device can produce.¡±
¡°I have a pretty good idea,¡± I said. If it was anything like crafting, what came out of this stand would mostly follow the lines of what I remembered from the game.
¡°Are you ready to give me your oath?¡±
¡°Subject to my desires.¡±
¡°Tenth seat it is. You have my word.¡± If this demon could help me turn invisible, it would be worth a lot more than that. I produced the oathblade, and motioned for the hollows to step away from Malphas, though Asmodeus remained close at his side.
¡°And my lands?¡±
¡°You can work that out with Zareth, I¡¯m sure we have areas that are still available. And Orobas can make sure you get the monsters you want.¡±
The raven knelt, his injured leg wobbling, and nearly giving out under him as he went down. I rested the tip of the oathblade on his shoulder, and he touched it with his hand.
¡°I, President Malphas, hereby offer my allegiance, knowledge, and support to the Dark Lord of Mount Doom in exchange for the rights and privileges of the tenth seat. May the power of the blade sunder me should I prove false. I am yours to command.¡±
A pulse of pink light traced its way along the edge of the sword until it settled into the crystal, which darkened and swirled as a new fragment of demonic essence was added to the mix.
¡°Great,¡± I said, after adding my part to the oath, ¡°let¡¯s get brewing.¡±
Malphas, it proved, did have an eidetic memory, and he was soon reciting recipes for me like he was reading them from a list. A lot of the ingredients from Maincraft had been substituted with materials of this world. I didn¡¯t have all of them at hand, but most of what we needed to get started was available in the fortress.
He knew how to make a Potion of Invisibility, as well as Healing, Slow Falling, Leaping, and Water Breathing, among others.
Malphas, Asmodeus, and I were headed over to the farms to collect plants and mushrooms when we ran into Zareth and Gremory. The Esmelda look-alike was walking a step behind my vizier, her hands clasped at her waist, and an angelic look plastered across her face. Zareth looked more harried than usual.
¡°My Lord,¡± he said, ¡°I have been seeking you. There is news from the war front.¡±
¡°Atlan?¡± I asked. We hadn¡¯t stepped into that mess yet, and the demons in charge of northern Dargoth weren¡¯t sworn to me. Zareth had been getting updates, but as far as I knew, they were busy fending off raids on the farmlands from the Orkhans.
¡°No, my lord.¡± Zareth paused to adjust the scrolls under his arm. ¡°To the east. King Egald is beginning his annual sally into the border march, and Underlord Godwod is requesting further aid.¡±
Godwod. It bothered me that he was still in power, and now that I had my family back, I could start thinking about what to do about him. ¡°Don¡¯t we already have a demon in Henterfell? What¡¯s he doing?¡±
¡°Barbatos,¡± Zareth nodded. ¡°He stopped sending messengers shortly after your ascent to the throne, and the lord complains that he has disappeared, taking what was left of their monstrous regiment with him.¡±
Yet another demon who was going to need to be bullied into swearing an oath to me. It was getting tiresome. ¡°Do you think we¡¯re going to lose Henterfell?¡±
¡°It is hard to be sure, but at the least, from what Godwod claims, most of the border march will soon be lost, if not the city itself.¡±
Nothing like having two war fronts to be worried about. I turned to Asmodeus.
¡°Have we assigned you a territory yet?¡±
¡®No,¡± the snake demon unfurled his hood. ¡°You have not.¡±
¡°Right, well, you pissed me off on the train when you ran after the other snake. But you basically rescued me out there yesterday, so I¡¯m ready to make this official. The seventh seat belongs to you, and I want to give you Henterfell as your domain. Any problem with that?¡±
Asmodeus¡¯s tongue flickered. ¡°It will suffice.¡±
¡°Great. Take the hollows with you, and anything else you want from the stables below that¡¯s fast enough to keep up with the varghests. You¡¯re in charge of making sure we don¡¯t lose the city to King Egald and see what you can do about the rest of the border. We need better information about what we¡¯re up against, so I¡¯ll send some harpies with you as well. But I don¡¯t want you to risk them in skirmishes. They¡¯re going to be for reconnaissance only.¡±
They would also be my eyes and ears in the region, so I wouldn¡¯t have to trust the demon completely.
¡°As you wish,¡± Asmodeus offered me a slight bow, and Zareth was busily taking notes.
¡°I¡¯ll see to it that he has what he needs,¡± Gremory said, apparently not wanting to be left out. She sidled closer to me, smiling sweetly, and I stepped away.
¡°Fine with me. The bird and I are going to go brew some potions.¡±
Gremory¡¯s face darkened for a heartbeat, disappointed, and then went back to being blandly angelic.
113: My Potions (Rewrite)
¡°Alright Big Bird,¡± I said, ¡°how do we start?¡±
Malphas clicked his beak at the appellation but didn¡¯t otherwise complain. After gathering resources from the farm and around Mount Doom, we were back in the forge and I was ready to begin my journey as a junior alchemist.
¡°You must prepare a base elixir,¡± Malphas blinked rapidly, his beak turning this way and that as he examined the brewing stand. ¡°It is the primal essence from which all true potions arise.¡±
¡°Okay, so what are the ingredients?¡± I gestured at a table full of the material coins, foodstuffs, and odds and ends we had collected.
¡°Fill the flasks with water, and add a powder of Bedlam Wart.¡±
The base elixir sounded a lot like an Awkward Potion from Maincraft. They did nothing on their own, but they were the first step to brewing the good stuff. The components were even the same. In the game, Nether Wart was all you needed to make an Awkward Potion, and bottles of water, of course.
We had more bottles than I would ever need. They could be crafted from three glass coins, and Kevin had dedicated a small section of the sanguinum factory to a furnace that converted sand into glass. I¡¯d already prepped dozens, filling them from my bottomless thermos.
The Bedlam wart presented a bottleneck for brewing, as there hadn¡¯t been a ready supply of the stuff at Mount Doom, but I still had the samples I¡¯d harvested on general principle while I was stumbling around the swamp in Bedlam. If we ran out, I could simply ride outside and harvest more from the fungus growing around the mountain. The giant mushrooms yielded Bedlam wart stalks and caps, which could be converted to powder at the crafting table.
I poured water into the appropriate channel of the brewing stand, which traveled through the tubing into the flasks. Little bubbles appeared in the flasks as the liquid began to heat.
¡°They will boil off in under an hour if you leave them there,¡± Malphas said. ¡°Best to add the ingredients immediately.¡±
I poured the mushroom powder into a funnel attached to the flasks via yet more tubing, and the water swirled and darkened.
¡°How long does it take?¡± I asked.
¡°For the former Dark Lord? The transfusion was nearly instantaneous.¡±
The powder continued to swirl and dissolve for several more minutes, at the end of which, the System gave me a notification ding.
|
Achievement: Crafty (7)
You have successfully brewed your first potion. This is only the first step on the road to becoming a true alchemist. Potion recipes will now be included in the crafting log of your journal.
New skill unlocked: [Alchemize]
Skills
Miner: 30
Progress to next rank: 0%
Artisan: 11
Progress to next rank: 22%
Tamer: 7
Progress to next rank: 17%
Alchemize: 1
Progress to next rank: 20%
|
I dismissed the screen. The skills were largely a measure of how fast I could work, but higher ranks also unlocked new use cases for my System. Miner had given me access to better materials as it rose, and a higher rank in Artisan was required for crafting some items, the mechanical stuff, and Kevin¡¯s keys. The potions available to me at rank one were likely to be limited.
¡°Quickly,¡± Malphas said. ¡°The next ingredient for a healing potion is a glistering melon.¡±
The phrase ¡°glistering melon¡± was nonsense straight out of the computer game. We¡¯d gotten a few watermelons from the farm, and I¡¯d brought it over to the worktable to combine it with gold.
The transformation had been stunning. Its rind became something like the outside of a Faberge egg, a metallic crust studded with tiny, glistening gems. The fruit within looked like it was made of crystal, but still somehow moist and appetizing. I crushed it with a hammer and took the resulting pulp over to the brewing stand.
After the pulp worked its way through the tubes, the liquid in all three flasks began to thicken.
Once again, it looked like it was going to take a while.
¡°I want to do an invisibility potion,¡± I said. ¡°What do I need?¡±
¡°It requires great skill,¡± Malphas said, ¡°you must first brew a Darkvision Potion, which is then transmuted by the addition of an infusion of spider eyes.¡±
¡°Like, actual spiders?¡± The idea of running around Mount Doom, capturing spiders, and then painstakingly removing their eyes was not a pleasant one.¡±
Malphas gave me a quizzical look as if he was trying to decide if I was joking. ¡°I refer to the eyes of a Vorokai, a lesser entity which you mortals often refer to as a spider.¡±
¡°Uck.¡± I¡¯d never encountered a spider mob, which was something I¡¯d been very grateful for in my early days on Plana. Spiders were a constant nuisance in Maincraft, made all the worse by their habit of scaling walls and fences to get to you. But if I¡¯d never seen one, it meant that Vorokai were rare, and probably more dangerous than a troll.
¡°Do you think there are any of those around here? The other demons didn¡¯t claim any when we were putting together the army.¡±
¡°Orobas will know,¡± Malphas shrugged. ¡°They are unruly creatures, not well suited to mass conflicts, as they require near constant direction.¡±
So there could be spider monsters tucked away in the pens, awaiting a special occasion. I wasn¡¯t sure if I was happy about that or not. The liquid in the flasks settled down into something that looked like tomato soup, enough to fill three bottles.
¡°How do I know if it worked?¡± I asked, holding one bottle up to the light. It looked very much like I would have imagined a healing potion was supposed to, but for all I knew, it was pure poison.
Malphas tapped the glass with a talon. ¡°A failure would be obvious. The result would be dull, dun, and stink of sulfur.¡±
¡°Let¡¯s test that out,¡± I said. The Darkvision Potion required a golden carrot, which I crafted and processed in the same fashion as the melon, before hurrying up to wait. We needed more base elixir, which took about five minutes to brew before the carrot paste could be added to the mixture. It took even longer than the healing potions, and the result was exactly as he had described, a smelly mess. Smoke was rising from the brewing stand before it was finished, and I poured the aborted potions out over the edge of the cliff.
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¡°You have insufficient skill,¡± Malphas said, which translated to my Alchemize ability not being high enough for me to make anything more interesting than the healing potions and the base elixir. Rather than waste my limited supply of Bedlam wart powder on more failed attempts, I used everything I had to fill bottle after bottle with the base. It took a full hour, most of which I spent grilling Malphas about the other potions and their components.
At the end of the hour, Alchemize was up to level five. There was no more wart powder for me to use to grind the ability any further, so I tried the Darkvision recipe again. Ten minutes and one golden carrot later, I was rewarded with three bottles full of dark purple liquid that reminded me of nothing so much as grape soda. Darkvision wasn¡¯t any use for me, Beleth had already given me that, but it was one step closer to invisibility. There were almost forty bottles of base elixir left and plenty of other ingredients.
¡°Okay,¡± I said, ¡°let¡¯s try everything that only requires one step above the base.¡±
Most of the other potions required monster parts as an ingredient. Troll blood would give me a Potion of Might, Voidman blood would give me a Potion of Leaping, and phantom membrane would give me a Potion of Feather-Fall. My personal favorite recipe, however, was for the Potion of Speed, which only required sugar. Ever since maxing out my Miner skill, I¡¯d been able to harvest blood as well as skin and meat and bone, there just hadn¡¯t been a use for any of it until now.
By the time we¡¯d made all four, my Alchemize ability was up to level seven.
¡°Let¡¯s see if we can find a spider,¡± I said.
We visited Bojack together. The horse demon was in his usual spot, keeping watch over Kevin. The former Dark Lord napped in his cell, while Bojack made notes in a spooky-looking journal. At some point, he¡¯d brought a desk and a chair up to the passage that opened onto the prison cube so he could continue his vigil more comfortably.
¡°What are you doing?¡± I asked.
Bojack snapped the book closed before I could see what he¡¯d been working on. ¡°It is none of your concern.¡± He said. ¡°How is your progress?¡±
That was a more defensive response than I¡¯d expected, but I wasn¡¯t going to push the issue. The cover of the book was blank leather, and his hands were stained with ink. If my head demon was plotting against me, then there wasn¡¯t much I could do about it. If he just had a hobby, then good for him, he must have been bored having a prisoner he didn¡¯t get to torture every day.
¡°Making progress,¡± I said, ¡°but we need a spider. Uh, vorokai. Do we have any in the menagerie?¡±
Bojack covered the book with one of his hands, making me all the more curious about what he had been doing. ¡°There are three, each in a separate cage in the stables. The attendants will know where they are. They have to feed them.¡±
¡°Thanks,¡± I said, ¡°you can go back to your memoirs, or whatever.¡±
He snorted at me, and Malphas and I headed down the mountain. The stables were a massive underground structure supported by thick columns of black stone running in twin rows down into the darkness of the cavern. Torches along the walls illuminated glyphs and carvings that gave off Lovecraftian vibes, and the sides of the cavern were sectioned off into pens for the monsters. It was even more crowded than on my first visit now that Gaap had returned with the army and we¡¯d added the surviving mobs from Malphas¡¯s force out of Nargul.
There was a team of human grooms that helped keep the place in order. Monsters didn¡¯t require as much food as their size or their numbers would suggest, but they still had to be fed, or they would start eating each other.
Much of the product generated by the farms of Mount Doom went to satiating the beasts housed below it, most of which were omnivorous. If not for them, we could have fed half a nation.
I called over one of the workers, who looked very nervous to be in the presence of both a demon and a dark lord. He was young, and dressed in protective leather gear similar to the messenger outfits of wyvern riders.
¡°How may I be of service, my lord?¡± He sketched a bow.
¡°I need to see the vorokai,¡± I said.
His face paled, and he gulped. ¡°As you wish.¡±
It was a long walk to the end of the cavern, the hoots and moans of the mobs following us as we passed. The vorokai were housed in three large cells cut out of the back wall, closed off by steel bars as thick as my arm. It reminded me of the setup I¡¯d used to farm shamblers in my original shelter.
The spiders weren¡¯t exactly spiders. They struck me as a kind of hairless tarantula, only they were as tall as a horse, and with the inclusion of their long legs, they were larger than even the biggest troll or chimera. As soon as we approached, one of them dashed itself against the bars of the cage. It glared at me with white, faintly radiant eyes that were arranged around its head in a way that suggested it had a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree vision. Instead of a carapace, it had thick, leathery skin similar to the trolls, with deeply striated musculature visible beneath. As if that wasn¡¯t enough, it also had a tail like that of a scorpion.
The stinger bobbed and swayed, its bulbous end too thick to pass through the bars.
Malphas raised one hand and spoke a few words in the demonic tongue. In response, the vorokai hissed like a teakettle and backed up.
¡°How else may I be of service?¡± the worker asked in a small voice.
¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± I said, ¡°you can go. You¡¯re going to have one less of these things to look after in a minute.¡±
He bowed and made a hasty exit.
The cage didn¡¯t require a key. There was a lever built into the stone beside to unlock the door.
¡°When I go in there,¡± I told Malphas, ¡°I want you to shut the gate behind me and let the monster do what it wants.¡±
¡°That is unwise,¡± the demon said. ¡°Even the former lord was wary of these entities.¡±
I lifted my visor and started downing potions. Swiftness tasted like an energy drink, while the Potion of Might was closer to a protein shake. Leaping didn¡¯t taste like anything in particular, maybe a little minty.
¡°Push it back,¡± I said. ¡°I want to test these out.¡±
A quick check of my status screen showed the active effects.
|
Level: 27
Progress to next level: 7%
Attributes:
Might: D
Speed: D-
Presence: F+
|
It didn''t look like a huge difference, about half a letter grade for Might and Speed. A set of timers had appeared in the bottom right corner of my vision, opposite where the heart bar showed up, counting down a ten-minute window. It was kind of distracting.
The vorokai scuttled to the back of the cell. It had an uneven number of legs, and the way it moved was even more erratic and unnerving than you would expect a giant spider to be. When I unlocked the gate, it strained, clearly wanting to lunge, but Malphas held it in place. Lowering my visor once more, I stepped inside with the monster and drew Caliburn. The demon shut the gate behind me.
The vorokai came at me like a scuttling tank, threatening to overrun me and get me under its fangs. I jumped to one side, flying a full twenty feet to slam into the stone wall. My armor absorbed the impact, and I managed to land on my feet. The combination of a boosted Might and the Leaping potion was more effective than I¡¯d anticipated. The spider spun, its tail jabbing forward, and I hopped out of the way. I definitely felt faster.
My blood was pumping, and my head was light. The monster¡¯s movements seemed slow to me, awkward, and when it struck again, I swiped at the incoming tail with my sword. The xanthium blade bit deep, leaving its stinger hanging by a stripe of leathery skin, and the vorokai hissed furiously. The sound made the hair on my arms stand on end. As sure as I was of my armor¡¯s capacity to absorb damage, this thing was still scary. There is something primordial about the fear of spiders, and the vorokai was an absolute nightmare. Though I might have had a soft spot for monsters in general, this one could go.
It lunged again, and I tried to hop onto its back, but the leap carried me over and behind the mob. As it spun, I severed one of its legs, splashing myself with black blood that steamed and sputtered like acid. It reared up, an intimidating post as its broad body took up my entire vision, but not a smart move. I stepped in and jammed my sword into its exposed underbelly, and the monster spasmed. It came down on top of me, but I could stand under its weight. As its fangs latched onto my armor, I proceeded to ruin its guts with my sword.
The spider continued to fight, even as blood and gore poured out from the wounds expanding in its stomach. Its struggling threw me off balance, and I stumbled, losing my sword inside of it. The sound of its fangs scraping the orichalcum filled my ears, and I grabbed it by its bulbous head to throw it off of me. As it fell onto its side, I felt exhilarated, impossibly strong, unbeatable. It was probably a side effect of the potions, as I had taken the magical equivalent of a dose of PCP, but being able to go toe to toe with a monster like this was intoxicating in its own right.
As its limbs flailed, I planted my boot on its skull and heard a crunch. My heart bar told me it had managed to do a little damage, but nothing to worry about.
¡°The eyes!¡± Malphas croaked from outside the cell. ¡°Don¡¯t destroy its eyes!¡±
It rose again, and I summoned Kevin¡¯s sword. The cell, having been designed to hold a mob this size, offered space for a swing. The buster sword split its skull with enough force to travel through and embed its tip in the floor. The vorokai was finished, its legs splaying out, and its blood gathering in bubbling pools that ate away at the stone.
The potions worked.
114: My Dinner (Rewrite)
¡°William! Where have you been?¡±
I was generating some potions of regeneration, trying to estimate what level Alchemize would have to be before I could get the invisibility brew to work and how many alchemy sessions it would take me to get there when my wife¡¯s voice brought me out of my reverie. She was standing with her hands on her hips near the entrance of the forge, a scarier posture than her diminutive stature would suggest.
¡°Oh, hi Esmelda.¡±
¡°Oh, hi? You¡¯ve been gone all day, and you didn¡¯t even tell me good morning before you left.¡±
¡°You were sleeping,¡± I said, defensively.
Esmelda marched across the forge to poke me in my armored chest. ¡°I know I was sleeping. That doesn¡¯t mean you can just disappear. I had to ask Zareth where you were, and he informed me you¡¯ve been holed up with this demon,¡± she cast a less than appreciative glance toward Malphas, ¡°all day. And he said something about you fighting monsters in the basement. Leto and I had no idea where you were.¡±
¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± I said, ¡°I was just busy.¡±
Esmelda looked about as mad as I¡¯d ever seen her, and she took a deep breath before continuing. ¡°You¡¯re not alone anymore, William. You can¡¯t just forget about us. What are we doing here? This is your fortress, your empire. We don¡¯t have roles here. Do you expect me to spend all day sitting in the living room, waiting for your return? Are we supposed to be ornaments for the new Dark Lord?¡±
¡°That¡¯s not¡¡± I did feel bad. I had just gotten into my routine, and not considered what it would be like for her to wake up and find me gone.
¡°You aren¡¯t ornaments,¡± I said. ¡°I wasn¡¯t thinking.¡±
¡°You single-handedly fought an army yesterday,¡± she said, ¡°which is not, as I recall, something we discussed beforehand. You came back drenched in blood and the goddess only knows what else. You can afford to take some time off from,¡± she gestured at the brewing stand, ¡°whatever this is, to be with your family.¡±
¡°Do you¡want to have dinner?¡±
¡°Yes,¡± Esmelda huffed. ¡°That would be delightful.¡± She spun on her heel and walked out of the forge. I glanced back at Malphas and the brewing stand.
¡°Can you bottle those for me when they¡¯re done?¡±
The demon nodded, his black eyes glittering with what better not have been amusement. ¡°As you wish, young master.¡±
Zareth, ever diligent, had assigned a pair of servants to our household. The footman greeted me at the door to the royal suite. He was tall and lanky, with shaggy brown hair, and he bowed deeply as I approached. The uniform was fitted and gray, with a red eye sewn over his heart.
¡°My lord,¡± he said, ¡°your family awaits you in the dining chamber.¡±
¡°Thanks,¡± I said, lifting my visor. ¡°What was your name again?¡±
¡°Jasper, sir.¡± He seemed to shrink slightly at the direct address.
¡°Thank you, Jasper,¡± I said, ¡°at ease.¡±
The footman straightened and saluted in the same manner as the soldiers, which wasn¡¯t exactly at ease, but I would take it. Rather than go directly to the dining room, I stopped by my wardrobe to change. Esmelda would not have been happy to see me come to eat in full battle gear. As much time as I¡¯d been spending in my armor, it felt weird to be wearing normal clothes, though normal hardly described the selection that Zareth had prepared for me.
I had to get past a lot of gaudy velvet and silk to find a more reasonable black tunic and a matching pair of boots. If the available selection was any indication, Dargothian nobility had a taste for elaborate red and purple robes.
Esmelda, Leto, and Gastard were already at the table when I arrived. Our maidservant, Ogness, saw me and retreated to the kitchen to bring out the food. She was an older woman who wore her hair pulled back in a bun. Her dress was the same color as Jasper¡¯s uniform, with another insignia on her shoulder.
Gastard stood. ¡°I¡¯m glad to see you are well. After the events of yesterday, we were concerned.¡±
¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± I said. ¡°There was no need to worry.¡±
¡°He¡¯s been busy,¡± Esmelda said, obviously still annoyed.
¡°Gastard and I went to the garrison,¡± Leto said. ¡°We got to see them training.¡±
¡°Major Garron was most accommodating,¡± Gastard said, sitting back down. ¡°He seemed open to the idea of my helping the guardsmen with their swordplay in the future.¡±
¡°That would be great,¡± I said. ¡°They don¡¯t have as much experience as they could.¡± It was also a very convenient role for Gastard, which meant that at least one out of three of them would have something to do while I was grinding Survivor System skills.
Ogness brought in the soup, served from an ornate ceramic bowl. It smelled rich, dark brown with thin slivers of something or other floating on top. I had no idea what was in it.
¡°What are we having?¡± I asked.
¡°Black truffle soup, my lord,¡± Ogness said, ¡°followed by beef steaks.¡±
Having a personal chef was a serious perk. Dark Lording couldn¡¯t be all bad.
¡°You don¡¯t have to say my lord or my lady,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°He gets enough of that already.¡±
Ogness glanced at me, and I smiled at her. It was one thing to have the demons and the soldiers address me a certain way, but if our servants were going to be around for very long, I didn¡¯t mind the idea of having them be more casual.
¡°As you wish,¡± Ogness served the soup, saw that we all had wine and water, and stepped out of sight.
¡°Malphas has been helping me brew potions,¡± I said, ¡°and I got a bit carried away.¡±
¡°Malphas,¡± Gastard paused with a soup spoon halfway to his mouth. ¡°Was that not the demon leading the attack?¡±
¡°He¡¯s sworn to me now,¡± I said, ¡°so he¡¯s on the team.¡±
Gastard frowned. ¡°It would be better if you killed him. How can you trust such a creature? Fickle as well as wicked, hardly suitable as an advisor.¡±
¡°There are certainly enough demons in your retinue already,¡± Esmelda said, pondering her bowl.
¡°The oath he took, that all of them take, is magically binding,¡± I said. ¡°I don¡¯t have to trust them as I trust you, Gastard. They will work for me as long as I hold up my end of the bargain, just like they worked for Kevin.¡±
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¡°Still,¡± Gastard said, setting down the spoon. ¡°How many such oaths must you take? You have killed three demons that I know, and the forces you have at your disposal now have to be at least as great as any army in the Free Kingdoms. Why not take this chance to purge the rest? If you forge alliances with the other rulers of men, instead of placing demons over them, you can become a true king. Dargoth need not be a land of darkness any longer. With you at its head, a new order of templars could arise, and these lands could be changed. The other nations would look to it with hope, instead of fear.¡±
Esmelda was watching me carefully, and Leto looked curious as well.
¡°I do want that,¡± I said. ¡°The way I am doing things now has to do with my agreement with Bojack. If the demons aren¡¯t allowed a place in Dargoth, I could lose everything.¡±
¡°Not everything,¡± Esmelda said.
She wasn¡¯t wrong. Now that I had her back, we could leave Dargoth together and set up somewhere else. Maybe find a place in King Egald¡¯s court, and wage a war against all of demonkind. But if I broke my word to Bojack, the curse would weaken me until I was of no use to anyone.
Besides that, being a ruler was a hard thing to give up. Simple life, sure, but it would be difficult to pretend that absolute authority was not a tempting carrot. There was something offensively inefficient about the idea of leaving Mount Doom behind. As its lord, there were things I could do for Dargoth and its people that would be impossible if I were fighting a war from the other side. Not that I had actively done anything to improve the lives of the citizens of my empire so far, I had to admit.
Kevin was the real obstacle. Killing him wouldn¡¯t kill him, and I needed Bojack on my side to ensure that he didn¡¯t rise again the moment I left. Trying to move him while keeping his spawns in check would be a logistical nightmare without a demon¡¯s help.
¡°You¡¯re right,¡± I said. ¡°I would still have you, but for once in my life, I want to play it safe. There¡¯s not a good way to deal with Kevin without Bojack, so until I figure one out, we¡¯re stuck with the demons.¡±
¡°Temporary compromises have a way of becoming permanent,¡± Gastard said, darkly.
¡°I know,¡± I sighed. ¡°If you can come up with a way to deal with the Kevin situation without demonic help, then we can talk about it. Apart from that, I would just have to kill him until he stopped coming back, and I have no idea if that would work. As far as I know, his patron deity is the One Who Knocks, rather than Mizu, and I¡¯m afraid if I deviate too far from what Bojack wants, the rules about respawning could change. What if he came back with a different power set, or back at his original spawn point, wherever that is? I¡¯m not sure why things work the way they do, and for all I know, the One Who Knocks could change the program if he had enough of a reason to. So for now, I¡¯ve got to play the role they want me to play.¡±
¡°And bring more demons into the world?¡± Esmelda''s gaze was soft and sad. She understood the necessity, but that didn¡¯t mean she liked it.
I nodded. The mood of the meal was effectively soured, and no one said much as we moved on to the main course. I barely tasted the beef, and Ogness seemed a little disappointed at the lack of praise for what she had obviously gone through a lot of trouble to prepare. It was Leto who broke the silence.
¡°What kind of potions did you make?¡±
It might have just been an attempt to change the atmosphere, rather than actual curiosity, but I was more than happy to fill him in.
¡°A lot,¡± I said. ¡°We started with a base elixir, which is the requirement for all the actual potions I¡¯ve learned about so far. I have recipes for increasing my strength, and speed and jumping, and once I¡¯ve developed the skill further, there will be more I can do. We went to the pens to collect ingredients, and I was able to test them out.¡±
Leto moved a morsel of meat around on his plate with a fork. ¡°If I took one, would it make me strong?¡±
¡°You¡¯re already strong,¡± I said.
¡°I mean strong like Gastard, or like you.¡±
¡°It wouldn¡¯t be safe for you to try them,¡± Esmelda said.
Gastard was more thoughtful. ¡°I agree that such things should not be applied to children, but I do wonder at how the potions you¡¯ve described would affect a warrior. You changed the course of a battle by yourself, surely, a few elixirs would not change me so much as that, but for a templar faced with a demonic opponent, those enhancements could be enough to place them on an even playing field.¡±
¡°It was my armor that kept me alive out there,¡± I said, ¡°not any potions.¡±
¡°True enough, but you can produce more armor, can¡¯t you? And if there were someone else, or a group of warriors, hunting demons, while you¡¡±
¡°Shut up!¡± I snapped, and the table fell into a shocked silence. Gastard looked more confused than angry, and Esmelda knitted her brow in concern. The problem with my oath to Bojack was that it was magical. I couldn¡¯t simply work in secret against him. If I knew what I was doing, handing out weapons to would-be templars to delay the arrival of the One Who Knocks, it could count as a violation. If I had equipped Gastard for other reasons, and he had started killing demons without my knowledge, there was no consequence there, because I would not be deliberately opposing the force I was sworn to uphold. Now that he had brought it up, however, I didn¡¯t know if the penalty could be escaped.
¡°Don¡¯t talk to him like that!¡± Leto shouted, getting up out of his chair and squaring up with me like he wanted to fight.
¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯m not angry, it has to do with my oath. Gastard, I didn¡¯t mean to insult you, but we can¡¯t talk about this right now. Please, let¡¯s change the subject.¡±
¡°Leto,¡± Esmelda said firmly, ¡°sit back down. That is your father you¡¯re speaking to.¡±
It looked like he wanted to disagree, but the boy obeyed his mother.
¡°There is something else I would like to talk about,¡± she said. ¡°My people are still in Nargul. I want our son to meet his grandfather, Brenys, and the others. How long will it be before they come here?¡±
¡°I¡¯m not sure,¡± I said, grateful that Esmelda had been willing to let the other matter drop. ¡°We didn¡¯t work it out at the time, but I needed to go back there soon anyway to check on Berith, and see how things were going for them in the city. We could all go.¡±
¡°Riding wyverns?¡± Esmelda asked, sounding none too enthusiastic about the idea.
¡°We could ride horses,¡± I said. ¡°It would just be slower.¡±
¡°I liked the wyverns,¡± Leto said. The memory of flight was sufficient to distract him from his anger at me, at least for the moment.
¡°Horses would be better,¡± Gastard said.
¡°Maybe we could do flying lessons another time,¡± I said, and Leto looked away from me.
¡°I want to see them,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°however we do it. How soon can we go?¡±
¡°There are a few things I would need to do first,¡± I said, ¡°but soon.¡±
Over the next two days, I made sure to spend a decent amount of time with my family. We toured the farms, and Leto got a kick out of the mooshrooms, which were docile and friendly. I made sure to keep us far away from the slaughterhouse. Gastard began working with the garrison soldiers, sparring and giving pointers, and Leto joined in with the exercises.
Esmelda and I spent hours together exploring the fortress, and she told me more about what life had been like for her in our time apart. It hadn¡¯t always been easy for them, especially in the beginning. Supplies had been tight, and neither Esmelda nor Gastard were farmers by trade.
There had been rough weeks before the gardens they had planted were sufficient to give them what they needed, though the plants around my origin had been growing almost as quickly as they would have if I had been there. During the winters, they depended on Gastard¡¯s hunting and trapping to keep them fed. I would have made the man a king if I thought he wanted it.
They¡¯d had almost no contact with the nearest town, which had been some distance away. Esmelda could not have gone herself, as Lord Godwod had issued a sizable bounty for the capture of lillits, and Gastard had made the trip only when it was absolutely necessary to do so.
Apart from the incident when soldiers had come looking for lillits, they had also had some trouble with wolves, and at one point, a bear.
¡°What did you do?¡± I asked, trying not to imagine Esmelda or Leto being cornered by a grizzly.
¡°Nothing, at first¡± she frowned. ¡°It wandered through. But it kept returning, and Gastard eventually hunted it.¡±
I remembered the bear skin rug. Things had worked out, or they wouldn¡¯t have been with me now, but it was nerve-wracking to think about the challenges they had faced in my absence. Simple survival in the wilderness without a System to cheat your way out of it was no small thing, even if they had started with a bunker.
The armory of Mount Doom did not carry anything made for lillits. Everything I crafted seemed to be one-size-fits-most, with me as the baseline, which wouldn¡¯t work for her. After a discussion with Garron about fitting, I was able to procure chain shirts, iron caps, and steel boots that would suit both Esmelda and Leto and proceeded to enchant the bejeezus out of them.
Protection, Unbreaking, Fire Resistance, and Feather Fall, all taken from Kevin¡¯s collection as well as leftovers from the underground base. With as much juice as there was in the Essence Stone, I didn¡¯t even have to dip into my levels to enhance them. They were getting Shadowbane daggers as well for good measure, and short bows with magic arrows. I didn¡¯t want them to do any fighting, but it was better to be prepared.
We were going on a trip.
115: My Prodigy (Rewrite)
Noivern wasn¡¯t looking very hot. He¡¯d survived our tumble, but broken bones in both of his wings. The grooms had managed to get splints on him, fixing his wings against his back so that he wouldn¡¯t try to use them, and the wyvern was less than enthusiastic about the situation. He hissed at me when I approached, even initially refusing the offal on offer, but when I produced a cow heart, he couldn¡¯t hide his enthusiasm.
Drool slipped down the side of his wide mouth as his beady eyes focused on the organ in my hand.
¡°I promised I¡¯d get you something nice,¡± I said, tossing the heart.
Noivern¡¯s maw gaped, revealing row upon row of serrated teeth, before snapping shut again as he swallowed the heart whole.
¡°Did you even enjoy that?¡± I asked, but his appetite was wetted. He pulled against his shackle to nose the bucket of meat slops I¡¯d brought him.
¡°Who¡¯s a good monster?¡± I said, scratching around his ear holes. I pushed the bucket closer and he dug in.
The regeneration potion was a mixture of red and violet, with a faint glow that pulsed like a slowed-down heartbeat. The key ingredient was chimera blood, which had required another trip down into the pens to collect. While I didn¡¯t want anything bad to happen to Noivern, I would rather use him as a test subject than a human. Unstopping the bottle, I put my hand under his bloody chin and angled his head up so I could pour the contents into his mouth.
Noivern accepted the treatment without complaint, but a moment later, thrashed his head from side to side. He raked his claws along the stone floor and let out a high wail. I stepped back, hoping I hadn¡¯t just poisoned my mount. His wings flexed against their bindings, straining the leather straps and the wooden splints until they snapped, and he spread himself out to his full span for the first time since the injury.
Noivern shrieked like a triumphant eagle, then shook his body hard enough to spill the remnants of the water and food across the floor. He tugged at the chain binding his ankle, giving me a look like a dog that had been cooped up for too long and wanted to go for a walk.
¡°Soon, buddy,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m glad you feel better.¡±
Though I trusted Noivern to carry my family, Esmelda had made it very clear that horses were the preferred option for our trip to Nargul. Though I¡¯d never seen the red lightning strike anything, traveling across Dargoth¡¯s skies did seem inherently unsafe, and we weren¡¯t on an urgent timeline at the moment.
Mount Doom¡¯s garrison didn¡¯t have much of a cavalry, but there were mounts on hand, enough for us to ride with spares, and we had Gastard¡¯s old horse as well. After spending a little more time bonding with Noivern, I returned to our suite of rooms to find Esmelda sliding her chainmail over her tunic. She pulled her long hair up from under it and let it fall freely down her back, then looked at herself in the mirror.
¡°Are you sure this is necessary?¡±
¡°I think it looks great on you,¡± I said.
¡°It¡¯s heavy, I don¡¯t know how you spend all day in your armor.¡±
¡°I¡¯m used to it, and you don¡¯t have to wear it all the time, but it would make me feel better if you did while we¡¯re traveling. If I¡¯m not going to be leaving you behind anymore, you need to have some kind of protection.¡±
She nodded. Esmelda had been insistent that she didn¡¯t want me running off on my own, and that she wanted to be at my side when we were facing anything short of a full-on battle. Given how long we had been separated, I understood the impulse, but there were still going to be times when I had to do things by myself. They weren¡¯t going to Bedlam, ever, and if she had been with me when I was captured, she would have been taken as well. So there had to be some limits, but it was comforting to know that when I went north to deal with the Atlan situation, my wife and son would not be far behind. The journey to Nargul, being within what was at least ostensibly my territory, was something of a practice run.
¡°It¡¯s not terrible,¡± she said, ¡°but I¡¯m still not sure about the helmet.¡±
¡°You have to wear a helmet,¡± I said. ¡°The System is weird about damage. As far as I can tell, it registers the protection from armor as filling up slots on our bodies. So even though the chain doesn¡¯t cover all of your arms, the Protection enchantment still defends you. The cap may not cover your face, but I think wearing it will help regardless of where you¡¯re hit. And I really like your face, so I¡¯d prefer it didn¡¯t get ruined by a stray arrow or a troll slap or whatever.¡±
She pursed her lips. ¡°If you say so.¡±
Esmelda donned the steel cap, tying it on with the leather strap that hung under her chin. ¡°This feels odd to me,¡± she said, ¡°but I think Leto likes armor. He always admired Gastard¡¯s.¡±
¡°You look adorable,¡± I said, ¡°like a little soldier.¡±
¡°Shut up.¡±
Leto truly did appear to be a young squire, and he kept running his hands over the fine chain links of his shirt, admiring them.
¡°It suits you,¡± I told him as we gathered in the sitting room. Gastard had packs prepared for everyone, and he was checking through their contents; rations and cooking and camping equipment. Though we wouldn¡¯t exactly be camping, it was good to be prepared.
He didn¡¯t respond. Leto was still sore with me for shouting at Gastard during dinner, and he showed it by keeping his distance.
¡°I was thinking you needed a weapon to go with the armor,¡± I said, and that got his attention.
¡°A sword?¡± He was trying to disguise his eagerness, but he was practically holding his breath.
¡°Gastard says you¡¯ve been a very diligent student,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°we agreed you should have something.¡±
¡°It¡¯s not a sword, but it''s yours.¡± I held out my hand, and an orichalcum knife appeared out of my inventory.
His eyes widened as he took the blade.
¡°You have to be careful,¡± I said. ¡°I know you know how dangerous blades are, but this is different. It¡¯s sharper and harder than anything you¡¯ve used before.¡± And the Shadowbane enchantment would make it more effective against monsters, even a full demon.
¡°I will be,¡± he said, and his mother glared at him. He glanced at her, then back at me. ¡°Thank you.¡± His tone was begrudging, but I would take it.
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¡°You¡¯re welcome.¡±
We got on the road soon after. Orobos, Zareth, and Gremory were left in charge of Mount Doom, which mostly ran itself anyway. My potions were safely stored in a leather carrying case I¡¯d crafted for that purpose, and I was bringing several saddlebags full of ingredients. Without more elemental cores, I couldn¡¯t make extra brewing stands, but it converted neatly into a stone medallion to carry with us. Neither Esmelda nor Gastard was keen on the idea of traveling in the company of a demon, so Malphas would be following us well behind. As he was a new addition to my demonic coterie, I wanted to keep him relatively close at hand, and his role on this excursion was taking control of the mobs that would inevitably spawn around me after dark.
Monsters had gone from being a constant threat to a valuable commodity. In the future, every troll and shambler that I could send to war would mean saving the lives of human soldiers who wouldn¡¯t have to fight in their place. In Williamsburg, I had set up a network of torches large enough to stop the ground spawns completely as long as I was sleeping at home, and the harpies had taken care of the phantoms in the air. But stopping them was no longer the optimal solution.
In the fortress, we¡¯d set up a somewhat complicated system for utilizing my spawns while still allowing me to spend my nights with my family. The suite was protected by torches, but beneath it, there was a large chamber that served as a monster cache. The demons had been taking turns manning it while I slept, taming the mobs, and bringing them all down to the pens in the morning. Gremory had reported that more advanced entities were beginning to appear, though not in large numbers. Varghests, hollows, and Voidmen were beginning to step through the veil of weakened reality around me, in addition to the usual shamblers and trolls.
The longer I stayed in Plana, the greater the variety of entities that would be able to use me as a doorway into the world. That, and the fact that I was infected with demonic essence from the demons I had killed.
Our first day out went well enough, though Dargoth hardly presented an idyllic view. Roiling skies over shattered plains, and the looming presence of Mount Doom behind. When we stopped for the evening, Leto watched me put together a shelter, and I handed him a set of everburning torches to place around it. Resources weren¡¯t an issue, so I set up a hearth and a chimney as well so we could have a fire inside.
I planned on leaving the shelter behind, rather than breaking it down in the morning, so we could have a network of rest stops wherever we traveled. Kevin had been weird about infrastructure. He¡¯d built a bridge through the Wastes and laid train tracks connecting the major settlements, but the roads were underdeveloped. His fortresses and cities were like islands, with their own farms, mines, and ecosystems to support themselves, but they weren¡¯t interconnected the way I would have expected a nation to be. He¡¯d ruled Dargoth for centuries, but it had been the demons running things while he occupied himself with personal projects. If I was going to be a ruler, I wanted to start putting the kingdom in order, and the rest stops could be the beginning of a stronger link between Mount Doom and Nargul.
Esmelda cooked us a stew, and I set up my brewing stand in the back corner of the shelter. Leto was fascinated by the process.
¡°Can I try?¡± He asked as I dripped glistering melon mush into one of the funnels. I handed him another melon. I¡¯d brought a bag full of them for the journey, as healing potions were the one thing you could never have too much of.
¡°Crush this one for me,¡± I said, directing him to the anvil I¡¯d dropped next to the brewing stand. He seemed to have a good time doing that, and I kept an eye on him as the base elixir began their conversion process. Malphas couldn¡¯t brew potions himself. Whatever ingredients he fed into the machine would result in a muddy failure. Alchemy, or at least this version of it, was an extension of the crafting system, so it was something only Survivors could do. But Leto had been suspiciously good at starting fires when he used my tools to do so, and even though he couldn¡¯t harvest or convert coins back into resources, I had to wonder if there were other benefits to being my son.
He tasted some of the melon mush that had gotten on his hands, and his eyes lit up.
¡°It¡¯s sweet.¡± He said.
¡°Huh,¡± I scooped up some of the glistering melon paste with one finger and gave it a try. As I¡¯d only made them to use as an ingredient, I hadn¡¯t tried eating one by itself. They didn¡¯t look totally edible, being that the glistering fruit had a crystalline structure, but the paste was wildly sugary, reminding me of some of the candy I¡¯d had as a kid, somewhere between Nerds and Jello.
¡°Okay,¡± I said, ¡°it¡¯s delicious, but in the future, please don¡¯t put potion ingredients in your mouth.¡±
¡°What?¡± Esmelda said, turning from the pot that was simmering over the hearth with a stricken expression. ¡°What did you put in your mouth?¡±
¡°It¡¯s just a melon,¡± Leto said, sheepishly.
Esmelda grabbed our son and pulled him bodily away from the anvil. ¡°What were you thinking!¡±
¡°It looked okay,¡± Leto said.
¡°It looked okay?¡± She repeated. ¡°You¡¯re smarter than that. Your father is not the same as other people, he can eat and drink things that no one should ever eat or drink. You need to be more careful.¡±
¡°And you,¡± she glared daggers at me over Leto¡¯s shoulder, ¡°do better.¡±
¡°Yes, ma''am,¡± I said, trying not to smile. When it came to not thinking things through, I was not one to talk, and it may have been hereditary.
¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re helping,¡± she told Leto, ¡°but don¡¯t do that again.¡±
¡°I know,¡± he said, shifting from foot to foot, ¡°I won¡¯t.¡±
She let him go, putting her hands on her hips, and regarding us both with a deadly serious expression.
¡°Dinner in half an hour,¡± she said and went back to stirring the pot.
The first new batch of healing potions was soon completed, and while they were brewing I told Leto about some of the other formulas. Naturally, this led to the subject of spider eyes, and I told him about the Vorakai. He said he wanted to see it when I had to fight one again, and this led to another outburst from Esmelda about safety concerns and rash decisions.
¡°Why don¡¯t you try putting the paste in this time,¡± I told Leto after refilling the brewing vials with base elixir. ¡°Just don¡¯t get your hands anywhere near the core. All of this is very hot.¡±
He did as I instructed, and we both watched as the ingredients made their way through the funnels and began to swirl around the vials. For the first minute or so, it looked like it was working, but the result was a brownish sludge.
Leto was crestfallen.
¡°It¡¯s okay,¡± I said, ¡°some of these didn¡¯t work for me on my first try either.¡± I emptied the sludge outside the shelter and rinsed out the vials before filling them with fresh water. Though we¡¯d been avoiding fungal colonies as we traveled, I¡¯d harvested plenty of Bedlam Wart in preparation for the journey.
¡°Try this,¡± I said, offering Leto a pouch full of wart powder. He poured it carefully into the funnel, and this time, the result was exactly what it was supposed to be. Three new bottles of base elixir.
¡°Did it work?¡± He asked, nervously.
¡°One way to be sure,¡± I said, quickly preparing another melon and feeding it into the machine. The process began again, and it looked like the elixir was doing its job. There had been no notification ding from my System when the elixirs finished, and Leto didn¡¯t have a System, so there was no way to check if he somehow had one or more of my abilities. I had access to my System screens through the elder sign on the back of my hand, and I¡¯d always assumed that the two were inseparable. No sign, no System. But what if the elder sign was just a way to interact with the System and not the source of the System itself? Monsters and demons had magic and essence, and lillits were special in their way. They had a lot of traits that I would otherwise associate with elves in a fantasy world. Plana itself might have had subtle magic at work in the background.
¡°If you want,¡± I said, ¡°you can try brewing a bunch of base elixir. I need it to brew all the other potions, so it would be good to have some extra. Do you think you can do that for me?¡±
¡°Yeah,¡± Leto said, ¡°It¡¯s fun.¡±
I didn¡¯t want to get his hopes up, but I suspected that with some practice, he would be able to brew more advanced recipes as well. If the foundation level worked for him, why not more? I¡¯d have to get Esmelda to try it as well. Maybe lillits could all do a little alchemy, but I felt it was more likely that the stand worked for him because he was my son.
We shared a meal and listened to the sounds of monsters being rounded up outside. There were moans and hoots, quickly quieted as Malphas drew the mobs away. The phantoms were another matter. Malphas must have claimed some of them as well, but their eerie cries were intermingled with the calls of harpies overhead. My homies were never far off, and the flesh of monsters was a reward for their service. They were welcome to it.
We didn¡¯t push the horses, so we had another full day of travel ahead of us and another peaceful night. Nargul came into view by noon on the day after.
116: My City (Rewrite)
The gates of Nargul swung open with a low groan as trolls hidden in the walls turned the great wheels that operated them. We were coming in with the sun behind us, four riders, and a couple of packhorses, but they knew who I was. Zareth had sent a wyvern messenger ahead of us so this wouldn¡¯t be a surprise visit. Someone on the walls sounded a trumpet, and there was a group waiting for us just beyond the gates.
¡°Welcome, my lord,¡± a soldier greeted me, placing his fist against his heart in a sign of respect.
He was followed by a group of his comrades standing in a row. Their armor was freshly polished, and I felt like Darth Vader stepping onto the Death Star. The only thing that was missing was the Imperial March.
I thanked them and dismounted, looking past the soldier to a man with a silver mane of wavy hair striding toward me with his hand outstretched. He had smooth skin and wore a dark velvet jacket over a high-collared shirt. A cape fluttered out behind him in a way that made me wonder if he had deliberately thrown it back for effect.
¡°All hail the Dark Lord,¡± he said as I accepted his hand. ¡°It is an honor to have you back in our city so soon.¡±
¡°There are things I need to see,¡± I said, eyeing the man. He gave me serious Lucius Malfoy vibes. Was I supposed to already know who he was?
¡°Of course,¡± he said, releasing my hand. ¡°The burdens of lordship are many and trying. I understand the circumstances of your last visit were not conducive to regular business, but if I can be of service to you in any way, you need but ask.¡±
¡°I appreciate that,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m here with my wife at the moment, and we are going to visit with her family, but perhaps we can meet at another time to discuss what you can do for me.¡±
¡°Your¡wife?¡± The man¡¯s gaze traveled behind me to Esmelda, Leto, and Gastard, who were still on their horses. He blinked several times, apparently at a loss, before recovering. ¡°Of course,¡± he said, plastering on an uncomfortable smile, ¡°there is nothing more important than family. If it would suit your darkness, I can convene a council meeting for tomorrow morning.¡±
¡°This is Esmelda,¡± I said, gesturing, ¡°first lady of Dargoth.¡±
The man quickly bowed. ¡°It is a privilege to be in your presence, my Lady. I am Count Varnish. Please consider me to be at your service.¡±
¡°Thank you,¡± Esmelda said, but she wasn¡¯t looking at the count. Beyond the soldiers was a crowd of lillits, hundreds of them. Some of them were waving banners, and several cheers went up as we entered the city. Boffin and Brenys were in front, both looking in much better shape than the last time I¡¯d seen them. They had on new clothes, and they looked like they¡¯d had a few good meals in the interim.
¡°A council meeting would be fine,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯ll see you there.¡± I could figure out where ¡®there¡¯ was, and why Count Varnish was important, later. This was the time for a reunion. The Count got out of our way as we approached the crowd and they surged forward to meet us. Esmelda and Leto were down off their horses a moment later, and she was in the arms of her father.
¡°I don¡¯t know how this happened, but I¡¯m glad,¡± he said, the wrinkles of his face softening. ¡°A part of me thought I would never see you again.¡±
¡°Leto,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°this is your grandfather.¡±
¡°You¡¯re so tall,¡± Boffin said, who had to look up to his grandson. ¡°How did you get so tall?¡±
¡°It just happened,¡± Leto said, and Esmelda laughed. Brenys came forward to give Esmelda a firm embrace before moving on to our son.
¡°It¡¯s good to meet you,¡± she said. ¡°You look a bit like your father, but not too much. That¡¯s good. And you don¡¯t smell like a human. That¡¯s a relief.¡±
¡°Gastard,¡± Boffin said, as the templar approached. ¡°I can¡¯t thank you enough for what you¡¯ve done.¡±
¡°It was no more than my duty,¡± Gastard said, taking the lillit¡¯s hand and giving it a firm shake.
I found myself swarmed by the crowd. I¡¯d removed my helmet, and they were all trying to get my attention, some of them touching my armor, calling out thanks or welcome. I heard my name shouted several times, and I wasn¡¯t sure exactly what to do. I patted shoulders and repeated a few phrases over and over.
¡°It¡¯s good to see you. I¡¯m glad you¡¯re alright.¡± I had to have known some of them in my previous life, but their faces all felt new to me.
¡°William,¡± one man said, ¡°I¡¯m Dorn. You helped me build my cabin in Williamsburg. Do you remember me?¡±
¡°Of course I do,¡± I lied. ¡°It¡¯s good to see you.¡± He said a few more things but was quickly replaced by others, a seemingly endless stream of admirers. I caught sight of Count Varnish watching me from a distance, a calculating look on his face. I would have to learn more about him. Kevin had treated the lillits as property, rather than people, so the way they were reacting to me wouldn¡¯t make sense in that context, even if he couldn¡¯t hear what they were saying.
I had no way of knowing who had seen Kevin¡¯s face. There couldn¡¯t have been many, but if the Count was as significant a figure in Nargul as he seemed to think he was, he was probably one of them. But he didn¡¯t look like a man who had suddenly realized that the Dark Lord was no longer the Dark Lord, just a calculating aristocrat who was having to reassess his assumptions.
Announcing that Esmelda was my wife would give him and the other nobles of the city a reasonable explanation for why the lillits were now a protected class, which had to have baffled them when they learned that the Eternal Engine was no longer in motion.
I planned on showing my face all over the city because I wanted people to know what I looked like in case Kevin ever did escape and try to reclaim his authority. The fact that hardly anyone knew his face was part of why it was so easy for me to be accepted as the Dark Lord wherever I went. Agares had spread the word of Kevin¡¯s usurpation to officers among the garrison, but part of Berith¡¯s job had been to convince the soldiers that the story had been false, a part of the previous duke¡¯s scheme for a coup. I wasn¡¯t sure how much he had accomplished before we returned, but I wanted to put an end to any doubts and let people know that the lillits were no longer slaves, and were under my protection.
Apart from the soldiers, I didn¡¯t see many humans on the streets. Kevin had not been a man of the people, but I saw them watching from windows and in small groups further down the street. There had been no general announcement, it seemed, but word would quickly spread that their Dark Lord was in the city and that he was suddenly very friendly with the lillits.
Keeping track of everyone who approached me was an impossible task, and I had to press through them to be closer to my Esmelda and our son. Boffin shook my hand, and Brenys gave me a wave.
¡°I¡¯d like to invite you all to my apartment,¡± Boffin said, looking at me, ¡°unless you have more pressing duties.¡±
¡°So they found you all places to live?¡±
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
¡°They did,¡± Boffin said, ¡°though I fear your demon may have used too heavy a hand to do so. A family was living in my home before me, and they left some of their things behind. Our people are mostly all together, and I¡¯m not sure what happened to the humans who occupied the buildings before we were there.¡±
That sounded like something a demon would do. I should have been more specific when I told him to make space for the lillits in the city. Displaced citizens would stir resentment, and make it harder to integrate them into normal society.
¡°We can talk about all that,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯d like to see where you live.¡±
¡°This way, then.¡± Boffin led us through the city, and the crowd followed us.
The building he lived in wasn¡¯t ostentatious, a large tenement many stories high. His apartment was near the ground floor, and it was comfortable enough, though the furniture was not sized for lillits. He and Brenys were sharing the place, and they hadn¡¯t had much in the way of possessions of their own to bring to it.
They scrounged up a set of mugs, and Brenys busied herself boiling water for tea as the rest of us found seats around the table. There weren¡¯t enough chairs for everyone, so Gastard and I remained standing.
¡°I¡¯m not sure where to begin,¡± Boffin said. ¡°Our lives have changed so much, but we are strangers here. Our people were kept apart from the human population, within the inner wall, and they don¡¯t know what to make of us.¡±
¡°Some of them hate us,¡± Brenys said. ¡°Others are afraid. They don¡¯t know why we were freed, so that¡¯s kept us safe for now, but if we try to make lives for ourselves here, there is going to be conflict.¡±
¡°I¡¯ll see what I can do about that,¡± I said. ¡°But it begs the question whether you should stay here at all.¡±
¡°You could return to Mount Doom with us,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°all of you could. There is room, and William could make more to suit you. It won¡¯t be the same town we had, but it will be safe.¡±
Boffin looked skeptical. ¡°It¡¯s hard for me to think of Mount Doom as a future home for our people. We have no connection to that place, and there is nothing there but a fortress. Are there trees or farmland? What has become of Williamsburg in our absence?¡±
¡°It¡¯s different now,¡± I said. ¡°The wall and the mine made it too valuable to be abandoned, and the whole place has been rebuilt. Your homes aren¡¯t there anymore, and it¡¯s full of people from around the border march. I¡¯m not sure where they all came from, but I doubt your reception there would be any better than it is here.¡±
¡°There¡¯s no need for anyone to go back to Williamsburg,¡± Gastard said. ¡°Your mayor is now a king, and he can make you a place wherever he likes. From what I have seen of Dargoth, this city is not a bad choice. It¡¯s well-defended, and the people will grow accustomed to your presence in time.¡±
¡°I want you to be close,¡± Esmelda said, placing her hand over her father¡¯s.
¡°I¡¯m going to go north soon,¡± I said, ¡°and if you want to come with me, then Nargul will be as close as Mount Doom.¡± I looked at Boffin. ¡°It depends on what kind of lives you want going forward. We could found a new town, but I¡¯m not going to have much time to do the construction myself in the near future, not until things in Dargoth are more settled.¡±
¡°I¡¯ve spoken with some of the others,¡± Boffin said. ¡°Many of them are still afraid to leave this building. Their wounds are too fresh. Some want to take up their old trades, but there are guilds in this city, and we will have to work out some sort of understanding with them to do so.¡±
¡°William can set the terms,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°If you stay here, no one is going to interfere with you doing business.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not sure what my role would be,¡± Boffin said. ¡°Our people are not much in need of an old man who was once a mayor.¡±
Brenys began filling cups and handing them around. The tea was weak, and nothing like the fermented stuff they used to produce for themselves, but it seemed to soothe them, nonetheless.
¡°No one ever needed you before,¡± she said, ¡°but you stuck around and kept talking, and for whatever reason, they listened to you.¡±
¡°Setting up a guild of your own may be the best option,¡± I said. ¡°You can help with that, and I can make sure you have the resources you need. I haven¡¯t met the council yet, or whatever passes for nobility here, but I can give you a pin or something and you¡¯ll be a Count. It will give the lillits a voice in the city.¡±
¡°I¡¯m sure the humans will love that,¡± Brenys remarked.
¡°It¡¯s within his authority to do so,¡± Gastard said, ¡°and they will have to make a place for you among them. If they don¡¯t, then they will answer to their king.¡± Gastard had never referred to me as a Dark Lord, and that was probably for the best. The title had been an affectation on Kevin¡¯s part, encouraged by the demons, and it certainly had to give people an idea about what kind of leader I was. Given that the custom had been in place for centuries, however, it wasn¡¯t obvious how to go about changing it. That was a detail to think about after my hold on the nation was secure.
¡°Speaking of guilds,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°there are certainly other lillits qualified to manage things. What about Perrin? A carpenter can work in a city as well as the country. And Quad? He could begin training apprentices again. There won¡¯t be much farming in Nargul, but our people can take up other trades.¡±
¡°Who¡¯s Perrin?¡± Leto asked.
Boffin¡¯s expression darkened. ¡°He was a master carpenter, but he is no longer with us.¡±
¡°What happened?¡± I asked.
¡°There was an attempted uprising,¡± Boffin said, ¡° five years ago now. He led it himself. It did not accomplish much but the loss of more lives.¡±
Perrin Perrinson had been a proud, serious man. I wasn¡¯t surprised that he hadn¡¯t taken bondage lightly. I saw Esmelda¡¯s face fall. They hadn¡¯t exactly been close, as I could recall, but Perrin had been a figure in Erihseht for her entire life, and she had to have spent a long time wondering what had become of the people she had known in her youth. Leto looked more concerned than upset. He hadn¡¯t known Perrin or any of them. They would just be names to him, but he could see how the news affected his mother.
¡°And the others?¡± She asked, ¡°Who else have we lost?¡±
Boffin sighed. ¡°More than I could name. Quad is alive, the man may have been a horseshoe in another life, and he is much the same as you remember. I¡¯m sure he would be happy to get back to work. The Darfur family disappeared, and I don¡¯t know if they died during the round-ups or if they were never captured. Tipple is around. He misses his books, but he¡¯s been a comfort to many who would have otherwise lost their faith over the years.¡±
Esmelda was visibly relieved to hear that the pastor was alive. He had been a mentor to her, and I was glad to know he was well, or as well as any of them could be, after what they had been through.
¡°It¡¯s hard to be sure,¡± Boffin continued. ¡°We have been trying to take a census of everyone since we gained our freedom, but I¡¯m still not sure that all the lillits in Nargul have been found. I think that some may have been taken as servants by the nobles early on. And then there were the mines.
Those who weren¡¯t suited to work on the train were sent to work with the human slaves there, your order would have applied to them as well, but I have no way of knowing if everyone was returned.¡±
If lillits were working in the households of Nargul¡¯s nobles, then I doubted they would have been released along with the rest. Count Varnish hadn¡¯t struck me as someone who would give up something he thought of as his if he wasn¡¯t forced to. All the more reason to meet with his council in the morning.
¡°There are other slaves in Nargul?¡± I asked. ¡°It wasn¡¯t just the lillits?¡±
Boffin nodded. ¡°The practice is widespread. It is common for people in Nargul to be indentured for their debts, or as a punishment for crimes.¡±
Gastard made a disapproving noise low in his throat.
I set my tea on the table. ¡°I¡¯m going to need to see Berith about this. If any more lillits are being kept around the city, something has to be done. As for the rest, I¡¯m going to have to make changes to the laws.¡±
¡°The nobles will be thrilled,¡± Brenys said.
¡°They won¡¯t have a choice,¡± I scratched the side of my head. I needed a haircut. ¡°Will you all be alright here while I go see Berith?¡±
¡°Do what you can,¡± Esmelda said. She met my eyes. This wasn¡¯t something that could wait.
¡°I¡¯ll be back soon,¡± I said, touching Leto¡¯s shoulder. He glanced up at me and nodded.
¡°Shall I accompany you?¡± Gastard asked.
¡°No, keep everyone here safe while I¡¯m gone.¡± It wasn¡¯t that I thought they were in danger, but I felt better knowing that the templar was close to my family. He couldn¡¯t help me with the demons, who he hated, and his presence wouldn¡¯t add anything to my authority when I met the council. I didn¡¯t need a guard, but they did.
We bid our goodbyes, and I went to see Berith.
117: My Philosophical Aside (Rewrite)
Berith had made a home for himself near the head of the Eternal Engine, a massive car modeled after a Roman cathedral. The doors opened onto a wide, empty nave, forcing me to walk down the length of the structure like a supplicant in search of a blessing from his priest. Berith stood on a dais at the end of the nave, looking up at a stained glass window through which one of the Engine¡¯s now silent smokestacks could be viewed.
Along the dais were several workstations, desks, and control panels for the operation of the forward cars. Their chairs were empty, as were the pews that lined either side of the central path. The torches along the walls had been infused with sanguinum, giving a reddish cast to their light.
The silence was what struck me. The engine itself was in the car ahead of us, but it was still. The inner city of Nargul had once been filled with the oppressive clamor of this monumental train, and without it, it seemed as if there was nothing left at all.
¡°Master,¡± Berith turned as I approached him, the dim light accentuating his feline features, regal and fierce at once.
.
¡°Berith,¡± I said, ¡°how is the city treating you?¡±
The demon tapped the ax on his back. ¡°I have scarcely needed to use this,¡± he said. ¡°The humans are disappointingly docile. Even those who were told you were not their true Dark Lord.¡±
¡°Do they accept our explanation?¡± I hopped onto the dais, skipping the steps so that we could stand face to face.
¡°They do, or they pretend to. With Agares dead and no other demons to gainsay me, they have little choice. I¡¯ve met with the major in charge of Nargul¡¯s garrison, and he seems eager for an opportunity to prove his loyalty. The men who survived the capture of the Eternal Engine have been punished for fighting against you.¡±
¡°Punished how?¡± The soldiers who had been guarding the train when we boarded it had been doing their jobs, and they had been correct. I was the usurper. They couldn¡¯t be let off too easily, though. It wouldn¡¯t make sense for the Dark Lord to instantly forgive those who had betrayed him, and some of them might still cause trouble, but I didn¡¯t want them killed out of hand.
¡°Servitude,¡± Berith said, ¡°they have been sent to the mines.¡±
That segued nicely into the reason I had come looking for Berith in the first place. ¡°You mean we made them slaves?¡±
The tiger scrunched up his nose, causing his whiskers to tremble. ¡°What of it?¡±
¡°How many slaves are there in Nargul?¡±
¡°Thousands. Why does it matter?¡±
I hadn¡¯t been paying attention to the kind of empire I was inheriting. The Free Kingdoms had seemed, well, free, aside from the usual problem of wealth disparity and the medieval clich¨¦ that lords could do pretty much whatever they wanted to peasants. But open slavery was a step too far.
¡°We can¡¯t have slaves, Berith,¡± I said. ¡°What are the terms for these men? Are they serving a sentence, or are they in chains for the rest of their lives?¡±
¡°The rest of their lives, I assume.¡± He sniffed. ¡°You are the Dark Lord, you can have whatever you like. What is your objection to this?¡±
¡°Okay,¡± I said. ¡°Let¡¯s take a step back. I guess I forget sometimes that you guys are demons, and you don¡¯t have a moral sense of any kind. But let me start with the proposition that taking away people¡¯s freedom, treating them like animals, and forcing them to suffer and die for profit is bad.¡±
¡°Why?¡± Berith said. ¡°As far as I have seen of this world, and every world I have visited, humans do that to each other everywhere.¡±
¡°Well, I guess they do. But humans do bad things, and that doesn¡¯t mean they aren¡¯t bad.¡±
¡°Bad how?¡± Berith said. ¡°Is it not within human law?¡±
¡°Some laws are bad,¡± I said. ¡°Evil isn¡¯t about whether something is legal or not. I mean, ideally, there should be laws against evil acts, but that isn¡¯t always how it works.¡±
Berith played with one of the dials on the control panel next to where he was standing, looking as thoughtful as a tiger could. A light flashed on and off, and a switch somewhere on the board made a ticking sound like the hand of a clock.
¡°We do not have a word for evil in our native tongue.¡± He said. ¡°There is a word for good, ¡®maldra¡¯, but it does not carry the same weight of meaning as you find in yours. Maldra is success or growth. The counterpart of maldra is ¡®gathe¡¯. Failure or loss. Human language is less straightforward. Confused and overgrown. I have heard humans speak of evil in many lifetimes. That is what they call us. Evil means something you hate. We have words for hate. But morality is a human construct, with no significance beyond human feelings.¡±
I stopped myself short of getting into a philosophical debate about the nature of morality with a literal demon. That would not get anywhere fast.
¡°Fine,¡± I said. ¡°Forget about the evil part. But I¡¯m in charge now, and I¡¯m changing the laws. We aren¡¯t doing slavery anymore, because I said so. Does that make sense to you?¡±
¡°Of course. You have power, and power dictates rectitude, as it should..¡± Berith left the control panel and came down from the dais to stand before me. ¡°Human law is of no concern to me. Shall I have all the slaves executed instead?¡±
¡°No, man.¡± Berith wasn¡¯t making a dark joke. He genuinely assumed that was the alternative. ¡°I¡¯m going to change their legal status.¡±
¡°Very well. Am I still Duke of Nargul?¡±
¡°If you want to stay here, the position is yours.¡±
¡°Then I will issue a proclamation in your name. There is a human council that deals with matters of the law. Shall I summon them?¡±
¡°Actually, I think they are meeting anyway tomorrow. I met someone named Count Varnish, and he invited me. Do you know anything about him?¡±
The demon shrugged. ¡°I have met him. He was appropriately servile.¡±
¡°Do you know where they usually meet?¡±
¡°I do.¡±
¡°Good, then we can go together. But first, I want to see the mines.¡±
¡°As you wish.¡± Berith nodded, and the two of us started down the length of the car. ¡°There are quarries outside the city.¡±
We rode a pair of varghests to the far side of Nargul. The inner city was taken up by the body of the train, but there was a track we could follow that led directly to the mines. Citizens bowed to us as we passed, and guards saluted. Daily life in Nargul was underway regardless of who was in control at the top.
The track curved out of the city and through a tunnel cut into the high outer wall, at which point it split in three directions.
¡°Which way?¡± I asked.
¡°The left path has been abandoned,¡± Berith said. ¡°That is the quarry where we met before taking the city. The other two are still active.¡±
We went straight, following the track as it climbed toward a mountain that cast its shadow over the city. The air grew cooler, and the wind picked up. A pump trolley appeared ahead of us, a wheeled cart powered by a group of men taking turns operating what looked like a playground seesaw. They threw on the brakes when they saw us, and I noted the stack of crates on either side of the cart.
¡°Duke,¡± the lead man said. He was dusty and dirty, with much of his hands and clothes stained black. He bowed to Berith and me, and the others quickly did the same.
¡°What are you carrying?¡± I asked.
¡°Coal, my lord.¡± Did he know I was the Dark Lord, or was he just being polite to a man in fancy armor?
¡°Are you a slave?¡±
The man blinked in confusion. ¡°No, my lord, I work for Gotwin, an overseer.¡±
¡°Where is he?¡±
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
He gestured back down the track. ¡°Half a mile to the camp. He¡¯s a big man, carries a whip.¡±
That sounded about right. Berith and I rode the rest of the way to the mine, which appeared ahead of us after the next rise. The varghests hooves clacked along the tracks of the railroad as we neared the hillside and a large, dark opening came into view. My mount sniffed the air, growling as it took in the scents of so much unwashed humanity. The entrance was braced by weathered timber supports, revealing the entrance of a wide tunnel, its depths disappearing into the cool blackness of the earth. The smell of coal dust, damp, earthy, and slightly metallic, filled the air.
The tracks split again, one fork leading into the tunnel, and the other termination alongside a long stone station. I saw more hand cars and wooden carts heaped with coal. Men, their faces and clothes smeared with layers of black dust, pushed these carts, their muscles straining with the effort. No one was on break. Everyone was either porting sacks of coal or heading back into the mines. The hillside was dotted with ventilation shafts, hinting at the size of the earthworks below.
Next to the mine, there was a cleared area where larger mounds of coal were amassed. Workers sifted through these piles, removing clods of dirt and stone, and broke up the larger pieces with pickaxes. A few of the workers spotted us as we approached, but they quickly ducked their heads, as if afraid of drawing our attention. I noticed a few men spaced around each work area, watching the others. They wore leather jerkins and carried swords on their hips.
¡°That one has a whip,¡± Berith said, pointing out a man standing by the station, and we rode to meet him.
Gotwin was a brute almost as large as Berith. Bald and shirtless, his hanging belly was covered by a tribal tattoo reminiscent of the sign of Dargoth. He had a whip coiled in his belt and a large knife in a sheath beside it. He bowed as deeply as the workers had.
¡°Duke,¡± he said. ¡°You honor this humble work site with your presence.¡±
¡°You stand in the presence of your Dark Lord,¡± Berith said.
The man fell to his knees.
¡°Praise the shadows,¡± Gotwin said, groveling. ¡°I didn¡¯t realize. How can I be of service to you, lord?¡±
¡°I¡¯ve come to see the mine,¡± I said, uncomfortable with the man¡¯s display. I was happy to be obeyed, but this was a little much. ¡°You can get up. These men here, are they slaves or are they paid for their work?¡±
¡°Debtors and criminals,¡± Gotwin said, rising to one knee before coming laboriously back to his feet. ¡°I have some good men with me to keep an eye on them below and take the coal back to the city, but we don¡¯t waste free men in the mines.¡±
¡°Do you have any lillits?¡±
¡°Had some, my lord. But they were all bought out. Not much good with a pick. Too weak. Good riddance.¡±
¡°Who bought them?¡±
He scratched his head. ¡°Agents of the Counts,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯d have to check the logs to get you names.¡±
¡°Bring me all the records of the sales.¡±
He shifted his feet. ¡°For how long, my lord? The last year?¡±
¡°All of them. All the records you have.¡±
He bowed again and entered the station. I didn¡¯t imagine the overseer of a prison camp would have a lot of good qualities, but he certainly respected authority, and he didn¡¯t question the order.
¡°What are you going to do?¡± Berith asked.
¡°We¡¯re going to have to go through the records to find all the lillits. I have a feeling some of the nobles of Nargul interpreted my order to free the lillits as not applying to themselves.¡±
¡°And the mine?¡±
¡°We¡¯re going to shut it down until I get the labor situation figured out.¡±
Gotwin returned, a heap of ledger balanced between his arms, looking unsure of what he was supposed to be doing with them.
¡°Put them down,¡± I said. ¡°I need you to give some orders.¡±
Breathing heavily, the overseer leaned over to plop the whole pile onto the platform next to him. Then he straightened, putting his hand on his legs for support.
¡°What orders, your grace?¡±
¡°Bring everyone up. This mine is shut down until further notice. Consider it a holiday and feed the workers as much as they want. No more work is to be done here until you have an official order from the council about what we¡¯re going to be doing from now on.¡±
Gotwin frowned. ¡°I don¡¯t understand, my lord. Are we moving them?¡±
¡°You don¡¯t have to understand. Stop the work, let everyone rest. No whipping, no beating, or whatever else you¡¯ve been doing here. It¡¯s done with.¡±
He was having trouble wrapping his head around the idea. ¡°What if they get rowdy?¡±
¡°Figure it out. No one is to be killed. No one is to be abused. Can you manage that?¡±
He bowed. ¡°As my lord wishes. Whatever you say. I¡¯ll do it.¡±
We watched the overseer spread the word, and the workers put down their tools to shuffle off to their barracks, casting uncertain glances toward me as they went. It wasn¡¯t a solution, but at least I could minimize their suffering until we had something more substantial put together. If I declared everyone was free that instant, half of them would probably be arrested again by morning, or who knew what else.
Did they have homes to go to? Some of them had to have done things to get here. Society had to do something with their criminals, and as many problems as I¡¯d had with the justice system I was more familiar with, I knew that just letting everybody go to do whatever they wanted would not end well. This was going to take a lot of sorting out, and I needed to make sure that the city guards and the council were all on the same page about how people were going to be treated. An official proclamation that would keep whoever I set free from being sent right back here.
We visited the other mine, which went about the same as the first. I wasn¡¯t in the mood to punish the men who were in charge of the operations. Even if they deserved it, that wouldn¡¯t help anyone, and then I¡¯d just have to promote someone else in their place, and there wasn¡¯t a ready list of candidates handy. It might have been satisfying to put some prisoners in charge, but that would almost definitely lead to chaos. I was an interloper in a society that had a very different standard of right and wrong than I did, and if I stopped to personally enact retribution for every injustice, it wasn¡¯t going to get me anywhere. The laws couldn¡¯t just be abolished, they had to be replaced with something better.
It was getting late, so I sent someone back with a message for Esmelda, explaining where I was and what I was doing. The tenements where the lillits were staying weren¡¯t spawn-proof, so spending the night in the city was not an option. I let her know I would see her in the morning, and that I wanted her and Boffin to accompany me to the council meeting when it occurred. The messenger had to take a horse to carry all the ledgers with contract information from the mines. Boffin and the others could use those to get a list of the lillits who were still trapped in the households of nobles in the city, and we would bring that into the meeting with us. We might as
well try to take care of everything at once.
The lillits, the laws, the upheaval this was going to cause in the economy of Nargul. We had too much to do to spend months here working out the logistics, but at least I could leave a directive in place behind me to put things in order.
Berith and I rode the varghests further to a desolate area within sight of the city. I didn¡¯t bother making much of a shelter, just a stone box and a mat for me to sleep on.
¡°What¡¯s the point of this?¡± Berith asked. ¡°You care for the lillits. Protect them. You can¡¯t fix humanity. They have lived this way for their entire history. In this world, in all worlds. The strong take the weak and do with them what they will.¡±
¡°Can you handle all the spawns tonight?¡± I said, removing my helm.
¡°Of course.¡±
¡°Great, worry about that.¡±
He growled at my tone. ¡°The previous Dark Lord had no such qualms.¡±
¡°Kevin is a dick. I¡¯m not some hero, but this is a pretty basic standard of human decency to adhere to. Abolishing slavery is a very low bar.¡±
¡°Human decency? They have none. Men are beasts eloquent enough to dress their desires in fine words. If there was some standard, as you say, there would be no need for you to force it on them. They would have done this for themselves.¡±
¡°Yeah,¡± I said. ¡°You¡¯re probably right about that.¡± I¡¯d had similar thoughts about human beings in the past. The things we did to each other, both as individuals and as societies, were not always decent. We could certainly view social hierarchies as systems of power that whatever group happened to be on top used for the sole purpose of keeping themselves there. It might not have been a complete picture, but it wasn¡¯t an inaccurate description.
¡°People rationalize everything they do,¡± I said. ¡°The worst stuff. The best stuff. But a part of being human is being able to pretend that we are better, and if we pretend well enough, then we are.¡±
¡°Madness,¡± Berith said. ¡°Deliberate madness.¡±
That made me laugh. ¡°Yeah. You could call it that. When I was a kid, I used to get caught up in ideas. For example, I read about how messed up banks were, and how money wasn¡¯t real, and that stuck in my head for a long time. I thought everything that people believed in was stupid, and laws were just a way for whoever was in charge to keep everyone else down. When I started robbing banks, I told myself that I wasn¡¯t stealing anything, because the paper currency I got out of it was just paper, with no value other than the value that was created when it was put into circulation. So I wasn¡¯t stealing money, I was stealing the idea of money, which I had just as much a right to as any bank.¡±
¡°What are banks?¡±
¡°Moneylenders. Doesn¡¯t matter. Do they not have banks here? Whatever. The point is, that I told myself a story about what I was doing so I could justify doing something wrong. People do it all the time. People believe things that aren¡¯t true, and they can do bad things because of that, or they can do good things. When I got older, I started thinking that I should take a more proactive attitude toward all the ideas running around in my head. I should start telling myself good things, or at least things that would help me get through the day, almost like a litany. A personal religion. It helped me get a handle on my thoughts, and when I had more bad ones, things that would get me into trouble, I could sort of steamroll them with all the other thoughts I had practiced thinking. What I¡¯m getting at is, it¡¯s okay to be delusional, as long as you have the right delusions.¡±
Berith grunted. ¡°Delusions are weakness. I see things as they are, and it does not frighten me.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not talking about being frightened, I¡¯m talking about being better. People are pretty plastic. Not everything about them, but a lot. I don¡¯t think I¡¯m a good person, but if I pretend to be good, I mean really commit to the act, that works out to the same thing. If enough human beings pretend that there are standards we can point to and say, this is right, and this is wrong, then it ends up being the same things as if those standards existed outside of us. We can hold ourselves to that. I¡¯d rather be the person who acted like the universe had rules and inherent values, even if it isn¡¯t true, than be the kind of person who didn¡¯t believe that.¡±
Berith shook his head. ¡°Madness.¡±
I lay on the grass mat and stared up at the ceiling I had made for myself. The shelter was smaller than any cell I had ever been confined in, and there was probably a metaphor there if I wanted to go looking for one. Instead, I closed my eyes and prepared to go to sleep.
¡°Yeah,¡± I said, ¡°But it¡¯s that good madness.¡±
118: My New Count (Rewrite)
The council chamber was spectacular. Marble pillars supported a high vaulted ceiling that looked like it was trying to give the Sistine Chapel a run for its money. Instead of being painted with religious scenes, however, the ceiling was decorated with what had to be Kevin¡¯s work. It was a mosaic of Nargul itself, the city as it would look from above completed with astonishing detail, a work of art on a grander scale than anything I¡¯d ever attempted. The tapestries adorning the walls were a letdown in comparison.
There were a dozen aristocrats gathering around a square obsidian table that had all the hallmarks of having been crafted by someone like me. There was no way to have gotten something like that in through the doors, a huge, seamless product of jet-black stone. It made me wonder how much time my predecessor had spent here in conversation with the rulers of the city. While the Eternal Engine had been a more recent passion project, this hall could have been around for centuries, and Kevin might have sat at the table with the ancestors of the men here now.
They chatted amongst themselves. I¡¯d come in full armor, with Esmelda, Boffin, and Berith behind me, and the conversation cut off instantly at our appearance.
"Dark Lord, so good of you to come." Count Varnish greeted me, rising from his seat at one end of the square table. The Lucius Malfoy look-alike wasn¡¯t wearing his cape, but he was dressed in an expertly fitted Victorian-era suit ¡ª all that was missing was the cane. The other council members followed his example, getting to their feet, some of them bowing.
.
"Count Varnish," I said, picking out the chairs that had been left empty nearest the door. I pulled one back for Esmelda, and she accepted it primly. I sat down beside her, and Boffin took the chair on my left, while Berith remained standing behind us, glowering at the assembly. ¡°Thank you for the invitation. ¡°Am I interrupting anything?¡±
¡°No, my lord, we were just about to begin.¡± He inclined his head. ¡°With your leave.¡±
¡°Please,¡± I said. ¡°Go on.¡± Boffin handed me a journal which I opened to the first page. Berith had called on a military adjunct to give us some basic information about the council members. The woman had seemed bemused by the request, but as Berith himself was new to the city, it wasn¡¯t that odd for him to be gathering information. I¡¯d copied the notes down in lillant, which I doubted any of the nobles could read even if they could see the book from where they were sitting.
While Nargul¡¯s council was filled out by twelve members, mostly old men, there were only three who mattered. Count Keldorn was a bald man with amber skin who looked like he had a permanent case of sunburn, which was impressive considering how little sun made it through the clouds. He was closely associated with the military elements of the city aside from being the head of the Smith¡¯s Guild.
Viscount Fenral didn¡¯t have a trade, but his family was among the oldest in Nargul and peddled influence across the city. He was the youngest man there, short, and pale, and he looked like he was actively trying to appear bored. Varnish led the council, and according to the adjunct, nearly his entire fortune was tied to the slave market.
"My esteemed colleagues," Varnish said, "I think we can all agree that today is a momentous occasion. Not only has our Dark Lord graced us with his presence, but he has also recently taken a bride. Please join me in congratulating him on his marriage." There was a smattering of polite applause around the table, purely reflexive, as the faces of the nobles each took on a different shade of shock. Some of them paled, while others reddened, embarrassed by the failure of whatever information networks they relied on. Keldorn sat back in his seat like he had been struck.
¡°A thousand blessings,¡± he said, his face slack.
Varnish took obvious pleasure in having known something the others did not. ¡°Allow me to introduce the new Dark Lady of Dargoth,¡± he said, gesturing to Esmelda.
A look of understanding dawned on a few of their faces. Like Varnish, they would have wondered why their Dark Lord¡¯s attitude toward the lillits had changed so drastically, and an explanation was now in front of them.
"Dark Lady," Varnish continued. "We are honored beyond words to have you among us."
The rest of the nobles were soon speaking over each other to offer their congratulations and praise. Esmelda sat through it wearing a blank expression, nodding regally to those who addressed her. She said nothing. Her opinion of these men and the way they ran the city was not positive.
"Very well, let us commence," Count Varnish declared, joining his hands and indicating for the council assembly to start. "I believe we are all cognizant of the fact that council gatherings might be,¡± he paused, choosing his words carefully, "tedious for an individual of the Dark Lord''s stature." He then directed his gaze toward me, offering a deferential nod. "Is there a particular matter you wish us to discuss, my lord?"
¡°How considerate,¡± I said. ¡°There are two issues that I want to see addressed today. The role that the lillits will play in the city going forward needs to be made clear. Apart from that, there are going to be some changes in policy regarding the institution of indentured servitude.¡±
"Of course," Varnish said, ¡°we are all aware that the lillits are now in your favor, and we will be happy to oblige whatever plan you have for the little folk. I¡¯m sure places can be found for them among the existing guilds, as you desire. My understanding is that the Duke already secured their
Housing-¡±
¡°And I am happy to house them,¡± a woman said. ¡°But I have been curious as to what will become of my rents.¡± She had bronze skin and a head of wavy gray hair. I glanced at my notes; Serin, another viscount. Dargoth operated under a feudal system similar to the Free Kingdoms. All land ultimately belonged to the Dark Lord, but countless titles had been given out over the years to the families that administered it. Berith was Duke of the city, but various chunks of Nargul, as well as the surrounding lands, were under the control of counts and viscounts. I hadn¡¯t bothered trying to research who owned what, as the details were both complicated and irrelevant. If Serin owned the tenements where the lillits were staying, she was going to want money.
¡°Which will be addressed in due time,¡± Varnish said, casting a venomous glance at the woman. ¡°As to the matter of indenture, may I ask what you have in mind?¡±
¡°We¡¯ll get to that,¡± I said.
Count Keldorn leaned forward, genuinely interested. "As you say, my lord. Where would you like to begin?¡±
I turned to him. ¡°It is my understanding that there are still some lillits serving among the noble households. We have the sales records, and my viziers are going to sort through them soon, but I expect cooperation from all of you before that. The lillits are no longer to be kept in servitude, not any of them, for any reason.¡±
The council members exchanged glances, some looking alarmed, others merely puzzled. Varnish was in the former category.
¡°Those that are among your households,¡± I addressed the room, ¡°are to immediately be released to their community. I expect this to be done before the end of the day. Consider this a decree. Any failure to comply will be dealt with as a crime against Mount Doom.¡±
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Varnish cleared his throat. "Your Grace," he began, his voice dripping with diplomatic grease, "perhaps I misunderstand, those lillits who are currently serving in noble households were purchased lawfully."
¡°If the records of those sales are in order,¡± I said, ¡°you will have compensation for your loss.¡±
I felt Esmelda stiffen beside me. We¡¯d already discussed this, and she was not happy with the idea of me paying for the release of men, women, and children who were stolen from their homes and taken into bondage. ¡®Evil must not be rewarded with profit,¡¯ she had said, which I was relatively sure was a quote from the Shui. But Boffin had understood the necessity. We wanted to make things better in Nargul, and simply lopping off the heads of the entire aristocracy would not be a good way to ensure a peaceful city.
Varnish was hovering on the verge of argument, but he seized on the idea of compensation. "Your Grace," he said, "might I inquire about the specifics of these payments? The market is ever-shifting, and many servants accrue value as they acquire skill and experience. Speaking for myself, I can assure you that I am more than happy to comply. As to the price, my assessors can have an estimate drawn up by the morning. May I assume that the Duke will be handling the details?¡±
¡°No,¡± Berith growled, ¡°you can¡¯t.¡± Varnish blanched at the response.
¡°My viziers will be handling the payments,¡± I said. ¡°And you don¡¯t have to bother with an assessment. They¡¯ll ensure the compensation is fair, but this isn¡¯t a negotiation.¡±
The room waited for Varnish¡¯s response. Everyone except Fenral, who had slid down in his chair with a sour look on his face. ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter what we think, does it? The Dark Lord has spoken.¡±
Varnish clenched his jaw. "Of course, Your Grace. I trust in your wisdom, and that of your viziers."
We hadn¡¯t even gotten to the controversial part yet. ¡°As for the slave market in general,¡± I said, ¡°it¡¯s finished.¡± Varnish started sputtering a protest, but I spoke over him. ¡°The system of criminal fines and indenture is still in place, but Dargoth will no longer be selling the contracts of those who are taken into custody.¡± The justice system in Nargul was nothing more than a pipeline into slavery. People who committed crimes, anything from petty theft to murder, were swiftly tried and assigned a fine as punishment.
The trial system was a joke. A defendant went before a magistrate and had to make an impromptu argument against whatever the accuser said. Witnesses could be called, but it was a lot easier to get witnesses when you weren¡¯t the one in jail, and hardly anyone who couldn¡¯t afford a few bribes was ever found not guilty. The entire process, from arrest to sentencing, rarely took more than a few days, and anyone who couldn¡¯t pay the resulting fine was kept in custody. The government, my government, held the contracts, and the prisoners would shortly thereafter be sent to work off their debt in the mines or wherever else there was a need for fresh bodies.
Depending on the case, the contract might be awarded to the plaintiff if there were significant damages involved, but otherwise, it could be bought and sold. On paper, someone indentured this way could earn their way out of the contract, but in practice, it was just slavery. Whoever held the contract could charge what they wanted for room and board and whatever else, adding to the total debt, so that the fine was never repaid.
Keldorn, whose wealth and status were not on the line, looked intrigued. ¡°May I ask the reason for the change?¡±
¡°Dargoth is at war,¡± I said. ¡°Criminals will now be drafted into the army. They will be trained as soldiers, paid and cared for as any volunteer would be, and when they earn enough to clear their debts, they will be given the option to leave the service or remain as they choose.¡±
It was, in essence, the same process as before, but with everyone being funneled into the army. This way, we could at least make sure that they were treated fairly and had a chance at freedom once they had done their time. This didn¡¯t fix the justice system, and it was still basically slavery, but that¡¯s how things had worked back on Earth as well. Not everyone realized it, but the United States Constitution explicitly condoned slavery in the case of prisoners, the clause was written into the 13th Amendment. They could be forced into labor, either for no wages or comically small wages, depending on how individual states decided to run things. It kind of had to work that way, because imprisonment by its nature strips an individual of their otherwise inalienable rights. Without that clause, there would have been a strong legal argument to be made that arrest and imprisonment themselves were illegal, and crime and punishment had to be handled somehow.
While I had plenty of complaints about how the justice system of my homeworld worked, I¡¯d been locked up long enough to know better than most that you couldn¡¯t just throw it out the window.
In the silence that followed, Count Varnish could be heard grinding his teeth.
¡°So that¡¯s how things will be handled from now on,¡± Fenral said, ¡°what about the contracts we already have? Are you saying we don¡¯t have a right to sell our property?¡±
¡°Good question,¡± I said. ¡°The answer is yes, you do have a right to sell those contracts. They can and will be sold to me. All of them. I understand that the logistics involved are complicated, and this part isn¡¯t going to happen overnight. Again, my viziers are going to be handling the numbers. But I expect all existing contracts to be returned to Dargoth by the end of the next three months.¡±
It was an arbitrary period, but there had to be a deadline of some kind, or else it would never happen.
"Your Grace," Count Varnish said finally, "are you quite certain about this? It is a...radical departure from tradition."
"Forgive me for saying so," Keldorn said cautiously, his amber-skinned fingers unconsciously moving across the obsidian before him as if he was working out the relevant figures, "but even the wealth of Mount Doom is not without its limits. Will the new laws apply only to Nargul or all of Dargoth? The total value of my contracts is not so great in comparison to some, but if you intend to buy back every one of them, you will be flooding the city with gold.¡±
He was a smart man. I didn¡¯t know yet how much money we were talking about, but I was probably going to end up devaluing Dargoth¡¯s currency in the process of doing all these buybacks, not to mention ruin the market for gems. But the effects of inflation wouldn¡¯t be felt until after the payments were made, so I didn¡¯t have to care about them right now. I had a practically infinite supply of diamonds at my disposal, and the nobles could be as upset as they liked about the results, but they didn¡¯t have a choice about whether or not to accept my terms. It was a perk of being at the top of a totalitarian society.
Given that the Dark Lord was an immortal god-king backed by a host of demons, there wasn¡¯t much they could do about it other than complain.
¡°My decision has been made,¡± I said. ¡°Do any of you intend to challenge me?¡±
Varnish looked like he wanted to, but he had the presence of mind to at least pretend to go along with the program. "Never, your grace," he said, keeping his voice neutral. "We would not think of it. We will comply with your wishes. Please forgive me for my reticence, I was merely surprised. You seem almost to be a different person from when we last met." He paused, letting his words sink in, and I saw it in his eyes. He knew. But what was he going to do with that knowledge? "Perhaps marriage can change any man."
I let the comment go.
¡°The official proclamation will be drawn up when I return to Mount Doom,¡± I said, ¡°but the changes in law are effective immediately. Returning to the subject of the lillits, they will be founding their own guild here in the city, equal to the others already in existence. Let me introduce you to the newest member of your council, Count Boffin.¡±
Boffin rose, his silver hair shining under the torches, unperturbed by the unhappy gazes that then fell upon him.
"Good day, honorable members of the council," Boffin said. "I look forward to working closely with all of you for the betterment of our kingdom."
There were murmured greetings in response. Of all the announcements I had made, the mere grant of a noble title was a minor note. Boffin was going to have his hands full, but with Berith backing him, I wasn¡¯t concerned for his safety. After this meeting, it had to be clear to everyone involved that the lillits were under my protection. They were going to make his life hard, but they weren¡¯t going to try to kill him.
None of this was a final solution, but there was a war in the North and another brewing in the East. Managing an empire requires delegation. There were things I had to do myself, and overhauling the legal system was not one of them.
¡°I¡¯m sure you all have other business to address,¡± I said, standing. ¡°And I won¡¯t delay you any further.¡± I glanced at Boffin.
¡°Are you going to be alright here?¡±
He nodded, a slight smile creasing the lines around his mouth. ¡°Mayor or Count,¡± he said, ¡°I imagine it¡¯s much the same.¡±
I extended my hand to Esmelda and she took it. We left the chamber together.
119: My Peacock (Rewrite)
Leto drank two of my potions. It was actually smart to combine Feather-Fall with Leaping and reduce the likelihood of hurting himself with a jump. There was never really a chance he would get away with it, however, as his mother caught him vaulting over the horses outside of the shelter the morning after we left Nargul.
¡°What are you doing!¡± Esmelda shouted as our son drifted down beside an appreciably unruffled Marie, Gastard¡¯s mare. He¡¯d gone six feet in a vertical leap, which was awesome for an eleven-year-old, magically reinforced or not.
¡°I was just exercising,¡± Leto said.
¡°What did you take?¡± she demanded.
¡°I didn¡¯t do anything,¡± he said, hanging his head.
¡°Don¡¯t lie to me,¡± she said. ¡°I saw you come down.¡±
¡°It was only a little,¡± he kicked the dirt. ¡°It won¡¯t hurt me.¡±
¡°How much did you drink?¡± Esmelda''s voice rose.
¡°Not much,¡± he said. ¡°I thought it would be enough to get me over the trees.¡±
It might have gotten me over a tree, but the effect of Leaping was relative to your Might attribute, and Leto wasn¡¯t there yet. I¡¯d noticed the bottles were missing shortly after waking. Our son had gotten himself up before dawn, rifled through my bags, and found what he wanted. The most dangerous part wasn¡¯t what he had taken, but that my potions were not labeled. He¡¯d been helping me train Alchemize the night before, and we¡¯d gone over what all the potions I had made so far were, and he¡¯d seen what they looked like, but it was still a risky move.
Leaping was violet, with black specks, and Feather-Fall was off-white, a little like milk but with an opalescent quality around the edges of the bottles. Neither of them looked anything like the Poison bottle, which was a viscous green with yellowish streaks. Still, sorting through the selection in the dimness of predawn was not a big brain move.
¡°Leaping and Feather-Fall,¡± I said.
¡°Is that all? Or did you take something else as well?¡±
¡°No,¡± he said. ¡°I didn¡¯t.¡±
¡°And how much of each?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± he said. ¡°I just poured a little into my mouth.¡±
¡°You poured it into your mouth?¡± Esmelda asked. ¡°You didn¡¯t measure?¡±
¡°No,¡± he said. ¡°I just took a little.¡±
¡°How much is a little?¡± she asked.
¡°Not much,¡± he said. ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±
The effect of the potion didn¡¯t vary depending on how much you drank, but the duration did. A sip could get you a minute of enhanced performance, which was a nifty feature if I was ever running low on the supply.
I approached and held out my hand, appearing as stern as I could. ¡°The bottles, please.¡±
Leto produced the pair of partially consumed potions from his pockets, and I examined them. He had taken about a third of each. If Esmelda hadn¡¯t gone looking for him when she had, maybe the effects would have gone off before she saw anything, but I would have noticed the missing bottles, regardless.
¡°No more alchemy,¡± she said to Leto. ¡°Your alchemy privileges are suspended until further notice.¡±
¡°Mom,¡± he said, tugging at his chainmail. ¡°Nothing happened. They worked fine.¡±
¡°You didn¡¯t know that they would,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°You can¡¯t do this, Leto. The melon was one thing, but you are playing with unknown magic. There was no way to be sure what kind of effect these would have on you.¡±
¡°What¡¯s the point of making potions if we can¡¯t drink them?¡±
¡°They¡¯re for your father.¡±
In fact, I had intended to hand them out, but only after we¡¯d gotten an informed volunteer to test out a few of the recipes. The potions were System-based, and despite some of the required ingredients, they seemed free of Bedlam taint. Gastard and I had already talked about having him try them one at a time to see whether they worked differently for a regular human than a survivor after I fed a Regeneration potion to Noivern. But having Leto mix and match them however he liked had not been a part of the plan.
¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he said.
¡°You should be,¡± Esmelda was a stormcloud of motherly disapproval. ¡°I¡¯m going to have to think of a proper punishment.¡±
¡°But you said I couldn¡¯t do alchemy anymore.¡±
¡°That¡¯s a good start.¡± She put her hands on her hips. ¡°Now get your pack together. I want to see you ready to go in five minutes.¡±
Leto hurried back into the shelter, and Esmelda rounded on me.
¡°I know,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯ll make a lock for my bag, or something.¡±
She sighed. ¡°He takes after you. I saw that long before you came back. When he has his mind set on something, he forgets everything else. The way he threw himself into sword practice, he would stay out all night if I let him.¡±
¡°Problematic genetics,¡± I said.
¡°Genetics?¡± I didn¡¯t know the lillit word for it, so I used English. Esmelda spoke it like it was her native language, but there were a lot of concepts that had never been introduced in Plana.
Neither Kevin nor the other survivors had gone around trying to kick-start scientific inquiry, as far as I knew.
¡°Hereditary traits.¡±
She nodded. ¡°It¡¯s not a poor quality to have, overall. Though the rash decisions, I hope, are not hereditary.¡±
¡°He¡¯s a kid. He¡¯s going to do stupid things.¡±
¡°I know that. But you shouldn¡¯t encourage him.¡±
¡°I didn¡¯t encourage him to drink the potions. I¡¯m pretty sure I warned him not to.¡±
¡°Pretty sure?¡± She allowed herself a slight smile, then turned to look toward our destination.
Mount Doom wasn¡¯t visible yet, but the dark column that rose from it to renew the storm over Dargoth was. ¡°It isn¡¯t just what you say, it¡¯s what you do. When Leto sees you flying off alone into battle, making big decisions without talking them through first, he¡¯s going to think he can do those things, too. He¡¯s lived a very sheltered life. I would love for him to have a community, and friends his age. I wish I could have given him those things. As long as our home is in Mount Doom, he¡¯s more likely to meet a demon in the halls than a friend.¡±
I grimaced. It would have been healthier, and probably safer, for both of them to remain behind in Nargul with the lillits rather than come with me. ¡°You could both stay with your father,¡± I said. ¡°The war, the demons. They are going to be taking up most of my time. I don¡¯t know how long it will be before Dargoth is stable.¡±
¡°No,¡± she said, ¡°that isn¡¯t what I want. You aren¡¯t leaving us behind again.¡± She didn¡¯t mean it as an accusation, but it felt like one.
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¡°We can build the community he needs,¡± I said, ¡°one day. But for now, is it the best thing to have you both with me?¡±
¡°When you told me about Bedlam, that horrible swamp.¡± She shuddered, and I stepped closer to her, placing my hand against her back. ¡°You said you saw her, Mizu. Didn¡¯t you?¡±
¡°I think I did.¡± It might have just been a hallucination. I¡¯d nearly drowned, but something had gotten me out of the water and away from the Kulu, and the goddess intervening on my behalf was the most likely scenario.
¡°Even if you don¡¯t remember meeting her before that, I know she was the one who sent you here. I have never seen her, but I feel as if she speaks to me sometimes.¡± She leaned into me. ¡°I know that this is the right thing. A part of me wanted to stay in Nargul, for Leto¡¯s sake, if nothing else. Those who were children in Williamsburg aren¡¯t children any longer, but I saw young lillits in the tenements. I could start a school.¡±
¡°You would be good at that.¡± Esmelda had tutored children in Erihseht. It wouldn¡¯t be a stretch for her to become a teacher now.
¡°But I know I need to be with you. It¡¯s more than my feelings for you, William. I have this sense that if we are apart, something terrible will come to pass.¡±
¡°With what happened before, I feel the same way. But I need you safe more than I need you at my side. There¡¯s a lot of fighting ahead of us. I barely trust the demons that have given me their oaths, and most of them still haven¡¯t. Now that people know about you, they could try to get to me through you.¡±
We could have kept our relationship a secret. But people in Mount Doom already knew there was a Dark Lady, and it wouldn¡¯t have taken long for word to spread even if we had said nothing about it in Nargul.
¡°If it¡¯s a demon that wants to use us that way,¡± she said, ¡°then there isn¡¯t anyone better equipped to defend us than you are. But that still isn¡¯t what I mean. This is more than intuition. I feel as if the goddess has spoken to me, even if she didn¡¯t show herself to me the way she did for you. If I don¡¯t go with you, it will be...I don¡¯t know what it will be. But the thought makes me more afraid than I have ever been.¡±
¡°You¡¯d think a goddess could be more specific than that.¡±
¡°Perhaps, but this is what I have, and I will act accordingly.¡±
It wasn¡¯t long until Leto reappeared with his pack and began asking us why we weren¡¯t ready. Gastard was already saddling his horse, though he had given us the space to talk. I grabbed my bags out of the shelter, and in a few more minutes, we were back on the road to Mount Doom.
***
As soon as we returned to the mountain, Zareth was on my heels.
¡°Welcome back, my lord. There are a few matters that require your attention. I have received letters from several of the Dukes of Dargoth, including one from Valefor, in the North, and they will require a response. Gremory has informed me that Gaap has informed her that Astaroth will swear to you. He is currently bound in the dungeons. Apart from that, I believe Bojack has something he wishes to discuss with you as well. Shall I send someone to inform him of your return?¡±
We had just stepped into the fortress. Esmelda and Leto were more than ready to return to our rooms and change out of their armor, and I had been hoping to join them.
My wife patted my arm. ¡°The duties of leadership,¡± she said. ¡°I expect to see you for dinner.¡±
¡°Do you require my presence?¡± Gastard asked.
¡°No, but thank you for the offer.¡± With a wave to my family and the templar, we parted ways.
Zareth and I headed for the dungeon where the peacock demon was being kept. Berith had nearly killed Astaroth during our fight with Agares, but he hadn¡¯t sworn to me then. I¡¯d sent him with Gaap as a captive, and it sounded like he¡¯d finally come around to the idea that I was the boss now. There were so many demons around that it felt like I would need to carry around a chart to keep track of them.
¡°Gremory told you that Gaap told her that Astaroth was going to give me his oath?¡± I said. ¡°You haven¡¯t talked with him yourself.¡±
Zareth adjusted the scrolls under his arm, lifting his robes slightly to help him keep pace with me as we walked. ¡°The other demons are no more accustomed to seeing a human as your right hand than Gremory was. They see her as the vizier and regard me as a subordinate official. It results in a circuitous form of communication.¡±
¡°Sounds like a waste of time,¡± I said.
¡°It is in their nature. While Bael relied on me for many things, I was never in a position of authority. It is nothing you need to concern yourself with.¡±
¡°It kind of is,¡± I said. ¡°You run this place, and as far as I can tell, you do a good job of it. The demons are going to have to learn to acknowledge you.¡±
¡°I thank you for the praise, my lord, but it may be simpler to let them do as they will.¡±
Having the demons give my vizier the runaround was sure to cause miscommunications in the future. Even though Zareth hadn¡¯t said so, I assumed Gremory wasn¡¯t going out of her way to change any of their minds about who was in charge. She wanted to be the first advisor to the Dark Lord, and this was a way for her to undermine Zareth.
¡°Tell me about these letters.¡±
¡°Of course. From what they have written, it is clear that not all the Dukes are aware that the former Dark Lord has been supplanted. Some of the messengers were seeking Bael, so it seems word of his death has not spread evenly. They felt something had changed, and they were concerned that the Dark Lord had gone his own way. With your permission, I intend to inform them that the Dark Lord still sits on the Throne of Shadows, but that he grew dissatisfied with the old oaths and a new blade has been forged.¡±
¡°That works for me,¡± I said. ¡°Who''s the guy from the North? Val something?¡±
¡°Valefor. In the previous order, he held the fourth seat, and many demons serve him. He is the Duke of Grimwald, a vital region, as it is one of the few lands in Dargoth suitable for growing regular crops. Among the demons of the North, he is the most influential. If you intend to settle the invasion from Atlan, his support will be invaluable.¡±
¡°What was his letter like?¡±
¡°Suspicious. He did not address it to Bael but to the Throne of Shadows. While he did not state outright that he knew you were not the man he swore to serve, it seems that he does know.¡±
¡°What exactly did he say?¡±
Zareth quoted from memory. ¡°¡®The Throne of Shadows is the heart of Dargoth, and it is only fitting that it be occupied by one strong enough to keep it. The Dark Lord is the keeper of our oaths, and the oaths are the only law we know. If the Dark Lord is not bound by the law, then neither are we.¡±
¡°That¡¯s a bit ominous,¡± I said, ¡°but how do you know he knows?¡±
¡°Occupied by one strong enough to keep it,¡± Zareth said again. ¡°He is not opposed to a passing of the crown, but the rest is a warning that he will not accept a ruler unbound by oaths.¡±
¡°That works for me. I wouldn¡¯t accept the word of a demon either.¡±
Astaroth¡¯s feathers looked dingy, the blues had lost their luster, and the yellow around his eyes was turning brown. He was confined to a small cell attached to the garrison, a brig for soldiers who didn¡¯t follow orders, and his hands were covered by what looked like a pair of steel oven mitts. Demonic magic relied heavily on somatic components. Though they didn¡¯t always have to use their hands, their spells involved a lot of finger-wagging.
Astaroth had an affinity for fire, and as long as I had my armor on, I didn¡¯t think he could hurt me even if he had access to magic. But without the precaution, he might have made a break for it when I was gone. He could have blasted his way through the cell door, killed the guards, and tried to free Kevin. Orobas may or may not have been stronger than him in a direct contest, but it was better not to have to worry about it.
A soldier opened the door for us, and Zareth accompanied me into the cell.
The demon was sitting on his knees like a samurai. He raised his beaked face as we entered. How long had he been like that? It looked uncomfortable.
¡°You wanted to talk to me?¡± I said.
¡°I will hear your terms.¡± His voice was smooth, controlled, and not at all birdlike.
¡°That¡¯s easy. You swear to serve me, not to harm anyone under my protection, and you get to come out.¡±
He clicked his beak. ¡°Is that all?¡±
¡°You¡¯re not in a position to bargain.¡± ¡°I am powerful. I can be of use.¡±
¡°Berith beat you, and I feel like I¡¯ve got more demons in my entourage than I need at this point. You can give me your oath, or you can stay down here. Either way is fine with me.¡± So far, Agares was the only demon to have made an overt move against me, and from what Zareth had said, it sounded like the demons in the North could be brought around without another major conflict. I wanted all their oaths eventually, but Astaroth didn¡¯t have much to offer me outside of fireballs.
¡°I am the twenty-ninth harbinger of the One Who Knocks,¡± he said.
¡°Which means you didn¡¯t have any lands of your own, right? Not many monsters. You worked for Agares and hung around Nargul for how long?¡±
Astaroth gave me a seated bow. ¡°A hundred years or more. I knew my place, and I know it now. The Dark Lord has fallen, long live the Dark Lord.¡±
I called the oathblade out of my inventory and rested it on his shoulder. ¡°Say your words.¡±
He looked up at me. ¡°I swear to serve you, a loyal servant, for as long as the Throne of Shadows is yours.¡±
It was the simplest oath yet, without a single demand attached. The ease with which he had spoken it made me suspicious, but he¡¯d given me what I wanted and I wasn¡¯t sure what made me uncomfortable about him. A spark traveled up the marbled edge of the blade and came to rest in the jewel to swirl among the other motes of demonic essence, a lighter color than the others, more orange than red.
Zareth used a charcoal stick to make a note on one of his scrolls. His ability to write on unsupported parchment was almost uncanny.
¡°How may I be of service?¡± Astaroth said.
¡°We¡¯re going North,¡± I told him. ¡°I¡¯m going to need as much firepower as I can get up there.¡±
First, though, Bojack wanted to see me.
120: My Lesson In Metaphysics (Rewrite)
Bojack was at his desk facing the diamond cell. His journal was open, and he was so focused on his writing that he didn¡¯t hear me walking up behind him. I got a look at what he was working on before he snapped the book shut.
Trapped in light¡¯s cruel dance, slow sleep of winter¡¯s grace, gift of amber.
He stood. ¡°We need to discuss the future.¡±
Sure, we could discuss the future, but I had to know.
¡°Bojack...are you writing haikus?¡± Of all the things I¡¯d imagined he might put in that book, poems had not crossed my mind.
¡°Merely recording my thoughts,¡± he said, ¡°it is none of your concern.¡±
¡°If anything, I¡¯m less concerned. Can I see it again? I think your syllable count was a little off.¡±
He eyed me suspiciously. ¡°Syllable count?¡±
¡°For a haiku, it¡¯s supposed to be five, seven, five. I think you were close. Was that about Kevin?¡±
¡°It wasn¡¯t a haiku,¡± Bojack said tersely. ¡°I am beyond the poetic forms of mortals.¡±
¡°Hey, yeah, you do you. I thought it was pretty good.¡±
His eyes narrowed. ¡°You did?¡±
¡°Yeah, ¡®gift of amber¡¯ is a cool phrase.¡± It had never occurred to me that a demon would have hobbies. They were divorced from normal human needs in many ways, and I¡¯d never seen Bojack do anything for pleasure. My mental model of him had always been more robotic; as if he was programmed to want certain things, but he otherwise just existed without a lot going on inside.
¡°Can I see it again?¡±
He reopened the book and shifted it so I would have a better view.
¡°Did you write these about me, too?¡± I asked.
¡°A different book,¡± he said. ¡°You were gone a long time.¡±
I suppose I was. He must have filled a shelf while I was trapped in Bedlam. ¡°You¡¯re immortal though. Was it that long for you?¡±
Bojack snorted. ¡°You¡¯re immortal. Do you experience time differently simply because you know you will not die?¡±
He had me there. ¡°I guess not.¡±
In books and movies about long-lived beings; elves, vampires, and gods; there was usually a lot of emphasis on how the passage of time was different for them than for mortals. That was a cop-out. Even just making it into the early thirties in my first life, I¡¯d gotten to experience a little of how a person¡¯s perspective on time could change as they got older, especially given that a lot of my coworkers at Subway had been teenagers. But just because you thought about time differently than younger people didn¡¯t mean that an hour didn¡¯t feel like an hour, or a day a day.
¡°Do you...enjoy poetry?¡±
Bojack shrugged. ¡°It is something I do, another form of memory. I have read some of the literature of this world, and other worlds, but it does not hold much interest for me. The prattle of humans is not much different from the songs of birds.¡±
¡°How many worlds have you been to?¡± Berith had mentioned being in other worlds as well. The demons were all repeat transmigrators, but I¡¯d never really questioned them about it.
¡°Many,¡± Bojack said, ¡°though not as many as the elder entities. The One Who Knocks stretches far, but his reach is not infinite. Plana is the first world in this cluster that I have visited.¡±
¡°Cluster?¡± If we were going to get into cosmology, I was all ears.
¡°The grouping that surrounds your earth, the domain of the blue goddess.¡±
¡°Were there humans everywhere you¡¯ve been?¡±
¡°Humans, or beings who were like humans. Not all of them walked on two legs or had faces like yours, but intelligent animals tend to develop along similar lines.¡±
Intelligent animals, that was one way to put it. ¡°Do you take notes like these wherever you go?¡±
¡°Generally, though I leave the books behind when our work is done and I return to Bedlam.¡±
So he didn¡¯t have a backpack full of alien journals anywhere. Somehow, that felt disappointing.
¡°What¡¯s your success rate, anyway? Of all the places you¡¯ve been, how many belong to Walter White now?¡±
Bojack shut the journal. ¡°This world is the only one you need to consider. As the other harbingers come to accept the new order, we must turn to what is coming. There are steps to be taken to weaken the veil between this realm and Bedlam.¡±
¡°Like what?¡±
¡°The cauldron at the heart of Mount Doom, we will have to craft more of them. Apart from that, there are monuments supporting the integrity of Plana that must be destroyed. Dargoth is free of them, but in the Free Kingdoms, Atlan, and Thallaso, there are still structures sacred to the blue goddess for us to bring to ruin.¡±
¡°You expect me to craft another cauldron? One is bad enough.¡±
¡°It is not the only cauldron in Dargoth, merely the largest. And I do not need your help to make it. There are not men like you in every world we visit. The construction requires seven demons working in concert, each with a different elemental affinity.¡±
¡°Seven? How many elements are there?¡± Earth, air, fire, and water were all pretty obvious. Asmodeus could only control metal, which I¡¯d thought of as being a subcategory of earth rather than entirely its own thing. That still only got it up to five.
¡°There is no true limit,¡± Bojack said. With one hand, he reached for the wall and pulled out a handful of stone like it was soft clay. The fragment hardened again in his palm, a shard of dull granite. ¡°Every cluster has its laws, though there are common themes among them. We are more constrained here than we would be in Bedlam, which is closer to the raw chaos of the void. Some affinities are more common than others.¡±
¡°You know what I¡¯ve seen already,¡± I said. ¡°What else is there?¡±
¡°Flesh and wood. That will be enough to bring us to seven. If you come across a demon that bends either of those elements, I ask that you take extra care to bring them to our side. They are rare enough that they would be hard to replace.¡±
¡°How is flesh an element?¡± I was pretty sure that wood counted as an element in some Eastern frameworks, but I¡¯d never heard of anyone adding flesh to the list.
Bojack dropped the stone, and it clinked against the floor beside his desk. ¡°How is earth? Or water? There is nothing fundamental about any of these things, they are merely concepts.¡±
He had a point there. If we were going to get technical, there were well over a hundred elements on the elemental table, and physics got pretty weird when it came to deciding what was fundamental. Atoms were made of particles, particles were made of quarks and electrons, and it got stranger from there. No one knew where the bottom was, or why there was something instead of nothing, no matter how many theories had been proposed. Maybe it was turtles all the way down.
¡°Okay, I can keep that in mind when I go north. What did you want to talk to me about?¡±
¡°Kevin killed himself while you were gone.¡±
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My heart jumped, but when I looked at the diamond cell, the former Dark Lord was still there, lying on his side and watching us with sunken eyes. There was something different, though, dark splotches on his skin that didn¡¯t look like bruises.
¡°What happened?¡±
¡°He broke down some of his food into a powder and refashioned it into a small blade. It wasn¡¯t strong enough to scratch the cage, but sharp enough for his purpose. I removed the body, and he returned to life as you see him now.¡±
That was something I had no idea how to do, but Kevin¡¯s skills were beyond mine.
¡°I thought he was afraid of dying.¡±
¡°Perhaps he is running out of hope. Regardless, there were changes to his body. Bedlam is more a part of him now than it was before.¡±
¡°What does that mean? Is he going to turn into a monster?¡±
¡°I cannot say. Kevin has not died in centuries, and his patron is the One Who Knocks. A rebirth of that kind is less clean than one provided by the blue goddess.¡±
That was worrisome. The cage only worked if we could account for his abilities, and if Walter White was changing the rules on us, there was a chance he could escape without the help of a demon. Gremory had said their god was fine with me taking over, but that could have been a lie to put me at ease.
¡°Do you think he¡¯s going to try again?¡±
Bojack shrugged. ¡°He has been quiet since his return. Refusing food. The One Who Knocks has no attachments to his servants. Whatever bargain they made did not give him what he wanted. You should take this as a warning. There is still room in this world for another demon, and the next might be able to free him. The One Who Knocks has not chosen sides between you, but he will if you fail to advance our cause.¡±
¡°Message received,¡± I said. Working with the demons was one thing, but allowing their god to claim this world for his own wasn¡¯t an option. It was just hard to see a way out of it while Kevin was still lurking in the background.
I left Bojack to work on his poems and spent a little time in the forge before dinner. With the training I¡¯d done on the road, Alchemize was nearly at level ten, which I hoped would allow me to brew something more advanced. After setting another batch of Might potions to simmer, I told
Malphas to take them out for me when they were done and went to spend the rest of the evening with my family.
Esmelda was reading to Leto out of a book of fairy tales, which reminded me that there was an entire library in Mount Doom for me to absorb if I ever got around to it. I changed out of my armor and joined them in the sitting room. Gastard was training with the garrison, so it was just the three of us and Ogness, who was preparing a meal in the kitchen.
The story reminded me of something out of Grimm¡¯s, as it was rather dark. It was about a boy who went on a journey to rescue his sister from a castle where a monster kept her captive. The tale ended with the boy¡¯s death and the princess¡¯s wedding to the monster.
¡°Why did she marry him?¡± Leto asked when the story was over.
¡°She had little choice,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°It wasn¡¯t a happy ever after.¡±
¡°I think it¡¯s stupid,¡± Leto flipped around on the sofa, putting his feet in the air and his head hanging toward the floor. ¡°Her brother should have saved her.¡±
¡°That would have been more fun to hear about,¡± I agreed.
¡°Not all stories are happy,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Life is full of difficulty, and you have to learn to find joy even when it seems like there is none. That¡¯s the lesson.¡±
¡°Why does there have to be a lesson?¡± Leto got up and paced around the couch, his thin face scrunched in annoyance. ¡°Why can¡¯t a story just be fun?¡±
¡°Do you think the girl was able to find joy,¡± I asked, ¡°if that was the lesson?¡±
¡°It ends there,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°but I doubt it. Most of these tales are rather bleak. I remember hearing some of them when I was a child, but I had forgotten how depressing they could be.¡±
¡°I used to want to write stories,¡± I said. ¡°Novels. And I didn¡¯t mean for them to be dark, but whatever concept I started with, the longer I went on, the more bad things would happen.¡±
Esmelda gave a small laugh. ¡°You make it sound like you weren¡¯t in control. But you were writing the story, weren¡¯t you?¡±
¡°Yeah, I was. But things have a way of just coming out of you, and it¡¯s hard to see them for what they are until they¡¯re down on paper. It had something to do with the way I looked at the world when I was younger. I think I was too detached.¡±
Leto stopped pacing. ¡°Detached from what?¡±
It was a good question.
¡°I¡¯m not even sure what I mean. It¡¯s different thinking about a story as an idea, and experiencing it, or reading it. Some stories seem like a slap in the face, because it¡¯s so obvious what should happen, what would be satisfying, and the author doesn¡¯t give it to you.¡±
¡°Sounds like a dumb story, then,¡± Leto said.
¡°I don¡¯t know. Sometimes, people just like different things. One person may want one outcome, and two other people want something else.¡±
¡°One of them is wrong.¡± My son crossed his arms, supremely confident in his conclusion, and before Esmelda could continue the debate, Ogness appeared to summon us to dinner.
***
There was no reason for us to delay the journey to Atlan. I was feeding Noivern, preparing to unchain him, when a voice startled me.
¡°You are fond of that beast.¡±
I spun around and saw that Gremory had appeared in the arch of the aery. Her beauty was unsettling in more ways than one. It wasn¡¯t just that she looked like Esmelda, there was an unnatural quality to the perfection of her appearance. She looked the way people look in movies and carefully curated photographs instead of how they are in real life. That and the fluffy ears sticking out of her hair. She¡¯d found herself a set of white robes that had serious high-priestess vibes.
¡°We¡¯re about to head out,¡± I said, ¡°Do you need something?¡±
¡°Merely to know your mind.¡± She made a twirling motion with one of her hands, and I heard Noivern¡¯s manacle pop open. ¡°We share a master, but you are an unwilling servant. I know Orobas has bound you. I wonder what we could offer you to make such binding unnecessary.¡±
¡°You guys could all leave Plana,¡± I said, ¡°let us live in peace.¡±
¡°That is not a gift within my power to give,¡± she sounded amused, her feet carrying her softly into the stone silo that housed the wyverns. Noivern trilled, happily lifting his leg free of its chain. The other beasts crouched low, silently watching the demon. ¡°Peace, however, will be within your reach, once our work is finished.¡±
¡°I¡¯ve been to Bedlam, it wasn¡¯t very peaceful.¡±
¡°Plana will not become Bedlam,¡± she laughed, light and low, ¡°it is a stepping stone on our master¡¯s path to reach the center of the cluster.¡±
¡°He wants Earth?¡±
¡°No. He wants the blue goddess.¡±
Walter White was after Mizu? ¡°Why?¡±
¡°To kill her. There is some history there. I will not bore you. I want you to understand that helping us does not mean the destruction of this world. The One Who Knocks wishes to enter only to cross through to the next realm, and the next.¡±
¡°That doesn¡¯t sound much better. Mizu protects Earth, and all the worlds around it, doesn¡¯t she? If she died, wouldn¡¯t they all fall apart?¡±
¡°Some would,¡± she slipped closer to me, lifting a hand to touch my cheek. Her fingertips were inhumanly warm against my skin. ¡°But you could become the axis around which Plana turned, a point of stability. Our master could give you that kind of power.¡±
I pushed her hand away. Was she saying I could become a god?
¡°I¡¯m not looking for that kind of responsibility.¡±
Gremory skipped away, laughing again. ¡°His victory may be a beginning for you or an end, that is your choice to make. Think on it.¡±
She left me with the wyverns, and a few minutes later, Noivern and I were flying up out of the shaft of the aery and into the smoke above Mount Doom. There were always harpies in the sky, and they greeted us with caws and coughs as we circled back down toward the forward gate of the fortress.
Gremory¡¯s suggestion was more tempting than I wanted to admit. Not that I could trust anything she told me. Break the world and make a new one, what could go wrong with that? Even if Plana could be preserved, there were going to be more compromises along the way than I was willing to make. How many people would die in a war among the gods?
Esmelda, Leto, and Gastard were waiting for me on horses near the gate.
The animals had been raised in Mount Doom, so they weren¡¯t deathly afraid of monsters, but Noivern¡¯s arrival certainly caused them some alarm. Gastard was the quickest to master his animal, controlling it with his knees. Marie had always been a stoic. ¡°I see your beast has recovered. I take it the potion was a success.¡±
¡°Very much so,¡± I said, sliding off of Noivern¡¯s back. ¡°Is everybody ready?¡±
¡°I am,¡± Leto was happy to see the wyvern again.
Esmelda was less positive. ¡°Are you certain you won¡¯t ride a horse?¡±
¡°I¡¯m going to need him later,¡± I said. ¡°We don¡¯t know what we¡¯re up against in Atlan, and I want a bird¡¯s eye view.¡±
¡°I suppose you would,¡± she said.
We were going ahead of the army. Gaap was bringing Astaroth and Malphas along with a full complement of monsters from the pens, but only a small support of human soldiers and laborers. They were harder to feed on the road, and I preferred to know that I was leaving Mount Doom well-defended. Bojack and Gremory could certainly handle themselves, but there was always a possibility of another siege.
¡°My lord,¡± a soldier in gleaming white armor marched up and saluted me. ¡°There is a man camped about half a mile out of the city. We sent a party to assess the situation, and he claims to be a traveling merchant.¡±
It was certainly odd, but not necessarily something that demanded a ruler¡¯s attention.
¡°Who is he?¡± I asked.
¡°He says his name is Fladnag.¡±
121: My Gandalf (Rewrite)
Of all the ways a man could react to seeing a man riding a wyvern in heavy armor land in front of them, blowing smoke rings would not have been on the top of my list. I had asked Esmelda to wait while I went to meet the man who was claiming to be Fladnag. It wasn''t that I didn''t think he was Fladnag, but anytime a stranger decided to park their wagon outside of a fortress you had to wonder what their plan was.
At first glance, Fladnag was true to his inverted name. His robes were suitably long and gray, and his hair and beard, both prodigious, were snow white. His right arm was hidden by his sleeve as he sat on the bench built into the side of his wagon, which was pulled by a single burly ox. The ox was munching, its snout dipped into a feed bag, as unconcerned with my arrival as the man.
"Greeting many and fair," Fladnag said before taking a long draw on his pipe. "May I presume that you are the lord of this dark mountain?"
"Yeah," I said, "that''s me." As he wasn''t wearing any armor or carrying any weapons that I could see, I removed my helmet. If this was the man Esmelda had told me about, there was no need to turn this into a confrontation.
Fladnag released a little ball of smoke, then sucked it back into his mouth before it had a chance to get away. "As I told your men, I am Fladnag. Storyteller, entertainer, magician. I travel the towns of the Free Kingdoms spreading mirth and cheer in exchange for coin and hot meals. This region is a bit off my beaten path, but it occurred to me that Dargothians are as much in need of a good show now and again as any other men, and I hoped you would not resent the intrusion."
"Listen," I said, taking my helmet under my arm. "It''s just us here right now. I''m sure you have your reasons, but let''s drop the cosplay for a second. My name is William. I was reborn in Plana after dying in another world. I''m pretty sure you came from the same place I did. Your name is Gandalf spelled backwards. Can we talk about that?"
"I''m afraid I''m not familiar with that name.¡± Fladnag tapped the ash out of his pipe. ¡°Gandalf, was it?"
"I get being cautious, " I said. "But you came here for a reason. You knew Kevin, right? Well, I''m not him. He''s the only other Survivor I''ve met, and I feel like I''ve been stumbling around since I got here. Please, if you¡¯re who I think you are, there¡¯s so much you can tell me."
"Survivor?" Fladnag said. "I know many stories of Dargoth and its Dark Lord, but I do not know of this Kevin you speak of any more than your Gandalf."
"Well, I''m the Dark Lord now, or the lord, anyway. We might have to work on the dark part. Are you telling me you have no idea what I''m talking about?"
Fladnag¡¯s eyebrows did a little dance, his expression thoughtful. "You say you came here from another world? That is a miraculous thing. Certainly, you are not the first to make that claim. There were heroes in the past who said the same. Some called them angels, others, demons. Would you like me to spin you a tale? In honor of your lordship, I would be glad to share a few stories with you, perform a few tricks. If you are so gracious as to allow it, I would like to ply my trade here in Dargoth as I do in the Free Kingdoms."
I wasn''t getting anywhere with direct questions. As much as my memory had failed me, it was possible that Fladnag didn''t remember who he was. If that wasn''t the case, he seemed dead set on staying in character. If it meant I could learn something from him, I was willing to play along.
"You can have whatever permission you''d like," I said. "You''re welcome here."
"I am honored by your benevolence," he said, glancing behind me. "And it appears that my audience approaches."
I turned. Esmelda, Leto, and Gastard were already coming on horseback from Mount Doom. They didn''t look to be in any hurry, so we had a few minutes before they would arrive. It was a little annoying that they hadn''t waited for a signal from me, but I wasn''t surprised. Esmelda had been excited to meet Fladnag again, and she clearly wasn''t taking my warning that this could be a trick seriously.
"So we do," I said, patting Noivern. The wyvern had crouched low to the ground to rest on his haunches. "Maybe I was mistaken about who you are, Fladnag." Just saying the name out loud felt ridiculous, but that seemed to be what he wanted. "How long have you been in the entertainment business?"
"It feels like lifetimes," he said. Despite his beard, he didn''t sound ancient. Though there were lines on his face, I guessed he was around fifty, at least physically. Survivors didn''t age, and maybe that was true of the other classes as well.
"And you just go around from town to town? Does that support you well enough? How did you make it across the Wastes?"
Zareth had assured me that much of Dargoth was more hospitable than this region, but I hadn''t seen that side of the dark empire. There wasn¡¯t much between Mount Doom and the Free Kingdoms aside from dust and poisonous mushrooms, and it didn''t sound like he had made a stop off in Nargul to resupply.
"The journey was a trial for Boson, but we have weathered worse."
"Boson?"
Fladnag gestured toward the ox with the same hand that held his pipe. The arm under his sleeve had remained motionless, and I was beginning to wonder what was under there.
"Is your arm alright?" I asked.
Fladnag pulled back the sleeve, revealing a stump that ended at his wrist.
"Oh," I said. "I''m sorry."
"Not at all, I''m better off without it."
Which was a weird thing to say about a hand. He wasn''t wearing a glove on his left, so I could see there was no elder sign to mark him as a survivor. Had he cut it off?
"What happened?"
"Ah, I''m afraid that tale is not on the itinerary for today."
"Fladnag!" Esmelda had pulled ahead of the other two, and she slid down off her horse as soon as she reached us. "It is you!"
"Of course, my dear, who else would it be?"
"Do you remember me?" Esmelda was glowing.
"I have seen thousands of faces in my travels, young lady. It is ridiculous to expect me to recall them all."
"Oh," Esmelda lost some of her enthusiasm. "I know it''s been years since you came to Erihseht. I was being foolish."
"Ridiculous," Fladnag continued, "and yet, here we are. You are Esmelda, the loveliest flower of Erihseht, and daughter of Boffin. You seem to have led an interesting life in the interim."
"Your illuminators were one of the highlights of my childhood.¡± She beamed. ¡°I waited for them every summer."
"I''m glad," he said, "and who is this now?"
Gastard and Leto were pulling up, and Esmelda went to help Leto down from his saddle, though he looked as if he wished she wouldn''t.
"Hail," the templar said. "My name is Gastard, and I serve Lord William. I''ve heard of you. They say in Henterfell that you are a sorcerer."
"A magician," Fladnag said, "no more. My sorcery comes out to tricks and natural science in the end."
"This is Leto," Esmelda said, "our son."
"Hello," Leto said. "What kind of tricks do you do?"
"Your son?" Fladnag looked at me sharply.
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"Yes," I said. "Esmelda is First Lady of Dargoth." I smiled at Leto. "Now that I think about it, I guess that means you''re a prince."
"I''m a prince?" Leto blinked. "No one ever told me."
"I''m sorry," a shadow fell over Fladnag''s face. "I didn''t know."
"Sorry about what?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Forgive me. I''m an old man, I don''t know what I''m saying sometimes. Now that everyone''s here, why don''t I give you all a performance? Just a small one."
"You could come to the fortress," Esmelda said. "You have a ready audience in the garrison. I''m sure the Major would agree to it."
Fladnag looked to Mount Doom, and his mouth turned down. I thought I saw pain in his eyes, but it was gone in an instant, replaced by a mask of good cheer.
"Ah, well. The four of you are all the audience I need for now. Why don''t we begin with a story? I was just discussing my repertoire with your husband, and I think he would like to hear a tale of old times. Why not the Legend of Umberious Rex?"
"What''s that?" Leto said, pointing to a small wooden box resting on the windowsill on the side of Fladnag''s wagon. The box was exquisitely carved with a leaf-like pattern, and Fladnag grinned down at Leto as he picked it up.
"You have a keen eye, young man. Would you like to see a bit of magic before we begin the tale?"
Leto nodded, his gaze focused on the box as it was opened to reveal a gleaming steel ball. Fladnag had rested the box on the wrist that was once again concealed by his sleeve, and he picked up the ball between his thumb and forefinger to display it for Leto.
"An ordinary object," he said, "or so it would appear. In truth, this ball was forged by dwarven smiths in days of yore, and it has some very special qualities."
"Like what?" Leto asked.
"It exists in two worlds at once," Fladnag said. "Neither entirely in or out of either one." He rolled it into his palm, closed his fist, and then opened it again to reveal that the ball had disappeared. He brought it back to roll it over his knuckles, made it vanish again, and then reappear in the pocket of Leto''s vest. Neither Leto nor his mother were wearing their armor, which was something I intended to lecture them about later, but for now, it was nice to see him enjoying the show.
Assuming Fladnag wasn''t using actual magic to do what he was doing, he was an expert at sleight-of-hand. I''d seen magicians on television, but it''s a different experience to be standing a few feet from someone performing.
The System allowed me to do things far more incredible than making a ball appear and disappear, but I found myself more impressed by this simple display of skill than I would have been if the man had summoned a hurricane. Magic was one thing, but even though I knew what he was doing was only a trick, I couldn''t follow the ball. System abilities were a shortcut into the impossible, whereas this was the appearance of the impossible made possible through sheer practice.
The ball was back in its box a moment later, and we all clapped.
"That was amazing," Esmelda said, "thank you."
"A small thing," Fladnag said, brushing off her praise. "Hardly a wonder for the Lord and Lady of Mount Doom."
"Are you sure you''re not a sorcerer," Leto asked.
"Very sure," Fladnag returned the box to its place on the sill. He sat on his bench. ¡°Why don¡¯t you make yourselves comfortable.¡±
Esmelda, Leto, and I sat on the ground like so many children must have done in years before, gathering to listen to the traveler¡¯s tale. Gastard remained on his horse, as stoic as ever.
¡°Umberious Rex has been known by many names,¡± he began. ¡°Your people,¡± he nodded to Esmelda, ¡°remember him as Lord Umber. The earliest stories of his exploits begin in Dargoth.¡±
¡°Our exodus,¡± Esmelda said.
¡°Quite right,¡± Fladnag nodded. ¡°Four heroes led the lillits out of Dargoth, though as I am sure you are familiar with that story, I will tell another.¡±
¡°Four?¡± I asked. I vaguely recalled Esmelda telling me about Mizu¡¯s previous chosen ones, but I didn¡¯t think there had been four of them.
¡°Yes,¡± he said, smiling, ¡°if you would be so kind as not to interrupt. Lord Umber, Lady Nadia, Frodo, and David, who is now more commonly and regrettably remembered as Captain Murderface.¡±
I had more questions, and Esmelda seemed to want to comment as well, but we let him continue.
¡°After the lillits came to the Free Kingdoms, and their pursuers were rebuffed, the heroes stayed together for a time, recovering from their travails. Then Frodo remained with the little folk to watch after them, but Umber, Nadia, and David traveled further into the lands of men. There was a war going on, as there is always war, and the kingdom of Drom was not yet born. Flussmund and Waldreich were at odds over the stretch of land that would become Drom, which at the time was home to several druidic tribes called the Mendi.
The Mendi did not care to be absorbed into either nation, and they took David as an avatar of their god. With the help of the heroes, the Mendi were soon recognized by the warring powers as being a nation in their own right, and peace was established as they became a buffer between Flosssmund and Waldreich.
David settled there, beloved by the druids, while Umber and Nadia went on in search of more adventures. The world was a more dangerous place in those days, with monsters and sorcerers apart from what is found in Dargoth presenting a perennial threat to humanity. They hunted dragons, and bested giants, and generally made a name for themselves.¡± He looked at me.
¡°The Dark Lord could not rest knowing he had been denied his playthings. He sent demons to capture the heroes, and after several attempts, they succeeded in taking Lady Nadia back into Dargoth.¡±
¡°That wasn¡¯t me,¡± I said. ¡°It was the other guy.¡±
Fladnag nodded. ¡°I know. I would not be here had I not sensed a change in the air of the dark lands. The birds have been speaking, and I listen to birds.¡±
I glanced up. Harpies were circling above.
¡°Not those birds,¡± he said, smiling. ¡°The harpies are a breed of their own.¡±
¡°What happened,¡± Leto asked, annoyed by the interruption.
¡°Ah, well.¡± Fladnag sighed. ¡°Lord Umber went after her, of course. And David went with him. They braved the shadows of Dargoth, defied demons and the Dark Lord alike, and found the crystal cage where Lady Nadia had been confined. The cage was guarded by a demon, of course, powerful and old, who sorely tested the heroes. The demon could shape diamonds as if they were clay and armed himself with armor and blades the likes of which the world has not since seen. David took the form of a dragon, and fought him to a standstill, but was sorely wounded.
Lord Umber healed his companion and held back the tide of koroshai and other monsters that appeared to harry them. After many hours of fighting, they defeated the demon and broke through the wall of crystal, only to find that Nadia was gone.¡±
Leto leaned forward, completely absorbed in the story. ¡°Where did she go? Did the Dark Lord take her to another prison?¡±
Fladnag shook his head. ¡°She had left this world entirely and returned to the embrace of the goddess. The heroes were simply too late.¡±
That was Kevin¡¯s game plan for dealing with other survivors. Capture, imprisonment, and torturing them to death until they stopped coming back. It hadn¡¯t worked on me, but as far as I knew, that was an exception to the rule.
¡°David and Lord Umber returned to the Mendi,¡± Fladnag said, ¡°defeated even in the hour of their victory. Time went on, and the Mendi became more civilized, as some would put it. They built their own cities, but they were never as numerous as the people of Flossmund or Waldreich, and over many generations, their land grew unrecognizable. Lord Umber became Umberious Rex, the first king of Drom, and he grew old and died, as kings do.¡±
¡°The heroes aren''t immortal?¡± I asked.
¡°Nothing lasts forever,¡± Fladnag said. ¡°David disappeared with the Mendi, and Umberious lived as a man. He took a queen, and his children ruled after him. I must apologize, the stories I usually tell are more engaging. That was more a history lesson than a proper performance. But I thought you would find it interesting.¡±
¡°I thank you for it,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°The Shui doesn¡¯t tell us much about what happened to Lord Umber after he left our people.¡±
¡°It is a strange world we live in,¡± Fladnag said, picking up his pipe, and finding it empty, replacing it on the bench. ¡°And the years hide much.¡±
¡°I¡¯d like to hear more,¡± I said. ¡°But we are about to begin a journey.¡±
¡°A journey,¡± Fladnag said, ¡°now that is interesting. Is your seat not here?¡±
¡°It is,¡± I said. ¡°But Dargoth is under attack in the north, and I need to do something about it. You can resupply in the fortress if you like, I¡¯m happy to give you whatever you need if you want to continue your travels alone. That being said, you are welcome to join us as well. You could share more stories, and I¡¯m sure Leto would like to see you do a few more tricks along the way.¡±
¡°And the illuminators,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°I haven¡¯t seen one in ages.¡±
¡°To the north,¡± Fladnag mused. ¡°I must admit, I have not traveled so far out of my route in decades, and I could not ask for a better guide in Dargoth than the Dark Lord himself. Are you certain you have room for an old fool like me?¡±
¡°Is this wise?¡± Gastard said. ¡°I mean no offense to you or your art, Fladnag, but we are going into danger.¡± He glanced at me, ¡°This seems a rash invitation.¡±
Gastard was less worried for Fladnag¡¯s safety than he was for our own. He didn¡¯t know this man, who was obviously more than he seemed, and bringing an unknown quantity like that along with my family must not have sounded like a good idea on the face of it. But this was an opportunity I couldn¡¯t pass up. I¡¯d wanted to find Fladnag when I first heard about him, but searching around the Free Kingdoms for an itinerant entertainer had never reached the top of my to-do list. Now, however, the man in question was on my doorstep, and he hadn¡¯t come here by chance.
¡°We would be glad to have you,¡± I said.
Fladnag looked from me to my wife and son, and the shadow of an old sadness passed over his face again.
¡°Very well,¡± he said. ¡°How soon shall we be on our way?¡±
I looked at the sky. The sun was hidden by the storm, but you could gauge the progress of the day by following its highlights in the clouds. ¡°Uh, basically, now.¡±
122: My Trip North (Rewrite)
I watched Leto playing with one of my coins, trying to make it disappear behind his fingers the way that Fladnag had shown him. He practiced whenever we stopped, and even some on horseback, though he had lost a few coins that way along the road. Gaap and the other demons were marching hours behind us, leading a host of nightmares into the north. The distance allowed us to pretend this was something closer to a family vacation than a military advance.
We had our horses and supplies separate from the army, as well as Fladnag¡¯s wagon. The harpies kept watch overhead, along with Noivern, whom they had accepted as if he were a natural member of the brood.
¡°You¡¯re getting better,¡± I said.
¡°Mhm,¡± Leto mumbled, rolling the coin over the back of his knuckles. He was as focused on learning the trick as I had ever been on anything.
He¡¯d started the campfire himself, using my flint and steel, and I was constructing a safe house around us as Esmelda readied the evening meal and Gastard questioned Fladnag about the ancient templars. The magician had a wealth of information on nearly every subject. It was as if he had been gathering stories for hundreds of years; which, I assumed, he had.
I wasn¡¯t getting fancy with the safehouse, just a rectangular stone box. I built the walls five blocks high, then topped them with upright logs and a vaulted plank ceiling. With enough torches, we could keep the spawns at bay even if we camped in the open, but I liked building shelters, and no one I was traveling with would have slept well if they could see the monsters or the demon who would come to collect them.
¡°They did not live happy lives,¡± Fladnag said, ¡°or long ones.¡±
¡°They were heroes,¡± Gastard said.
¡°They were,¡± the magician agreed, ¡°but one cannot wrestle with the forces of Bedlam without being tainted by them. There was a time when monsters were common outside of Dargoth, thankfully gone, as the veil of the world has strengthened from the old days.¡±
¡°How did it strengthen,¡± I asked, setting a plank. The crafting force seemed to recognize certain positions as being more agreeable for locking pieces together than others. Getting the angle right for the first plank had been difficult, but after that, all I had to do was slap a coin against the edge I wanted it to align with.
¡°Faith in the gods,¡± Fladnag said. ¡°And monoliths imbued with their will. The taint of Bedlam is destabilizing. The more deeply it roots, the more swiftly it spreads. As the old monsters were slain, it became harder for new ones to slip into the world.¡±
¡°But people like me weaken the veil?¡±
¡°At first, yes. Though it is written that the heroes of old grew strong enough of will and mind to strengthen the veil around them, rather than cause it to thin. Lord Umber and Lady Nadia were not said to have monsters trailing in their wake, at least not in their later days. Certainly, that was true of David. Koroshai would wither and vanish at a look from him. And even in the beginning, Frodo¡¯s brought the world around him closer to harmony.¡±
¡°So there¡¯s a way for me to stop the spawns? What does it mean to be strong enough of will and mind? Do I have to meditate or something? Is there a technique I can learn?¡±
¡°I cannot say,¡± Fladnag sighed, settling closer to the fire. ¡°Some heroes who struggle against the darkness long enough become purifiers, others succumb to the taint, becoming monsters themselves. It was the same for the templars, and it was not as simple as saying that they were good or bad men. All men are flawed. Those who succumbed were not weak, but perhaps they lacked something intangible, or compromised too often.¡±
Esmelda paused while stirring the stew pot. ¡°Compromised?¡± She glanced at me. ¡°They didn¡¯t make deals with demons, did they?¡±
Gastard grunted. It was a fair point. As much as I could argue the practicality of what I was doing, compromise was an excellent way to describe it. My achievements marked me as a purifier, but the last rank I¡¯d gained had included a note about my relationship with the demons. If I kept down this path, I would continue to be a destabilizing force for Plana, even if I didn¡¯t go around destroying monuments.
Fladnag sidestepped the tension. ¡°That isn¡¯t exactly what I meant. Demons existed in those days as well. But the compromise I speak of is more personal. David was pure of heart, without a shadow of darkness within him.¡± His face fell as if he was recounting something painful. ¡°He came into this world as a child. What he saw and experienced, the fighting, the death, one would have thought it would break his heart. But it never did. The longer he lived, the purer he became. He lost himself to anger more than once, but even that was pure. Righteous. He never forgot what was right.¡±
¡°You sound like you knew him,¡± I said, and Fladnag grew quiet. I was sure that he was more than he claimed, but he would either open up to me or he wouldn¡¯t, in his own time. Trying to force it out of him didn¡¯t seem right.
¡°I can understand your compromise,¡± Gastard said to me, ¡°even if I do not agree with it. If you require it of me, I can swear not to take action against those demons who swear to you. But if I am to be a templar in truth, and defend you and your family to the best of my ability, I need more than what I have. The armor you made for your wife and son is enchanted, is it not? Can you do the same for my own?¡±
¡°I can,¡± I said. The phrasing of his request was so perfect that I had to wonder if he had talked it out with Esmelda. Arming him to kill demons would run the risk of triggering my geas with Bojack, but he was our guardian, and Bojack hadn¡¯t specifically ordered me not to arm him, regardless of what he might do with a Shadowbane sword in the future.
¡°Would you prefer I made you new equipment, or enhance what you already have?¡±
¡°I won my armor in a tourney,¡± Gastard said, ¡°and it would not hurt me to replace it. But my sword was my father¡¯s.¡±
¡°I understand,¡± I said. ¡°I can draw up the diagrams to enchant your sword, and I brought more than enough material with me to cook you up some plate mail if you¡¯re interested.¡±
¡°I would be in your debt,¡± he said, lowering his head in a gesture of respect.
¡°No, you wouldn¡¯t,¡± I had to laugh. ¡°And I¡¯m happy to do it. I can get started working tonight. Do you want a full suit or just a breastplate? What about a shield?¡± I¡¯d made him a shield once before, but he never seemed to use it.
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¡°I would be honored to carry whatever you craft.¡±
¡°Full set it is then.¡±
Dinner was quiet, but Fladnag filled the silence with a story.
¡°Three hundred years ago, demons set out from Dargoth to assault the great temple in Eisenhall. The dark lands had been quiet for as long as anyone could remember, and the armies of men were not prepared for the monsters that rose out of the shadows to threaten Drom and its people. The king in those days was a proud man, as kings often are, and he set out to face them with his men at arms. The Dark Lord had not stirred himself since long before, but it was not uncommon for demons or other creatures of Bedlam to strike out on their own. There were still templars in those days, the last of the order.¡±
¡°What about the heroes?¡± Leto asked. ¡°Where were they?¡±
Fladnag sipped his soup before answering. ¡°You mean the four who led the lillits into the Free Kingdoms? Frodo, by all accounts, led a normal life after that adventure. He lived and died as any man would, and left children behind him. This period was well after the events I told you of before. Lady Nadia was already lost, and Lord Umber may have been alive or dead, but he no longer played a role in the kingdom he had founded. As for David, I will come to that.¡±
¡°In the Shui,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°Frodo is spoken of as a lillit like any other. He helped to rally our people and assisted Mizu¡¯s chosen, but he was not one of her heroes himself.¡±
Given his name, it was hard for me to imagine that Frodo had been anything other than another isekai, but that wouldn¡¯t have been as obvious to someone who didn¡¯t know about the Lord of the Rings.
¡°Frodo was far from an ordinary lillit,¡± Fladnag said. ¡°He was the heart of the party of heroes, a natural purifier. The others were subject to the same curse as your William, but as long as Frodo was near, the horrors of Bedlam could not slip into this world around them.¡±
¡°Could he do anything else?¡± Leto asked.
¡°That was enough,¡± Fladnag said firmly. ¡°Now, as to the king, he lost his life in the pursuit of the demons, and he was succeeded by a young son who lacked the experience to defend his kingdom. Eisenhall was breached, and the templars made their last stand before the doors of its temple. The demons commanded the elements, as well as koroshai and koloss and a host of other evils, and it seemed that the strength of men alone would not be enough to oppose them.¡±
¡°Swords and spears and courage,¡± Gastard said. ¡°What else is there?¡±
¡°There was one among them,¡± Fladnag said, ¡°who had something more. Yusef was a templar among templars. His blade was blessed by the goddess, and he carried the marks of a lifetime spent in contest with the shadows. As other warriors fell, he remained, until there were no monsters left but the demons themselves. They feared approaching him, and their magic failed before his blade, but he could not defend the temple alone. They nearly brought it down.¡±
¡°Nearly?¡± Leto said, caught up in the tale.
¡°Nearly.¡± Fladnag scratched at his beard. ¡°The battle lasted through the night, and with the sun came a new beast, one more terrible than all that had come before. The men of Eisenhall despaired as they beheld wings great enough to blot the sun. Claws as long as swords, and a maw that spewed black fire. Even Yusef lost hope, believing the demons had summoned a horror from the deepest pits of Bedlam to finish what they could not.¡±
¡°The Dragon of the End,¡± Esmelda said, her voice soft.
¡°The same.¡±
That was a bit much, I wanted to complain. But who was to blame, Mizu? What were the chances that one of the most powerful monsters they knew of in Plana also happened to be the final boss of Maincraft? The Ender Dragon wasn¡¯t that hard to beat in the game, you could do it barehanded if you were patient, but I doubted this version would share the weakness of exploitable programming.
¡°It appeared that the doom of the city had come with those black wings,¡± Fladnag said, "but it was not so. The dragon turned upon the demons and devoured them, leaving the temple intact. It left the city, and Yusef went in pursuit of it. Whether to offer thanks or to slay it, he did not say.¡±
¡°That doesn¡¯t make sense,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°I had not heard this story, but the Shui speaks of the Dragon of the End as an agent of chaos. It heralds the end of the world, and can only appear when the taint of Bedlam has all but overwhelmed the world.¡±
¡°Why did it help them?¡± Leto asked.
¡°Ah, well,¡± Fladnag said. ¡°That is the mystery. It did not speak for itself, but I do not believe it was the Dragon of the End itself that day, but an imitation.¡±
¡°How does that work?¡± I said.
¡°David.¡± Fladnag looked into the fire. The structure was better ventilated than my original shelters had been, but the smell of its smoke was still strong. ¡°It was his gift to steal the strengths of beasts and monsters, and even take their forms.¡±
¡°But how would he take that shape,¡± I said, ¡°if a dragon like that had never been able to enter Plana before?¡±
¡°The creatures of Bedlam move back and forth between worlds,¡± Fladnag said. ¡°And the Dark Lord was said to have built a portal that allowed him to visit Bedlam, is that not so?¡±
There were two portals like that I knew of. Kevin¡¯s, and the one under the mine in Williamsburg.
¡°Are you saying that Captain Murderface went to Bedlam, fought one of those dragons, and came back to save the day?¡±
¡°Little is recorded of David¡¯s whereabouts after the founding of Drom,¡± Fladnag said, ¡°but I have no reason to believe he was truly gone. Mizu¡¯s chosen have many gifts, and they are said to return to life if they are slain in battle if their spirits are not broken with their flesh. David would not break. I do not pretend to know why he would have hidden himself, but I believe he is with us still, somewhere, in some guise.¡±
I half expected Fladnag to change shape right then and reveal that he¡¯d been Captain Murderface the whole time, but the old man stayed an old man, and he looked tired.
¡°Thank you for the story,¡± I said, setting down my unfinished bowl of soup. The harpies could be heard crying in the sky above the shelter, signaling the appearance of the first phantoms of the night. ¡°I think I should get to work.¡±
I touched Esmelda on the shoulder, and she wished me luck. Outside, Astaroth was already standing beyond the edge of the torchlight, waiting for more monsters to appear. I gave him a wave. The peacock demon might have been the most agreeable of the lot. He¡¯d sworn to serve me without asking anything in return, and he did whatever he was asked without complaint. I could have used more demons like that.
Orichalcum armor would be too heavy for Gastard. He was a strong man, but without the enhancements the System had made to my body, I wouldn¡¯t have been able to walk around in the set I wore.
So Gastard was getting diamond.
I¡¯d never crafted anything out of diamond before. It shouldn¡¯t have worked, but it was true to the game, and the System obliged. Diamond armor had the same defense ratings as orichalcum, but the crafting logs noted that it was less durable and didn¡¯t protect you from Knockback effects. Falling from a great height would be more dangerous for him, but it was almost as good.
Gastard came out to see the result. He stared at my creation for what felt like a long time.
¡°It is¡ostentatious,¡± he said.
The diamonds weren¡¯t perfectly translucent, they had a bluish cast, and countless facets that glittered in the torchlight. If anything, it was more ridiculous than the set I wore, which was at least recognizably made of metal.
¡°I¡¯ll throw on some enchantments,¡± I said. ¡°You won¡¯t regret it.¡±
¡°I am grateful,¡± he cleared his throat. ¡°Truly.¡±
It looked like stained glass, costume pieces that would shatter under the first solid blow. This was the same material that I trusted to keep Kevin confined. Gastard could think whatever he wanted about the aesthetics, but when we went into battle, he would see what it could do.
123: My Roman Candle (Rewrite)
Grimwald, the lands under the control of Duke Valefor, rolled out before us. Like the rest of Dargoth, it suffered from the presence of the storm, with much of the region rendered lifeless and gray. Wild forests of Bedlam Wart multiplied in profusion, haunted by phantoms and zombies.
Human habitations and agriculture existed within pockets of light, areas where the clouds opened to allow the sun¡¯s rays to pass undiluted. The skies were a strange sight, the same roiling clouds and silent flashes of eldritch lightning, but dotted with wide gaps where the storm was held back by vast, invisible barriers.
Within those safe zones, villagers tended to fields of wheat and barley, as they would have in any other kingdom. Kevin¡¯s underground farms were not productive enough to feed all of Dargoth, so the demons here had found another solution. It hadn¡¯t occurred to me that the storm could be managed in this way, and seeing it was encouraging. Maybe there was a way for humanity and Bedlam to coexist.
The edge of Grimwald was marked by a way station and a system of roads linking all the farms with each other and the city. The few soldiers stationed there were expecting our arrival, and as there were still many hours left in the day, we continued past it without stopping.
Zareth had sent our responses to the various demons who had sent us messages, which meant we were either heading into a welcome or an ambush. I hoped that deposing Agares would have given the rest of the dukes something to think about. Demons were immortal, and they could afford to be patient. Bojack had been confident that Valefor would at least meet with me before he decided whether or not he was going to try to kill me.
The wagon pulled much better now that we were on a formal road, and Leto had taken to riding beside Fladnag so he could ask for pointers about sleight-of-hand as we went along. Gastard stayed ahead of the wagon, while Esmelda and I were traveling alongside. She greeted the sight of green fields with evident relief.
¡°I was worried that all of it was as barren as the mountain.¡± She said.
¡°Hey, we¡¯ve got mooshrooms.¡±
¡°An endless supply of fungus is not a comfort. I knew Dargoth was barren, but I had thought the old descriptions were an exaggeration.¡± She shook her head. ¡°When I was younger, I wondered why Kevin gave up his conquest, but now I think that the empire became too large to be managed. Wherever the storm grows, the lands die. There must have been more people here in the past, but the earth cannot support them.¡±
¡°That probably has something to do with it,¡± I said. As overwhelming as monsters spawning every night could be, they didn¡¯t breed. The demons could amass tremendous armies over time, but the rate at which they gathered them didn¡¯t increase. Between Nargul and Mount Doom, I had thousands of mobs at my disposal, but if I lost them in Atlan, it would be a slow recovery. Still, that didn¡¯t explain centuries going by without conflict.
¡°Zareth told me that the skirmishes with Atlan are periodic,¡± I said, ¡°they¡¯ll go to war for a while before backing off, and that there¡¯s something similar that happens with Thalassos. It¡¯s like they know they can¡¯t leave Dargoth alone for too long.¡±
¡°The Free Kingdoms are the exception then,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Their kings have always been happy enough to pretend Dargoth doesn¡¯t exist until it strikes.¡±
¡°Between the mountains and the Wastes, it would be hard to stage a meaningful offensive from that side. But I think there¡¯s more to it than that. Bojack was fed up with Kevin as a Dark Lord, and some of the other demons were as well. He hasn¡¯t been supporting them for a long time.¡±
She raised an eyebrow. ¡°How do you mean?¡±
¡°They want to bring the whole world under the storm, so they can open a door for their god into Plana.¡±
¡°The One Who Knocks,¡± Esmelda said, touching her forehead. ¡°It¡¯s hard to imagine that Kevin had a change of heart, after all he¡¯s done.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t think he did. He was on Mizu¡¯s side a long time ago, when more survivors were running around. He switched sides, but I don¡¯t think he likes them. I¡¯m not saying he¡¯s a good person at heart or anything, but he¡¯s not exactly pro-demon. They used him to get what they wanted, and he used them to get what he wanted, freedom and power and safety, and then he just did whatever he felt like.¡±
¡°Is that why you haven¡¯t tried to kill him? You sympathize?¡±
¡°I can¡¯t kill him, he¡¯ll just come back.¡±
¡°You know what I mean.¡±
I did. Esmelda was well aware of what Kevin had done to me, and why he had done it. Capturing a survivor was a way to get a fresh supply of spawns, as well as grief them until they stopped coming back. Either the System was broken, and I would keep respawning forever, or I had chosen to come back every time I¡¯d died, and I just didn¡¯t remember doing it. Maybe Mizu and I had cooked up a plan together on the other side, though I couldn¡¯t imagine why she wouldn¡¯t have allowed me to know what it was now that I was here.
A few hints would have been nice.
¡°He died in the cage,¡± I said. ¡°Killed himself. When he came back, his skin was different. Now that it''s The One Who Knocks he has a deal with instead of Mizu, I think he can¡¯t give up. It would eat his soul or something. And if he keeps dying, it will make him into a monster. That wouldn¡¯t solve any problems for me.¡±
Esmelda shuddered. ¡°I didn¡¯t know that.¡±
¡°The taint doesn¡¯t get fixed by respawning. It¡¯s why I still have cat eyes. And these horns, I¡¯m stuck with them. I¡¯m just lucky killing Bael didn¡¯t turn me into a frog.¡± At least my nubs had stopped growing. They were pointed now, and almost two inches tall.
¡°Why do you think that is?¡± Esmelda asked. ¡°Bael was stronger than the others. Shouldn¡¯t his corruption have been the most potent?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± I said. ¡°It¡¯s not like there¡¯s a handbook. Everything Fladnag has said about the templars points to there being a cost to killing demons. Unless you''re pure of heart, or whatever, and obviously, I¡¯m not.¡±
¡°Was there anything different about the way you fought him?¡±
¡°I had my armor. But I had this armor when I fought Agares too. I used Kevin¡¯s knife on Beleth, and an atreanum dagger for the other two.¡±
¡°Is that how Agares died, from the atreanum?¡±
¡°No, I beheaded him after I stabbed him.¡±
Was that the difference? Templars wouldn¡¯t have had access to meta-materials unless someone like me gave it to them. Atreanum could only be mined in Bedlam, and the daggers were too fragile to be used more than once in a fight.
¡°I¡¯ve gotten used to your eyes,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°even the horns, I can make peace with. But if you take on many more of their aspects, I¡¯m going to stop asking you to take off your helmet when we are at dinner.¡±
¡°Noted,¡± I said.
¡°Can you make more daggers?¡±
¡°I have to go back to Bedlam for the material. But I can put it on the to-do list.¡±
Valefor¡¯s home was called Gundurgon. It was more castle than city, definitely one of Kevin¡¯s bigger builds. The structure rose before us, a dark titan poised to give a melodramatic performance. Towering ramparts formed the outer curtain, interrupted by fortified bastions at regular intervals. The outposts bristled with spikes and peaks, all riddled with arrow slits. There were statues on either side of the main gate, twenty-foot monsters that looked like an evolved form of a zombie. Humanoid, but with distorted proportions and plenty of tentacles.
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A central keep rose well above the walls, crenelated so that its highest tower looked like it was wearing a crown. Its walls were mostly granite but dotted with red and black stone like the mottled skin of a troll.
The main gate of the city was open, though the sharp teeth of its portcullis were less than inviting. All in all, it was a stronghold that would do any Dark Lord proud.
Fladnag pulled at the reins of his ox, and the wagon came to a halt.
¡°What¡¯s up?¡± I said. Closer to the wagon, I could smell the smoke of his pipe. It reminded me of tobacco, though a little sweeter. Maybe Leto shouldn¡¯t have been sitting so close to him, assuming cancer worked the same way here as it did on Earth.
¡°It occurs to me,¡± Fladnag said, ¡°that the arrival of one¡¯s Lord should be accompanied by a little fanfare.¡±
¡°There¡¯s an army an hour behind us,¡± I said, ¡°they¡¯ll probably figure it out.¡±
The mention of the army made Fladnag frown. ¡°Even so, a display is in order.¡±
¡°Your illuminators?¡± Esmelda pulled up beside me. ¡°Please, I¡¯d love to see them again.¡±
Fladnag scratched his beard. ¡°I might have given you a show sooner, my lady, but the ingredients are in short supply, and I was saving what I have for a special occasion. With your permission, perhaps now is the time.¡±
¡°I want to see them,¡± Leto said, standing up. ¡°Can I light one?¡±
¡°Absolutely not,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°They¡¯re dangerous.¡±
¡°She¡¯s quite right,¡± Fladnag reached under his seat to produce a wooden box. ¡°They are not for the uninitiated. You may watch how it is done.¡±
¡°Go ahead,¡± I said. I¡¯d been meaning to ask Fladnag about his fireworks, but he¡¯d been cagey about the subject of illuminators since we¡¯d been on the road. If he was willing to show them off, it was the perfect opportunity to bring it up.
In the days that we had been traveling together, I¡¯d never seen Fladnag struggle for having only one hand. He carried the box ten paces ahead of the wagon and set it down to crouch over it. From within it, he produced a hardwood cylinder and a fire striker, a piece of steel with a flint attached to it by a string. The fire striker went under his chin as he pressed the cylinder to his chest with his wrist before striking a spark. The fuse caught, and he allowed the firestarter to drop, raising the cylinder above his head as the fuse burned.
¡°Is that wise?¡± Gastard said, drawing up beside us.
¡°It¡¯s alright,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°it¡¯s a Thallasan candle.¡±
¡°It doesn¡¯t look like a candle,¡± Gastard said.
I glanced up. Though the entire flock did not remain with us at all times, harpies were circling overhead, and I wasn¡¯t sure how they would react to what was about to happen.
¡°Hey!¡± I said, pointing, ¡°My birds!¡±
Fladnag grinned. ¡°It¡¯s perfectly safe.¡±
Light exploded from the tip of the cylinder, a white bolt shrieking up into the sky. Leto gasped. It would have been more impressive at night, but with the cloud cover, the firework was still plainly visible as it reached its peak and died out. The harpies were started by the display, but the bolt didn¡¯t quite reach their altitude, and the only response was a few annoyed caws. The first launch was followed by two more, leaving the cylinder smoking but intact at the end of Fladnag¡¯s hand. We clapped.
¡°Do you have any more?¡± Leto asked.
¡°A few,¡± Fladnag said, collecting the box and walking back and patting his ox¡¯s nose. The beast had failed to react to the candle, likely accustomed to being exposed to the magician¡¯s toys. ¡°But I don¡¯t want Gundurgon to think we are declaring war.¡±
¡°What do you use to make those?¡± I asked.
¡°It¡¯s proprietary, I¡¯m afraid.¡±
¡°Charcoal and guano,¡± I said, ¡°right? What am I missing?¡±
¡°Guano?¡± Fladnag furrowed his brow. ¡°I suppose you could do it, but the quantity required might be prohibitive. Tell me, Dark Lord, what would you use them for, were I to give you the secrets of my illuminators?¡±
¡°Explosives,¡± I said. ¡°I really could have used a few grenades the first time I had to deal with an army of monsters.¡±
¡°Ah,¡± Fladnag nodded, ¡°but you are the one with that army now, aren¡¯t you? So if you were to turn one of my candles into a weapon, it would be used against men, would it not?¡±
The air of excitement faded as quickly as the fireworks. Esmelda looked between the two of us. ¡°There will always be more monsters for us to face,¡± she said.
Fladnag sighed. ¡°Fire is a dangerous mistress, difficult to control, and the wounds it leaves are slow to heal. You have not been the first lord to consider using my illuminators as a tool of conquest, and I have refused them all.¡±
¡°Swords and arrows are as deadly as any flame,¡± Gastard said. ¡°I do not see how a candle like that would be of any use in a battle, except as a signal flag.¡±
¡°Then you haven¡¯t begun to use your imagination,¡± Fladnag said, ¡°but our William has. What do you imagine, tossing one of my devices into a line of troops, filling a bottle with nails, perhaps? Undermining a city wall, and watching it crumble, the men atop it flung from the battlements to their deaths?¡±
¡°Can you do that?¡± Leto asked, wide-eyed.
¡°I can already crumble a wall,¡± I said. ¡°And yes, a couple of grenades could stop a cavalry charge in its tracks. Gunpowder is a tremendous advantage, even if we don¡¯t invent guns. I¡¯d be dropping bombs from Noivern¡¯s back if I had them. The faster a battle is won, the fewer people have to die, and if I have the formula for your powder, I think I can stop a lot of battles.¡±
¡°Guns?¡± Esmelda asked.
¡°Like a crossbow,¡± I said, ¡°but with the bolt propelled by a tiny explosion.¡±
She shook her head, her long hair falling over one shoulder. ¡°That sounds less reliable than a good string.¡±
¡°It has a lot of advantages,¡± I said, ¡°but that¡¯s beside the point. I¡¯m not planning on giving guns to all our soldiers. I want explosives to be another tool in my kit. There are monsters in Bedlam that are too big to hurt with a sword or a bow.¡±
¡°If the formula for my illuminators became widely known,¡± Fladnag said. ¡°It would change this world, and not for the better. I do not want to be responsible for battlefields riddled with fire.¡±
¡°I wasn¡¯t planning on sharing,¡± I said. ¡°I would happily swear to keep the formula a secret. Even not to use it against the Orkhans, if that¡¯s what you¡¯re worried about. Demons and monsters and Dark Lords, that¡¯s what I need this for.¡±
Fladnag took a deep breath. ¡°Very well. If that is your promise, step into my office.¡±
The interior of Fladnag¡¯s wagon was not roomy. The sides were lined with boxes and shelves, and the remaining space was taken up by the narrow bed on which we sat side by side. Scraps of parchment were pinned to the ceiling, sketches, most of them depicting Fladnag himself. Either he had a wildly inconsistent style, or they had been penned by multiple artists.
¡°Gifts,¡± he said, following my gaze, ¡°from admirers. I do not keep much with me as I travel, there is hardly room, but I admit to some vanity, and I find that I cannot refuse a rendering when it is offered.¡±
¡°Why don¡¯t you ever settle down,¡± I asked. ¡°It has to be lonely for you, to always be on the road like this.¡±
¡°Here we are,¡± Fladnag said, ignoring my question as he dug out a set of jars from under his bed. He handed them to me one by one.
¡°Powdered charcoal,¡± he said, ¡°simple enough, though I would recommend wearing a mask while you work with it.¡± I set that jar aside as he handed me the next, which looked like it was filled with salt.
¡°Saltpeter,¡± he explained. ¡°It can be found in caves, or produced from manure. I can jot down the process for you if you would like. That would be the use of your guano, though as I said, you will need large quantities to make even this much saltpeter.¡±
¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯ve got a guy.¡± As the Dark Lord of Dargoth, I was certain that I could procure as much bat poop as I wanted. The last jar, sealed with wax, contained yellowish rocks.
¡°Your missing piece,¡± Fladnag said, ¡°sulfur. It must be mined, and there is not always a ready supply. The process of refining these ingredients into a usable powder is somewhat involved,¡± the old man tapped the glass jar in my hands, ¡°and not without risks.¡± I glanced at the sleeve that concealed his missing hand but didn¡¯t say anything. Even if he had blown it off by accident, dying and respawning should have brought his hand back. He must have been choosing not to.
¡°I will teach you the method,¡± he said. ¡°If the Dark Lord doesn''t object to becoming the student of this old wanderer.¡±
¡°Not at all,¡± I said. ¡°But I think we should head into the city first, seeing as how we announced ourselves. If we hang out here, Valefor might get antsy.¡±
¡°As to that, perhaps it would be better to wait for an envoy. This is your first visit to Gundurgon, and you do not know how welcome you may be.¡±
¡°Nope,¡± I said. ¡°It¡¯s a Dark Lord thing. I¡¯m going to walk in there like I own the place, or not at all.¡±
¡°Ah,¡± Fladnag ran his fingers through his beard. ¡°Perhaps I will wait outside then.¡±
124: My Wolf in Wolfs Clothing (Rewrite)
The welcoming party consisted of a demon and a handful of human soldiers. The demon had a long neck covered in soft, tan fur, and the head of a stag. His eyes were deep, brown, and overlarge, and he wore a tabard marked by a sigil I didn¡¯t recognize.
¡°We have been expecting you,¡± he said, his voice smooth and soothing, like someone reading a children¡¯s book aloud. ¡°My name is Furtur, and I serve directly under Valefor, Duke of Grimwald. If you and your party accompany me to the great hall, he will be eager to meet you.¡±
¡°Great,¡± I said. ¡°There¡¯s an army coming behind me, and they need to be stationed and supplied. Can you take care of that?¡±
Furtur waved a hand at one of the soldiers, who bowed and jogged off. ¡°I¡¯m certain we can accommodate them,¡± he said. ¡°If you would be so good as to follow me.¡±
Fladnag had elected to accompany us after all, and he was still driving the wagon. Esmelda and Leto had donned their armor and were riding behind me with Gastard. I imagined I could feel the tension radiating off of the templar as he came face to face with yet another demon, but Furtur hardly spared them a glance as he turned to stride down the main street. Esmelda shivered as we entered the city.
There had been a few snowflakes, though nothing was sticking.
Within the walls, the streets were paved with cobblestones, meticulously laid, and showing signs of regular maintenance. The buildings were constructed from stone and timber, though overall, the city looked less artificial than Nargul or Mount Doom. This region had been settled and built by mortal hands, rather than constructed on the whim of an immortal crafter.
Despite the chill, the streets were crowded. There were so many people that I wondered if they were a part of our welcome, but many of them looked homeless. They were unkempt, with rough clothes and hollow cheeks. Countless eyes watched me with a mixture of fear and awe, but no one called out, and what voices there were quieted as we passed.
¡°Are these refugees?¡± Esmelda asked.
¡°The orkhans have sacked many towns,¡± Furtur said. ¡°We are in the process of sorting them out. The Duke drafts as many as he can, but most of those you see are not worth the price of arming them.¡±
¡°Do they have food?¡± I asked. ¡°Who¡¯s taking care of them?¡±
¡°The seneschal handles them,¡± Furtur said, looking back at me. ¡°What does it matter?¡±
¡°Dargoth is my land,¡± I said. ¡°It¡¯s people are my people. I don¡¯t want them treated badly.¡±
The demon¡¯s face gave nothing away, as inscrutable as any animal. ¡°I will speak to the seneschal of this.¡±
As we ventured further into the city, the crowds thinned, and we crossed into a more normal market. Vendors lined the streets, hawking everything from fruits to weapons, but their calls seemed reserved. There was a sense of urgency in the air; people moved briskly, wrapping their cloaks tighter against the biting wind. Fires were already lit in the hearths of taverns and homes, their smoke mingling with the scent of wet earth and livestock.
Silence stretched out in a cone ahead of us, and lingered behind. People offered salutes and bows, moving to the sides of the street as we came through. Most of these gestures were directed toward Furtur, and I got the sense that the general populace didn¡¯t know who I was. We hadn¡¯t brought a banner to display, and if Kevin had visited Gundurgon in their lifetime, he would have been wearing different armor.
Gastard was on high alert, and his hand never left the hilt of his sword as we rode through the streets. His armor won him a lot of stares. Maybe they thought he was the Dark Lord.
The keep was a brutal-looking structure, all sharp edges and murder holes. A mist rose from the highest tower, barely more than a haze. It poured steadily upward, reminiscent of the cloud above Mount Doom. Was there another cauldron here? The walls weren''t patrolled by human soldiers but a troll strapped with iron plates guarded the entrance, a massive cudgel resting at its feet. It grunted at us with too much recognition in its eyes.
¡°Why don¡¯t your trolls wear armor?¡± Leto asked.
¡°Didn¡¯t feel like they needed it,¡± I said. ¡°Maybe I can throw something together though.¡±
Grooms took our horses, and we proceeded to the central hall with Furtur as our guide. The hall was a mirror of the throne room in Mount Doom, high and dark and decorated with complex geometric patterned tapestries, though the Duke¡¯s seat was less overwrought than the Throne of Shadows. Our footsteps echoed on the stone as we traversed the space, and Valefor awaited us with a cloaked figure at his side at the end of the hall. He wasn¡¯t sitting on the throne, which I took as a good sign. If he had tried to make me feel like a supplicant, we might have had to have words.
Valefor was one of the most inhuman demons I had ever met, apart from Vepar. They all had monstrous heads, but he looked like a werewolf in its hybrid form. He wore a silk vest and leggings, but every exposed part of his body was covered in thick gray fur. His snout was stubby, protruding from a canine face, surmounted on either side by faintly luminous, amber eyes. He came forward to greet me, though the cloaked figure remained behind, and extended a four-fingered hand in greeting. His fingers were long and tipped with claws.
We gripped each other¡¯s forearms for a moment, then stepped apart.
¡°Dark Lord,¡± he said, ¡°it is William, is it not?¡±
¡°That¡¯s right,¡± I said. Zareth hadn¡¯t given my name in any of our responses, so the demon had other sources of information. His gaze took in my family and lingered over Gastard¡¯s armor. Despite his appearance, Valefor¡¯s bearing was regal, and he reminded me of the beast in Beauty and the Beast, though I doubted the silverware here was about to burst out into any musical numbers.
¡°Allow me to extend a formal welcome to Gundurgon for you and yours.¡± His jaws parted in an approximation of a smile, revealing white fangs. ¡°Is this the Dark Lady at your side?¡±
¡°I am,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Thank you for your welcome, Duke.¡± Her tone was cold, it was a struggle for her to be cordial with demons. ¡°Though this is a quiet reception. Are you keeping us a secret?¡±
¡°Not at all,¡± Valefor said. ¡°To be frank, I did not know what sort of reception would be best. If you would like a feast or a parade, that can be arranged. If we are to speak openly, I thought it would be preferable to meet in relative privacy.¡± His voice was smooth, and his manner elegant. If I had looked away, I could have almost forgotten that we were talking to a wolf demon instead of a human noble. ¡°These are unprecedented times.¡±
¡°Who¡¯s that?¡± I asked, nodding toward the cloaked figure standing by the throne.
¡°My seneschal,¡± Valefor said. ¡°There is no secret I would not trust him with, as with Furtur.¡±
The stag nodded at the acknowledgment. ¡°We want to know what you have done with Kevin.¡±
It was a sharp segue, and Valefor spared the other demon a hard glance. Gastard tensed, but Leto was watching them both with interest. He seemed to have lost all fear of demonkind, presumably inured by his exposure to them around Mount Doom. Esmelda frowned and stepped closer to our son.
¡°He¡¯s out of the picture,¡± I said.
¡°Is he truly gone?¡± Furtur persisted. ¡°Or merely bound?¡±
¡°We can talk about Kevin after we have sworn oaths,¡± I said, looking at Valefor. ¡°I¡¯m the Lord of Dargoth now, and as you suggested in your letter, we can¡¯t trust each other fully without a formal agreement.¡±
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¡°As to that,¡± Valefor cast a meaningful glance at my companions. Fladnag was standing quietly at the rear of our group, his face shadowed by an old gray hat. The demon¡¯s gaze focused on him for a moment, and his amber eyes narrowed, then he shook his head. ¡°Perhaps it would be best for you and me to speak alone.¡±
¡°There¡¯s nothing you can say to me that can¡¯t be said in front of them.¡± What did he know about Fladnag? Regardless, I had no intention of being separated and potentially having this turn into a hostage situation because Valefor wanted a better deal out of me.
¡°Very well,¡± the wolf showed his teeth. ¡°I¡¯m afraid I am not quite ready to accept you as the new master of Dargoth. This is not a denial, but I need to be shown that you are worthy of the throne. Kevin was a weak man, and I have no desire to see him reinstated, but a weak ruler is better than a false one.¡±
¡°You want me to prove myself?¡± It didn¡¯t come as a surprise. ¡°How?¡±
¡°There is a pillar in the north, a monument sacred to the blue goddess. Its wards are powerful enough to banish any lesser entity who dares approach it, and sap our magic if we turn our will against it. Break the pillar, and I will swear to your service without condition, as will the demons who are loyal to me.¡±
Esmelda said nothing, but I could feel her disapproval like the heat of the Wastes. ¡°What about the Orkhans?¡± I said. ¡°We¡¯ll have to work together to push them out of Dargoth. We saw the refugees in the streets. The invasion isn¡¯t something that can wait.¡±
Valefor brushed a few stray strands of hair off of his vest. Being a dog was undoubtedly worse for clothing than having a dog. ¡°Atlan is a nuisance. They will tire themselves out eventually, and Grimwald will recover. They are not strong enough to breach the walls of Gundurgon. The skirmishes continue because their horsemen are too swift and too numerous to overwhelm with what we have at our disposal. It would be a waste of resources to hunt them all down when they are already suffering from gradual attrition.¡±
For an immortal demon, the lives lost in the interim would be of no consequence. Neither would the suffering, the starvation, that would inevitably follow from having the farms of the north sacked and burned by invaders.
¡°Even with your magic?¡± I asked. ¡°From what I¡¯ve seen, a handful of demons casting spells from the air would be enough to handicap an army.¡±
¡°They have shamans of their own,¡± Furtur shrugged. ¡°It is a risk for us to expose ourselves.¡±
¡°I intend to face down the Orkhans,¡± I said. ¡°Are you telling me that you won¡¯t join me unless I destroy this monument first?¡±
¡°We oppose them in our manner,¡± Valefor said. ¡°You need not fear the horsemen surging into lower Dargoth. But if you desire me as a vassal, the pillar must fall.¡±
I wanted to threaten to take the city by force, to give Valefor the same treatment as Agares, but I wouldn¡¯t say any of that while my family was with me. They wouldn¡¯t be staying in the city, that was certain. If Valefor wasn¡¯t going to send his forces to support me, I would take what I had and continue north until we ran into the Orkhans.
¡°How many demons are there in this city?¡± Esmelda asked.
Valefor extended a clawed hand toward a row of banners along the wall, each of them painted with a demonic sigil. One of the banners depicted the same sign that was emblazoned over Furtur¡¯s tabard, but the others were all unique. Eight in total. If each of them represented a demon, it was the most I¡¯d ever seen gathered in one place, and as many as I had managed to gather on my side. We¡¯d be doubling our numbers if they all swore to me.
¡°And all of them bow to you?¡±
¡°They heed my advice, that is all.¡±
¡°Where are they?¡± Esmelda asked. ¡°Will you prevent us from speaking to them?¡± What was she getting at? Did she think some of the other demons in Gundurgun would be easier to win over?
¡°You are neither my prisoners nor my enemies,¡± Valefor said, stretching his long fingers. ¡°If you wish to stay a while in my city and meet with the others, I will help you arrange a conference. But I can assure you, we are of one mind on this.¡±
¡°We¡¯ll need to talk it over,¡± I said. ¡°I asked your man,¡± I nodded to Furtur, ¡°to see about finding supplies for my army before we go. Will you do that much for us at least?¡±
¡°If you are aiming north, I am more than happy to provide you with what you need.¡±
¡°Mostly food,¡± I said, ¡°we brought a lot of monsters with us, and I don¡¯t want them to start eating each other on the trip. Also, if you have any, I could use some sulfur.¡±
Valefor raised his lip. ¡°Sulphur? I have no idea.¡±
The cloaked figure beside the throne had remained silent and still throughout the exchange, but now he shifted in place and spoke in a pinched voice. ¡°That can be arranged, if my Duke wishes.¡± He was wearing a mask and gloves, so I couldn¡¯t even tell if he was human.
¡°Excellent,¡± Valefor said, ¡°The sulfur will be provided. What is it for?¡±
¡°It will help me destroy the monument.¡±
Esmelda started to protest, but I squeezed her hand, and she let me off with a harsh glare. Gastard stepped closer to me, ¡°We should take our leave.¡±
¡°We¡¯ll camp outside the city,¡± I said. ¡°Whatever you intend to give us, have it brought out tonight. I expect to be gone by morning.¡±
¡°That can be arranged,¡± Valefor said. ¡°Furtur, why don¡¯t you see them out.¡±
¡°Of course,¡± the stag demon escorted us not only out of the grand hall but back through the city, which put a damper on our conversation. The only one to talk was Fladnag, who seemed to have been saving up his words during the audience with Valefor, and now felt the need to relieve himself of the built-up pressure.
¡°Salenus,¡± he said. ¡°The silver spear, not silver, really, or a spear. A relic of a previous age, from before even the time of Lord Umber and Lady Nadia. An age when Kevin was young¡if he was there at all. Once, there was more shadow in this world than light, and the edges were frayed. If you sailed for long enough, the waves might turn your ship upside down, and you would find yourself in the seas of chaos itself.¡±
We were back on our horses, and Fladnag was once again driving his wagon. Though he was at my back, I knew his next statement was directed at me. ¡°There were crafters, like you, among others. They had a guild of sorts, and when a new hero was born into the world, they worked together to teach him how to master his gifts. They were the ones who pushed back the darkness and built the first monuments that brought stability to Plana. Salenus was one of those. It has stood more years than I could guess, weathered by wind and water, unbending. The Dark Lord tried to destroy it once, and even when there were no heroes left to protect it, he was rebuffed. If the fall of Salenus is your aim, it may be a goal beyond your reach.¡±
I didn¡¯t say anything. I wasn¡¯t planning on blowing up the monument, was I? That was exactly what Bojack would want me to do, and if it won the demons of Gundurgun over, then all the better. As far as I knew, that would make us the largest single faction among the harbingers, and the rest would be sure to fall in line.
Then what? Prepare the world for the coming of the One Who Knocks? That couldn¡¯t be my end game. And if Fladnag was who I thought he was, then it might not have to be. If he was one of the original Survivors, or Lord Umber, then I could trust him to help me contain Kevin. If there were others like him out there hiding themselves, then we might have a chance. No monsters spawned around Fladnag at night, was that because he had cut his hand off? I certainly didn¡¯t want to resort to that for myself, but if we could stop demons from potentially coming into being around Kevin by cutting off his hand, that was a real win. I had to get Fladnag to trust me enough to be open about his past, but I wasn¡¯t sure how to do that yet. Collapsing Salenus wasn¡¯t going to win me any points with him, that was sure.
Gaap had brought our legion of monsters to within spitting range of the city. The monkey-faced demon had found himself a red and gold cape fit for a king, and he waved his arms excitedly when he saw us exit the city.
¡°You will have your supplies before the sun rises,¡± Furtur said, his eyes sliding past me toward Esmelda. I felt my hand clench.
¡°Good,¡± I said. ¡°You can go.¡±
He walked back under the gate, and Gaap came hopping up to us as we rode closer to the army.
¡°How did you fare, my lord?¡± The ape demon asked, grinning.
¡°Not perfect,¡± I said. ¡°Valefor wants us to knock down a monument before he¡¯ll agree to swear to me.¡±
Gaap gave an amused hoot. ¡°The wolf is always hungry. He thinks he¡¯s the leader of the pack. Should we show him otherwise?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t want to attack Gundurgun,¡± I said. ¡°I think we would win, but I¡¯d have to kill half the demons in there, and I¡¯d probably lose all of you in the process. Then we¡¯d still have Atlan to contend with.¡±
¡°Just give the word,¡± Gaap patted the top of his own hairy head. ¡°I¡¯m here to serve.¡± He ambled off, and Leto laughed.
¡°He¡¯s a funny one.¡±
¡°He isn¡¯t funny,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°He pretends to be amiable to make us more comfortable.¡±
Gastard grunted in agreement. ¡°You aren¡¯t truly planning on destroying one of the monuments to the goddess, are you?¡±
¡°Not with my recipe, he isn¡¯t,¡± Fladnag said.
The bare flakes of snow had begun to multiply, and white highlights were appearing amid the high grass in the field outside the city. So many monsters so close together, resulted in an odor equivalent to the miasma of a swamp, but a cold wind blew down from the north, and for a moment, all I could smell was clean air and frost.
¡°I want to meet the Orkhans,¡± I said. ¡°These shamans. We may not have to be enemies.¡± I met Fladnag¡¯s eyes. ¡°With the right allies, I could consider leaving the demons behind me. What I need is another hero. Do you think some of them could still be alive?¡±
The old man looked down at the reins in his hand and said nothing.
125: My Wagons (Rewrite)
Valefor wasn¡¯t stingy with the food. By morning, we had fifty wagons rolling out to meet our supply train: salted meats, dry beans, hardtack, and even some cheese. There was also a tremendous supply of barrels, most of which were water, but at least one wagon was just beer. That was all human food. There were also large numbers of soggy-looking crates filled with disgusting slaughterhouse byproducts for the monsters that made up the bulk of my expeditionary force. I received the delivery in the company of my demons.
Gaap strutted around giving orders to the wagoners, while Malphas and Astaroth kept close to me. The two birds were similarly reserved, though the crow struck me as being arrogant and aloof, whereas Astaroth was almost meek. Odd behavior, considering he was a peacock.
¡°This will last a week,¡± Malphas clicked. ¡°We should be in Atlan by then.¡±
¡°A week?¡± I said, ¡°Is that all?¡±
The crow fluffed the feathers around his head with his hands like he was worried about his appearance. ¡°The trolls are hungry.¡±
Fair enough. I hadn¡¯t paid a lot of attention to the logistics of moving an army around, and it was hard to visualize the supply requirements without seeing them first. Zareth had been taking care of that sort of thing for me, but he was far away now. At least the zombie seneschal seemed to know what he was doing.
Astaroth chirped. ¡°They can go hungry if they must, but it will make them weak. And the enemy is close. Water is the sharper pang. We need better maps of the grasslands. There are no great rivers between Gundurgon and the north.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not as worried about water,¡± I said. ¡°I can refill all these barrels myself if I need to.¡± It would be an annoying process, given the limited output of my thermos, but the supply was infinite.
The wagons were brought in by horses and oxen, but I sent most of them back. There wasn¡¯t enough good grazing land in Dargoth to support that many animals, and monsters could pull them just as well.
Furtur brought me the sulfur himself. Two small crates were tied on either side of a pack mule that looked like it was having a hard time of it. The deer demon acknowledged his counterparts before addressing me.
¡°Lord of Shadows,¡± he said, inclining his head, ¡°I have brought you what you asked for. If you intend to fulfill your bargain with Valefor, a witness must accompany you on your journey into Atlan. I will be the one to follow you.¡±
¡°No.¡± My response caused him to stop short in mid-bow. He looked up sharply.
¡°You are not in a position to refuse.¡±
Malphas clacked his beak, and I felt the air grow hot. A circlet of flame sprang into being above my helmet, momentarily distracting me from Furtur¡¯s haughty reply. I glanced at Astaroth, who nodded at me, the fingers of one of his hands had contorted into a mystic sign. Had he just done that for effect? While I didn¡¯t mind the aesthetic, summoning flames that close to my face was something that needed to be discussed beforehand. Still, it was nice to know that at least one of my demons would take the initiative when it came to backing me up.
¡°I won¡¯t have an unbound demon following me,¡± I said to Furtur. ¡°You can accompany us only if you swear an oath.¡±
The stag straightened. He was already tall, and lithe, and the additional two feet of horns made him seem stretched. ¡°As the Duke said, I will not swear to your service until you have shown that you are worthy of my loyalty. However, I would consider a provisionary oath.¡±
With a mental twitch, I summoned the oathblade from my inventory, extending its white gold edge toward the demon.
¡°Let¡¯s hear your words.¡±
¡°Very well.¡± He extended his hand to touch the tip of the sword, his dark, emotionless gaze locked onto mine. ¡°I swear to neither harm nor threaten you or any of your companions, to accompany you as an observer, and support your efforts as I choose, bound for as long as we travel together.¡±
¡°I refuse your oath.¡± As soon as he had finished speaking, a mote of essence had begun to flow from his fingers up the length of the oath blade, but the mote vanished at my response, failing to reach the glowing crystal at the end of its hilt.
Furtur stood very still. ¡°Why?¡±
¡°Your words were meaningless. A broken oath wouldn¡¯t kill you instantly, and from the way you phrased it, I think the geas would have lost its power the moment you left my company. If you want me to trust you, that isn¡¯t going to cut it.¡±
The flames burned brighter above my head. While I appreciated the effect, it was a bit much.
¡°Perhaps you are a worthy lord,¡± Furtur said, drawing out the words. ¡°Forgive me, it is not in my nature to accept these chains. But I will do so if I must. I will swear a different oath.¡±
I glanced at Malphas, who eyed the newcomer appraisingly. ¡°He may not be actively planning to betray you, my lord, our kind does like to keep our options open, however.¡±
I nodded. ¡°Try again.¡±
Furtur closed his eyes. ¡°I swear upon my deepest essence that I will not betray you, neither in word nor deed nor seek to bring harm to you or your companions. I will serve you to the best of my ability for the period of a month¨C¡±
Malephas¡¯s croak interrupted the statement, and Furtur clarified the statement in the same breath, dropping his head in annoyance.
¡°Which here shall mean thirty days from today. Should I fail in my duty, may the force of this oath pursue me for as long as the blade it is sworn upon remains true.¡±
A fraction of his essence traveled up the edge, coming to rest among the other crimson motes swirling within the crystal. This back and forth made me wonder if I needed to take a closer look at all the oaths the other demons had sworn, given that there was so much room for interpretation in the phrasing. But it would do for now.
¡°I¡¯ll mark my calendar,¡± I said.
***
Four demons and I crowded around a table covered in maps, Furtur had brought up-to-date depictions of Grimwald as well as territories in Atlan. We hadn¡¯t bothered setting up a tent, so we were standing in the open as the wagons moved around us and the laborers did their best to remain unobtrusive in our presence. One of the maps was marked with the locations of previous raids, as well as which towns were still untouched, and where garrisons were stationed to defend them. The orkhans fought on horseback, and they were skilled enough bowmen to fire from the saddle. Whatever bows they used had better range than the crossbows that Dargoth¡¯s soldiers were equipped with, and they made a habit of whittling down any enemy force before closing to finish them off. It still seemed like a strategy that demonic magic, and the right monsters, should have been able to counter.
Zombies would be useless, but Voidmen were fast enough to chase down a horse, and you had to put an awful lot of arrows in a hollow knight before it would even be inconvenienced. Trolls were all but immune to normal ammunition unless you happened to shoot them in the eye.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
¡°So what¡¯s the problem,¡± I said. ¡°How haven¡¯t you been able to stop these guys yet?¡±
¡°Their shamans,¡± Furtur said. ¡°They practice a sorcery which is anathema to our own. The strongest among them can banish the lesser entities, and break our spells.¡±
¡°It is nothing but a failure of will,¡± Malphas said, glaring at Furtur. ¡°Eight harbingers dwell in Gundurgon. If you had gone together, no single power of this realm would have been enough to oppose you.¡±
¡°Perhaps,¡± Valefor allowed, ¡°but if we pursued them out of the cover of the storm, we would be at a disadvantage. The orkhans are happy to retreat if a battle does not turn in their favor.¡±
¡°Four of you and one of me should be more than enough to manage any shamans,¡± I said, ¡°but what else can they do? And where does their power come from? Aside from demons and heroes, I¡¯ve seen anyone using magic in this world.¡±
¡°There are native powers for them to draw upon,¡± Malphas said. ¡°I was not present for the early conquest of Dargoth, but there were once sorcerers here as well. We deemed their existence to be too much of a challenge to our authority, and Kevin agreed. Their schools were destroyed, and their manuscripts burned.¡±
¡°Seems shortsighted,¡± I said, ¡°if the other nations still have magic users.¡± But demons didn¡¯t think that way. They were full of themselves, and they wouldn¡¯t have wanted mere humans wielding powers akin to their own. The Free Kingdoms had laws against the use of magic, so I¡¯d known it was a thing in some sense, but I¡¯d thought of it as a historical side note rather than a potential threat.
¡°Their spells aid them against the shadow,¡± Furtur said, ¡°and support their warriors, giving them surpassing stamina and fervor, but they are capable of little else.¡±
Gaap waved his hairy arm over the maps. ¡°Where are they now? I want to meet these shamans.¡±
¡°They move constantly,¡± Furtur said. ¡°But if we travel to Salenus, they are sure to come to us before we arrive.¡±
Salenus was a dark spot on an otherwise empty territory. Atlan was a land of rolling grass, with hardly any mountains to speak of. It was dotted with lakes, but apparently, the Orkhans didn¡¯t establish permanent cities. They were nomadic, surviving in small bands until those groups were called together for a raid. It didn¡¯t sound like a society that could challenge Dargoth, but the Mongols had taken over China and a lot of other countries in their heyday using the same playbook.
¡°How long will it take us to get there?¡± I asked.
Malphas gestured at the wagons, the people busily tracking the supplies and preparing for their distribution. Our human cohort was relatively small, a few hundred in total, including those who were there as support. Still, I didn¡¯t want to run out of food in the middle of enemy territory.
¡°At the speed of a march, close to ten days.¡± He said.
¡°I thought we only had enough for a week?¡±
¡°With proper rationing, it can be done. Once we face the orkhans, we can slaughter their horses, and take whatever else they have. Our numbers will be reduced as well.¡±
It was a cold calculus, but accurate. I didn¡¯t like the idea of killing a bunch of horses, but it could become necessary. ¡°What happens when they attack,¡± I asked. ¡°Do we have a game plan?¡±
The blue feathers on the back of Astaroth¡¯s head popped up. ¡°We can stop their arrows,¡± he said, glancing at Malphas. ¡°Wind and flame will be enough for that.¡±
¡°The air is mine to command,¡± Gaap said loudly, ¡°I will stop them myself.¡±
I¡¯d forgotten that the baboon had an air affinity as well. He¡¯d never made use of his powers in my presence. That left the stag.
¡°What about you?¡± I asked. ¡°What can you do?¡±
¡°I command the wood,¡± Furtur said simply.
¡°What, like, trees?¡±
¡°Among other things. Though dead matter is the most biddable.¡±
¡°Huh.¡± It was one of the extra elements Orobas had talked about. If he swore a full oath, we would be one step closer to making a new storm cauldron, not that I particularly wanted that project to succeed. ¡°Can you make plants grow faster?¡±
The demon shrugged, impatient with my questions. ¡°I can, though it is costly to do so.¡±
Crops already grew around me at phenomenal speed. I could have fed the army by myself, but only if it was standing still. We couldn¡¯t carry a farm on our backs as we traveled. Would a little demonic magic be able to speed up the process even further? It would have to be a last resort, any food that had been influenced by Furtur¡¯s magic would carry the risk of being tainted by it.
¡°When we come against them,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯ll fly with Noivern and try to take out their shamans myself while you four keep the army organized and defended. Once their spellcasters are dealt with, we can switch to offense.¡±
¡°As you wish,¡± Astaroth said, reverently, and the rest agreed. The peacock seemed to have gone all in on accepting me as a leader in a way the others could only imitate.
¡°Alright then,¡± I said. ¡°You all keep the monsters in line. Let¡¯s get moving.¡±
From here on out, Gaap and the forces of Bedlam would be taking the front, while my family and I remained back with the supply train. When the Orkhans started hitting us, we needed our worst foot forward, and I could try to make sure our resources weren¡¯t stolen from us in a midnight raid.
My human companions weren¡¯t far off. They had gathered around Fladnag¡¯s wagon, and they were in conversation with a massive harpy. Celaeno crowed in greeting as I approached.
¡°What¡¯s up?¡± I asked.
¡°She was waiting to speak with you,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°and we were sharing some of the dried meat.¡±
¡®It is not as satisfying as fresh,¡± Celaeno said, regarding me with a violet gaze. Her feathers were so black that she looked like a missing piece in the puzzle of the world.
¡°Too much salt for you?¡±
She ruffed her feathers. ¡°Too dead. Too clean. The flesh of Bedlam is what we covet.¡±
The harpies were the only creatures I knew of other than myself who could eat food tainted by Bedlam and not be the worse for it. They had adapted to the diet, and it was the reason they were more than just big birds.
¡°Have you seen something?¡± I said.
¡°The future is as dense as these skies,¡± Celaeno said. ¡°But there is something ahead of us, something looming, and it fills me with fear.¡±
¡°You mean other than the Orkhans.¡± I stopped to pat Leto¡¯s shoulder, and he glanced up at me to frown. Whether or not he was interested in my affection seemed to vary day by day.
Gastard was sitting on the bench of the wagon beside Fladnag, running a whetstone along the edge of his blade. Fladnag was puffing drowsily on his pipe. The smoke smelled bitter, with a skunky undertone. Whatever herbs he was breathing in had him in a good mood.
¡°Perhaps she means Salenus,¡± he said, ¡°or the choice that stands behind it.¡±
¡°He won¡¯t destroy it,¡± Esmelda said.
Gastard grunted. ¡°Then what are we going there for?¡±
¡°We¡¯re here to deal with the Orkhans,¡± I said. ¡°That doesn¡¯t necessarily involve smashing any monuments to the goddess.¡±
Esmelda¡¯s eyes narrowed. ¡°Are you saying it might?¡±
¡°That depends on what we find in the north,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m hoping this adventure can lead to allies instead of enemies. That reminds me, what language do the orkhans speak?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°I didn¡¯t know anything about Atlan until we came here. The Shui mentions other peoples beyond Dargoth, but the references are vague. I grew up thinking the Dark Lord had stretched his shadow over the whole world outside of the Free Kingdoms.¡±
¡°Their leaders will have some Kevinian,¡± Fladnag said, ¡°but their language is called Ongol.¡±
We all looked at him, and he took a long puff before blowing out a few smoke rings, apparently content to leave it at that.
¡°I thought you hadn¡¯t traveled this far before,¡± I said. ¡°Can you speak it?¡±
¡°I can,¡± he said. ¡°I may have a book scribed in that tongue tucked away somewhere as well, if you are interested in seeing it.¡±
Did he know I could harvest a language like I harvested trees? ¡°That would be a great help,¡± I said, ¡°and if there¡¯s any negotiation to be done, I¡¯ll take you along.¡±
¡°Certainly.¡± The old man lowered his head. A moment later, his breathing deepened as if he had fallen asleep. His pipe slipped down to his side, and Gastard patted out its contents before producing an oilcloth to polish his blade.
¡°We should get moving,¡± I said. ¡°We¡¯ve got a long journey ahead of us.¡±
Esmelda glanced at Fladnag. ¡°Who¡¯s going to drive the wagon?¡±
Leto jumped to his feet. ¡°I will!¡±
The old man stirred but didn¡¯t object.
126: My TNT (Rewrite)
I set up a worktable at a safe distance from the rest of the supply train just after sunrise. Astaroth was taking the night¡¯s spawns up front to join the main force, while my family was still sleeping in our shelter. Fladnag, who only slept in short spurts, had come out with me to observe.
Charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur combined to make gunpowder. The result was anti-climatic, a coin with a gritty texture. Looking Fladnag in the eyes, I activated my System screens to check my notifications and see how he would react.
|
[Gunpowder]
A delight for all ages. Not a spice. Great for parties, funerals, and weddings.
Warning: Powder is volatile. Handle with care.
|
Fladnag appeared completely uninterested in the floating blue screen from which I was reading, which would have been very suspicious if I wasn¡¯t already sure this guy was a hero. He¡¯d given me guidelines to figure out the relative amounts of the ingredients I should use based on how he would have mixed them himself.
With the sulfur Furtur had provided and the ingredients Fladnag carried in his wagon, I could produce enough Gunpowder to demolish a castle.
¡°Monsters and structures,¡± he said. ¡°As we agreed.¡±
¡°I know, you don¡¯t want me to bomb people. I¡¯ll keep my word.¡±
I¡¯d wracked my brain trying to remember what the recipe for TNT was in Maincraft, and I was pretty sure it was just gunpowder and sand, which sounded ridiculous, but I went with it.
|
[TNT]
Not a toy. You''ve just assembled a block of sheer destructive power, ready to reshape landscapes or make a grand entrance (or exit) wherever you dang well please. Whether it''s for mining those hard-to-reach ores, setting a trap for unwelcome mobs, or just enjoying the art of Feng Shui, TNT is here to help. Just, you know, don''t use it near anything you''re fond of. Like your house. Or people.
|
The TNT looked like what it was, a solid block of red cylinders, dynamite, complete with a woven fuse at the top and a skull and crossbones image painted onto its side. For a demolition project, it was perfect, but it didn¡¯t seem like an efficient device to use in combat. I sorted through my supplies and tried a few different combinations with bottles, powder, and other materials to see if the System would give me a grenade, but it was a no-go. Fireworks, however, were just paper and black powder.
They were about the size of a torch; compact, and easily held in one hand. The casing was reddish brown and felt like cardboard. It came with a conical cap, and a fuse hanging from the bottom.
Fladnag scoffed at the sight. ¡°Hardly a superior specimen,¡± he said. I took the firework away from the worktable and used my flint to spark the fuse.
It wasn¡¯t a genius move, but as usual, I was in my full regalia, and it would have taken a much bigger explosive than this one to worry me. The fuse burned through in a few seconds, and sparks erupted from the bottom of the device. I could feel the tug of the propellant force, and I let it go so that it shot straight up into the sky. With the sun having risen, there were no phantoms to hunt, and the harpies were resting for the morning.
The explosion wasn¡¯t particularly pretty. Yellow sparks, and a ball of flame. It was more like a weak rocket than one of Fladnag¡¯s entertaining illuminators.
¡°Are you satisfied?¡± The old man asked. His face was grim, as if he was already imagining the ways I would misuse his secret formula.
¡°For now,¡± I said. The camp was already preparing to move, and the followers who had been busying themselves with morning chores had paused to look up at the display. I checked in with Gaap to make sure of our course for the day and had breakfast with Esmelda and Leto. Then the journey resumed.
On our march, we passed by more farming towns flourishing in the gaps of the storm. Close to Gundurgon, they still looked to be in good shape, but as we proceeded, the signs of the raids became clear. Burned buildings, stripped fields, and crows. We were following the road, which helped us keep a reasonable pace, but stretched out our supply train to an extent that it created an obvious vulnerability.
Before the end of our second day out of the city, Celaeno brought a warning. I was riding with Esmelda and Leto, who were, as I insisted, wearing their armor. Fladnag was driving his wagon, and he looked up as the massive black bird alighted atop its covered roof.
¡°That isn¡¯t a perch,¡± he grumbled, and the harpy cawed in response, remaining where she was.
¡°My sisters have seen outriders,¡± she said.
¡°How far?¡± I asked.
¡°They came within a few miles, aware of us.¡± She raised one wing and preened herself. ¡°Shall we hunt?¡±
¡°No. The riders are all bowmen. I don¡¯t want you endangering yourselves. Did you see an army?¡±
Her violet eyes flickered. ¡°Farther north. Moving east.¡±
¡°What¡¯s the size of the force?¡±
¡°My sisters did not fly close enough to say. But they are hundreds, not thousands.¡±
¡°Thank you. Keep me updated if they come any closer.¡±
Celaeno spread her wings and rose into the air while Fladnag grumbled about the rudeness of birds. Esmelda¡¯s grip tightened on the reins in her hands.
¡°What are you going to do?¡± She asked.
¡°We keep going,¡± I said. ¡°We can¡¯t chase them, but I assume they¡¯ll come to us before long.¡±
¡°You aren¡¯t planning on flying there yourself, are you?¡± She looked worried.
¡°No. I don¡¯t want to take on an army by myself if I can avoid it.¡±
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Esmelda visibly relaxed, but Leto perked up at the comment. ¡°You could though, right?¡±
¡°Probably, but the shamans are still an unknown. They might not be able to hurt me, but if they have spells that work against monsters, they could kill Noivern, and I would be stuck on the ground.¡± My previous experience fighting on the battlefield outside Mount Doom had not been pleasant, and I was not eager to relive that kind of slaughter.
Gastard had been keeping an eye on the supply train further back. His horse''s hooves signaled his approach as he galloped up shortly after Celaeno took off.
¡°What news?¡± He asked, pulling back to a trot as he came beside me.
¡°The harpies have spotted one of the orkhan groups,¡± I said.
He nodded. Gastard wasn¡¯t wearing his helmet, so I could see the determination on his face. The rest of his armor shimmered even in the dim light that penetrated the clouds. ¡°I¡¯ll get the wagons into formation. Have you informed the demons?¡±
¡°I will.¡± Gastard rode off, all business, and I sent word up to the monster regiment that we needed to be prepared for an attack. As most of the wagons were being pulled by a mix of trolls, varghests, and zombies, the supply train wasn¡¯t exactly defenseless. But we needed a demon with us to direct them if they were going to be of any use in a battle. Regardless, the Orkhan strategy was to not close for a melee unless they had worn the enemy down with arrows first.
The column slowed to a crawl as the supply line became a circle with Fladnag¡¯s wagon at the center. In the case of an attack, Leto and Esmelda would be sheltering with him, and the Orkhans would have to cut through the rest of the group before they got anywhere close to my family.
Though we weren¡¯t under immediate threat, the change in formation made everyone tense, from the soldiers and laborers to Esmelda. Only Leto seemed unaware of the change in atmosphere.
¡°Will you use the illuminators?¡± He asked. ¡°I could light one.¡±
¡°No,¡± I said, as his mother shot me a look, ¡°the rockets aren¡¯t for fighting, and you won¡¯t be involved anyway. You¡¯ll be in the wagon.¡± Fladnag had reluctantly allowed me to add a layer of planks to his roof so stray arrows wouldn¡¯t punch through. With a battle on the horizon, I would have preferred having them back at Mount Doom, but they were potentially in danger anywhere, from demons if not from the Atlanians. At least here, they were close enough for me to do something about it if they were in trouble.
¡°Which demon will be with us?¡± Esmelda asked.
¡°I was thinking Malphas. He can deflect missiles, and if it comes down to it, fly you all away from here.¡±
She shook her head. ¡°I don¡¯t like the way he looks at us. He brought an army to our doorstep, and oathbound or not, I don¡¯t trust him. I would rather you gave us Astaroth.¡±
I was surprised to hear she had a preference. I¡¯d gotten the impression that she thought of demons as all being equally bad.
¡°Fire isn¡¯t a very good element for defense,¡± I said.
¡°I don¡¯t think arrows are going to be our biggest worry. If the riders get this far, then he can meet them with his flame. Besides,¡± she paused, searching for words, ¡°there is something about him that I find¡less objectionable than the others.¡±
He was certainly the most polite and subservient of the demons that were sworn to me. ¡°I¡¯ll give him the assignment then,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m just glad you¡¯re willing to keep one around while I¡¯m in the front lines.¡±
Esmelda looked away. ¡°Practicality has to come before my personal feelings.¡±
As orders went back and forth, the monster regiment drew closer to the supply group. Astaroth joined us to walk meekly behind Fladnag¡¯s wagon, his head bowed and his hands clasped like an itinerant monk. It wasn¡¯t usually clear which demons were in control of which monsters, as they could command them mentally as well as verbally. But when Astaroth was with us, the zombies quieted, and the varghests looked almost friendly. Not that any of the soldiers would have tried petting their shaggy heads.
I fell back to speak with the demon. ¡°How fine is the control you have over the lesser entities?¡± I asked. ¡°I know you can give them general orders to not attack humans, pull the wagons, and so whatever. But what do they really understand?¡±
Astaroth clucked, his bright orange eyes flickering up at me before returning to the ground ahead of his feet. ¡°Every entity is different. The koroshai hardly have thoughts of their own, unless they consume enough man flesh to take on a new face. They are as much plant as animal, and will follow any command I give them to the limit of their understanding, which is not great.¡±
¡°Can they recognize friends from enemies? When we use them to fight, will we risk having them attack our people?¡±
¡°When I speak to them, it is not with words. Your people have a certain scent, though scent is not quite the right word. I have commanded them to ignore anyone who smells as if they belong to you. If one of your men were to attack the koroshai, they would not defend themselves, reacting instead as if they had stumbled across a sharp stone.¡±
¡°If scent isn¡¯t the right word, what is? How do they tell people apart?¡±
¡°Most koroshai are blind, or nearly so. Their natural senses are dull, but they are spiritually aware. Human essence, demonic essence, they can differentiate between as easily as you would ice and flame. Bonds of loyalty and devotion make a subtle change in the scent of a soul. To them, there is nothing more obvious.¡±
That was kind of incredible. I¡¯d always assumed the zombies were zombies, with nothing deeper going on. ¡°Are you telling me that a shambler could tell me if someone was loyal to me or not by their scent? Can all the monsters do that?¡±
¡°Most can. Have you ever wondered why the entities always draw closer to you, even when you are concealed?¡±
Presence. Monsters had a sense for it, and I had one too.
¡°What about you?¡± I said. ¡° And the other demons? How sensitive are you? Can you tell me if Furtur is planning to betray his oath?¡±
Astaroth let out a low, musical trill. ¡°Yes and no. We have a sharper understanding of essence than the lesser entities do. But demons can disguise their hearts. We are capable of deceit even in the shape of our souls.¡±
¡°Is it difficult for you to command them individually, rather than in groups? Like, can you tell one group to attack, but a few to hold back, and a few to head in a different direction, all at the same time?¡±
Astaraoth regarded me shrewdly, as if decidedly how much he should share. ¡°It requires great focus to keep active control. Generally, we give broad instructions to the lesser entities under our command, and let them seek those ends in their way.¡±
¡°But you can if you need to?¡± I didn¡¯t have a specific plan for how to use this information, but it certainly seemed like the sort of thing that was good to know.
¡°Yes.¡±
¡°Can you see through their eyes? Feel what they feel, that sort of thing?¡±
¡°Some demons can, and then, only with the entities they have developed a bond with. It would require much time and effort for me to do so. My connection to these entities is not strong enough yet.¡±
¡°Wow,¡± I said. ¡°I appreciate your openness.¡±
Astaroth shrugged. ¡°I have sworn to you. I am yours to command.¡±
¡°I¡¯m trusting you with my family¡¯s safety,¡± I said. ¡°When the fighting starts, keeping them from harm is your only priority. Not me. Not the enemy.¡±
¡°I understand,¡± Astaroth said, ¡°and I am honored by your trust.¡±
If I didn¡¯t look at him, it was almost possible to forget that I was talking to a demon. There was a limit to my trust, but if I couldn¡¯t count on Astaroth to follow my orders in this, I couldn¡¯t count on him for anything. There would always be a calculus to be done regarding whether or not a demon would be motivated to betray me. The oaths made that betrayal inconvenient, rather than impossible, and I couldn¡¯t afford to forget it. But as long as they believed our interests were aligned, I could be relatively sure they would do as I said. Even if they had been human, it wasn¡¯t as if I could ever be completely sure they wouldn¡¯t betray me. Not everyone was as loyal as Gastard. Almost no one was.
By nightfall, we had neither been attacked nor reached the edge of Grimwald, but the storm was visibly thinner here than it had been around Gundurgon. As we camped, I gave an order for a trench to be dug around the supply group. The soldiers helped, as did the trolls, but with an orichalcum shovel, I could move dirt faster than an army and ended up doing most of the work myself. A midnight cavalry charge was unlikely, but it made me feel better to be doing something, and I was collecting the dirt as I went. You never knew when you might need to throw up a bulwark on short notice.
It was toward the middle of the following day when Celaeno dropped in again, digging her talons into the roof of Fladnag¡¯s wagon, ignoring his complaints.
¡°What¡¯s up,¡± I said. ¡°More outriders?¡±
¡°No,¡± the harpy said. ¡°They are coming.¡±
127: My Light Issues (Rewrite)
It was good to be flying again. Noivern emitted a joyous shriek as we took to the air accompanied by a flight of harpies. I hadn¡¯t ridden him since coming to the north, and the wyvern must have felt neglected.
Furtur had been unable to provide me with much in the way of specific intelligence about our enemy. The demon didn¡¯t know the names of the Orkhans and seemed to think of them as being interchangeable. We knew that there were three main groups causing trouble in Grimwald, each with its tribal leader, but I was ignorant of the relationships between those leaders. They acted independently, but were they rivals, or did they recognize one of their number as being a chief among chiefs? How would the others react if I captured one of them?
The Atlan force had split into two segments, angling to surround my army in a pincer. Both groups were made up entirely of cavalry, though they looked nothing like the heavily armored knights of the Free Kingdoms. Their mounts were squat and shaggy, and the riders were lightly armored, if at all. They didn¡¯t burden themselves with long lances, but every one of them carried a bow and quiver on their backs.
I was on the lookout for flags or identifying uniforms, but whatever hierarchy they followed was subtler than that. At least from a distance, it was impossible to tell who the leader was, or the shamans. The ground was mostly flat, with a few hills, but nothing they couldn¡¯t ride over. What vegetation there was had been stunted by the influence of the storm. Dry scrubs, patchy, brownish grass, and scattered stands of mushrooms.
All I could hear was the wind rushing by my helm and the powerful downstrokes of Noivern¡¯s wings. The people of Atlan were adept at mounted archery, but I wasn¡¯t bad myself. I¡¯d promised Fladnag not to drop any bombs, but I had other tools at my disposal.
Using my knees to guide Noivern, we banked so that I was nearly sideways in the harness, holding my gauntlet out over the front line of their company. Accessing the Storage Ring had become second nature, the phantom digit that I used to select inventory boxes felt like it was a part of me. The utility of coins and medallions allowed me to keep a virtually unlimited quantity of resources on my person, but accessing them was awkward. Coins had to be converted back into their original form, and without a solid surface to bounce them on, I could still do that by slapping them into my palm, but the Storage Ring was a convenience on an entirely different level.
I selected a stack of granite in my inventory and proceeded to drop stones. This wasn¡¯t a targeted attack, actually hitting a moving unit while hurtling through the air would have required ridiculous timing and precision. But I was dealing with a mass of men here, and even if the initial bombardment didn¡¯t hit anyone directly, it could cause major problems for the whole group.
As we flew over, I released a series of granite blocks in quick succession, and they dropped like what they were, rocks. A cubic foot of stone falling from hundreds of feet in the air is nothing to joke about. I didn¡¯t hear the impacts, but the wind carried the screams of horses and men as they landed. The caws of the harpies sounded like laughter. As we curved back around, the effectiveness of the maneuver was evident.
Horses and men had been crushed under blocks, and parts of the column were forced to come to a chaotic halt to prevent a pile-up, while others swerved around the fallen riders. Baal and Furtur remained with the monster regiment, but Malphas was with me. I saw him dart through the air to one side, rising nearly into the clouds to cast a spell. I made another strafing run, which was less effective than the first now that the column had broken up, before pulling Noivern around to get us and the harpies out of the way of what was coming.
Malphas raised his arms and called out an incantation in the rough tongue of demons. His sleek, black feathers shone with eldritch light, as his fingers moved through an intricate series of arcane gestures. The horsemen wheeled below, disorganized by my assault, but not in chaos. They seemed to work in teams, groups of eight or ten that stayed close together, moving in tandem, even as the column spread out. Arrows launched up into the sky, unable to reach us, scattered by the building winds.
The storm responded to his will, twisting into a spiral that increased in speed and ferocity with every passing second. The vortex tightened and stretched, becoming a thin tornado, a finger of the heavens reaching for the army below. The roar of the winds was deafening, and the harpies retreated further to prevent themselves from being torn out of the sky by its relentless force. Noivern banked hard, pulling his wings in tight to maintain control of our flight as we circled the enemy.
Three separate beams of light sprang up from among the horsemen. Two lanced into the burgeoning tornado, cutting through it like blades severing a reed. The third was directed at Malphas, and I heard the demon¡¯s agonized screech even over the roar of the winds. The spell broke, the winds he had summoned dispersing in an instant as Malphas retreated to the cover of the clouds.
The shamans had revealed themselves. Visually, the effect reminded me of nothing so much as Gandalf banishing the Nazgul outside of Minis Tirith in the last Lord of the Rings film. They weren¡¯t pointing staffs, but each of them held up a fist-sized crystal that continued to glow after the beams of light died.
My legs tightened around Noivern, and we angled for a dive as I summoned my bow from my inventory. I felt the tension of the string in my hand as an arrow materialized. The distance and the dive made it a difficult shot, but I targeted the nearest shaman and loosed. He was still focused on the area of the sky where Malphas had disappeared, and the missile struck him in the back. Knockback threw him from his horse and he bounced off a nearby rider before landing hard in the dirt.
¡°Snatch him!¡± I shouted over the wind, and Noivern accelerated our dive. Arrows whizzed by us, but the horsemen had not been prepared for this. One shattered against my armor, and another lodged itself in Noivern¡¯s torso, but the riders scattered before us as we swooped in to collect the unhorsed shaman. Noivern seized as easily as a hawk catching a rabbit in the grass, and his wings beat hard to take us up out of the dive.
I guided Noivern away from the reeling group as harpies swarmed, adding to the chaos. This was touch and go, our goal wasn¡¯t to break the army but to take a captive and get out as quickly as possible. The surrounding horsemen were recovering quickly, and we were met with coordinated
volleys of arrows almost as soon as we began to lift off again.
A barrier of wind sprang up around Noivern and me, deflecting the incoming missiles. Malphas had reappeared, looking ruffled, but otherwise unharmed, and we continued to make our escape. The shaman in my wyvern¡¯s grasp was either unconscious or playing dead. He hung limply as we gained altitude and I turned in my harness to get a look at what we had left behind us.
The column was still moving, now spread in a wider formation, and I spotted one of the other shamans as he raised the luminous crystal in his hand again. His spell cut instantly through the space between us, and a column of blazing white light engulfed us. Noivern shrieked as his leathery skin sizzled, and his wingbeats faltered.
The enchantments in my armor allowed me to walk through flames unharmed, but this was something different. I felt my skin prickle painfully, and my vision blurred. A wave of weakness passed through my body, and we dropped below the beam.
The beam followed us, but the harpies rushed in as a living shield, their wide wings absorbing most of the light. Their cries were angry, but not pained. As we continued to gain distance, the beam faded, and Noivern¡¯s efforts surged. We had come within a few yards of crashing into the earth, but he brought us up again, and we left the army behind.
What had just happened? The shamans had spells to banish the creatures of Bedlam and dispel the magic of demons, but the effect had extended to me. More than the budding horns, or my cat¡¯s eyes, this was a sign of how deeply the taint of Bedlam had seeped into my body and soul. A spell meant to destroy monsters had caused me pain.
The enemy was chasing us, but their horses were no match for Noivern¡¯s wings, even as burdened as he was. I guided the wyvern toward the back of the monster regiment, and we dropped the shaman before landing. Gaap had brought our army to a halt, and the monsters were spread out in a crescent to provide defense for the supply group. We came down between the wagons and a line of mounted hollows.
The shaman had a rough landing, rolling through the dirt, and coming to rest with his limbs flung out like a rag doll. He struggled to sit up as I dismounted. Noivern was wounded, with an arrow in his side, and his skin blistered from the touch of the enchanted light. His mouth was wide and panting, but he didn¡¯t look in immediate danger of death, so I patted him and went to deal with the captive.
It was a woman. Her head was shaved, her shoulders and arms distinctly muscular, but now that I got a good look, she was unmistakably female. The leather jerkin she wore was burned with symbols of the sun and moon. As she struggled to sit up, I saw that her dark irises were outlined with shining silver.
¡°We need to talk.¡± I took a knee beside her. Fladnag had lent me a book written in the tongue of Atlan, and he hadn¡¯t asked for it back. There was no doubt in my mind that he had known I would absorb it to learn their language.
She spat on my visor, her face contorted with anger and pain. ¡°Demon slut,¡± she said. ¡°Fallen one. There are no words between us.¡±
Slut? That was a little harsh. ¡°We don¡¯t have to fight. I want to speak with your leaders. Help me do that, and your people won¡¯t have to die.¡±
Her crystal was gone, lost in the flight or in her fall, but pale light gathered in her hand, and she slapped my chest. The essence dispersed harmlessly against my cuirass, and the defiance went with it. There was blood on her face, and one of her legs twisted at an odd angle. The spell, or whatever it had been, seemed to have taken the last of her strength, and she allowed herself to lie back on the ground.
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¡°Kill me,¡± she murmured. ¡°I will not betray my people.¡±
¡°That¡¯s not what this is about,¡± I said, digging through my pack for a healing potion. ¡°Here, drink this, it¡¯ll fix you.¡±
Her eyes narrowed into slits. ¡°Save your poison,¡± she said. ¡°I will take nothing from you.¡±
I waved to a soldier who was watching us from the wagons. He saluted in return, his back stiff.
¡°Tie her up,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯ve got a lot to do.¡±
I hadn¡¯t expected her to sign on immediately, but it had been worth a try. Noivern snapped at me when I pulled the arrow out of his side, so I grabbed him by the neck and poured the potion into his gaping maw. He swallowed, and the damage to his skin was instantly repaired.
¡°Feel better?¡± I asked, and the wyvern trilled. Malphas floated down beside us a moment later.
¡°They are approaching both our flanks,¡± he said. His eyes were bloodshot, and his feathers and robes looked like he¡¯d been the one caught in a tornado. ¡°How do you wish to proceed?¡±
¡°You feeling okay?¡± I asked. ¡°What did that light do to you?¡±
¡°I survived,¡± he said, then ground his beak. ¡°It was stronger than I expected.¡±
¡°Great. You and Gaap focus on protecting our people. I¡¯ll keep harrying them from the air, and try to take out the shamans if I can. If they try to close with us, Gaap will send out the hollows and the trolls, but if not, I think they¡¯ll wear down before we do.¡±
I spotted Furtur walking around the rear of the supply group. As he went, a short wall of brambles and vines rose from the ground behind him. The plants weren¡¯t pretty, ashen, and dead-looking, but the hedge would be enough to discourage a cavalry charge from that direction. At least he was making himself useful.
Celaeno alighted on a nearby wagon, looking no worse for wear, though she had accompanied me on the assault along with the rest of the flock.
¡°Their archers are keen,¡± she said. ¡°I lost sisters on this flight.¡±
¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m going back out, but there¡¯s not much you can do for me. You should take the gang away from here, and keep out of the fight.¡±
She gave an irritable cluck. ¡°We protected you from the burning light. Without us, you would have fallen. We can be your shield again.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not going to ask you to do that,¡± I said. ¡°The way they¡¯re shooting, it¡¯s too costly to have you with me.¡±
¡°We will follow,¡± she said, ¡°but remain above. It is our choice.¡±
¡°Thank you,¡± I said, and the massive bird bobbed her head.
Noivern and I took off again as our army was being surrounded, the rugged landscape falling away from us. The horsemen were still several hundred yards away when they started firing. The range was impressive, but our human soldiers and laborers were sheltering as best they could with the wagons and under shields, and the monsters wouldn¡¯t care much whether they got shot or not.
As the enemy had split itself into two groups, I opted to focus on the fresher column. They were more likely to be aggressive, but if we kept them back long enough to turn this into a battle of attrition, the advantage would be ours. The demons could deal with the volleys, they were playing defense to avoid the shamans anyway.
The riders never stopped moving, stretching their column into a line that traveled back and forth along our flanks, unleashing an endless rain of arrows. With Malphas and Gaap working together, it was as if our entire force had become the center of a dust devil, and most of the missiles were turned up or to the side, spinning in the wrong direction and losing their momentum.
The shamans didn¡¯t raise their gems until they were about to use them. But they were easy to spot when they did. Apart from the glow, I felt my eyes being drawn to them as they gathered essence, they seemed to become more real than the people and animals around them, even the ground itself. The white light made them brilliant, and yet everything else it touched became dull in comparison.
I had the eyes of a demon, and even from hundreds of feet in the air, my targets could not have been more clear to me. The bow creaked in my hand as Noivern dipped to one side, allowing me a shot clear of his wings. A beam of otherworldly light knifed through the air, slicing the windstorm, and opening a section of clear air. My aim was off, and my first arrow struck the shaman¡¯s horse. The force of the Knockback effect broke the poor animal¡¯s ribs, and it collapsed with the shaman still trying to ride. The beam cut up, then vanished as its caster rolled onto the ground, losing his concentration. Other horsemen veered out of the way, giving me an opening to fire again.
The shaman rose, setting his sights on me, and gathering new essence in his gem before being struck by my next arrow. It hit his shoulder and sent him spinning away, the gem flying from his hand. Flaming arrows would have been more efficient, but I wanted to disable the shamans if I could, rather than kill them. They had magic specifically geared toward defeating the forces of Bedlam. It was certainly inconvenient, given that I was currently working hand in hand with demons, but their existence was proof that another way existed. A path forward free from the taint of Bedlam, magic I could use to fight the shadow instead of making compromises with it.
Many of the horsemen were targeting me, and incredibly, their arrows could reach us even at this height. Most of their momentum was spent on the way up, but the missiles were coming in rapid succession, and one punched through Noivern¡¯s left wing.
¡°Up!¡± I shouted, but the wyvern hardly needed to be told. With powerful pumps of his wings, he took us higher, rising until we were completely out of range of their bowshots. A second shaman raised his gem, and I loosed in his direction, but my skill was nowhere near the level that kind of sniping would require. My next couple of shots fell far from their target, and his spell activated, launching a lance of light intended to take us out of the sky.
Distance weakened the spell, its power diffusing the farther it was forced to stretch, and though its edge washed over us, Noivern did not burn. He shrieked his irritation, but our flight continued, and I returned my bow to the Storage Ring. Over the next few minutes, I emptied my inventory of stones. It was hard to tell if I hit anything, but the rain of blocks certainly gave the riders something to think about and disrupted their strafing. From this height, I could survey the shape of the entire battlefield.
The wind wall was still doing its job, and the column that I was harassing hadn¡¯t been able to make any progress in their assault, but the other half of their army still had two shamans. It looked like they were taking a more reserved approach, perhaps hoping the demons would run out of magic before they ran out of arrows. Had they used up their stores of essence against Malphas and me on our first run?
My System hadn¡¯t come with a mana pool, but my experience pool, and the essence I stole from monsters, put a limit on the number of enchantments I could imbue. Spellcasters, whether human or demon, had to have a similar cap on what they could accomplish. No one¡¯s essence was unlimited.
As if in direct contradiction to my reasoning, my opponent far below unleashed another spell. It was as if he had spent the last few minutes charging up a single massive incantation, and the resulting beam was broader and brighter than any that had come before. A column of light twenty feet in diameter raced to meet me. It was slower than the previous lances had been, which had seemed to travel instantaneously. This column expanded closer to the speed of a projectile, which gave Noivern just enough time to swoop out of the way.
The column continued past us, inexorable, impossibly solid, and punched a hole in the clouds. The storm retreated from the puncture like a wounded animal as natural sunlight poured through. Noivern began to burn.
Golden flames erupted from his wings, and he let out a long, low wail as we plummeted. The storm still hung over the monster regiment, but its coverage was incomplete. The shamblers at the front of the army fled the rays of the sun, slowly opening a gap in the meat shield protecting the supply train. I tried to get Noivern under control, but he was panicking, and there was nothing either of us could do to stay in the air. The leathery flesh that made up his wings was burning away like paper held over an open flame.
Celaeno and the flock had been circling since the start of the conflict. They had kept their distance from me to avoid getting in the way of Noivern maneuvers or my attacks, and the archers of the Orkhans hadn¡¯t wasted many arrows trying to pick them off. They chose this moment to engage, springing into action with the kind of coordination I would have been impressed to see from veteran soldiers.
The flock split into two groups, the smaller of which dove for me. Noivern had lost his mind, the golden flames spreading from his wings to his body. I¡¯d seen monsters being banished by the sun before, but this was the first time it had made me feel something other than satisfaction. Noivern was my familiar, my friend, and he was dying in agony. I wasn¡¯t afraid of being killed by the fall. I¡¯d lived through that once before. But I was very, very angry.
Tumbling through the air, there was no way I was going to be able to undo the harness properly. I grabbed the strap that was keeping me in place with both hands and ripped it apart. We separated, and black wings descended. Harpies tried to clutch at my limbs to slow my fall, but I was heavy and spinning and Feather Fall could only do so much.
Talons latched onto one of my arms, and the unfortunate bird that had managed to get ahold of me was jerked along for the ride. It lost its grip a second later, and the others followed me to the ground. I tucked in my limbs just before impact and struck the earth like the bag of meat encased in supernatural metal that I was.
[00000000]
Something cracked, and I felt my shoulder dislocate. It was not pleasant. All the air rushed out of my lungs, and I couldn¡¯t seem to get it back. I might have blacked out for a second, because the next thing I knew, I was standing up, facing the column that was riding perpendicular to me a hundred or more paces away.
My vision was blurry, and what I was seeing didn¡¯t immediately make sense. A fist of darkness had descended over the enemy. The brunt of the flock, a tempest of talons and feathers, was attacking in a way that made it look like a single massive beast. A dark, flying worm.
The flock crashed down through the riders, taking many of them off of their horses, and rose again. Arrows flew and harpies fell, but they had left chaos in their wake. The column broke apart into the same kind of small, tight groups I had observed before. Something dropped from the rising flock, a ragged human figure. I didn¡¯t see where it landed, but I had a feeling the shaman was done with spellcasting for the day.
My pack was crushed and torn, soaked through with ruined elixirs. Fortunately, I had a single stack of Healing Potions in my inventory. One of them appeared in my hand, and I lifted my visor to imbibe the bitter red liquid. The massive, throbbing ache that my entire body had become instantly receded.
I turned around in time to see the explosion. Riders from the first group had poured in through the gap left by the retreating shamblers. There were other monsters in their way, trolls, and hollows, but the shaman leading the charge was holding a blazing crystal, and the creatures of Bedlam could not stand against its light. It seemed like an insane plan, to drive forward into
the center of an encircling enemy force, but if they could kill the demons, then maybe the monsters wouldn¡¯t pose much of a threat.
My gaze went to the center of the supply group where I knew my family was sheltering in Fladnag¡¯s wagon. I couldn¡¯t see it, there were too many men and monsters and wagons in the way. That¡¯s where the explosion began. A pillar of flame thirty feet high, its roar drowning out the shouts and screams and the clashing of weapons as if they had never been. But this was no natural flame. When it reached its peak, it bent forward, writhing like a snake, and drove itself into the oncoming horsemen.
128: My Captives (Rewrite)
I ran toward the flames. Tilting forward, I barreled through a line of shamblers and leaped over the hedge of desiccated scrubs that Furtur had cultivated behind them. Some of the zombies moved out of my way, but most of them weren¡¯t fast enough, and shouldering through them barely slowed me down. The human soldiers didn¡¯t know what to do about the fire, and people were running around the camp in a panic, or sheltering in place if they were far enough away to escape its heat. Despite the size of the column, it was remarkably contained, and the flames had spread to only a few of the surrounding wagons.
The tower of red and black rose before me, roaring like a beast, and I plunged into it. It was like stepping into the funnel of a burning tornado, with the tower spinning up around a core of calm. The wind was intense, but the heat was somehow bearable, and Fladnag¡¯s wagon sat at the exact center of a space of calm, paint peeling, roof smoldering, but otherwise intact.
The ox and the horses were nowhere to be seen, but Gastard was standing in front of the wagon, his sword drawn behind Astaroth. The peacock demon was sitting on his heels, his head bowed and his eyes closed as if awaiting execution.
¡°Gastard!¡± I slowed, and I wasn¡¯t sure if he heard me over the sound of the tornado of fire, but he turned as I reached them.
His grim face was partially visible through the diamond helm, and he saluted with his sword, gesturing toward the wagon. I ducked my head in the front. Esmelda was clutching Leto like she was afraid he would disappear. My son¡¯s face was pale, but he looked fine, excited, even. They were on Fladnag¡¯s cot, and the old man was seated on the bench opposite them. His face was contorted in anguish, and he was gripping his stump, but there was no sign that any of them had been touched by the fire apart from the dusting of ash that had drifted into the wagon.
¡°Will!¡± Esmelda looked up, her eyes wide but fierce. ¡°Help him.¡±
¡°Who?¡± I looked at Fladnag. I had no idea what was wrong with him.
¡°Astaroth.¡± She said, ¡°He¡¯s going to kill himself if he doesn¡¯t stop.¡±
My blank expression was hidden behind orichalcum. With everything that was going on, Esmelda was worried about a demon?
¡°Are you all okay?¡±
¡°We¡¯re fine,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Do what you have to do.¡±
Fladnag grunted, and Leto didn¡¯t say anything. He looked at me and produced a weak smile.
¡°See you soon,¡± I said, turning to kneel beside Astaroth. I put my hand on his shoulder, and he didn¡¯t seem to notice. His beak was moving, muttering incantations under his breath, and his hands were in his lap, going through a cycle of arcane contortions. His feathers looked singed, and his robe was drenched in sweat.
¡°Enough,¡± I said, but he didn¡¯t hear me.
¡°Enough!¡± I shouted, my voice carrying over the roar of the flames. His hands froze, and rather than responding, he slumped forward, his body going slack. The swirling funnel died from the ground up, detaching from the earth and shrinking. As it dwindled, I got a glimpse of the head of the burning snake he had created still writhing through the enemy forces ahead of us, and a moment later, that too disintegrated into wisps of red and black.
It felt as if silence should have followed in the absence of that roar, but instead, there was pandemonium. The riders that had rushed through our line had broken against the onslaught of Astaroth¡¯s inferno. The back of the column was in retreat, but hundreds of men were engaged in combat with the forces of Bedlam.
A troll lifted a horse over its head, bellowing in rage, and tossed the unfortunate animal into a cadre of Atlan fighters. Hollows and varghests cut in and out of the line, attacking mercilessly, with no care for the wounds they received in return from the short sabers of the riders. Astaroth¡¯s work was on full display. A hundred feet from our wagon, a black ruin of bodies and incinerated camp equipment stretched out in a sinuous wave like a hellish dune. Some of our wagons and people had been caught in the conflagration, but the brunt of that fate had fallen on the riders.
I tried not to think about the deaths. There was work to be done. A clutch of riders was still fighting in an organized fashion, a number of the smaller Atlan groups had banded together around a man who appeared to be shouting orders even as he fired arrows from horseback. They were surrounded by monsters, but making a cautious retreat to the gap of sunlight through which they had come.
Gastard tapped my armored back with the flat of his blade. ¡°I will protect them.¡± He said. ¡°Go.¡±
I broke into a sprint, my boots pounding over cracked and blackened soil, I called Kevin¡¯s buster sword out of my inventory, and followed the line of destruction to meet with the enemy. A stag¡¯s horns stood out in the corner of my vision, and I saw bows in the hands of riders ahead of me begin to writhe like serpents, snapping their strings and lashing their wielders.
There were no more shamans to be seen. An unhorsed warrior tried to get in my way, snarling as he thrust with his saber. It slid harmlessly along my breastplate, and my sword ripped through his midsection. Flashes of dark hair, olive skin and blood, bared teeth, and wild eyes, screaming horses, I passed through them barely breaking stride.
Their leader did not try to flee. When he saw me coming, he jinked his horse and met my charge with a wordless battle cry. He wore a wolf pelt over one shoulder, and his short hair was matted with sweat. The thing that struck me about him was how young he looked. His face was lean and angular, but despite his actions, all that I could see in his eyes was fear.
I dismissed the sword, dropping low and planting my feet on the ground, meeting his mount head-on. I felt the collision down my spine, and it cost me two hearts. The animal flipped over me with a pained cry, and the young orkhan tumbled to one side, losing his weapon in the process. I lurched forward, grabbing him before he could recover and lifting him bodily up.
¡°Call a surrender!¡± I shouted.
He was shaking, and tears mingled with blood running down the side of his face.
¡°Surrender!¡± I demanded again, and he shook his head. The fighting continued around us, and one of his comrades attacked me from behind.
The sensation of his sword ringing against my back plate was a distant thing, and a moment later, a hollow rode in and removed the problem. The battlefield was chaotic, monsters and men rushing back and forth, grouping and breaking apart. A group of riders attempted to come to his rescue, only to be scattered by a troll.
Without the shamans to aid them, the fight was becoming increasingly one-sided. I couldn¡¯t see what the other half of the Atlan army was doing, but there were still arrows falling around us haphazardly, their trajectories disturbed by the barrier of wind still in force above.
¡°Demon,¡± the man said, not even struggling against my grip. ¡°Your justice will come.¡± His promise was undermined by the quaver in his voice. Now that I had him close, I didn¡¯t think he looked older than fifteen. How had he become the leader of a force like this?
¡°I¡¯m not a demon,¡± I said, ¡°and I don¡¯t want to kill you. I don¡¯t want to kill any more of your people. You¡¯re the ones attacking us.¡±
He looked away, saying nothing more. Those of his riders who could retreat had already done so. The rest were being butchered around us, and I had no desire to participate. I put the young leader under my arm like a sack of grain, barely feeling his weight, and sought out Furtur. The demon had surrounded himself with a circle of wooden spikes, and a troll was running interference around him to dissuade would-be heroes from attacking,
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There was an arrow sticking out of his back, but it didn¡¯t appear to bother him. The demon saluted me as I approached.
¡°If anyone surrenders,¡± I said. ¡°Don¡¯t kill them. Take them captive.¡±
His head quirked to one side. ¡°Koroshai do not take captives,¡± he said. ¡°It is an impossible request.¡±
¡°Make them,¡± I said, grinding my teeth. Astaroth was down, and the other demons were in the wind somewhere. I kicked one of the spikes out of my way and dropped the orkhan at his feet. The young man scrambled up into a crouch, the hatred plain on his face, but he had no weapons, and did not attempt to run.
¡°This is one of their leaders,¡± I said. ¡°Keep him here and keep him alive.¡±
The demon nodded, and with a gesture, caused a wooden stake to wrap around the orkhan¡¯s legs like a rope. The boy shouted curses, struggling to free himself, but he didn¡¯t have the strength to do so.
Gastard was still standing sentinel ahead of Fladnag¡¯s wagon. He had laid Astaroth out on the bench built onto its exterior. It didn¡¯t look like any of the enemy had reached them in my absence, and a cluster of soldiers had formed a loose ring around the area.
¡°It appears you have won,¡± he said. There was no note of victory in his tone, and I knew how he felt. My heart was still beating in my ears, and though the arrows had stopped coming, I didn¡¯t feel like celebrating. Losing monsters was one thing, but there had been a human cost as well, both for us and for Atlan. There was blood slicking my gauntlets, and the men I had killed were flickering across my mind¡¯s eye like a slideshow.
Malphas landed nearby a moment later, saving me from having to answer.
¡°They are in full retreat,¡± the demon reported, sounding satisfied. His robes were in tatters, and he ran his hands through the feathers on his head to bring them back into some semblance of order.
¡°The other column?¡± I said.
¡°Running as well,¡± he said. ¡°I think their shamans are dead. Do you want me to harry them?¡±
¡°No.¡± Hopefully, they would take the word of what had happened back to the other clan leaders and they would be less eager to take us on. ¡°I don¡¯t want to do any more killing than necessary. They know how much of a threat we are now. They might leave Dargoth, or at least be willing to talk.¡±
My experience with the shaman and the young orkhan hadn¡¯t done anything to bolster my confidence that we could negotiate with Atlan, but we might have more luck once the heat of battle had faded. More experienced leaders would be able to realize when they were outmatched.
¡°Are we still going north,¡± Gastard asked.
I lifted my visor, and the smell of smoke and burnt flesh assaulted my nostrils. ¡°Soon,¡± I said. ¡°After we clean up.¡±
The gap in the storm slowly closed, and the field dimmed back to the perpetual twilight of Dargoth. Human officers organized a field hospital while the demons reassembled the ranks of the monster regiment, who were happily feeding on the remains of the enemy as well as their own.
I moved Astaroth¡¯s legs so I could sit beside him on the bench, and Esmelda came out of the wagon to talk to me. She took one glance at the burned line and turned her back on it. Her eyes were red and wet.
¡°Are you alright?¡± She asked.
¡°Yeah,¡± I said. ¡°Nothing a healing potion won¡¯t fix.¡± My entire body felt bruised, and my back was giving me a twinge, but it was nothing in need of immediate attention. ¡°What¡¯s going on with Fladnag?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± she said, looking concerned. ¡°When the battle started, he became agitated. He isn¡¯t talking.¡±
Gastard had removed his helm, and he was holding it under his arm. His blue eyes were solemn.
¡°He strikes me as a man who has seen more than his share of death,¡± he said. ¡°Let him have his peace.¡±
There had to be a reason Fladnag was living the way he was. I couldn¡¯t be sure what had happened in his past, but it couldn¡¯t have been good. Maybe he had been a hero once, but now he was something else.
Astaroth stirred, his eyes opening into slits, and he made a cooing sound.
¡°He told us what he would do,¡± Esmelda said, her lips pursing as she gazed down at the demon. ¡°He said that he was going to sacrifice himself to ensure our safety and that the flames would not harm us as long as we remained in the wagon. That spell, it was horrible, I don¡¯t know what to think about it.¡±
Gastard grunted. ¡°A loyal demon,¡± he said. ¡°There is no such creature.¡±
Astaroth said nothing. It was hard to tell if he was even conscious, and his body looked shrunken and frail. Much of the color had faded from the feathers of his crown. Gastard was probably right. Whatever demons did, they were acting in their self-interest. Death for them meant being returned to Bedlam, so giving up their lives in defense of someone they had sworn to serve didn¡¯t carry the same weight. Still, I couldn¡¯t help but feel a sense of gratitude. I didn¡¯t want to consider what kind of damage he may have done to our people, but his actions had certainly been effective. The charge had threatened my family, and he had stopped it in its tracks.
¡°I think I captured an orhkan,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m going to interrogate him.¡±
¡°Shouldn¡¯t you rest?¡± Esmelda said.
¡°Eventually.¡±
Our captives were being held in a cage Furtur had made out of a destroyed wagon. It wasn¡¯t as pretty as something I would have crafted, but it did the job well enough. There were more than a dozen warriors trapped under a dome of wood, its supports studded with splintering thorns, and soldiers stood watch nearby.
Most of them were wounded, but they were not being treated. The orkhan and the shaman were close together, and they glared at me in silence as I stepped up to the frame.
¡°What are your names?¡± I asked.
¡°Batu,¡± the young man said, standing. His fear was gone, and the blood had dried on his face. ¡°Son of Torgudai, warrior of the steppes. What is your name, demon?¡±
¡°I told you,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯m not a demon. My name is Will.¡±
The shaman peered at me suspiciously. One of her legs was swollen, covered in deep purple bruises, stretched out to the side while the other was folded under her. She did not attempt to rise.
¡°You may wear a human face,¡± she said, ¡°but you have the eyes of a demon.¡±
¡°That¡¯s¡¡± I sighed, ¡°accurate. But it¡¯s only because I killed the demon they belonged to.¡±
Batu sneered. ¡°You say that you killed it, but you walk with demons at your side. Are you not the one they call their Dark Lord?¡±
¡°I am,¡± I said, ¡°but things are changing in Dargoth.¡± I pressed closer to the dome, lowering my voice. None of my demons were nearby, but there was no telling how close of a watch they kept on me. I met the shaman¡¯s silver-edged eyes. ¡°I want you to help me.¡±
Her gaze narrowed. ¡°What help could there be for you, tainted one?¡±
Batu scoffed. ¡°Tricks and lies. Kill us. We will not be a part of your schemes.¡± He was putting on a brave front, but I could hear the uncertainty beneath.
¡°I am not the same man who has ruled Dargoth in the past. He is my prisoner, and I can¡¯t hold him without their help. But you have magic I don¡¯t.¡±
The shaman¡¯s lips were dry and cracked, she wetted them, hesitating to speak.
¡°There is only one Dark Lord,¡± Batu said. ¡°Our people have fought him for generations. When I am dead, they will continue to fight. Your storm will not touch Atlan. Not ever.¡±
¡°I¡¯d like to end the storm,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯d like for Dargoth to be green. But I can¡¯t take on the demons all on my own. They are working with me because I have agreed to help them bring their master into this world. But that isn¡¯t what I want. I want the demons gone, and the former Dark Lord contained, but I can¡¯t do that on my own.¡±
¡°You would betray them?¡± The shaman said. ¡°How can we believe you?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know how I can convince you,¡± I said. ¡°But if you don¡¯t agree to help me, then I will have to continue doing what they want. We didn¡¯t come here just to fight you off. We are traveling to Salenus to destroy it.¡±
Batu tried to strike me through the frame of the dome, and his fist caught on the thorns. He gritted his teeth. ¡°You will never touch it.¡± He said. ¡°The great eagle will descend from the heavens and burn you to ash.¡±
¡°Great eagle?¡± I said. ¡°Is that your god?¡±
¡°Say no more,¡± the shaman grabbed Batu¡¯s calf for emphasis, squeezing tight, and the young man backed off. Fresh blood dripped from his fist. The silver around her irises flared as she looked up at me.
¡°My name is Erdene, tainted one. And I will think about what you have said.¡±
¡°Fine,¡± I said, stepping back. ¡°I¡¯ll speak with you again when we are on the move.¡±
It was progress, but it came at a cost. There was a notification ding as I walked away from the cage, and I checked my System screens for the bad news.
| You have violated a sacred oath. Geas activated. Penalties will accrue until you seek atonement. |
129: My Conference (Rewrite)
Fladnag¡¯s wagon was not designed to serve as a conference room. Esmelda, Leto, and I sat on the bed, while Fladnag and Gastard occupied the storage bin that served as a bench. Our knees touched. For once, I wasn¡¯t wearing my armor. After talking to Erdene and Batu, I¡¯d given myself a bird bath with water from my flask and called a family meeting.
The army wasn¡¯t ready to move yet, and night had fallen. Torches surrounded the wagon, creating spawn free perimeter, but I knew that Malphas was in the air, tasked with managing the mobs that did appear. Astaroth was still out of commission, but rather than leave him on the outside, I¡¯d had him moved to another wagon to recover. The demons generally didn¡¯t bother me at night, but Celaeno and her flock were roosting all over the camp, and I¡¯d asked her to warn me if Gaap or Furtur came around.
Esmelda put one small hand over mine. It felt cold, but that was because I was running hot.
¡°What did the orkhan say?¡± She asked. ¡°You look like you''re ready for an execution.¡±
¡°I¡¯ve violated my oath to Orobas,¡± I said, ¡°by attempting to conspire to betray the demons.¡±
¡°Attempting to conspire?¡± Esmelda frowned. ¡°What does that even mean?¡±
Gastard grunted, stretching his lips in a stony smile. ¡°Then you are finally ready to talk.¡±
Fladnag looked at me curiously. He seemed to have recovered from his panic attack, or whatever it had been, but his face was still drawn, and he said nothing. Leto pulled his legs up onto the bed, wrapping his arms around his shins.
¡°I told Erdene, the shaman, that I wanted to work with them to stop the demons from transforming this world. She doesn¡¯t trust me yet, and Batu thinks I¡¯m lying. But just asking crossed the line as far as my oath was concerned.¡±
¡°We thought it was something like that,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°When you wouldn¡¯t talk about it.¡±
Gastard nodded. ¡°A pact with Bedlam can only lead to corruption, and it pained me to see you walking this path. It is dishonorable to break one¡¯s solemn word, but it is worse by far to give one¡¯s honor over to the whims of demons. Whatever the price of breaking your bonds with them, I will stand by your side to face it.¡±
¡°Thank you,¡± I said. His gaze was so earnest I found it hard to meet. ¡°I¡¯m not sure what to do now that the curse has been triggered, and I think it''s a decision we should make together.¡±
I tapped the elder sign on my hand.
|
Class: Survivor Level: 29
Progress to next level: 65% Attributes:
Attributes:
Might: D-
Speed: E+
Presence: F+
Curse of Weakness: While under the effects of this curse, your physical
attributes will gradually decline. With every passing night, Might and Speed will incur a cumulative penalty.
|
Esmelda leaned against my shoulder as she read and reread the information on the blue screen floating above my hand.
¡°It¡¯s strange to see a person¡¯s life represented this way,¡± she said. ¡°These letters. Have they changed?¡±
¡°We¡¯ll see what happens to them by morning,¡± I said, ¡°If I start dropping letter grades, I won¡¯t last long..¡±
¡°Where is the bottom?¡± Gastard asked. ¡°And what happens when you reach it?¡±
¡°Then he will lose his life,¡± Fladnag said.
We all looked at him.
¡°You know about this curse?¡± I said.
The old man removed his hat and placed it in his lap. ¡°Oaths are a serious thing,¡± he said, ¡°even for mortal men. When you bind your essence to an oath, it becomes all the more dire. The only escape from such a curse is to break the artifact on which it was sworn, or to atone.¡±
¡°Are you going to die?¡± Leto asked. His eyes were wide and searching. It might have been better to keep him out of this conversation, but I didn¡¯t want him wandering around the camp, and I didn¡¯t want to keep any more secrets from him either. Whatever we decided to do, he was going to be a part of it.
¡°I¡¯m going to do my best not to,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯ve been doing some things wrong, and now I want to make them right. It¡¯s dangerous, but a lot of what I do is dangerous, and it¡¯s nothing we can¡¯t handle.¡±
He didn¡¯t look convinced.
¡°Atonement,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Does that mean breaking Salenus, or just reaffirming one¡¯s oaths? Did the curse respond to his words alone, or the feeling in his heart?¡±
¡°Closer to the second, I would think,¡± Fladnag said. ¡°Our essence is bound up in every part of us, heart, body, and mind. Executing the shaman could be enough, or it might mean nothing if the act was committed in some misguided attempt to fool the magic of the oath.¡± He looked me in the eye. ¡°If you repented in the deepest part of you, it would not matter what you had said. Your soul would give lie to any word you spoke. If what you told the shaman had been an empty deception, it would not have triggered the geas. The fact that the curse weighs on you now is the first proof I have seen that you are not an agent of the One Who Knocks.¡±
I sat forward. Did this mean he was finally ready to speak openly with me about who he was?
¡°Are you a hero?¡± I said. ¡°Were you sent here from another world?¡±
Fladnag¡¯s face dropped, and he seemed to shrink. ¡°Sometimes,¡± he said, ¡°I half believe that all of that was only a dream.¡±
¡°All of what?¡± Esmelda said.
¡°Take your pick. The blue goddess, the wars. Entire lifetimes.¡± He closed his eyes, crumbling the wide-brimmed hat in his hand. ¡°I am not who I was. I am not who I am. This world has taken from me more than it ever gave, but I am unable to escape it.¡±
Gastard placed his hand on the old man¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Answer only if you can,¡± he said, ¡°I know that you have seen much. Who were you before?¡±
Stolen novel; please report.
¡°Umber,¡± he said. ¡°Umberious. Brightwater. Fladnag. Lord Uther. Uriah Wanderer. Ulman the apothecary. Calvin. I think my first name was Calvin.¡±
Esmelda sat up straight, taking in a sharp breath. ¡°Umber? One of the heroes of my people? Are you saying you are him?¡±
¡°Umberious Rex,¡± Gastard said, allowing his hand to slip from Fladnag¡¯s shoulder. ¡°The first king of Drom. That is difficult to believe.¡±
It was no more than I had suspected, but I had never considered the sheer number of identities this man must have assumed over the centuries.
¡°What happened to you?¡± I said.
Fladnag uttered a short, bitter laugh. ¡°Did I not tell you the tale? The four heroes who led the lillits out of Dargoth, and what came after? I admit that what I said was more myth than memory. And there was much more than that. Those other names did not belong to heroes. Most of the lives I have lived were in service to nothing other than my own misery.¡±
¡°You are one of Mizu¡¯s chosen,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Immortal, blessed with the gift of healing. Do you not serve her still?¡±
Fladnag lifted his stump. ¡°I am free of that witch. Free of the burdens she called blessings. I am only a man now, and live as I choose, bound to no god or demon.¡±
¡°You cut off your hand,¡± I said. ¡°Did that take away your System?¡±
¡°System,¡± Fladnag sniffed, ¡°I have not heard that word in a long time. No. Losing your hand will not take away your power. I gave up mine because I lost my battle with the shadow, and I could not stand the sight of how I had been corrupted.¡±
Leto was looking between us in confusion. ¡°You cut off your hand?¡±
Fladnag¡¯s smile was taut. ¡°It was not mine anymore. Corruption comes upon each of us differently.¡± He gestured at me. ¡°Your eyes, those horns, they are small marks. And it seems that your power has not yet been twisted at its root, so you are not too far gone. If you saw my hand, you would think it belonged to a demon. The blessings that once ran from my fingers like the purest waters were replaced with disease and decay.¡±
¡°You can no longer heal?¡± Esmelda asked.
¡°Some healing is possible,¡± Fladnag said, ¡°but in place of any wound I close a deeper sickness is planted.¡±
¡°You said you couldn¡¯t escape.¡± My thoughts turned to the fog of countless deaths. ¡°Heroes can return if they die, but they don¡¯t have to return. How is that different for you?¡±
Fladnag shrugged. ¡°None of us know what happens in the space between death and life. There is a scheme behind it, a grand game with rules known only to the gods. I have learned more about the worlds beyond this one from demons than from angels. So many others left this world, their spirits broken by your predecessor. It is supposed to be a choice. But I have taken my own life, swearing to myself that I would not return, only to awake the next morning once again bearing the shame of my failures on my right arm.¡±
I didn¡¯t want to die, I wanted to have a real life in the world, and preferably a long one. But the idea of being trapped in a cycle of lives and deaths from which there was no escape was horrifying. That had been me in Kevin¡¯s cage, and I had come to believe that the fact I had kept respawning was due to choices I didn¡¯t remember making. That had been Bojack¡¯s take on it, but what if griefing didn¡¯t work on me because there was no way out anymore? Could Mizu have changed the rules so that there was no opt-out option for her heroes?
¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re here,¡± Leto said, his voice barely audible. ¡°You taught me magic tricks.¡±
Fladnag didn¡¯t appear to know what to say to that. Tears were forming in the corner of his eyes
.
¡°You¡¯ve had children,¡± I said, remembering how he reacted to finding out that Leto was my son. ¡°Did something happen to them?¡±
¡°To them?¡± He shook his head. ¡°It depends on what you mean. I sometimes wonder how many who wander this earth are my descendants. Those that I knew all grew old and died. After Nadia, I kept myself aloof for many years. But those other names, some of them were just the names of ordinary men who I pretended to be. I have had wives, I have had sons and daughters¡¡± He lost his voice.
¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± I said. ¡°And thank you for sharing this with us. You may not think of yourself as one of the heroes anymore, but right now, I don¡¯t need you to perform miracles. I need your guidance. For as long as I¡¯ve been here, I feel like I¡¯ve been stumbling around in the dark, making things up as I go along. And for what it¡¯s worth, I¡¯m glad you''re still here too.¡±
Esmelda took her hand from mine to touch Fladnag¡¯s knee. ¡°I can¡¯t pretend to know the mind of the goddess, but I cannot believe that your suffering was for nothing. If you are here now, it is because we need you here.¡±
Fladnag said nothing to this, staring down at his crumpled hat. The Curse of Weakness wasn¡¯t going to knock me out in a day, but until it was broken, every minute counted.
¡°I keep the Oathblade that I have been using to accept the oaths of the demons, but Orobas has the knife that contains my oath. I have to return to Mount Doom to break it. Even if I do, I would have to remain there to guard Kevin. The rest of the demons would be free to do what they wanted.¡±
¡°Even those who have sworn on your sword?¡± Gastard said. ¡°Are they not bound as well?¡±
¡°They would probably try to kill me. Even if a curse weakens them, I¡¯m sure that¡¯s not as bad as whatever their god will do to them if they decided to work for me instead of him.¡± I looked at my hands. Even if I was the strongest force in this world, which I wasn¡¯t, I still couldn¡¯t be everywhere at once. ¡°That¡¯s why I want the shamans'' help. They can fight the demons, but regular people can¡¯t. I can¡¯t guard Kevin and kick Bedlam out of this world at the same time. But I could trust them not to let him get out.¡±
¡°Potions and enchantments,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Enough of those, and mortal men can stand against demons. If we go back now, and you remain at Mount Doom to keep Kevin in his cage, others can go to fight the shadow in your place.¡±
It was a possibility, but part of me felt like it wouldn¡¯t work. Maybe it was hubris, but I didn¡¯t want to send others to do my fighting for me. Equipment could be lost, and those who failed would put any weapons I created for them in the hands of the enemy.
¡°I still want to try to meet with the orkhans,¡± I said. ¡°Or their religious leaders. If I can just convince Erdene that we were on the same side, that would be a start.¡±
¡°Malphas can fly faster than we can ride,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°If he realizes what you want to do, he could warn Orobas, and Kevin might be free before we have a chance to reach the mountain.¡±
¡°Then we kill him now,¡± Gastard said. ¡°We kill all of them in one day, and the other demons will not have the opportunity to realize what has happened until it is too late for them to change it.¡±
I looked to Fladnag, who was staring down at his hat like it had all the answers. ¡°What do you think?¡±
His response was slow in coming. ¡°Without masters, the monsters that you brought here would ravage the land. What people there are would be overrun. If we take them forward, into Atlan, they will no longer be protected by the storm, and they will burn to nothing as soon as the demons are gone.¡±
¡°We aren¡¯t far from the border,¡± I said, ¡°and it would mean that many fewer trolls to deal with once the rest of them turn on me.¡±
¡°More than that,¡± he continued, ¡°it could show the orkhans that you are not the Dark Lord they believe you to be.¡±
¡°You would all be safer if we were out from under the storm,¡± I said. ¡°Let¡¯s take a vote. Do we go forward or back? Either way, I¡¯m going to have to deal with Gaap and Malphas, if not all of them, before we change direction. Both of them have air magic and could get back to Mount Doom before us. If the answer is turning around now, then I want to send you all on the road before I do anything. When I start fighting them, you shouldn¡¯t be close enough for them to threaten you.¡±
¡°We begin as soon as the sun rises,¡± Gastard said. ¡°What you have given me is enough to slay a demon. If you and I act at the same time, two of them could be defeated before the others see the threat. Astaroth is still weak, that would mean we only had to face one enemy prepared. If we wait, he will recover, and there will be two.¡±
¡°But that one will have an army of monsters at his command,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Fladnag is right, if we enter Atlan, the sun will be our greatest ally.¡±
Leto was still hugging his legs. ¡°I don¡¯t want you to send us away.¡±
I sighed. Every day that passed meant I would grow weaker, and we still had to make it back to Mount Doom. Even if I killed all the demons first thing in the morning, there would be a platoon of varghest riding hollows to deal with, and I could only move my family so fast. Bringing them with me was stupid, but leaving them behind would have been potentially just as bad.
¡°Forward,¡± I said. ¡°And I¡¯ll try to speak with Erdene again as well. Her magic could make a difference when this gets started.¡±
The shamans had used jewels to empower their spells, and I would have to find out if there were only certain gems that would work. I could give her an entire block of diamonds if it would help. Gastard grunted in acknowledgment of my decision. Either way, he would be fighting demons soon. I could use the intervening time to restock some of the potions I had lost during the battle. We were going to need every advantage we could get.
130: My Notifications (Rewrite)
I used up the last of my ingredients replenishing my stock of potions. Might and Swiftness, Leaping, Healing, and Regeneration. My overall level had been dragging since it hit the twenties. Regular crafting and mining didn¡¯t do anything for it anymore. I¡¯d been able to avoid using my experience for enchantments because of the orb I¡¯d gotten from Kevin that absorbed monster essence, but as I wasn¡¯t killing monsters on the regular anymore, it was nearly exhausted.
There was no particular reason for this to matter to me. In Maincraft, being level thirty meant you could create the highest level of Enchanted Books and use them on your equipment, and was planning on seeing what the table would give me once I did hit thirty. Otherwise, I¡¯d just been using looted books.
The sun was rising as I made a final batch of Might potions. They required koloss blood, and I could always get more of that if I killed a troll, but I was also running low on bedlam wart to craft base elixirs with. The brewing stand bubbled away as the reddish-purple potions settled and reached the end of their transition, and I turned the knob to dispense the soupy liquid into a waiting set of glass bottles. It was something I¡¯d done dozens of times. After the initial novelty had worn off, brewing potions had become boring and routine. I didn¡¯t have to do anything other than pour in the ingredients and wait.
It hadn¡¯t seemed practical to try craft potions during the day. The brewing stand might have fit in a wagon, but it also got hot enough to constitute a fire hazard, so for the last two days, I¡¯d gotten up early enough to spend a few hours brewing before the army got moving again. When I unclipped the bottles from the stand, my System notifications went crazy.
I was accustomed to hearing the occasional ding, but this was like a malfunctioning doorbell. They just kept coming. I stuffed the bottles into their assigned compartment in my backpack and slapped my hand to activate the System Screens. The ringing stopped.
|
Achievement: Crafty (8)
Congratulations! Your alchemize skill has reached level fifteen, unlocking three advanced potion recipes.
Potion of Harming: The opposite of healing. Avoid consumption.
Potion of Invisibility: Upon imbibing this potion, the alchemist will become invisible for ten minutes. During this time, the user is undetectable by sight, including enhanced or aetheric vision. Sounds and scents are not masked, and equipment is unaffected.
Potion of Turtle Master: The user will gain turtle mastery.
Sufficient essence has been accrued for System Initialization. Class assessment complete. Entity status assignment pending.
|
Equipment is unaffected? Did that mean I had to be naked to be invisible? What a gip. As if it had bothered to give a proper description for that one. The other two were practically useless. Potions of Harming worked fine if you added a splash effect and tossed them. It wasn¡¯t exactly a grenade, but it was the next best thing. I didn¡¯t need the notification telling me not to drink them though.
My eyes drifted down to the bit at the bottom. In what way had my System not already been initilized? My original death had been over a decade ago, and as many complaints as I had about the System, it had been operating the entire time. Entity assignment? The demons called monsters lesser entities, and I was pretty sure I¡¯d seen the word used in System messages before. Yet another thing the goddess wasn¡¯t going to explain to me.
The notification screen flashed, scrolled, and brought up a new message.
|
Welcome to Eternity.
You have completed the tutorial phase of your Stage 2 assessment. Thank your mentor for their wisdom and guidance, they deserve it. Below is a copy of your assessment, which has been forwarded to the Aetheric Sentinel of your local cluster.
Name: William
Class: Survivor Assigned
Mentor: Calvin
Affiliation: Sector 13 (Earth)
General Proficiency
Skill Utilization: Somewhat irregular. The subject was slow to reach proficiency in the use of his class skills, focusing almost exclusively on Miner. Significant gaps between initialization and unlock for subsequent abilities. Some creative applications were noted.
Resource Management: Moderate. Subject is somewhat cautious in the allocation of available resources, and has consistently utilized simple materials, but has largely failed to pursue advanced formulas and materials.
Combat: Much improved. Adequate performance with traditional weapons. Hindered by substandard training methods. The subject is sometimes reckless but possesses a capacity for forethought and lateral applications that are worth fostering.
Interpersonal Dynamics
Teamwork and Cooperation: Much improved. Subject has spent the majority of his tutorial phase in solitude, and exhibited signs of antisocial tendencies, but has recently begun to show that he is capable of working with others. Further assessment is necessary.
Leadership: While displaying no particular flair for leadership, the subject is comfortable with authority. Capable of diplomacy, though barely. His tendency to address challenges alone has led to an underutilization of subordinates and allies.
Moral Conduct
Alignment with Faction Ideals: Inferior. The subject delayed his initial assignment for over a decade and has repeatedly fallen short of the standards associated with Purifiers in training. Taint accumulation detected.
Decision-Making: Impulsive, but possessed of moderate native intelligence. Highly adaptable and pragmatic, but hindered by a tendency to act without sufficient consideration of risks
.
Environmental Impact: The subject has failed to moderate his aetheric influence. Plana¡¯s veil has weakened throughout this stage, though not to an irreparable degree.
Review
While not an exceptional candidate for advancement, the subject shows potential. The risk of corruption is moderate, but not disqualifying.
This is an automated message, do not reply.
|
¡°What?¡± I said, reading as fast as I could, trying to make sense of what this message implied. My entire experience had been a test. A test for what? In what way did any of this qualify as a tutorial? The assessment itself wasn¡¯t too far off. I hadn¡¯t been an exemplary hero in a lot of ways, and I had been muddling through every challenge I¡¯d been faced with since arriving on Plana. I really was supposed to have had a mentor. There wasn¡¯t any time for me to process this revelation, because it was followed by another one.
|
Your tutorial phase is complete. Class assignment, Survivor, confirmed. Aetheric Core formation initialized. Core traits identified.
Entity Rank: E
E-rank entities require the support of a patron to retain coherence through iterations. They have limited aetheric sensitivity, and their cores are vulnerable to spiritual manipulation. Full System access granted.
Status
Level: 1
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Progress to next level: 0%
Attributes:
Might: E+
Speed: E
Presence: E
Curse of Weakness: While under the effects of this curse, your physical
attributes will gradually decline. With every passing night, Might and Speed will incur a cumulative penalty.
Skills
Harvest: 30
Artisan: 12
Alchemize: 15
Tamer: 7
Inscription: 0
Aetheric Sensitivity: F
A perceptual trait that allows an individual to detect, interpret, and understand the subtle fluctuations of essence in their surroundings. This trait is essential for gauging the presence and intensity of spiritual energy in both living beings and inanimate objects within the environment. Users can sense the presence of essence in their vicinity, allowing them to perceive living beings, enchanted objects, or areas imbued with spiritual energy.
At the lowest rank, sensitivity is low. Only powerful auras will be registered, and perception is limited in both scope and subtlety to general magnitude and alignment.
Elemental Affinity: F (Water)
Neutral Alignment (Patron: Mizu)
Those with a neutral alignment have not been formally claimed by either Harmony or Discord. They receive neither the benefits nor the limitations associated with either pole.
Tainted Purifier
You have faced the forces of Discord, and your core has been marked by Bedlam. Lesser entities aligned with Discord are as likely to submit to you as respond with hostility. Those aligned with Harmony will be naturally suspicious.
|
I had trouble focusing on what I was reading. I felt drunk and high, and not in a good way. My stomach was churning, and my head was spinning. Turning away from the brewing stand, the shelter I had erected the night before was only a few paces away, but that was too far. The camp was beginning to stir, and I could see Malphas bringing in trolls and shamblers from the monster regiment so they could be leashed to the wagons for the day. I fell flat on my face, tasting dirt. Of all the things that could go wrong from not wearing my helmet, this was not one I had been expecting.
Something was happening inside of me. My blood was made of sparkles, and those sparkles were gathering around my navel. The sensation was so intense that I curled into a ball. It wasn¡¯t exactly painful, but it wasn¡¯t pleasant either. The seconds stretched out, and my awareness dimmed. My eyes were closed, but I knew there were people around me. Esmelda¡¯s
presence felt faint, though incredibly familiar. Gastard was somehow more solid while being less distinct.
I felt a cool hand pressed against my face, and I blinked. Esmelda was crouched over me, worry creasing her brow, and fear bright in her wide gray eyes. The sparkles in my belly swirled in a vortex coalescing on a single hot point, and I felt the world turning around me. Esmelda was speaking, but I couldn¡¯t hear her, it was like she was too far away.
Then it was gone. The dizziness receded, as did the nausea and the heat. The point in my stomach where all that energy had come together felt empty and light.
¡°I¡¯m okay,¡± I said. My voice low and groggy like I¡¯d just woken up. Esmelda didn¡¯t look convinced.
¡°What happened? Is this the curse?¡±
¡°No,¡± I said, ¡°something weirder.¡±
Gastard stepped in to help me up, but I waved him off. The sick feeling was gone, and my head was clear. He looked me up and down as I rose.
¡°If not the curse,¡± he said, ¡°then what?¡±
His eyes fell on the screen floating above my hand, and I tapped it off. They needed to know about this, but it wasn¡¯t a conversation to have in public.
Malphas had paused fifty paces away, mentally directing the monsters to their positions in the supply train, and he was watching me. I threw him a casual salute and strode into the shelter I¡¯d made for them the previous evening like my world hadn¡¯t just turned upside down.
It was just a stone box with a few bedrolls. Leto was working his way through a hardtack biscuit, chewing with determination. He looked up as I entered, and his eyebrows drew together.
¡°You¡¯re sweaty,¡± he said.
¡°Thanks. Your hair¡¯s a mess,¡± I said. It was getting long, and it was thoroughly askew. I patted the top of his head and sat on the ground beside his bedroll, resting my back against the granite blocks of the wall. He shrugged.
¡°Who cares.¡±
Esmelda entered a moment later, and Leto¡¯s mood dropped as soon as he saw her face. He shifted away from me on his bedroll and brought his legs closer in. Gastard arrived a moment later with Fladnag on his heels. The former hero slept in his wagon instead of in my shelters, but he was never far off.
¡°Gastard said you collapsed?¡± He didn¡¯t sit.
¡°I hit level thirty this morning,¡± I said. ¡°Does that mean anything to you?¡±
Fladnag¡¯s eyebrows rose. ¡°You hadn¡¯t already?¡±
¡°What does that mean?¡± Leto asked as if I¡¯d told them I¡¯d been hit by another curse.
Fladnag stepped further into the shelter as Gastard took up watch by the door. Malphas hadn¡¯t come any closer, but there was no telling what the demon was thinking after he saw me fall. ¡°It means he has reached the next stage in his advancement. As far as you¡¯ve come, I assumed you did that long ago.¡±
¡°I hadn¡¯t,¡± I said, tapping my screen back on and cycling back through to the assessment. ¡°This life didn¡¯t come with an instruction manual. This thing says I was supposed to have a mentor.¡±
My eyes fell on the name. It hadn¡¯t registered before. I felt anger rising into my throat, and my jaws clenched.
¡°Calvin. That¡¯s you, isn¡¯t it.¡±
Fladnag blinked rapidly, his mouth dropping open. ¡°Oh, no. They assigned me to you?¡±
¡°Looks like it,¡± I said. Could he really not have known? That was one hell of a slip-up for the HR department of the celestial bureaucracy.
Fladnag¡¯s face fell, and he massaged his stump. ¡°I never hear it anymore. Without my hand, I can¡¯t access the screens. I never thought Mizu would try to use me that way. Not since I turned my back on her path.¡±
¡°Did you have someone?¡± I said, ¡°Someone to teach you about being a hero?¡±
He nodded. ¡°I did. It was Frodo, he never shared his true name, but he arrived before we did. Nadia, David, and I began our journeys at the same time, and he was waiting for us.¡±
¡°Must have been nice.¡±
Fladnag reacted like he had been struck. His eyes widened a fraction, and his hand clamped down on his stump as his face tightened. For a moment, he seemed at a loss for words, and when he did speak, there was heat behind his words. ¡°You sound like a child. Your journey has just begun, and you know nothing of what we faced, or what it cost us. Frodo¡¯s guidance was invaluable, but it did not make things easy. Mizu has made a mistake. Hardly her first.¡± He paused, forcing himself to relax. ¡°But I failed you, even if I did not know that I failed. I¡¯m sorry you were alone.¡±
I let his words roll over me. Fladnag¡¯s choices had meant consequences for me, and I still didn¡¯t fully understand why he had made them. Not using his power was one thing, but cutting off his hand? That was a choice I had trouble imagining making. There was nothing we could do about the past, and I had to agree, this was Mizu¡¯s mistake. Could the goddess not see what was happening on Plana? That didn¡¯t seem possible, given that she had intervened on my behalf once already. But that had been in Bedlam, so maybe the rules were different there. It almost seemed like she was shooting blind.
I called up the screen. ¡°It says I¡¯m an entity now. What does that even mean? I felt something happen inside of me, that¡¯s why I collapsed, but I don¡¯t know what it was. I feel normal now. It says I have an aetheric core. What the hell is that?¡±
A core was something out of cultivation novels, but that didn¡¯t seem setting appropriate. Nothing I had seen suggested that people could meditate and train in martial arts to become superheroes, my System didn¡¯t work like that, or I was going to be pretty annoyed if I was just finding out now that it did.
¡°Another word for your soul,¡± Fladnag said. ¡°It isn¡¯t a physical object. All beings have them, and for most mortals, they are indistinct. Forming a core merely means that your soul has become more substantive. The part of you that survives when you die will be more solid, though it is not physical.¡±
¡°But am I still human?¡±
He let his hand drop. ¡°It depends on what you mean. Your body is human,¡± he glanced at my budding horns, ¡°broadly speaking. And bodies are vessels for the soul. You are the same now as you were before, only more so.¡±
I closed my eyes. Esmelda, Leto, Gastard, and Fladnag, all of them were still there when I did. He was the most present of all of them. Aetheric sensitivity wasn¡¯t sight, it was more like my awareness was stretching outside of my body, expanding to fill the emptiness, and running up against obstacles, some more substantial than others. My mind kept trying to interpret it in the framework of my existing senses. They had distinct flavors, levels of brightness, and noise. I could hear Malphas approaching, though I wasn¡¯t hearing him. His essence was as potent as Fladnag¡¯s, but sharper, and somehow oily.
I stood up.
¡°Hail,¡± Gastard said, greeting the demon well before he arrived at the shelter, warning us that he was coming. Esmelda looked like she had a lot of questions, but she kept them to herself for the moment.
Malphas stopped a pace outside the door. Gastard was in his way, but he spoke through the man as if he wasn¡¯t there. ¡°The wagons are ready to move.¡± He said.
That was it? No accusations? Since the moment the curse activated, I¡¯d been waiting for the demons to jump me, but none of them had shown any sign of suspicion. ¡°We¡¯re ready,¡± I said.
The day had just begun, and we could talk more on the road. Nothing the System had told me would change the plan going forward. It said I had full access now, whatever that meant, and my skill list had a new entry. I could guess what Inscription was for. We¡¯d encountered runes that carried magical effects before. The Bedlam portals, and the force field that had kept me away from the loot of the underground base. A survivor had made those, and I could too, if I ever found a manual. Maybe I could try copying the runes back at Williamsburg. It was a project for another time.
The edge of the storm was visible from where we had camped, a curtain of light. In a few hours, the demons would have to begin siphoning their power to maintain a mist that protected the monsters from sunlight. The further we got from the storm, the more vulnerable they would become. Fortunately, the effects of the curse were gradual. Might and Speed had both dropped, but not far. For one more day at least, I was strong enough to do what needed to be done.
131: My Ally (Rewrite)
We reached the edge of the storm and brought the army to a halt. After a brief conference with the demons, it was agreed that we would continue forward marching at night instead of the day. Gaap and Malphas shared the responsibility of shielding the mobs from sunlight, and with as many monsters as we had, it was too difficult for them to maintain the necessary fog while we were on the move. We called a rest for the afternoon and picked up the march as soon as the sun went down. By the morning, we would be far enough away from the storm to start killing demons.
Were they looking at me differently? Astaroth had suggested they could sense deception, and I didn¡¯t have the knowledge or experience to mask whatever signals my soul was giving off. My aetheric perceptions were foggy at best. I could locate a demon with my eyes closed, but only if he was within about twenty paces of me, and I was still learning to tell them apart.
Gaap was the only one to comment. After our strategy session, he slapped a hairy hand on my back.
¡°Welcome to eternity,¡± he said, before shuffling off. It was the same phrase the System had used, so they had to know I had changed. But it didn¡¯t seem to worry them.
Celaeno and the homies were in charge of keeping track of our targets. Gaap generally led from the front, and Furtur had taken to keeping an eye on the captives. The regulars had to walk, but Batu and Erdene were confined to a wooden shell atop one of the wagons. Either Furtur was suspicious of me, or he had simply decided that managing them was his responsibility. I hadn¡¯t had another opportunity to speak freely with the shaman and the orkhan. I had shards of amethyst and diamond to give to her in case either would work as a focus for her sorcery, but there hadn¡¯t been a chance to do so.
Malphas was too mobile. He spent a lot of time in the air, and the flock gave me running tabs on his position. Astaroth, in contrast, remained close to Fladnag¡¯s wagon. He was active again, but still visibly weaker than he had been before summoning his fire snake. As the night progressed, I watched the moon sink.
Fladnag was driving the wagon, his wide-brimmed hat pulled low, smoke rising from his pipe. Hopefully, whatever he was smoking wasn¡¯t going to inhibit him when things got complicated. I¡¯d gotten the impression that not everything he breathed in was tobacco. Gastard rode beside the wagon in full battle gear. I gave him a wave.
You have everything covered back here,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯m going to check in with Gaap at the front.¡±
He grunted his agreement. Astaroth accompanied me to monitor for spawns. As soon as we were gone, Esmelda and Leto would switch places with a couple of camp followers. I¡¯d told one of the human officers that I was concerned with their safety, and he¡¯d been more than happy to find volunteers to fill their seats and help them blend in with the noncombatants, no questions asked. It was one of the perks of being a Dark Lord.
I resisted the urge to speak with my wife and son before leaving. Having a private moment wasn¡¯t worth giving a hint to Astaroth that something big was about to happen. The peacock had always been agreeable, but he was still a demon.
I¡¯d been marching on foot with Astaroth on my heels. We were only a few paces from the wagon.
¡°Call us varghests,¡± I told him, and he nodded, narrowing his eyes in focus. I could feel something happening in the aether around us as he reached out, though my sense wasn¡¯t keen enough to understand exactly what he was doing.
A pair of the horse-hounds came bounding toward us a minute later. For monsters, they were quite friendly. The larger of the two stopped in front of me and lowered its front in something like a bow to allow me to mount. Its yellow eyes hinted at intelligence as it looked up at me. They didn¡¯t have saddles, but the varghests were stronger than horses of the same size, and this one had no trouble taking my weight. Its muscles bunched beneath me under glossy black fur, eager to run.
¡°Shall I take us to Gaap?¡± Astaroth asked, perched lightly atop his varghest. The beast snapped at him, but he calmed it with a pat
¡°Lead on,¡± I said, and the varghests trotted forward. I had never been an accomplished rider, and my mount was acting largely on its initiative in following Astaroth. I missed Noivern. Theoretically, his death had not been permanent, and he would respawn at some point, but that was only a guess.
Zombies moaned as we passed, and I caught one of the hollows giving me a salute. The hollow knights didn¡¯t speak much, but they were smart, though it was hard to say how much autonomy they possessed. The
trolls were spread out among the ranks, and I counted at least twenty, not including those who were pulling wagons. But the monsters would come up from the supply group as soon as we halted, so they wouldn¡¯t be able to immediately start tearing through my human followers when they were out from under the influence of the demons.
Gaap had assigned himself a personal detail of advanced mobs. A small group of hollows marched along beside him, better equipped than their undead comrades. They wore a mixture of chain and plate, dented and dingy, but perfectly functional, and walked with falchions swinging at their sides. The ape demon looked like a proper general, with a fur cape hanging from his back, sitting astride a chimera. The beast had two heads, lion and lizard, and both eyed me hostilely as we rode around to meet Gaap.
He grinned at me, showing off a bright row of teeth and oversized canines at the center of his dark face. ¡°Come to visit me? To what do I owe the
honor?¡±
We pulled up the varghests to trot alongside him, a wall of zombies shambling along at our backs. The chimera hissed at my mount, which growled in return.
¡°Something happened to me,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯ve changed, and I¡¯d like to speak with both of you about it.¡±
¡°Your soul was shriveled before,¡± Gaap said, ¡°now it isn¡¯t. What else is there to say?¡±
Shriveled? Well, it didn¡¯t matter what the demons thought, at least this confirmed that they had noticed.
I¡¯m beginning to feel essence,¡± I said, ¡°like demons do. I want to be here when you call the mobs together and summon your mist to see if I can get a sense of what you''re doing. You all speak to the lesser entities mentally, and I was hoping I could learn to do the same.¡±
¡°It¡¯s possible,¡± Astaroth said, eyeing me curiously. I could have asked him about this without involving Gaap, and he was probably wondering why I hadn¡¯t. ¡°Communication is something that comes naturally to us, and you are like a newborn. The more you focus on your impressions, the clearer they will become. Sending your intentions through the aether is an extension of that.¡±
¡°The mist is a spell,¡± Gaap said, ¡°watching me won¡¯t help you understand it.¡±
¡°Can humans not learn demonic magic?¡± I asked.
¡°They can,¡± Astaroth said, ¡°though it is difficult.¡± Gaap flashed his ample canines at the peacock, narrowing his eyes in annoyance. Was that not something he wanted me to know?
¡°The hand gestures,¡± I said, ¡°and the incantations, would they work for me if I learned them?¡±
¡°You would only be able to use spells that align with your affinity,¡± Astaroth said, closing his eyes for a breath. ¡°Ah, your element is water, correct?¡±
¡°It is.¡± They could get a lot more information out of their aetheric sense than I could.
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¡°Then a version of the mist ritual should be within your grasp. Water and air serve equally well. I cannot do the same, as my soul is given wholly to the aspect of flame.¡±
¡°It would take you years to master it,¡± Gaap said. His cheerful mask was slipping. ¡°The other Dark Lord never bothered trying. You shouldn¡¯t either. You have skills of your own to develop.¡±
Kevin would have gotten to level thirty and unlocked his System a long time ago. Why hadn¡¯t he done any more than that? Was there not a higher tier for Survivors to reach?
¡°Is he like me,¡± I said. ¡°The same kind of soul? Do demons have ranks like my System does? I¡¯m an E-class entity now, apparently.¡±
If this was the last time I was going to be able to have a civil conversation with the demons, I wanted to make the most of it.
Astaroth¡¯s chirp sounded amused.
¡°We don¡¯t use Kevinian letters,¡± he said, ¡°but the hierarchy is universal. In those terms, both you and Kevin are in the same class, as are most harbingers. A few of us have evolved beyond to what you would call D class, but only a few.¡±
¡°Like who? Where do you both fit into the scale?¡±
¡°It doesn¡¯t matter,¡± Gaap said, ¡°we are what we are, and there is nothing above us in this world.¡± His tone suggested he meant that to be the end of the conversation, but Astaroth ignored him.
¡°Bael was a class above us,¡± he said, the feathers atop his head raising as he met the disapproving glare of the other demon. ¡°We are like you, whereas the lesser entities, what you call mobs, are a step below. F-class, if they are considered worthy of a rank at all.¡±
¡°What about Harmony and Discord,¡± I said. ¡°Are they gods? Where does the One Who Knocks fit into all of this?¡±
¡°The One Who Knocks is beyond such a scale,¡± Gaap snapped, ¡°he is everything and nothing.¡±
¡°Low A or high B,¡± Astaroth said, instantly contradicting him. ¡°He is unfathomably beyond the likes of us, but not beyond measurement.¡±
¡°Is A the highest?
¡°Yes and no. The entities who reach that state possess power that is difficult to quantify. Some are greater than others, but they would still be considered to be of the same class. Harmony and Discord are not gods, they are more fundamental than that. Discord is the force that seeks to evolve eternally, and Harmony seeks to bind all things as they are in quietude, in
death.¡±
That sounded like the propaganda version of what the sides represented. I¡¯d have to ask an angel for their perspective on things if I ever met one. Atlan was an endless plain, and the sky was beginning to lighten along the edges of a horizon of tall grass. Gaap brought his chimera to a halt, and it flexed
its undersized wings behind him.
¡°It¡¯s time,¡± he said. His presence beside me felt like a lumpy knot, and a moment after he stopped, the knot seemed to loosen and expand. Its tendrils brushed past me, and it spread through the air like a breeze. This aetheric
thing was going to take some getting used to.
The monsters responded instantly, the shamblers stopping all in the same moment to sway in place, whereas the nearby hollows were actively watching us, and appeared to retain their independence. The more advanced monsters responded to mental commands like soldiers receiving orders rather than robots being remotely controlled.
Astaroth was doing something as well, though his spirit felt more ephemeral, and somehow warmer than Gaap¡¯s. Phantoms were perpetually circling above the monster regiment, though they tended to keep lower than the harpies, and a chorus of their shrill cries accompanied the change as they flew down to settle among the ranks.
¡°Do you feel what we are doing?¡± Astaroth asked. ¡°Sort of.¡±
¡°Try to give a command to your varghest, use your will to share your intention.¡±
I closed my eyes to focus on my core, such as it was, a sparkly something or other in my belly. It spread outward, though nowhere near as broadly as what the demons were doing. The varghests essence was barely tangible to me, and I had no idea how to communicate my intentions to it. I imagined my essence as being so much water and tried to pour a stream of it into the beast beneath me.
Move, I thought, go forward.
The horse-hound pricked its ears and turned its head around to growl at me. Well, at least I had done something, maybe. Gaap¡¯s hands moved in an intricate design, and he muttered an incantation under his breath. Almost instantly, a breeze picked up, dragging moisture out of the grass and gathering it into a mist that thickened slowly around us and over the monster regiment.
¡°How long does it usually take?¡± I asked, and Gaap ignored me.
¡°Not so long,¡± Astaroth said, ¡°it will be finished well before the sun rises.¡±
I slid down from the varghest, and it shook its shaggy head at me, its tongue lolling. The horse-hounds weren¡¯t so bad, I almost regretted that I was shortly going to have to kill all of them. Gaap was drawing the mist up around him and sending it back over the regiment like a blanket, so I didn¡¯t have to walk far to be outside of it.
Astaroth came to stand beside me as I watched the sunrise.
¡°There is something on your mind,¡± he said. The demon was wearing the same robes he had started the journey with, and they were not in top
condition. Parts of his sleeves were missing, burned away, and the rest was dotted with small holes and scorches like someone had been using it to put out cigarettes.
¡°You could say that.¡± I wanted to activate my System screens to check how much strength the curse had cost me for the day, but Astaroth would be sure to know what the curse meant. Instead, I slipped down my pack and selected the potions I wanted. Might, Swiftness, Leaping, and Invisibility. Gastard had an identical trio with him. Their effects only lasted ten minutes, but if the fight lasted longer than that, we were in real trouble.
Astaroth straightened his feathers, preening with his hands as a natural bird would with its beak. ¡°The struggle between Harmony and Discord has gone on for as long as there has been time to measure it,¡± he said. ¡°Most
humans do not live long enough, or delve deep enough, to glimpse even the edges of the conflict in which all souls take part.¡±
I looked at the bottles in my hands, and the liquids swirling in each. Pale blue, deep maroon, and violet. ¡°It¡¯s a relief to know there¡¯s something bigger going on,¡± I said. ¡°So much of what has happened to me felt random, arbitrary. I¡¯m just beginning to feel like I understand some of it. But it¡¯s frustrating to think how small I am, how small everything I¡¯ve done is, in the scheme of things.¡±
Astaroth brought his hands down to clasp them at his waist. A golden light was slowly spilling over the grass in the distance, forcing the shadows to retreat.
¡°Don¡¯t you fear the sun?¡± I said.
¡°It will not destroy me, though it saps my strength.¡± His voice lowered to a murmur. ¡°That is what you want, isn¡¯t it?¡±
My heart picked up its pace. ¡°What are you talking about?¡±
The demon gave me a sidelong glance. ¡°My kind do not understand humans well. They have lived too many lives, perhaps. Compared to you, I am ancient, but to my brethren, I am young. I think I see more clearly for it.¡±
I didn¡¯t have a ready response, and he went on.
¡°You have not aligned yourself with either prime, instead carried by the currents of fate. Most humans are the same. Now you want to take a firmer stand. You were sent here to stop us, to save this realm from our master, and that is still what you desire. You see this as a conflict between good and evil, instead of what it truly is.¡±
It was an echo of what Berith had said, but Astaroth struck me as being more thoughtful than the tiger. ¡°The last time I talked to a demon about good and evil, he acted like he didn¡¯t know what those words meant.¡±
Astaroth bobbed his head. ¡°Yes, my kind does not understand humans, that is my point. But humans are trapped in their little worlds, their little lives, they cannot see beyond the veil.¡±
¡°If Harmony and Discord aren¡¯t good and evil, what are they? You said evolution and stasis, but demons don¡¯t seem all that evolved to me, and the world I was born in wasn¡¯t static at all.¡±
¡°You want to protect this world from the corruption of Bedlam, yes?¡± He looked at me sharply. ¡°Our master¡¯s arrival would bring much suffering and death. Those things are evil. But suffering and death are a part of nature¡¯s course, the cycles of life that Harmony has established. Stopping us does not prevent either of those evils, it merely changes their shape.¡±
¡°Are you going to try to tell me that Discord is really all about peace and love?¡±
¡°No. It is not.¡± The demon made a soft cooing sound, pensive. ¡°What I am attempting to express is that from the perspective of what you recognize as good and evil, neither Harmony nor Discord is worthy of your allegiance.¡±
¡°What¡¯s left, if not them?¡±
Astaroth couldn''t smile, given the beak, but his eyes, and the shape of his aura in my new sense, managed to convey something like joy.
¡°Nothing,¡± he said. ¡°Everything. The chance for you to be more than a pawn in their eternal game.¡± It felt like he was reading my mind, which for all I knew, was entirely possible.
¡°Why are you telling me this?¡±
¡°Because that is what I want for myself as well.¡± Slowly, he knelt, lowering his face nearly to the ground and exposing his neck. ¡°Accept my loyalty, or let my head be the first you take today.¡±
132: My Taking of Heads (Rewrite)
Astaroth was offering to continue in my service, knowing what I planned. There was a lot to be said about the prudence of trusting him, and it would be hard to claim I was disentangling myself from the forces of Bedlam if I kept one of them around. Still, Astaroth had guessed what I was up to and refrained from warning his fellow harbingers about it. That had to count for something.
It was simpler to think of the demons as all being the same, merely an extension of the will of Walter White, each with a custom animal head so you could tell them apart. But stormtroopers were people too, if you ever stopped to ask them.
This demon had protected my family. It had been his job, and any of the other demons would have done the same if I had ordered it. Astaroth, however, had made a meaningful effort, nearly killing himself. Sure, a demon¡¯s essence would survive the death of its body, but what he had done came at a cost to that essence. He¡¯d stretched his abilities to where it strained his soul.
Gastard would have counseled me to take his head now, given that he was offering it freely. Neither Esmelda nor Fladnag would be thrilled about the idea of bringing the peacock back to Mount Doom with us. But one more ally in the coming fight was hard to turn down.
What if he only suspected I was up to something, and was saying all this as a test? The moment I admitted I was planning on betraying the demons, he could act against me. Astaroth had been a part of the hierarchy in Nargul keeping the lillits enslaved. But arguably, that wasn¡¯t too different from what I had been doing so far in working with the demons. I couldn¡¯t fool myself into thinking that laying down the law in one city had fixed everything for the people living there, let alone the rest of the kingdom.
There were evil institutions at work across Dargoth, and as its Dark Lord, I was responsible for them. I didn¡¯t know who they were, but it was a fact that people were suffering and dying under my rule. There was no reason to assume that Astaroth was good at heart, or cared about humanity, but maybe he didn¡¯t have to be my enemy. If he was willing to work against the entity behind the invasion of Plana, that was a big deal.
¡°Why do you think I¡¯m planning on killing anyone today?¡± I asked, selecting the buster sword in my inventory, but not yet summoning it. We were both speaking under our breath. Gaap was still close enough to hear a raised voice, and I was grateful for the background noise of the host of
zombies surrounding him.
¡°I have heard enough to suspect.¡± Astaroth kept his head bowed, his shoulders relaxed. He truly looked prepared to offer his life. ¡°But it is the quality of your soul that makes me sure. The others have never cared to study humans in too much depth, but I consider myself an expert at reading their auras. Your aspect has shifted over the last few days. Still not aligned with Harmony, but with animosity for Discord. Each time you look at us, your intent becomes more clear. They would have seen it as well, but your recent ascension masked the change.¡±
¡°You¡¯re right that I don¡¯t like your kind, but that doesn¡¯t mean I¡¯m planning on killing you. This is an alliance of necessity, and that necessity hasn¡¯t changed.¡± If this was a test, I didn¡¯t want to admit how spot-on his assessment was. ¡°What do the others think about my attitude?¡±
¡°They expect hatred. Even among fellow harbingers, there is little in the way of true camaraderie. Kevin has hated us for centuries, but he never openly rebelled. In their minds, he and you are alike.¡±
¡°You¡¯re wrong about me. The mission hasn¡¯t changed.¡± I raised my visor, uncorked the first potion, and downed it. Potions of Strength were oddly savory, like beef broth, and as its warmth hit my belly, I felt power coursing through my blood. Astaroth didn¡¯t look up, or otherwise react to me drinking, so I drained all of them but Invisibility and stowed the bottles. ¡°We march for Salenus after dark. Let¡¯s get back to the others.¡±
The phantoms had all descended for the day, but there were still harpies spread above the camp in the steadily brightening sky. Pale sunlight fell across Astaroth¡¯s back, and he shuddered but didn¡¯t burn. He rose without further comment, his avian eyes bright and reflective, and followed me back into the mist.
It had been a while since my initial test of the potions. Even with the curse lowering my attributes, they still put me well above normal. Each time the System had enhanced my body, it had resulted in a period of adjustment. I was already a lot faster and stronger than any human had a right to be, and I had learned not to race ahead of other people, or squeeze things too hard.
The potion of Leaping made me feel like I was on a moonwalk, so it took some care to keep my feet on the ground as we returned to Gaap.
The fog had fully risen, cutting down visibility to a few paces, but Gaap¡¯s presence was unmistakable. He was standing beside his chimera, which had stretched out on the ground to rest for the day. He was no longer making hand signs for the spell, but maintaining the fog required
continuous concentration, and he didn¡¯t acknowledge us as we approached. When I came within a few feet of him, he glared at me.
¡°I need to focus,¡± he said. The dark forms of hollow knights were shadows in the surrounding fog, and a troll hooted sleepily not far off. ¡°What do you want?¡±
¡°Keep up the good work,¡± I said. Caliburn was in its sheath, and I was opting for the buster to make use of the added reach. I extended my arm to one side and started the swing in the same instant that I called it into my hand.
Gaap¡¯s eyes widened a fraction, and the blade swept clean through his neck. I continued to turn, bringing it to rest an inch from Astaroth¡¯s face. He had followed a few steps behind me, and he eyed the weapon with interest, but not fear, as Gaap¡¯s body slumped to the ground.
¡°I am yours to command,¡± he said, his feathers puffing.
Gaap¡¯s aura burst apart, rushing like a wind, and while most of it dispersed, slipping through the veil and back into Bedlam, a portion flowed into me. The experience was a little like drinking a potion, the sudden rush of essence through my veins, but it put a sour taste in the back of my mouth. Gaap¡¯s spirit was sticky, acidic, and it gave me a queasy feeling as a part of it integrated with my own. The elder sign on the back of my hand grew hot within my gauntlet. Was this what happened every time I killed a demon?
The chimera shot to its feet, lion roaring, lizard hissing, and bit both my shoulders. Its fangs scraped against my pauldrons on both sides, and it tried to press me into the ground. My right leg slid forward as I took its weight and switched to a two-handed grip on the long handle of the buster sword. I pulled with the hand nearest its crossguard and pushed with the other, flipping the blade back and sawing into the monster¡¯s flank. It wasn¡¯t much of a swing, and the sheer size of the weapon made it awkward to maneuver.
Its fangs continued to grind against the orichalcum plates, and it tried to shake me. I twisted, turning my body to get a better angle of attack, but it held on, and we spun a half circle like a pair of incredibly awkward dance partners. The buster sword went back into my inventory, and I pulled the blade from my waist to stab its blue-white point back into the head of the lion. The chimera let me go, one head hanging, and when it lunged again, the edge of my sword swiped under the lizard''s jaw. I rocked back as it slammed into me, but it was already dying, so I pushed it aside to face what came next.
The hollows surrounded me, but they weren¡¯t attacking. Astaroth was muttering in the demonic tongue, and they appeared to be listening to him. Dead eyes and fleshless mouths. They absorbed what he had to say, and one of them responded in an unintelligible rasp. Astaroth continued to talk, and one by one, the hollows knelt. They seemed to offer their fealty, but not to me, to the peacock.
I sheathed my sword and pulled one of Fladnag''s Roman Candles out of my pack. The other demons would sense Gaap''s death soon if they hadn¡¯t already.
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"Hold this," I told Astaroth, "point it up and light it. Then try to call for Malphas and help me take him out."
Astaroth examined the thin wooden cylinder for a moment, and with a flick of his fingers, lit the fuse hanging out of its bottom while I stopped to drink the Invisibility potion. It was sparkly, clear, and tasted like Mountain Dew.
My skin tingled, but nothing else seemed to happen.
¡°Can you see me?¡±
Astaroth did a double take, quirking his head to one side.
¡°Your face is gone,¡± he said, ¡°and I can¡¯t sense your presence.¡±
¡°Sweet.¡± I snapped my visor back down. As advertised, the potion didn¡¯t affect my equipment, and I¡¯d have to strip if I wanted to be totally invisible. But blinding aetheric sight was a neat perk. Backing away from Astaroth, I loaded Kevin¡¯s crossbow with a Shadowbane arrow and tried to focus on feeling Malphas¡¯s arrival.
My range was too limited. Astaroth''s aura was clear beside me, and the surrounding monsters gave me vague impressions. Without Gaap to keep them in line, they were becoming agitated. Fortunately, they were never as active during the day, and the fog meant they weren''t immediately presented with the sight of all the tasty humans camped nearby.
The harpies weren''t cawing, which meant there wasn''t a major response to my actions yet. The firework''s fuse burned quickly, and a bolt of burning light leaped up through the fog and out of sight. It wasn''t loud, closer to a fizz than a bang, and a few more bolts followed the first as the canister emptied. Gastard and the birds knew what this meant. It was on.
The fog would disperse on its own without a demon to keep it in place, but we had a few minutes before it did.
"Malphas is coming," Astaroth said, barely a shadow in the fog.
The demon dropped down beside Astaroth, and the cloud swirled, revealing the edge of his robes. If I could see him, he could see me, but he wasn¡¯t looking in my direction.
¡°What is this? Where is he?¡± He demanded, taking in the scene in an instant. Gaap¡¯s fallen form, the dead chimera.
The crossbow twanged as I pulled the release lever, and the arrow punched into the raven¡¯s back. Instead of lodging there, it passed through him and kept going, thumping into another target I couldn¡¯t see. The Piercing effect was something else. Malphas uttered a pained squawk and launched himself into the air.
Astaroth''s hands flashed, and a ball of bright orange flame sped toward the other demon. It missed, but had the side effect of burning a hole in the fog, revealing a wall of zombies shambling toward us. I loaded a second shot.
Harpies cried overhead, giving Malphas a less than friendly greeting. When we''d faced him on the battlefield before, the demon hadn''t had any trouble scattering the birds, but the sun was out, and his magic would suffer.
"Clear the air," I shouted. "I need to see."
Astaroth waved his arms, and a curtain of flame unrolled above us. It was short-lived, but it burned away the ceiling of the mist, giving me a relatively unobscured view of what was going on in the air. The hollows rushed to intercept the zombies, and I ignored the ensuing melee, setting my sights on the chaotic swirl of dark wings above me.
Malphas had been mobbed as soon as he left the cover of the fog, but he was far from defenseless. A vortex of wind sprang up around him, keeping the harpies at bay, but they were forcing him to divide his attention, slowing his ascent. My next arrow went off its mark, diverted by the winds, which were further breaking up the fog. Zombies and trolls shrank from the light as their cover retreated. Varghests bucked and barked, bolting for the remaining mists, though the hollows continued to fight off maddened shamblers even as their skin cracked and steamed.
An aggressive harpy fought its way through the whirlwind to claw at Malphas, who ripped off its head with a vicious twist. The other birds were an angry chorus, redoubling their attack. Hoping to reduce the risk of friendly fire, I dropped the crossbow to swing on its tether and summoned my normal bow.
My next arrow rammed into Malphas''s thigh, and he spun, shrieking. The winds faltered, and the harpies fell upon him en mass, driving him back down.
"Deal with the monsters!" I ordered Astaroth, tapping my bow to return it to my inventory.
Taking a deep breath, I squatted, then launched myself up toward the sinking demon. As strong as I was, going for a vertical jump in super-heavy armor would not normally have gotten me very far, but the effect of the Potion of Leaping didn''t seem to take the extra weight into account.
Almost twenty feet in the air, I got just high enough to grab Malphas''s ankle. He was furiously fighting off the birds, a storm of claws, beaks, and wings, as they dove in and out, preventing him from concentrating long enough to cast another spell.
He shrieked at me as I latched on, not bothering to verbalize a curse, but I got the message. His eyes promised murder as I hung on with one arm, using the other to recall the buster blade and drive it into his belly. The sound he made was close to a hiccup, and whatever magic was keeping us aloft gave out.
The harpies broke away as we dropped to the ground. The impact shocked my joints, but it was a short enough distance that Feather Fall kept me from taking damage. The demon tumbled down in front of me, impaled on an oversized sword. His beak clacked, but he couldn''t speak.
His hands, their nails like talons, spasmed, unable to achieve the precise movements required as a component of demonic spell-casting. Malphas struggled a moment longer and went still. The passing of his spirit felt like a frigid wind.
Two down, one now officially on the team, that only left Furtur. Killing the horned demon had been Gastard''s job, along with freeing the shaman and the orkhan. Once they saw what we were doing, I believed Erdene would cooperate, even if Batu wouldn''t. Moans and growls, hoots and shrieks, rose out of the remaining mists. Astaroth was standing with his arms outspread, his bright feathered head bowed and his eyes closed in intense focus as he attempted to corral the horde with his will alone.
It wasn''t enough. The monsters that weren''t still sheltering in the fog were being burned by the sun, and they were wild.
A troll, wreathed in silver flames, barreled into the support camp. It knocked over a wagon and stomped a soldier to death in the space of a few seconds. People were trying to stop it, but even dying, its rage was more than a match for unenchanted swords and spears.
My boots pounded the soil, sprinting at top speed. A zombie got in my way, and I ran it over. With as much metal and magic as there was fueling my charge, it might as well have tried to intercept a truck. The buster sword was still in Malphas''s body, so I drew my blade as I arrived, stepping in front of a frightened-looking man about to get smashed. The troll''s fist came down on my head, ringing my helmet like a bell.
I felt my spine compress and probably lost an inch in height right there. The silver flames covering its body felt hot even through the fire resistance of my armor, but I ignored everything, slashing its heavy belly crosswise. My heart bar had appeared, but it was still over half full.
The blue-white edge of my blade separated skin and muscle with ease. Maddened by pain, the troll may not have been aware enough to notice its insides were spilling out. I avoided its next swipe, jumping well out of its range. It charged, but never reached me. Its flesh disintegrated, its body reduced to a collapsing tower of dust and ash as the sun finished its work.
Other monsters were attacking the camp, but they soon came to a similar end. Soldiers were defending the wagons and the civilians that sheltered around them, fending off the burning horse-hounds and zombies as they came. I didn''t see Gastard, but the back of the camp where Esmelda and Leto were hiding looked untouched. I headed for the jagged wooden palisade that had sprung up to one side of the wagons, Furtur''s work, and harvested my way through the wall.
Gastard was on the other side. A wooden spike jutted from his shoulder, jammed in between his chest and shoulder plates. With his back bowed, he stood over the remains of the stag demon, his father''s sword gripped tightly in one hand.
Erdene and Batu were free of their cage. The shaman was crouched beside the demon, praying over the Shadowbane dagger lodged in his chest. Batu was standing with his back to the palisade, and he watched me warily as I entered the confined space.
"Are you alright?" I said, and Gastard straightened. He lifted his visor, his face red and slick with sweat, and he sheathed his sword to accept the healing potion I offered him. His other arm was stiff at his side.
"I can''t remove it," he said, nodding at the spike in his shoulder.
He grunted as I ripped it out, his eyes narrowing into slits, and blood poured from the gap in his armor as he threw back the potion. The crystal surface of his chestplate was marred by spiderweb cracks.
Erdene looked up sharply but did not comment, and a moment later, Gastard was flexing his hand experimentally. The blood flow stemmed.
"You''re here," he said. "What of the other demons?"
Celaeno alighted on the palisade before I could answer. "One remains," she said. "What would you have us do with him?"
"That''s Astaroth," I said. "Leave him alone. He switched sides."
The next thing I knew, Gastard had punched me in the face.
133: My Broken Nose (Rewrite)
Gastard was still under the influence of a potion of strength, and it showed. My head snapped back, and my nose cracked under the blow of his gauntleted fist. I took a step back, gritting my teeth, and put a hand over my face, my ears ringing. I¡¯d killed two demons, and the only damage I¡¯d taken had been from a troll and my friend.
"What the hell?"
"You were supposed to be free of them!" Gastard was livid. "What was the point of this, if you are still bargaining with the shadow?"
"It''s more complicated than that." Blood was pouring from one nostril, and my voice sounded muffled. "They aren''t all the same."
Erdene ended her prayer and stood. Her gaze was dangerous. "You have asked for my trust. But I cannot trust someone who keeps a demon at their side."
Gastard took a step toward me, and Celaeno flapped down between us. She was nearly five feet tall, and when she spread her wings, she seemed even larger. "No closer, human, or I will take your eyes."
Gastard was visibly struggling with his anger. His jaw hardened, and he turned to the side. "You are my liege lord, and I should not have struck you. I will accept whatever punishment you deem fitting."
"Don''t be like that," I said. ¡°It''s okay. Just give me a minute to explain." Rather than waste a healing potion, I fished out a beet from my pack and powered my way through it. Erdene watched in bafflement as I devoured the vegetable. Something popped in my nose, and the bleeding stopped. My nasal passages were clogged, but I could breathe properly again.
"What is there to explain?" Batu asked, still leaning against the palisade, his youthful face colored by disdain. "You are the Dark Lord of Dargoth. Whatever you did today, you did for your self-interest. You are not an ally to my people, and you never will be."
I looked at the shaman. "Do you know anything about Harmony and Discord?"
"Discord and Bedlam are one," she said cautiously. "What does it matter?"
"That''s the thing. These two big forces are fighting in the universe, in all the universes, and almost everyone gets claimed by one side or the other, even if they don''t pick that for themselves. But according to my System, I''m still neutral, and I think I want to stay that way."
Gastard grunted his disagreement. "There is no neutrality to be found between the shadow and the light. If you do not walk with Gotte, then you walk with devils."
"Harmony and Discord are not light and shadow," I said. ¡°Those are just metaphors, or color palettes, or something. I mean, yes, the bad guys are bad, and the good guys are good, but that''s not the end of the story. I don''t know enough about the cosmology to explain it properly. But Astaroth doesn''t want to serve the One Who Knocks. He''s promised to be on my side, me exclusively, not one god or the other. We can talk through this, and once you''ve heard what he has to say, we¡¯ll vote on it, okay?"
"Very well," Gastard said, giving Furtur''s body a nudge with his boot. "You will hear Esmelda''s council, at least, if you refuse to hear mine. The demon''s execution may be stayed, but not for long."
Celaeno¡¯s answering caw was angry. "Our patriarch speaks. If he invites the demon to the flock, so be it.."
"Harpies do not have a vote," Gastard said.
"We will see." Celaeno flapped her wings and took to the air, circling the palisade once before flying off toward what was left of the monster regiment.
"And what do you want from us?" Erdene asked. "Are we still your prisoners?"
I sighed. It would be more convenient if I could force them to stay and listen, but holding the shaman and the orkhan captive would not be conducive to improving the relationship between our nations. I wanted to give them a show of good faith.
"I want you to stay," I said. "But you can go if you want, on the condition that you take a message from me back to your people."
"More lies," Batu scoffed. "I am no messenger."
"Just tell your father, or whoever is in charge, that I don''t want us to be enemies. Dargoth is going to become a peaceful nation once I banish the demons." I focused on Erdene. She was still skeptical, but her attitude wasn''t nearly as adversarial as the kid''s. "The former Dark Lord is imprisoned in Mount Doom. I need your help, your magic, if I''m going to keep him that way."
"My help, or the help of demons? You cannot have both."
"We''re going to talk about that," I said. "You''re welcome to join us."
Gastard and I had a quick chat with the nearest officer. I hadn''t been keeping track of the soldiers, but I recognized the man. His name was Gulf, and he''d been in Dargoth''s military service for most of his life. He had dark skin, and his steel gray hair was cropped short. No more monsters were attacking the camp. Those that hadn''t burned away were still hiding in what remained of Gaap''s fog, which was shifting to the east. The soldier put his hand to his chest in a salute.
"My lord," he said. "Forgive my boldness, but what is going on?"
"I''ve had a disagreement with the demons," I said. "We are going back to Mount Doom. Tell the captives that they are free to go and that Dargoth wants peace. Other than that, try to get everyone ready to be on the move within the hour."
If this turn of events surprised him, he didn''t show it. "As you say," he bowed, then glanced around the camp. "The wagons, my lord¡"
Shoot. Monsters had pulled most of the supply train. Fladnag had an ox, but aside from that, there were only a handful of horses along, any draft animals. That had been stupid of me. We would have to travel with what we could take on our backs.
"Sort out the supplies as best you can," I said. "We''ll have to leave things behind. I''m giving you the authority to organize this mess as best you can. If anyone has a problem with it, send them to me, alright?"
His back straightened, and he saluted again. "Yes, my lord."
Gastard and I went to find Esmelda, and I noticed Erdene was trailing behind us.
"Are you staying?" I asked her.
The shaman¡¯s lips turned down. "Batu is going back to Torgudai, but I think I owe it to the high shaman to learn more before I follow him."
"So, you''re spying on me?"
"Yes." Her expression did not change.
"Great. I''ve got nothing to hide."
Gastard remained silent, but moved closer to the shaman, keeping a hand on the hilt of his sword. I didn''t think she intended to threaten us, but it was good to know he was still primed to protect me, even if he didn''t agree with my choices. We found Esmelda applying a bandage to the arm of a wounded soldier. I didn''t love that she was out of hiding. She was the only lillit in the camp, which meant that she would be hard to miss if a demon had come looking for her, but the immediate danger had passed, so there was no point in arguing about it now.
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A pair of harpies perched on top of a nearby wagon, and they responded with some amiable croaks when I waved at them in greeting. The Dargothians parted as I approached. Most of them treated me with a mixture of fear and respect. Since becoming the Dark Lord, I had done little to convince my subjects that I was any more personable than the man they still believed me to be.
Pretending that there had been no usurpation had seemed like the easiest course to maintain order, but I was wondering whether I should have been honest about it from the beginning. Being a Survivor with a stronghold came with the advantage of inspiring loyalty and followers. The Throne of Shadows was mine, along with everything that came with it, and I might have just been confusing matters by maintaining the illusion of continuity. By now, all the demons were aware Kevin had been overthrown. For all I knew, the general populace of Dargoth would be happy to learn that there was someone new at the helm.
Salutes and bows from the soldiers and camp followers followed as I came to a stop a little distance from my wife. Esmelda wasn''t wearing her armor, and I didn''t see Leto at all. She patted the shoulder of the man she had been helping and walked over to us.
"The harpies told me it was over," she said, her gray eyes meeting mine. "Did any of the demons escape?"
I gave her a summary of what had happened, including my conversation with Astaroth before the fighting began. Her face didn''t give me any hints about what she thought of the change in plans, though the fact that she was keeping her expression blank might have been hint enough. She looked past me to the shaman.
"You must be Erdene," she said. "I apologize for not introducing myself formally before. My name is Esmelda."
The shaman came closer, Gastard at her heels, and looked Esmelda up and down.
"What are you?"
Esmelda''s cheeks colored, and Gastard cut in quickly. "She is Dargoth''s queen, and you will accord her the respect she is owed."
Erdene shrugged. "Atlan has no kings or queens. An orkhan can be a man or a woman, but their consorts have no special authority. I meant to ask if she was a¡I don''t know the Kevinian word. A baga khun."
It wasn''t a phrase included in Fladnag''s book, but I could guess the meaning, and Esmelda did as well.
"I am a lillit," she said. "What of it?"
"I meant no offense," Erdene raised her hands in a placating gesture. "I have never seen one of your kind before." She looked from Esmelda to me. "The two of you are wed?"
"We are." Where was she going with this? Esmelda''s race, and our relationship, should have been the last thing on the shaman''s mind. The woman knelt, not to me, but to Esmelda.
"Your people are precious to the Great Eagle. He says that you are favored by the blue goddess and that though you lived in the dark lands for an age, you never succumbed to its taint."
"Well," Esmelda said, mollified, "that is accurate."
Batu had mentioned a Great Eagle before, and I had assumed it was a mythical beast, but now I was wondering if it was a title. "Who is the Great Eagle?" I asked.
"A higher being," Erdene said. "Every year, the orkhans travel to Salenus to pay him homage. Many never see him, but when he appears, he shares his wisdom with the elders. It is by the will of the Great Eagle that we ride into Dargoth. He watches over Atlan, and the entire world, and tells us when the time has come to strike at the dark lands again."
"Is he a god?"
Erdene shook her head. "Not like the blue lady or the dark one that the demons serve. We honor him, but honor is not the same as worship. It was the Great Eagle who taught the shamans of old to wield the light and banish the creatures of Bedlam."
So there was a powerful entity messing around in Plana. What would his rank be? Higher than mine, certainly. Given that he was operating in direct opposition to the One Who Knocks, the demons had to know something about him.
Esmelda was listening with interest. "I''ve never heard of this. There''s nothing about a Great Eagle in the Shui."
"Where''s Leto?" I asked her. "Is he alright? We need to get everyone together so we can talk."
"He''s fine," Esmelda said, giving me a reassuring smile. "Fladnag came to check on him as soon as the mist cleared. They''re back in the wagon now."
The camp was not in great shape. Wagons were overturned, and people were injured, mostly with burns. The fire that banished monsters harmed people as well, but it didn''t catch in the grass or the other flammables around. I could already see soldiers running around spreading the order I
had given Gulf. Fladnag had unhooked his ox from his wagon, and he was busily attaching bundles and boxes from inside to a complicated-looking harness on the back of his animal. Leto was happily helping him with the ties, acting as an extra set of hands.
"Yours is the one wagon that could still move," I said. "I''m surprised you''re willing to leave it behind."
Fladnag turned but didn''t greet me. There were deep bags under his eyes, and he was even paler than usual. He looked like he hadn''t slept in a week, though he probably slept more than the rest of us combined. In the distance, I could see Astaroth sitting in a meditative posture, alone in a section of the field scorched free of grass. Harpies surrounded him. They were on the ground, and though they were too far away for me to hear anything they were saying, the sight was closer to a conference than a trial. All birds. Maybe they would get along.
Leto waved excitedly at us as we approached. "Fladnag says he''s going to set off his illuminators. The biggest he''s got."
"Is that wise?" Esmelda asked.
"I''d like to see that," I said, "but maybe we should hold off celebrating until we''re back home and we settle all of this."
Erdene screamed. Her eyes flashed with silver, and light shone around the edges of her hands, as she pointed them at Fladnag. Gastard had never stopped watching the shaman or strayed more than a pace from her side, and now he tackled her, taking her to the ground and jamming his knee into her back.
"Monster!" she shrieked. "Demon!"
Erdene fought to get out from under Gastard, but she was pinned by a six-foot-plus man wearing a hundred pounds of armor, and her efforts were fruitless. Esmelda gasped, her head swiveling as she searched for an enemy. But the surrounding camp had frozen, and the only demon in sight was sitting quietly a football field away. I pulled my sword, as confused as my wife.
Could Erdene see something we couldn''t? Had Malphas survived and used a spell to hide himself? I tried to reach out with my aetheric sense, but it was as lackluster as ever. The shaman had a faint aura. Esmelda and Gastard were even fainter. Fladnag¡¯s spirit was brighter than ever, but there was something wrong with that brightness. It tinged the flame of his soul, turning it oily and bitter.
"Such a disappointment," the old man said. "You had to be good. This would have been so much easier if you were biddable."
"What are you talking about?" We were only ten paces apart, but as I moved closer, he knelt beside Leto and wrapped his arm around him, pressing his stump against my son''s chest.
"Stop there," he said. "All of you, stop. You need to listen to me, and listen well."
"Hey," Leto said. "Let me go." He pushed against Fladnag, but he might as well have been pushing against a statue. Gastard''s gaze locked on them, and ever so slowly, he was shifting his weight to take the pressure off of Erdene''s back. The shaman was no longer fought, and the glow of her magic had faded, but her body was tense. Her hands pressed into the earth, ready to spring up the moment she was no longer restrained.
"That man is a servant of darkness," she said. "He has come to us before with lies and treachery, seeking to destroy Salenus."
What was she talking about? All I could focus on was Fladnag and his demand.
"I''m listening," I said, "but you need to let Leto go."
"This world is cruel," Fladnag tightened his grip. "All worlds are cruel. It is a mistake to become attached to anything you cannot defend. It is a mistake to have anything you are not willing to let go. I learned that lesson, and now you must learn it as well. I truly considered giving up, but I''m sorry, William, you cannot turn back. We cannot turn back. The monument will fall, and the storm will spread. We cannot stop until the One Who Knocks has taken this world for his own."
"You were a hero," Esmelda said, a catch in her voice. "The goddess chose you. Are you not Lord Umber? Was all of it a lie?"
"It was the truth." Fladnag''s expression was agonized. He looked older by the second. "Every word. My past, my deeds, but none of it counts for anything now. I will give them what they want, even if it means taking your son from you. Kevin was useless, and he had nothing we could threaten. But I won''t wait any longer. There will be no more heroes, just an ending at last."
"Calvin," I was fighting to remain calm, "it is Calvin, right? Why are you doing this? Why would you, of all people, want to help the bad guys?"
His answer was simple.
"Because they have my son."
134: My Holding Pattern (Rewrite)
My eyes fell on Fladnag''s stump. It looked bruised, gray, and purple around the edges. What he said didn''t make any sense. He was a thousand years old, or something like that. By his own account, he''d had multiple families, and many children, across that span. Who had the demons taken from him, and how were they keeping them captive? Why was this child in particular so important to him when he''d cut ties with all his human connections a lifetime ago?
"Fladnag," I said, "You don''t have to do this. We can work together. Tell me what happened."
The old man put his hand on top of Leto''s head and petted him like he was a cat. He didn''t have a weapon out, so it was hard to estimate what the immediate threat was. Either Gastard or I should have been able to rush him and take him out before he harmed my son, but something held me back.
His aura was brighter than that of a demon. He''d been disguising himself from the beginning, and I had no idea what he was capable of. He''d once been able to heal with a touch, and from what he''d told us, that ability had been replaced by its opposite. If he wanted to kill Leto, there was no doubt in my mind that he wouldn''t need a blade to do it.
"Nadia was pregnant when they took her." His voice pitched low, and even in the silence of the surrounding camp, I almost didn''t hear it.
That was a hell of a revelation, but it made the entire situation even crazier. "You said she was gone when you went to find her. Wasn''t that hundreds of years ago? If they kept your child, how could he still be alive?"
"I told you," Fladnag said. "A body is just a vessel. Nadia was under the protection of Mizu, and her soul could pass on. But our son¡" his jaw tightened, "the One Who Knocks claimed him. The demons allowed him to be born. Then they took him to Bedlam. He is in a realm that stifles the flow of time, trapped but alive. They have shown him to me.
He belongs to the One Who Knocks, body and soul, and there is no escape for him unless I do as they demand."
"How can you trust that? You''re talking about the thing that the demons are afraid of. Why would it ever let your son go, if it knows it can get you to do what it wants by keeping him?"
"There are laws that bind even the gods.¡± He sounded desperate, as if he was trying to convince himself. ¡° I made a compact with their master, something far deeper than the oaths spoken on your blade, and with a greater cost. He will honor it."
Gastard had been rising cautiously as we debated, and now he threw himself forward.
"Wait!" My cry came too late. He had committed himself. His sword flashed, and he covered the distance between us and the old man in a blink, but it wasn''t fast enough. Fladnag''s stump burst, and a host of purplish, fleshy tubes sprang out. Dozens of tentacles, stretching impossibly far, acting with minds of their own. They swept Gastard from his feet, wrapped around his sword arm, and pressed his face into the dirt. Erdene raised her voice in prayer, calling out to Harmony for a portion of its power, and one of the purplish limbs stretched to snap around her throat. It tightened like a noose, stealing her voice.
I could barely see Leto behind a wall of tentacles, but I heard him. "Dad!"
It was the first time he had called me that. Esmelda froze beside me, her face white, her mouth open in horror. She took a step forward, then caught herself, her hands lifting and falling helplessly.
"It''s okay," I said. "He''s not going to hurt you."
"That''s correct," Fladnag said. "Your father and I are on the same side, and you are going to be fine."
He took his hand off of Leto''s head and placed it on the flank of his ox. The beast shivered and lowed, its deep voice echoing across the camp like a signal horn. Its muscles bulged under its skin, broadening its frame, and an extra pair of horns sprouted from its head, growing like twisted vines.
Snorting and stamping its feet, the ox shuffled around to face us, as if expecting a challenge.
"I''ll do whatever I need to do," I said, reaching out for Esmelda so that her hand disappeared within my gauntlet. She looked back at me, her eyes hard, and nodded. She was even less inclined to bring down a monument to the goddess than I was, but her intention was clear. We would do what was necessary to keep our son safe.
The irony of that decision, given that it mirrored Fladnag''s motivations, did not escape me. The moment there was an opportunity for me to get Leto away from him, I would take it. Until then, we would have to play along.
Over the next hour, the camp''s remaining resources were broken up as my followers made ready to move. Gulf barely batted an eye when I told him we weren''t returning to Mount Doom yet, but would instead continue our journey into Atlan. If the soldiers of Dargoth complained, they did it out of earshot of their Dark Lord. Most people avoided looking at Fladnag, who was now more tentacle than man. The mass of shifting limbs connected at his wrist, their size and number defying all natural anatomy, and he never allowed Leto out of his reach. My son was putting on a brave face, with only a hint of the terror he was feeling visible in his eyes.
Fladnag lifted the boy and settled him lightly on the back of his monstrous ox, nestled between two crates of what I could only assume were explosives or their ingredients. Esmelda insisted that she be allowed to walk beside him. I strayed further back, hoping to have a conversation with Astaroth out of Fladnag¡¯s hearing. Sunlight weighed on the demon, causing his shoulders to slump, and he had covered his head so that only his beak poked out from under a cowl.
"Did you know about him?" I asked.
"No," Astaroth murmured. "Bael and Valefor, the first ten harbingers, kept many secrets to themselves. Demons have come and gone from this world, whichever of us dealt with him in the past may no longer reside in Plana. It sounds as if the bargain he made was above us all."
"Your job hasn''t changed," I said. "Your priority is protecting my family. Don''t worry about anything else."
His beak dipped. "I understand."
The harpies had spread out overhead, and small groups were scouting the surrounding grassland. I''d considered having Celaeno organize a rescue mission to get Leto away from Fladnag, but there were a thousand ways that could go wrong. For the moment, they could at least warn us if the orkhans showed up. Batu and the other surviving warriors had made their exit shortly before Fladnag''s big reveal. If that led to another army appearing, there wasn''t much I could do about it. We no longer had a monster regiment, and there was only one weakened demon on my team. The Atlan cavalry would run right over us unless it turned out that Fladnag had a few hundred more tentacles up his sleeve.
Erdene and Gastard were ahead of us sharing a horse. Gastard''s mount, Marie, was as reliable as ever, one of the few animals that remained. I had a diamond shard prepared to give to the shaman when I could do so without being noticed. Whether her magic would have any effect on Fladnag was an open question, but we needed every advantage we could get. She may not have been a staunch ally, but at least I could be sure she was opposed to whatever he was more than she was opposed to me.
Clouds gathered overhead, far less ominous than those that I was used to. They were wool gray, lacking the browns and blacks of the storm over Dargoth, as well as the flashes of yellow and red lightning. It looked like rain.
Atlan was a beautiful country. Mostly flat, with a sea of golden grass that stretched to every horizon. It seemed peaceful, even knowing that there were hordes of horsemen somewhere amid all that emptiness ready to rain down arrows on our heads. My fingers were itching fiercely, and my gauntlets felt wrong and ill-fitting. I didn''t take them off to look. Every time I killed a demon, it changed me. If the only consequence of taking out Gaap and Malphas was growing claws, I would consider myself lucky. I''d been worried I might sprout feathers.
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Salenus came into view sooner than I would have expected.
A cobalt blue monolith, rising hundreds of feet above the plain; at first I took it as nothing more than a discolored strip of sky. As the sun fell into the west, shading the grasses in deeper hues, Salenus became a shadow standing out against the flow of the light.
I sped up to get closer to Fladnag, who was sharing his ox with Leto, tentacles hanging down from its sides like a nightmare saddle blanket. The old man didn''t turn as I approached, but he sensed me.
"Keep your distance," he said.
"Are we going to camp for the night?" I slowed. "The men have been on their feet for almost two days straight."
"Any delay will bring the orkhans closer. We keep moving. If anyone can''t keep up, we leave them behind."
It was what I had expected. We were on a clock in more ways than one. My curse was going to keep deducting points from my attributes until I either faced off with Orobas or made peace with the dark side. And he was right. If we had turned back the moment the demons were dead, we could have made it out of Atlan before we were attacked again. Now, it was only a matter of time.
Upon learning we wouldn''t be stopping, Gastard and Erdene dismounted so that Esmelda could ride beside the ox. I could tell she was exhausted, and the switch made it easier for me to talk with my templar. We allowed ourselves to drift back through the ranks of my followers, and I spotted Gulf.
The soldier''s pack was stuffed with supplies. Everything that we''d been carrying on the wagons was now on the backs of the men and women who were with us, and feet were dragging. I''d converted a few crates worth of vegetables into coins to make them easier to transport, but having me as the sole distributor of food wasn''t efficient when there were a hundred mouths to feed.
"Hey," I said, getting Gulf''s attention. "Why don''t you start a marching song?"
His brow furrowed, but he nodded, and his voice rose in a steady rhythm. Alone at first, but after the first few lines, other soldiers picked it up. The words didn''t matter, something about the indomitable fortitude of Dargoth''s loyal defenders and the endless reach of the empire. I just wanted some background noise to make it harder for our conversation to be overheard.
"How does he intend to have you bring down Salenus?" Gastard asked. "Illuminators may be dangerous to a man, but I can''t see how they would threaten a structure of that size."
"The same ingredients can produce a much bigger bang." Even without gunpowder, I could simply mine out enough of the base of the monument to cause it to collapse. Not that destroying it was my goal, but if we couldn''t neutralize Fladnag before we got there, it might become necessary.
"The Great Eagle will not allow it," Erdene said. "You march to your deaths."
"Didn''t you say he wasn''t always around?"
Erdene''s face darkened. "He is not, but if Salenus is threatened, he will come. I am sure of it."
Yet another problem I had no idea how to handle. Without a wagon to alight upon, Celaeno came down ahead of us. She stretched her wings, and people veered out of the way. Her violet gaze settled on mine.
"The flock brings a warning. Riders. Behind and ahead. They come."
"Will they get to us before we reach the monument?"
She quirked her head, the glossy black feathers of her neck marked by the last bands of the fading light. "It is difficult to say."
"What about your visions? Anything you can tell me?"
"The tower is in a fog. Though fate sometimes speaks to me, I cannot ask it questions. I think the lillit is important, though I do not know why."
"She''s important to me," I said. "They both are."
Celaeno let out an annoyed squawk. "That isn''t what I mean. There is fire ahead, shadow and fog, and something that fills me with fear. A predator."
"The Great Eagle?"
"Perhaps. It is not clear. But I think that if the tower falls, something new will be born, something terrible. Or not new, something old. Still terrible."
"That''s very helpful," I said, and the harpy ignored or either did not notice my sarcasm.
"Of course," she flapped her wings. "We help however we can."
A man shouted an alarm, interrupting the marching song. He was backing away from a zombie, the first spawn of the night. Astaroth raised one hand, and the monster dropped its head before shuffling meekly toward us. Celaeno took off, promising to warn me if the riders were getting close. No sign of them stirred on the horizon, but even if we reached Salenus before they did, we would be surrounded shortly thereafter.
Fladnag seemed to be aware of the situation without having to be told. He increased the pace, and the men and women around us were soon struggling to keep up. It wasn''t a problem for me. The System had developed my body beyond normal human limits, but Gastard was showing the strain. The armor I had made for him didn''t boost his strength, and he''d had as little sleep as everyone else.
As the soldiers bunched together ahead of us, I slipped closer to Erdene and handed her the diamond shard wrapped in linen cloth. She gave me a suspicious look but accepted the gift, and her eyebrows shot up when she peeked at what was under the cloth.
"Can you use it?" I asked.
She nodded, clutching the object to her chest. The shard was about a foot long, a few inches in diameter, and tapered to a point at both ends. It was several times the size of the gem she had previously used to channel her spells, and I hoped that made a difference.
"It will serve."
"I''m trusting you," I said, "not to do anything that would endanger my son."
She frowned, the silver edge of her irises flickering. "Salenus is more important than any one life."
"Not to me."
As the hours passed, the monument grew more solid, the lone scar in an otherwise seamless sky. Phantoms shrieked as harpies mobbed them, and what was left of my army kept moving. People fell behind, their pace slowing to a crawl, and we left them. The non-combatants couldn''t do
anything to help us now, and given what was coming, it was hard to say if they were safer with the group or on their own. If there was an Atlan force sweeping in from the south, they could be killed or taken captive. But I couldn''t protect everyone. The way things were going, I might not protect anyone.
We picked up more zombies along the way, but they were too slow to keep up with the march, and Astaroth sent them wandering away rather than risk them attacking our stragglers once they were out of range of his control. As the moon reached its apex, we got a troll, and it loped along beside us.
Salenus grew and grew. As a kid, I went on a trip to DC with my family. All I really remembered about that vacation was the hotel pool and a hot tub. But we had seen the Washington Monument, and this was just as big as that had been. It had to be fifty feet to the side. Squared edges with a flat top.
It was hard to tell from a distance, but I had a feeling that the dark blue stones that made up its structure were one-foot cubes exactly. A crafter had built this, maybe even the same man who had forged the armor I wore.
The clouds had been promising rain for the last twelve hours, and they finally delivered. Droplets plunked against my pauldrons and my helm, and Fladnag stopped so we could catch up to him. He slid down off the back of his ox, taking Leto with him. My son was resting in a bed of tentacles holding him aloft, and he didn''t look thrilled about it.
"Let him down," Esmelda said. "We''re doing what you wanted."
"He''s perfectly safe," Fladnag said, turning from her to me. "Take the materials. Craft what you need to craft."
"If I bring it down," I said, "will you let him go?"
"I will."
I met his eyes. They had sunken so deeply into his face that he looked like a hollow. There was no sympathy there. Fladnag had made his choice, and he was lying. Binging down one monument wouldn''t be enough to make Walter White happy. There were others, and he couldn''t release his hostage until we had destroyed them all. Walking over to the ox, I flipped open the crates it was carrying to reveal the waiting ingredients; charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur. All that talk about not using gunpowder to hurt human beings; had it been a part of his act? Maybe it was something he had cared about once, but the person he had been was gone.
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Might: E
Speed: F+
Presence: E
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135: My Kaboom (Rewrite)
The troll wouldn¡¯t go anywhere near the tower, it hooted, pawing the ground in agitation as I set up my worktable and produced a block of TNT. It¡¯s complaint caused me to look up. Fladnag was watching me intently, Leto suspended in the air beside him. The physics on his arm was baffling. Did all those tentacles not have any weight? How was he even walking around with half a ton of rubbery meat hanging down from one wrist? Compared to that, the burden of carrying Leto was a non-issue. My son took after his mother, and probably weighed around a hundred pounds, but even that should have been too much for him.
Was Fladnag himself strong, or just the tentacles? He wasn''t a Survivor, so I could reasonably assume that he didn''t receive the same achievement bonuses that I did. There were two ways for me to trigger an achievement that would enhance my body, living a long time, or dying over and over. I''d gotten more boosts to my attributes from dying than from living. It seemed like the System rewarded me for continuing to play its game, and that was conceptually aligned with my class. Fladnag, however, was something else. I didn''t know what the triggers were for him to get enhancements to his attributes, or if his class even came with that kind of function.
Given how old he was, he could easily have a higher Might attribute than I did. Would cutting off his arm make him a weak old man, or was he secretly a super-soldier?
No, not a super-soldier. He didn¡¯t see Erdene moving around behind him.
"Where do I put them?" I asked, keeping his attention.
"Stop delaying," he sounded annoyed. "You''ll need at least four to break the shell. Pick a corner and light it. We''re running out of time."
Erdene stopped twenty paces behind him, her mouth moving in a silent prayer. She drew the diamond I had given her from under her shirt, and a knot of golden light blossomed in its core. Her short, white hair lifted as if it was being picked up by a breeze, but the air was still. Fladnag turned, sensing the spiritual surge, his face registering mild annoyance. A few tentacles stretched from the mass around his arm to strike the shaman.
The diamond flashed, and a column of light erupted from the ground around Fladnag, streaking into the sky like a beacon. Her magic could break a demon''s spell, or banish the lesser entities, but it wouldn''t harm someone who was uncorrupted. The tentacles holding Leto loosened, and he slipped lower as Gastard dashed in with his sword. Fladnag shielded his eyes, and his ox roared, charging Erdene.
Astaroth got in its way, but the beasts knocked him aside with casual ease. With a curse draining my attributes, and without the benefit of a potion, I felt like I was moving in slow motion, but I was still faster than any of them. My boots thudded on the earth as I closed the distance. Gastard hacked at the trunk of a tentacle wrapped around Leto''s waist, but his blade barely broke its skin, and it tightened.
Entering the column of light felt like jumping into a scalding pool. It was palpable, liquid, and hot, even through armor. I held my breath, overcome by the feeling that if I breathed it in it would burn out my lungs. Kevin''s buster sword appeared in my hands as I brought it down on Fladnag''s wrist, the root of the writhing limbs. They were already reaching for me as soon
as I entered their space, grasping at my legs, but the cut was clean.
Gastard dropped his sword, pulled Leto into his arms, and ran. The tentacle remained wrapped around my son''s waist, severed but alive. Fladnag screamed, and his monstrous ox bellowed as it trampled Erdene. The light vanished, taking the pressure and heat with it, but I wasn''t free to move. A writhing mass of tentacles slapped themselves onto my armor, covering me from head to foot.
With a thought, I returned the buster sword to my inventory and selected a stack of Eternal Torches. As each appeared in my hand, I dropped it, making room for the next. Their gems glowed with Shadowbane, and I felt the tentacles loosen. They weren''t strong enough to crush my plate, and without being attached to anything but each other, they lacked the leverage to pull me down. As the torches took effect, I started ripping them off and throwing them off. Astaroth''s hands wove an intricate pattern, and red and yellow flames sprang up around my feet, devouring more of the tentacles.
Then the ox hit me.
Knocked through the air, I caught sight of Esmelda wheeling around on Marie, and dropping off the horse to help Gastard free our son. Then I collided with the ground, bounced, and rolled.
Before I could rise, the ox was stomping me. Its hooves rang against my chestplate and crunched my right hand. The heart bar appeared to warn me of the damage. I raised my other to recall the buster sword, intending to skewer the ox, but the blade didn''t appear. A moment was lost in confusion as it continued to batter me, pressing me into the soft earth. I''d expected an insta-kill. It had worked on soldiers when I''d been dog-piled on the battlefield outside of Mount Doom. Why not now?
A fireball went off against its side, the flash stealing my vision, but giving me the second I needed to roll out from under its hooves. I drew my blue-edged blade. It was easier to use at close range than the buster, and the beast wasn''t letting up its assault. It rammed into me as I got to one knee, and I tumbled back. Its bellow was as loud as thunder as it reared up to stomp me again. I thrust the point of my sword into its exposed throat, dark hide rippling with muscle under stretched skin, and blood poured out over my gauntlet.
It jerked its head back, eyes bright with pain and fury, refusing to relent. Jumping to my feet, I was able to avoid its next charge. Its horns scraped against my chestplate as it went by, and I slashed its flank. Erdene was down, and Fladnag was moving toward the monument, clutching at his stump. The tentacles followed him like worms, rising to fend off the harpies that dove in to harass him. Gastard and Esmelda were with Leto.
My duel with the ox prevented me from going after him. The beast circled, charging again, and I played the part of a matador, hopping out of its path at the last moment and jabbing with my sword. Bullfighting was an awful sport, but in this case, it was justified. One of my hands was broken, but I didn''t need them both for this. It made three more passes, growing weaker with each as its wounds multiplied.
Hooves pounding, lost in rage, it came at me for the last time. Sidestepping, I drove my sword in between its ribs, and its legs gave out. I looked up just in time to see the explosion.
Fladnag had lit the fuse of the block of TNT before shuffling away. Shards of rock peppered the surrounding field, and a plume of smoke briefly blocked my view of the base of the tower. Beyond it, a line of horsemen were approaching at a gallop, maybe a mile away. The tentacles were withering in the grass, but more had already sprouted from Fladnag''s stump.
"There''s nothing you can do!" He shouted. "Give up. Or your boy is going to die."
For a moment, I was caught between pursuing him and checking on Leto. But one of those was more important than the other. I rushed over to kneel beside my son. Gastard had removed the tentacle, throwing it aside, and Esmelda was cradling Leto in her lap. There were red welts on his arms and face, sucker marks, and his breathing was shallow.
"I feel sick," he said, barely able to open his eyes.
Gastard''s face was grave. "I gave him your healing potion. It didn''t help." The sucker marks were fading, but there was something beneath them. Purplish veins appeared on his skin where the limb had grasped him. Poison, disease, I didn''t know what. Fladnag''s twisted power. The air whooshed at a second explosion, but it wasn''t the tower. Astaroth had hit Fladnag with a fireball.
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The old man''s robes were in tatters, his hat was gone, and his face scorched, patches of skin missing. Wriggling tendrils grew out of his exposed flesh, and his eyes had changed. Putrid green, bug-like, they bulged from his sockets as he sent a rippling tide of limbs at the demon. Astaroth had positioned himself well outside of the melee, but whatever Fladnag''s appendages were made of stretched and grew out of all reason, covering the distance in a few seconds.
Astaroth countered with a wall of flame, but they punched through, snapping around his legs and dragging him back to Fladnag.
"I''ll send you back to your master," Fladnag snarled.
Astaroth squawked as he struggled against the tentacles ensnaring him, but they had bound his arms. I placed my hand against Leto''s cheek. His eyes were glassy. How much time did he have? A Potion of Regeneration might help, but it wouldn''t cure him. There was no antidote in Maincraft. Instead, you drank a bucket of milk, and it ended all status effects. There was nothing I could brew, nothing my powers could do to help him. In the game, poisons and curses wore off over time, and you could wait them out by healing yourself to keep up with the damage until they ended.
"What can we do?" Esmelda asked, her face pale. We had agreed that we had to get Leto away from Fladnag. But now? If he was a hostage, at least he was alive.
Leto didn''t have my abilities, but some things worked for him. He could use the brewing stand. What if my food had the same restorative effect for him as it did for me? I dropped my pack beside me and dug out a few coins, slapping them into my palm to produce fresh loaves of bread.
"Try to eat this," I said, and Leto looked at me in confusion, but didn''t argue. He tore off a chunk with his teeth and slowly chewed. Swallowing looked difficult. As soon as he did, a little color returned to his cheeks, and his next bite was more vigorous.
"Stay with them," I told Gastard, and he grunted his assent. Astaroth was not having a good time. The demon had summoned a few more spurts of flame, but they only delayed the inevitable. Fladnag had drawn him in and was preparing to take him apart like a sadistic child tearing the wings off of a fly.
Standing, I extended my arms and highlighted the bow in my inventory. It appeared in my hands, followed by a Shadowbane arrow already notched, and I loosed. The arrow whizzed through the air and struck one of the thicker tentacles holding Astaroth aloft. It shriveled instantly, and I shot again. Killing Fladnag was out of the question until I knew Leto would survive, but I could at least try to help Astaroth. I felt like the demon had done enough to deserve that much.
Fladnag moved his tentacles to put the demon between us.
"What are you doing?" He shouted. "Are you willing to let your son die?"
I lowered my bow. "Call a truce," I said, buying time. "You win. We can stop fighting, but we need to the demon. The Atlans are here."
The horsemen were approaching swiftly. The group wasn''t as large as the army we had faced before, but there were a hundred riders at least. More had appeared in the south, though they were too far away to make out clearly. Fladnag flung Astaroth toward me like an unwanted toy. The demon landed hard, his limbs askew, and lay still.
"Very well," Fladnag said. "Prepare another bomb, and I will save the boy."
A deafening crack from Salenus interrupted his statement. The block of TNT had blown off a chunk of one corner of its foundation. It didn''t look like enough to threaten the integrity of the monument, but fissures in the stone had branched off from the break, and they were spreading.
Salenus was not a solid pillar, but it wasn''t hollow either. Beneath the bluish stones was a different rock. It looked like gravel that pressed together into a coherent shape, only it was moving. Whatever it was pulsed, boomed, and the fissures grew.
"What the frack is that?" I said.
Fladnag''s expression was more resigned than victorious. "The beginning of the end. The seal has weakened. I couldn''t scratch it last time."
The buzzing of arrows caught my ear, and a volley fell around Fladnag. His tentacles shielded him, and I doubted the missiles would have done much, anyway. Whatever he had become, I suspected it would take a lot more than a lucky bowshot to end his life without the benefit of enchantment. War cries filled the air as the horsemen surrounded us. Gastard helped Esmelda and Leto onto Marie, more bread in their hands, but they were cut off before they could ride away. A shaman came forward from their ranks across the field, raising a blazing gem. His long hair was bound in braids, and a fur cloak hung from his back.
A thin, pure white beam lanced from the gem, striking Fladnag like a laser. His tentacles intercepted it, but it burned through them, severing chunks of steaming purplish meat. He launched himself forward, the alien limbs carrying him at an incredible speed, and horses and men got in his way to protect their leader. An arrow plinked off of my pauldron, but the Atlans weren''t focused on anyone but the living nightmare diving into their ranks.
Men with swords drawn had surrounded Esmelda, Leto, and Gastard, but they weren''t attacking. Dark hair, and an angular, youthful face; Batu was among them. They sat on their mounts at a safe distance, calling for us not to move. I raised my hands in a gesture of surrender.
Fladnag was a mad whirl of motion, dozens of limbs acting on their own initiative, as eager to defend him as to tear his enemies apart. The horsemen slowed him, but their weapons were either ineffective or the damage was healed in the same instant it was dealt. Men and women fell away from him, clutching at the dark marks on their skin that the tentacles had left behind. Horses fled, masterless, only to collapse moments later.
The shaman''s voice rose above the shouting.
"Wings of fire! Heart like the sun! Purge this evil from our land!"
Light streamed from the gem in his hands, swirling around Fladnag. The old man cried out, his host of limbs flailing, and fell. The spell went on, piling power onto power until he was no more than a faint shadow in the heart of a star.
"Wait!" What could I say to them? I needed him, at least for now. His curse would not die with him. But the shaman didn''t hear me, and it wouldn''t have mattered if he had. The light vanished all at once, leaving a dark spot in my vision. Fladnag had burned away, though the surrounding grass was undisturbed, giving no sign of the tremendous energy that had passed over them a moment before.
Still holding up my hands, I jogged over to Esmelda. Leto was halfway through another loaf, but though the dark lines on his skin had not spread, they hadn''t faded either.
"What now, Dark Lord?" Batu said, his face hard. "Despite all that you said, you came here to wound Salenus."
"Milk!" I demanded. "Please, I need milk!"
He blinked. "What?"
Esmelda rushed to explain. "Fladnag held our son hostage. He''s been cursed. Please, can you ask your shamans to help him?"
Batu looked between us, his anger giving way to confusion as his eyes fell on Leto, who was still scarfing down bread. "That monster''s touch is death." He said. "There is nothing we can do."
"MILK!" my voice echoed across the field as I threw up my visor. "Do you have it?"
"We have airag," Batu said. Baffled into compliance, he took a pouch from his saddle and tossed it to me. I caught the soft leather skin, harvested it as a coin, and popped it back out again. Regular food didn''t heal me, I had to grow or craft it myself. This was the closest thing to processing it with my System I could think of, and I had no other ideas.
Leto accepted the skin and guzzled. I knew from experience how difficult it was to chain-eat my bread with nothing to drink. He downed almost half the skin before pulling back with a sour expression.
"Tastes weird," he said.
"It''s fermented," Batu supplied. The horsemen were watching us like they had stumbled into a nonsensical dream.
"Finish it." I pushed the skin back to Leto''s mouth, and he grimaced but powered through. The dark, spidery veins on his skin were already growing lighter. A moment later, they disappeared.
Esmelda breathed a sigh of relief, nearly slipping from the saddle. Gastard said nothing, but he pulled Leto down and wrapped him in a hug. It had worked, my insane System had come through, and Leto was going to be okay. For a moment, the world grew still around us. Sounds faded, and all I could see was my son.
"Ugh," he said, his face pressed against the diamond covering Gastard''s chest. "I''m fine, let me go."
Then Salenus broke in half.
136: My Boss Battle (Rewrite)
Cracks ran up the monolith like lightning bolts, and the stone facade crumbled. Stone cubes crashed into the ground, lodging themselves in the earth. The horses panicked, carrying their riders away until they were brought back under control. Gastard''s mount, Marie, having faced down both roaring trolls and the magical eruptions of demons, merely raised her head in curiosity as Salenus split and a titan came forth like a baby snake breaking free of its egg.
It began as an avalanche, a formless body of gravel and soil pouring out of the break in the pillar. But as it came into the open, the entity took on a more recognizable shape. Legs formed, thick as redwoods, and a rough torso that quickly sprouted dozens of arms. The sound was tremendous, grinding gravel, shearing stone, the rumblings of an earthquake that had stood up to take a stroll. Its head came together more gradually, sculpting itself into something like a Japanese Oni mask. A wide, gaping mouth, and plenty of horns.
Harpies wheeled and screamed, seeking safety in the sky. I grabbed Leto, and he yelped as I threw him up onto Marie behind Esmelda.
"Run!" I shouted. "Just run!"
Esmelda hesitated, gazing up at the monster that was swiftly shaping itself into a colossus, and I slapped the horse''s behind. They took off.
Gastard hefted his sword. Though it would be only a pinprick to a monster like this, he seemed undeterred. His blue eyes hardened as he sized up our opponent as if considering whether he could climb up to its head and get a whack in before we were all crushed.
"Nothing like this has touched our world in centuries," he said gravely, "it will be an honor to fight it at your side."
The giant was just noticing us, the insects around its feet. Its immense weight caused it to sink into the soil as if it were mud, and its shifting feet pushed up the ground like bulldozers. I''d been thirty paces from the monument, and this thing could bridge that distance in a single step.
"It''s a freaking kaiju," I said. "There''s nothing you can do. Get out of here." "
A dark titan," he said, "I will not run from it."
"Just try not to die." I sprinted to my work table, which had been miraculously spared from being crushed under falling debris. Salenus, though split, was still standing, a testament to the reality-warping power of the crafting force. Arrows sang, bouncing uselessly off the titan''s rocky hide as it got its bearings.
There was something to be said for the bravery of people who would try to fight this thing instead of screaming for their lives, but there was nothing they could do. If I was lucky, the Atlans would distract it enough to give me the time I needed. The shaman''s voice raised again, and I heard Batu calling for him as he cast another spell. The young man was driving his horse around to join the primary group. Not a good idea. They would be that much easier to squash if they were all together.
"Father! We must go!" Batu shouted.
The shaman was Torgudai, I realized, an orkhan, and the highest leader of their people. If I wanted to make an alliance with the Atlans, he was the guy to talk to, assuming any of us survived. Light gathered once more around the crystal, though it wasn''t as bright as before. What he had done to vaporize Fladnag wouldn''t be enough for the behemoth, and I had a feeling he had used up a lot of his strength doing that much.
It was, however, getting the monster''s attention. The titan turned, its foot dragging a wake through the topsoil, and faced the assembled Atlans. Some were still shooting, but many had the good sense to ride away. I reached the table and fumbled through the process of arranging coins to craft another block of TNT. Without harvesting more material from the boxes strapped to Fladnag''s dead ox, I only had the resources to make one more.
The titan''s moan echoed across the grasslands, a mountain speaking, though it was hard to discern if that was its voice or simply the noise its body made when it was forced to move. It lowered its torso, changing shape as it went, morphing into something more like a centipede, still with that humanoid face.
Its mouth closed over a warrior who reacted too slowly to get away, horse and man both, crushing them like a trash compactor. It didn''t eat them. Instead, their mangled remains dropped out of its gaping maw as it shifted to attack someone else. Torgudai finished his chant, and light blasted from the gem, striking the titan''s distorted face. Chunks of its cheek fell away, but it did not bleed. Its body was a semi-solid mass, uniform in composition. There was only more gravel beneath.
I pulled the lever of the worktable, and a block of bound dynamite sprang into being. Then I fished out a couple of potions, Leaping and Speed, and downed them in quick succession, grimacing at the bittersweet mix.
Torgudai gave up on a second spell as the titan focused its attention on him. Its many arms had become legs, and it was better able to maneuver with its weight distributed among a hundred feet instead of two. The orkhan ran under its head, then off to one side. At least it seemed to use its "eyes" to see, though I had no idea why its perception would be centered on its face when its entire body comprised the same undifferentiated rock.
To my aetheric sense, the titan was a vast, seething presence. But that presence seemed to radiate from the head, weakening in the segments of its body that were the furthest removed. Taking the TNT block under my arm, I jogged to its backside and looked for a route up. The rear legs were still the largest, and Gastard was trying his best to slice them up, but he wasn''t having much luck.
Sparks flew as his sword scraped against its hide, and it looked like he was doing more damage to his weapon than to the monster. At least it wasn''t paying him any mind.
Its rearmost leg was bent at an angle so that the lower half formed a ledge. I leaped ten feet into the air and clambered the rest of the way up. Its flesh was as solid as any mountain I''d ever crossed. Getting onto its back was more difficult. I threw the TNT up ahead of me. Would dynamite explode from being dropped? It didn''t, thankfully, and there were plenty of handholds in its craggy flesh for me to clamber up after the block.
The lower half of its body was stable, as most of the motion was happening closer to its head. It crushed anyone who came close, still seeking to take the orkhan into its mouth. The old man was clearly in good physical condition, sprinting like an athlete to keep just out of its reach.
As I stood on its back, a fireball went off against its left side. The flames washed over it, doing minimal damage, but I saw Astaroth was up and ready to fight once more. His magic was weaker in daylight, but even if he had been at full strength, I doubted he would have been able to do much harm to this monstrosity. It was too big, and not remotely flammable.
Grabbing the TNT, I jogged along the titan''s back. It shifted under me, but it was broad and flat enough that I didn''t lose my footing. The grinding thunder of a mountain in motion drowned out the shouts and screams of horses and men alike. It didn''t feel the clomp of my boots or didn''t care. Torgudai had wounded it, if only with a scratch, but the rest of us were only buzzing flies.
Its neck loomed up ahead of me, and I planted the TNT at its base, crouching with flint and steel in hand to light the fuse. The seconds stretched out as I scraped out a few sparks, and the fuse caught. I leaped from the titan''s back, dropping into a roll amid the sundered earth. One of its legs swiped at me, and I hopped away, summoning the buster sword. If there was ever an appropriate moment to be swinging a six-foot-long blade, this was it.
Boom.
The bomb went off, a plume of flame and smoke rising from behind the titan''s neck. Gravel and stone pelted the field and its head lolled. A cheer went up from the Atlans, but it was short-lived. The colossus was far from defeated. Charging in, I raked my sword across one of its legs. They were as thick as tree trunks, but they still seemed spindly compared to its overall mass. The edge bit into its rocky hide, but the result was uninspiring. The cut was long but thin, and a moment later, it began to close.
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Its body was only semi-solid, constantly shifting. Blasting off chunks was effective, but slices and stabs would be erased. I switched it out for the orichalcum ax and kept hacking. The giant was having a hard enough time lifting its head again that I was free to continue my attack. Its legs adjusted as it continued to move, and I followed my target.
Cuts might heal, but what about a severed foot?
My world boiled down to a singular aim, chopping. It healed as slowly as it moved, and I went at it like I was harvesting wood. Cracked appeared, then disappeared. Gravel dropped away, losing cohesion as I chopped. When I was about halfway through the leg, it lifted again to take a step, and the lower portion broke off. I was near its shoulder, and losing the support caused its head to droop again, but now it had noticed me.
One leg out of a hundred. Did it have a health bar? Was I even doing damage, or was this all superficial?
Forgetting the shaman, its face swung, and I had to hop back to avoid getting slammed by its jaw. Its maw gaped, dropping to swallow me, and I ran to one side. It got a mouth full of earth instead. Though it appeared to be using its eyes to see, they were just shallow pits in its craggy mask. Stabbing them wouldn''t do anything.
Now that it was pursuing me, I didn''t have time to hack off any more chunks. Its head would drop, and I could swipe it as I retreated, but these were only shallow scratches. It would never go down that way. My back and forth with the titan gave Torgudai the relief he needed to try again.
His dark features were bleached white by an eruption of light as another beam struck. More gravel fell from its face, and one of its horns dropped off completely. All along its length, Atlans were attacking. Strafing with arrows, ruining their swords against its hide. They were barely a nuisance to the titan, but it was something to see. Gastard was among them, still determined to do the impossible. Smaller limbs had sprouted from the legs so that now it was as if each of them was fighting a monster of their own.
Its upper half was more active, twisting from side to side as it divided its attention between Torgudai and me. I returned the ax to the Storage Ring. As the titan''s massive head turned to lunge at the shaman, I jumped onto the side of its face. My hands closed around its lowest horns, and I used them to climb up on top of its head.
It tried to shake me off, and I held tight, pressing myself against the curve of its mask. The gaping hole of its mouth was far too close for comfort, but I pressed my boot into a pock on its cheek and pushed myself further up. It seemed to take forever to work my way around as the head lolled and swung, but I got there. The dynamite had blasted a hollow into the back of its skull and taken off a quarter of its neck, but the damage was healing.
Gravel and stone stretched and flowed, filling the gaps. I threw myself onto the ridge of its shoulders and called Durin¡¯s Digger out of my inventory. What if I had been going about this the wrong way? I might not be able to meaningfully wound the titan with my weapons, but rock was rock, wasn''t it? Some of the cracks that had appeared while chopping it with the ax had looked like mining in process.
A few taps from the bright point of the pick was all it took. One cubic foot of its body vanished into an empty slot in my inventory, and I grinned behind my visor. It might have taken days for me to make the entire colossus disappear, but I didn''t think I needed to. I planted my feet and started mining its neck.
Blocks after block popped away. They left behind sharp, perfect edges, but those quickly softened as its body sought to restore itself. A leg swung up, jointless, seeking to swat me. Its shadow warned me of the incoming column, and I dodged back, taking a block out of it before it raised to try again. Astaroth had circled in front of the titan and was launching fireball after fireball at its face. His efforts further distracted the behemoth, who then absorbed a third blast from the shaman.
The leg tried to brush me off, its stubby end splitting into a rough-hewn hand, but I hopped over it and continued harvesting. The effects of the potions were ticking away their duration, but in battle, ten minutes was a very long time. When its neck was down to a third of its original thickness, the titan could barely support its head. It tried to twist around and bring its mouth to bear, but the strain was too much, and cracks ran through the gravel. The section that remained to support its head gave way, and its face fell, separating from the main body.
All along the length of the colossal stone centipede, the legs stilled. The titan''s body froze, its semi-liquid form crackling as it hardened. But the head was still moving. Even separated from the body, it was still as large as a modest cottage. New limbs sprouted, and it began the slow work of picking itself back up.
The last of its neck had become a spindly platform. I ran to its end and leaped, landing amidst its horns. They swayed, suddenly as flexible as serpents, and struck me, their sharp points ringing against my armor.
Dropping into a crouch, I swung my pick and harvested the stone at the base of the largest horn. No longer connected to the head, it stiffened and dropped away. The others quickly followed.
Suddenly, I was bathed in a brilliant, burning light. A column of divine energy had descended to consume the titan, and I was in the way. It was weaker than the blasts or the beams, but it blinded me and prickled my skin like the heat of a flame. I flung myself from the top and landed hard on my side.
Minor wounds were adding up. I was down to three hearts.
The air filled with Atlan war cries, and my vision returned gradually. The world was full of shadows streaming in to attack what was left of the colossus. I blinked away purple floaters until I could make out what was happening. The Atlans, along with Gastard, were engaging the head in melee. A dozen new limbs had sprouted to fend them off, but it could no longer rise. Its hide was now more clay than rock, and their swords left marks in its flesh.
The light did not affect them as it had me, but it was weakening the titan. They chipped away at it, ounces at a time, working just ahead of its ability to restore itself. Torgudai had fallen to one knee, his face streaming with sweat, his chant no more than a rasp torn from a dry throat. Though the titan was fading, so was the light.
Tired and bruised, I trudged over to the dead ox to collect more sulfur and charcoal. The battle faded into the background as I made my way back to the worktable to craft one last block of TNT. Esmelda and Leto were astride Marie a few hundred yards away. I gave them a wave to let them know everything was okay. Bringing the block back to the head, I shouted for the Atlans to clear out.
"I''ve got a thunder!" I said, not knowing the word for a bomb in their language, or if there even was one. They were too busy dealing with the remaining limbs to work out what I meant, but Torgudai backed me up.
"Make way!" His voice failed him, cracking on the second word, and the column of light dissolved. The Atlans scattered as the titan''s strength resurged. One man was too slow, and a stone spike punched through his chest and out his back. The others wasted no time in retreating.
I knelt, lighting the fuse. The head had lost most of its shape, but it still looked vaguely like a face. Its mouth split wide as it struggled to lift itself on a host of stubby limbs. I tossed in the TNT. The mouth snapped shut, and then it blew up.
Rock rained everywhere, pelting the Atlans. My armor absorbed the impact of the chunks that dropped onto me, but some of the men fell. A haze of smoke obscured the head, still alive, but reeling from the blast. The living portion was now the size of a troll, and I approached it with my pick in hand.
It had strength left to fight, but I was its kryptonite, devouring hunks of its flesh with every swing. The moving pieces dropped away as they lost their connecting segments, and soon it was just a hunk of gravel four feet in diameter. The hunk hardened, shaping itself into a dome. It was giving up on offense, trying to make itself too dense to break. This tactic merely delayed the harvest.
Cracks formed under my pick as I struck, each block requiring ten or more seconds of swinging to collect. The Atlans let me work, gathering around to observe as the dome morphed and shrank.
Beneath the shell was a glass sphere about the size of a basketball, and at its center a purplish flame, radiating menace. The colossus had a core. I tore the orb out of what remained of its shell. Heavy, at least a hundred pounds, I carried it a few paces away and let it drop.
As I watched, gravel formed around the surface of the sphere like scales. When I tried to harvest it, the gravel crumbled.
Atlans were watching me in awe. I spotted Batu, his mouth open, rooted in place. Torgudai got to his feet and hobbled toward me. He shared features in common with his son, a sharp jawline, and a piercing gaze, but with a face weathered by years of wind and sun.
"Do you know what this is?" I asked.
He shook his head, and I swung my pick, bringing it down on the orb with all the strength I had left. The blow jarred my wrists, but the tip of the tool bounced off the glass, not so much as making a scratch.
"We knew that an evil was bound within Salenus," Torgudai said, his voice raw, "but we thought it would be the end of the world."
"Eh," I said, "it wasn''t that big."
Gastard had removed his helmet, and he came to stand at my side. His breathing was deep and controlled. He looked ready to keep fighting.
"If the heroes of old could not destroy it," he said, "then neither can you. It must be sealed again."
I glanced at the monument, a massive pillar of blue stone split down the center. Despite its condition, it didn''t look at the risk of collapse.
"I''ll see what I can do."
137: My Rebuild (Rewrite)
Salenus was big, way bigger than seemed necessary to contain the monster core. Elemental core? The giant wasn''t a demon. They had all come in a standard shape and size so far, humanoid with animal features. Since the colossus was made of rock, thinking of it as an elemental made sense. It was also the first mob, if it counted as a mob, that I''d come across with a physical core. So that was another distinction.
"This seems like a¡monumental task," I said, pausing to see if anyone would comment on the pun.
They didn''t. Esmelda and Leto were back with me, and Gastard, somehow, had made a friend. He was going over the finer points of swordsmanship with an Atlan warrior. The man didn''t speak more than a few words of English, and Gastard didn''t know any of their language, but the pair seemed to get along like old chums. They''d fought side-by-side, so maybe it was a soldier thing.
"Do you think you could contain it in something smaller?" Esmelda said. She was gripping Leto''s hand like she thought he might run away, and he halfheartedly attempted to tug it free. A part of me resented Gastard for usurping my opportunity for a dramatic fatherly hug after Leto''s curse was gone, but it would have felt weird doing it now. I really needed to work on my relationship with my son. Maybe we could play catch or something.
"I don''t know," I said. Putting the core in a coffin would have been my preference, but it probably didn''t work that way. "Whoever made this originally must have gone big for a reason."
The orb was at my feet, and Torgudai was nearby, monitoring the growth of stone scales along its surface. His long white braids were hanging around his face, and he pulled his fur cloak around himself as if it was the middle of winter instead of a comfortably cool fall day. He looked exhausted.
"The secrets of Salenus are lost to the ages," his voice was still hoarse, barely above a whisper, "even if you can repair it, the magic already is lost."
"I haven''t seen any runes," I said. ¡°It might have to do with the stone they used. This looks like Warpstone.¡± My memory suggested that the System¡¯s description of the material had been utterly useless, but I knew what Kevin had used it for, so I checked the materials log again to be sure.
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[Warpstone]
Rare to nonexistent in most realms, Warpstone is a type of rock found in some of the more solid regions of Bedlam. It is unusual in that it has a minor dampening effect on the powers of Discord. The influence of a single block is unnoticeable, but in large quantities, it can be useful for constructing long-lasting structures in unstable realms. If you plan on establishing a foothold in Bedlam, the attempt will most likely end in an undignified death, but enough Warpstone will at least give you a durable platform to return to on your next ill-advised adventure.
Warpstone diminishes, though it does not completely nullify, the likelihood of entities traversing the veil.
[Bedlamite]
The soil of Bedlam, this rock is porous and brittle and serves as the primary component in most of the islands in that accursed realm. Generated by Pebbleheart giants, fresh Bedlamite is a sure sign that one may be in the area, as they leave a trail behind them like a snail leaves slime. If you see a mountain moving around, get out of its way. Pebblehearts are usually neutral when encountered in the wild, and not to be trifled with.
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Pebbleheart seemed like an overly friendly name for the titanic elemental that had been chewing up people like doggy treats minutes before, especially when the other mobs had proper names like Koroshai and Kilohoro, but okay. The Warpstone entry had changed. Did having my System ¡°unlocked¡± mean it was finally going to start giving me more helpful information? Jeez, now I was going to have to go back and reread everything.
I turned to Torgudai, pointing at the core.
"Can you keep this thing pacified while I work?"
The orkhan closed his eyes as if calculating what it would cost him to do so. His back straightened, and he nodded.
My first step was to collect most or all of the Warpstone that had scattered around the area during the Pebbleheart''s breakout. There was a lot. Some were in large chunks, but many blocks had broken off individually, and others had sheared into fragments. While I worked, Torgudai sat cross-legged with the core in his lap and his gem resting atop it. The shaman muttered a chant that resulted in a pool of light just large enough to contain the core. While his magic didn''t completely prevent the sphere from generating matter, he was significantly hampering its growth.
Putting humpty-dumpty back together again required some inventory management. My storage ring only came with nine slots, and most of those were taken up by items I liked to keep handy. Shadowbane torches, tools, weapons, and the orb that absorbed the essence of monsters I killed for enchanting purposes. Bedlamite had already taken up the space normally reserved for my pick, and I''d dropped the extra coins after that stack filled out.
I made room by taking out my tools and converting them into medallions to be stored in one of my many pouches, then set about harvesting stone. A zombie appeared, and the Atlans had it down before Astaroth could bring it under control. They could kill as many as they liked. My last demon didn''t have the right spell set to keep monsters alive during the day, and I didn''t need to collect them anymore anyway. There were over thirty Eternal Torches in my inventory, each one imbued with a Shadowbane effect.
Popping them out in a pile at my feet, I called Batu.
"The monsters hate these," I said, "pass them out."
The young Orkhan had gone to check on Erdene as soon as the battle finished. It looked like she was alive, but barely. The ox had hit her hard.
When Batu came to collect the torches, I gave him a healing potion for her as well. He eyed it dubiously.
"Man," I said, "do you really think I''m going to poison you at this point?"
He shrugged. "You are devious."
"Well, thanks, I''ll take that as a compliment. But give it to her, okay? I figured you guys were friends. Would you rather see her die than take my help?"
His jaw hardened, but he accepted the potion. And after he saw that it worked, I handed out my entire supply. There were more wounded Atlans than I could help, but I wanted them to see me as an ally, and saving as many lives as I could was a good start.
Just gathering all the materials took most of an hour, even with the harpies helping me spot loose stones. The Atlans appeared not to be bothered by the presence of large talking birds and largely ignored them, but they weren''t fond of Astaroth.
My demon had his hood up and was trying to be as innocuous as possible standing with Esmelda, but they knew exactly what he was. I looked up at a shout from one of the Atlans. The man had drawn his sword and was taking it upon himself to do something about the servant of Discord in their midst.
He ran forward, and Gastard got in his way, disarming him with a swift, practiced maneuver. For a second, I thought his attitude toward Astaroth might have changed, but then I realized he had probably taken the charge as a threat to Esmelda. The man snarled at Gastard but backed off at a word from Torgudai.
"Leave it," the shaman commanded, still hunched over the Pebbleheart core. "We are in a truce."
At my best guess, it might have been around two in the morning. With the torches handed around and Astaroth on monitor duty, there shouldn''t have been any major threat from the spawns. The harpies never tired of eating phantoms, and zombies were dispatched as soon as they appeared.
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We''d had a troll with us on the last leg of our march to the monument, and I had no idea what had happened to it.
Astaroth had kept the monster docile, but maybe it had gotten squished during the Pebbleheart''s first steps. With an inventory full of Warpstone, I stepped up to the monument and considered my options. It wasn''t as bad as it had appeared at first glance.
The front face of the monument had split down the middle, but the rest was intact. Though there were some broken edges, most of the blocks had popped out intact along the lines of their connected planes, as if someone had kicked through a wall of Legos. The real issue was reaching the higher sections, as the split extended up around two hundred feet.
I had wood in my pack, but not that much wood. Fortunately, planks would attach to the face of the structure, so I didn''t have to construct a full-on scaffold. Esmelda stepped close to me as I stood there trying to visualize what the minimum viable platform would be.
"Are you going to ask for their help?" She said.
"With this? No, they would just get in the way."
She smiled, thinking I was joking, though I was just hyper-focused on the task at hand. "Erdene might come back with us. If not her, then there are other shamans. We may finally have another weapon to use against the demons."
"Oh, yeah," I said. "They''ll be a lot more inclined to work with us if I can get this fixed, though. Otherwise, that core is going to be a continual problem."
"You can repair it," she said. "This is the work of someone like you."
I nodded, appreciating the pep talk. The fact was, simply putting the pieces back together might not be enough. My class came with a rune-related skill that I knew nothing about. Any special sauce a previous Survivor might have put into the monolith was beyond my reach. Still, there was nothing to do but try.
Walking over to the worktable, I spent ten minutes sorting through coins and converting logs into blocks into planks. Once I had as many as I thought I would need, I began building my steps. Rock steps would have worked as well, but planks were longer, so they would give me a broader
ledge to stand on with less material. Because Salenus was entirely made up of crafted stone, all I had to do to lay the first plank was slap a coin against a block a few feet off the ground. It popped into position, and I added another plank against its edge so the ledge would extend out far enough I wouldn''t have to worry about my balance.
Working my way up the side of the monument was slow going. The ledges had to be staggered so I could climb from one to the next, and I extended every other section so that the planks stuck out across the gap in the monument like a set of particularly ill-advised diving boards.
Only when I reached the top did I start laying bricks using the point-and-click function of the Storage Ring. The range wasn¡¯t amazing, but at least I wasn''t at risk of dropping resources two hundred feet to the ground.
Thinking about it, I looked down, and that was a mistake. The ground, and the people on it, were a long way off. A sense of vertigo came over me, and I swayed in place. It shouldn''t have affected me like that. I''d flown way higher on Noivern and it hadn''t bothered me. Standing on an unsupported plank triggered my danger sense in a way that being strapped to the back of a soaring wyvern never had. A snack had gotten me back to full health, so the fall probably wouldn¡¯t kill me, it would just suck.
My inventory was half-full of Warpstone in stacks of sixty-four. Pointing at a missing block just above my head, I mentally selected the first box and pressed down on it with the phantom finger. A bluish cube plopped into place, fitting snugly among its fellows as if it had never left. One down, several thousand to go.
There were a lot of YouTube videos about mega-build projects in Maincraft. They could be really impressive, like a statue of a celebrity the size of an in-game skyscraper. People also recreated entire landscapes from other settings or turned the Overworld into the Nether, or vice versa. I''d never attempted anything like that. My brother and I had shared a realm where we built ourselves a big base, and I''d used lava to turn the mountain it was on into a volcano, but it had been nothing like the time investment of some projects I''d seen online.
Even what I was doing now was small compared to what some guys had done digitally. Of course, it took longer to build things in real life than in the game, but not that much longer. Blocks appeared where I pointed, though I had to be careful about misplacement and switch platforms as I went. For the segments that had cracked or sheared, I had to harvest those fragments and replace them with fresh blocks.
When I got to the bottom, I would be short of material, but I could craft the shards back into blocks at my work table to finish. The work quickly became boring. My inventory emptied long before I reached that point, so I refilled it with coins from my pack and continued. The harpies came in close to the monument, snatching phantoms out of the sky that would have otherwise tried to bump me off my perch.
The moon fell, and the stars faded. When this finished, we could finally return to Mount Doom. By now, Orobas had to know that I had broken our oath. He had the oathblade in his possession, and I assumed there would have been a change in its aetheric signature or whatever the moment the System cursed me. The only question was, would he free Kevin immediately or allow me to make amends?
The longer it took me to get back, the weaker I would be, so waiting could be to his advantage. Besides, it was unlikely that Kevin would reward the demon for letting him go. Bojack had been instrumental in overthrowing the previous Dark Lord, and Kevin was a dick. He might thank Bojack at first, but he would hold a grudge. As soon as Kevin was sure he could get
away with it, he would kill the demon and replace him with one who hadn''t betrayed him.
It was in Bojack''s self-interest to bring me back to the dark side, and I could be relatively certain he would try negotiation before resorting to letting Kevin go. That didn¡¯t mean he wouldn¡¯t be ready to fight. There were an awful lot of monsters in the chambers below Mount Doom. Those freaking spider scorpions, he was definitely going to bring those out to play.
Ugh.
Gremory was there as well. That was a two-demon minimum for what we would have to contend with when we got back, and I couldn¡¯t expect to get a free shot at beheading them. He was going to take Zareth hostage, too. It wasn''t like I was best friends with the vizier, but I liked the guy, and Bojack would use every tool at his disposal to make me listen.
Sneaking in was the best option, but that would involve a bit of tunneling, and Bojack would sense me when I got close. It was almost dawn when I climbed down to craft the Warpstone shards back into full-fledged blocks. My System dinged, and I nearly swooned.
Esmelda and Gastard both rushed over to check on me. "I''m fine," I said, "just light-headed."
It was more than that, though. It felt like I''d just given blood, way too much blood.
"You''ve been without sleep for days," Esmelda said. "You need rest."
"We all have." I pulled up my screens again to see the bad news.
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Might: F+
Speed: F
Presence: E
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¡°What does it mean?¡± Esmelda frowned.
¡°F is within normal human range.¡± I was still above average, but things were getting tight.
If the decline continued this way, I would be crippled by the time we arrived at the mountain, if I could even move at all. My armor felt heavy in a way it never had before.
"It''s happening too fast," Esmelda said, touching my wrist. "We have to get you back now."
"This is almost finished," I said. "Let''s pretend it didn''t happen until I''m done."
She didn''t look too happy about it but agreed.
"We caused the titan to be released," Gastard said. ¡°It would be dishonorable for you to leave without sealing it."
That, and the Atlans wouldn''t take kindly to my leaving the job undone. Re- crafting the blocks didn''t take long, and there were only a couple hundred blocks left to fill in. Gray light crossed the plains, and the sun peaked over the horizon, but it wasn''t a hopeful sight for me. Every day brought me closer to being at the mercy of the same demon who had tortured me for so long he''d gotten bored with it.
When all that remained of the break was a small door, Torgudai brought the core inside the monument and left it there. The interior was bare, with a flat floor of the same blue stone and a lot of empty space. In the monument''s darkness, the Pebbleheart core glowed like a massive coal. It had covered itself with a thin layer of gravel, but its crimson essence shone through.
I closed it off.
"How do you know it''s safe?" Leto had wandered over. There was no sign on his face or body that he had nearly died the night before. But the experience of being held captive had to have affected him. I took one gauntlet off, intending to place a comforting hand on his shoulder, but stopped when I saw how I''d changed.
They were hairy, not completely covered in fur, but certainly shaggier than I remembered, and my nails had grown out, thickening into fresh white claws. So that was what the itching had been about.
"Well," Esmelda said, her eyebrows raising at the sight, "that''s unfortunate."
"Oh," Leto said. "Cool."
At least he wasn¡¯t freaked out. Before I could think of something to say to Esmelda, a thunderclap rolled across the sky. There was no storm, no clouds. It came from the direction of the sun.
A silhouette was outlined against that brilliant circle, thin and wide. A pair of wings. For a second, I thought it was a harpy coming at us from a dramatic angle, but it kept getting bigger.
Bigger.
Torgudai let out a breath, and the Atlans took up a cheer. "The Great Eagle!"
"The Great Eagle has come!"
138: My Near Death Experience (Rewrite)
The shadow against the sun grew and grew, gradually taking on a color of its own. The great eagle''s feathers were a shimmering rainbow, their hues changing with every wing beat. Color rolled across it in waves, and then back again, in an endless cycle of coruscant light. It was beautiful; it was terrifying.
"Is this bad?" I asked. "Is it going to be mad at me?"
"The tower is whole," Esmelda said. "And it was Fladnag who broke it."
"I''m not sure this is something that''s going to have a conversation about its feelings on the matter."
"You do not need to fear." Torgudai looked healthier now that he was no longer burdened with keeping the Pebbleheart from regenerating. Still tired, but no longer sheltering in his cloak like he was fighting off a chill. "The Great Eagle is peaceful unless it is in the presence of shadow."
His mouth quirked. "If you are fond of that demon, say your farewells."
Everyone was standing around, watching the mythical creature''s approach, including Astaroth. Atlans were still cheering, or laughing and congratulating each other on having the luck to see their holy protector in the flesh. While my little group had formed up in a semi-circle facing the rising sun.
"I am not sure if it is a wonder or a terror," Gastard said.
"I miss flying." Leto was watching its approach in a way that suggested he was more on the side of it being a wonder. "Do you think Noivern will come back soon?"
"I don''t know," I said. Some individual mobs could appear night after night, even if they were killed, but though most trolls and zombies were interchangeable in other ways, they weren''t the same entity being reborn again and again. At least, I didn''t think they were. Noivern might come back or he might not. The underlying laws weren''t clear to me, and several new twists had been added to my mental model over the last few days.
The demons had cores. Though like my own, they were immaterial, rather than a literal diamond egg in their bellies. It allowed them to maintain their continuity when their essence returned to Bedlam after death. None of the demons I had killed were dead. They were banished. I thought core was a misleading word, they could just be called souls. Except in the case of the pebbleheart, apparently.
The essence of weaker monsters, like zombies, was probably recycled, so it wasn''t the same monster that appeared every night unless they ate enough Survivor skin to level up or however that worked for their species. I wasn''t sure where Noivern sat on that scale, but I hoped he would eventually find his way back through the veil.
Astaroth was staring up at the incoming kaiju, utterly still. The blue feathers of his crown pressed down against his skull, making him seem smaller. A bit of a bird himself; maybe he would get a pass.
"Do you want to run?" I asked.
He ground his beak for a moment before replying.
"It would only draw its attention. I am trying to diminish my aura." He tugged on his hood. "Perhaps it will not notice me."
That was optimistic. Before it arrived, I put away all my tools and weapons, either in my inventory or as medallions. And I put my helmet and gauntlets back on. My aura was still neutral as far as I knew, but the marks of demonic corruption were unmistakable in my physical form. Like Astaroth, I wanted to make myself as inoffensive as possible.
It wasn''t as large as the pebbleheart had been, but its wingspan was well over a hundred feet, which was already too big for comfort. In my spiritual sense, its presence was even broader than that, and a sense of building pressure accompanied its approach. The harpies did not retreat. Instead, they dove to the earth, becoming a carpet of black feathers as they prostrated themselves before a superior raptor.
The Great Eagle came to a stop eighty yards ahead of us, its downstrokes stirring up a fierce wind as it slowly lowered itself to the ground. It didn''t look like the sort of bird that could hover, but there was something supernatural in the way it controlled its descent. Horses balked, and some broke and ran at the sight, ignoring the demands of their masters.
Even Marie looked nervous.
Torgudai held his arms up and out, standing tall as he stepped forward to greet the immense, glimmering bird.
"Great Eagle!" He called. ¡°You honor us beyond words. I am Torgudai, first among the Orkhans of the endless plains. How can I serve you?¡±
The bird''s eyes were as large as buckets, and now that it was close, I didn''t think it looked like an eagle at all. Its neck was long, and its face and beak were slender, like a heron¡¯s. Its gaze fell blankly upon the recently completed tower.
(It broke. I felt it break. What did you do?)
Telepathy was more unsettling than I''d thought it would be, maybe because I wasn''t expecting it. The creature''s voice was high and reedy and inside my skull. Could it hear me thinking about it? From the reactions of the Atlans, and Esmelda beside me, I realized it wasn''t addressing me directly. It was in all our heads.
"It was the sorcerer, Fladnag, great one, with the help of the Dargothian king." He gestured at me, and the bird''s gaze followed, its attention dropping on my spirit like a lead weight. Torgudai quickly gave a follow-up statement. "But Fladnag is defeated, and the Dargothian is in a truce with us. We fought together against the giant that hid within Salenus, and he sealed the monument once more."
(Come here.)
My feet responded to the command without input from my brain. Did the bird do mind control, or was I just that intimidated? So far, my armor had withstood everything this world had to throw at it, but as I gazed up at the Great Eagle''s beak, I had a feeling that it could peel me open like a tin can.
Torgudai stepped back, bowing as I came under its vast chest. The giant bird raised one taloned foot and brought it down on top of me. Even if I had been at full strength, I didn''t think I would have had a chance of fighting back. I could have dodged, but something was telling me not to move. Its aura, its will, wrapped around me, was holding even my thoughts in check.
It smashed me flat, my visor pressing into the dirt.
(You''re dirty and bad. I''ll clean you.)
There was something odd about the way it spoke, aside from the whole telepathy thing. Was this a juvenile version of whatever massive species of magic bird this was? It sounded juvenile. Its talons dug into the soil as it pressed me down, powerless to resist.
"Stop," I heard Esmelda, but I couldn''t turn my head to see her. "He isn''t your enemy!"
Golden flames, the same that banished the lesser entities of Bedlam when exposed to the sun, sprang up around me. They weren''t as hot as regular fire, at least not at first, but they burned. My skin prickled. My eyes and throat dried out.
Oddly, the armor itself did not grow hot. That was a relief. No one wanted their plate-mail to be converted into a portable oven, but the flames seemed to ignore the fact that I was wearing armor entirely, and they were starting to seriously sting. I felt its weight shift slightly as it swept its wing. Gastard¡¯s shout was cut short. He had been coming to rescue me?
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Esmelda was saying something else, but her words were lost beneath the Eagle''s cry as a fireball erupted against its head. The sound cut through me, leaving my ears ringing. Its aura was still pressing down as firmly as its foot, but I resisted. The stinging heat was worse by the second, and the pain cleared my mind.
It had said it would clean me. That wasn''t necessarily bad. Maybe it had meant it would cure me of my taint. But a less generous interpretation would be that it was going to purge me from Plana as thoroughly as Torgudai had purged Fladnag. Besides, I didn''t like being pushed around, psychically or otherwise.
One of my arms was free, sticking out from under its long toes. Selecting an item from my inventory took all of my willpower. The buster sword appeared in my hand as the heat intensified. I screamed and failed to lift the sword. The angle was bad, and I wasn¡¯t strong enough to use it anymore, certainly not one-handed. Letting it go, I selected my ax and brought back my forearm up on the hinge of my elbow to hack its leg. It was a blow with little leverage, but one the eagle had not been expecting.
It lifted its foot, and I crawled forward, granted a reprieve from the mystic flames. I was barely strong enough to get to my feet, and when I turned, I saw Esmelda and Leto were both in the hands of Atlan warriors.
Gastard was giving them a tougher time, dueling three men at once. His longsword flashed against their scimitars.
I''d seen him come out ahead of similar odds before, but these weren''t the Dargothians we had surprised in the barracks of a way station so long ago. The Atlans fought fervently and with coordination. If not for the armor I''d made for him, they might have cut him open already.
"Gastard," I shouted to him. "Surrender!"
If he heard me, he gave no sign, and I was barely able to avoid the eagle''s claws as it brought them down again, leaping to one side. I didn¡¯t see Astaroth at all. He¡¯d been the one to lob a fireball at the bird, but all that remained of the demon was a pile of robes in a circle of scorched grass where he had been standing.
"Great Eagle!" I called up to those vast, bright eyes, "Please speak to me. I am not your enemy."
It pulled back its head as if preparing to drive down and snap me into its beak.
(You''re dirty and you cut me and I don''t like you.)
"I''m sorry," I dropped the ax. "I''m very sorry. I panicked. Your fire hurt me."
(It hurt you because you''re bad.)
"I''m not¡ª-"
It didn''t let me finish the sentence. Its beak lanced down, striking me in the chest, my armor ringing like a bell as it flung me onto my back. Before I could roll, its foot dropped to pin me once more, and the flames blazed back to life. There was no grace period this time, it just burned.
My vision blurred, and the noxious scent of searing hair filled my nostrils.
As I cried out, the Eagle answered with another shriek of its own. The world faded to shadows beyond the flames, but I saw a shape lifting the buster sword and knew it was Gastard. It was too heavy for him to wield properly, but he swung it into the back of the Eagle''s narrow, scaly leg. The pressure intensified as the giant bird kicked off the ground and took to the air.
Feathers fell in a shimmering cloud, reflecting all the colors of the rainbow. My mind was still sluggish, and I didn''t at first understand what I was seeing. The Great Eagle was changing its legs and body thickening even as the feathers dropped from its wings in droves and vanished into puffs of light. New muscle widened its neck, and claws sprouted from the joint of its wings as it swung around Salenus.
Torgudai blew a horn, and the Atlans went into retreat, no longer shouting about joy and honor, but running for their lives. The eagle was not an eagle. Its skin hardened into green-gray scales along its underbelly, and glossy black covering the rest of its body. A shriek modulated into a roar as the transformation completed, and it looked down upon us with eyes as violet as Celaeno¡¯s.
The harpies, for their part, were scattering as fast as their wings could take them. They had always been loyal to me, but there had to be a limit somewhere, and that limit was dragons. I didn''t blame them.
(Stupid man. You''re going to burn.)
"I do not know what you are," Gastard raised his voice against the wind beat out by its great wings, "but I will not allow you to harm the man to whom I have sworn my service."
(Whatever.)
The dragon sucked in air as it landed beside the monument, then breathed out a cone of purple mist. Gastard rested the buster sword against his shoulder and pressed ahead, maybe intending to make it under the cone, but the cloud swallowed us both. Bitter, and acidic, but largely filtered by my visor. Strangely, I felt the elder sign on my hand grow warm.
I ran toward the dragon with the ax in both hands. While I preferred swords, fighting this thing was going to be more like chopping a tree than having a duel. The fact that it had morphed from bird to dragon reminded me of something, but I was still having trouble thinking. Its aura was so strong that it was hard to put one foot in front of the other, let alone strategize.
The mist was heavy; it sank rather than rose, and as I burst out of it, I turned my head to see Esmelda pulling Leto away from the edge of the cloud.
They were no longer being held by the Atlans, though that was minor consolation. Whatever the dragon''s breath did to someone without my resistance, it wouldn''t be good.
I jogged toward the dragon, shouting.
"I''m not bad! I made some mistakes! But we can talk this out!"
Its tail swept around behind me and slammed into the back of my knees, and the world spun as I flipped end over end. Then it batted me with one of its claws like a cat playing with a mouse, and I went flying.
I was certain that I would die. The next couple of strikes would kill me. Under other circumstances, it wouldn''t have been a big deal. But if I woke up tomorrow back at my point of origin, or beside Bojack¡¯s Anchor, I would be too far from Mount Doom to have a hope of making it home before being completely incapacitated.
Death also meant leaving my wife and son out here in the wilderness undefended. From the way things were going, it didn''t look like Gastard was going to be around to protect them either. I tried to raise my ax, and just couldn''t. Maybe the purple mist had more of an effect on me than I''d realized. More likely, it was all that fire. I could still feel it on my skin, like the aftereffects of touching a hot stove if you had somehow touched it with your entire body.
The dragon rose over me, and I waited for the end. Armor or no armor, it was strong enough to batter me to death. But it didn''t. My ears had been ringing so badly that I didn''t realize someone was shouting at it. I sat up. Leto was in front of me, facing the dragon.
"Stop it!"
The dragon''s was quieter, perhaps because it wasn''t directing its thoughts at me, but I could make out its responses as well.
(You''re a kid. You don''t understand.)
"No! You don''t understand."
(He''s tainted. He''s bad.)
"You''re bad if you hurt my dad."
He was standing up to a dragon for me. Leto didn''t even seem afraid. I probably could have stood, but that wouldn¡¯t have helped. David would have just thought I was still trying to fight him.
David. Also known as Captain Murder Face. My mind was clearing.
The dragon, who I was now sure was a shapeshifting-immortal-child, shifted awkwardly on its claws. Kevin had been a teenager for as long as he''d been on Plana. He''d never really grown up. According to Fladnag, David had reincarnated as a child. What a curse that would be.
(He''s tainted.)
"He looks that way because he killed so many demons."
(Why did he break the cage?)
"Because of me. Fladnag was going to kill me if he didn''t help him. He almost did. I got poisoned."
(Oh.)
The dragon shrank. The scales dropped from its skin like so many coins, vanishing just as the feathers had done. What must have been hundreds of tons of muscle and bone melted down into what, for a moment, was little more than a blob, but soon solidified into a boy.
He had black hair that had grown out to his shoulders, and a tan, round face. David looked healthy, ridiculously healthy, with glowing skin and white, perfectly aligned teeth, but he was wearing a tunic that was uncomfortably similar to the zombie hide leathers I had made in my first days as a Survivor. I stared at him for a moment, and then it occurred to me I didn''t
know what had happened to Esmelda.
She would have never let Leto run in front of a raging dragon. I turned around. The purple mists were almost gone, with only a few inches of nearly liquid fog remaining like a carpet of alien moss over the ground.
Gastard had failed to avoid the breath weapon and fallen shortly after it washed over him. He was laying still, and it looked like Esmelda had gone to help him as it cleared, only to be caught in the lingering effect. She slumped on top of his armored form, the mists just covering her feet.
"Esmelda!" Suddenly, I could move, racing across the field to scoop her up in my arms. She was breathing, though shallowly. Gastard wasn''t.
139: My New Hero (Rewrite)
Gastard''s visor was up, his face pale and still. The hard lines of his jaw had softened in unconsciousness. I jogged out of the field of clinging mist with Esmelda and laid her down beside Leto.
My son stood anxiously to one side, the fearlessness he had shown facing down a dragon replaced by fear as he saw what state his mother was in.
Esmelda didn''t have any visible injuries, and her eyes fluttered as I set her down, but she was out of it. Running back to Gastard, I slipped my arms under his legs and back, shooting for a bridal carry, but I wasn''t strong enough.
Including the plate armor, he was well over three hundred pounds. Two days ago, it would have been nothing for me to carry him. Even now, my attributes suggested I should have been strong enough, but fighting, working, and running for days straight had taken its toll. My lumbar twinged as I brought him up, and my legs gave out, forcing me into an awkward crouch.
I was going to have to drag him out of the poisoned region.
"Here." The boy, David, stood over me. I hadn¡¯t heard him approach. "I''ve got it."
He was slender, and only a few inches taller than Leto. By all appearances, a normal child, aside from the zombie leathers and the fact that his irises were pure gold. Gastard was twice his size, but David lifted him out of my arms with barely an effort and walked calmly away, the remaining mist swirling around his bare feet.
"What did you do?" Leto demanded as David deposited Gastard beside Esmelda. "What''s wrong with them?"
"Ender gas," David said. His gaze was distant. As a kaiju, his mental voice had seemed emotional and childish, but now that he was back in his natural body and speaking in the normal way, he sounded different. Detached, and less young.
"How can we help them?" I asked. We were all out of healing potions, and milk wasn''t a solution. It had worked on Leto because he was my son, and even that had been a long shot.
"You can''t," David said. "I''m sorry."
"But¡" Leto''s face scrunched as he knelt between Esmelda and Gastard. He touched his mother''s hair, then the templar''s helmet, too unsure of himself to do anything more. "They''re going to be okay?"
"No," the shapeshifter looked past us toward Salenus, and his gaze traveled to take in the Atlans. Most had fled, but others were too injured to have done so and remained watching. Torgudai was standing at a safe distance, his cloak drawn over his shoulders. He looked haggard.
"What do you mean?" I said, trying to stay calm.
"What does the gas do?"
"It''s like acid," he replied, "but for your soul."
"Fix it!" Leto jumped to his feet. "You did this! You can fix it!"
David''s cheeks reddened, and he shook his head, looking down at his feet. "I''m not a healer. Umber could do it. The old Umber. He''s bad now. I just break things."
Tears were shining in Leto''s eyes, and he lashed out, thrusting his hands forward to shove the other boy. He might as well have tried to push over a stone wall, and practically bounced off.
"Don''t," I mumbled. Attacking the overpowered child was not a good idea, even if he seemed to have accepted that we were not his enemies. But I didn¡¯t intervene. I felt like I was watching a movie. My ears were ringing, and there was a lump of solid pain just below my throat. Losing Gastard would have been hard enough. He was a friend, and probably the most loyal person I had ever met. But I couldn''t even think about that now.
If what David had said was accurate, Esmelda was going to die. The thought was met with silence in my mind.
I''d already lost her once. But even when we had separated, no matter how much I worried, I''d always believed that she was alive, or at least been able to tell myself that she was. What would happen if there was no way to reverse the damage? If the Ender gas, spirit acid, kept eating away at her soul until nothing was left? That was worse than killing her. It would mean that even Mizu couldn''t bring her back.
I could figure out every aspect of my System, master the runes, and keep leveling until I was strong enough to rip a hole in reality. With the little information I had about how entities advanced, it seemed possible that a human could become something like a god if they took it far enough. This kid, though he wasn''t really a kid, could obviously travel between worlds without using a physical portal. He could smash demons like bugs and attack souls directly, but he couldn''t fix them.
No matter what I did, no matter what I became; if Esmelda died now, this way, there was nothing I could do about it.
David didn''t retaliate for the shove. He shifted uncomfortably on his feet, still looking down, not saying a word. Leto backed away, looked between his mother and Gastard, and collapsed. I responded woodenly, moving to kneel beside him and wrap him in my arms. Leto pressed himself against my breastplate and sobbed. This was not the hug that I had wanted.
"She''s alive," I said, as much to myself as to him. "She''s still alive." I couldn''t bring myself to say that things were going to be okay.
"They both are," David whispered, "for now."
"Is there nothing you can do? Is there no one who can help?" My back was to him, but I heard him kick the grass.
"I''m not supposed to."
My head twisted nearly all the way around. "I''ll do anything. Give you an oath. Whatever essence I have left. I¡don''t know how this works. But if there''s a price, I''ll pay it. Just save them."
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He bit his lower lip, still not looking at me. A mess of dark hair fell over his brows to shadow his golden eyes.
"David," I said, "it is David, right?" He nodded.
"You said you weren''t supposed to. That means there is something you can do. I bet you do a lot of things you aren''t supposed to do, don''t you?" It was a solid guess. He was mentally a ten-year-old boy with the powers of a demi-god. Not a combination that would follow directions well. "Who would tell you not to help them?"
"The guardian," David said slowly, "this world''s guardian. He said so before when I tried to fix things. This place is so dirty now, I don''t like it. But I''m not supposed to help. Since I left, I''m supposed to stay out. He says it hurts the balance when I do stuff. That the shadow gets bigger when I try to make it go away."
"So you aren''t supposed to be here at all?" That suggested there was an entire body of law surrounding the interactions of Discord and Harmony, where and how gods could interfere. It checked a lot of boxes with the heavenly bureaucracy idea. My existence as a hero was wrapped up in some kind of training program the System had never been kind enough to define. But David had already been bending the rules, whatever they were.
What was one more?
"You came here," I said, "and you changed things. Is it worse for you to help fix what you did than to do it in the first place? Whoever''s in charge, the guardian, you can let them blame me. Hold me responsible. Let me take the punishment if there is one."
David made a low, throaty sound, unsure. His mouth flattened. "You can''t though. You aren''t big enough. It has to be me."
"Please," Leto said, his voice trembling and soft against my chestplate. "Please."
David heard him and shook his head again, but it wasn''t a denial. He seemed to debate within himself.
¡°You don''t know what I''m talking about. I can''t heal them, but I can make them new."
"What happens if you don''t do it? Is there any chance they will survive on their own?"
He closed his eyes, but he didn''t have to think about it for long. "No. They''re almost gone."
I wasn¡¯t focusing on my aetheric sense, but I knew what he was talking about. Esmelda¡¯s aura felt even smaller and less distinct than it usually did, and I couldn¡¯t feel Gastard at all. David¡¯s presence was not as overwhelming as it had been when he was the Great Eagle, but it was still immense, more powerful, and solid than any demon¡¯s.
"Then do it.¡±
He didn''t move, but his aura did. It washed over me, a spiritual river that had just been undammed, and I had an odd sense of compression from the weight even though the effect was entirely non-physical. But I wasn''t the target.
There was no light, no sound. David wasn''t casting a spell. To Leto, it must have seemed like nothing was happening. In between sobs, he continued to beg for David''s help.
Esmelda took a sharp breath. The immaterial river had split, with one stream pouring into her, and the other into Gastard.
I could say it now. Even if I didn''t know that it was true, the knot in my chest was loosening, and I could believe.
"It''s going to be okay."
Leto looked up, desperate for a reason to hope. "How?"
"He''s using his magic to help us."
I couldn''t be any more specific than that, because whatever David was doing was beyond the limits of my understanding of the System. It felt like he was shoving essence into both of them, replacing what they had lost with a portion of his immense spirit, but that was too simple an explanation.
He''d said he couldn''t heal them, but what did it mean to make someone new?
Had I already lost them both? Was I condemning them to a half-life? Nothing about David or what I knew of his power-set suggested this was necromancy. They weren''t dead yet. Change was better than death, but it wouldn''t be without consequences.
The exchange went on and on, but its ending was abrupt. David''s power receded and diminished. Either he was merely exhausted, or he had given up a piece of himself to make this work.
Esmelda jerked up with a gasp, her eyes wide. She looked around in confusion that bordered on panic, but when her gaze settled on me, there was a spark of recognition, and she calmed.
"Are you both okay?"
Leto scrambled out of my arms and practically on top of his mother.
Esmelda smiled, still disoriented, and embraced him. Gastard was still. I turned to face David.
"What about him? Did it work?"
"It worked," the boy said. "They''ve already noticed. He''ll wake up when they''re done talking to him."
"Who?"
"The Guardian, and maybe Mizu. She''s going to be mad at me."
"Thank you." What else could I say?
"You''re welcome." He shrugged. "I was being dumb. The pebbleheart is sleeping. So I guess I can go now."
"Wait," I stood up. "Can you explain what you did?"
"It''ll explain itself. Harmony sees them now." He turned toward the sun. "I need to go before she yells at me."
"Who? Mizu?" I stepped forward, reaching for him against my better judgment. The mysteries of the System, of the worlds beyond this one, everything I should have been told and hadn''t been. He had to have the answers. Before my hand could touch him, the pressure returned, curling back my fingers. His aura slammed into me again, freezing me in place.
"You should get clean." David''s tone was casual, like he was telling a friend to try a favorite restaurant. "I messed up with Umber. I don''t want it to happen again. If you''re not better before you get bigger, I''ll destroy you."
A fire burst to life beneath his skin, shining through so brightly I had to look away. A moment later, the Great Eagle rose from the ground, its wingbeats stirring up dust and shredded grass, dispersing the last tendrils of the deadly purplish fog. The pressure diminished as he flew toward the sun.
Esmelda yelped, and I spun, but she wasn''t under attack. She was gripping her right hand.
"What''s wrong?" Leto had been through too much for one day. His eyes were still red, and his nose was running.
"I don''t know," she said. "It stings."
I knelt beside her and took her hand in mine. A symbol was being inscribed on her skin. It looked like henna ink, but I knew it wasn''t. The mark that was forming would be permanent, irreparable. It differed from my elder sign, though done in the same style; an abstract sigil vaguely suggestive of a target with an arrow sticking through it.
"What''s happening?" Esmelda still had the demeanor of someone who had recently awoken from a serious nap, but there was definitely a note of concern in her voice.
"It''s the System," I said. This wasn¡¯t what I had expected when David had said he would make them new, but there were worse things than Esmelda getting a class assignment. "The goddess. This is your blessing."
She touched the symbol tentatively. I knew from experience that it would be tender. It responded to the brush of her fingertips, and a blue screen appeared floating above her hand.
"Oh," Leto said.
"Oh." Esmelda agreed.
Ding.
140: My Mentees (Rewrite)
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You have been assigned as the mentor of two new Hero candidates. Their current locations and descriptions have been added to your journal.
As a mentor, you must guide the candidates in the development of their skills and the necessities of survival. The role of a mentor is one of utmost importance. Their fates may hinge on the quality of your advice, and your conduct in this role will factor heavily into your potential induction into the Hierarchy.
Objective: Guide your mentees until they are eligible for assessment at level thirty.
Reward: Essence infusion.
Secondary Objective: Keep the candidates alive for the duration of their tutorial.
Reward: Unique Formula
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Fladnag was supposed to have been my mentor, and that hadn¡¯t gone the way it was supposed to. I wasn''t an ideal candidate for showing them the ropes, but there was no one else. The heroes were all gone. I was sure of that now. Everyone but me and two fresh recruits. David was off doing his own thing, and Harmony was taking his intervention in stride.
"You get to pick?" Leto was leaning against his mother, staring at her screen with a look of concentration. Esmelda was sitting cross-legged on the ground, and for her part, appeared bemused.
"It seems so," she said.
"Pick what?" I asked.
"My class," she said, then bit her lower lip. "There are seven choices."
Seven? I was only aware of five varieties of heroes. David was a shape-changer, Fladnag was a healer, and Nadia was a sorcerer. Then there were Survivors like me and whatever Frodo had been. Was seven a complete list, or only the options that Harmony thought were appropriate for Esmelda?
"Go over them with me," I said, stepping over to Gastard. He was still unconscious, but there was color in his face and he was breathing normally. David had implied that he was having a conversation with Mizu or some other higher entity. Good for him. Torgudai was watching us, but he hadn''t moved to approach, and the other Atlans were all over the place, but keeping their distance.
Esmelda tapped her sign to dismiss the screen and removed her comb so she could run her hands through her hair.
"This is too much," she said. "The goddess has chosen me. It is something I never dreamed of."
"Well," I sat down in front of her, "David chose you, and I think Mizu is just going along with it."
"Still," she frowned, "I have been blessed. But such great power comes with such great responsibility¡why are you laughing?"
"Sorry," I got myself under control. She had never seen Spider-Man. There was no way for her to know. "You''re right, it is a lot. My choice was made with limited information, and I wish I''d asked more questions. What is the System telling you?"
Esmelda rearranged her hair, pinning it up again, and the act seemed to center her.
"Not as much as I would like. Barely more than a list of names. It''s maddening to think I am meant to select a path for myself when I know so little. There was a welcome message about classes and levels. It was all arcane to me. But what was clear is that whatever I choose will decide the course of my future."
"You''re going to get powers?" Leto asked. "Like Will?"
I wasn''t in love with the first name thing, but he''d called me dad while facing down a dragon, so I would take my wins where I found them.
"Looks like it.¡° I said. ¡°I can help with understanding the basics. Did anything jump out at you from the list?"
Esmelda brought up her screen again.
"Medium. It says ''One who is attuned to the flow of essence and the memories of those that are gone.'' Disciple of the Bow, that one is straightforward enough. Shifter, Sorcerer, and White Mage have details that sound like the heroes of old. Can you imagine? I could be like Lady Nadia and Lord¡ª-," her face fell, "well, not like him."
Fladnag had lost his way, but a dedicated healer was invaluable in any adventuring party. That was a crazy thought. If Esmelda and Gastard both gained classes, we really would be a party of heroes.
"That was five," I said. "What are the other two?"
"Tamer says ''for those who would make friends in all places.'' A few lines about training pets to be powerful companions. Heir is the last." She paused as she looked over it before reading the full description aloud.
"The blood of kings of kingdoms lost. Leader, diplomat, and ranger, this class is as adept at building lasting alliances as rallying a kingdom to war. They are as at home in the wild as the city streets. A well-rounded hero with aspects of DPS, utility skills, and social combat. What is DPS?"
"Damage per second," I said. It was the first time I heard such a shamelessly gamified term in one of the System''s descriptions. "Are you thinking about that one?"
"It seems relevant. We have a kingdom to lead. The Medium made me more curious than anything. But it''s also vague. I''m not sure I would want to commune with spirits. Or what spirits there would be to commune with. In the Shui, it''s written that those who come to the end of their time in this world do not linger. I think they believe in ghosts in Drom, but I do not."
Souls existed. So there could be ghosts, but from the impressions I had left of my original conversation with Mizu, I didn''t think most people hung around after they died. Heroes were a special case. A higher power had to make an exception to keep bringing someone back. My feeling was that most souls didn''t retain who they were in life. I couldn''t prove it, wasn''t sure why it felt so true to me, but I didn''t think Medium would allow Esmelda to speak to her mother or anything like that. She didn''t think so either.
"We can assume Gastard is going to come back with a fighter class," I said. "Even though I do a lot of fighting myself, Survivors are meant to be support. We can do a lot of things, but we aren''t the best at any of them. We¡¯re supposed to be handing out equipment and potions. If you picked the archer, I could craft you a nice bow." I shrugged. "I''m partial to White Mage if that''s the healer class. We got lucky with the milk and with David. We may not be lucky again."
Esmelda nodded seriously, and Leto pointed at her screen. "If you were a Shifter, you could turn into a dragon too."
"Not right away," I said. ¡°She''d have to start with something a lot smaller. Like an owl."
"An owl?" Leto''s brows pulled down. "Why an owl?"
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"I don''t know. It was an example. Any class she takes is going to start small. She''ll have a skill or two and have to develop them over time."
"I like your class," Esmelda said. "It wasn''t included in the list."
"There''s probably a bunch that weren''t included. We don''t need two crafters, though. Does the Sorcerer tempt you?"
"No," she shook her head. "Though I know it comes from the goddess, it is too close to the magic of demons."
"Tamer classes in games are really powerful," I said. "If I had picked something else, I would have gone with the Tamer." I¡¯d had that thought before, but I had the Tamer skill, which was likely a watered-down version of what the class could do, and hadn¡¯t utilized it well. We didn¡¯t even have a dog. Maybe I was better off going the way I had, though it irked me that Mizu hadn¡¯t made it seem like a viable option.
"We could get a dog," Leto said, lighting up. We were clearly on the same wavelength there.
Esmelda squeezed his arm. "We can talk about it. But I don''t think Tamer is what I want."
"Do you have to choose now?"
"It says I have until nightfall to choose, or the selection will be made for me. Something about unbound essence being dangerous."
Gastard grunted and raised an arm. He held his gauntlet up to the light and flexed it. We jumped up and had him surrounded in the next second.
"Can you stand?" Esmelda asked, as Leto hovered.
"Hey, man," I said, "you got superpowers?"
"I have seen the face of Gotte," Gastard''s voice was low and rough, "and it was not what I expected." Still lying on his back, he removed the gauntlet and revealed his tattoo. It looked like a heavily stylized cross, with many extra flourishes, but easily recognizable.
"In what way?"
"He had only one eye."
"You saw a god?" Leto''s eyes widened. "What was it like?"
"Strange," Gastard let his hand drop and sat up. ¡°It was like a dream. I cannot see his face in my mind, only the eye. It was full of stars. His words, I think there was so much more to what he said, but it is lost."
"You didn''t see Mizu?" Esmelda asked.
"No," he shook his head. "I have never prayed to her."
"What did he tell you that you remember?" Forgetting things seemed to go hand in hand with being reborn. Gastard hadn''t died, but he''d been a hair''s breadth away from it. I suspected that the memory loss was intentional. If everything we did here was a divine test, then being stingy with the instructions was a part of it. They wanted to see what we would do without strict instructions. At least, that was how I rationalized the lack of clear guidance from entities that should have been able to answer all of our questions.
"He gave me a choice that was hardly a choice. There was only one path I could accept." Gastard brushed his hair back from his eyes and felt a spot on the side of his head. A sizeable lump. He frowned, feeling it, then shook his head.
"I am a Templar." It sounded like he could barely believe it.
"You already were," Esmelda said.
"No," Gastard rose easily, as fresh as if the battle and the fog had never touched him. "I was a man who struck down a demon, but I see now that there was more to the old order than I believed."
The fingers of his left hand hesitated over his elder sign. "I have seen you do this. Does it truly only take a touch?"
I nodded, and he summoned his own screen. We gave him a moment to examine the message to himself. It would have felt rude to read it over his shoulder. His mouth thinned, and after a long pause, he asked a question.
"Where is Fak?"
We were all equally nonplussed. Esmelda''s head quirked, her lips parting slightly, and Leto narrowed his eyes as if he were trying to recall his most recent geography lesson.
"Fak?" I said. "I don''t know. What''s up?"
"It says, ''Knight of the Realm Fak.'' If I am to be a knight of the realm of Fak, I must first know where it is."
I stepped around. Invasion of privacy or not, I had to know what he was talking about.
"It''s not Fak," I told him, "it''s FAQ."
Then I turned around and screamed into the sky.
"YOU GAVE HIM A FAQ?" I was steaming mad. This was bull. The System still hadn''t given me anything in the way of a training manual, even though I was supposed to be training two new heroes. If they could put that kind of thing on your Status screen, why hadn''t I gotten one?
My entire coping mechanism for being okay with being kept in the dark about how things worked was that there was a big mysterious reason for the powers that be treating me that way. But apparently, the rule didn''t apply to Gastard. I considered yelling some more, but I''d startled Esmelda and Leto both. My son had frozen in place, and Esmelda looked genuinely concerned.
"Sorry guys," I said, "I''m just mad at a god."
Gastard raised an eyebrow.
"FAQ stands for frequently asked questions. Select that, and it should tell you about your class. It sounds like Knight of the Realm is the official name for a templar."
"Templar is better," Gastard poked at his screen, grunting when it flickered and produced a lengthy scroll of information. He shook his head at the onslaught of data and tapped his hand again to turn it off.
"I''m not in the mood to read. How long was I asleep?"
"Not long," Esmelda rested her hand on his upper arm. "We''re glad to have you back."
"And I am glad that you are all well," Gastard looked around the field. "The monster is gone. The Atlans are lurking. We left men behind us. What is the plan?"
Torgudai chose that moment to walk toward us. "We are still at truce," he called.
"Agreed," I waved.
"The Great Eagle let you live," the orkhan appeared to have regained some of his stamina. "More than that, he blessed your friends."
"Did you know he wasn''t an eagle?"
Torgudai shrugged. "What is flesh to a being such as that? The Great Eagle takes whatever form suits him. He is still the Great Eagle."
There was no reason to argue the point.
"We''re going back to Mount Doom," I said. "I don''t suppose you could lend us some horses, maybe a shaman or two?"
"You have proved yourself to me. If any shaman walks with you, I will give them my approval. But I will not command them to do so." He smiled. "Horses are another matter. Those I will command."
Half an hour later, we had left Salenus behind. After drawing and redrawing several rough maps in the dirt, we had agreed on the fastest route home. We weren''t retracing our steps to collect the soldiers and followers we had left behind. Gastard was miffed about that, but Torgudai had promised that the people I''d brought with me into Atlan would not be harassed. They would have a hungry trip back into Dargoth, but they could make it.
Despite Torgudai''s tacit approval, Erdene did not elect to accompany us. Though the healing potion had put her back on her feet, she claimed that her spirit was worn from the events of the last several days, but that she would be willing to work with me in the future if I returned to Atlan. It was a disappointing outcome. However, with two new heroes at my side, I no longer felt that bringing a shaman home with me was my only hope against Bojack. The Atlans would still be a resource to draw upon in the larger battle to rid Plana of demons.
As for the plains people''s campaign against my empire, Torgudai had agreed to put a pause on hostilities until I was back on the Throne of Shadows or dead or one month had passed, whichever came first. There didn''t seem to be any hard feelings about how many people were lost in the battle with Batu''s tribe. The Atlans lived harsh lives, and they had a unique perspective on violence.
Losers weren''t allowed to hold grudges. Torgudai might have felt differently if he had lost his son, but as Batu had returned to him alive, he blamed the young man for mismanaging his warriors rather than me for killing them. They were a people that would take some getting used to. We discussed a few other details, and he asked me to affirm my promise that I would stand with them against the demons. Then he gave us two sets of horses and sent us on our way.
Gastard initially tried reading in the saddle, but we were running the horses nearly at their limits, and it was not working for him. Even with two horses for each of us to allow them some rest, we might not make it back to the mountain before the curse rendered me an invalid. But we had a Knight of the Realm with us now, and whatever Esmelda was going to be.
"Sun''s getting real low!" I called, and Gastard slowed the pace from a run to a trot to a full stop over the course of a few hundred yards. We were still in the grasslands, but the Storm over Dargoth was beckoning us on. I''d recovered most of my torches, so we could keep moving through the night if we had to. But everyone needed rest, and Esmelda needed to decide.
"Heir," she said. "It feels right."
141: My Training Montage (Rewrite)
Monsters gathered outside the ring of torches. We had camped for the evening, resting for a few hours while night fell and mobs appeared. Mount Doom wouldn''t be reached in a single night, and my companions needed the opportunity to learn how to use their new skills. Leto was warming his hands by the fire, an empty bowl beside him.
The soup was thrown together from a few leftover supplies, herbs Esmelda saved from the wagons, and vegetables from my coin collection. There wasn''t much food left, but I had my thermos, so we would never be without water. Celaeno flapped down to alight on a log we hadn''t yet thrown in the fire. The flames fascinated her, and she watched the rise and fall of the red and orange tongues amid the wood for a moment before speaking.
"We could not face the Shifter. I am shamed."
"Don''t be," I said. "I''d rather you were all alive and safe to fly another day than throwing yourselves into a fight you couldn''t win."
She pumped her shoulders, shrugging her wings. Above us, harpies called to each other as phantoms shrieked. "There are more swimmers tonight than ever before."
"Three heroes in one place," I said, "that has to affect the spawn rate."
Gastard was standing in front of the outer ring of torches, giving his FAQ a final read-through before the festivities began. Esmelda was sitting cross-legged beside me, wearing a pensive expression.
"Are you sure we share your curse?"
"The mobs are coming faster than usual." I looked at the swaying ranks of zombies ahead of Gastard. "Fladnag said all heroes had the same problem, but for his group, they had someone in their party who could stop it."
¡°I thought what weakened the veil was bringing heroes from another world," Esmelda said. "I don''t like to think that my gift has come at a cost to Plana itself."
"The isekai thing probably makes it worse. It doesn''t look like the rate has tripled, but it has definitely increased. As long as we stay close, we can deal with it together. And if we have to separate for any reason, I''ll make sure you both have as many enchanted torches as you need."
Esmelda shook her head decisively. "We won''t be separated. Not now."
Gastard deactivated his screen and twisted to look back at us. "Are you prepared?" He asked.
"I am." Esmelda and I stood. My potion ingredients were all tapped out, but there had been plenty of materials to craft a new bow. It looked ungainly in Esmelda''s hands, being as tall as she was, and she eyed it doubtfully.
"You may have wasted the effort of making this for me," she said. "Though Gastard can always use the extra arrows."
"What did your Woodcraft skill say again?" I asked.
"That it aids in all forms of wilderness survival," she said. "But that doesn''t mean I''m strong enough to draw this. You said my Might was very low."
"F-, is the lowest I''ve seen an attribute,¡± I said, though I would likely soon be testing how low that rating could go. ¡°Your System hasn''t strengthened you yet, but it may not have to. Try it."
Esmelda accepted the quiver I offered her and slung it over her shoulder. The bundle of arrows looked as comically large on her as the bow, but they wouldn''t be too much of a burden.
"It''s not as if I haven''t ever used one before," she said, turning away from us to nock the first arrow, "it''s just that¡ª-"
She pulled back the string with ease and was so shocked that she lost her grip, firing into the ground ten paces away. The twang of the bow was lost amid the moans of the shamblers, but there was no mistaking what had happened.
"Let me try!" Leto hopped over to his mother and tugged the bow away from her. She was so stunned that she didn''t stop him, but when he tried to pull the string, he couldn''t get it more than halfway back.
"It''s too hard," he said. "How did you do that?"
"Is it enchanted?" Esmelda asked me. "Did you attune it to me when you crafted it?"
"Nope," I said. "That''s all you, or your class. My tools all work differently for me than they do for other people. But I suspect that my class role has always been to supply other heroes with equipment. There just weren''t other heroes before. Heir isn¡¯t a crafting class, but there are tools associated with it. You wouldn''t be much of a woodsman if you couldn''t use a bow. You''ll probably find my swords easy to use too. Or maybe the ax. We''ll have to test them both out."
The idea had occurred to me while Esmelda read her skill list to me. I''d had to discover my skills by accident and hadn''t seen the full list until hitting level thirty had given me entity status. The System was more forthcoming with her than it had ever been with me, listing three skills from the beginning, though, unlike Gastard, she did not have a personal FAQ.
Heir came with Architect, Emissary, and Woodcraft, though there were probably more to be discovered. The descriptions were only one or two lines each. Architect dovetailed nicely with my power set. It read "The hero can organize resources efficiently and design unique structures," which had seemed odd given her class summary. Emissary made more sense, it was geared toward negotiation and diplomacy.
Woodcraft was obviously meant to be very broad in its applications. It didn''t look like Esmelda was going to be granted dramatic or outwardly impressive talents. She would not be shooting lightning bolts. But I didn''t think the System handed out dud classes. Whatever her skills allowed her to do, she was going to be supernaturally good at it.
Esmelda took the bow back from Leto.
"Stay by the fire," she said to him and retrieved the arrow. "You can watch, but you do not have permission to leave the inner ring."
Leto marched sullenly back to the campfire to stand by Celaeno.
"This isn''t fair," he said to the harpy, and Celaeno raised her head so that it was at a level with Leto.
"Do not worry," she said. "I will share the swimmer''s flesh with you so that you go strong." Then she coughed up a hunk of partially digested phantom onto the grass.
"Don''t give my son monster meat." I said at the same moment that Esmelda responded with "Don''t eat that!"
Leto moved to the other side of the fire.
"The night wanes," Gastard called impatiently. It was still well before midnight, but it would be better to start killing monsters before they became too numerous to handle safely. I donned my helmet, and we stood together at the edge of the torchlight. Though I had grown weaker, my armor was still more than sufficient to keep me from being battered to death by average mobs.
Gastard would be just as tough a nut for them to crack, I¡¯d repaired his armor with more diamonds at an anvil. Esmelda was only going to attack from a distance. She paced to one side, sighted an arrow, and fired. The whistle of the missile barely registered at such close range. One moment, she had drawn the string back, and the next, a zombie was crumpling with a shaft sticking out of its forehead.
The buster sword would stay in my inventory, it was too heavy for me now, but I still had Caliburn, though I didn''t intend to use it unless the others got into trouble. Esmelda checked her status screen.
"A third of a level," she reported, confirming that they would gain experience from killing mobs and that the kill still counted if it was done at range.
Gastard grunted. "Was this truly a game in the world of your birth?"
"Not this specifically," I said. "But all the level and experience stuff was in a lot of different games."
He lifted his sword toward the storm of Dargoth, a black mass delineating the skies of Atlan from my empire. "By the powers of Gotte, which he has seen fit to invest me with, I shall be the greatest gamer you have ever known."
"You, uh¡yeah, cool."
He leaped forward, severing the first zombie''s head. Others lurched for him, heedless of their impending deaths. No matter how much practice I got, or how many benefits the System gave me, I didn''t think I''d ever look as good at fighting as Gastard. His sword was a part of him, responding to his needs fluidly and without hesitation.
Mobs fell, unable to take advantage of their numbers as he moved among them, never straying too far from the torchlight. He had always been skilled, but I could already see the difference having a class had made. The precision of his strikes was almost otherworldly, and as far as I knew, he hadn''t even gotten any adjustments to his attributes yet.
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If this was what he looked like with beginner-rank skills, it was scary to think about what he would soon become. I wanted to read that FAQ, but so far, he had kept the information it contained to himself.
Esmelda shot arrow after arrow, only missing her mark when a zombie lurched or dropped suddenly. They weren''t fast, but their movements were irregular, and she was only going for headshots. Her face was a mask of concentration, as she notched and loosed, picking off one target after another. There was no flashy magic, glowing contrails, or explosions, but it was clear her System was at work.
She had become a world-class archer the moment she picked up the bow. If we wanted explosions, I could just enchant her some flaming arrows. There had been so many mobs to begin with, clearing them had seemed like a task that would take hours, especially with more spawns appearing all the time, but the herd had thinned after only a few minutes.
A bellow split the night as a troll appeared out of a thick patch of darkness under a nearby tree. It barreled through a few ambling zombies to reach Gastard, throwing its arm out in a brutal backhand. I started forward. Hero or not, taking a troll alone and head on was a lot for someone''s first day.
Gastard''s sword flashed, a brilliant white glow running up the edge of his blade as he slashed the incoming limb. It severed cleanly, and the troll barely had time to yelp in surprise before Plana''s new Knight of the Realm drove his weapon into its breastbone. The same sword that had barely been able to scratch troll skin before now pierced its thick hide like it was paper.
The severed arm hit the ground a second before Gastard sidestepped around the troll as it fell forward. Dead. I stopped moving. The original summary of my class had included some snide remarks about how Survivors could step in as front-line fighters when there wasn''t anyone better around. With all that I''d accomplished since then, killing mobs, demons, and even that Pebbleheart, I thought of myself as a pretty serious contender.
But Survivor was a utility role. Versatile, broad. This was what it looked like when someone had a class that was built for monster hunting. I was both impressed and a little envious. Not that I would have traded crafting for being a Knight of the Realm, but dang, had he looked cool slaying that troll.
A few minutes later, we were back around the fire, and the only thing that surrounded the outer ring of torches was corpses.
"You were amazing!" Leto said, bouncing on his heels. "Can you teach me to do that?"
"I will teach you whatever you like," Gastard was using a cloth to clean the blood off of his blade. "But you cannot do what I can do without the blessing of a higher power."
Leto plopped down and grabbed a few stalks of grass to tear up in his hands. "I want a System too," he said.
"No." My tone was sharper than I meant it to be, and he frowned up at me.
"Why not? If David comes back, he can give one to me."
"You don''t want to be like David."
"But he''s stronger than any of you."
Esmelda and I exchanged a glance. Her gray eyes held the same worry as mine. On one hand, the idea of Leto receiving the same kind of boon we had was enticing. He could defend himself, and presumably, even return to life if he was killed. But it wouldn''t come without side effects. Not getting older was an incredible gift, unless you were ten.
"David is trapped," Esmelda said. "Though he can take any form he likes, his true body is still that of the child he was when he came to this world."
"That''s not so bad," Leto said. "He can do anything he wants, anyway. Fly. Shoot fire. I bet he could make Kevin go away too if he wanted to."
"Maybe he could," I said. "But what happened to him is not something we ever want for you." That Mizu had allowed it to happen at all called into question her nature, and that of Harmony. What kind of divine power thought it was a good idea to use a child that way? And even if there was a reason, why hadn''t they fixed him in the centuries since his rebirth?
Leto continued to rip up the grass, and I changed the subject. It wasn''t as if Leto was at risk of developing superpowers. Whatever David had done to infuse Esmelda and Gastard with essence was well beyond our capabilities, and it had been against whatever guidelines the goddess set for him to do so.
"So what level are you guys?" I asked.
"Nine," Esmelda said, her face lighting up. "Is that a lot?"
"For one fight? That''s incredible. The first ten levels do go fast. It slows down from ten to twenty, and after twenty, most of what you do won''t give you experience at all. I get most of mine from mining, but the quality of the materials I mine has to be higher to get higher levels. It''s the same with monsters. I don''t think any amount of zombie killing will get you to level thirty. Achievements help though."
"Does that mean I''m already stronger?" Esmelda asked. "The number went up, but I don''t feel any different."
"Your skills matter more. Check to see if they are any higher. Woodcraft lets you shoot the bow as you do, so you should see progress in that."
Esmelda tapped her tattoo to activate her screen. It was surreal watching someone else do it, and even stranger for that someone to be Esmelda. Reading from a floating hologram wasn''t that different from using a tablet, but the people of this world didn''t normally have screens of any kind to look at. She had taken to it as if it was totally natural.
"I have notifications, she said. "Purifier, and another called Favored Enemy."
"What''s Favored Enemy?" I expected Purifier to be the same as it was for me. The System had given her credit for killing a bunch of monsters, "purging taint," as it liked to say. What a phrase.
"It says that for defeating ten of the same breed of monster, I''ve been rewarded with a boost to my skill that only applies when I''m using it against Koroshai."
"That''s neat," I said. "I guess every class has achievements tailored to their development." It wouldn''t have made sense for either of them to be awarded Crafty or Hoarder, for sure.
"And Woodcraft has improved," she said. "It''s three now. What does that mean?"
That was a loaded question. Increasing skills improved performance, but the System didn''t quantify that improvement for users. As "Miner" went up, I could harvest materials faster, but I''d never tried to do the math and the notifications didn''t provide me with percentages.
"You''re probably a slightly better archer," I said. "And slightly better at whatever else the skill helps you do, since it applies to anything wilderness survival-related. You can try starting a fire, or something, and see if it''s easier than it should be. The big thing with skills is that they have milestones. Every five or ten levels, Miner allowed me to harvest new materials. I''m not sure how that will play out for you, but the notifications should give you hints when it happens."
She frowned. "Improving skills improves my skill. That is simple enough. What is the overall level for then?"
"I can use the experience to enchant equipment. And the higher my level is, the more options I have. I''m not sure what your class would use it for. Regardless, hitting level thirty is what triggers the System to give you an assessment and unlock whatever hidden aspects your class has. So we should get you there as fast as possible."
If someone had been around to tell me that in the beginning, my second life would have gone differently. I had an orb to help me collect extra essence to use for enchanting, and before that, I''d had Kevin''s monster-eating sword, but I''d still given up a lot of my levels in what I now saw as a waste of an important resource. That, and all the dying, had set me back.
They wouldn''t be dying. We couldn''t be sure that they would come back if they did, as they hadn''t gained their System in the normal way. Even if they could respawn, we didn''t know where their spawn point would be either.
Esmelda looked at Gastard, who was still tending to his blade. "You killed far more of them than I did. What level are you?"
"Three."
My mouth dropped. Was his class really that different from ours?"
"But you killed a troll!" Leto looked personally offended by the outcome, as if he''d been the one cheated out of experience.
"I used it to enhance my blade."
"Oh," Esmelda said, "is that why it glowed?"
Gastard held up the weapon in question to examine it for any remaining monster residue. Though it may have been a trick of the fire, I thought I saw a glimmer of white light playing along its edge.
"Yes," he said. "When I defeat an opponent, I can choose to accept the essence into myself or redirect it into my armament. It is like your enchanting, though simpler and more pure."
"And it stays enhanced?" I asked.
"It does." Satisfied with his inspection, Gastard sheathed the blade. "It is a part of my skill, Favored Weapon. I can only have one, but it was an easy decision. My father''s sword will soon be finer than anything you can produce."
He seemed smug about that, but I was happy for him. Refusing my enchantments had made him less effective up to now, but the System had given him a way to advance without compromising his beliefs.
"How did you know how to do it?"
"The fak explained." He looked into the fire. "Knights of the Realm are meant to work in pairs, a master and an apprentice. You could have never taught me what I needed to know. It is a mental trick, a feeling, but I never would have realized what it meant on my own. I think that is why they gave me the fak."
His inability to use acronyms correctly was grating on me, but I let it slide. "I''m glad you have it," I said. "But I still think you should keep as much of your experience as you can. Once you hit level thirty, you can start working toward having the best sword in the universe."
"I could not have killed the troll without it," he shrugged. "If it is a sacrifice, it is one I am glad to make."
We talked for a while longer. Gastard''s class came with three other skills. Hunter helped him track and combat the creatures of Bedlam. Another, Oathsworn, let him act as a stand in for an Oathblade, which was fascinating to think about. But the real standout for me was called Prestidigitation.
"Does it really use the word miracles?"
Gastard sighed. I''d already asked him that twice. "Minor miracles," he confirmed. "The fak is unclear. It says that I can pray to Gotte for intervention, and that he will answer, but only in a limited way. It suggests I do not use the skill to clean my armor, as if anyone ever would."
Prestidigitation was the name of a cantrip in Dungeons and Dragons. It had almost unlimited use cases, but they were all negligible as far as game mechanics went. You could use it to clean an object, light a candle, make a tiny illusion or sensory effect, really whatever your Dungeon Master allowed, depending on which edition of the game you were playing. It sounded like the System had given him a low-level spell. But it was a skill, so it would progress as he used it. That was potentially more intriguing than any of his other abilities.
A new zombie was standing at the rim of the torch ring. It leaned into the light, then drew back when it became too oppressive for it to resist. Almost a slow-motion headbang. The others noticed me watching it.
"We should sleep in shifts," Gastard said. "One of us mans the perimeter while the others rest."
A little sleep was better than none. I took the first watch. Tomorrow would bring us closer to Mount Doom, a day closer to my total incapacitation. Despite that, I felt better about our chances than I had since breaking my oath with Bojack. There were three heroes now instead of one. The demon had no idea what was coming for him.
142: My Last Leg (Rewrite)
"I don''t want to stay behind." Leto balled his fists. "I want to go with you."
I''d converted a boulder into a hut with an iron door that could only open from a button on the inside. It wouldn''t withstand a siege, but wandering bandits were rarer than monsters in lower Dargoth. No matter how many citizens were unhappy with the status quo, the empire didn''t have an outlaw problem because it was impossible to live off the land. If you didn''t starve, you''d eventually come across a patch of Bedlam wart and the spores would kill you.
The shelter was nothing more than a hollow in the rock lit by torches ringing the walls. The air was dry and dusty, which was a good sign. We''d looked for an area that was well clear of any fungal patches. Gastard was waiting by the door, his arms crossed over his chest, wearing a severe expression. He didn''t like this any more than I did, but he wasn''t a man for tearful goodbyes.
Leto would keep two horses, the last of our food, and my thermos of unlimited drinking water. If we didn''t come back, he could return to Atlan. It would be easier than crossing the Wastes to get to the Free Kingdoms, and when I''d mentioned the idea to Torgudai, the orkhan had agreed to take him in if it came to that.
"It''s too dangerous," I said.
"Everything since you found us has been dangerous!" He had a point there. But the anger on his face was a mask, covering the fear underneath. Aside from the last month or so, Leto had lived his entire life in a cottage with Esmelda and Gastard. They had never been apart. Now I wasn''t just asking him to be separated, but to let us go knowing that there was a possibility we wouldn''t return. Ideally, even death wouldn''t stop us forever, but heroes could be bound.
Esmelda put her hand on his cheek and held it there.
"It''s going to be hard on me, too. I can''t think of a time when I''ve had you out of my sight for more than a few hours. But this has to be."
Leto stepped away from his mother''s hand, looking back at me.
"You could make me armor like Gastard''s." He said. "Then no one could hurt me."
"It wouldn''t be enough to be sure you were safe," I told him. There were a hundred other reasons. Having to defend a non-combatant was always a problem, but in a mountain full of monsters with a demon waiting at the top, having him with us would be crippling. Leto had already been taken hostage once. With his magic, Bojack would barely have to make an effort to trap the boy and threaten his life.
"This isn''t fair," tears were forming in the corners of his eyes, and he quickly wiped them away. "Mom is going."
"You know better," Gastard''s voice was low and anything but soft, "we''ve spoken of this before. Even in the woods, there was always a risk that I or your mother would be taken from you. If not by Dargothians, then by a wild beast or sickness. It''s time for you to be a man."
Leto stiffened at the words, and Esmelda shot Gastard a frown. He was being too harsh. Though I imagined the brief speech was in line with Gastard''s upbringing, my son was a long way from being a man. I''d have to ask him about it sometime. I took a knee in front of Leto and embraced him.
For a moment, he held his back straight, resisting me, but I didn''t let go. He relaxed, resting his head on my shoulder.
"I just met you." He said.
"Don''t worry," I squeezed him tighter. "This won''t take long. I love you, and we''ll all be together again soon."
***
The clouds seemed more ill-tempered than ever, heaving and shifting in agitation as they assimilated the smoke spouting from the caldera of Mount Doom. The mountain was cast in shades of black relieved only by the torches of its defenders, pinprick highlights moving atop the walls of the fortress. It was a huddling hulk, its ridges and folds concealed in a cloak of shadow.
Night had lifted, but it was never bright in Dargoth, and the sunlight filtering through the storm was particularly lackluster today. We were following the tracks that our force had left behind on the way to the north, the ruts of wagons, and the marks left by the heavy feet of the trolls. Mostly, the ground looked uniform to me, in that it was cracked and marred equally in every direction, but Esmelda had been pointing out the trails as we went along. It was another aspect of her Woodcraft skill.
I felt as sluggish as if I''d taken a sedative. Any move I made came with resistance like I was submerged in a wading pool, and I''d taken to slumping over the back of my mount over the last day. If I tried to walk, it was at the speed of a zombie. The Atlan horses were short and stocky, with bushy manes and extra hair around their ankles that looked like socks. They''d been balky at first, but after several feedings, the animals had all been taken in by my Tamer skill. When the effect took hold, the animals developed a green ring around their irises, and they became extremely friendly. Obnoxiously so.
I hadn¡¯t been able to tame horses before. It must have been a consequence of raising the skill, though why horses should be more difficult to tame than a wyvern I had no idea.
They followed me around unless I specifically told them not to, and when I did, gave me a comically mournful look. On the plus side, they had remained placid within the torch ring every night while monsters appeared and died around them. Mine was named Morin, and I patted him on his shaggy neck.
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We were close enough to the mountain to make out the main gate of the fortress on the lower slopes. The marks of the battle with Malphas were still in evidence across the plain before Mount Doom. The bodies were all long gone, fed to the mobs housed in the stables beneath the fortress, but stretches of the dry clay were still blackened from fire, and the ruined framework of a burnt out trebuchet stood as a lonely monument to what had transpired.
Arrows stuck up here and there from the rocky soil, never retrieved. And broken weapons, armor that had been mangled by a buster sword, brooded dully in the dust. It was an appropriate foreground to the seat of a dark empire. I tried to imagine the smoke clearing, and the sky opening to the sun. This land had never been green, as far as I knew, but I could plant a lot of grass.
The ding had come and gone to announce the dawn, and I finally checked my status page for the bad news.
|
Class Assignment: Survivor
Level: 11
Progress to next level: 23%
Attributes:
Might: F-
Speed: F-
Presence: F+
Curse of Weakness: While under the effects of this curse, your physical attributes will gradually decline. With every passing night, Might and Speed will incur a cumulative penalty.
|
Still nothing below F-, thankfully. My overall level had jumped up after the fight with the pebbleheart, though not as much as I would have expected, and I wondered what would happen if I hit thirty again. Unlocking my System and being assessed as an E-Rank entity reset me to level one. It hadn''t been explicitly stated in the notifications, but I suspected that reaching thirty again would allow me to ascend to the next rank, or at least open up some new options. Accrued experience was a measure of how much essence I''d accumulated. Those levels had gone to creating my aetheric core, which would continue to develop as I killed more monsters and practiced my class abilities.
It was definitely taking me longer to level than it had originally.
"How bad is it?" Esmelda asked, casting a worried glance at my screen.
"Same as yesterday," I said. That wasn¡¯t entirely true. My physical attributes had stayed the same, but my Presence had dropped for the first time. When it bottomed out, maybe that would be it for me. "I¡¯m not sure if that¡¯s a good sign or not."
Her brows drew down, and she seemed to shrink in her saddle at the news.
"Should I have taken White Mage? I''ve been thinking about it since the first night. Heir felt right to me, and I still think it will be the most useful for us in the long term, but what if I could have removed the curse?"
"I don''t think you could have." Even with a healer specced class, reversing the effect of a System based penalty seemed like a tall order. "Maybe if you had months or years to train your skills, or after you complete the tutorial, you would have been able to do something to help, but not on day one."
"Still, I could have made a mistake. If we fail here, I''ll never know if the outcome could have been different if I had made a different selection."
"That''s the game," I said. "It''s not like I''ve never questioned my own choice. I could have been a Pokemaster, but here I am stacking blocks. I don''t think there was a wrong choice on the list. Every version of Hero has advantages and disadvantages. What matters is figuring out how to utilize the abilities you have."
"Can archery be that useful?"
"The arrows I gave you can hurt him. And so can Gastard''s sword, now that he''s upgraded it. Our best weapon here is that Bojack doesn''t know you guys are a threat to him." During the previous night, I''d set up an enchanting table and added Shadowbane to every arrow we had, as well as the bow itself. Though my level wasn¡¯t as high as I would have liked, beating the pebbleheart and killing a couple of demons had charged Kevin''s essence stealing orb to its fullest, giving me plenty of room to enhance what equipment we had. It still had energy to spare.
"The past is the past," Gastard said, gazing solemnly up at the peak of the mountain. "We will do what we can, and Gotte will see our deeds. There is no more to be asked for."
We had a few options for getting in. What would work depended on Bojack''s reaction to realizing that I''d broken my oath to him. Climbing up the side of the mountain and drilling into the fortress in secret was one possibility, but it would have been slower, and it would have made it obvious that I was there to fight.
As long as Kevin hadn¡¯t reclaimed the throne, the soldiers here would still recognize me as their Dark Lord. Bojack knew exactly what the Curse of Weakening did, and would therefore be aware that I was far from top shape.
Though he was capable of great cruelty, the demon was even more pragmatic than I was. Bojack wouldn''t act out of anger that I had gone against his will. If I made it seem like I was coming to him for expiation, he would allow me to do so, likely insisting on a few new marching orders for me to ensure that I followed his instructions more closely in the future. Whatever the situation, he acted in a manner that would further his own goals, and losing me would constitute a major setback for him.
Esmelda, Gastard, and I rode along the winding path that led to the gate of Mount Doom. They rose thirty feet into the air, twin doors of iron stained nearly black by soot and ash. They could only be opened by a pair of wheels behind the walls operated by trolls. As we approached, a horn sounded from the walls, its call winding through the darkness and echoing across the plain.
After the horn, we heard the cries of the guards heralding my return.
"The Dark Lord has come! All hail the throne!"
Bojack hadn''t turned them against me. But as sure as I was that he would talk, I knew he would also be prepared to defend himself. We couldn''t expect to find him alone. Though this was my castle, I had to treat it as enemy territory. The monsters would obey him, even if the men were on my side. And there was Gremory to consider as well.
Those gates groaned as the trolls worked to turn their wheels, chains clanking unseen behind them, and the way was opened to welcome us back to Mount Doom.
143: My Garrison (Rewrite)
The fortress at Mount Doom would have been a nightmare to siege without superhuman assistance. If Malphas''s army had made it through the main gate, they would have faced a barracks on the left, another, even higher wall ahead of them, and a narrow alley leading up the mountain to the right. The path was a death trap that would force would-be invaders to thin their ranks as they proceeded to the next gate, fighting uphill and under fire from defenders on the second wall.
Thankfully, we were being welcomed. Soldiers in the standard-issue plate saluted me as we rode in and came off of our mounts. A groom rushed up, a young man with a wide, pink scar on his face that suggested he had previously tended the wyverns, eager to be of service.
"My Lord," he bowed, breathless, "may I take your animals to the stables?"
"Thank you," I said. Bojack would not meet us in the open, and horses would have gotten in the way.
"Mind her well," Gastard said, handing the young man Marie''s reins. "She has seen many years."
The boy bowed again, and we grabbed a few things from the saddles before he led them away. Esmelda had a second quiver to sling over her shoulder, making her appear comically overburdened, but it was a necessary addition. While I''d never seen Gremory engage in combat, I knew she had a metal affinity. Watching Asmodeus had told me more than I needed to know about how dangerous a demon with that kind of magic could be, and I''d prepared a set of wooden arrows for Esmelda to counter her.
Wooden weapons wouldn''t normally have been able to harm a demon, but hopefully, imbued with Shadowbane, they would be enough to give us an edge. Gastard and I both had wooden daggers as well, not that I believed he would deign to use them, but there hadn''t been a reason for me to hold on to any extra essence in Kevin''s orb.
We were only going to get one shot at this.
Major Garron was on his way from the barracks, a squat, square building that Kevin hadn''t bothered to provide with any aesthetic appeal. He wasn''t wearing armor, but he was in his black dress tabard, emblazoned with the red sign of Dargoth in a stylized pattern. His silver hair was getting on the long side, secured in a tight man-bun, and he''d recently shaved.
"Welcome home," he said, throwing up a fist over his heart. "Have you quelled the Atlans already?"
"Something like that," I said. "Where''s Zareth?"
"In the citadel, I''m sure. Can I be of service?"
I glanced around. Gastard was tense, his hand on the hilt of his sword, scanning the avenue ahead. Esmelda smiled at the Major without a hint of nervousness.
"It''s good to see you, Garron. How have things been since we left?"
"My lady," his eyes widened briefly as he took in her new equipment, but he dipped his head respectfully. "The mountain has been peaceful in your absence. We have looked forward to news of your victory."
The trolls on either side of the gate were already turning the iron wheels to grind them shut again. They looked unremarkable, leathery dog faces on gorilla bodies, but I wondered if they were smarter than average or just well-trained. No one had given them a command to do so. Aside from that pair, there were no mobs or demons in sight.
I stepped in close to Garron.
"We''ve returned to deal with a problem," I said. "The demons are plotting against me, and they may have to be put down."
His brow creased with worry. "My Lord, how can that be?"
"I need to know that you and the men are still on my side."
"Of course," his fist slammed into his chest so hard it looked like he might have hurt himself. "We serve the Throne. Our lives are yours."
"We''re going to the citadel to speak with Orobas. I''d like to have your best swordsmen with me." They wouldn''t be much help against the demons, but they could stand against whatever mobs Bojack had with him.
"As you command, I''ll collect them at once." Garron rushed back to the barracks, and Esmelda frowned.
"Are you sure we can trust them?"
"We need every tool we have," I said. "Nobody likes the demons. They just come with the territory. The System still recognizes me as being in charge here, and that makes them loyal, even if they would otherwise have doubts."
"I never thought about how your blessings might affect people''s minds." She didn''t look like she liked the idea. "I suppose mine will do even more of that."
"I won''t turn away extra swords," Gastard said. "But the longer we delay, the more ready our enemy will be."
There was a lot that could go wrong. I''d considered using Fladnag''s store of explosive ingredients to put together some bombs, but the TNT blocks would be as much a danger to us as the demons. Fireworks, likewise, were more of a distraction than a weapon. With more knowledge, I was sure that I could craft something useful, but I didn''t have any formulas for grenades, and the combinations I''d tried so far had yielded nothing functional.
Word of our arrival had spread, and it wasn''t long before Gremory appeared around the curve of the path, lovely as ever.
"The prodigal king has returned." She smiled sweetly. "Orobas waits for you in the hall."
"That''s our next stop," I said, "we''re waiting on Garron."
Gastard almost drew on her right there, but I touched his arm to keep his sword in its sheath. Gremory had come alone, and we could have killed her before she responded, but that would have tipped our hand. Harpies had landed along the ramparts, but so had a wyvern. The beast eyed us with too much interest, its conical head tilted almost in a question. Bojack wanted to know what our intentions were, and I wanted to keep Gastard and Esmelda''s abilities a secret a little longer.
Sending Gremory was a test. If we attacked him now, Bojack would know I wasn''t here to make amends.
"We have no use for him," Gremory said. "You have broken your oath. Are you here to beg for forgiveness?"
"I believe your oath is still in place," Esmelda said. "But you''re behaving as if you serve Orobas instead of your Lord. Have you forgotten what you swore?"
Gremory gave Esemelda a measured look. My deal with Bojack was separate from the bargains I''d made with the other demons, and the blade they had all sworn on was still in my inventory. A Curse of Weakening wouldn''t mean much to Gremory right now, but she seemed reluctant to trigger it.
"I still serve," the words seemed to be pulled out of her.
"Good," I said. "We faced a serious entity in the North, a shapeshifter, and I''m worried he might have followed us. Keep watch on the wall while I go see to my expiation."
"Orobas wishes for me to accompany you," Gremory insisted. Why was she even bothering to pretend I was still in charge? Would she follow my orders?
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
"You''re needed here," I said. "I am commanding you as your Lord to keep watch until I relieve you."
A look of annoyance crossed her face, and for a moment it looked like she was listening to someone else. A few seconds passed in silence, and then she nodded.
"Very well," the demon turned toward the stair that led up to the ramparts, swishing her dress, "do not tarry."
I had not expected that to work. The wyvern spread its bat-like wings and took off up the mountain as Gremory minced away. Gastard shrugged, still ready to draw in an instant, and Esmelda and I shared bemused glances, but we couldn''t discuss the outcome while the demon was still in earshot. Garron was back a minute later with half a dozen Dargothian soldiers in tow.
Three of them had officer insignias painted on their pauldrons, and some were still adjusting the clips on their armor or their belts. Garron himself hadn''t stopped to throw on a breastplate, but a blade was at his hip and he seemed set on coming with us.
"I can gather more," he said. "We could march with an entire company at your back."
"This is going to start with a conversation," I said, "and that wouldn''t set the right tone. Get a force together, but come a few minutes behind us." The more the merrier. They could at least keep more mobs from pouring into the hall when things went south. Garron briefly introduced the men he''d brought, emphasizing their loyalty and skill, before setting out on his mission.
The officers were Glent, Thrund, and Hurin, but I lost track of which was which almost as soon as he gave their names. It was a drawback of dressing everyone like Stormtroopers. I thought Hurin was the tall one, but I wasn''t sure. All the men gave salutes, and the party, now nine members strong, made its way up the cobblestone path toward the great hall that held the Throne of Shadows. Gremory stayed at her new station atop the wall, at least until we lost sight of her around the rise. Oath or no oath, I assumed she was going to follow us.
We passed by the massive cube that was my handiwork, uglier even than the barracks. Was Kevin still trapped inside? I believed so. If he was out, we were walking into even more of a trap. But Kevin had never been subtle. He hadn''t utilized his abilities in particularly creative or interesting ways for someone who''d had centuries to build his stronghold. If he was out, he would have already claimed the throne and outed me as a usurper. Garron and the rest of the Dargothians were loyal to the seat of power. They didn''t know me on a personal level, and that was my fault.
The citadel looked like it had been carved from the mountain. Despite being constructed of thousands upon thousands of perfectly aligned, identical blocks, it had a natural feel. Its flanks were sharp, dark stones, and its tall stained-glass windows gave the impression of smoke frozen in time. The great double doors were open, as inviting as the throat of a leviathan, and the wyvern I had spotted earlier was perched atop the roof¡¯s peak.
The hall was dim, the already weak light further muted by the only semi-transparent glass. No torches adorned the walls, and no banners, the arches and columns of the interior like the ribcage. Trolls flanked the entryway, lumbering brutes decked out in steel plates held in place by thick leather straps. One of them hooted as we stepped by, wrinkling its snout as it smelled us.
An Voidman loomed in the shadows of the nearest column, its violet eyes as bright as lamps against the darkness of its skin. The hall wasn''t brimming with mobs as I''d worried it might be, but Bojack had selected the cream. A massive, twisted shape was scuttling upside-down in the ceiling''s vault. One of the vorokai, the spider-scorpion monstrosities that, until now, had remained confined to their cages deep under the mountain. It was forty feet up, its wicked tail hanging loosely. As I watched, a drop of venom glistening on the tip of its spine fell to the floor and sizzled.
No one was sitting on the throne. Bojack stood beside it, the place of an advisor. Eight feet of horse-man dressed in a pristine toga and sandals. I''d never seen him with a weapon before, but he was holding a spear pointed down in his right hand. It was stone from shaft to tip and had to weigh a hundred pounds. It didn''t so much as force him to lean.
All of that was bad, but what was behind the throne was worse. Zareth, as well as the maid and footman he''d staffed for us, were among a crowd of people I didn''t recognize. Women and children, maybe the families of the soldiers who lived on Mount Doom. With Esmelda and Leto out of the picture, there weren''t many people Bojack could be sure would matter enough to me to take as hostages, but he''d done his best. Zareth was clutching his scrolls to his chest, his bald head sweating, and his mouth pinched.
The group was ringed by zombies, facing inward and swaying in place.
It was a long walk down the hall, our footsteps echoing in the vast space. Outside, a harpy called, but they did not fly under the arch. I felt hot. The mountain was always warm, as the storm seemed to trap heat beneath it, and my armor felt stifling. I wanted to lift my visor, maybe step outside and take a few deep breaths, but here we were. I had a medallion clutched in one hand, but no potions to drink, no tricks up my sleeve. Just two friends with fresh Systems and the resolve to bring my partnership with Bojack to an end.
"That is far enough," Bojack said as we came to the steps that led up to the Throne. Its obsidian spikes gleamed in the semi-darkness, reflecting a light that was not there. The soldiers who''d accompanied us remained slightly further back, fanning out in a protective semi-circle. I hoped they weren''t about to die.
"Hey Bojack," I said, "long time no see."
He snorted. "You have grown. I can see the change in your presence, but you are also cursed. The binding is nearly tight enough to strangle you. What have you done?"
That was a broad question. "Got into a fight with Fladnag," I said. "Didn''t know he was working with you guys."
Bojack''s heavy upper lip twitched. "Who is Fladnag?"
"Old guy goes around in a wagon shooting off fireworks. Used to be a hero who could heal people. Now poison tentacles sprout from his arm. That Fladnag."
The demon''s long face shook from side to side. "Are you attempting to distract me from the matter at hand? I know of no such entity. You have broken your oath to me, and now you suffer for it. Will you atone?"
Gastard grunted irritably, but it wasn''t time for him to act yet.
"What does that involve, exactly?" I asked.
"I have no need of ceremony," Bojack tapped the point of his spear on the dais. "You will swear a new oath, and I will forgive your sin. In the future, your family will remain at Mount Doom when you travel as a precaution against misadventure. I take it Salenus still stands?"
"We broke it open. Released a giant rock monster. It was a mess."
He eyed me for a long moment, and a hostage coughed. A zombie moaned, the sound swallowed by the arches.
"I am inclined to disbelieve you," Bojack said, "but the veil has weakened in recent days. And you should not know what was confined there otherwise. If you accomplished what I desired, what brought the curse upon you?"
The veil had weakened? Well, we had broken the monument before I fixed it, and I doubted my work was as good as the original. If there were supposed to have been runes involved, I certainly hadn''t included them in the reconstruction.
"The Fladnag thing. He tried to hurt Leto. We fought him, and the other demons got involved. It counted as me standing against Discord, I guess, and I''ve been slowly dying ever since. But you know me, I''m a pragmatist. I can''t run this empire or deal with Kevin without your help. We can work this out."
Bojack looked from me to Esmelda, and finally, his gaze settled on Gastard. He stared for long enough that I was sure he had sensed the change in my companion''s essence, and I readied myself to charge up the steps and go at him for all I was worth.
"You crafted them arms," he said.
"To keep them safe." He hadn''t noticed, or was he toying with me? My aetheric sense was weak, but even I could tell the difference in their auras since they''d gained Systems and started gaining levels. Maybe he was too focused on me, too used to thinking of them as only human.
Bojack lifted the spear to point it at me, and I heard claws clattering on the stone above us. The vorokai was directly overhead. From that height, it could simply drop and take one of us out with the impact alone.
"Lay your sword at your feet and remove your ring. Then you may approach me, alone."
I followed his instructions, unsheathing the blue-edged blade and laying it down within easy reach of Esmelda, turning slightly to the side so that Bojack wouldn''t have as good a view of what was in my hand. She was better with a bow, but it didn''t hurt to have options. Removing a gauntlet to get the Storage Ring off while continuing to palm a medallion was a bit of an operation. Though I was no sleight-of-hand expert, the demon didn''t comment on it, and I rose with both my fists clenched as if I was struggling with anger at being treated as a lackey.
A dozen steps raised the dais above the throne, above the rest of the hall. With my attributes as low as they were, just lifting my legs felt like a chore. I''d been nervous walking into the hall, but now that the moment had arrived, I felt calm. The decision had been made. We were going to fight the shadow instead of accommodating it, and that knowledge had caused much of the tension I''d been feeling over the weeks since taking over as Dark Lord to drop away.
What I was about to do would put people¡¯s lives at risk, but there would never be a point when that wasn¡¯t the case. The longer this went on, the more ways Bojack would come up with to keep me in line. I didn¡¯t look at Zareth or the others stuck huddling in a ring of zombies. Thinking about them would make this harder, and I couldn¡¯t afford the hesitation.
Bojack lowered his spear and retrieved the Oathdagger from where he kept it strapped to his arm under his sleeve. The essence trapped in the gem set in its pommel seemed to writhe against its constraints. It had darkened from red to puce, wrathful and alive.
I reached the dais, only another pace separating me from the demon, and clapped my hands together, twisting my torso as I did so and Kevin''s orichalcum ax appeared in my grip. Before Bojack had the time to react, I was already swinging at his head.
144: My Renewal (Rewrite)
I was too slow. Bojack''s head jerked to one side, and he reflexively brought up the Oathdagger in defense of his face. Its edge chipped as it met my ax, but he held off my swing as easily as if he was being assaulted by a child. That chip, though. The dagger was only steel, and the ax, which would have still been denser and heavier even if it hadn''t been forged of orichalcum, could break it with another solid blow. That would have solved one problem, but Bojack would not let me have it that easily.
His wide nostrils flared wider, and with a flick of his wrist, he caused his spear to jump so that he could grip it closer to its head. Then he jabbed the point into my chest. I was still trying to press my ax past the dagger and into his snout, holding the haft with both hands and putting my weight into it, but his arm was as immobile as a statue. The spearhead didn''t penetrate my chestplate, but it caused me to stumble back, one foot dropping onto the steps, and the damage wasn¡¯t completely absorbed.
"This will be a hard lesson," Bojack said, "but a necessary one."
A lot of things happened all at once. The zombies, released from whatever psychic commands had held them back, fell upon the hostages in a frenzy. A woman with dark curls and servant''s livery screamed, her face seeming to stretch and grow with horror, and Zareth interposed himself as a shambler lunged for her. They went down together.
There were more than a dozen captives and twice that many zombies. In a heartbeat, the group devolved into a chaotic scramble as the adults divided between shielding the children or trying to make a break for it by themselves. Behind me, a man cried out in agony as the vorokai dropped to the floor. I glanced back, unable to help myself.
The monster''s tail spike had punched through iron to bury itself in its victim''s belly. Another soldier was trapped under the vorokai''s legs, and the remaining four had scattered, their weapons drawn, preparing to drive the monster off together.
"Help them!" Esmelda commanded the soldiers, pointing at the hostages with an arrow. "We''ll deal with this." She had already moved well off to one side of the vorokai and didn''t wait to see if the soldiers understood her before drawing back the string of her bow.
Gastard held up his sword, whispering a prayer, and a white flame sprang up along its edge.
Bojack stabbed at my visor, the stone tip of his spear driving into the slit nearly deep enough to reach my eye. It knocked my head back, and I almost fell down the steps. I didn''t have time to watch what everyone else was doing. Hacking at the demon''s right side, I tried to force him to block with the dagger again, but he twisted his body and brought us the spear instead.
It cracked under the blow, a shard of rock flying off and pinging against my bracer. Before I could attack again, he switched his grip and used the back end of the spear to sweep my legs. This time, I did go tumbling down the steps. It didn''t hurt. My power suit was more than capable of absorbing a casual fall, but I gritted my teeth, anyway.
Weak, clumsy. Had I forgotten what it was like to be merely human? The System had augmented my body in so many ways that I''d taken the improvements for granted. I''d gotten some basic training from Gastard, but I was still an amateur. It was my enhancements and my equipment that had done all the heavy lifting on the battlefield.
Three of the soldiers rushed up the steps. I had no idea which ones. The man who''d been stabbed was on the ground, howling in agony as the vorokai''s venom did its work. Gastard was drawing the monster¡¯s full attention now. He cut off the tip of its tail as it jabbed at him, and the beast made a sound that was halfway between a chitter and a shriek.
Bojack descended just as I was picking myself up, but he stopped when an arrow appeared in his chest. His lips lifted, exposing wide, flat teeth, as he thrust the Oathdagger back into its sheath on his upper arm. His fingers contorted in the opening gesture of a spell, a single demonic word issuing from his mouth before he stopped himself, instead ripping the arrow out and tossing it aside.
Esmelda was nocking another. The trolls who had been guarding the entrance charged up the hall, bellows booming from their throats. They would be on us in a matter of seconds, but the Voidman was faster. It blinked into existence beside Esmelda. A looming shadow made flesh, but instead of slashing her with its long, taloned fingers, it grabbed her bow and ripped it from her hands.
Bojack could wait.
I went for the Voidman, intending to bury my ax in its back. Its burning, violet eyes fixed on me for the barest instant, and it slipped to the side, moving more swiftly than I could follow. Skidding to a halt, I tried for a side stroke, and it evaded me just as easily. Esmelda dove for my sword at the bottom of the steps and scrambled to join me in attempting to catch the Voidman.
The vorokai was circling Gastard, its chitinous feet clacking against the tiles. He had fended it off, but whenever he switched to the offensive, it skittered away, impossibly mobile for a creature with a ten-foot leg span. Its tail hung limply, though its fangs still gleamed even in the hall''s gloom, each as long as a saber. If it pinned Gastard, he wouldn''t last long.
One soldier had stayed to help him, but the man stood frozen in place. Faced with an overwhelming foe, he had either lost heart or was waiting for the perfect opening. The second option would have been preferable, but I didn''t hold out hope. The man was tall. Hurin? Didn¡¯t matter.
The trolls arrived. I was busily failing to hack apart the Voidman when a leathery gray truck rammed into my back and sent me rolling across the ground back to the base of the steps. Somehow, I kept a hold of the ax, but Bojack was waiting for me. He drove his spear down into the back of my hand, and while the gauntlet prevented him from driving it through, I felt a couple of small bones crack. Worse, the stone beneath my hand softened, and he pressed it in. The block re-solidified a second later, trapping both my hand and the ax in the floor.
"How shall I punish you?" Bojack asked in a conversational tone. "You have presented me with so many possibilities."
I heard Gastard shout, and there was a flash of white. It distracted Bojack, giving me the few seconds I needed to pat the block that had caught me with my other hand. Cracks formed instantly. The Curse of Weakening hadn''t affected my Mining skill at all.
Plep.
The offending block became a coin in my palm, and I rolled away to avoid the next jab from Bojack''s spear. My left hand was in no shape to grip a weapon, so I swapped it as I got back to my feet. The vorokai was down, split almost in half, and Gastard was already engaging a troll. Though I hadn''t seen them enter the hall, harpies had swooped in, and they were keeping the other one busy by going for its eyes. They couldn''t kill it, and one swipe of its massive paws would be a killing blow, but they were holding its focus. The vaulted ceilings gave them more than enough room to rise and dive as they harried the Bedlam gorilla.
Esmelda wasn''t as comfortable with a sword as she was with a bow. On some level, however, swordsmanship must have overlapped with Woodcraft, because she was already flowing through stances like she''d been in training for years. The Voidman was too fast for her, but she recovered from every miss and followed through with a grace that left me feeling envious.
Bojack wasn''t an elegant fighter, but he knew what he was doing. He engaged me at a distance, keeping my ax out of play while battering me with the shaft of his spear like it was a club. My left hand ached, and it could barely form a fist, let alone grip well enough to hold a weapon, and I was awkward with my right. He blocked or diverted every slash. Still, the orichalcum was biting into his weapon with each contact, and if the exchange continued, his spear was going to split.
Bojack''s spell-casting was limited as long as he was using his hands to combat me, but not reduced to nothing. He muttered an incantation as we fought, and I pressed in, hoping to catch him off guard, only to have one of my feet caught in a liquefied stone. The orichalcum plate-mail was almost without weakness, but the demon drove his spear under the poleyn, the piece that covered my knee, and I felt it pierce my skin.
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"Dick!" I yelled, responding with a wild swing that forced him to back off. The soldier who had been too shell-shocked to attack the vorokai had gotten out of the way of the incoming trolls, circling to flank the demon. With a hysterical cry, he slashed Bojack from behind, but the blow only seemed to annoy him. The demon spun and slammed the length of his stone spear into the side of the man''s helmet. The metal caved, and the soldier dropped like he''d had his power switch flicked off.
It was enough of a distraction to allow me to squat and harvest my way out of the stone encasing my foot. The scene behind the throne was still a riot, but the soldiers who had gone to help the hostages were cutting zombies like cordwood. The shamblers weren''t acting as a group, each monster mindlessly pursuing the target closest to its teeth, and that had allowed three men to take out almost half of the original ring. People were bitten, some might die, but I couldn''t let myself focus on what was happening on the dais.
The Voidman wasn''t trying to kill Esmelda. She was wearing the gear I had made for her, a set of leathers and an iron cap, but the monster was quick enough that it could have already torn out her throat if that had been its aim. Instead, it was keeping her busy, dodging her attacks, and slashing whenever it seemed like she might try to disengage. Not that I wanted it to go for a kill, but its behavior was putting a giant flashing question mark in the back of my mind even as I took another shot at splitting Bojack''s skull.
Gastard stepped in under the arm of the troll he was fighting and swung up, severing it at the shoulder. The mob howled, bringing its other fist in an overhand arc like a real-life Donkey Kong, landing a blow on the top of Gastard''s head with spine-shattering force. He dropped to his knees, his father''s sword falling from his hands.
Bojack brought his spear up crosswise, and when my ax landed, it finally sheared through. I attacked again, and the demon withdrew. Men''s voices filled the hall as Garron surged in through the entrance at the head of a column of Mount Doom''s finest. I didn¡¯t know if I had to thank Mizu or Kevin¡¯s throne for the loyalty of the garrison, but I was grateful either way.
Bojack dropped the blunt end of his broken spear, and as I continued to press him, allowing myself to believe that I had the advantage.
It was a mistake. He lost ground only to draw me in, and when I over-committed to a cross-blow, his hand snapped out and wrapped around the haft of the ax. Jerking his arm up, he nearly lifted me off of the ground, armor and all, as I held on as tightly as I could. But one of my hands was already injured, and raising my arms had left me exposed. I had to let go to avoid being stabbed in the armpit, and now Bojack had my ax.
"Will!" My gaze snapped to Esmelda''s voice as she slashed at the Voidman, causing it to dash around her. Instead of following its movement, she tossed me something. The gold band of the Storage Ring turned over in the air, and I almost fumbled the catch. Just as it connected with my gauntlet, my own ax crashed into the side of my helm.
Sparks flashed as orichalcum clashed with orichalcum, and my vision swam as I retreated. Disoriented, it took me too long to slip the ring back over my finger, and Bojack hit me again. I heard my backplate pop as the ax bit into the metal, and the force of the blow sent me tumbling forward. The side of my helmet was dented, and my ears were ringing. I''d gone through so many fights getting bounced around inside this suit that I had thought of it as unbreakable. But all it took was the right weapon. Bojack could kill me, and when I respawned, I would be completely under his power.
"For the Throne!" A sprinting Dargothian interrupted Bojack¡¯s follow-up attack. That he could run in full gear spoke to the standard of physical training Garron enforced for his men. Malphas''s siege may have been the first actual battle most of them had ever seen, but that didn''t mean they neglected their duty to the realm. He was holding a halberd low at his side as he charged, and he thrust the spiked head into Bojack''s side.
The demon grunted, his advance pausing for only a moment. The halberd had merely pricked him. He held the spearhead in his right hand and the ax in his left. The white-gold edge of the weapon flashed, as with a single clean stroke, it removed the man''s head from his shoulders. I flinched as he crumpled. He''d died for me, for the person he thought I was. I''d never felt more like an imposter.
Having my inventory back gave me a few options, but not as many as I would have liked. The buster sword was going to have to idle, as it was too heavy for me to fight with. Esmelda had my backup sword. That left me with a shovel, a pick, torches, and a few varieties of blocks. But the ring gave me the freedom to place objects without having to toss the actual coins.
I pointed at Bojack''s feet, and he promptly stubbed his sandaled toe on a glass block. As addled as I was from the blow to my head, I''d used the ring so often that item selection was second nature. A Shadowbane torch appeared on top of the glass cube, affixed upright. It was only a headache for the demon, but the torches would give us zones of safety for dealing with the mobs. There was barely enough time for me to drop a second to my left, closer to Esmelda, before Bojack was pressuring me again.
I summoned the pick but didn''t bother trying to block his next swing, ducking instead as I stepped back. He would have knocked it out of my grip if I¡¯d parried. He was eight feet of horse-demon, and I was just a man.
Bojack was backlit by the light of two torches. Behind him, a troupe of soldiers faced off with the trolls. Their hides were almost impenetrable to weapons without enhancement or meta-materials, but these men had been around monsters all their lives. Rather than closing with swords, most of them wielded polearms, keeping as far away from the massive fists of the trolls as they could while targeting their eyes, mouths, and the soft spot under their throats.
As one monster was already missing an arm, they weren¡¯t faring too badly.
Gastard wove drunkenly off to the side of the melee. It was good to see him on his feet, but it looked like he wouldn''t soon be able to shake off the blow from the troll. I avoided Bojack for a few more seconds, shooting for the lowish bar of just staying on my feet and not having my head knocked off. Using a pickaxe severely limited my attack strategies, and I could feel my endurance wearing thin. Panting, with my limbs growing heavy and the armor growing hot, surviving was the best I could do, and I wouldn''t be able to do it forever.
Esmelda saw the torches and slipped within the scant protection of the light. The Voidman had retreated when they appeared, and now it was cautiously edging forward to continue its dance. But Esmelda was having none of it. She turned from the shadow man and moved on silent feet to flank Bojack. Among the shouts, hoots, and screams, the clash of weapons, and the cries of the harpies, sneaking may have been unnecessary. Either way, the demon did not notice her approach until she thrust my sword into his lower back.
Bojack looked down at the blue-gold tip of the blade jutting from his stomach. Both weapons fell from his grasp, but not in defeat. Without looking to see who had attacked him, he brought his hands up in a swift, precise, cutting gesture, and spat a string of alien words so quickly that they ran together into a single guttural utterance.
All around him, the stones came alive as a ring of spikes shot up from the floor, angling out. Esmelda was hidden behind Bojack, but even amid the din of the battle, I heard a sharp intake of breath ending on a high-pitched note of surprise and pain.
Somewhere in my being, the Weakening Curse wrapped around my spirit like a slowly tightening noose. With each passing day, it had grown more taut, squeezing my aetheric core until it was nearly crushed out of existence.
The sense of increasing pressure had become a background to my life, a constant reminder that I was living on borrowed time. Now, all at once, it vanished. Strength surged through me. I felt more alive, more awake than I ever had. The rush was so sudden and so intense that it was almost sickening, as if I''d just ingested the magical equivalent of a methamphetamine-steroid cocktail.
Ding.
The notification was superfluous. The realization came to me along with the rush of endorphins as my attributes jumped to their previous heights. Though I had broken my pact with the demon, for the curse to remain in effect, Bojack had to continue holding up his end of the bargain. He had promised to keep Esmelda safe, never to harm her himself or to order me to do something that would directly endanger her.
That was why the Voidman had been toying with her, keeping her out of the fight. Stabbed from behind, he''d reacted reflexively. He''d hurt her, and I didn''t know how badly.
Bojack lurched forward, tripping over his own spikes, the sword in his abdomen coming with him. I raised my uninjured hand and summoned the buster from my inventory, a six-foot blade, a foot wide, crafted of the densest metal in existence. Even with my Might restored, wielding it with a single arm was ridiculous, and applying any kind of skill or form would be practically impossible. But all I needed was one good stroke.
The demon looked up from his wound in time to see the buster blade coming down. The slash landed at an angle between his shoulder and his neck, cutting through his clavicle and lodging in his breastbone. He went down to his knees, and I jerked the buster free.
"You can''t win," he said, his arm hanging limply, somehow still alive, speaking through the blood that trickled from his mouth. "This world belongs to¡ª"
I cut off his head.
Esmelda was still standing, fixed in place by the stone spear that had erupted from the floor and pierced through her thigh. Her face was bone-white, and she trembled. Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"I should have picked White Mage."
145: My Prisoner (Rewrite)
No healing potions. I¡¯d given them all away. I could harvest the stone spike to remove it without causing more damage, but if it had even nicked an artery, she would bleed out long before I brewed anything that could help. Esmelda had made a joke. That was probably a good sign.
"Don''t move," I said. Top ten stupidest things I have ever said. Esmelda literally couldn''t move, but she didn''t call me on it.
"Of course," her smile was strained, blood seeping through her leggings around the spike. "I''ll wait here, shall I?"
A barking cough warned of the Voidman''s approach. It had blinked around the light and was now behind me. I spun, buster in hand, and the mob leaped straight up. It hadn''t gotten any slower, but I could follow it now. And the brief moment it hung in the air before gravity took hold and it fell on me was enough.
It was already too close for the giant sword to be effective, so I dropped it. The Voidman came down, and my ring hand snapped around its throat. No gauntlet. I''d taken it off when I removed the ring for Bojack. Black talons tipped my fingers, a gift from either Malphas or Gaap. It didn''t matter which. It issued one more surprised cough before I tore out its windpipe.
The Voidman''s long claws clattered against my armor, the violet flames in its eyes flaring bright before winking out. It died. God, I had missed being strong. Tossing aside the dark hunk of flesh I''d taken out of the mob, I grabbed the buster and charged the nearest trolls. Though still alive, they were both badly wounded. The soldiers had done an excellent job of harrying them, but they had taken losses in return.
Dargothians were lying battered and broken across the width of the hall, engaged in back and forth with beasts that could break their formations with a single bull-rush, trampling anyone not swift enough to get out of the way. Halberds had snapped and shields had shattered as cuts and punctures multiplied over the bodies of the trolls.
The first troll, missing an arm, was struggling, currently being herded toward the columns by a group with polearms as it feebly protected its face. The second was still in fighting shape and had just scattered a clump of soldiers, seizing one in its leathery fist. A nine-foot gorilla with the face of a hound, its jaws parted to envelop the unfortunate man''s head.
A harpy clinging to its back was busily beaking the nape of its neck, thoroughly ignored.
I grimaced at the ache in my injured hand, jogging up to the troll''s flank and thrusting the buster under its ribcage. The blade sank deep, and the monster spasmed, dropping the man. Getting the sword out of its body was a lot harder than putting it in, but the troll was done fighting, and I left the soldiers to finish the one-armed beast themselves.
Gastard had stopped to remove his helm. His blonde hair was matted with sweat, and a single line of blood dripped from one of his eyes like gruesome tears. But he was standing. He would live.
"I need you to use Prestidigitation," I said, grabbing his shoulder to get his attention.
"Presti¡" His gaze narrowed in confusion. Did he even know where he was?
I pointed at Esmelda, who was still trembling in place with a stone spike jutting out of her leg. "Pray that she doesn''t die, that the bleeding stops, something. I''m going to get potions." Prestidigitation was only for minor miracles, at least at entry level, but minor was better than none.
His gaze became focused when he spotted Esmelda, and he nodded. "I will do what I can."
The situation on the dais was settled. For better or for worse, the zombies were down. I didn''t see Zareth, but we could start counting our losses when Esmelda was safe. The citadel was labyrinthian, but I knew exactly where I was going. Stowing the buster in my inventory, I rushed out of the throne room, dashing through empty halls and leaping down staircases until I arrived at the forge.
As desperate as the situation was, it was impossible not to feel a little thrill in having my physical enhancements restored. I felt lighter than air, free of fatigue, and manic. If there had been a troll in my way, I might have tried to wrestle it. But no monsters were trying to stop me, and the only guards I passed saluted me as I ran by.
Smoke billowed from the cauldron hanging from thick chains in the caldera of Mount Doom, enough to fill the sky. There was a small stash of potion ingredients by the gold anvil. I grabbed the coins I needed, placed the brewing stand, and started preparing a batch of healing potions.
Once the Glistering Melons were smashed and the base elixirs were simmering, there was nothing for me to do but wait. I wanted to sprint back to the hall and check on Esmelda, but that would mean guessing the timing. The only way to have these potions to her as fast as possible was to be here to grab them as soon as they were ready.
There was, however, one thing I could do while the stand simmered. I glanced at the cauldron hanging over the caldera. Using the materials left in my inventory, glass and bedlamite, I extended the forge platform just far enough for me to reach it. Breaking the chains and scrapping the cauldron would have been satisfying, but it would have also taken more time.
Instead, I summoned my pick and used it to tap the side of the cauldron until the massive iron construct popped out of existence, converting into a medallion. It was a big token, the iron cold in my hand. Engraved with a simple ring filled with clouds, its edges were etched with tiny runes that flickered like a dying fire. The remaining smoke continued to rise, and I didn''t know if stowing the cauldron was enough to clear the storm on its own, but it was a beginning.
The potions were ready. I snatched the bottles, now filled with burgundy liquid, off of their hooks and sprinted back to the hall as fast as my new attributes would allow. The fighting was done when I arrived, and soldiers had taken up positions by the entrance while others were tending to the wounded. Celaeno perched atop the back of the Throne of Shadows, preening herself. I didn''t see Garron.
I jogged back to Esmelda, who was in the same difficult position she had been in when I left. My sword was on the ground beside her, and she was hugging herself, her mouth thinned with pain. Gastard knelt within the ring of spears, his head bowed as he whispered a continuous prayer. It didn''t look like there was much more blood around her wound than there had been a few minutes ago, so hopefully Prestidigitation had done something.
"Take this," I said, giving Esmelda the first potion.
"Should I drink it now?" She asked, looking down at the spike in her leg, "While it''s still¡there."
"It''ll only take a few seconds to harvest," I still had my pick out. "I''d prefer the potion was already working before we try."
Esmelda nodded, taking a small sip of the elixir before lifting the bottle to drain the rest in a few gulps. I handed her the next one and harvested one of the other spikes first as a test. It disintegrated after a few taps, becoming a marble Shard coin, so there was nothing left to do but free Esmelda. I hesitated a moment. She wasn''t dying now, but if I did this and blood started gushing, I didn''t know if healing potions would be enough to save her life.
Was anyone on Mount Doom a practicing doctor? We didn''t have time to ask around. She had already taken the first draught, and I didn''t want her to heal with a spike embedded in her leg. There was no telling what complications that would lead to.
"It''s fine," Esmelda said, sensing my indecision. "The goddess is with us."
Sure she was. Mizu had been a fair-weather friend at best since my arrival on Plana. Still, there was no benefit in delaying. I tapped the spike near its base, and Esmelda winced. Focusing on the crack that had formed at the touch of the pick, I tapped it a few more times, and the spike vanished.
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Esmelda dropped to the floor immediately, her legs unable to support her. She held onto the second bottle though, and quickly drank. Gastard continued to pray, his eyes closed, his face peaceful. There was still blood around his eye.
I could see the wound in Esmelda''s leg through the tear in her leathers, closing like a mouth. It wasn''t bleeding, and in a matter of seconds, it had sealed. Though not completely healed, a scab had formed, and I breathed a sigh of relief. She had fallen just outside the ring of spikes, and I shifted around them to give her a hug, which she returned.
"It''s not over," she said, "but we are closer than we have ever been."
I held her for a long moment, but this wasn''t a time to rest. Gremory''s obedience had surprised me, but she was still a problem. Then there was Kevin. Even if he remained trapped, I needed to spawn proof his cage. There was no longer a demon to collect his mobs or control the rest of the monsters around the mountain. The people here were not safe, and once Mount Doom was secured, it wouldn''t be long before attacks came from the other demons.
I had no idea what the few who were still bound to me would do when they realized what had happened here. As for the rest, there was no way for me to pretend that I was still a potential ally.
"I''m going to deal with Gremory," I said, passing Gastard the last healing potion. "Can you guys take care of things here?"
"Community organizing," Esmelda offered me a weak smile, "is a specialty of mine."
"Celaeno," I called, standing, "can you bring the flock?"
By way of answer, the harpy spread her black wings and took flight toward the entrance. The others that had landed around the hall followed her. I collected my discarded gauntlet, as well as the sword, and made my way out of the citadel. The men beside the doors saluted me.
"The demons have broken their oaths," I said. "Treat every monster as a monster. They won''t be helping us anymore. Let the others know."
That got me another salute. It wasn''t the complete story, but it would serve. I repeated it a few more times on my way back to the main wall. There were no roars or screams yet. Though the pens under the mountain may have already been out of control, I wouldn''t know until I got there. Harpies circled above me as I followed the path to the main gate. The pair of trolls charged with working the wheels were still in position, so it didn''t seem that Bojack''s influence had completely faded yet. Either that or Gremory''s presence was keeping them in check.
The demon was standing atop the wall, surrounded by soldiers. Their weapons were drawn, but the men had frozen in place. I hadn''t specifically ordered anyone to attack her, but Garron had likely warned the men to watch the demon before bringing a fighting group to the citadel. Gremory wasn''t so much as acknowledging the soldiers as she gazed out over the foothills.
"Are you here to kill me?" She asked as I ascended the steps to the rampart.
"If that''s what you think," I said, "why did you stay?" Killing her was next on my list, but her behavior had made me curious.
Gremory turned to face me, took in the ichor that had splattered my armor, and sniffed. The nearest soldier lost his sword. It shot out of his hand and followed Gremory as the demon hopped between the crenulations behind her and dropped off of the wall. Harpies dove after, but when I reached the edge, the demon was already rising again. She was flying on the sword.
In my previous life, I had read books where characters flew on swords. It was a cultivation trope, and it looked as ridiculous now as I had always imagined it would. That being said, I had to give Gremory credit for the balance and dexterity that must have been required to ride a blade like it was a surfboard.
The harpies wheeled, as shocked as I was, calling to each other as the surrounding soldiers unfroze. A few of them collapsed, while others sheathed their swords in favor of crossbows. Gremory had used her metal affinity to lock their armor in place. As the most recent demon to appear in Plana, she should have been one of the weakest, but I''d underestimated her.
I''d seen Asmodeus perform similar tricks, but not at this scale. Gremory could have escaped, but she wasn''t fleeing. Instead, she flew toward the citadel. My first thought was of Esmelda, but she wasn''t aiming for the great hall. The citadel had smaller entrances, higher along the structure, and Gremory was headed toward the cube.
As I had refused to play the role of the Dark Lord, Gremory intended to revive the original recipe.
Once again, I broke into a run. I wasn''t nearly as fast as the flying demon, but she would have to break into a diamond cell before she could free Kevin, and she didn''t have Bojack''s earth magic to do the job. The men got out of my way, but they needn''t have bothered. I jumped off the wall. The ground rushed up to meet me, and I landed hard but kept my feet.
The harpies streamed overhead as I ran around the inner wall, but they wouldn''t be able to stop the demon. A group of soldiers were marching out of the great hall as I arrived, coming to a halt as I arced around them, ignoring their questions. Esmelda and Gastard were on the dais with Zareth. He was holding a bandage to his face, though he seemed to be in good shape otherwise.
A zombie bite didn''t get infected, it started that way, but he wouldn''t die from it today.
"Gremory going for Kevin!" I shouted, not pausing in my headlong rush for the door at the end of the throne room. In my head, I was calculating the fastest route to the cube. Three stairwells, several long halls. I could take care of Gremory, but I had to get there before she broke into Kevin''s cell.
"What?" I heard Esmelda call after me. Gastard was already coming down from the dais. Help would be good, but I couldn''t stop to explain. Columns flashed by me, and I threw open the door at the end of the hall and kept going. My boots slapped against the stone, my breath coming hard and fast, trapped in my helm. My body was hot, and I felt pins and needles all across my skin.
What could Kevin do if he got out? He didn''t have his armor. I''d stowed all the equipment I hadn''t stolen from him in the forge. He didn''t have his weapons. His sword was in my inventory. His attributes were higher than mine, but not by leagues. In theory, he wouldn''t be any harder to deal with than a demon, and he wouldn''t be in top fighting shape after spending so long as a prisoner.
His last respawn had done something to him. Mutated his arm. Had the One Who Knocks given him a new ability? Logically, the idea of having the door to his cage cut open shouldn''t have terrified me. I''d killed him once already, and that was when he''d been in full gear. But I couldn''t shake the feeling that having him take a step outside of the confines of his box would spell disaster.
The seconds ticked by to the staccato of my heart, and I reached the hall that led to the cube. Bojack''s desk was still sitting at the end of the tunnel, his journal resting on the edge. How many poems and sketches had the demon added, waiting on my return? He wasn''t dead. None of them were. Every demon I slayed was waiting on the other side of the veil for its chance to be reborn.
There was no connecting path between the end of the hall and the pillar that supported Kevin''s cell. The former Dark Lord was where he was supposed to be, curled into a ball in the corner of his prison. It wasn''t the position I''d expected him to be in, given that the instrument of his freedom was at hand.
Gremory was floating on a stolen sword in front of a diamond wall. Her arms were going through a set of motions that made me think of senior citizens practicing tai-chi in the park, and I heard her muttering an incantation in the demonic tongue. Scraps of metal whirled in front of her, spinning at incredible speeds, cutting into the diamond blocks like a drill.
I could have shot her, but Esmelda had all my enchanted arrows. That left laying down a bridge. It was a ridiculous situation. Gremory frantically drilled into the cell while I affixed block after block to craft a path for me to get there. Gastard and Esmelda arrived when I was halfway done.
"Duck!" I heard her shout and crouched. Almost at the same moment, an arrow zipped over my head. It veered aside before it could touch Gremory. She¡¯d protected herself with a spell. I attached another block and another. No need for a full road, two feet wide was enough for me to get forward. Cracking sounds accompanied the grinding of the magical drill as the prison fractured.
The next arrow embedded itself in her back. Esmelda had switched to the wood-only quiver, and Gremory gasped, interrupting her incantation. The whirling metal fragments slowed, but she didn''t turn, didn''t pause, and the drill revved up again. She took the next arrow without complaint, and I continued bridging the gap between us.
Balancing on a floating sword was far from a stable position. The demon took two more arrows, and her stance slipped. The sword she was balancing on wobbled, and Gremory fell to the floor far below, chanting even as she dropped. The words cut off abruptly.
A three-by-three section of the cell crumbled into diamond shards, many of them tumbling away, some resting in the hole Gremory had drilled into the wall. I was almost there, rushing to complete the last few feet of the bridge. Kevin hadn''t even moved.
I reached the cell. The diamond blocks were ruined well beyond the point where they could be harvested and reapplied, and I had none in my inventory to replace them. I''d have to go back to the redstone factory to resupply. Kevin either had to die now, or Esmelda and Gastard could guard him until I returned. But something felt wrong.
Why wasn''t he trying to escape?
The former dark lord was sitting in a corner, his head in his arms. He lifted his face to look at me, and I flinched. The corruption on his arm had spread. One of his eyes was completely black, with dark veins spreading across his face. His hair was lank, falling out in patches, and his naked body was covered in red splotches.
He still looked like a kid. A teenager with some horrible disease.
"Please," he said, his voice breaking. "I¡I don''t want to fight anymore."
HUZZAH (Not a Chapter---Rewrite Complete)
Hey Homies!
First of all, thank you all so much for coming with me on this journey. Survivor has been going for over a year now, and the rewrite has taken me, I don''t know, five months? I can''t even remember when I started it. I''ve finally gotten to the point where I think everything syncs up. There were a LOT of changes from the original, and that led to a myriad of continuity issues to fix even as I got past the point that needed a total redo. As you continue reading, please feel free to point out anything that stands out to you as being inconsistent because I''m sure I missed things.
The story has changed shape several times, and I one day hope to publish it for real. The last chapter marks the end of what would be book 3, and we are now heading into book 4. (Though if it does become a book, I''ll have to add some material to catch people up because the next chapter would be too jarring as the opening of a book.) I have a pretty good idea of where the story will end, though I''m not sure yet how I''m going to get there. lol
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Of course, if you feel like leaving a rating or review, I appreciate the support. If not, that''s okay too. I''m so happy to see so many people reading and enjoying the story. I''ve written a lot of books over the years, most of them better left unseen, and this is the most eyes I''ve ever gotten on my work.
I took all this out of my bio because I felt like it was TMI, but if you''ve read this far, I feel like you deserve an explanation for how dang wierd this whole thing is. Survivor is a long daydream for me. I''m bipolar AF, and I robbed banks as a teenager, then spent 13 years in prison. The government put me on pills to chill me out. My first job getting out was at Subway, and sometimes, being eaten by a space zombie would have felt like a better option. There''s a reason the MC is named Will. lol
Thank you again. I''d share some zombie meat with you anytime. It''s really not bad if you don''t chew.
146: My Growth Spurt
¡°Please,¡± Kevin said, ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡±
¡°Hey guys,¡± I called to Esmelda and Gastard, ¡°I need to grab more diamonds, can you make sure he doesn¡¯t move until I get back?¡±
Gastard was already picking his way across the perilously thin bridge, while Esmelda remained by Bojack¡¯s desk, a fresh arrow strung in her bow. Her lips turned down in a dour expression. Though we had won, the kingdom was far from secure, and here we were with an open door in the former Dark Lord¡¯s cage.
¡°He will not escape,¡± Gastard said. He¡¯d wiped the blood from his face, though there were still traces of red around his eye, the healing potion seemed to have put him back in fighting shape.
I made my way back to the forge.
For as long as we¡¯d kept Kevin in a box, I¡¯d been thinking of him more as a timebomb than a person. The threat he posed was always at the back of my thoughts, influencing my decisions, and my mindset had been focused on what to do about him rather than what to do with him. With my background, the idea of indefinitely keeping someone in solitary confinement had always made me uneasy.
Prisons, however, existed for a reason. It might not be a perfect solution, but the safety of innocent people, and in this case, an entire world, justified taking away the freedom of people who refused to play nice. That wasn¡¯t quite applicable to Kevin. He hadn¡¯t been a criminal, he had been at the head of an evil empire.
Philosophy majors can write as many papers, and spend as many years in debate, as they like about the nature of evil. For my purposes, I was comfortable keeping things simple. You didn¡¯t hurt or kill people for fun or profit. You didn¡¯t put people in chains, except when it was necessary to protect others.
Kevin had been around for a long time, an almost inconceivable span, since being chosen by Mizu as one of Plana¡¯s heroes. Throughout his reign, he¡¯d overseen an empire that treated humans, lillits, and everyone else, as objects. He¡¯d betrayed his mentors, and sided with an entity whose sole purpose was to transform this world into a mirror of Bedlam.
Some things were unforgivable, weren¡¯t they? How many lillits had died for his whims? For a decade, he had treated them as slaves under the oversight of demons, for no purpose other than to maintain the operations of what amounted to a toy train-set. And that was only what I knew about. His history, the centuries he had spent solidifying his position as Dark Lord, were undoubtedly rife with examples of cartoon-level villainy.
Forgiveness, however, was not necessary. Kevin had never before been open to conversation, but he was the single best source of information relating to my class. The only source, aside from the tidbits the System had divulged. If he was willing to help me, we could work something out. Not freedom, but better living conditions.
There was a chest full of diamonds in the forge. I filled a pouch with the aquamarine coins, turned back to the entrance, and doubled over. My stomach was doing flips, and I barely got my visor open before throwing up on an anvil.
The nausea abated a moment later, but my body felt hot, and I was tingling all over. Immune to poison and disease, there weren¡¯t many possible explanations for a sudden sickness. This had something to do with the taint of Bedlam. Killing one too many demons.
My armor felt tight and ill-fitted, but I ignored the discomfort and forced myself to stand up straight and hurry back to the cube. If what I had done was going to change me, there was nothing I could do about it now. The aftereffects of demon-slaying were variable. First my eyes, then the nubs on my head that were slowly growing into horns. Claws instead of nails, and my incisors had been looking pretty fangy lately.
It could have been worse, at least I hadn¡¯t sprouted any feathers or grown fur all over my body. The mutations were thematic, related to the nature of the demons I killed, but they hadn¡¯t gone overboard yet. I still looked human. It had never made me sick before, though.
By the time I reached the hall leading into Kevin¡¯s cube, I was walking like someone in a whole-body cast. My limbs were stiff, not paralyzed, I just didn¡¯t fit in my suit anymore. Esmelda gave me an alarmed look as I shambled down the passage toward her.
¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± She asked, lowering her bow. Kevin hadn¡¯t moved, and Gastard was standing outside of his cell with his sword out like an executioner preparing for the final swing.
¡°Not sure,¡± I said. ¡°Taint, probably.¡± The nausea was back, though not to the point where I had to vomit. In no condition to cross a tight walk, I quickly unequipped my armor, converting each piece into a medallion and stowing them in my pack. My tunic and trousers were sticking to my body, drenched in sweat both from the battle and this sudden onset fever.
¡°You¡¯re pale,¡± Esmelda said, her brows drawing down in concern.
¡°I¡¯ll be fine.¡± Though my limbs were still tingling, it was easier to move now that I was free of the suit. Simply walking down the narrow path was much more difficult than it should have been, my head was spinning, but I managed to navigate it without slipping off to join Gremory on the floor below. The demon hadn¡¯t moved since her fall, and Esmelda¡¯s arrows were sticking out of her back like spines.
There was no room for us to stand side-by-side, so Gastard switched places with me, and I set about filling in the gap in Kevin¡¯s cell with diamond blocks.
Kevin watched me with wide, desperate eyes.
¡°You''re tainted,¡± he said, ¡°like me.¡±
¡°Not like you,¡± I had to clear a couple of fractured blocks before placing new ones, harvesting the shards with a pick to make room for replacements. ¡°I¡¯ve been a good boy.¡±
¡°You¡¯re not so different, you and I.¡±
I glanced up, had he just deepened his voice to give me the most hackneyed villain line in history? Kevin was smirking, ruined eye and all, he knew what he was doing.
¡°We have the same class,¡± I said, ¡°that¡¯s as far as it goes. If you want to talk, we can talk. But no one is going to forget what you¡¯ve done.¡±
¡°You mean saving the world?¡± Kevin sat up straight, meeting me with a level gaze, a challenge. As if I had no right to judge him. ¡°Towk would already have it all if not for me.¡±
¡°Seal him in,¡± Gastard said sharply, ¡°there¡¯s no reason to heed his malice or his lies.¡±
I placed the blocks, slowly, and deliberately, leaving only one out, a window for us to continue the conversation.
¡°What are you talking about?¡± I asked. ¡°Who¡¯s Towk?¡±
¡°The One Who Knocks,¡± he rolled his good eye. ¡°Durr. A player was working for him already when I got here, and the other Survivors didn¡¯t know what to do about it. They were pansies. I¡¯m the one who stopped him. I¡¯m the one who griefed him. They thought they could play nice.¡±
Player? Please tell me Kevin didn¡¯t think he was in an actual video game. Sure, the System had a lot of similarities to how a character would advance in an RPG, but this was not a simulation.
¡°So¡you stopped the bad guy, then you took his place?¡±
¡°It wasn¡¯t my fault!¡± Kevin snarled, lunging forward on his hands and knees. ¡°They were idiots, okay? We needed someone on the inside. They didn¡¯t get it either.¡± He sat back on his heels, his face twisted in anger. ¡°I did what I had to do.¡±
So many questions. Anything he said, I would have to take as a distortion, at best, if not an outright lie. With all the other witnesses long gone, he was going to try to paint a picture where he came out as a victim of circumstances rather than an active agent of malevolence. He might not even remember what had truly happened.
There were people who could lie to themselves about their actions, their motivations, to the point where their fabrications were the only reality they knew. Untangling the truth from his self-serving fiction might be next to impossible, but I still wanted to know.
¡°Why did you kill them, the other Survivors?¡±
¡°It¡¯s not like they¡¯re dead,¡± Kevin said, calming down. ¡°They just left the game. Went on to the next stage. They probably work for the Hierarchy now.¡±
That wasn¡¯t an answer.
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¡°This isn¡¯t a game,¡± I said. The last coin was in my hand, and I pressed it, edge down, onto the ledge of our little window, reminding him how easy it would be to shut him away forever. ¡°We can respawn, but that doesn¡¯t mean our lives don¡¯t matter, or that what we do here doesn¡¯t matter. This world is full of real people who don¡¯t have our advantages. There¡¯s no such thing as an NPC.¡±
¡°Of course there is,¡± he eyed the coin. ¡°If you don¡¯t have a System, you might as well be a bot.¡±
¡°I¡¯m going to lock you in now.¡± I lifted the coin, preparing to set the block.
¡°Wait!¡± his eyes widened, ¡°I can tell you how to get better!¡±
My hand froze. ¡°Better how?¡±
¡°The spawns, the taint. I know how to fix it.¡± His twisted arm, his ruined eye. He certainly didn¡¯t look like someone who knew how to deal with the toxicity of Bedlam.
¡°How?¡±
¡°For us, it¡¯s runes. The other classes have their own crap. I can teach you. But you have to let me out.¡±
Of course, what else could he have wanted? Still, it was a strong play. The nausea was fading in and out, but I still felt sick. My body was very busily doing something that I didn¡¯t think I would like. This wasn¡¯t the right time to make deals, my head was swimming.
¡°We¡¯ll talk,¡± I said, placing the last block and sealing him behind a wall of diamond. His mouth moved, the words too quiet to hear.
¡°You can¡¯t be considering this,¡± Gastard said, finally sheathing his sword.
¡°You might have an FAQ,¡± I said, ¡°but I don¡¯t. There is a deeper level to my class that I have no access to right now. These runes, I need to learn how to use them. Kevin¡¯s not exactly mentor material, but he¡¯s something.¡±
We walked back to the hall to join Esmelda. Her hearing had always been exceptional, and I had no doubt she had been following the exchange. She didn¡¯t look happy about it.
¡°You look terrible,¡± she said.
¡°Thanks, I feel terrible.¡± My joints ached, and the tingling had gotten worse. There were a thousand things we needed to do. ¡°Let¡¯s get back to the throne room. Are Zareth and Garron around?¡±
¡°Garron is unconscious, he was injured by a troll,¡± Esmelda said, walking beside me. ¡°If you can brew any more healing potions, I¡¯m sure he would benefit. Zareth was bitten, so there is infection to consider.¡±
¡°We need to handle all the mobs around Mount Doom,¡± I said, ¡°and I¡¯ve got to spawn-proof the cube before nightfall. The pens are going to be out of control.¡±
¡°You aren¡¯t in a condition to deal with the pens,¡± Gastard said, a step behind us. ¡°Why did you remove your armor?¡±
¡°It felt wrong,¡± I said. ¡°Tight.¡±
Esmelda stopped, spun on her heel, and pressed her head against my chest. Reflexively, I put my arm around her. Somehow, she seemed even shorter than usual when she looked up at me.¡±
¡°I thought so,¡± she said, ¡°you¡¯ve gotten taller.¡±
¡°What?¡± As soon as I asked the question, Gastard stepped closer, put his hand against his forehead almost like a salute, and then brushed it over my head.
¡°She¡¯s right,¡± he said, bemused. ¡°You¡¯ve grown at least an inch.¡±
Bojack had been eight feet tall. As much as I wouldn¡¯t mind a little extra height, there were limits. Gastard was maybe six-three, and now that it had been pointed out, I felt like there wasn¡¯t as much of a difference between us as there had been an hour ago.
¡°Well, at least I¡¯m not getting hooves.¡±
Esmelda moved back, looking me up and down. She had shouldered her bow, and now she put her hands on hips.
¡°The horns,¡± she said, frowning. ¡°The horns are becoming a problem.¡±
I touched my head. The nubs, my ¡°gift¡± from Agares, had gotten sharper. They were also now close to three inches long. If I tried to equip my helm again, I didn¡¯t think it would work. That was a serious practical issue. And if I grew significantly, it wouldn¡¯t just be the helm.
I checked my notifications. I''d have missed the ding if there had been one, but the System had sent me a new message.
<<<>>>
Achievement: Tainted (2)
Congratulations, you are sufficiently infected with the essence of Discord that the harmonic dissonance of your presence will make it increasingly easy for entities from high-chaos planes to use you as a gateway to enter any world you happen to occupy. This is not the high score you are looking for.
Apply stabilizing elements to reduce the side effects of your corruption.
<<<>>>
¡°Yep,¡± I said, ¡°this is a problem.¡±
Would the potential spawn radius expand, the rate of spawns increase, or both? It likely meant that stronger entities would appear more commonly. Instead of zombies, phantoms, and the occasional troll, I¡¯d be dealing with Voidmen and Hollows and chimeras every night with no demon around to manage them.
Further down the hall from where we were standing, a single torch rested in a sconce on the wall. Its gem glowed bright, imbued with Shadowbane. Was I imagining it, or did the light hurt my eyes? As we moved toward the great hall, I became very aware of the presence of enchanted torches.
It might have been psychosomatic, but I felt a slight reluctance as I passed under their light, as if something was telling me I didn¡¯t belong there. The spells of the Atlan shamans had caused me discomfort, nothing compared to what they did to the demons, but would it be worse now?
What would happen if Shadowbane became as much a problem for me as for mobs?
Zareth, as well as several soldiers and servants, were in the hall when we arrived. They were carting dead mobs outside, and a group was levering one of the trolls onto a sled. My vizier gave a slight bow as I ascended the dais.
¡°It¡¯s good to see you at your rightful place,¡± he said. I saw a bandage under the collar of his robe. The woman with dark, curly hair was hanging onto his arm, but she let go to offer me a curtsey. She was attractive, and I guessed somewhere in her forties.
¡°This is my wife, Dorea.¡±
¡°It is my honor,¡± she said, shifting slightly behind the vizier. Wary of me. A lot of Dargothians were like that, and it was no mystery why. Most of them still thought I was Kevin, and he hadn¡¯t had a reputation for treating people well.
¡°I didn¡¯t know you were married,¡± I said. She was certainly better looking than Zareth, who was bald and rail thin. I should have realized he had a family, it had just never come up, and I had never thought about his life apart from being an extremely useful functionary. Their relationship certainly explained why he had jumped in front of a zombie for her.
¡°Nice to meet you,¡± I smiled at the woman, and she relaxed a little. Then I refocused on Zareth. ¡°I¡¯m officially done with demons. Do you know where all the mobs are stationed? Without anyone controlling them, they¡¯re going to start acting on their natures.¡±
Zareth¡¯s mouth dropped open. ¡°Done with demons? I don¡¯t understand. My loyalty is to you, of course, but I don¡¯t know why Orobas turned against you. What caused all this?¡±
I scratched my head, the horns were itching. Too many people were too far out of the loop. If Mount Doom was going to be our staging ground for ridding Plana of Bedlam¡¯s influence, everyone needed to be on the same page.
¡°I know you know I¡¯m not the same Dark Lord that¡¯s ruled here since Dargoth¡¯s founding. I made a deal with Bojack to replace him and help the demons bring their god into this world, but that¡¯s over now. Let¡¯s drop the whole ¡°Dark¡± thing entirely. I shut off the cauldron, so the sky should clear. This is going to be a different kind of kingdom from now on.¡±
Zareth took the explanation stoically, though Dorea¡¯s eyes grew whiter and whiter as I spoke. Even if my vizier had shared some secrets with her, this was no small announcement.
¡°The storm?¡± She said, ¡°It will end?¡±
¡°Yes.¡± In all honesty, I wasn¡¯t entirely sure how the effect worked, or how long it would last without the cauldron¡¯s emissions. There was also a second cauldron in Golgoth, and Valefor wasn¡¯t going to give it up without a struggle. We would cross that chasm when we came to it.
Dorea gave a small gasp, and Zareth sighed as if an invisible weight had fallen from his shoulders. They had lived their entire lives under the shade of a malevolent sky, in servitude to a man who thought of them as NPCs. Had Zareth ever seen a sunrise? Without the storm, Dargoth would become a completely different world.
Esmelda cleared her throat. ¡°Not everyone will take the news as well as you two,¡± she said. ¡°We need to know if there is anyone we can¡¯t trust, anyone who will think they will have more to gain by siding with the demons when they come.¡±
¡°Betray the throne?¡± Zareth looked at the obsidian edifice with reverence in his gaze. ¡°I suppose it is possible there are some among us unworthy of your trust, my lady, but I think it will be fewer than you imagine.¡±
¡°What about people who are still loyal to Kevin,¡± I asked. ¡°Is there anyone who will see me as a usurper?¡±
The vizier frowned, resting his hand over his oiled goatee. ¡°That is more difficult to say. In truth, when you took the throne, it felt as if you had always been there, even though I knew you were not the same man. I think most of those who reside in Mount Doom will feel the same, though wider Dargoth may feel differently.¡±
It was an effect of the Sheltered achievement. The bigger your house, the more people respected you. Did that count as mind control? Whether or not the effect was morally debatable, I wasn¡¯t going to smash the throne to find out how people actually felt about me. I could worry about the ethical implications after we¡¯d won the war.
Was Kevin right? Were we really not that different? Having a magic chair that made your subjects want to be your subjects wasn¡¯t the same as putting people in chains, but there were certainly corollaries to be drawn. With power came temptation to abuse that power.
I shook my head. We were not the same, and I didn¡¯t have time to waste thinking about it.
¡°Make sure Garron gets the care he needs,¡± I said. ¡°When he wakes up, I¡¯ll have a potion for him. I have about ten things to do before sunset, but I want to make a formal announcement at dawn and let everyone know what¡¯s going on. Can you spread the word?¡±
¡°It would be my honor,¡± there was an excitement in Zareth¡¯s eyes that I¡¯d never seen before.
¡°Praise Gotte,¡± Gastard said, slapping my shoulder, ¡°you¡¯ll be a proper hero yet.¡± He looked at Zareth. ¡°Before you start planning the parade, let us return to the discussion of beasts. Two trolls at the gate. What else is there to kill?¡±
147: My Kingdom
Making Mount Doom safe was not going to be an afternoon job. A significant portion of the total mob reserve had gone with us on the Atlan campaign, and those that hadn¡¯t died in battle had been banished by the sun. But Kevin¡¯s spawns had been replenishing the pens ever since we departed, with Bojack collecting whatever appeared in the cube.
The wyverns in the aerie were chained and could be discounted in the short term. The trolls at the gate went feral shortly after Bojack¡¯s death, and we dealt with them together. A few men had died before we arrived to take care of them. While it could have been worse, those deaths weighed on me. This was a new Dargoth, and people¡¯s lives needed to matter.
We also lost a pair of feeders who happened to be in the pens when the demon¡¯s influence lifted. Rather than try to clear the space, I sealed the entrance. There were hundreds of shamblers down there and scores of more serious monsters. We didn¡¯t have a running inventory, but trolls, chimera, and vorokai would be waiting for us whenever we had the time to venture under the mountain.
They might all starve, or at least eat each other, but there were two problems with leaving the mobs to their own devices. One was that if a demon infiltrated Mount Doom, as long as they could get through my hastily erected wall, they would have a ready army within the fortress. The second, letting them die on their own was leaving a tremendous amount of experience on the table.
Getting Esmelda and Gastard to level thirty would unlock their Systems, give them ranked entity status, and go a long way to better positioning us to deal with the remaining demons. For myself, though the System notifications hadn¡¯t stated it explicitly, I believed hitting the level cap again would increase my rank as well.
My assessment, and the rank that came with it, hadn¡¯t come with much in the way of instant benefits. But the cap on my mining skill had been removed, or at least extended. It was currently at thirty-one. New materials had become available to me as it advanced, and though I had no idea what was left after the five meta-materials were unlocked, the System was capable of surprising me.
Grinding the mining skill, however, was very low on my to-do list.
Gastard watched me place the last stone to block off the entrance to the pens.
¡°Zareth believes more Voidmen are wandering the halls,¡± he said. ¡°I will hunt them.¡±
I looked to the sky. It may have been my imagination, but I thought the clouds were thinning. Red, silent lightning still flashed among the clouds, but I could tell where the sun was, and it was sinking.
¡°I need to light up the cube,¡± I said. ¡°And I¡¯ll have to spend the night in there, or else run outside the walls so I don¡¯t endanger the people here.¡±
¡°Aren¡¯t our rooms already safe?¡± Esmelda asked. She¡¯d just finished having a conversation with one of Garron¡¯s lieutenants about the new status quo, no monsters, no demons allowed, and the expectation of an attack in the near future. She¡¯d taken off her headgear, which I wasn¡¯t a hundred percent on board with, but the soldiers recognized her as the Lady of Dargoth, whereas most of the people on Mount Doom only knew me by my armor. It wasn¡¯t a function of her class, she was just better at making human connections than I was.
¡°Yes and no,¡± I said. ¡°Our rooms are safe from spawns, but there¡¯s a chamber underneath them where mobs can still appear, and I don¡¯t have enough torches to cover the whole space.¡±
¡°But Leto can still¡¡± she trailed off, her eyes widening as we both realized that our son was not with us.
¡°You should get him,¡± I said. ¡°Both of you, to be safe. I¡¯ll manage things here.¡±
We hadn¡¯t forgotten our son, not really. He might not have been on my mind for the last couple of hours, but that didn¡¯t count as forgetting, right?
¡°What about the Voidmen?¡± Gastard said.
¡°They aren¡¯t as aggressive as some of the other mobs,¡± at least, that was how it worked in the game. ¡°Just make sure Leto¡¯s okay, and I¡¯ll take care of things here until you go back.¡± Fetching our son was a one-man job, but Esmelda would want to go, and I would feel better about it if Gastard was with her. It would be the first night as heroes without me, and they might have to deal with spawns. Leto wasn¡¯t in immediate danger, but he was alone, and wondering whether his parents would ever come back. If we waited too long, he was supposed to ride back to Atlan, and that was a complication we didn¡¯t need.
Esmelda put her hand on my neck and pulled my head down to plant a quick kiss on my mouth.
¡°We won¡¯t be long,¡± she said, ¡°don¡¯t break anything while we¡¯re gone.¡±
¡°I¡¯ll do my best,¡± I said, wondering, not for the first time, how I had been fortunate enough to have this little woman agree to be my wife. Gastard gave me a nod, and the pair of them went to the stables to procure mounts.
I headed back to the citadel with my head down, thinking about the best way to arrange torches for maximum coverage, and came face to blade with a halberd at the entrance to the great hall.
¡°Declare yourself,¡± the soldier said. ¡°The Dark Lord has banned demons from this hall.¡±
He wasn¡¯t an officer, there was no sigil on his pauldron. Out of my armor, most of the men had no idea who I was. No wonder they had been going to Esmelda for orders. Didn¡¯t the effect of the Sheltered achievement cause them to recognize me as their ruler? Apparently not. He thought I was a monster.
A second soldier nearly tackled the first.
¡°That is our Lord!¡± He must have seen me in the hall with Zareth. The first man fell to his knees, dropping the halberd.
¡°Forgive me,¡± he said, his voice raising an octave. ¡°I am a fool.¡±
¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± I said, moving around them both, ¡°we¡¯re doing a thing in the morning. Get all of this cleared up.¡± Prior to my arrival, Bael had run things on Mount Doom, and Kevin had hardly ever been seen out of his full panoply. I¡¯d done little to change that, replacing Bael with Bojack, and only showing my face on a handful of occasions. It wasn¡¯t an ideal way to run an empire. Maybe I could commission some portraits when I had time to sit down. Get the populace of Dargoth accustomed to my face.
The soldier continued to apologize but didn¡¯t follow me into the hall. The throne room was empty. The bodies had been removed, and Zareth had gone somewhere to do vizier things, probably putting out fires I didn¡¯t even know existed.
No one else accosted me as I returned to the cube. With no one to talk to, Kevin had returned to his favorite corner of the diamond box. We needed to post guards here, I¡¯d been relying on Bojack to monitor him, but that could wait for another day.
Spawn-proofing the cube wasn¡¯t difficult, just time-consuming. I had to craft a walkway along the interior, placing torches as I went. The former Dark Lord showed some interest in what I was doing, watching my progress. It didn¡¯t necessarily mean anything. Inmates had nothing to do, and they would stare at whatever was happening around them for extended periods until there was something more interesting to draw their attention.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
He wasn¡¯t plotting his escape, necessarily.
The cube smelled like a landfill, if it was a landfill where you could drop off dead bodies. Gremory¡¯s body wasn¡¯t the only one down there. A few dead zombies were there as well, mushrooms sprouting from their backs. Bojack had taken control of whatever mobs appeared, but accidents happened.
The whole system had been haphazard to begin with. Why was I always solving problems with half-measures? It wasn¡¯t a good way to run an empire. I used every torch I had, erasing shadows until there wasn¡¯t enough darkness left for a baby kulu to spawn, and came to rest on top of the diamond cell.
There might have been an hour or so left before nightfall, I couldn¡¯t tell, and there was no reason for me to try to nap anywhere else. Wherever I went, it was an opportunity for Discord to sink its roots a little deeper into Plana. And the only person who had any idea how to stop the process was beneath me.
¡°You still feel like talking?¡± I asked, and Kevin looked up. His blackened eye was leaking tears of blood. That had to be uncomfortable. Not more uncomfortable than the lillits had been chained to their station in his train set in Nargul, but still. Wanting to inflict suffering on those who had committed evil acts was natural, but I didn¡¯t have the stomach for it.
It was one thing to want to hurt someone out of anger, or in direct response to something they had done, but Kevin had been sitting in this cell for a while, and I didn¡¯t experience any pleasure in witnessing his pain. I just wished he was better than he was. I wanted him to be someone we didn¡¯t have to punish forever.
There¡¯s a trope in fiction I¡¯ve never enjoyed. The hero spares the villain because killing is wrong, or whatever, even though he¡¯s just mowed down a legion of faceless henchmen who all had families and backstories we would never know about because they weren¡¯t important to the story.
This wasn¡¯t that. If killing Kevin could have solved anything, I would have done it a long time ago. He would come back, and come back twisted. Maybe the toll that his pact with the big bad was taking on him would eventually cause him to stop returning, or maybe it would turn him into a gibbering monster. Either way, it would be the loss of what was a potentially important resource.
Kevin took a long time answering, looking at me through a foot of diamond.
¡°Sometimes, silence is the best answer.¡± He said.
¡°I don¡¯t know what you mean by that.¡± Was he quoting something? When we¡¯d fought, I¡¯d been sure he was padding his dialogue with movie quotes. Kevin was LARPing at all times, and apparently, spending months in a cell wasn¡¯t enough for him to break character. ¡°I¡¯d like to ask you some questions. Not about the runes. Personal stuff.¡±
¡°You can do what you want.¡± He looked down at his hands. One of them was normal, the other was stick thin and scaly. Had his fingers gotten longer? It almost looked like the arm of an Voidman.
¡°How old are you?¡±
Another long pause.
¡°Age is but a fleeting concept in the grand scheme of eternity.¡±
That was definitely a quote. I didn¡¯t know what from, but there was no way that was how he talked. If he refused to have an actual conversation with me, we weren¡¯t going to get anywhere.
¡°Listen, man,¡± I said, ¡°you¡¯re not helping yourself. There¡¯s no one for you to sound cool for here. You asked me to let you out, and I¡¯m the only one who has a key to your cell. Right now, I don¡¯t think freedom is an option for you, but if that¡¯s ever going to be on the table, you¡¯re going to have to start with being honest with me.¡±
He thought about it.
¡°I don¡¯t know. The scribes can tell you how long I¡¯ve been here. They keep records. Eight hundred years or something. What does it matter?¡±
That was about what I¡¯d assumed. The lillits had left Dargoth centuries ago, and Kevin¡¯s arrival had been long before. The sheer span of that kind of time was unimaginable. It gave credence to his claim that he had saved the world, or at least staved off its demise. Wars didn¡¯t last eight hundred years. Somebody won. Somebody lost. With Kevin as Dark Lord, Discord and Harmony had been at a stalemate on Plana for a very, very long time. It wasn¡¯t an excuse for his actions, but it did make me extremely curious about how things had worked out the way they had.
¡°Humor me. How old were you when you died on Earth?¡±
¡°Sixteen.¡± It was almost a whisper.
God. That was messed up. Why was Mizu reincarnating kids? In one sense, the very young were the most deserving of a second chance, but the fact that giving them a second life fixed them at their given age made the whole thing deeply problematic. David¡¯s situation was heartbreaking. Kevin wasn¡¯t as bad, at least he¡¯d gone through puberty. But it still called into question the character of a goddess that would throw kids into a new world with superpowers, freeze their development, and write it off as some kind of divine test.
The main characters in most anime, and a lot of fantasy, were young. The reasons for that related to marketing, but resting the weight of the world on a teenager in real life was not a good idea. I¡¯d made some crazy decisions at that age, and giving me superpowers would not have improved the situation.
¡°How did you die?¡±
This time, his reply was immediate. ¡°I fell into the sky.¡±
¡°What?¡±
¡°I fell into the sky.¡±
I put my face in the hole I¡¯d made in the roof of his cell to make sure I was seeing and hearing him quickly. He wasn¡¯t smiling. He sounded serious. But his statement was ridiculous.
¡°I¡¯m gonna need some context,¡± I said.
Kevin made a helpless gesture. ¡°There was this new game, Maincraft. It was perfect. I played it so much, my mom told me she was going to throw out my computer. She said I had to go outside. When I beat the Ender Dragon, I said, ¡®Here Mom, I¡¯m going outside, I¡¯m going to touch grass. And I did. Then I fell into the sky.¡±
The ¡°fell into the sky¡± phrase briefly took a backseat to the realization that Kevin had played Maincraft. That meant he hadn¡¯t died until at least the game had been released in two thousand and eleven. I¡¯d died in twenty-twenty-three. That was only a twelve-year difference. Eight hundred or so years had passed from Kevin¡¯s perspective and only twelve years on Earth.
This was math I needed pen and paper to do, but it sounded like the time dilation was so severe between Earth and Plana that it had been less than a year since I disappeared. If there was no way back, the difference didn¡¯t matter. But if there was a way back, that meant that I could spend fifty years here, or however long, and my parents would still be alive. My brothers wouldn¡¯t be much older than I remembered them being.
Having a confirmation of the time difference relieved a stress I¡¯d been studiously avoiding thinking about. My family. My original family. They wouldn¡¯t have to go the rest of their lives thinking I¡¯d run away and never contacted them, or else been murdered at a Subway, depending on how the aftermath of my death had worked out. Of course, seeing them again would involve fixing Plana as well as figuring out dimensional travel and whatever regulations or restrictions the Hierarchy placed on that sort of thing, but it was a possibility.
Could I bring Esmelda? Leto? My mom wanted grandchildren, and for a variety of reasons, my brothers had not been inclined to give them to her. I was getting ahead of myself. That was all theoretical. Kevin was right here, and he was telling me something crazy.
¡°Can you explain ¡®falling into the sky¡¯ to me? I¡¯m confused.¡±
Kevin blew a breath out from between his lips. ¡°What do you want? I went into the yard, and I fell up. I kept going faster and faster. And I was in the sky. Then I passed out, and I met Princess Zelda, and she told me I could be a hero.¡±
Oh. That was¡bad? Another confirmation, certainly. Mizu had appeared to me in a form conspicuously similar to that of a goddess from an anime I had watched before my death. She had appeared to Kevin in the guise of a beloved video game character. The goddess was presenting herself in a form that her target was familiar with. It wasn¡¯t a lie, exactly, but it did call into question the nature of the entity we were dealing with. But the lillits knew Mizu as Mizu, so there had to be some consistency in her appearance. Had she gone by a different name as well?
¡°Are you talking about Mizu?¡± I asked.
¡°Yeah, that¡¯s what she called herself, but she looked like Zelda to me. The other players saw other characters. She¡¯s fake, anyway. I don¡¯t even think she¡¯s a girl.¡±
That was fair. Gender probably didn¡¯t apply to gods. But for whatever reason, Mizu presented herself as female. Though maybe that was only the case for dudes. Had Nadia seen a god instead of a goddess when she died? That was a sidebar we didn¡¯t need to go down.
Kevin had fallen into the sky. I had no call to doubt him. I couldn¡¯t remember my original death, but I remembered most of my conversation with her. Was Kevin¡¯s demise another transdimensional mixup on the part of the goddess? The cynic in me was saying that none of this was accidental. Thinking Mizu had put me on Plana to sweep a mistake under the rug was one thing, but what kind of goddess only made heroes out of mistakes?
¡°Tell me about the others,¡± I said. ¡°Tell me about what was happening on Plana when you first came here, and why you switched sides.¡±
He did.
148: My Predecessors
Kevin lay down on his back, staring up at me through the hole in his cell. Something about his blackened eye made me uncomfortable, more so than the other signs of his corruption. When I had first unmasked the Dark Lord, he¡¯d already had a legendary case of heterochromia, his right iris as dark as his pupil. This was the same change, only magnified. The darkness had consumed the white of his eye as well, and I had a feeling it did more to change his perception than give him night vision.
¡°There were nine of us,¡± he said. ¡°I was the ninth. A complete fellowship.¡±
¡°They were here before you?¡±
¡°Yeah, it was one guy first, and then two groups. But they were all together when I met them.¡±
¡°Did you all have the same spawn point?¡±
¡°No,¡± he shook his head. ¡°Jason was here by himself for a while, I don¡¯t know where he started. One of the other groups was in Thallaso. It had a different name then, I forget what. But he found them and helped them stop the entity that was eating the world there.¡±
¡°Eating the world?¡± I¡¯d heard him say that name before. Jason was the man who had made my armor, and he¡¯d mistaken me for him when we first fought.
¡°Yeah, it was some big worm thing or something. I don¡¯t know, they beat it before I got here. And the second group started in Gondor.¡±
¡°Where is that?¡± There was no way I¡¯d missed a kingdom called Gondor. It wasn¡¯t on any of the maps in the war room.
¡°What do you mean?¡± He said. ¡°That¡¯s where you came from.¡±
¡°You mean the Free Kingdoms?¡±
¡°Pfff,¡± he scoffed. ¡°Whatever, are you going to let me tell the story or not?¡±
I shut up. The cube was bright now, with torches running along all four walls and down the pillar that upheld the cell. The illumination that bled through the diamond cast Kevin in a bluish shade that somehow made his eye seem even darker. It reminded me of the way atreanum absorbed light.
¡°Jason found me in Dargoth, the old Dargoth. It looked a lot different before all the plants died. There was already a hero working for Towk, someone who was born in this world and started as a Templar. Kael Blackblade. Dumb name. He was a big problem, he ripped a hole in the veil and let a Pebbleheart in. We beat it, but we didn¡¯t have anything that could break the core, so Jason, me, and the other Survivor built a monolith around it to keep it from growing.¡±
That was one question answered. I¡¯d wondered how that monster had arrived on Plana. The Pebbleheart had been on an entirely different level than any spawn, even the demons. I wanted to know why the core was so hard to destroy, but held myself back from interrupting Kevin. Once he got started, it was like he couldn¡¯t stop talking.
Maybe it was being confined for so long that made him want someone to listen to him. Or it could have been deeper than that. Kevin didn¡¯t think of people without Systems as real human beings. They were NPCs to him, and he¡¯d already griefed all the other players out of the game he imagined he was playing. He could have been waiting for someone to tell this story to for a very long time.
I¡¯m a good listener. I¡¯d met a lot of guys in prison who would monologue all day if you let them. As Kevin talked, I found myself falling into a familiar rhythm, nodding and giving small prompts when there was an opening, but otherwise just letting him go. We were even talking through a gap in a cell, just like old times.
The fellowship, as he insisted on calling it, eventually captured Kael. And then they didn¡¯t know what to do with him. Jason had crafted their first anchor to keep him in place if he died, and Jason and the others wanted to try to convince Kael to be a templar again. Kael had been his mentor and only switched sides after absorbing an obscene amount of taint in the course of his hero career.
They tried using runes to cure him, a process I was extremely interested in hearing about, but Kevin barely mentioned it and refused to elaborate. The runes were his bargaining chip.
Kael had gone too far to be helped. Their attempts only hurt him, and Jason decided to seal the templar off until they could figure out a better way to save him.
¡°I told them it was a bad idea,¡± Kevin said, the frustration still fresh in his voice. ¡°There was too much going on. Other bad guys, the demons, wandering monsters. We couldn¡¯t just leave him somewhere when he might eventually get out. We barely beat him the first time.¡±
Kevin invented griefing, at least as far as it applied to this particular group of heroes. The demons probably could have told him how to do it, but he hadn¡¯t joined them yet, and he came up with the idea all on his own.
¡°I did it myself,¡± he said, ¡°with lava.¡±
While there was no gentle way of going about killing someone over and over, burning them to death fell hard on the side of excessive cruelty. But I couldn¡¯t place myself too high above him on the moral scale in this instance. I¡¯d considered doing the same thing to Kevin at one point. At least, it had crossed my mind as an option.
¡°They were total babies about it,¡± he continued, aggrieved. ¡°After that, it was like we weren¡¯t on the same team anymore. They didn¡¯t tell me things. Jason and Jake made bases without me.¡±
¡°Jake?¡± That was a lot of J names.
¡°The other Survivor. He was older too, I thought he¡¯d be cool about it. That he would get it. But he always did whatever Jason said, even though Jason was the youngest of any of us.¡±
¡®I thought you said he¡¯d been here the longest?¡±
¡°I mean this,¡± Kevin waved his good hand over his face. ¡°He was like fourteen or something. Making him the leader was stupid. He was still a kid.¡±
¡°Wait¡¡± I sat up, removing my face from the hole, ¡°were all of you teenagers?¡±
¡°Yeah, who ever heard of an old isekai? Well, you, I guess. And that other guy later, Umb something.¡± Kevin kept talking, his voice floating up to me, and I looked around the cube, feeling lost. I¡¯d just learned that young transmigrators weren¡¯t the exception, they were the rule. Why would Mizu do that? Had Mizu realized how terrible an idea that was, or was I a fluke?
After Kael was gone, the fellowship continued fighting the forces of Discord, but their relationships with Kevin became increasingly strained. Listening to him reminisce, it was easy to imagine what it had been like. They¡¯d called him out for what he¡¯d done, and he¡¯d resented them for it, refusing to acknowledge that there had been any other option. He was not the sort of person to mend fences.
The group had done around the world erecting monuments that helped to stabilize Plana, reducing the influence of Bedlam. They didn¡¯t have to worry as much as I had about monsters appearing around them. They had runes, and one of them was a Medium. A class that came pre-equipped with a skill for healing wounds in the veil.
That had been one of Esmelda¡¯s options. I wished we had known what it was good for when she was making that choice. Eight hundred years ago, however, heroes hadn¡¯t been the only source of fresh mobs. In some regions, they were a naturally occurring phenomenon. Drom didn¡¯t exist then, the land had been ruled by a demon.
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¡°He taught people magic,¡± Kevin said. ¡°That sucked because they could teach it to each other after we killed him. I don¡¯t think we ever got all of them.¡±
¡°Why was it bad for them to learn magic?¡±
¡°Demon magic,¡± Kevin scoffed, ¡°It comes with side effects. If you use it long enough, it makes you crazy. Or maybe it doesn¡¯t, but all the wizards I¡¯ve ever met were batshit.¡±
That tracked. It also explained why, to this day, magic was not approved of in the Free Kingdoms. The magic they knew had come from Bedlam, though it only existed in legends now. A hero¡¯s work was never done. The fellowship had continued beating back the darkness, erecting monuments, and seeing them fall. Two of their number, the front liners whose classes I didn¡¯t know, had started talking about how chaos wasn¡¯t all that bad.
¡°Greg was always a jerk, and Lisa wasn¡¯t much better. They did most of the demon-slaying, and it got to be too much for the runes. They started to look like me and you.¡± He lifted his thin, scaly arm, and pointed at my horns, which were now tall enough that I knew my helm was not coming back on without adjustments.
The group split and Kevin went with Greg and Lisa.
¡°I needed to watch them,¡± he said. ¡°Jason wasn¡¯t going to do anything, even if they switched sides. He said it was their right to retire, that they deserved a rest..¡±
Instead of continuing to travel the world, the trio had set up shop in Dargoth, overturning the local hierarchy. Greg and Lisa were a couple, and they made themselves King and Queen, while Kevin, at least the way he told it, was treated as a tagalong.
¡°She was hot,¡± he said, ¡°but she was a total bitch. Treated me like a kid.¡± His face twisted with old bitterness. ¡°We were the same age.¡±
The happy couple had eventually been approached by Bael, through intermediaries at first, offering a way to manage their taint problem. Thus far, the changes to my own body had been manageable, but Kevin was quick to assure me that it would get worse. Greg and Lisa didn¡¯t look like themselves anymore, and they were sick. Not dying sick, just miserable forever. The corruption had affected their minds as well, making them unpredictable and violent.
¡°He killed me once,¡± Kevin said, bleakly. ¡°I called him stupid, and he killed me. They didn¡¯t respect me, but I was the one supporting them. They couldn¡¯t fix their gear without me. If I wasn¡¯t there, they would have been losers.¡±
Casual murder didn¡¯t end their relationship. Kevin continued to tag along, ¡°undercover,¡± as the King and Queen of Dargoth plotted to capture the other heroes. That was Bael¡¯s price, and in return, he gave them some kind of Bedlam fruit that made them pretty again, at least temporarily.
Jason still trusted them, and the fellowship got back together again for one last mission. A demon was gathering an army in eastern Dargoth and they set out together to wipe it out. That demon was Bael, and the fellowship walked into an ambush with three of their members as turncoats.
¡°I was seeing where it would go,¡± Kevin said.
Six heroes were captured, bound to anchors, and placed in separate prisons. Kevin did his lava trick, and two of them didn¡¯t come back. The other four took longer, but the entire griefing procedure took less than a week. Jason took the longest, but he gave up when he realized that he was alone.
I was staring at Kevin¡¯s face as he told the story, looking for signs of remorse, and there were none. Not in his voice, not in his eyes. He could have been telling me about a boring day at work. If anything, he seemed proud of the accomplishment.
¡°It would have been a mess without me,¡± he said, the hint of a smile on his thick lips. ¡°Greg and Lisa were useless after the fight, and I told them I was out of potions. Had to get more ingredients from back at base.¡±
Now he grinned. ¡°But I wasn¡¯t out of potions. They were wounded, and they were stupid, and there were so many extra anchors. Lisa went back to base to fetch my potion stuff since we couldn¡¯t leave until the fellowship was broken. And I killed Greg.
Bael watched me do it. I wasn¡¯t afraid of him, because I knew what he could do and I¡¯d prepped for fire. But he didn¡¯t try to help at all, he just watched and asked me why, and I said ¡®Because I hate him.¡¯ And the demon was like, ¡®That¡¯s a good reason,¡¯ and that was it. By the time Lisa got back, Greg was gone. He¡¯d seen what happened to the others, and he didn¡¯t even try to come back after he saw he was trapped. His prison had to be different because he could break diamonds, but I was ready for that, I knew everything he could do. What all of them could do. They thought I was the weakest, but I was smarter. That¡¯s what they didn¡¯t get.¡±
This was hard to listen to. A part of me had wanted to see Kevin as in some way redeemable. Some of his actions as Dark Lord had been due to the corruption of his mind from demons and the taint of Bedlam, but these events had taken place before all that. He wasn¡¯t even oathbound, the other two had made a deal with Bael, not him. Yes, he¡¯d been isekaied young, but young people could be sociopaths too.
¡°What happened to Lisa?¡±
Kevin went quiet. But there was still no remorse, not even sadness. His lips turned down in a pout, and his cheeks reddened.
¡°She wouldn¡¯t listen. Had to kick her off the server.¡±
It was hard to get people to open up if they thought you were judging them, so I had to think about my response.
¡°I get why you got rid of Greg,¡± I said, keeping my tone level. ¡°He sounds like a dick. But why¡¯d you help him in the first place? You hadn¡¯t made a deal with Bael yet, so what was the point? Weren¡¯t you worried about being the only hero left?¡±
¡°That¡¯s why I¡¯m so smart,¡± Kevin said, the bitterness falling away, replaced by smug self-satisfaction. ¡°Plana was fine, mostly. Jason had taken care of things, doing his good boy act. There weren¡¯t that many demons and the biggest monsters were all gone. Mobs are easy. Every time things seemed like we might lose, it wasn¡¯t because of mobs. It was heroes who had gone bad, like Greg and Lisa, and Kael. The fighting was going to go on forever because people were going to keep turning and make new holes in the world. And fixing them was going to turn someone else bad because that¡¯s how taint works. But I stopped it. I saved the world, and I kept saving it. I stayed pure, holding the line. Had to give the demons a few things they wanted, you get that. You did the same thing. But look what happened. Plana¡¯s fine. There¡¯s been more trouble since you¡¯ve been here than there was in the last hundred years. What do you think about that?¡±
There was a grain of truth in his perspective, but only a grain. Heroes were a net gain for the side of Harmony, despite the chaos they could cause. Kevin was an example of exactly the problem he was illustrating, though he didn¡¯t see himself that way. By working together, heroes could drive back Discord, and overcome their individual flaws. Kevin, however, hadn¡¯t wanted to work with anyone. Instead, he¡¯d turned Plana into his sandbox.
¡°That stuff about NPCs,¡± I said. ¡°Why do you think that? You were born on earth. Nobody on earth has powers. Did you think everyone in the world was an NPC but you?¡±
¡°Nah,¡± Kevin became thoughtful, turning over onto his side so I could only see his face in profile. ¡°That¡¯s different. Earth is Earth. But I can tell who''s a person here and who isn¡¯t.¡±
¡°How?¡±
¡°I see it. They¡¯re just different.¡±
¡°Are you talking about the Aetheric sense?¡± His ability to feel essence had to be more developed than mine, and in some ways, I could understand what he was talking about. If I closed my eyes and reached out with my spirit, people without much accumulated essence felt less real. That didn¡¯t make them any less human, though.
¡°Nah,¡± he said again. ¡°I¡¯ve got that. But I can see the difference. Players look like players, and everyone else is like, I don¡¯t know, a doll that talks.¡±
His eye. This had to have something to do with his eye.
¡°How many demons have you killed?¡± I asked.
¡°None. The front-liners did most of the killing. I was support.¡±
¡°Then how did you start to change? You¡¯ve gotten worse since you¡¯ve been here, your eye was dark before, but it¡¯s spread.¡±
¡°Yeah,¡± Kevin said. ¡°That was in Bedlam. Jason and Jake took me to mine the orichalcum for my first full set. And I met someone. I didn¡¯t know who it was, just a guy who saved me from some worms. But he gave me the eye, and then I could see better. Found my own way back. Jason was worried about it, but it didn¡¯t do anything else, and I thought it looked cool.¡±
A guy. In Bedlam. Could he have been a previous hero? Someone like David, who left whatever world they¡¯d been reincarnated on and struck out on their own? The connection was obvious. Whoever Kevin had met had turned him into a time bomb. A hero who literally saw the people he was supposed to save as objects. It didn¡¯t relieve Kevin of the responsibility for his actions, but it did help me understand.
¡°I¡¯ve told you enough,¡± Kevin said. ¡°Are you going to make a deal with me or not?¡±
¡°I need to think about it.¡±
I couldn¡¯t let Kevin out. He was a monster in human skin. Maybe he hadn¡¯t always been that way, but that was who he was now. Of course, he was also still the one person who could tell me how to stop becoming one myself.
149: My Hunger
We had a little celebration the next morning. Leto, Esmelda, and Gastard had returned safely, and the mountain was at least temporarily peaceful, it was something worth having cake about. I felt queasy and only ate as much as I thought it would take so that Ogness wouldn¡¯t be offended. Our maid had been up baking before dawn, and she was hovering over the table with a painfully earnest look on her aged face.
¡°It¡¯s wonderful,¡± Esmelda told her, lifting a piece on her fork. ¡°Thank you, Ogness.¡±
¡°I¡¯m happy my lady is pleased,¡± The woman said, giving a slight bow.
I examined my half-eaten slice. It really was a good cake. The body was spongy and soft, and the icing reminded me of lemon meringue. But I felt like if I ate any more I was going to have to take a trip to the water closet. Leto, in the chair beside mine, was paying more attention to me than the food.
¡°Are you bigger?¡± He asked, squinting.
Esmelda gave a soft chuckle. ¡°We didn¡¯t think to mention it on the return trip. It was so much of a difference before, but I¡¯m noticing it more now. I hope you stop growing soon. If you become as tall as Orobas was, I don¡¯t think this is going to work out.¡±
She was teasing me, but I felt the same way. Esmelda was tiny to begin with, and if this continued, my growth spurt could become exceedingly awkward for our relationship. I¡¯d only gained a few inches in height, Gastard was still a bit taller, but I¡¯d become broader as well, like I was being scaled up by degrees, and I had no interest in being a giant.
Thankfully, my growth seemed to have stalled. My limbs weren¡¯t tingling anymore, and my joints had stopped aching. Only the nausea remained.
¡°A bit bigger,¡± I said to Leto. ¡°How do you feel about the horns?¡±
¡°They¡¯re pointier,¡± he said. ¡°That¡¯s good. You could headbutt a troll.¡±
Gastard nearly choked.
My first chore of the day was brewing healing potions for anyone with serious injuries. Zareth had arranged for the population of Mount Doom to assemble in the throne room by late morning, and I wanted to be sure Garron was back to himself by then, as well as take care of any zombie bites before they had a chance to significantly worsen. As each batch finished, I handed them off to a runner stationed at the entrance to the forge.
It was the same kid that had taken our horses when we arrived at Mount Doom. The scar on his cheek made him easy to recognize. He was wiry, maybe a few years older than Leto. As I brought him the first batch, I was briefly overcome by a wave of dizziness, and I almost dropped the bottles.
He rushed over to me, his eyes wide with concern, and the nausea that had been plaguing me all morning suddenly vanished, replaced by a ravenous hunger. There wasn¡¯t a boy standing in front of me anymore, he was meat, bones, and marrow. My eyes focused on his throat, and I thought I could detect the faint pulse of blood beneath his skin.
¡°My lord,¡± he said, ¡°may I?¡±
He held out his hands for the potions, and I gave them to him. The feeling, the change in perception, whatever it had been, was gone as quickly as it had come. He was a kid again, one of my subjects. A person with value, someone I needed to protect.
¡°Thank you,¡± I said and watched him hustle away. Turning back to the brewing stand, I applied the ingredients for the next batch and tried to calm down.
What the hell was that?
I¡¯d always wondered how Bedlam¡¯s corruption could turn heroes into something else. Having horns didn¡¯t make me a different person, neither did claws or fangs. The changes had always been skin-deep. This was something new, and it was terrifying.
Feeling sick was a nuisance, having a dizzy spell at the wrong moment was potentially disastrous, but the possibility wasn¡¯t something I would lose sleep over. Could being tainted change the way I saw people the way Kevin¡¯s eye had changed him?
It could. Finding a way to restore my full humanity had gone from something we needed to figure out at some point to an urgent priority. It wasn¡¯t like I had attacked the kid, and as he continued to pick up and deliver the bottles, the dizziness didn¡¯t return. But what would I do if it lasted longer next time? If my condition worsened, would I end up going around having to resist the urge to eat people all day?
My mood at the assembly was not as bright as it could have been. Hundreds of people lined the hall, and more were gathered outside the doors. My family stood beside the throne, and Zareth had taken up a position on the steps leading up to the dais. I glanced at the obsidian edifice that made me the lord of this realm. Its high, spined back loomed over all of us like a monstrous tree, a reminder of what Dargoth had been since Kevin became its master.
When people swore fealty to me, they were swearing on that throne. I wanted to break it, a sign of how I intended to break with Dargoth¡¯s past, but worried that doing so would weaken my position. How much of their loyalty was a quirk of the Sheltered Achievement? Would destroying a symbol even change anything? If nothing else, the demons that were still oathbound to me, Berith and Asmodeus, might be freed by the act. We needed to delay their realization of what had happened here as long as possible.
Everyone was looking at me. Zareth had already made an introduction I¡¯d only half-listened to, and I¡¯d been standing in silence ever since.
¡°Are you alright?¡± Esmelda asked, stepping close. She was out of her armor, wearing a dress fit for the Lady of Dargoth, and I had no idea where she¡¯d gotten it. Bright red, with long sleeves and a trailing hem, her hair unbound, framing her lovely, heart-shaped face.
It was hard to say when I had started loving her. We¡¯d been thrown together by circumstance, married for convenience. There were, of course, other women in the world, and it wasn¡¯t as if I¡¯d shopped around, but that didn¡¯t matter to me. Soulmates don¡¯t exist. You find someone you care about and make it work. Looking at her made me feel fortunate enough to almost believe that Mizu had intended for us to find each other.
If the corruption deepened, how would she look to me then?
¡°I¡¯m okay,¡± I said. ¡°There¡¯s something we need to talk about, but it can wait until after this.¡±
I faced the crowd. Most of the faces were unfamiliar to me, others were covered by visors. Garron was near the front, and it looked like the potion had done its job. The older man was hale again, standing proudly at attention.
¡°Hello,¡± I said, lamely. The people in the back weren¡¯t going to hear me, so I raised my voice and started again. I¡¯d thought about what I needed to say, I just needed to say it.
¡°Citizens of Dargoth! My name is William, and I am the lord of this mountain, but I am not the same man who sat on this throne in years past.¡±
Confusion, murmurs, but no interruptions.
¡°That man, and his ways, are gone.¡± Not a complete truth, but close enough. ¡°The skies of Dargoth will clear, and the aychar will no longer be a part of my rule. Conflict lies ahead of us, as there are still demons who will seek to restore the old order. I am asking you to help me stand against them, but you are not my slaves. For now, much of Dargoth remains in the hands of demons, and the road to purging them from this land may be a long one, but that is the path that we are on. I hope to soon make Dargoth green and forge peace with the other kingdoms. You are free to leave and live your lives as you see fit. If you choose to remain, then you are accepting me as your lord, and you must swear fealty again, now, in this hall.¡±
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I could only imagine what they were thinking. There had to be a million questions, but no one asked them. After my brief speech, the hall fell into silence and remained that way for long moments.
As he had been once before, Garron was the first to kneel. Others followed his example, and the crowd dropped in a wave. Maybe they were afraid. After all, the Dark Lord, or the guy who had replaced him, might say you were free to leave, but that didn¡¯t mean you were. Maybe some would slip away quietly when they weren¡¯t in a public spotlight, or come to Zareth with concerns in lieu of openly questioning the man who had overthrown a functional god-king. Presumably, Zareth and his wife had already talked to others about the thinning clouds.
My vizier led the crowd in a new oath of service, one that did not mention the throne. It wasn¡¯t clear to me if including the throne or not would stop my Achievement bonus from influencing people¡¯s minds, but I would prefer to have subjects who followed me without magical reinforcement of their positive opinion.
Esmelda held my hand, the echo of their words washing over us. It felt strange to have been out of my armor for so long, but also good. I looked forward to a world where walking around in battle gear wasn¡¯t necessary.
¡°Your remarks were fitting,¡± Gastard said, coming across the dais. ¡°Succinct. I approve.¡±
¡°Thanks, I wasn¡¯t sure if it would be enough, but I guess I got the point across.¡±
¡°It was quite formal,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°you sounded more like a king than I expected.¡± Kind of a backhanded compliment, but I would take it.
¡°Will it be green here?¡± Leto asked, looking doubtfully toward the open doors and the fortress beyond.
¡°I think it could be once the sun comes out.¡± It would call for a lot of planting, and I might have to put down a layer of topsoil at first, but it was possible. The greening of Dargoth, however, was more of a long-term concern. I looked at my son, who was watching the crowd disperse.
¡°Leto, could you see if Ogness needs any help with lunch?¡±
¡°Cooking is boring,¡± he kicked his heel, ¡°I¡¯d rather go to the training yard.¡±
We needed to find more productive things for him to do if Mount Doom was going to be a permanent home. There were no schools, and most of the children his age were already apprentices of some kind. I planned on asking Zareth about friend options for him. An entirely normal life wouldn¡¯t be possible, but more normal than it had been so far would be a start.
¡°You can do that this afternoon,¡± I squeezed his shoulder.
¡°Do as your father asks,¡± Esmelda said, and after heaving a dramatic sigh, Leto set off for our private rooms.
When he was gone, we walked behind the throne, and I told them both about what I¡¯d experienced in the forge. Gastard listened gravely, and Esmelda with growing alarm as I inadequately described the change that had so briefly come over me.
¡°It¡¯s not that I wanted to eat him,¡± I finished, ¡°but he looked extremely edible.¡±
¡°It is written that the taint of Bedlam affects no two men in the same way,¡± one of his hands rose to feel the antler nubs developing on his own temples, partially hidden by his blonde hair. ¡°In the coming days, you must allow me to strike the killing blow on whichever demons we face. I will bear that burden.¡±
¡®There are too many of them,¡± Esmelda¡¯s face fell. ¡°All three of us could lose our minds before the last is slain.¡±
¡°Kevin says the runes my class offers can slow the corruption, even reverse some of it.¡±
¡°He cannot be trusted,¡± Gastard scoffed, folding his arms over his chest. ¡°Anything he gave you would be poison.¡±
¡°His story was coherent,¡± I¡¯d shared some of what he¡¯d told me with them that morning. ¡°And I feel like there has to be some inbuilt method of dealing with corruption, otherwise none of this hero stuff would work.¡±
Esmelda became thoughtful. ¡°When Fladnag spoke about this, he implied that whether or not a hero succumbed had to do with their beliefs, their heart.¡±
¡°Another deceiver,¡± Gastard said, ¡°if there were secrets to be had, he did not want us to possess them. The Templars of old had hearts as pure as any man, and many of them fell to the shadow when the burden became too heavy.¡±
¡°Supposedly,¡± I told Gastard, ¡°the other classes have their ways of managing corruption, though I think some of them are better at it than others. Does your FAQ have any information about it?¡±
¡°Not that I have read,¡± he shook his head, ¡°the fak provides me with the barest knowledge that I need to use my skills. No more. If we reach the stage of judgment, as you have, perhaps it will reveal what we require.¡±
¡°If you both clear out the mobs in the pens, you¡¯ll be closer to that goal, but it won¡¯t be enough on its own. I still think Kevin is the best hope we have for a solution.¡±
¡°Will you free him?¡± Gastard¡¯s gaze locked onto mine, his blue eyes hard.
¡°I don¡¯t know what to do. We could try making him swear an oath, but I don¡¯t think we can rely on the blades. The weakening curse is too slow to stop him from betraying us, and he¡¯s temperamental enough to risk it. Does your Oathsworn skill give us any better options?¡±
¡°I would be loath to bind myself to him,¡± Gastard said, ¡°and I would need to develop the power before we attempt to use it on someone so dangerous.¡±
How long would it take to grind a skill like that? It was something to look into, but still not sufficient to make Kevin trustworthy. No matter what we made him promise, his impulsivity could compel him to act against his own interests out of spite.
¡°There may be another way,¡± Esmelda¡¯s jaw firmed, her eyes narrowing in anger, ¡°how long would he keep his secrets in the face of torture.¡±
My mouth dropped. The idea itself wasn¡¯t shocking, but the fact that Esmelda was the one to suggest it threw me for a loop. ¡°He¡¯s already in a bad spot, I¡¯m really not sure.¡± It was hard to say if Kevin was strong-willed, but stubborn certainly applied. The other risk with torture was being fed false information, at best a waste of time, and depending on how runes worked, potentially disastrous. What if there was a rune that made corruption worse, or had other negative effects?
¡°Do you want me to try?¡±
She looked at me, her gaze softening. ¡°No,¡± she sighed, ¡°even knowing everything he has done, that is not who I want us to be.¡±
¡°In this case,¡± Gastard said, ¡°I would not be opposed to torture. It is a distasteful practice, but sometimes necessary, and it is no less than he inflicted on others.¡±
¡°Let¡¯s table it for now,¡± I was uncomfortable enough with indefinite imprisonment, adding deliberate torture to an already torturous situation would not make me feel like I was making progress toward being less of a potential monster.
¡°I don¡¯t know how long the rune stuff is going to take to figure out, but I need to go to Nargul as soon as possible. Berith has to be taken care of before he finds out about my revised attitude toward demonkind.¡±
¡°Alone?¡± Esmelda asked. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t we try summoning him first?¡±
¡°I will accompany you,¡± Gastard said, ¡°and we will make quick work of it.¡±
¡°I need you both here,¡± I gripped his upper arm, ¡°to keep Leto safe, keep Kevin in jail, and watch out for any demons quick enough on the uptake to attack us while we¡¯re still figuring things out. And you both need to grind your skills as much as you can. Not just Woodcraft, not just Weapon Mastery.¡± I¡¯d neglected Artisan, and I knew that my crafting was limited by the oversight. Let alone what I might have been able to do with Tamer. Not having any ranks in Inscription wasn¡¯t entirely my fault, but I¡¯d seen runes, and I could have at least tried to imitate them instead of putting it off at every turn.
He nodded. ¡°I suppose that is duty enough for one man.¡±
¡°What about your armor?¡± Esmelda put her hand over her chest as if she was trying to remember where her chainmail had gone. ¡°You had to take it off. Can you alter it to fit?¡±
¡°It¡¯s a new problem,¡± I said, ¡°but I have a couple of ideas about how to make it work. I¡¯m not going to run off to kill a demon naked.¡± I could feel the throne at my back. It had an aetheric presence, concentrated essence, almost like a demon itself. I had no idea how Kevin had crafted it, one of the many aspects of my class that were still a mystery. There were tests I should have run, experiments I should have tried, a list at the back of my head running into the dozens. I couldn¡¯t make up for all the mistakes I¡¯d made in one day, but I could at least get my armor situation sorted out.
I kissed the top of Esmelda¡¯s head and headed for the forge.
150: My New Hat
As wonderful as crafting was, it came with an obvious limitation. Each tool, plank, and block, appeared in a standard size. While the System allowed for a greater variety of formulas than Maincraft itself, providing for the creation of things like knives, busters, and spears as well as the regular sword from the game, customization was still sorely lacking.
That¡¯s where the Artisan skill came in. Crafted objects appeared, and then you modified them the old-fashioned way. It was fine for adding aesthetics, but hardly a stellar solution for a total rework. So far, I¡¯d mostly used the skill for whittling. It gave me an instinct for how to use a knife to carve what I wanted to see, and my designs were getting pretty good. If I tried to make things like a real artisan would, instead of a crafter with a cheat skill, I suspected it would help me do that as well.
I didn¡¯t want to.
My skill level was still relatively low, and I harbored no illusions that I would be able to work with orichalcum to produce a functional set of armor on my first try. Could you even melt down raw orichalcum with a regular forge? With months of practice and the System¡¯s help, it would be at least theoretically possible to do actual smithing, but I needed a new suit today.
Reaching the forge platform, I counted ten blocks forward from the entrance and turned left. If you wanted to make sure something was never found, you didn¡¯t put it in a massive, well-guarded vault, you dropped it somewhere random where no one would ever have a reason to look. Kevin¡¯s armor was stored beneath an unmarked stone, four medallions in a hidden pocket. I retrieved them, stepped over the rail track that bisected the forge, and stood at my favorite crafting table.
My armor didn¡¯t fit. When I tried slapping it on, the medallions didn¡¯t activate, so I reconstituted the helm on the table instead.
It was beautiful. Gold-white, sleek, and decorated with a crown. The look was a blend of medieval knight and anime sentai. It no longer fit. For a while now, the growth of my horns had been just on the cusp of what would make me unhelmetable, and now we had crossed the Rubicon. Anything I put on my head would have to come with holes.
Drilling through the top of the helmet was an option, though an unattractive one. Orichalcum tools were required, and the standard set was not at all geared toward that kind of work. Even if I got it done, it would leave me walking around in a helmet and nothing else.
Jason¡¯s armor had always been a tight, almost perfect, and I¡¯d assumed that was because of its quality as well as the fact that the System generated equipment of a standard size for everyone. I was, or had been, a very average-sized dude, so I¡¯d never had a problem with one-size-fits-all style gear. Gastard was able to wear the armor I¡¯d made for him, though it didn¡¯t fit him as seamlessly as it would have me, and Jason¡¯s armor had been a bit smaller than anything I¡¯d crafted myself, and it wasn¡¯t just a height issue. My shoulders had broadened significantly, and my limbs had thickened.
Kevin, however, was both lean and on the short side. Did that mean his armor had always been a little looser than mine? I laid out both sets side by side on the platform and looked them over. Aside from Kevin¡¯s version being painted black, and a few extra spikes, they were near copies of each other. It wasn¡¯t a massive difference, but in a direct comparison, it was obvious that Jason¡¯s armor was taller than Kevin¡¯s.
What if the crafting System didn¡¯t create one-size-fits-all gear, and instead, generated equipment that was sized to the hero who made it?
I took off my tunic and fetched enough wool to make a new one. Though they didn¡¯t come with tags, it was plain that the fresh article of clothing was one size up from the original. I wouldn¡¯t have to figure out how to reforge or modify the old set, I could simply make a new one.
While my supply of orichalcum was not unlimited, I had enough.
Soon, a third set joined the pair on the floor. It wasn¡¯t nearly as pretty as what my predecessors had produced. The orichalcum had a lovely sheen, but the overall shape was blockier and less stylized. It was a suit of plate armor, as simple as could be. No crowns or spikes for me. However, it was noticeably broader than the other two, and I was relieved to see notches in the helm exactly where they needed to be.
The System provides.
The only real loss was the enchantments. There was no way I could replicate the panoply of effects on Jason¡¯s armor with the resources at my disposal. Still, I could apply lesser versions of most of what had helped make me a nearly unkillable tank since first putting on his super suit.
I wanted to avoid losing levels, and Kevin¡¯s orb had accumulated enough essence to apply what I had available. His collection of enchanted books wasn¡¯t as expansive as I could have dreamed, but there were plenty of copies of low-level versions of everything I needed to go around.
Mending, Unbreaking, Protection, and Fire Resistance. No Aqua Affinity, sadly, but Feather Fall was available, as well as a much better selection of Thorns enchantments than I¡¯d been expecting. I could put Thorns on every piece if I wanted, though it would mean cutting down on Fire Resistance.
Without the Fire Resistance on Jason¡¯s armor, Bael would have killed me. And even though lava was not as common in Bedlam as it was in the Nether, I was still paranoid about the possibility of falling into a superheated pool someday. I¡¯d pushed Kevin into a lava pit. These things happened.
The thing about enemies not being able to pierce your armor was that you could still be grappled. I would never forget being dragged into the water by that Kulu. Without Mizu¡¯s intervention, that would have been the end for me.
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The Thorns enchantment came with a chance of damaging anyone who hit you. Would it have been enough to keep those tentacles off of me?
By the time I was finished enchanting, the orb was down to its last mote of essence, and my armor had gotten a new look.
It was even edgier than Kevin¡¯s.
The bracers, pauldrons, and helm were now studded with spikes, as well as blades that looked like the tips of box cutters. There were more of those down the outer sides of the legging, a couple on the boots, and the backs of the gauntlets looked like the business end of a flanged mace. It was time to suit up.
Armored once more, I felt like myself again. I¡¯d come to relish the feeling of being encased in metal, and being without it had been like walking around naked. Pacing, hopping, swinging my arms, everything felt right. The fingers of the gauntlets came with tiny openings, just enough for the tips of my claws to poke through.
What would it be like to kill Berith with my hands? The thought was enticing. Eating people was wrong, but what about eating a demon? There were no moral implications there, right? My mouth watered at the thought.
Bad.
Bad. Bad. Bad.
Had to do something about that. I went to see Kevin, and the former dark lord gave my new getup an appreciative stare.
¡°Nice,¡± he said after I mined a block out of the front of the cell so we could talk face-to-face. ¡°You should paint it black.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not worried about the color scheme,¡± I said. ¡°Listen, I¡¯m about to kill another demon, and I don¡¯t want to change anymore. Are you going to help me or not?¡±
Kevin smirked, his gauntness, and the dark veins on his face, made him uglier than he had ever been. Naked in a box, half-crippled by taint, he was still standing like someone who knew he had the upper hand.
¡°Are you going to let me out?¡±
¡°You¡¯ve murdered heroes for a lot less than what I¡¯ve done to you,¡± I said, ¡°how can I free you if I know you¡¯re going to betray me the moment you have a chance? And that¡¯s leaving aside all the other crap you¡¯ve pulled over the centuries. How could I ever justify doing anything other than keeping you locked up or griefing you out of this world?¡±
¡°Do you care about that stuff?¡± His smirk didn¡¯t falter, and I didn¡¯t like the way he was looking at me. Too satisfied, too knowing.
Did I care? In my former life, I¡¯d been friends with plenty of people who¡¯d done terrible things. Most of his crimes were literally history. But not all of them.
¡°I need you to tell me something,¡± I said, ¡°and I want an honest answer. What is it with you and the lillits?¡±
¡°What do you mean?¡± His smirk dropped away, replaced by bemusement. ¡°You¡¯re more into them than I ever was.¡±
¡°I married one.¡±
¡°That¡¯s what I¡¯m talking about. They¡¯re tiny. It¡¯s weird, bro.¡±
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and circled back.
¡°Why did you go out of your way to capture them? You stopped expanding Dargoth a long time ago, but you invaded to get the lillits. What made them that important to you?¡±
¡°Not that important,¡± he shrugged. ¡°The Eternal Engine needed operators, the smaller the better to work in the crawl spaces. I tried using children, but they sucked at it. So I was like, hey, didn¡¯t I used to have hobbits? Where are they now? And I went and got them.¡±
My mind ground to a halt on the ¡°tried using children¡± phrase. It was good to know that whatever the demonic influence was doing to my brain, Kevin could still disgust me.
¡°Kevin,¡± I said, ¡°you can understand why I can¡¯t let you out, right? You keep saying stuff like that.¡±
His good eye blinked, the black one could only twitch.
¡°Like what?¡± He asked.
¡°This was a bad idea,¡± his oblivious malevolence was enough to make me facepalm. ¡°I¡¯ll figure things out on my own. See you around.¡± I moved to fill the wall back in.
¡°Wait.¡± He said, throwing his hand down into the gap as if to hold it open. ¡°Don¡¯t go yet. You can make me take an oath.¡±
I looked at his hand, the withered crab claw that it was. ¡°I¡¯ve thought about that. It¡¯s not enough. Oaths can be broken, and the curse is slow.¡±
¡°Are you stupid?¡± Kevin snapped. ¡°Use a better curse!¡±
He was completely serious.
¡°The oathblade comes with a Curse of Weakening,¡± I said. ¡°Are you telling me there are other options?¡±
¡°Not the blades,¡± Kevin rolled his good eye, ¡°you have a Knight of the Realm. He has the Oathsworn skill. It¡¯s better. Do you not know anything?¡±
¡°You killed everyone who could have told me how any of this worked.¡±
¡°Huh,¡± Kevin pulled his hand back. ¡°I guess I did.¡±
¡°How did you know about Gastard''s class?¡± That was not information I¡¯d shared with him, and as far as I knew, he hadn¡¯t spoken with anyone else since his confinement.
¡°He was here with you. I saw him and the Heir.¡±
So Kevin could tell what class someone had by looking at them. It must have been another side-effect of having a cursed right eye. When he saw I was still about to replace the diamond block, he spoke again, desperately launching into an explanation of how Gastard could increase the level of his skill to the point where it would be sufficient to bind him. It was the first genuine advice he had ever given me, and I listened until he was finished.
¡°Thank you,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯ll look into that, and then we can talk again.¡± Gastard was never going to agree to be Kevin¡¯s road to freedom, but I was definitely going to discuss the possible uses of Oathsworn with him. Nothing Kevin could tell me would give me a solution in time to deal with Berith.
Fortunately, I thought there was a way to kill at least one more demon without worsening my condition. Bael¡¯s death hadn¡¯t resulted in any new monstrous features for me, and he was the only demon I¡¯d killed with an atreanum weapon. Agares had taken a dagger to the neck, but it had been one of my swords that finished him. The magic-eating quality of the meta-material might do something to interrupt the overflow of demonic essence that occurred when they were killed.
It wasn¡¯t a sure thing, but it was worth an attempt. The only problem was that all my atreanum knives had broken into useless bits, and I had no more raw material to craft fresh ones. What I did have was an atreanum pick, along with the hope that the tool could make it through one fight before it shattered as well.
151: My Tiger
I landed well outside of Nargul, dug a shelter for my wyvern, and waited for morning. My mount was docile and followed my commands. He¡¯d eaten out of my hand often enough to be under the influence of the Tamer skill, but I missed Noivern. You never forgot your first wyvern.
Going into the city at night would create too many problems. Most mobs were no more than a nuisance for me at this point, but they were a nuisance that could wreak havoc in a municipal environment, appearing inside buildings full of sleeping people. I needed to talk to Boffin, as well as the nobles that ran the city, and I wouldn¡¯t be able to get anything done if a troll popped up in the middle of our conversation and started biting heads off.
Flying during the day was no longer an option. While the storm hadn¡¯t completely dissipated, the skies were beginning to clear. The eerie spurts of multi-colored lightning that had been so common before were gone, and the clouds themselves had lightened from muddy browns and oranges to a more natural gray. One day soon, this region of Dargoth would no longer be steeped in perpetual gloom. The mushroom forests would wither under the judgment of the sun, and natural flora would eventually reestablish itself. It was something to think about while I waited for morning to come.
Esmelda and Gastard remained at Mount Doom grinding their skills. Gastard could raise Oathsworn by acting as a mediator for everyday agreements. Regular people didn¡¯t have enough essence for the resulting contract to be powerful, but that wasn¡¯t the point. It was going to be a lot more socialization than Gastard wanted, and he felt that using his blessing in that fashion was a questionable practice at best. Still, it was the quickest way to get the skill to level up without wrapping us all in potentially problematic agreements with my templar¡¯s soul at stake in their enforcement.
If Kevin had told me the truth, Gastard would soon have the ability to apply penalties to broken oaths that were more immediate and severe than the Curse of Weakening. Would it be sufficient for us to be able to let Kevin out of his cage? I had no idea. That wasn¡¯t a decision I would make unilaterally. If I was stuck having to figure out runes on my own, so be it. For now, securing Nargul was all I had the mental space to focus on.
A gray dawn rose, and my wyvern covered its head with a wing, napping. Climbing out of our hole in the ground, I marched to the closest entrance to Nargul, an immense gate manned by a squadron of soldiers.
Though my armor was new, and I¡¯d brought no honor guard or even a flag, they knew exactly who I was. The gate, a massive slab of iron, raised to welcome me, and a horn sounded from the ramparts. A line of men were waiting to salute as I passed under the arch. Presence, the attribute I¡¯d never really been sure about, was more than just an analog for Charisma.
These people didn¡¯t have an aetheric sense, but they could feel me. If I¡¯d come to the city dressed in rags, they might have thought I was a demon. But the harpies circling overhead probably would have given them a clue.
An officer approached me, the sigil of Dargoth emblazoned on his shoulder, and bowed. Aside from that mark, he could have been any other soldier. They all wore the same armor.
¡°My Dark,¡± he said. ¡°I am honored to be the first to greet you. How can I be of service?¡±
¡°I need the noble council to be informed of my arrival, and the lillits. But before I meet with them, I¡¯m going to see the Duke. Do you know where Berith is now?¡±
¡°I¡¯ll have a runner sent to announce your presence to the nobles.¡± The man slammed his fist into his breastplate. ¡°Berith resides in the Dreak Keep. Shall I have someone send someone to call him to you as well?¡±
¡°No,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯ll go there directly.¡± When Agares had been in control of the city, he¡¯d warned the soldiers that I was an imposter, but Berith either didn¡¯t know that I¡¯d switched sides or didn¡¯t have that kind of pull. If he¡¯d tried to turn the garrison against me, they might have revolted. He hadn¡¯t been ruling here for long, and I was the one who¡¯d installed him.
¡°Has Berith given any unusual announcements lately?¡± I asked.
¡°Unusual?¡± The officer¡¯s face was covered by a visor, but he sounded perplexed. ¡°No, my Dark. If I may be so bold, we were all taken aback by the new laws, but your wisdom has proven itself yet again, and Nargul is stronger than ever.¡±
Oh, yeah. During my last visit, I¡¯d completely revamped the criminal justice system. Presumably, that had led to all kinds of chaos and unrest, but no random sergeant was going to tell the emperor that his whims had screwed up the status quo and everyone who hadn¡¯t benefited was upset. I could get into the details of the fallout when I met with the nobles. Berith had to come first.
Though I didn¡¯t ask for an escort, a squadron of guardsmen followed me, and horns continued to blow as I made my way to the inner city. The effects of the changes I¡¯d made weren¡¯t apparent to casual inspection. Nargul was Nargul; gothic structures, narrow streets, and a populace that threw itself to its knees at the sight of its Dark Lord. Wherever I walked, business as usual froze. Gates opened, porters and merchants dropped their goods, and voices called out praises and prayers.
It was too much, too weird. These people didn¡¯t even know I wasn¡¯t Kevin yet. Of course, they hadn¡¯t really known who Kevin was either. They had a ruler, and I was him now. I would have preferred it if no one noticed me. Being treated as a god-king was just¡uncomfortable. It wasn¡¯t as if I had done anything to earn it. What could anyone do, to be worthy of being seen as seen like that? I was only a man with too much on my plate, and I didn¡¯t know what I was doing.
The Dread Keep wasn¡¯t in motion anymore. I¡¯d never bothered figuring out how Kevin¡¯s Eternal Engine worked, and I didn¡¯t care to know. The great wheels of the titanic cars were still, and the inner city was as silent as a graveyard.
Berith liked to hold court in his personal car, a cathedral structure near the head of the train. I hopped onto the stairs that hung over the track and pushed open the doors. They opened onto a wide, empty nave, at the end of which Berith was standing with his back turned, looking up through the stained glass window above the altar. I¡¯d met him this way before, and I had to wonder how much time he spent alone in this place staring out a window. Maybe it was a cat thing.
Being duke of the city hadn¡¯t caused him to change his appearance. The demon still dressed like Conan the Barbarian, clad in light leather armor and carrying a broad-bladed ax on his back. The sanguinum lamps of the cathedral gave his fur a reddish cast.
No hostages or mobs that I could see. Maybe I¡¯d gotten lucky this time.
¡°Are you here to kill me?¡± Berith¡¯s baritone carried down the hall as I came forward. It was the same thing Gremory had asked. He did know something, the difference in the sky itself could have been enough to tip him off. Why wasn¡¯t he more prepared?
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¡°You¡¯re still bound to me,¡± I said, ¡°why should I kill you?¡±
Berith turned, a bored look on his feline face. ¡°I felt it when the other harbingers began to die. We are not as ignorant as you believe.¡±
¡°You knew what was happening, and you still just waited here for me?¡± I was twenty paces from the end of the hall and still hadn''t drawn a weapon. Berith seemed so calm, it was out of character for him.
¡°I have died before,¡± he said, ¡°and I will die again. If not in this world, then in others. To face a champion of Harmony in single combat is the closest thing I know to joy. There are so few heroes left, I am grateful for the opportunity.¡±
I stopped walking to pull Caliburn. ¡°You¡¯re a weird guy, Tony.¡±
The tiger quirked his head, his whiskers quivering. ¡°You called Orobas by another name as well. But your words do not have the power to change us.¡± He unslung his ax. ¡°Only the One Who Knocks has that power.¡±
One moment, we were having a remarkably chill conversation, and the next, he was attacking. Berith leaped forward, his ax swinging in a wide arc, and I stepped back, catching it with my sword. Whatever his weapon was made of, it wasn¡¯t as hard as xanthium, and Caliburn took a notch out of its edge.
Physically, we were pretty well matched, but only one of us was encased in an orichalcum body suit. We traded blows, the demon emitting a continuous growl, as he searched for a gap in my defense. To hurt me, he had to target the thin joints in my armor, or else go for my neck just under the helm. I, on the other hand, needed to be careful not to land a killing blow. Disarming him would have been ideal, allowing me to bring out the atreanum pick without fear of seeing it instantly shattered. But he was giving me a tough time.
Berith was wild, his attacks coming hard and fast, almost too much for me to keep up. He landed a two-handed stroke to my side hard enough to drop half a heart from my health bar. It would take a while, but with that much strength, he could potentially batter me to death through my armor. Still, with every exchange, his ax weakened. Its edge already had so many chips that it looked serrated, and I switched from parrying to assaulting the weapon directly.
Grunting with effort, I hacked at its broad-head again and again in a display of amateur swordsmanship that would have forced Gastard to hide his face in shame. A crack opened across its surface, running from the crescent to where its haft connected to its blade. Berith hissed in anger, showing his fangs, and tried to bring it down on my head. I shifted to the side, and the blow landed on my shoulder instead.
It hurt, and I lost another half a heart, but the already damaged crescent caught one of my spikes and sheared itself in two. Berith instantly leaped back to avoid my follow-up swing, and what was left of his weapon clattering to the floor of the cathedral car.
I charged forward, and his hands were already working through an incantation. Berith always carried jugs of water at his waist, and the cork popped out of one of them as a jet of water erupted from its nozzle. Among the elements I had seen the demons utilize, water had always seemed like the least threatening. It had utility, he could use it to summon a concealing mist, and of course, he would be dangerous if we were out on the ocean, but I hadn¡¯t come into this fight expecting his magic to be a deciding factor.
The spray hit me before I could hit him, slipping through my visor and pouring into my mouth and nose. It wasn¡¯t acting like water, it was acting like a liquid living thing on a kamikaze mission. I still tried to stab him, but he slipped away as I choked and coughed.
This wasn¡¯t a holding-my-breath situation. The water was already in my lungs. My body went into panic mode as my heart bar started flashing.
I was drowning, and it''s really hard to fight while you''re drowning.
He knocked me over, accepting the feedback from Thorns as a part of the cost of doing business. I went to my knees, slashing wildly with one arm to keep him away, but I couldn¡¯t form a coherent thought while hacking up my lungs.
My vision darkened, and my hearts were dropping fast. It wasn¡¯t a lot of water, but you could drown in a puddle, and this puddle was clinging to my face like an octopus.
Berith was chanting to maintain the spell, interrupting him was my only shot. I lunged for him, but the demon danced away.
¡°For the Throne!¡±
The group of soldiers who had followed me to the train were charging down the hall. I hadn¡¯t asked them to participate, but seeing their dark lord on his knees was a clear cue to do one¡¯s duty to the realm. I was too busy drowning to pay attention to how that went. No longer holding Caliburn, I harvested my helm to claw at the water covering my mouth. Berith could tear my head off, but that didn¡¯t matter at this point.
I fell onto my side, convulsing. Hands down, this was the most painful death I¡¯d ever experienced.
Celaeno landed in front of me, flapping her wings. Either that, or I was hallucinating.
¡°Wrong way,¡± she croaked. ¡°You¡¯re doing magic wrong. Feel it! Presence. Use your Presence.¡±
What was she talking about? I didn¡¯t have spells, and if Celaeno knew how to do demonic magic, she could have chosen a more opportune time to bring it up.
But I did feel something. Maybe gradually losing consciousness was bringing me closer to my aetheric sense. Berith¡¯s presence was overwhelming, his magic, his will, was pressing into my spirit as surely as the water was forcing its way into my lungs. I wanted him to go away.
As my second to last heart flashed in warning, a part of my soul I hadn¡¯t known I possessed flexed, pushing back against the demon¡¯s oppressive aura. I vomited water. My throat was raw, and my lungs burned. I couldn¡¯t stop coughing, but the liquid wasn¡¯t fighting back anymore. I took in harsh, stinging gasps of air in between coughs.
Soldiers surrounded Berith, slashing and stabbing. He avoided most of their strikes, and those that landed merely scratched him. Unless they poked out one of his eyes, their blades were no threat to the demon. He¡¯d kept up his incantation, but now he dropped his hands and threw aside the nearest soldier to come at me.
Celaeno launched herself at the tiger, and he swatted her. The harpy dropped with a tragic-sounding chirp, and Berith lunged for me, roaring.
The atreanum pick was already selected in my inventory. It appeared in my hand as I swung. The spike lodged itself in his temple and snapped off. Berith¡¯s momentum carried him forward, and I fell back with him on top of me, but the tiger was already dead.
Panting, I pushed him off of me, rose, and drank a healing potion. Celaeno got one next, I had to pour it into her beak, but her twisted wing righted itself, and she seemed fine.
¡°Slow,¡± she said. ¡°You are too slow. You will have to get better.¡±
¡°How did you know I could do that?¡± I asked.
The harpy gave me the bird equivalent of a shrug. ¡°You are like them, and unlike them. We devour the essence of beasts and keep some for ourselves. You keep more. It should have been enough to resist, but you have a weak mind.¡±
¡°Thanks for the tip,¡± I rubbed my throat. Though I was no longer in danger of dying, the potion hadn¡¯t completely restored me. A few of the soldiers had injuries. Nothing life-threatening, Berith hadn¡¯t bothered fighting them seriously.
¡°You guys saved me,¡± I said. ¡°You¡¯re all getting commendations, or houses, or something.¡±
They responded with a lot of ¡°my lords¡± and salutes, and I flipped Berith over to make sure he was gone. The tiger¡¯s eyes were wide, staring at nothing, and his tongue lolled out of his mouth. Being brained by atreanum had done the trick. My pick had lost its spike, but the blade end was still good. Maybe I could get another demon out of it.
I heaved a sigh. With Berith out of the picture, someone else was going to have to act as the central authority in Nargul or the nobles were going to take advantage of the power vacuum. A dark lord¡¯s work was never done.
Time to talk to Boffin.
152: My Sons Hobby
My talk with Boffin was delayed by a monster crisis. While most of Berith¡¯s stock of mobs was confined to chambers beneath the city, there were groups scattered across Nargul that had been used for labor and as a part of the city''s defense. Even with the slow renewal of the sun, Nargul still offered ample spaces where the creatures of Bedlam could shelter during the day, and with the death of the demon, they reverted to their natural behaviors.
The guardsmen and soldiers could handle zombies, but trolls, hollows, and Voidmen were challenges of a different order for people who had no access to enchanted weapons or a System. After making a circuit of the major walls, I was exhausted, and the day was mostly gone. The exercise had at least allowed me to see and be seen by most of the officers in the city, and Nargul¡¯s armed forces were now aware of the new situation.
Fortunately, the majority of the people I spoke to throughout the day were completely on board with the idea of a Dargoth without demons. While there was plenty of incredulity and fear to go around, the military hierarchy was still intact, and I was still the central authority. I received more oaths of renewed fealty than I could count, and it felt like the entire city mobilized to manage the threat. The streets cleared, businesses shuttered for the day, and the noncombatants who had any sense holed up in their homes.
It was late afternoon when I met with Boffin in the apartment he shared with Brenys. As he was technically a Count, he could have claimed a far more impressive residence for himself, but he¡¯d chosen to remain in the tenements where most of the lillits still resided.
The living room was crowded with scrolls and books, the accumulated dross of the work he¡¯d been doing since I left him responsible for engaging with the council of nobles and figuring out the place his people would occupy in Nargul. He looked frazzled, but he greeted me happily, gripping my hand in both of his and inviting me to join him for tea in a cramped kitchenette.
¡°Brenys is out,¡± he said, dragging over the biggest chair available and offering it to me. ¡°There was a panic when the warning bells began to ring. We thought the city was under attack.¡±
¡°Not yet,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m the one causing trouble.¡±
¡°Not yet?¡± His brows drew down in concern. ¡°Are you expecting a siege? We haven¡¯t had much word of you since you left for Atlan. Your vizier lent us scribes to help with your decrees, but Varnish has been a thorn, and there are still a thousand questions to be answered. But I¡¯m getting ahead of myself. What happened? Is it true that you¡¯ve broken with the demons?¡±
I filled him in on the events he¡¯d missed. He listened stoically at first, but with growing alarm as I explained that Gastard and Esmelda had both been granted Systems. Even leaving out the details surrounding the incident, that both of them had nearly died, it was a lot to take in.
¡°I don¡¯t know whether to weep or rejoice,¡± he said, staring down at his hands. ¡°To imagine that the goddess would mark my daughter as one of her servants¡I suppose it is no more incredible than the rest of what has happened since you came to us. I have more hope than I can remember having since we lost our homes, but the future is far from clear. What are you going to do?¡±
I sighed, leaning back, and the wooden chair creaked dangerously under my weight. I¡¯d removed the armor, and Boffin¡¯s eyes roamed over my body, taking in signs of new corruption. He sucked in his lower lip when his gaze settled on the short talons that now adorned my fingers, but he did not comment.
¡°I¡¯d like your advice,¡± I said. ¡°There are so many demons left, and we don¡¯t know where all of them are. This war could draw out, and I¡¯m not sure what the safest path will be. We need Nargul, but I can¡¯t stay here to protect it. With the sky clearing, it will be harder for Valefor and the others to march an army of monsters down here, but I don¡¯t want to give the demons a chance to organize. If they all worked together, I don¡¯t think we could hold Mount Doom.¡±
¡°Have you thought about who will take Berith¡¯s place?¡±
¡°No idea. You don¡¯t want to be a duke, do you?¡±
Boffin shook his head. ¡°The nobles resent me enough already, and even with your backing, I hardly fit the figure of a military leader. I don¡¯t have the knowledge or experience to be a general, and they wouldn¡¯t take me seriously even if I did.¡±
¡°You¡¯ve gotten to know the council. Who do you think I can trust?¡±
¡°Count Keldorn.¡± His answer was immediate. ¡°He¡¯s an alright sort, and I believe he was a soldier in his youth. He is certainly well known.¡±
I tried to remember who that was. I¡¯d met with the noble council only once, and it had been a contentious event.
¡°Was he the bald guy?¡± I asked. ¡°He runs a bunch of smithies or something?¡±
¡°A craftsman guild, yes.¡± Boffin scratched at his hairless chin. ¡°While I can¡¯t promise he won¡¯t use the position to his advantage, among the nobles I have encountered, he strikes me as the least despicable.¡±
It wasn¡¯t a ringing endorsement, but under the circumstances, I¡¯d take what I could get. We talked for a while longer, and Brenys returned. She had more than a few comments to make about my appearance, but her casual jibes were a thin cover for genuine concern for my well-being. She could make light of my horns and my height, but the worry was in her eyes.
The seamstress was running a thriving business, with dozens of men and women working under her. The social atmosphere for the lillits in the city was still tense, and would likely remain so even if there wasn¡¯t a war on the horizon. The majority had no interest in living off of handouts, but there was no way for them to get their old lives back. Some wanted to return to the Free Kingdoms, and they would have to wait until I settled things with Godwod. There were many craftsmen among them, but those who had been farmers couldn¡¯t do so in the city, and those who sought work outside of their community were having a hard time of it.
Boffin, Brenys, and I talked it over, and they agreed that some of their people might want to come to Mount Doom. Zareth wouldn¡¯t have any qualms about finding room for them. A deeper problem was that many lillits simply had not mentally recovered from the trauma of their ordeals under Kevin¡¯s rule, and I had no idea what to do about that other than give them time to heal.
It was too risky for me to remain in the city after dark, so after ensuring that the mob pens were sealed off, I exited the city, carpeted my campsite with torches, and spent the night with a wyvern.
***
Stolen novel; please report.
The following morning, I gave Keldorn a visit. He had no objections to the prospect of being made a duke, and it turned out that he had personal relationships with many of the ranking officers in the city already, which would make the transition easier. Being the supreme ruler of the nation meant I could knock out the restructuring in a few hours, with most of that time taken up by the seemingly endless sessions of oath swearing. Many officers, captains, majors, and everything else, introduced themselves to me, and I promptly forgot all of their names.
I did not have patience for or interest in the obligations of governance, and I got through it all as quickly as I could. It did give me a chance to form a firmer impression of the man I was charging with authority over my armed forces, and overall, my feelings about him were positive. Keldorn wasn¡¯t a soft-handed noble. His family was influential, but they had a tradition of sending their sons to train with the city guard, and he¡¯d ended up spending much of his youth in the army before apprenticing as a smith and eventually taking his father¡¯s place as a count.
Once the formalities were over, we took a walk, heading down the main street toward the outer gate. Keldorn was carrying a lot of weight around his belly, but he was broad-shouldered and muscular, and it didn¡¯t seem to slow him down.
¡°If the north is in rebellion,¡± he said, ¡°there is much for us to do. While I do not doubt the wisdom of your proclamations, the mines have been empty since your last visit. There may not be enough steel to arm all the recruits.¡±
My proclamation. Funneling prisoners into the army and telling nobles they couldn¡¯t own slaves anymore. There were sure to have been consequences, and I hoped that someone else would deal with them.
¡°Does no one in this city know how to pay workers? What¡¯s holding them up?¡±
His lips curled down as he thought about how to answer. I¡¯d let him know that we were dropping the ¡°Dark¡± part of my title, but that didn¡¯t change who I was. It was probably difficult for him to know how to talk to me, despite any assurances I gave that he wasn¡¯t going to be executed for speaking his mind.
¡°The contracts are complex, and negotiations have stalled. I believe some of my fellow council members assumed you would change your mind if production fell, and Varnish has been stirring trouble.¡±
¡°What kind of trouble?¡±
¡°There are rumors,¡± he said, lowering his voice, ¡°that you are not the same man we have served all our lives. I would never allow such heresy to stand, but I have no proof that Varnish is the one who spread the lie. Some believe you are an imposter, and that the true master of Dargoth will return to restore the old order. What has become of the Aychar lends credence to such claims.¡±
¡°Oh,¡± I said. ¡°Well, the first part is true. I¡¯m not Kevin. Everyone on Mount Doom already knows. I¡¯m just avoiding making a big deal of it in Nargul right now because there¡¯s too much going on.¡±
Keldorn almost walked face-first into a market stall, but no one saw it. Most of the citizens of Nargul were still in their homes, awaiting an announcement from the guard that they were no longer in danger of being attacked by stray monsters, so the street was empty.
¡°Is that a problem?¡± I asked.
¡°My¡I¡no, my lord.¡± His eyes were wide, and his amber skin had lost some of its color. ¡°I have already given you my oath. What you have done, what you are doing, these things are for the good of Dargoth.¡±
It probably helped that my actions were turning out to be extremely beneficial for him personally, but there was no reason to belabor the point.
¡°See what you can do about the mines, and work with Boffin for whatever he needs. It may not be long before we march into the north. You don¡¯t have to worry too much about equipment, though. I can provide most of that myself.¡± Kevin¡¯s redstone factories had been mostly quiet since I took over, but they could print out armor and swords faster than all the smiths in Nargul. ¡°Your job is to ensure the city remains peaceful, and everyone gets the training they need.¡±
We parted ways at the gate. I still wasn¡¯t sure that marching an army anywhere would be the best move. Killing demons was more of a hero-only activity, but large forces were necessary to hold and administrate territory. Superman¡¯s dilemma. He might be the master of wherever he happened to be standing. If you wanted to rule the world, however, you needed subordinates, and lots of them.
The wyvern was happy to be out of his hole, and even happier to be fed some of the troll meat I¡¯d harvested the previous day. We couldn¡¯t fly directly to Mount Doom, there were too many gaps in cloud coverage, but even with stops, starts, and a roundabout route, it was still faster than riding a horse would have been.
When I returned, I found Esmelda, Gastard, and Leto in the forge.
¡°Look what I made!¡± As soon as I arrived, Leto wasted no time in throwing up the lid of a chest beside the brewing stand, its interior lined with potions. Healing, Swiftness, and Darkvision, the recipes that didn¡¯t require ingredients harvested from monsters.
¡°This is amazing,¡± I said, squeezing his shoulder, ¡°I thought you could only make the base elixirs.¡±
¡°Uh-huh,¡± Leto shrugged. ¡°I messed up a bunch, but now it works. I don¡¯t know.¡±
It was still a mystery why Leto could use the brewing stand at all, let alone improve his talents. Some of my tools worked for him, and others didn¡¯t. He couldn¡¯t harvest materials, but he could start instant fires with my flint and tinder sets. There was some kind of essence requirement for Harmony to install a System in a would-be hero, but magic wasn¡¯t limited to people with Systems. The Atlan shamans had no blue screens to summon, nor did demons, but could both cast spells. In my first conversation with Godwod, he¡¯d made an offhand comment about how the children of Umberious Rex had been able to heal people with their hands. At the time, I¡¯d assumed it was a false story. If Systems could be passed down through blood, Plana would have been full of them. But clearly, Leto had inherited something.
¡°I¡¯m surprised you let him use this without me,¡± I said to Esmelda after Leto had finished pointing out every bottle that he¡¯d filled and what they were. Her response was chilly.
¡°I¡¯m surprised you left the door to this chamber open. This was already well underway when I realized where he was.¡±
Ah, so it was my fault, and I was going to hear about this later. Still, I was happy he¡¯d done it. Brewing was time-consuming, and it was nice to have a renewed supply. It also allowed Leto to feel like he was contributing. He¡¯d been sulking ever since he realized he wouldn¡¯t be accompanying us on any more deadly adventures.
¡°What of Berith?¡± Gastard asked. I noted that he was wearing a Dargothian tunic, red sigil and all. Not something he had ever done while there were demons on our roster.
They listened to the story, though Esmelda was more interested in how her father and her former townsfolk were doing than my encounter with the demon, at least until I brought up almost drowning.
¡°You repelled his magic?¡± She said. ¡°How?¡±
¡°I¡¯m not really sure. Celaeno told me I could do it, and I did. Maybe we all need to take up meditation or something. I¡¯m starting to think that our Systems are some kind of magic module. Like, they make it easier for us to do certain things, interface with essence, whatever. But there is so much we could be capable of outside of what our classes allow.¡±
¡°Perhaps,¡± Gastard said, ¡°but I am content with the blessings Gotte has granted me.¡±
¡°Demonic magic is dangerous,¡± Esmelda stepped in close, ¡°you aren¡¯t considering trying to learn it, are you?¡±
¡°No,¡± I said, ¡°there¡¯s still too much Survivor stuff I don¡¯t know how to use yet. It just makes me wonder about how the universe, everything, actually works. For now, I should be the one brewing potions, and I want to try some I¡¯ve never made before.¡± Invisibility was of limited utility given that it didn¡¯t affect equipment, and I had no idea what I was going to use Turtle Master for, but harm had some potential uses.
¡°I want to be invisible,¡± Leto said.
¡°It takes vorokai eyes,¡± I shrugged, ¡°good thing they¡¯ve got so many. I could stand to harvest more ingredients before I try though. What do you two say to clearing out the monster pens with me?¡±
Gastard¡¯s smile was sharp. ¡°I¡¯m ready now.¡±
153: My Font of Law
The vast, dark hall beneath the mountain had begun to fill with light. There weren¡¯t enough torches in Mount Doom to illuminate it fully, the pens occupied a space larger than several football stadiums, but I was still dropping them down the center as we went. Esmelda, Gastard, and I also had Shadowbane torches tied to our waists. The weaker mobs couldn¡¯t get close enough to attack us, but that didn¡¯t mean we were safe.
Gastard¡¯s sword flashed with white flame as he sidestepped a charging troll, opening a wide wound along its flank. It roared its anger, its fist crashing into the floor where he had been standing a moment before, and took an arrow to the eye from Esmelda.
I raised my shield in time to block another arrow as it lanced out of the darkness of the next pen. It wouldn¡¯t have hurt me, but Esmelda¡¯s armor wasn¡¯t as powerful as mine, and I¡¯d stepped in front of her to intercept the missile.
¡°Who gave them bows?¡± I complained.
We were up against every variety of mob I¡¯d ever faced, all at once. So far, it had been the hollows that proved the most dangerous. They were smarter than the bestial mobs, capable of strategy, and though I¡¯d never seen them use ranged weapons before, apparently, they had them.
The troll went down a moment later. A small host of zombies stood between us and the line of hollows firing bows.
¡°At least they make things interesting,¡± Esmelda said, pulling back her string and firing into the crowd of monsters.
¡°You were worried about being bored?¡± That was not the attitude I expected from her. She was willing to fight, but it wasn¡¯t as if she relished the violence.
¡°Not me,¡± she sighed, ¡°Gastard is having the time of his life.¡±
Our Knight of the Realm launched into the horde, cutting a path through the zombies to reach the skeletal mobs. It would have been faster for me to go around swinging the buster sword to deal with massed enemies, but part of the reason we were down here was to give Esmelda and Gastard as many level-ups as possible, so they needed to be the ones doing most of the killing.
More flashes followed, and the hollows surrounded him, but I didn¡¯t want to leave Esmelda¡¯s side to help. A varghest lunged within the circle of our light, and I drove Caliburn into its skull while she continued to fire arrow after arrow. I¡¯d given her a supply of enchanted ammunition, and she was using it to set the zombies on fire.
They didn¡¯t appear to enjoy the treatment.
Watching Gastard fight was a little terrifying. He¡¯d always been skilled, but his class was making him superhuman. His attributes weren¡¯t as high as mine, but I wouldn¡¯t have wanted to duel him. Though I¡¯d offered him a shield, he wasn¡¯t using one, and he didn¡¯t suffer for the lack. He liked to be able to alternate his grip from one to two-handed as he flowed through different stances, altering his style of swordsmanship from moment to moment.
Still, the hollows were scary in their own right. He had to cut them apart to put them down, and they were better fighters than most soldiers I¡¯d seen.
A sparkling red potion appeared in my hand, and I lobbed it over the zombies into the melee. It exploded on contact, a crimson flash of positive energy. Two of the hollows collapsed, whatever darkness that animated them banished in an instant. Gastard didn¡¯t even pause.
You could add the splash effect to a potion by brewing it with gunpowder. Thanks to Fladnag, I had a healthy supply of the deflagrant ingredient, and it was even better than grenades. The Potion of Harming was no good, it hurt people and healed monsters, at least monsters that came from Bedlam. Healing, however, harmed them, and had the added benefit of doing its normal job for any humans who happened to be in the splash radius.
A few minutes later, we had finished cleaning out the pen.
We worked section by section, slaughtering mobs. In my first days on Plana, even a single zombie had presented a deadly threat, and now they were nothing but fodder. A part of me regretted killing all these mobs. Having had demons on my team for so long, I¡¯d gotten used to thinking of the monsters as a resource. There was something deeply satisfying about having trolls do your dirty work. But I couldn¡¯t control them like Bojack had.
The wyverns were an exception, sort of. I¡¯d been feeding all the monsters in the aery long enough for them to be under the influence of my Tamer skill. I was confident I could ride them, but they were still dangerous. We couldn¡¯t use them as freely as we had when they were under the direct control of a demon. Still, it made me wonder if we couldn¡¯t keep a couple of mobs for my personal use.
Zombies were out. I didn¡¯t want them even if they could be tamed. Hollows were too smart, they didn¡¯t count as beasts, and the skill hadn¡¯t worked on trolls. Voidmen were odd, less aggressive than other mobs, but they wouldn¡¯t eat out of my hand, and I had no idea how intelligent they were. That left the varghests.
We¡¯d been killing them as we went, but near the end of the hall, there was a cage with one inside that stood out from the rest of his species. Still a wolf-horse, but his fur was white, and he was noticeably larger than the others had been.
¡°What are you doing?¡± Gastard demanded as I tossed a hunk of troll meat through the bars of the cage.
¡°I want to see if I can tame him,¡± I said. The varghest had growled as we approached, but he wasn¡¯t leaping at the bars, and he tore into the meat as soon as it was within his reach.
Gastard grunted in disapproval. ¡°It is a creature of the shadow. A blight on this world. It should be slain.¡±
¡°But isn¡¯t he kind of cute?¡± I said as the monster swallowed a hunk of troll. ¡°They¡¯re basically dogs, right?¡±
¡°Even if it can be tamed,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°it would burn away in daylight. What would be the point of keeping it alive?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± I said. ¡°Noivern¡¯s gone. I could use a new mount. Maybe I could cover him in a tarp or something.¡±
¡°We can get you a dog,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Stop trying to befriend monsters.¡±
After a lengthy debate, I was outvoted. The varghest died, and we continued clearing the pens. There was only a single vorokai to be found, but along with the one we had killed during the battle in the throne room, I had plenty of eyes to use for Invisibility potions.
The hall grew quieter as the day went on, and eventually, it was silent. We stood in the last pen, surrounded by fallen mobs, and Esmelda was reading her screens.
This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
¡°My Woodcraft can¡¯t advance anymore, pending an assessment,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m almost at level thirty.¡±
Gastard was lower level, he¡¯d invested a significant portion of his experience into his favored weapon. It was a more limited form of enchantment, but his sword was already more formidable than anything I could have crafted for him. It had taken me a lot longer to reach the point where the System would assign an entity rank, but I had been spending my experience as I went along, and dying had reset my progress. Having an army of monsters to slay at hand hadn¡¯t hurt their progress either.
¡°Have you gotten any notifications about your other skills?¡±
¡°No notifications, but Architect has gone up as well,¡± Esmelda said, switching tabs, ¡°It happened while I was having a conversation with Zareth about Henterfell and King Egald.¡±
¡°What was the note for Architect?¡±
¡°This skill allows you to organize resources efficiently in order to design unique structures.¡± She read aloud. ¡°I wonder if the goddess had something in mind other than buildings.¡±
The System¡¯s parameters couldn¡¯t always be interpreted straightforwardly. The word ¡°architect¡± suggested physical structures, but maybe the skill applied to societal structures as well. Esmelda¡¯s class was all about being a ruler, not a crafter.
¡°I have been exchanging oaths with members of the garrison,¡± Gastard said, cleaning his blade. ¡°Oathsworn has advanced, and it presented me with a new penalty.¡±
He wasn¡¯t looking at me, but there was no reason for him to bring this up if he wasn¡¯t open to talking about Kevin. Without a stronger curse, we couldn¡¯t risk letting him out of his cell. I didn¡¯t want Gastard to think I was overeager to work with the former Dark Lord, or that Bedlam¡¯s taint was influencing my decisions, but I needed his knowledge.
¡°What is it?¡± I asked, trying to sound casual.
¡°Paralysis,¡± Gastard sheathed paused as he examined his blade, and then sheathed it. ¡°Its function is unlike that of the Curse of Weakening. You should read it for yourself.¡±
He summoned his screens.
<<<>>>
Achievement: Font of Law (2)
Your actions have brought you closer to the heart of Harmony. New Oath Curse unlocked.
Curse of Paralysis
Those who attempt to violate their oaths will be forced to pause in their wrongdoing. While under the effects of this curse, an entity will be unable to move, granting them the opportunity to reflect on the nature of their choices. The duration of their paralysis will be calculated according to their rank relative to that of the Knight of the Realm to whom they are bound. Repeated offenses will result in increased penalties. A cooldown period of one day applies to the triggering of this penalty.
Only one curse can be applied to any given oath.
<<<>>>
I¡¯d never seen Kevin¡¯s status screens, but I knew that he had at least passed the assessment stage even if he wasn¡¯t higher than an E-ranked entity. Gastard was weaker than him, so the curse would have a reduced effect, but it was still exactly the sort of condition I¡¯d been hoping for.
A Curse of Weakness didn¡¯t stop you from breaking your oath, it started a countdown toward total incapacitation. This version was both more and less effective as a preventative than what had been inflicted on me.
Bojack had ordered me to not even plan to attack him. Because Weakening was an ongoing effect, that was a solid impediment, but I still could have stabbed him on a whim if I knew where the oathblade was and destroyed it before the curse took me out of commission.
¡°It sounds like it would stop him from pushing me off a cliff,¡± I said. ¡°But only until he snapped out of it and tried again.¡±
¡°He cannot be trusted,¡± Gastard tapped off his screen. ¡°No curse could ever make him an ally, or cause him to be worthy of forgiveness.¡±
¡°I¡¯m with you there,¡± I said, ¡°but Kevin is still a resource. And if we have a way to use him, we need to use him.¡±
Esmelda surveyed the damage we had done, the mounds of fallen zombies, the smoking ruin of an Voidman. Her gaze traveled over my new armor, the spikes and spines, settling on the tips of my claws poking out of the ends of my gauntlets.
¡°Since killing Berith, have you felt any change?¡± She was keeping her voice level, but I could tell she was holding back. She was more afraid of me losing myself than of any mob or demon.
¡°I think the atreanum protects me,¡± I said, ¡°but my pick is half broken, and there are a lot more demons. The place in Bedlam where I mined it before is tapped out, though, and I wouldn¡¯t go back there even if it wasn¡¯t.¡± We couldn¡¯t afford for me to be trapped in a time sink again, or expect the goddess to get me out if I was.
¡°I will take the cost,¡± Gastard said. ¡°It is no more than my duty to this realm.¡±
That wasn¡¯t a solution, it was sacrificing one of my friends to save me. Gastard could kill a few more demons without turning, but from what Kevin had told me about the history of heroes on Plana, it would end with him becoming something worse than what they were. If we were going to purify the world, we couldn¡¯t bank on the three of us holding out against Bedlam¡¯s taint until the job was done.
¡°I can use his portal,¡± I said, ¡°see what¡¯s on the other side. He might have more atreanum there, or maps to help me find it. If I go alone, you two can keep the mountain safe.¡±
¡°You can¡¯t go alone,¡± her voice was on the edge of panic, ¡°not again.¡±
¡°He has to have a base over there,¡± I said. ¡°I don¡¯t need to go beyond it. I can just see what¡¯s there, and come back and talk it over with both of you.¡±
Gastard ran a hand over his armor, there were cracks in his chestplate from the hollows. ¡°I agree that you should not risk yourself in the realm of shadow. But we cannot ignore the windfall that may lie beyond the gate. I could accompany you to be sure you do not act rashly.¡±
¡°If anyone goes with him, it would be me,¡± Esmelda spoke quickly, and then frowned, realizing a moment too late that by saying she was accompanying me she was accepting that I would go at all.
¡°Very well,¡± Gastard said, ¡°a brief sojourn for the both of you and then we discuss this again.¡±
***
Kevin¡¯s portal occupied a cathedral of its own. Light poured in from windows in the ceiling, it was likely the first time the chamber had been properly lit since its construction. The clouds had cleared over Mount Doom, and the sun had claimed its peaks. A circle of obsidian, identical to the portal I had crossed through once before.
¡°How do you wake it?¡± Esmelda asked, standing beside me on the dais.
¡°A few drops,¡± I drew Caliburn across the meat of my palm. It was so sharp that it required no pressure at all, and I barely felt the cut. Blood welled up, and I let it fall onto the obsidian. Esmelda breathed out a small note of surprise as the air split open in front of us.
Purple or something my mind was telling me was purple; an eye opening into chaos. Fuzzy pandemonium, a mad whirl of alien energies, eerily silent.
¡°It smells like death,¡± Esmelda took a step back. She was right, a heady scent of decay flowed out of the portal.
¡°You don¡¯t have to come with me,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯ll come right back.¡±
¡°No,¡± Esmelda took my hand. ¡°I need to see the other side.¡±
My storage ring was full, and so was my pack. Kevin had to have built himself a base in Bedlam, it would have been crazy not to, but it couldn¡¯t hurt to be prepared.
¡°Maybe I step through first by myself, and then dip back when I know it''s okay so we can explore it together.¡±
¡°The goddess sees us.¡± Esmelda didn¡¯t let go of my hand. ¡°I don¡¯t know what waits beyond, but I won¡¯t have you leave me again.¡±
We walked through together.
154: My Horses Journal
Raw chaos washed over us, and the transfer between worlds seemed to go on and on. That had happened sometimes when I would go to the Nether playing on my laptop, and I began to worry that we had gotten stuck on a loading screen with no computer to reboot. We couldn¡¯t hear each other speak, but Esmelda¡¯s hand remained firmly in mine, and we finally emerged on the other side of the portal.
Kevin had built himself a house of glass.
From the portal chamber, you could view every room in the structure. It was mostly bare. A bedroom, some storage, a brewing stand. He hadn¡¯t made himself comfortable here. The exterior was what got my attention.
It was the brightest island I¡¯d ever seen in Bedlam on account of all the lava. His house rested on bedlamite, and the surrounding area was dotted with radiant pools of molten rock. Smoke rose from pits and cracks in the stone.
Esmelda let go of my hand, stepping away from me to double over and retch. Nothing came up, but she didn¡¯t look like she was having fun.
¡°Are you okay?¡± Obviously, she wasn¡¯t perfectly fine, but I needed to know if this was simply a reaction to the discomfort of our passage or something deeper.
She straightened, taking a steadying breath. ¡°What was that?¡±
¡°The space between worlds,¡± I said. ¡°It kind of sucks.¡±
¡°I never imagined it could be so awful,¡± she looked around, taking in the scene outside. ¡°This is inhospitable, but I expected Bedlam to be inhospitable, that was so much worse.¡±
¡°I guess that¡¯s Discord,¡± I said, ¡°or something like it. Bedlam is bad, but it¡¯s still a relatively stable plane of existence. It persists. We aren¡¯t made to live between worlds.¡±
¡°We most certainly are not,¡± she turned in a circle. The portal was situated at the rear base of the building, so there was nothing behind it but the outside. Esmelda frowned at what she saw. ¡°This seems to be a fragile stronghold.¡±
¡°Glass was an odd choice, for sure.¡± It would prevent spawns, but he could have done that by increasing the light levels. ¡°Maybe he was paranoid about being unable to see what was going on outside.¡±
¡°How did he defend this place?¡±
As if in answer to her question, a blob of magma rose from a pool beside the building and flung itself at the wall to our right. It was the size of a compact car, shapeless, burning, with two points of flame near the front suggestive of eyes.
The blob didn¡¯t reach the wall, instead impacting on a shimmering barrier that had been invisible before, part of its body splashing off. Kevin had surrounded his base with a forcefield, and after a few more failed attempts to breach the barrier, the blob slunk back into its pool.
¡°Well,¡± I said, as long as we stay inside, ¡°we should be safe to explore.¡±
¡°Mhm.¡± Esmelda didn¡¯t sound convinced.
There wasn¡¯t much to find. Kevin hadn¡¯t used this place much or kept large quantities of excess resources here. We looked through all the chests, under the bed, and around the other furniture, and the translucent walls made it abundantly clear that there were no hidden chambers or trap doors to be discovered. The one positive note was his alchemy lab.
It netted me a second brewing stand, plenty of Bedlam Wart, and a new ingredient.
<<<>>>
Magma Cream
Similar to sunscreen, though it should not be applied directly to the skin. When brewed with a base elixir, Magma Cream will produce a Potion of Fire Resistance. When brewed with water, it will result in an Inferior Elixir.
<<<>>>
¡°No maps,¡± Esmelda reported, having given the bedroom another search while I was in the lab. ¡°How do you think he navigated?¡±
¡°He may not have,¡± I shrugged, adding the last coins to my collection. ¡°Orobas always said Kevin hated coming to Bedlam. I¡¯m surprised he kept his brewing stand here instead of on the mountain.
¡°There may be something outside,¡± she said. ¡°I don¡¯t see another building, but there has to be something else here.¡±
¡°As long as we stay within the barrier, we can check it out.¡± I reached out to brush a lock of hair behind her ear. ¡°But please put your helmet on.¡±
¡°If I must,¡± Esmelda sighed dramatically, taking the steel cap from where it was hanging on her hip and planting it firmly on her head.
The source of the barrier was obvious once we got outside. Kevin had surrounded his base with a ring of warpstone, its surface marked by runes. On the inner side of the ring, flush with the bedlamite, redstone tubing hummed with latent energy, its interior alight with crimson plasma.
¡°It must be powering the barrier,¡± I said, though I didn¡¯t remember the runes in the ruins under Eastmine requiring any redstone, these defenses had much more work to do. The air was hot and dry, unsurprisingly. It mostly smelled like burning rock, which made sense, but there was also a hint of cinnamon in the air, which didn¡¯t.
We walked the perimeter, our presence prompting another blob to tire itself out attacking the barrier. The light blue field flashed as it was assaulted, showing no sign of weakening, and the mob slopped off after a couple of minutes.
¡°It¡¯s almost cozy,¡± Esmelda said, her face perfectly blank, ¡°this could be our vacation home.¡±
¡°Are you serious?¡±
Her mouth twitched. ¡°I am not.¡±
The barrier ring was only five paces from the house, so there wasn¡¯t exactly a yard. Around back, I found a section of runes with extra tubing and a switch that I assumed gave him a way to step out of the protected area. While I was checking it out, Esmelda spotted a pressure plate in the bedlamite beside the glass wall.
I pressed it after she backed off to a safe distance, and the ground opened up, pulled aside by pistons, revealing a cellar lined with torches. It wasn¡¯t much of a basement, barely large enough to risk spawns, and as bare as the rest of the house. The floor was glass, though the walls were stone, and a single chest rested in the center of the space.
Inside was a small collection of medallions and a pouch full of coins. The coins were all gunpowder, but the medallions were a mix of fireworks and something I¡¯d never seen before. The symbol etched into their surface looked like a rough sketch of a beetle.
I activated one to see what it was.
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Elytron
Soar like a beetle!
The Elytron is a device modeled after the wings of nature¡¯s most beloved flying species, the noble beetle. Wearing a pair of these will allow you to glide safely from the greatest heights, and with the proper propellant, even ascend to the skies. The duration of your flight is limited only by the quantity of gunpowder you can stuff into a rocket.
Keep a close eye on the condition of your Eytron, it will degrade from extended use. As always, use appropriate caution when handling explosives.
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The Elytron was a thin pair of gray, triangular wings connected by a bar and a channel where a cylinder the size of one of my fireworks could be secured. It came with a leather harness, and the wings were made of an unfamiliar material that maybe had come from the carapace of a giant beetle. Esmelda released a small breath as she read the entry from the System screen.
¡°We must not tell Leto of this,¡± she said.
While there were no maps, I had found paper and ink, so I took the time to copy the runes that made up the barrier. There was a repeating pattern, each block acting as a link in the magical chain. Nothing special happened as a result of sketching the symbols, and my version was imperfect. I made a couple more copies, each a little closer to the original, and Esmelda did one as well.
¡°That¡¯s pretty good,¡± I said. ¡°Do your skills help you draw?¡±
¡°Drawing is a skill,¡± she sniffed, ¡°but it isn¡¯t magic. Sketchwork is a hobby.¡±
¡°Well it¡¯s at least as good as mine, and I have Artisan to help me.¡±
She shrugged. ¡°Systems aren¡¯t everything.¡±
We agreed that exploring Bedlam without a map wasn¡¯t on our docket for the day, and any Elytron testing was going to happen at home. We gave the base another once over and crossed back through the portal. It was as unpleasant as ever, but Esmelda was better prepared for it this time, and it didn¡¯t make her feel like she was going to throw up.
I¡¯d been nervous about going back to Bedlam, but the trip had been as uneventful as I could have hoped, and we¡¯d returned with some interesting loot, so I felt better about the prospect of taking advantage of the portal again in the future. Leto and Gastard were participating in a training exercise with the garrison, so Esmelda followed me up to a plateau on the far side of the fortress to try out an Elytron.
¡°Don¡¯t use an illuminator,¡± she said as I strapped myself in to a pair of metallic beetle wings.
¡°Please, I would never.¡± The fireworks that Kevin had kept in the chest with the Elytron were almost identical to the ones I¡¯d crafted from Fladnag¡¯s ingredients. The only difference was a stamp near the base of each cylinder, Roman numerals for one, two, and three. ¡°These are rockets.¡±
In Maincraft, Elytrons were called Elytra, a name so similar it made me wonder why the System had bothered using a different word at all. The rocket slotted easily in between the wings, and I was briefly at a loss as to how to light the fuse until I noticed a switch on the right shoulder of the harness. When I flicked it down, I heard a spark, accompanied by a yelp from Esmelda.
¡°You could have tried gliding first!¡±
¡°I¡¯m sure it''s not that pow¡ª¡±
Flames spurted at my back, making me glad for my armor, and my stomach dropped as the rocket propelled me upward. The plateau, and Esmelda, fell away as the acceleration increased. I had no idea how fast I was going, but it was fast. It was also difficult to hold in a steady direction.
The slightest shift in my posture veered my trajectory to the left, nearly slamming me into the peak of Mount Doom. I corrected at the last instant, overcorrected, and ended up flying straight out with my face turned toward the sky. I had to stay in an unsupported plank position to keep the balance from going crazy, which was murder on my core. Still, the sun was out, and it was a lovely day.
The firework lasted longer than I expected, several minutes, and though I still hadn¡¯t gotten the hang of steering, I hadn¡¯t crashed into anything. My fuel depleted in midair, but the wings of the Elytron extended further, rotating according to the angle of my body, and kept me from dropping like a stone. Getting back to the plateau was tricky, and the landing was a stumble.
¡°Are you satisfied?¡± Esmelda asked with a disapproving expression, her arms folded over her chest in the pose of ultimate judgment.
¡°Not even close.¡±
We borrowed a few hourglasses from Zareth, and Esmelda times me while I continued to practice with the Elytron. The three ratings on the rockets corresponded to two, four, and six minutes of fuel, and it wasn¡¯t difficult for me to make more. Adding extra gunpowder to the firework formula at a work table produced longer lasting volatiles. The Elytron wouldn¡¯t be good for traveling cross-country, but they were fast enough to make it a couple of miles before they ran out of gas, and if I was high enough, I could refuel in mid-flight.
It was getting late, so I put up my toys and went to check on Kevin. Garron had provided me with a handful of soldiers trustworthy enough to keep a twenty-four-seven watch on his cell. Gastard, Esmelda, and I would look in on him regularly, but I didn¡¯t want to commit to having us stuck in endless observation shifts, at least not during the day. Gastard and I were going to take turns spending nights in the cube. With the cloud cover finally broken, that was the only time there was a serious risk of a demon sneaking into the mountain and making a move on the former Dark Lord.
¡°It¡¯s Hurin, right?¡± I hadn¡¯t seen his face during the battle in the throne room, Garron had told me who was taking part in the watches and this man was tall enough to be the officer I remembered.
¡°Yes, my lord.¡± He was tall, fair, and probably close to my age. There were some wrinkles under his eyes, but he had a full head of honey-colored hair, and he looked like he never skipped a run.
¡°How¡¯s the prisoner?¡±
Hurin was standing opposite the desk, there was a chair there, and I doubted he had even considered using it. He turned to regard the diamond cell, its walls gleaming in a cage of torchlight.
¡°He paces and sleeps. I don¡¯t know what to report. Is that truly the man who held the throne before you?¡±
¡°That¡¯s the guy.¡± Bojack¡¯s journal was still on the desk. I picked it up. ¡°I¡¯m going to be here tonight,¡± I said. ¡°You can go.¡±
Hurin saluted and exited the hall. Esmelda and Gastard would soon be settling in to their rooms. I¡¯d spawn-proofed that part of the fortress, but now that they were heroes, they had to be as careful as I was about wandering around at night.
Bojack¡¯s journal was nearly full. Mostly snippets of poetry interspersed with abstract charcoal drawings. The drawings didn¡¯t look like anything in particular, shape and form and shadings, but they still managed to be unsettling, reminding me of the existential rawness that dwelled between worlds. Maybe that was what demons saw in their dreams.
It took about an hour to read through the whole thing. He hadn¡¯t been wordy with his entries, and most of what he had written was almost as hard to understand as the drawings. I kept coming back to one of the more recent sections, a passage that stood out to me.
The Shadow speaks, and I obey
Insistence from the dark
A world unbalanced by a gift
Of mercy to a newborn
A champion unbound by ties
A moth drawn to a flame
So many schemes abandoned on
The altar of eternity
The Shadow he was referring to had to be The One Who Knocks, there was no one else Bojack would have taken orders from. I had a feeling that I was the newborn he was referring to, as the entry could have been written around the time I reached level thirty and the System assigned me an entity rank. That might have been too much of an assumption, who knew what was going on in the mind of a demon while he wrote poems in his free time? But if it was me, that made me wonder about the mercy part.
Did he mean letting me out of the valley to usurp Kevin? It was a viable interpretation. If the champion was unbound by ties, that wouldn¡¯t have applied to me until the oath was broken.
Why had Bojack made it so easy for me to kill him? Well, it hadn¡¯t been easy, exactly, but it could have been a lot worse. He could have filled the great hall with monsters if he had wanted to, more than we could have handled while I was weakened. Instead, things had worked out to be a pretty even match-up.
Gremory had excused herself from the fight as well, and I still wasn¡¯t sure why. Before she followed my order to wait on the wall, it had seemed like she was listening to someone. Even if they could communicate at a distance, the demons didn¡¯t have full-blown telepathic conversations.
What if their god had told them to let me win?
That was crazy. I was making too much out of a snippet without context. Fortunately, I hadn¡¯t been planning on sleeping anyway.
155: My Toll
The bell began ringing sometimes after midnight. I¡¯d been scratching out runes, perfecting the lines, and hoping for a notification ding. So far, no ding. Drawing was advancing my Artisan skill, albeit slowly, while Inscription was stuck as zero progress toward advancement. There was an element missing. Did I have to carve the symbols into something more solid than paper? Was the process supposed to involve my other tools, or happen on a work table?
There was no medallion for me to merge a block with. Maybe I could have harvested the runes like I harvested ink, but that would have left a gap in Kevin¡¯s barrier, and anyway, I wanted to be able to craft them myself. Reusing what crafters before me had left behind wasn¡¯t enough.
Focused on the task, I didn¡¯t immediately hear the ringing. The bells were spaced along the walls and towers of the fortress, and whenever one sounded, the soldiers on duty would rush to ring the others until the alarm reached all of Mount Doom. There were no windows in the cube or the attached hall and the stones muffled any noise from outside, but it was soon too much for me to ignore.
A glance at Kevin confirmed he was either napping or pretending to, so I jogged down the tunnel to find out what was happening. Not that there were many options. We were under attack. The only question was how bad it was going to be.
Before I reached the end of the hall, a soldier rushed through the door, and we nearly ran into each other. He skidded to a stop and slammed his fist on his breastplate in a salute.
¡°Enemies on the wall,¡± he panted, ¡°a demon and his beasts.¡±
¡°Let¡¯s go!¡± I took two steps past the soldier and stopped dead.
¡°My lord?¡± He had begun to move at the same time and caught himself when he saw that I wasn¡¯t going further.
¡°It¡¯s a trap,¡± I said. Admiral Ackbar¡¯s wisdom would never die. How many books do you have to read, and how many movies do you have to see, before you start anticipating the beats?
¡°Tell Esmelda that I said she needs to get Leto to the safe room and stay there. If she¡¯s not in our suite, find her, and tell her I said that. Gastard can handle whatever¡¯s going on at the wall.¡±
¡°Go!¡± I shouted when he hesitated, and the man rushed off.
Though the actions of the demons didn¡¯t always make sense, and sometimes they seemed downright juvenile, they weren¡¯t stupid. Not all of them, at least. Maybe this was only a single harbinger taking it on himself to attack Mount Doom, but I doubted it. More than enough time had passed for Valefor to realize that I hadn¡¯t done what he wanted. Berith had told me that they could feel the deaths of other demons when they happened. The rulers of Gundurgon knew that I¡¯d turned. There were eight of them there, and something like thirty more spread around Dargoth. If they were making a move, I had to assume it was a big one. There was too much at stake for me to respond impulsively.
If I was Valefor, what would my goal be? Either free Kevin or kidnap the family of the Survivor who was acting up. Yes, Esmelda could fight now, but Leto couldn¡¯t, and we didn¡¯t know what we were facing here.
As a part of spawn-proofing our bedroom, I¡¯d built a warpstone chamber beneath it. My anchor was there, the one Bojack had bound me to, as well as a host of supplies. In addition to strengthening the veil, Warpstone got in the way of aetheric sensitivity like lead got in the way of X-ray vision. The entrance to the safe room was disguised, and they could hide there even if we lost the mountain. If I died, I¡¯d wake up with her and we could take things from there.
If Gastard died, I had no idea where he¡¯d come back, but we would have to figure that out when we came to it. We had more anchors, but as far as I knew, they only activated when a hero died near them, latching onto their soul to assign a new spawn point, and none of us had been eager to have Esmelda or Gastard kill themselves to test how they worked.
I didn¡¯t bother laying down a bridge to get to Kevin¡¯s cell. Donning an Elytron was faster. The same switch that activated a rocket could cut it off. Precise flight control was still beyond me, so I ended up jetting straight into the ceiling, banging my head, and gliding down to the top of the diamond box.
Kevin got up, holding his hands out to the sides in an obvious question. I ignored him, scanning the walls. Maincraft was more about the journey than the destination. Sure, you fought mobs, and there was a boss monster in the form of the Ender Dragon, but that wasn¡¯t the point of the game.
You mined, you built, you mined some more. You collected resources and crafted them into tools so you could mine rarer resources and use them to make whatever you felt like making. You spent a lot more time planning and preparing than fighting.
The stone steps I¡¯d used to plant the torches were still in place, as well as one other very special kind of block. Square bundles of red cylinders, the walls were dotted with TNT.
Demons had elemental magic. If they knew where Kevin was, there was no reason to fight their way through a fortress to get to him. A demon with earth affinity could just open a hole in the wall. They might not have known Kevin¡¯s location, but it was better to assume they did. My people were loyal, but my one conversation with Valefor had led me to believe he knew a lot more about what went on in Mount Doom than he should have. If nothing else, the demons who got close would be able to sense where he was.
I slotted a flame arrow in my crossbow and waited. The bells continued to ring, and a messenger came running down the hall to give me an update. Gastard was leading the defense against two demons, a group of Voidmen, and a host of flying mobs. He had no idea where Esmelda was, which hopefully meant she had done what I asked.
¡°Tell me about the demons!¡± The entrance to the cube was far enough away from the cell that we had to shout at each other. I probably looked ridiculous, turning in a slow circle as I continued to monitor the walls while he filled me in.
We were being attacked by birds. A stork with air magic and a monstrous owl that had feathers like steel. It was hard to be sure from the description if that was a demon or a new kind of mob. Gastard had his hands full. I almost missed the change in the stone. The top corner facing away from the fortress was melting.
¡°Run! Get out of here!¡± I glanced back to make sure the messenger did as he was told, then slammed a potion. Magma Cream was good for Fire Resistance, it would have been a crime not to make a few when I got back.
The corner opened, and I saw a long yellow beak and a white feathered face. Another Stork, or the same one that had been at the wall. It didn¡¯t matter, the demon saw me and lunged through the gap. It dropped down twenty feet, landing lightly on one of the stone steps. A second followed, a Malphas lookalike in orange robes. I guess there were only so many kinds of animal heads to go around.
At the twitch of my finger, the crossbow twanged, and the arrow leaped for its target. The stork was readying a bow of his own, and he ducked as I fired, but the shot hadn¡¯t been meant for him.
Kaboom.
The TNT blocks didn¡¯t all detonate at once, but the chain reaction was quick enough that it felt like one big explosion. I shut my eyes against the sudden bloom of light, buffeted by shockwaves and stone fragments. The cube was large enough that I wasn¡¯t technically within the blast radius, but it didn¡¯t feel like it.
There had been a lot of TNT.
The upper half of the cube was gone, but parts of what had been the ceiling were raining down. A rock almost as big as I was hit the edge of the diamond, bouncing off without even nicking the crystal¡¯s surface, and I had to dodge another chunk that nearly landed on my head. I didn¡¯t see the stork, but I felt its presence evaporating. My elder sign stung as a portion of that lost essence flowed into me. My stomach turned over, with nauseating slowness.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
One question was answered. When it came to getting the credit for killing a demon, setting off a trap that did them in counted. Fiddlesticks.
What about the crow? After dodging a few more rocks, I scanned the area. What remained of the walls were jagged teeth, and the only torch left was the one planted beside me atop the cell. No mobs in the sky, or else they had all been blasted away. The main body of the fortress blocked my line of sight to the wall where the fighting was supposed to be happening, but I couldn¡¯t hear the bells. My ears were ringing too badly from the explosion.
A ball of flame arced up from below and burst against my chestplate. My heartbar flashed in response, but I hadn¡¯t lost any. It did, however, set off the explosive strapped to my back, knocking me forward onto my hands and knees. One wing of the Elytron went spinning off and dropped over the edge of the cell. At least I hadn¡¯t been wearing a backpack, the coins would have scattered everywhere.
The crow was below me, hiding amid the rubble. His robes had burned off, and he must have had a concussion, but his elemental affinity had saved him from being incinerated. I stood at the diamond verge and slotted a Shadowbane arrow. He lobbed another fireball while I was aiming, and I stepped out of its path.
It was a homing fireball.
The bright orange sphere zipped by me, stopped abruptly, and snapped back, detonating on my crossbow. Kevin¡¯s weapons were tough, but cracks appeared in the stock, and I lost the arrow. What followed was the most frustrating back-and-forth imaginable. The demon continued to target my weapon, and when I did manage to shoot, he ducked behind cover. After a few minutes of this, Kevin¡¯s crossbow gave out, coming apart in my hands.
Fine, there were other options.
I lobbed a Splash Healing Potion, and the demon took it out of the air like a sharpshoot. A mote of flame no larger than a bullet streaked from his fingertip and popped the potion when it was halfway down. Reddish mist sprayed, but none of it fell on him.
I jumped. The crow scrambled out of the way as I came down, Feather Fall only got me about halfway to the floor, and my Elytron was nonfunctional, so the only thing to catch my fall was a loose pile of stones. My foot twisted on the landing, and I felt something pop.
Flames washed over me, more annoying than painful. A timer was ticking down in the corner of my vision, six minutes remaining on the Fire Resistance potion. I limped after the crow, drawing Caliburn, as he led me around the base of the cube. There was no way out but up, the steps were ruined, and this bird couldn¡¯t fly.
He kept lobbing fireballs, and though most of them didn¡¯t do any damage, they seemed to have a cumulative effect. Every few volleys, I lost a heart. If he didn¡¯t run out of essence, it would eventually wear me down.
We were circling the pillar that upheld Kevin¡¯s cell, and I put it between us to call another potion out of my inventory and slurp it down. A Potion of Speed, sugary and light, the refreshing taste of Sprite. I had never been a fan. Mountain Dew was better.
Slapping down my visor, I resumed the chase, ignoring the twinge in my ankle at every step. Round and round we went, but I was gaining. The crow was quick, but he couldn¡¯t full-out run while casting spells. When I came within a few paces of him, he gave up trying and sprinted away.
It was ridiculous, cartoonish, a man in devilish armor chasing a demon around a pole. Harsh breaths echoed in my helmet, and impending sickness gnawed at my guts. The crow stumbled, and I jabbed Caliburn through his leg.
He squawked, fell, and tried to cast another spell. My boot came down on one of his hands, crunching bones.
¡°I am Raum!¡± He proclaimed, ¡°Fortieth harbinger of¡ª¡±
¡°Don¡¯t care,¡± I kicked him in the head, and as he lay stunned, started dropping diamond blocks. Every time the demon tried to rise, I knocked him back down, and he was soon encased in a translucent coffin with a single opening to allow in air.
¡°You dare bind me?¡± He glared daggers through the gap. ¡°You cannot seal your doom!¡±
¡°Very dramatic,¡± I said, shrugging off what was left of the Elytron and pulling out a medallion to replace it. ¡°Super cool.¡± A moment later, I was rising out of the shattered cube on a rocket. The fighting had moved to the secondary wall. Harpies wheeled in a cloud of phantoms and wyverns, and arrows flew. No trolls or zombies, but the dark forms of Voidmen flickered among the defenders. I didn¡¯t see the other crane, but the owl couldn¡¯t have been more obvious.
It was as big as a grizzly, with a humanoid torso and claws on its wings like a pterodactyl. A body covered in silver feathers, with eyes as large and bright as lamps. It batted aside the ends of pikes and hopped out of the way of Gastard¡¯s shining sword. Dropping my shoulders and kicking back my legs, I adjusted the angle of my flight, and Supermanned down to the wall.
Summoning the buster proved to be a mistake, its weight off balanced me and turned the dive into a wild barrel roll. I slammed into a stray phantom and spun through the air. The next thing I knew, my face got a vigorous high-five from a wall.
The buster went flying, and the Eytron, still blazing, sent me careening into another building. I fumbled at the switch to turn off the rocket and ended up on the ground below the inner wall. Maybe I wasn¡¯t ready for aerial combat.
Soldiers stood frozen around me, and I waved them off.
¡°I¡¯m fine.¡± Feeling like I needed to throw up, I ran to the stairs to ascend the wall and switched back to Caliburn. The Voidman were vastly outnumbered, so many soldiers had arrived that they were getting in each other¡¯s way, and mine. I had to push through the crowd to reach where Gastard was dueling the owl.
It was impossibly agile for a creature of that size, hopping from rampart to rampart, twisting out of the way of Gastard¡¯s attacks, all the while battering him with its wings and claws. There were cracks in the diamond surface of his armor, and for all his skill, it appeared he could not do more than shear the feathers from its body. Though it didn¡¯t look like the other demons, it felt like them.
Just as I rushed to join him, the owl pounced, putting Gastard on his back on the stone walkway. Its wicked beak dropped, latching onto his upper arm, and I covered the remaining distance in a blink, thrusting Caliburn into its broad flank. Those silver feathers were as tough as scale mail, but the point of my blade punched through.
The owl jerked its head up, and Gastard screamed in a voice I¡¯d never heard before. His diamond-clad arm was hanging from the demon¡¯s beak. I ripped Caliburn free, intending to stab it again, but the owl leaped up well out of my reach, its great wings blocking the moon.
Blood spurted from Gastard¡¯s shoulder, and he struggled madly as I forced open his visor and shoved a healing potion into his mouth. He swallowed reflexively, and soldiers rushed in to defend us as the owl came down again. The hafts of their polearms snapped against the weight of its descending body, and I turned in time to see the talons of its left foot reaching for me.
I¡¯d had to let go of my sword to help Gastard, and as I grabbed it, the demon¡¯s claw wrapped around my waist and jerked me up. It flung me from the rampart, and the Elytron extended to catch me in a glide. I used the momentum to swoop down and rise again in a U, narrowly avoiding a collision with the wall.
With a sweep of its wings, it scattered the soldiers and bent over to finish Gastard. A Splash potion appeared in my free hand, and I threw it against the back of its feathered head. Red mist sprayed, and the owl screeched, launching itself at me.
I couldn''t outmaneuver it in the air, and when I swung, it caught Caliburn in its beak. The xanthium bit into keratin, and it twisted its head in a one-eighty to break my grip, latching on to me with its feet in the same instant to drive me back to the ground.
It had to weigh half a ton, and all of that pressed down on top of me as I was slammed into the cobblestone path.
¡°So you are the Survivor,¡± it said, holding me in place, its voice high and silken, ¡°I expected more.¡±
An arrow cut through the night, piercing one of its huge, lambent eyes. Esmelda had appeared atop the roof of the garrison, and she was already readying her next shot. The owl shrieked, leaping once more, and I held onto its leg with one arm while thrusting Caliburn into its belly with the other.
It didn¡¯t even slow down, and Esmelda jumped to one side to avoid the owl''s snapping beak. The demon dragged me along as it followed her, and I twisted the blade still embedded in its flesh. It paused in its advance to clamp its beak over my helmet, the clasps snapping as it tore it off of my head.
An arrow glanced off of the ruff of feathers around its neck, and I saw a flash of white light falling to the roof behind the demon. Gastard was charging the monster¡¯s back with his brilliant sword in his one remaining arm. Blinded on one side, focusing on me, I caught a glimpse of the owl¡¯s pink throat as its beak dropped toward my face.
156: My Awakening
A precipice extended before me, terminating on a sharp point. It was an arrow pointed at infinity, thrusting into the depths of space. Stars twinkled in their multitudes, and a single great galaxy turned with glacial slowness behind a floating gray bar.
Quit Game.
¡°I don¡¯t recommend it.¡±
The voice came from behind me, and I turned to face a one-eyed centaur clip-clopping toward me from the opposite center of the platform. We were standing on a gray rhombus drifting in the void. It almost could have been Bedlam, but there were no other islands here, only stars.
¡°Where am I?¡± I was naked, regrettably, but this wasn¡¯t my respawn point. My hands looked like my hands again; no claws, no extra hair, but shadows were moving under my skin like fish swimming just below the surface of a pond.
¡°An interstice,¡± the centaur said, his voice as deep as the void beyond, ¡°a vestibule. This is the place where you decide whether to go on or turn back and try again.¡±
¡°The owl¡it killed me?¡± It had ripped off my helmet, and then what? Gastard had been close to attacking. Esmelda had been firing her bow. ¡°Are my friends okay?¡±
¡°Stolas was defeated,¡± the centaur, I realized his name was Limnus, said. I wasn¡¯t sure why I knew that. This place was familiar. Did I come here every time I died? ¡°Your companions survived.¡±
Relief flooded me. My family was safe, the mountain was secure, and Kevin was still in his box. ¡°I want to go back,¡± I said, ¡°but why did you say you didn¡¯t recommend me going the other way?¡±
Limnus took one of my hands in his, lifting my arm and pointing to a tendril of shade that was slipping across my biceps.
¡°You are more solid than you have ever been here. In truth, your soul might survive the celestial forge in its current condition, but it is more likely that the hierarchy would find you lacking. Discord has left its mark on you, and until you have purged yourself of its influence, or else accomplished more in the service of Harmony, I expect you would be deemed a failed candidate.¡±
I pulled my hand away. ¡°The great test. You guys have this big secret game going on, and I¡¯m not allowed to know all the rules. Even if you tell me now, I¡¯ll forget again, right?¡±
¡°That is correct,¡± his face was blank, but his one oversized eye swirled with the forces of the cosmos.
¡°You¡¯re the one who talked to Gastard, aren¡¯t you?¡± He¡¯d said that he¡¯d met Gotte, but that the deity was missing an eye.
¡°I am.¡±
¡°So you¡¯re a god to the people in Drom, the one who watches over Plana?¡±
¡°I am a sentinel, an administrator, each realm has its own.¡±
¡°Then what are you doing about The One Who Knocks? Why don¡¯t you stop the demons from entering this world? Wouldn¡¯t that make more sense than sending a bunch of heroes who tore up the veil just by existing?¡±
¡°I am not idle,¡± Limnus said, a hint of disapproval in his tone, ¡°much of my essence is tied to the continued preservation of Plana. Besides this, the Hierarchy takes a long view. They invest much in the fostering of potential candidates. The plight of this world is not a significant risk to the sector, so it serves as an ideal zone of trial.¡±
¡°Even if we fail and you end up losing the world?¡±
¡°There are risks,¡± Limnus turned his face away, his gaze traveling to the stars. ¡°David¡¯s interference was not planned, but it has since been approved. With the loss of your intended mentor, there was room for new candidates.¡± He paused. ¡°Will any of this affect your decision to return?¡±
¡°No way. I have to go back.¡±
¡°Then there is no reason to continue this conversation.¡±
***
I woke up in the safe room beside my Anchor. A violet light flared for a moment in the heart of the obsidian block and then faded. A bed, a table, some chests for storage, this hadn¡¯t been meant for long-term habitation. My equipment was laid out on the floor: armor, the buster sword, and magic thermos, while the Storage Ring had a prominent place on the table.
In the far corner of the room, a body was wrapped in cloth. I assumed it was mine.
It had been a while since I¡¯d died, and I felt the need to take an inventory. Horns, check. Claws on my fingers and toes, more body hair than I¡¯d ever had in my life, though thankfully not to the point of having it qualify as fur. The torchlight bothered my eyes, even if I hadn¡¯t made it myself, I would have known it was enchanted with Shadowbane because of the uncomfortable prickling on my bare skin. Having killed two bird demons, Malphas and whoever the crane had been, I was just glad not to have grown feathers or a beak.
Was it possible that the taint wasn¡¯t making me more like the demons that I killed, but instead turning me into a more generally demonic version of myself? Or maybe it was my insides that were changing now. They¡¯d laid out clothing for me as well, and I¡¯d just slipped a tunic over my shoulders when part of the ceiling slid open.
¡°You¡¯re alright.¡± Esmelda¡¯s eyes were red, and her hair unbound. There was a ladder to get down into the shelter, but she eschewed it to hop nimbly down to the floor instead. A moment later, her arms were wrapped around my waist.
¡°Hey,¡± I said, placing my hand against her back, ¡°it¡¯s okay. It¡¯s not like I¡¯ve never died before.¡±
¡°I know that,¡± her voice was muffled against my chest, ¡°but I¡¯ve never seen it happen before.¡±
¡°That was probably rough,¡± I don¡¯t know how it would have affected me to see something like that happen to Esmelda, even knowing that she would come back. ¡°What happened? The last thing I remember was losing my helmet.¡±
¡°The demon bit your head,¡± Esmelda¡¯s grip tightened. ¡°Gastard was able to run it through, but he was a moment too late.¡±
¡°It might have gotten me before that if you hadn¡¯t shot it in the eye. Did you get my message? I thought you were going to stay in here.¡±
¡°I heard the explosion,¡± she said, letting me go to take a step back. ¡°I had to see. We can¡¯t stay here now either, there are too many people who need to know you are alive.¡±
After the demon was defeated, the mobs fled. That meant there had been another entity controlling them, one we hadn¡¯t spotted, but whoever it was must have chalked up the mission as a loss. People witnessed my death, and it led to a small panic. Esmelda and Gastard had been quick to assure everyone that I would return when the sun rose, but the garrison was understandably anxious.
Kevin was known as immortal, but he¡¯d never had his head bitten off by an owl, and I wasn¡¯t Kevin.
There was a crowd of people waiting in the great hall when I got there, and the moment seemed to call for me to make some kind of statement, so I gave a short, impromptu, address about how I wasn¡¯t going anywhere. Zareth followed it up with a much more dramatic speech including the phrase ¡°Even death cannot vanquish our lord,¡± and we got the hall cleared out a few minutes later. While being a ruler had its perks, it was stressful to think about how many human beings depended on me to stick around, and I was happy to get everyone back to their daily routines.
Not that things could be completely business as usual.
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¡°We will hold a service for those who lost their lives in the assault,¡± Zareth said, having given me a rundown of last night¡¯s aftermath. I¡¯d taken my seat on the throne, not a comfortable place to rest my bottom, but I was usually in full armor when I sat there.
¡°Of course,¡± Esmelda said, looking particularly small beside the oversized throne. She¡¯d put on one of her fancier ¡°Lady of Dargoth¡± dresses, a bright yellow, pleated get-up with a lot of embroidery along the sleeves. Her hair was up, and she looked every bit the queen. ¡°I would be happy to speak with the families.¡±
¡°Thank you,¡± I nodded to Zareth. ¡°Let me know if there¡¯s anything you need.¡± Having Esmelda do the talking would make things a lot easier. I dreaded having to face the people who had lost loved ones defending the fortress. Breaking with the demons would be good for everyone in the long term, but here and now, it meant that people would die or be hurt who otherwise might have gone their whole lives without seeing battle.
¡°Where¡¯s Gastard? He¡¯s alright, isn¡¯t he?¡±
¡°He¡¯s alive,¡± Esmelda¡¯s face fell. ¡°But you should speak with him.¡±
***
Leto had been asleep when I came out of the safe room. They hadn¡¯t told him that I¡¯d been killed, only that I¡¯d needed to recover from the battle, and he was more upset about being cooped up during the action than everything that had happened as a consequence of the attack.
When Esmelda and I entered the suite, Leto hopped off of the sofa where he had been lounging and then paused, unsure. He seemed relieved to see me unharmed, but that relief was swiftly overwritten by worry.
¡°Gastard won¡¯t come out,¡± he said.
I glanced at Esmelda, whose face mirrored our son¡¯s concern.
¡°He¡¯ll be fine,¡± I said. ¡°It was a difficult night, but we¡¯ll all be fine.¡±
We¡¯d converted a study attached to the main living area into a bedroom for Gastard. Having us all sleep in the same area of the fortress simplified spawn-proofing, and it meant that one of us was always close to Esmelda and Leto if an invader decided to go for our rooms. I knocked on his door and let him know I was there. Silence on the other side, but a moment later, I heard the lock click and I went in.
Gastard was sitting in a deep cushioned chair directly beneath an Everburning Torch. He wasn¡¯t wearing his armor, instead draped in a soldier¡¯s tunic, though the diamond pieces of his gear were laid out on a nearby table. They were cracked from the battle, and I needed to repair them. My suit had Mending enchantments baked in, but I hadn¡¯t had enough of the books available when crafting Gastard¡¯s
But it wasn¡¯t the armor that drew my eye. Gastard had lost an arm in the battle, I remembered it clearly. Now he had two, but one of them was thinner than the other and covered in cloth bandages. His horns had grown a couple of inches, the beginnings of antlers. He would need a new helm, but that was to be expected given that he¡¯d killed a demon, probably two. The change must have been what he was upset about.
¡°Hey,¡± I said, pointing to the regrown limb, ¡°what happened there?¡±
I heard the door shut behind me. Esmelda had not come in.
Gastard had always been serious, and if he ever joked, it was with a straight face. His expression now was more than severe, it was angry. His jaw clenched, and his eyes clouded with something like despair.
¡°One of your potions. Regeneration. We thought it worth trying.¡±
¡°That¡¯s fantastic.¡± You didn¡¯t lose limbs in Maincraft, and Potions of Regeneration simply healed damage over time instead of instantly like a Potion of Healing. As they required more ingredients to brew, there weren¡¯t many reasons to use them, and I was pleased to discover this added benefit. Otherwise, Gastard would have had to die and reset his level to get his arm back.
So why did he look so upset?
He undid the binding on his hand and slowly removed the binding. The limb wasn¡¯t just leaner than his other arm, it was covered in silver scales. Though he had four fingers and a thumb, his hand looked more like a raptor¡¯s talon than a human appendage.
¡°I am tainted,¡± his voice was thick with frustration. As there were no other chairs in the chamber, I took a seat opposite him on the edge of his bed.
¡°That¡¯s more than I expected,¡± I said, ¡°but we knew something like this could happen. Have you noticed any other differences, anything¡internal?¡±
¡°Such as the hunger for human flesh?¡± He shook his head. ¡°My heart is still my own, though it seems that my body belongs to Bedlam. I thought I could do so much more before I fell.¡±
¡°You can, you¡¯re still you.¡± I¡¯d killed more demons than he had, but regenerating a limb may have allowed the corruption to grow faster than it would have otherwise. We didn¡¯t really know how all of this worked to begin with.
¡°You captured one of them,¡± he¡¯d been glaring at his hand, but now he met my eyes, ¡°did you kill another?¡±
¡°In the explosion, yeah.¡±
¡°And yet you are unchanged.¡± It wasn¡¯t a question. He saw me being less affected by demonic essence and interpreted it as a personal failing on his part.
¡°My body seems the same, but I don¡¯t know how deep my problems are. You shouldn¡¯t beat yourself up about this. You stopped the attack. If that thing had gotten past us, there¡¯s no telling how much damage it could have done. The regular soldiers couldn¡¯t kill it, and it would have had hours to try to break Kevin out.¡±
Even now, his cell was exposed. I needed to rebuild the cube before nightfall or we were going to have even more issues. Not to mention the extra demon I¡¯d put in a box. What had his name been? Raum. We had to take care of him as well.
¡°Three killed,¡± Gastard said bitterly, ¡°and one captured. With all the others defeated before today, how many remain?¡±
Even Zareth didn¡¯t have an exact count, but I had a pretty good idea. Gremory, the last to arrive, had been the fifty-sixth harbinger to enter Plana. Heroes had been killing demons for long before we got involved, but most of those had been replaced during Kevin¡¯s reign. The roster hadn¡¯t been completely full, but the records we had suggested Dargoth was teeming with them.
¡°Thirty,¡± I said, ¡°maybe more.¡±
¡°Then we know our doom,¡± Gastard began rewrapping his hand. ¡°We kill them all, and in the end, become something more terrible still.¡±
Absorbing that much corrupted essence would break all three of us, I didn¡¯t disagree. There were other options, however.
¡°I¡¯ve been thinking about it,¡± I said. ¡°You said once that I should arm regular people with enchanted weapons and armor. Now that my oath is gone, that¡¯s a possibility. Without Systems, they won¡¯t be as capable as we are, but enough enchanted arrows and swords can take down a demon no matter who¡¯s using them. A new order of templars, with you at the head.¡±
¡°I wanted it before,¡± his expression was pained. ¡°But each man we armed would be risking their soul. Our blessings protect us, if incompletely, a mortal man would be faster to succumb.¡±
¡°It¡¯s not an insurmountable problem,¡± I said, ¡°anyone who kills a demon retires and passes their weapons on. I should have been arming people already, it was a mistake not to. With only three of us, we can¡¯t cover enough ground on our own. With the clouds gone, I underestimated how dangerous just a few demons could be. Nargul would be practically defenseless against an attack like last night.¡±
Gastard grunted in reluctant agreement. ¡°I see the necessity, but I do not like it.¡±
¡°That¡¯s why we need more atreanum.¡± If we armed soldiers with Shadowbane weapons, we could trust them to defend our strongholds without us and take the offensive.
¡°Esmelda said you found no maps.¡±
¡°We didn¡¯t, but I¡¯m willing to bet Kevin knows his way around the other side.¡±
Eternal Torches did not flicker, its steady glow cast Gastard¡¯s head in a halo, though when he turned to look at his armor on the table, it cast half his face in shadow.
¡°Unthinkable. He cannot be allowed in Bedlam. The risk is too great.¡±
¡°He isn¡¯t as dangerous without gear. You bind him with oaths, and I take him to the other side. I¡¯ll tell him it¡¯s a test, and that if he behaves himself, he can come out of his cell. We need the atreanum, and I don¡¯t have another way of finding it.¡±
¡°Did you not gather it yourself before?¡±
¡°I¡¯m not going back to that swamp. I mined everything there was to mine, and got trapped there before I could bring it home.¡±
¡°You mean to go alone?¡± Gastard said, his face creasing in a frown.
¡°We can¡¯t afford to all go together.¡± Even if we did arm regular people, there was no telling how long the journey would go on. Any trip to Bedlam carried the risk of running into time dilation, and if all three of us went, it could leave Plana undefended indefinitely. Bringing Kevin with me would at least remove the danger of having him return to power in my absence.
¡°What if he returns without you?¡±
¡°He won¡¯t. I can handle him.¡± Kevin had met someone on the other side, the entity that had given him his eye. It might have been Walter White himself. If he still had the support of The One Who Knocks, Bedlam was the last place I needed to take him. But I wasn¡¯t as worried about that as I probably should have been.
Gremory had said that their master approved of me. And I couldn¡¯t help but think that even now, the demons weren¡¯t trying as hard as they could have to restore Kevin to the throne. Four or five of them had been involved in the assault. Why not ten? I was more and more convinced that Bojack had let me win.
If that was true, then the true battle wasn¡¯t overcoming the demons. They were immortal, and they could respawn. The One Who Knocks wanted to turn me into his champion, and the way things were going, he would. I wanted to fool myself into believing that I was different, that I wouldn¡¯t become like Fladnag, or Kevin, or the other heroes he had told me about. But I wasn¡¯t that pure, I had never been. Going to Bedlam might be playing right into his hands, but the atreanum was our only hope of putting an end to the invasion once and for all. It wasn¡¯t a good choice, it just felt like the only one I had.
Gastard cleared his throat. I¡¯d fallen into my thoughts, staring at the claws at the ends of my fingertips, and the sound brought me out of it.
¡°Esmelda,¡± he said, ¡°will not be pleased.¡±
157: My Templars
The following day, we gathered in the great hall to knight our new templars. Virtually all the time in between had gone to fixing the cube, which was now a pyramid to save on construction, both the interior and exterior studded with torches. Raum had spit fire at me, and talking to him had proved fruitless. Given the security risk his presence presented, I¡¯d finished him off with the atreanum pick. It had done the job, and fallen apart shortly afterward as I examined the fresh cracks in its blade.
Broken tools didn¡¯t provide me with any harvestable materials. That was the last of our atreanum.
Three candidates knelt at the foot of the steps leading up to the throne. Gastard had spoken with Garron about the idea of reviving the institution of templars, not that Dargoth had ever had any, and he had selected three men from among the garrison.
Two of them, Hurin and Thrund, had taken part in the fight with Bojack. The third, Yent, was the brother of one of the men who had died. Thrund was broader and darker than Hurin, with a shaved head and deep-set eyes filled with gravity. Yent was stocky and ruddier in complexion. I didn¡¯t know if he looked like his brother or not, I¡¯d never seen the man out of his armor. His expression was determined, serious, and when he looked at me, there was none of the anger or bitterness that I deserved. He wanted to be here, to serve the kingdom. Becoming a templar would allow him to seek vengeance for his brother, though the blame for that death rested more on me than on the demons.
Dozens of witnesses stood in the hall, mostly members of the garrison, but palace staff and scribes as well. This wasn¡¯t something that had ever happened before, Kevin hadn¡¯t been big on handing out accolades or special privileges to people he thought of as NPCs. Zareth had already said a few words about honor and duty and the empire, and I wasn¡¯t sure how to follow it up.
We¡¯d settled on starting with three because my orb and my experience put a limit on how much enchanted equipment I could produce. If we were going to be tasking these guys with defending Mount Doom from demons, I wanted them to be fully geared for war.
The silence stretched out, and I still didn¡¯t know what to say. Being able to go without sleep was a demonic trait, and it was probably a good thing that it still affected me, but my hesitance was more than being mentally tired. Chances were, I was consigning these men to death or something arguably worse.
¡°Caliburn,¡± Esmelda held out her hand. ¡°Allow me.¡±
Over the last few days, I¡¯d noticed a change in her. She¡¯d killed Gremory, and though Gremory hadn¡¯t looked like the other demons, she had been one of them just the same. Esmelda hadn¡¯t grown fangs or claws, but there was something different in her eyes. The pale gray of her irises had become more reflective, and her hair had lightened a shade. These weren¡¯t bad things in and of themselves, but they were a reminder of what made this necessary.
I gave her the sword, and she descended the steps to rest it on Hurin¡¯s shoulder. He gazed up at her with something close to reverence.
¡°In the name of Dargoth and its throne, I hereby grant you the title of Templar. A shield of the realm, and a bright sword held against the shadow that encroaches upon it.¡± She seemed about to say something else, but she paused, swaying slightly.
Ding.
The notification sound. I was accustomed to hearing it from my System, but this was fainter. It was hers. Instead of stopping to check her screens, Esmelda continued the ceremony, repeating the same words for the other two.
The ceremony was finished soon after. I gave each of them a diamond sword, the rest of their equipment wasn¡¯t ready, but they needed to get something to mark their new status. They were going to be training personally with Gastard, relieved of their regular duties as guardsmen. In the short term, their main job was going to be watching Kevin, though one would go to Nargul when they were fully equipped.
Zareth thanked everyone for their attendance and cleared the hall, while Gastard took the newly anointed Templars aside to talk.
¡°Esmelda,¡± I said, ¡°what happened there?¡±
Leto had stood by the throne during the ceremony, and now he rushed to get a look at Esmelda¡¯s screens as soon as she activated them.
¡°What did you get?¡± He asked, crowding her.
Esmelda¡¯s mouth quirked down as she read through the notification. ¡°It appears that I have lost seven levels.¡±
¡°You what?¡± I focused on my aetheric sense for a moment to see if she felt any different, but it wasn¡¯t sensitive enough to detect any change.
¡°See for yourself.¡± She clicked away from her Status and held out her arm so I could better read the System message.
<<<>>>
Achievement: Entitled to Titles (1)
The burdens of rulership are beyond any single soul. An Heir has the right to imbue their trusted servants with a small portion of their essence, thereby granting them an aetheric title. Those imbued in this fashion are bound to the Heir, though loosely, through ties of loyalty and essence both. Titles grant small bonuses for the bearer when in pursuit of their duty to the Heir.
While you are free to grant any title you can imagine, they are most effective when aligned with the profession of the recipient, and only one title can be assigned to any individual. You can access a number of different titles equal to your achievement rank.
Rank 1 (Assigned): Templar.
Rank 2 (Pending): Grant nine titles to advance.
Templar: A shield of the realm, and a bright sword held against the shadow that encroaches upon it. The recipients of this title gain slight protection against the influence of Discord, increased mental fortitude, and the Favored Enemy (Demon) trait.
Note that titles do not a Hero make. Mortals so imbued do not advance or accrue essence more quickly than they otherwise would, and the effect of the title is set according to the Presence of the Heir at the time of application.
<<<>>>
¡°That¡¡± I said slowly, ¡°is way more information than I have ever gotten about an ability.¡±
¡°I want one,¡± Leto grabbed his mother¡¯s arm. ¡°Do me next.¡±
¡°It would be beneficial,¡± Esmelda reread the entry. ¡°A ¡®slight protection¡¯ is better than none.¡±
¡°If the power of the title is related to your Presence, it will be better after you hit level thirty,¡± I said. ¡°And every time you use it, that goal is going to get pushed farther back.¡± Survivors spent experience on enchantments. Gastard enhanced his weapon. Now we knew that Heirs could kind of enchant people. It was useful information, but it also got in the way of her getting an assessment. Level thirty was when the System assigned an entity rank, it marked the solidification of a hero¡¯s aetheric presence, their soul, and I wanted Esmelda¡¯s soul to be as solid as possible.
Obviously, protecting Leto was important, but it wasn¡¯t his job to fight demons. The best way to protect him was to keep him as far away from combat as possible.
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¡°Perhaps,¡± she said, tabbing back to her Status. ¡°The Favored Enemy achievements have enhanced my physical attributes, but my Presence remained unchanged.¡±
Leto made a dissatisfied noise, sensing the winds were not blowing in the direction of his being granted a title. ¡°But if you gave me one, I could fight too. You wouldn¡¯t have to worry about me so much.¡±
¡°It wouldn¡¯t make you like us,¡± I squeezed his shoulder. ¡°You¡¯re staying out of the way of any monsters either way.¡±
He frowned but didn¡¯t shift away from my hand. ¡°Can I train with them, at least?¡± His gaze fell on the new Templars.
¡°That will be up to Gastard,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°They may not want you underfoot.¡±
¡°I won¡¯t be,¡± he promised, running off to get a closer look at the diamond blades I had presented during the ceremony. Like Gastard¡¯s armor, the crystal weapons had a faintly bluish cast. They shouldn¡¯t have been viable except as display pieces, but the System made it so. I needed to get to work on crafting the rest of their gear.
¡°I¡¯ve been discussing diplomacy with Zareth,¡± Esmelda said, bringing me out of my thoughts. ¡°We¡¯ve let Henterfell sit for too long.¡±
Godwod, King Egald, it was all a mess. We didn¡¯t have any recent messages from that side of the Wastes, so it was possible the city had fallen while we were off putting out other fires. As much as I wanted to exact retribution on Godwod myself, it would be simpler if the situation managed itself. Asmodeus was stationed in Henterfell, as well as a demon I¡¯d never met.
¡°What are you thinking?¡±
¡°We should send messengers to King Egald, several, to be sure they arrive. The letters can explain that this is not the Dargoth he knew, and assure him that we are no longer backing Godwod or claiming any territory beyond the Wastes for this kingdom. If he is open to discussion, we could offer aid in returning Henterfell to his control.¡±
¡°I¡¯d be happy to do it, but we can¡¯t afford to have anyone go off on an adventure in the Free Kingdoms right now.¡±
¡°Perhaps not, but we will at least open the door to communication.¡±
¡°Hey, I¡¯m not against it. Write as many letters as you want.¡±
¡°The letters will be from you.¡±
¡°Lady of Dargoth, you have my permission to sign my name to as many documents as you like.¡±
¡°Very well,¡± she waved to Zareth, ¡°will I see you for dinner?¡±
¡°Absolutely.¡± I kissed the top of her head and set off for the forge.
My stock of useful enchanted books had dwindled to less than what I would need for a single set of armor. That meant I would have to craft more from scratch. Paper, leather, and gems weren¡¯t hard to come by, but making the books required as much essence as enchanting equipment. More, because I couldn¡¯t force the Enchanting Table to give me exactly what I wanted, and instead had to select from the options it generated. A quest reward had given me the ability to read the relevant runes, which would save on waste, but it was still going to be expensive.
If Hurin, Thrund, and Yent were going to defend Mount Doom in my stead, they needed to be as prepared as humanly possible. There wasn¡¯t enough orichalcum to go around, but diamond was almost as good. The only worry there was that it would require more frequent repairs if Mending wasn¡¯t applied to everything.
The Essence Stone was blazing with light, the looted spiritual energy of two demons, but as my pile of enchanted books grew, its inner fire dimmed into a few meager embers before going out entirely. That was my sign to move on. I was going to be digging into my levels to apply the enchantments, and the books I had were the books I had.
I tried to keep the three sets of armor relatively even, they each got a few copies of Protection and Unbreaking. Mending went to the chestplates, as those pieces tended to take the most hits, and there ended up being an uneven distribution of Thorns, Fire Resistance, and Feather Fall. They wouldn¡¯t be as well off as Gastard or me, but it was sufficient to give the Templars a fighting chance.
¡°When were you planning on telling me?¡±
¡°Gah!¡± I dropped the stack of medallions in my hand, and one of them went rolling perilously close to the edge of the platform and the lava below. Esmelda stopped it with her foot. She¡¯d snuck up on me, or else this was a warning that I needed to be more aware of my surroundings while I worked. Being on my knees to pick up dropped coins put my head relatively on the level of Esmelda¡¯s.
¡°Tell you what?¡± I asked.
¡°Gastard brought up your intention to venture into Bedlam with Kevin as your sole companion.¡± She did not look happy. ¡°I believe he was under the impression that we had already discussed it.¡±
¡°Next on my list,¡± I said, ¡°Sorry.¡±
She put her hand against my cheek, it felt cool in the heat of the forge. ¡°My answer is no,¡± she said.
¡°No?¡±
¡°You can¡¯t go alone, not again.¡±
¡°I wouldn¡¯t be alone.¡±
¡°Alone with an enemy,¡± she snapped, pulling her hand back, ¡°that¡¯s worse!¡±
¡°He¡¯ll be oathbound,¡± I said, getting up. I¡¯d been dreading this conversation. ¡°And he¡¯s going to see it as being in his best interest to cooperate.¡±
¡°Madness, absolute madness. What kind of guide could he be? How could you trust anything he told you when every step you take in that realm could place you in a trap?¡±
¡°I¡¯ll make sure he steps first.¡± It was a flippant response, and she didn¡¯t like it. As her face darkened, I rushed on. ¡°We need the atreanum, and we need him to find it. I know it¡¯s not ideal, but these are the tools we have to work with.¡±
¡°That doesn¡¯t mean you have to go alone.¡±
¡°We have people to protect here, we can¡¯t all go.¡±
¡°Is that not why we dubbed the Templars? They can hold the wall while we are gone.¡±
¡°What about Leto? He can¡¯t come with us. Do you think those three are enough to keep him safe?¡±
She turned her back on me, her dress swirling, and stalked to the edge of the platform to look up through the opening of the caldera far above. A clear sky, an impossible sight not so long ago. Her voice was a small thing in a vast space.
¡°Gastard can remain.¡±
I came close enough to reach for her, but didn¡¯t. ¡°There could be another time sink.¡±
¡°That¡¯s what I¡¯m afraid of.¡±
¡°If we both go, we could both be caught. If it¡¯s just me, Leto still has you.¡±
She went quiet, and the pit sizzled beneath us.
¡°Take Gastard.¡± The words seemed to be pulled out of her.
¡°I think you should both stay.¡±
¡°You¡¯re wrong,¡± she faced me, the light at her back, an uncanny luminance shining in the rings of her eyes. ¡°It has to be both of you, or not at all.¡±
¡°What if we don¡¯t come back?¡±
¡°Then it will be one hero against the shadow, as it was before we received our blessings. I will name a hundred templars, call upon the warriors of Atlan, and the Free Kingdoms, and we will fight together to overthrow Gundurgon.¡± She was so small, so fierce, and I believed her.
We could do that now. Forget Bedlam, bury Kevin somewhere the demons would never find, and let him starve. Let others land the killing blows, and spread the taint of Discord among many instead of few. I almost said it, almost promised I would stay and that we would find a way to finish this without relying on the resources of an alien realm.
Esmelda saw something in my face, and her gaze softened. ¡°Are you alright?¡±
My stomach somersaulted, and I took two steps away from her before vomiting all over an anvil. Black, acrid liquid spilled out of my mouth, and a sudden wave of dizziness nearly caused me to fall. Esmelda caught me, though there was no way she could have carried me if my full weight came down.
¡°Goddess,¡± she swore, ¡°what is this?¡±
The dark soup that had splattered the anvil contained traces of white thread that for a dull moment my mind interpreted as spiderwebs. It wasn¡¯t though, it was mycelium. The roots of nascent fungus. That was new.
¡°Corruption,¡± I said. ¡°It¡¯s working its way through me.¡±
¡°What about your potions?¡±
¡°They won¡¯t help,¡± I wiped the foulness from the sides of my mouth, ¡°I¡¯m not hurt.¡±
¡°What about milk?¡±
That made me smile. Milk had been enough to save Leto from Fladnag¡¯s poison, and I¡¯d had the same thought after the Taint started making me feel nauseated. ¡°Had some this morning. It doesn¡¯t do anything.¡±
It wasn¡¯t just atreanum that we needed. Kevin was the only one who could teach me how to use runes, and burying him wasn¡¯t going to get him to talk. Even if I never killed another demon, I was going to get worse.
¡°I¡¯ll take Gastard,¡± I said. ¡°You can hold down the fort while I¡¯m gone, like you said.¡±
Esmelda didn¡¯t respond, her gaze wide and worried, both her hands knitting tightly around one of mine.
158: My Reluctant Party Member
How tame was tame? Though the pens had been cleared, and the wandering monsters rooted out of the fortress, five wyverns still lived in the aery. They were chained, and I handled the feedings myself when I could, but the handlers had to be wary of them, and we weren¡¯t sending letters by air anymore.
Esmelda had written to King Egard, Torgudai, and Boffin about the future of Dargoth, and horses were currently carrying those messages away from the mountain. I was the only person flying on the wyverns, but I didn¡¯t want to kill them. Harpies had taken to roosting in the aery as well, and the birds were surprisingly comfortable with the larger predators, often landing and preening within reach of their jaws. They seemed to consider them honorary members of the flock.
¡°We must speak.¡± Celaeno perched on the back of a resting wyvern, the same beast I¡¯d ridden to Nargul. They didn¡¯t have names. I still felt bad about what had happened to Noivern, but this one was easy to recognize, with a line of green scales over his beady eyes.
¡°Sure,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯m sorry I haven¡¯t caught up with you since the battle.¡±
She bobbed her head, acknowledging my apology, and chirped. ¡°Yes. The battle. There is much flesh, more than we can eat. Still, we lost too many sisters. We cannot fight for you as we did.¡±
¡°Are you saying you¡¯re going into retirement?¡± That sucked, but I didn¡¯t blame her. The flock had done more for me than I could have asked for, risking arrows and fangs alike. They got something out of it, but getting to eat phantoms every night wasn¡¯t worth anything if they all ended up dying.
¡°We will remain close,¡± she said. ¡°But the demons are beyond us. If they come again, we will flee.¡±
I¡¯d never kept a running count of my gang, but I¡¯d noticed fewer homies in the sky every time we had a major conflict. Their numbers had ballooned during the ten years they spent in the Free Kingdoms, and ever since my return, they had been throwing themselves into conflicts on my behalf.
¡°I won¡¯t ask you to keep fighting for me,¡± I said, ¡°but the flock is invaluable for scouting and communication.¡± For obvious reasons, we couldn¡¯t send a scary black bird with a letter for King Egard; it would never reach its recipient, but they were perfect for passing notes within Dargoth¡¯s borders.
Celaeno ground her beak and adjusted her footing as the wyvern shifted under her. They¡¯d already been fed, but the beasts always watched my hands closely in case I was about to turn coins into fresh meat.
¡°We will watch the skies for you, carry your words, but we cannot give more until the flock has recovered.¡±
¡°I understand.¡±
Her eyes flashed, and her head quirked to one side as she examined me. ¡°You have changed again. Your future is clouded.¡±
¡°Isn¡¯t the future always cloudy?¡± It was hard to tell if Celaeno had psychic powers or if she was just intuitive. The harpies might have something like an aetheric sense of their own. She¡¯d warned me about the Pebbleheart, though she hadn¡¯t known exactly what it was, and she regularly made cryptic comments about fate. It was more ominous monologuing than actionable information.
¡°Yes,¡± she said. ¡°But not like this. The veil is thin, and an ocean presses on the other side.¡±
¡°I¡¯m planning on going to Bedlam soon. Do you think that¡¯s a bad idea?¡±
Celaeno clacked her beak. ¡°I cannot say. The world bends around you, but you may bend as well.¡±
She was right about that.
***
There was now a platform around Kevin¡¯s cell. The absence of a path between it and the entrance to the cube had never hindered anyone but me, so I¡¯d abandoned the practice of packing up my bridge whenever I left. Besides, it wasn¡¯t just me visiting today.
¡°I don¡¯t like it,¡± Kevin said, his thick mouth turning down. Some of his hair had fallen out, and what was left was an oily mess parted to the left. His blackened eye flicked between Esmelda, Gastard and me, unnervingly independent of the other.
¡°Those are the terms,¡± I said. ¡°You can accept them, or I can move you so deep underground that we don¡¯t have to worry about spawns and leave you there.¡±
Esmelda had just finished explaining his oath to him. It was stricter than what Bojack had done to me, and with Gastard¡¯s skill behind it, the penalty would be more immediate. Kevin was forbidden from attacking the three of us or anyone who wasn¡¯t a demon or a mob, even in self-defense. Anything I told him to do would be treated as an order that could not be disobeyed. We had to be careful about the wording. Oaths could be violated with thought crime, and that would have worked to his advantage because of the nature of the curse.
The paralysis needed to only be triggered by action, not feelings or intent. Otherwise, he could decide to push me off a cliff, freeze for however long the curse froze him, and then do it during the cooldown period.
We were speaking through a gap in a foot-thick diamond wall, so his body looked a little distorted, but I saw his claw clench beside his waist. ¡°I don¡¯t want to go to Bedlam,¡± he said.
¡°That¡¯s what I need you for.¡± If he didn¡¯t want to go, that was a good thing, unless this was an act intended to make me think he didn¡¯t already have a plan for how he was going to betray me on the other side. ¡°You¡¯ll be teaching me Inscription as well, but how you behave in Bedlam is going to decide how many privileges I can afford to give you when we get back.¡±
¡°Privileges?¡± he scoffed. ¡°I should be free.¡±
¡°You should be dead,¡± Gastard said flatly. ¡°That you live at all is a privilege you do not deserve.¡±
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Kevin shot him a murderous look, but kept his tongue. What an achievement.
¡°This isn¡¯t a negotiation,¡± Esmelda said. Considering everything Kevin had done, it was impressive how calm she sounded. There was no anger in her voice. She could have been explaining a lesson to a child. ¡°We will fight this war without you if you do not agree. If you are unwilling to do as we ask, that is the end of this discussion.¡±
Kevin ignored her, choosing to address me instead. ¡°You¡¯ve gotten worse. If I don¡¯t help you now, you¡¯ll be like Kael the next time I see you.¡±
He might have been right. I hadn¡¯t been fantasizing about eating people, but I could feel something going wrong in my mental state. My mind kept drifting to a conversation I¡¯d had with Gremory. She¡¯d told me that after the One Who Knocks passed through Plana, I could become something very close to a god. The prospect was becoming more and more tempting. What did mortals matter if I had the power to shape the world into anything I wanted? Esmelda would be safe. Maybe I would be strong enough to make Leto a hero too. My family could live forever. We could rule freely, untroubled by demons.
That my internal dialogue had ever included the word ¡°mortals¡± referring to regular people was a massive red flag.
¡°You wouldn¡¯t see me,¡± I said. ¡°Even if I did decide to give Plana to the demons, that wouldn¡¯t make us buddies. The One Who Knocks wouldn¡¯t need you any more than I did. You¡¯d starve to death, maybe a few times, and then give up. Whatever happened to your soul after that, why would I care?¡±
Kevin took his time in replying. He knew how precarious his position was.
¡°There might be some atreanum,¡± he said. ¡°You never know with Bedlam. It changes too much, and I haven¡¯t been there in forever. The island was way off from my base, and it could have moved too far for us to ever find it.¡±
¡°We won¡¯t know that until we look.¡±
¡°You¡¯re still a noob,¡± he raised his voice, ¡°we won¡¯t make it! You should just let me teach you runes.¡±
¡°You will teach me,¡± I said. ¡°But we are going to start in Bedlam. We¡¯re going to spend some time together over there before I¡¯m willing to even give you a chance to cause problems for me here.¡±
No matter what happened in Bedlam, I had no intention of giving him his freedom. He couldn¡¯t be trusted out of my sight. Kevin had to know that. Still, we weren¡¯t going to put any other options on the table for him. Maybe he was deluded enough to believe I really would let him go when we got back, that he would charm us all into complacency. Even if he wasn¡¯t, live burial was not an idle threat. His window of opportunity ended right here.
I could hear him grinding his teeth. That eye kept moving like it was looking for a way out, but the cell was as solid as it had ever been.
¡°Fine, let¡¯s get this over with.¡±
Gastard demanded that Kevin kneel, which he did with grumbling and dark looks, before putting his hand through the window and placing it atop the former Dark Lord¡¯s head.
¡°Under the light of Gotte, give your oath to William.¡±
Esmelda fed Kevin the words, and we all listened carefully as he repeated them. The sigil on the back of Gastard¡¯s hand glowed white, then tinged with red. When the oath finished, the light vanished, and he got a notification ding. He stepped away from the wall so I could break it down and we could give the oath a test.
¡°I want my armor,¡± Kevin said as the diamonds disappeared under the swings of Durin¡¯s Digger. ¡°And that¡¯s my pick. Give it back.¡±
When there was nothing between us, I pushed him. He stumbled back, snarled, and threw out his hands to grab the tool in mine. Kevin froze, muscles straining, his face still twisted in anger.
¡°One steam engine,¡± I said, ¡°Two steam engines¡¡±
His paralysis lasted twenty seconds, at which point he dropped his hands and pouted.
¡°You did that on purpose,¡± he said sullenly. ¡°You could have told me.¡±
¡°Wouldn¡¯t have been authentic.¡± Twenty seconds wasn¡¯t a long time, but it would be more than enough to take him out if he suddenly decided to push me into a lava pit. The question was what kind of grace period he had between punishments.
¡°Walk in a clockwise circle,¡± I said.
¡°I¡¯m not your toy,¡± he folded his arms over his chest. ¡°Give me my armor and we can go already.¡±
¡°Not yet. Walk in a clockwise circle.¡± He tried to move past me, and I pushed him back in the cell. I wasn¡¯t being rough with him, but I wouldn¡¯t let him out, either, and I kept repeating the command. Soon he had frozen again, this time in mid-step.
¡°Two minutes,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°or close to it.¡±
Gastard was looking at his status screen. ¡°The Oath cost me, but its enforcement does not. I feel it when he resists, a weight upon my spirit, but that is not reflected here.¡±
¡°Satisfied?¡± Kevin came free of the paralysis. Twenty seconds exactly. ¡°I told you it would work. You don¡¯t have to be a dick about it.¡±
¡°Had to make sure,¡± I said, pointing to an open section of the platform and summoning a chest from the Storage Ring. ¡°Your stuff is in there.¡±
Kevin brushed past me to flip open the lid of the chest, then stared at its contents for a long moment.
¡°This is bull¡ª¡±
***
Not long after, we had gathered in the cathedral-like structure dedicated to the portal. Kevin, Gastard and I were standing on the dais before the Stargate along with every wyvern from the aery. They weren¡¯t chained, but I¡¯d led them through the fortress like a pack of giant, winged dogs, and they hadn¡¯t caused any trouble. I still wasn¡¯t ready to give them proper names, but I could easily tell them apart, and was thinking of them as Alpha through Epsilon. They had harnesses and packs, though most of the resources we were taking with us were in my inventory. Keeping a chest full of coins in extra-dimensional space wasn¡¯t convenient for retrieval, but I was tired of having my potion smashed when I carried them around in a backpack.
Esmelda, Leto, and Zareth were standing below the dais to see us off. We¡¯d already said our goodbyes. Nothing too dramatic or full of promises. This wasn¡¯t a time to be dropping flags.
¡°Go ahead,¡± I told Kevin, ¡°activate it.¡±
The former Dark Lord glared at me, his face hidden by a Halloween mask. He was dressed in a complete set of zombie leathers, with unenchanted iron tools strapped to his back and not a single blade to his name. Oath or no oath, I would rather have him stay out of combat than provide him with the equipment that would make him a threat. He¡¯d never been very good at sword fighting anyway.
I held out Caliburn for him to prick his finger on its point. He let a droplet fall onto the base of the obsidian arch and the air ripped open, replaced by the alien snow roiling between the realms. It didn¡¯t smell like eggs this time. The scent of freshly baked gingerbread cookies wafted from the silently screaming maw of chaos, making me wonder what exactly in the space between worlds smelled like that. Probably nothing delicious.
Turning toward Esmelda and Leto, I gave them a stiff salute. She smiled at me and shook her head. Leto waved, barely paying attention to me as the portal drew his gaze.
¡°What are you doing?¡± Kevin demanded as I took his hand in mine.
¡°Just wanted to make sure we went through together,¡± I said. ¡°It''s a bumpy ride.¡±
The wyverns didn¡¯t hesitate to hop through when I commanded them to. For them, it was going home. One bulky body disappeared after another, and then it was our turn.
159: My Runes
¡°You just tried to draw them?¡± Kevin was looking over my rune sketches, the pages spread across a worktable I¡¯d dropped in an empty glass room. He picked up a drawing and made a disgusted sound. ¡°What¡¯s your Artisan? Five?¡±
¡°Fifteen,¡± I said. ¡°And I don¡¯t have any progress in Inscription. I don¡¯t know what I¡¯m doing wrong.¡±
¡°Everything.¡± he let go of the page and let it drift to the floor. ¡°You can¡¯t do runes manually unless your skill is over twenty. You¡¯re going to have to use the worktable. This one¡¯s for Protection. Is that what you want to make?¡±
¡°It¡¯s the only one I know. How many runes are there?¡± So I wasn¡¯t on the completely wrong track, but I was glad to hear I would not have to physically carve the runes. There were recipes.
¡°Eh¡¡± Kevin shrugged. ¡°I know five. That¡¯s all Jason taught me. Protection, Speaking, Fixation, Unbreaking, and Shadowbane.¡±
¡°Three of those are enchantments.¡±
¡°They¡¯re all enchantments. Or, like, enchantments are runes. Bundles of them, so they do one thing, but they have to be complicated to be simple.¡±
While his lecture script could use some work, that made sense. My System was a module that functioned according to deeper laws, however the universe actually worked. Something like Feather Fall slowed me down when I was dropping. But how did the enchantment know when I was falling as opposed to kicking someone? It wasn¡¯t just the speed my boots were moving. Using an enchantment was like double-clicking an app. There had to be a lot going on under the surface of a seemingly simple plug-and-play.
¡°And Protection makes a force field? What do the others do?¡±
¡°Unbreaking and Shadowbane are like the enchantments. Shadowbane is what you need to slow down the corruption. My armor has them built in.¡± He looked at me, raising his withered hand. ¡°That¡¯s why you should give me my armor.¡±
¡°Once I trust you more, maybe.¡± Gastard was walking around the perimeter, visible through the walls. I was glad he wasn¡¯t a part of this conversation. He would have some strong opinions about giving Kevin any of his old equipment. The wyverns were outside as well, resting beside a lava pool. ¡°Speaking and Fixation, what do they do?¡±
Kevin¡¯s gaze followed mine when I looked out toward Gastard. His eyes narrowed, and he moved around the table to where Gastard was directly behind him, blocking my view. ¡°Speaking makes paired objects. If you talk into one, your voice comes out of the other.¡±
¡°Wait, did the tin cans on your train have runes in them?¡±
¡°Yeah,¡± he nodded, ¡°did you think I was just stupid or something?¡±
¡°No.¡± No need to get into that. ¡°I wish I had realized and copied them. Does Fixation stick objects together? Is that the magic behind stacking blocks?¡±
¡°Kind of. It¡¯s a part of it. But the runes make stuff float. They stay in place, so you can have blocks that aren¡¯t supported by anything.¡±
Leaf blocks did that automatically, and having blocks staying in place without support could definitely be useful, but there had to be more to it. ¡°When I was in Bedlam before,¡± I said, ¡°at one of Jason¡¯s bases, there was a cart that flew from island to island. Was it runes that let him set that up?¡±
¡°You went to Jason¡¯s base?¡± Kevin¡¯s eyes lit up. ¡°Where?¡±
¡°A mine in the Free Kingdoms. It¡¯s where I got my old armor. You don¡¯t have any of those flying carts here, though. Do you know how to make them?¡±
He frowned. ¡°It would be runes. Fixation and Speaking, maybe. There are more I don¡¯t have. If I go there, I can tell you. Jason was a jerk. He moved his portals after he decided he didn¡¯t like me, and once he was gone, I couldn¡¯t find them.¡±
That was one way to describe it. Jason had realized Kevin was a sociopath and started hiding his stuff. The world was wide, and unless he dug down to investigate every square mile of Plana, Kevin would never find the old portals. That Fixation and Speaking could combine that way was fascinating. Did speaking transfer more than sound? Could you use it to move something at a distance, transfer essence maybe?
I kept asking questions and got the feeling that Kevin had never spent a lot of time pondering the fundamental laws of the universe. You crafted runes by placing coins in the grid in a simplified version of the rune for the effect you wanted. Each coin had to be of the same material, so for his perimeter fence, he¡¯d generated hundreds of individual blocks and placed them in a connected line.
The redstone wasn¡¯t necessary, but it helped prevent the force field from burning out. The barriers weren¡¯t all powerful, and there were entities in Bedlam that could break through his shield even with the reinforcement. Runed materials could be used for crafting exactly like regular materials, so you could potentially make an indestructible furnace, or a floating minecart, or whatever.
Because runes were functionally a version of enchantment, crafting them came with an experience cost. Finishing the equipment for my templars had brought me down to level six. The cost in levels was lower than it had been before my assessment, but it also took me longer to gain them, so that was a wash.
Shadowbane was the most important. According to Kevin, if my Artisan skill was high enough, I could tattoo myself, but I would otherwise need to craft equipment from runed materials to gain the benefits. That meant giving up some of my current equipment. I settled on replacing my boots, as they only required four ingots to craft, and they didn¡¯t have a huge armor rating to begin with. Though I didn¡¯t have any spare enchanted books to add into them, and it would lower my defense overall, having the added resistance to taint was not something I could pass up right now.
Kevin gave me the recipe, and because I didn¡¯t have any extra orichalcum, I crafted steel ingots from iron and coal before combining them into runed ingots. The result was straightforward, a normal ingot with a blocky rune stamped in the metal. It felt warm in my hand, arriving with a minor drop in my level advancement.
When I crafted them into boots, they felt wrong. They weren¡¯t uncomfortable, exactly, but as I walked around the worktable wearing them, they gave me a negative feeling. It wasn¡¯t something I could put my finger on. These boots just needed to come off.
Kevin smirked. ¡°You don¡¯t like them, do you?¡±
¡°You have something to tell me?¡±
¡°Not really. You¡¯re already tainted, and your corruption is telling you that the runes are bad. Wearing them won¡¯t fix you, but it will slow down your decline.¡± He looked at his corrupted hand. ¡°I wore my armor all the time. It helped. I thought it made me better. It didn¡¯t, though. It held all this back, and when I died, it got worse. You and me, we¡¯re headed to the same place. I¡¯ve just been on the road longer than you.¡±
That wasn¡¯t ideal. I wanted to get back to normal, shed my more monstrous traits, and not have to worry about throwing up mushrooms in the future. Still, that the boots felt weird was evidence that they were doing something. Once I built up my experience reservoir again, I could craft an entire set and enchant them to my heart¡¯s content. Anything to interfere with the absorption of demonic essence.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Kevin didn¡¯t have a map. He¡¯d had several in the past, and he¡¯d torn them all up in successive hissy fits. Jason¡¯s minecart network had allowed me to travel to different islands despite being in constant motion because his stop stations were all linked. Kevin¡¯s maps had failed him, and he hadn¡¯t been motivated to work out a solution.
The islands tended to orbit each other, however, and though they were always moving, they did so like constellations caught in mutual gravity. Kevin¡¯s base was on a lava rich hunk of bedlamite a few miles in diameter.
There wasn¡¯t much to worry about here aside from the magma slimes. Fire elementals spawned every once in a while, and he¡¯d used their cores to craft brewing stands, but they could be handled with Splash potions that were just water and gunpowder. Other islands floated in the void, though they weren¡¯t as tightly packed as I had seen around Jason¡¯s base.
¡°Can you get us close to the atreanum?¡± I asked.
¡°If that¡¯s what you want.¡± Kevin slid on the leather mask I had made for him. ¡°When both of you die, I guess I¡¯m free.¡±
We drank Fire Resistance potions before going outside, where Gastard was keeping his distance from the wyverns. Tame or not, he didn¡¯t care for monsters, and he was never enthusiastic about the prospect of riding them. We had enough Elytrons for each of us to wear one, and we would, but they weren¡¯t reliable for long distance flight, and too easy to lose control of in the unpredictable currents of Bedlam.
As soon as I flipped the switch to deactivate a section of the barrier, a magma slime rose out of the closest pool to lurch toward us. Gastard¡¯s sword rang as he pulled it from its sheath, and Kevin backed away. Rather than try to sword fight a living blob of molten rock, I summoned a bottle of sparkling water and threw it at the mob.
The embers that served as its eyes crossed when the bottle flew at the center of its melting face. Glass popped, and the alchemic liquid sprayed, darkening the front half of its body. With its face solidified, the blob had trouble hopping, and after being hit with two more bottles, it slouched into a semi-solid pile like a massive, partially molten turd. Its eyes winked out, and we led the wyverns from the entrance into a field of cracked and carbonized stone.
¡°There are more of them,¡± Gastard said as a small group of smaller blobs approached us from across the barren landscape. He looked ready to start stabbing lava.
¡°There¡¯s nothing here,¡± Kevin said. ¡°Let''s fly already.¡±
The barrier would shut automatically in a few more seconds. It wouldn¡¯t open from the outside, so we¡¯d have to dig our way back in when we returned. Not fun when you had to worry about magma mobs sliding into a tunnel after you, and a major problem for Gastard if he had to return alone. Kevin hadn¡¯t built this place to be convenient for other people.
Alpha lowered his green scaled face when I told him to kneel, and we climbed atop the wyverns. They had no trouble taking off, a combination of the hot air under the wings from the lava pools and the health benefits of being back on their home plane. We were soon well out of reach of any leaping slime, and as we spiraled up, I watched the mobs squelch and slop around beneath us.
¡°You can take point,¡± I called to Kevin over the wingbeats of our mounts. It wasn¡¯t phrased as an order. The more direct commands I gave him, the more opportunities he would have to surreptitiously trigger his paralysis and potentially act out. Though an improvement over the Curse of Weakness, the control the oath gave us was far from ideal.
He urged his wyvern forward with me slightly behind and Gastard holding the rear, along with the spare mounts. Unless I told them otherwise, the wyverns followed me like puppies. They were in high spirits, trilling and chirping like birds, delighted to be home.
We were almost in the void when I looked back to see a burning shape ascending from the island. It wasn¡¯t as big as the blobs, ephemeral, a being born from fire. Shouting a warning, I used my legs to guide Alpha down toward a relatively lava-free plateau. Fighting a fire elemental in the air was an invitation to a precipitous drop. The wyverns might be at home in Bedlam, but this wasn¡¯t their natural biome, and they wouldn¡¯t be of any use with their wings burned off.
The others followed me, sighting the threat, and the elemental was almost on top of us when we landed. I slipped off Alpha in time to get hit by a fireball. It wasn¡¯t any stronger than Raum¡¯s had been, and did little more than startle the wyverns, who took off in every direction. The Resistance potions would wear off in a few minutes, and that was fine. They only needed to last long enough to get us off of this island.
The upper half of the elemental was vaguely human shaped, at least it had a torso and a pair of arms, while its lower half was a wispy tail of ember and ash. A few blackened stones orbited the bright orb of its core in its waist as it flew back and forth, harrying us with melon sized balls of flame.
It was fast, nimble, and supported by slimes. As soon as we landed, the magma blobs began their approach. Gastard and Kevin held them off. Kevin was equipped with a bandolier of Splash potions, water and healing, nothing that could hurt us, and he used them to good effect. Gastard was having more trouble. He could kill a slime with his sword, but he had to winnow them down first.
The large blobs split into a pair when sliced, and the mediums divided into smalls. He had to kill four to kill one, all the while engaging in an increasingly elaborate dance to keep himself from being swamped by molten rock.
I lost a few bottles trying to hit the elemental, took a few more hits, and summoned my bow. It had more trouble dodging arrows than the bottles, and the Shadowbane enhanced heads tore holes in the flaming form. It had no voice, the only sound it made was the whoosh of its fireballs as they soared through the air and the roar when they landed.
Our Fire Resistance was ticking down, and the blobs were multiplying. I absorbed another blast with my shoulder before switching to Knockback arrows and launching one straight for its core. The blunted tip plunked against the crystal ball, and in the same instant, the enchantment¡¯s effect ejected it from the center of the ring of stones orbiting around its waist.
The fire winked out, and the orb fell into a pool of lava. I jogged over to retrieve it, but it had already sunk, and the elemental would soon reincorporate.
¡°Buckets?¡± Kevin asked, slinking up behind me.
¡°I¡¯ve got one. I almost never use them.¡±
¡°Amateur.¡±
¡°Shouldn''t you be dousing magma blobs?¡±
Kevin patted his leathers. ¡°I''m all out. Got a healing potion if you want it.¡±
¡°Gentlemen!¡± Gastard shouted, surrounded by a crowd of hopping mobs hot enough to melt steel. ¡°Are you finished?¡± His sword flashed, and one split into two, adding to his problems.
I drew Caliburn and helped Gastard clear a space for the wyverns to land, slicing blobs until they stopped blobbing. If nothing else, grinding out mobs here would recover enough essence to do some more rune work. But we needed to be gone before the elemental resurfaced.
Kevin, clad in leathers, and with a weapon that would break before the blobs did, tiptoed around us, trying to stay out of the way and avoid being jumped by stray lumps of animate magma.
Alpha swooped down when I called, with the others following. Gastard grimaced whenever he was forced to mount a wyvern, but he was a man who would do what he felt had to be done, and the beasts were our only reliable form of transportation in Bedlam.
A few minutes later, we left the burning island behind and crossed the space between landmasses. It was hard to avoid feeling a vertigo with an infinite abyss beneath you. The physics of Bedlam left a lot open to interpretation. Obviously, there was air here, as all of us were breathing normally, but why was there air here? And how did the islands all seem to have local gravity despite not being massive enough to generate it? Not that I was complaining. Doing a spacewalk would have been an enormous hassle.
Though there was no map to guide us, Kevin¡¯s memory of the island constellations was enough to put us generally in the right direction. At least I hoped it was. After the hot spot, the first island we crossed was a desert of white sand. Obsidian towers jutted from its surface, and Voidmen wandered the dunes. It was uncomfortably close to the End Island from the game, but there was no dragon there to challenge us. No flying mobs at all.
From there, we flew to a body of water that curled around itself like a Mobius Strip. Phantoms dipped in and out of the ever-flowing sea. They moved in schools, hunting smaller, darting fish that were equally unaffected by the laws of gravity and inertia. This island, if it could be called an island, had no solid land at all.
¡°There are source blocks in there.¡± Kevin called over the rushing of the water.
¡°Water source blocks?¡± I asked.
¡°Yeah, but they swarm you if you get close.¡±
There were hundreds of phantoms, if not thousands, and something else moving beneath the curving rapids. A shadow in the blue-black ribbon, big as a whale. Being dragged underwater by a kulu once was more than enough for me.
¡°Good to know,¡± I said. ¡°Let''s keep going.¡±
We could already see the swamp.
160: My Jungle Journey
There were more mushrooms than I ever wanted to see in my life. It was still a swamp, or at least it smelled like one, but the fungal jungle was so dense and massive that all I could see was the canopy. We landed on a greenish-white cap that was bigger than a helicopter pad and spread out to take stock of our surroundings.
¡°This place reeks of death,¡± Gastard said, stepping away from the wyverns to peer out over the fungal expanse. Though his attitudes toward the winged beasts were far from positive, he treated Beta respectfully, patting its flank for a job well done before he left it. A mount was a mount, and some habits were ingrained.
¡°No shit,¡± Kevin said. It was a casual remark, issued without feeling, but Gastard did not take it casually. He strode across the cap, grabbed the former Dark Lord by the collar of his leather tunic, and put him on the ground.
It happened so fast I didn''t see exactly what he did. Just that one moment Kevin was on his feet and the next he was on his back.
¡°You will address me with courtesy,¡± Gastard said cooly, crouching over him.
Kevin had frozen, the curse preventing him from responding physically. For the moment, he couldn''t even speak.
Gastard let him go and backed away, waiting to see what he would do. Kevin''s oath required him to follow my orders, not Gastard¡¯s, and here was the reason. Giving him a command like that would have been bound to cause problems. We needed the curse to stop Kevin from betraying us, not to stop him from being rude. When the paralysis wore off, he would be free to act how he wanted, if only for a minute.
Kevin got up, his face blank, and acted like nothing had happened.
¡°There should be some atreanum in the center of the island. When I came here before, I didn''t find it, but I know there''s meta-material here. If you take out Digger, you¡¯ll feel it pull.¡±
I summoned the pick and held it out in front of me. The Fortune enchantment turned equipment into dowsing rods for special materials, and the effect weakened with distance. While it wasn¡¯t exactly dragging me anywhere, when I swung it slowly from side to side, I felt a mild resistance moving through part of the arc. The island was big, stretching for hundreds of miles, not that I had a way to estimate the total distance accurately. For the Fortune enchantment to be doing anything, either there had to be a little something close to where we¡¯d landed, or a massive deposit farther in.
¡°How do we know it¡¯s atreanum?¡± I asked.
¡°You don¡¯t.¡± Kevin held out his arms, then dropped them. ¡°Could be any meta-material, but Jason always said that he found atreanum in swamps. Could be a couple of them. Orichalcum comes from the bones of dragons. Cerulium and Sanguinum are magic run-off, like toxic sludge from a nuclear power plant. I have no idea where Viridium comes from, never found any, and Jason didn¡¯t either. I just know that it exists. Atreanum is an overload, or like, you know, something really bad happens. It¡¯s the black hole of magic metals. Something big breaks down and swallows itself and you end up with atreanum.¡±
¡°Dragon bones?¡± Gastard said. ¡°Surely, you jest.¡±
¡°Doesn¡¯t have to be dragons,¡± even though Kevin was answering Gastard¡¯s question, he was talking to me like the other man didn¡¯t exist, ¡°big entities, old ones. The rest of the body gets eaten after they die, but the regular spawns can¡¯t do anything with a material that dense. They chew the fat and leave the good stuff for us.¡±
¡°Why don¡¯t the demons use it?¡± I asked. ¡°Or Towk, or someone. It has to be valuable whether you''re a crafter or not.¡±
¡°I think they do, some of them.¡± Kevin shrugged. ¡°Bedlam¡¯s big, and mostly empty. There are probably monsters here that munch on orichalcum like its taffy. But I don¡¯t know, I¡¯ve found stuff. It exists. Why question it?¡±
Spoken like someone who didn¡¯t care how a thing worked, only that it did.
¡°Tell me what happened last time you were here.¡± There had to be a reason he hadn¡¯t already mined everything there was to mine.
Kevin gave me the short version. The last time he had ventured this far into Bedlam was after a skirmish with forces from Thallasso. They had magic, though unlike the shamans of Atlan, it wasn¡¯t specifically geared toward fighting Discord. Their sorcerers could animate water, pumping out bespoke elementals that were hard to kill because Shadowbane had no effect on them. Atreanum would have come in handy, so he¡¯d overcome his aversion to Bedlam long enough to do some exploration.
There were zombies aplenty, and hollows, and before he¡¯d come across the deposit, he¡¯d run into a more advanced monster and retreated empty-handed.
¡°It was a super-hollow,¡± he said. ¡°Three heads, three sets of arms, a snake tail. It kept regenerating any damage I did, and wouldn''t let me get close to where Digger was taking me, so I just left. I hadn¡¯t died in a long time, and I especially didn¡¯t want to die here. It wasn¡¯t worth it. Got some water demons to deal with the Thalassians, and that was it.¡±
¡°What happens if you die in Bedlam?¡± I asked.
¡°Maybe nothing. Zelda still has dibs on your soul, so you could go back to her. But it¡¯s not for sure. Out here, there are entities waiting to catch heroes before they reincarnate. Towk could do it, if he was paying attention. Or you could get stuck in something. It¡¯s risky, is all. Like I said, not worth it.¡±
What he was describing sounded like a Wither, a mob from Maincraft that only appeared if you crafted it yourself. It was ridiculously hard to kill, shot skulls from its skulls, and could blow through almost any block, making it untrappable. Of course, it wouldn¡¯t be identical, none of the mobs were, but it really called into question whether the programmers at Mojang had tapped into a cosmic wavelength while they were working on the game.
¡°If you can find what we came for,¡± Gastard said, ¡°I will hold off the beast.¡±
Aside from scattered phantoms, there weren¡¯t many mobs above the canopy, so we flew from mushroom cap to mushroom cap to make our way deeper into the island without having to travel through the jungle. The hours went by, and we had to kill a few monsters, but it didn¡¯t feel like we were under attack or had earned the notice of any exceptional entities.
There was no day or night here, no moon or stars. Some of the fungus was bioluminescent, but it was far from bright, and Gastard couldn¡¯t see well in the dark. We kept torches on the wyverns, not Shadowbane though; the enchantment would have made them unmanageable, and they made us exposed. Anything else flying above the caps, or even on the nearby islands, would have noticed us, but we went unmolested.
Pausing for a snack break, we landed on a brown cap with ruffled edges and I passed out bread before dropping a crafting table. Digger had pulled at a lower angle, suggesting we would soon have to climb down. Before we did, I wanted to make use of some of my newly won experience and craft a few more runes. Making my boots had given me a few levels of Inscription. Restoration and Speaking required level ten, and Fixation wasn¡¯t available until twenty, but Shadowbane and Protection were the base of the pyramid, and I wanted force fields.
The barriers I¡¯d encountered had all been stationary, but it wouldn¡¯t hurt to experiment. As Kevin watched, I went about applying the Protection rune to planks until I had enough to craft a shield. The resulting item looked mostly normal, a wooden circle with iron studs and an arm strap, but at the center of the circle was a single large icon. Nothing complicated, almost a hashtag symbol.
I put it on.
¡°Hey,¡± I called to Gastard, ¡°punch this.¡±
He obliged. His diamond clad fist knocked against the wood, and a bluish square field of energy popped into existence around the shield. It weighed nothing, and wasn¡¯t large enough to get in the way if I was fighting, but it remained in place for only a few seconds before fading away.
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¡°Interesting,¡± Gastard said, and proceeded to test the limits of the barrier. After attacking with his fists, he switched to his sword, slicing with increasing intensity as the shield continued to hold. This went on for several minutes until he finally called upon the white flame within his sword and went all in on a two-handed side stroke. It jarred my arm, and more significantly, caused a small plume of smoke to rise from the symbol, though the shield itself was unharmed.
¡°So there are limits,¡± he said. ¡°Still, it is an impressive defense.¡±
I had to agree. Though my shoulder was sore, nothing he had done had resulted in a loss of health. Kevin had observed the display with a sour expression, and now saw fit to chime in.
¡°It¡¯s okay,¡± he said. ¡°Shields are overrated.¡±
¡°Did you ever make one like this?¡± I asked.
¡°No,¡± he said, defensively, ¡°I didn¡¯t need to. No one could hurt me in my armor.¡±
That wasn¡¯t true. I¡¯d beaten him, and apparently, the Wither had come close to doing so as well. It never ceased to amaze me how little Kevin had accomplished in all the time he¡¯d spent on Plana. Then again, he hadn¡¯t been pressed to do more. Kevin had made himself comfortable and stayed that way, relying on demons to do his grunt work.
The wyverns fed and seemed content. The environment beneath the canopy was too overgrown to accommodate their flight, and I didn¡¯t want to risk losing them, which left us with a conundrum.
¡°You want me to watch the horses?¡± Gastard said, not amused in the least.
¡°We can¡¯t trust Kevin to stay here, and we can¡¯t risk losing them. We would be stuck on this island.¡±
¡°We have your wings,¡± he said, tapping the strap of the Elytron he wore.
¡°As far as we flew to get here, I don¡¯t have enough fireworks to get us back. We could hopscotch to the nearest island, maybe one more after that, but we¡¯d end up stranded. They aren¡¯t that reliable to begin with.¡±
Gastard shook his head. ¡°I can¡¯t abide you traveling alone with him. That was one of Esmelda¡¯s conditions, was it not? I am not here to be a maid to these beasts. I am here to protect you, and I cannot do that if you go on without me.¡±
¡°I¡¯ll stay behind,¡± Kevin said. ¡°I didn¡¯t want to go down there again, anyway. You won¡¯t even let me wear real armor or have my weapons, so what¡¯s the point?¡±
Now I was thinking of an old brain-teaser, something about having a fox, a chicken, and a bag of grain, then having to take them across a river in a boat that would only carry two of them at once. Was Kevin the fox or the chicken? Gastard would not eat him if I left them alone, but there was a boss mob on the other side of this river, and I wanted Gastard with me if at all possible. We had five wyverns, so maybe we could split them up to cover our potential losses.
¡°So we all go,¡± I said, not bothering to answer Kevin, ¡°but we take two of the wyverns with us, and lock the other three up to make sure they¡¯re still here when we get back.¡±
Gastard grunted his approval, and I quickly erected a wooden pen for the wyverns. They could have broken out if they were sufficiently motivated, but I was worried a stone barn would be too much weight for the mushroom cap. They were sturdy, but my boots were leaving imprints, and I didn¡¯t want to topple the stalk or build a structure that would rip through the skin and crush the wyverns.
Splitting the group wasn¡¯t absolutely necessary, but I preferred not to have all my flying eggs in one basket when I wasn¡¯t watching, and the pair we brought might come in handy fending off other mobs.
Getting down from the canopy was a pain. The underlayer was a mix of more mushrooms, branches, and stalks, only some of which were sturdy enough to hold my weight. I slid off the big cap onto a clump of mycelium that half disintegrated on contact. My fall was brief, the Elytron catching and allowing me to drift onto a more substantial substrate, but I didn¡¯t take it as a positive sign for navigating the jungle at this level.
I got my back against a central stalk and retrieved the pick to suss out the way forward. Down and to my right. We could do that.
Gastard and Kevin were watching me from the edge of the mushroom. As both their faces were covered, I didn¡¯t have to put up with any skeptical expressions.
¡°Let¡¯s just glide down,¡± I said. ¡°The atreanum isn¡¯t going to up here, and there has to be a solid surface somewhere.¡±
¡°There¡¯s going to be mobs,¡± Kevin warned.
¡°I¡¯m not worried,¡± I lied.
The descent wasn¡¯t overly difficult, aside from knocking into seemingly every bump and ridge of fungus in the world on the way down. Alpha and Beta had no trouble navigating. Though they could hardly spread their wings, they clung to the stalks like massive bats, climbing and leaping as comfortably as if this were their natural habitat, pausing only to hiss at any stray sound or movement amid the clustered landscape. The air was thick with spores, and though my System protected me from whatever poison they contained, and Kevin was unaffected, Gastard was coughing heavily by the time we reached the jungle floor.
¡°It¡¯s nothing,¡± he said. ¡°My throat is dry.¡±
It wasn¡¯t nothing, but I¡¯d brought bottles of mooshroom milk just in case. Now that Gastard had a System of his own, maybe it would help. We dropped onto a wet, spongy outcrop that I took to be the bottom and checked the pick for our heading. The vague resistance had developed into a full on tug. We were making progress.
In an effort not to become hopelessly lost, I placed glass blocks at regular intervals as we moved further in. It was more fragile than stone, but less likely to blend into our surroundings. They were the only things that glittered in the light of the bioluminescent moss that cast the jungle in a perpetually dim, purple twilight.
As Kevin had promised, there were zombies. Lots of zombies. No kulus, babies or otherwise, hid among the stalks, which suggested that the shambling mobs had no natural predators here. They sloshed through shallow pools, or rested in nests of lichen, before lurching after us. Wither or no Wither; as long as I didn¡¯t have to deal with another giant squid, I was happy.
The hollows were more of an issue. They had weapons, rusted and well-worn, but dangerous nonetheless, and they wielded them with a skill that belied their skeletal appearance. Some of them appeared among the shamblers, using the slower, stupider mobs as cover to approach. Others lurked in the shadows. They were more of a danger to Kevin than to me or Gastard, and they ignored the wyverns, as did the zombies. Apparently, being tamed by my skill wasn¡¯t sufficient to mark a mob as an enemy for the natives of Bedlam, at least until they acted in our defense.
Alpha bit the head off of a zombie that got too close to me, crushing its skull in a swift chomp before swallowing it whole. I cut down a few more, my boots squelching in what I hoped was mud, before again summoning Durin¡¯s Digger to get a bead on the prospective atreanum. The pick dipped, jerking to the left. It was the strongest response I¡¯d ever gotten from Fortune, and it was taking me to a small mountain of mycelium surrounded by a peat clogged pond.
Frogs, or the Bedlam equivalent, chirped and ree¡¯ed in the shadows of the jungle. The void was cool, but the deeper we traveled into this region, the warmer it had become. The air here was sweltering, and the spores were thick enough to limit my vision to a dozen paces. A wet cough brought Gastard to a stop.
He sheathed his sword, and doubled over, lifting his visor to spit something dark into the murk. Kevin laughed, then quieted at a harsh look from the templar, turning away as if he was suddenly passionately interested in the glowing moss hanging nearby.
¡°Take this,¡± I said, offering Gastard a bottle of milk.
He eyed it dubiously, knowing its origin, as he wiped his mouth. ¡°Shall I compound one poison with another?¡±
¡°I¡¯ve tried it,¡± I said. ¡°It¡¯s not bad. If we do have to fight a boss mob, I can¡¯t have you getting sick on me, right?¡±
He grimaced as he accepted the bottle, uncorking it and throwing it back in a few gulps. He returned the glass to me, and I tossed it over my shoulder.
¡°No room in my inventory for empties,¡± I said. ¡°How do you feel?¡±
¡°Better,¡± he admitted. ¡°Why doesn¡¯t the mist affect you in the same way?¡±
¡°We¡¯ve been around longer,¡± I gestured to Kevin, who was nervously watching a zombie shamble toward us through the murk. ¡°Also, to be honest, the corruption is so deep at this point that when I breathe in mushroom spores, they probably go ¡®hey buddy, how are you¡¯ as soon as they get into my lungs and see all their friends.¡±
I hadn¡¯t felt sick since arriving in Bedlam. The runic boots might have been helping, but I knew I wasn¡¯t cured. What taint actually meant for me in the long term was still a question mark, not that the answer would be anything good. Would I suddenly transform into a demon? Probably not. Still, it was a matter of time before I hit an inflection point. That was why we were here.
Gastard was not amused. We made our way to the mound, and my pick jerked down. The atreanum, or whatever it was, lay beneath us. Mining, the mycelium poofed at a touch from Durin¡¯s Digger, and I soon hit bedlamite. As I continued to dig, beddlemites appeared, but Gastard cut them apart while Kevin and a pair of wyverns watched from the lip of the growing pit.
Bedlamite was porous, so I filled in the walls of my impromptu quarry with granite, harvesting the brackish water in bottles as I went. It wasn¡¯t as swift a descent as I would have liked, but the deposit was here, and Durin¡¯s Digger was vibrating in my hands. The bedlamite changed, replaced by something more solid, a green ore. As soon as I harvested the first block, the System gave me a ding.
As if in response to the notification, a wail surged through the jungle, chasing us into the fresh pit. It wasn¡¯t a phantom. The sound was lower, more resonant, and I felt it in my breastbone.
¡°It¡¯s here!¡± Kevin shouted. ¡°Fu¡ª¡±
161: My Withering Encounter
Kevin¡¯s expletive was cut short by a flaming skull the size of a small dog smashing into his chest and knocking him into the pit. He tumbled down with his arms flailing. There was an audible snap as he bounced off a wall before the Elytron kicked in, and he shouted in pain. Gastard called out a challenge, and I threw up my visor to drink a few potions.
Strength, Speed, Leaping. The heady cocktail of magical chemicals mixed unpleasantly in my stomach as the effects surged through my veins. I gritted my teeth against the sensation of nausea and wall-hopped to the top of the pit like a video game character.
The Wither was as big as a bus, a mismatched collection of bones held together by black sludge. Human, animal, alien, there was no order or coherency in its composition. It had been made, or made itself, out of whatever material was available. It had three heads, fleshless and yellowed, and all different. One looked like an ox, complete with a set of broken horns, sitting beside a human skull, though it was three times the size of any human head I¡¯d ever seen. The third head had a long snout lined with fangs. In life, it might have belonged to a crocodile.
It had arms, though they looked to have been assembled from an assortment of femurs, and its hands were rib cages lacking a breastbone, each with dozens of fingers ending in jagged points.
The Wither dragged its broad upper body through the thick undergrowth, its tail, more rib cages, trailing behind.
Gastard was working his way around the mycelium mound, looking for a way to reach the monster that didn¡¯t involve jumping into the stagnant pool that lay between them. He climbed onto a mushroom cap, then hopped to another, which deflated under his weight. As he crouched to maintain his balance, the Wither opened its mouths and spit out a trio of animal skulls.
They launched like cannons, one flying over Gastard, burning with green fire, its jaws chomping spasmodically. I got my shield up to block another, its impact triggering the barrier rune, but the third slipped by and hit my shoulder.
My heart bar flashed, nothing missing yet, but it was a warning that they could hurt me. Worse, the skulls were animated. They bounced away, but made little hops toward me by pumping their jawbones. The Wither was a mob that spawned smaller mobs.
I stomped the one closest to me, and it shattered under my boot. They weren¡¯t dangerous on their own, but the Wither was already firing more. With the shield active, I could prevent any damage, but blocking the volleys and kicking the skulls required so much of my attention that I couldn¡¯t do anything else.
Gastard was doing a little better. Once he saw the way it attacked, he could slice through the skulls that fired at him before they landed, and he was making gradual progress around the water to engage the Wither in melee. Where was Kevin? Still in the hole, and he could stay there. Aside from throwing a healing potion at it, I doubted the weapons he had would be of any use against this thing, and having him die on us would only lead to more complications.
Alpha and Beta were clinging to stalks twenty feet above us, and when they saw me under attack, they launched themselves at the Wither. The wyverns dove at its wide frame, their toothy maws gaping, and it grabbed Beta out of the air, slamming it into the water. Alpha latched onto the Wither¡¯s shoulder and took half the ox head into its mouth, clamping down and attempting to rip it off.
The head stopped firing for a moment, and the Wither jabbed one of its spiky hands into the wyvern''s flank, the rib bones sinking deep. Alpha shrieked, flapping its wings to escape, but the monster¡¯s fingers were inside of it, and it couldn¡¯t free itself. The Wither wrenched the wyvern off of its shoulder and stabbed it with its other hand.
Alpha struggled a moment longer, then fell still. Beta crawled out of the water, only to be torn apart. This was exactly why I hadn¡¯t wanted to name them.
I crushed another bouncing skull and absorbed impact after impact on my shield. The Wither was firing in quick succession from a seemingly endless supply of osseous ammunition, its eyes alight with the same emerald flames that shrouded the mobs it produced. Some of them splintered on arrival, unable to survive the forces that propelled them, but in less than a minute, the mound on which I stood was overrun with hopping, biting skulls.
Though they weren¡¯t strong enough to bite through orichalcum, one had latched onto my ankle. The flames that animated it burned me through my armor, and I lost my first heart of the battle. Caliburn sliced through its cranium with ease, and it fell apart, reverting to simple bones.
What were those flying skulls in Zelda called? Bubbles. An odd choice by the game developers, and these weren¡¯t them, but it would as a temporary title for these swarming nuisances.
I couldn¡¯t ignore them, couldn¡¯t attack the Wither, and couldn¡¯t let my guard down long enough to clear them out. The boss had been focusing on me, but as Gastard approached, it turned all three of its heads to the templar and redirected its volleys. The onslaught forced him to halt his advance but gave me the seconds of freedom I needed to cut down the skulls intent on harrying me.
With the Wither distracted, I could leap off of the mound into the dubious solidity of the mushroom jungle. It was impossible to run through the irregular masses of fungal growth, but I cut my way through the obtruding stalks to come around the side of the pool opposite Gastard. I sheathed Caliburn, hooked the shield onto my waist, and summoned a bow.
The Wither had no organs to pierce, no blood to bleed, but when the first Shadowbane arrow lodged in its torso, it reacted immediately, swiveling all three of its heads to renew its assault on me. I had time to fire one more shot before a skull slammed into my side and knocked me off of my feet. Spores puffed out of the bed of fungus where I landed, bitter and cloying, and my health bar dropped by another heart. The Bubble broke on impact, but there were two more hopping toward me, and I dismissed the bow.
That was all the opportunity Gastard had required. He rushed across the remaining distance to the Wither and brought his sword, gleaming with white flame, down on one of its arms. The blade severed the corded bones with a resounding crack, and the boss mob emitted a sound like a wailing siren. It reared back on its tail and swiped at Gastard with its other hand like it was swatting an offending gnat.
He ducked under the claw and struck again, though this time his sword only scraped the bones of its wrist. I kicked the nearest Bubble like a soccer ball and launched myself forward, rushing to join Gastard. The Wither moved faster than anything its size had a right to, pulling back from the templar and spitting more Bubbles to slow his advance. One skull struck Gastard¡¯s right leg, sweeping him off of his feet, and leaving him face down amid a fresh cloud of spores.
We were thirty feet apart, and I was seconds away from closing with the monster when it lunged forward, driving its remaining claw into Gastard¡¯s back. It continued to spit flaming skulls, each Bubble smashing into him with enough force to crack the diamond of his chestplate. They didn¡¯t survive the hits, but Gastard couldn¡¯t weather that kind of attack for long, and he couldn¡¯t rise with the full strength of the Wither holding him in place.
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My foot sank through a soft patch of mycelium, causing me to stumble almost within reach of the monster as its mouths continued to projectile vomit skulls into Gastard. I ripped my boot free, trailing moss, and leaped across the remaining distance, Caliburn in both hands.
The Wither lifted Gastard like a toy and threw him at me. We met in midair, and fell in a heap. Caliburn was gone, slipped from my hands into the pool, and the Wither was already spitting more skulls. I absorbed a blow to my chest, the Bubble costing me another heart, and fumbled for my shield.
¡°Are you okay?¡± I said, the pale blue barrier springing into existence once more as the shield absorbed another hit.
Gastard grunted, his armor run through with a spider web of cracks, the diamond plates barely holding together as he rolled onto his side. Somehow, he had kept hold of his sword.
¡°How many hearts do you have left?¡± I asked as another Bubble burst against the barrier.
¡°Hearts?¡± Gastard¡¯s voice was rough, almost groggy. ¡°What are you talking about?¡±
¡°Wait, am I the only one with hearts?¡± We¡¯d never discussed health bars, and I¡¯d just assumed that other heroes were working with essentially the same baseline as I was.
¡°I have heart enough for this,¡± Gastard said, levering himself up and stepping around my barrier to resume his attack on the Wither. He didn¡¯t know what I was talking about. Why would Survivors be the only class with a heart bar? This wasn¡¯t the place or time to bemoan the caprice of the System, but what the heck?
Gastard dodged a swipe from the Wither¡¯s claw and jammed his sword into its chest. It wailed again, pelting him with skulls, and one of his pauldrons disintegrated. He fell back into a defensive stance, fending off the Bubbles and its remaining claw, and I drew a Splash Healing potion, tossing it to explode against the Wither¡¯s central head.
A chunk of the humanoid skull disappeared, and red mist touched Gastard as well, hopefully compensating for some hits he¡¯d taken. Beside me, a hollow rose out of the otherwise still pool, jabbing a trident into my leg. It scraped along the plating of my armor, and one of its points pressed into the joint at my knee.
Five hearts left.
¡°Dick!¡± I grabbed the trident, intending to rip it out of the hollow¡¯s hands, and instead pulled the undead mob onto the soggy shore. It struggled against me, attempting to regain control of its weapon, and I slammed the shield into its desiccated face, destroying its nose. That wasn¡¯t enough to stop it, of course, but Caliburn was gone, and it wasn¡¯t possible for me to wield the buster while I had the shield on my arm.
I twisted the trident out of its hands and drove the points into its chest. The weapon was pitted with rust, lacking enchantment, and in no way suited to killing a hollow. The mob fought on even as I continued to stab, and a strike from a Bubble staggered me. Wrestling the hollow to the ground, I smashed my shield into its face over and over until it was thoroughly crushed. The Bubble was gnawing at my leg, its flames searing my skin, and I crushed it as well.
The runic barrier was still effective, but it had become fainter, and its edges frayed into a gaseous border. The shield itself showed cracks in the wood. While I was with the hollow, Gastard had been engrossed in his duel with the Wither. It had lost one of its heads, and it was now sitting high on its tail, fending him off with its claw while spitting more skulls at the templar.
I summoned the buster from my inventory, tapping my shield to fill the slot left open by the oversized sword. Blocking the Bubbles wasn¡¯t getting me anywhere, and I needed a weapon that could vie with the size of the Wither. In the few seconds it cost me to switch out my equipment, the monster made its move.
Its tail swept in from behind Gastard, taking his legs out from under him, and it thrust its claw into his chestplate. The diamond armor, after sustaining dozens of blows during the battle, gave out, breaking apart like a pane of glass dropped on a stone floor.
The Wither drew back its arm for a finishing blow, and I launched myself forward, swinging the buster with both hands and lodging its edge in the monster¡¯s torso. It backhanded me, knocking me aside as if I was a nipping kitten, while its crocodile head spat another skull at Gastard.
I heard him cry out, his voice breaking as I splashed into the putrid pool. No Aqua Affinity, no floaties, just a hundred pounds of armor and a possible concussion. The water poured into my helm, in through the gaps of my plates, and I tasted the filth of the swamp. Darkvision was no use in the murky water, so I rolled to my side and tried to find something to latch onto as I sank.
Mycelium crumbled under my grasp, and something took hold of my feet. I kicked hard and reached for the surface. It was too far, I couldn¡¯t even see it. After everything that had happened, the demons, the upgrades, I was going to drown in a swamp. Even if Gastard could beat the Wither, he would not fish me out before I took a fatal breath.
The armor. I needed to get out of my armor. It would leave me as vulnerable as a newborn, but with the alternative being what it was, I had to try. Tapping furiously on my chestplate, I felt it vanish, becoming a medallion in my hand. The leggings followed as the pressure on my eardrums increased. I was going down, no telling where the bottom was, or what waited there. Zombies, or something worse, were dragging at my feet.
As I reached up to remove my helm, I felt a bop on my head and grabbed for whatever had done it. A block attached to a cylinder, a solid link to the surface. Hand over hand, careful not to lose the medallions, I pulled myself up along the cylinder. It was a log, smooth and perfectly regular, a crafted pole. As I breached into the open air, I saw Kevin holding the other end of the pole, dragging it back to speed my ascent. His tunic had a large, charred hole in the center where the Bubble had struck him, but the skin beneath was healthy and pink. He must have had another healing potion. When had he come out? It didn¡¯t matter. The former Dark Lord had decided that helping me was the best thing he could do for himself. It was amazing he hadn¡¯t been blasted again while he¡¯d crafted the pole, which I now realized wasn¡¯t wood at all. It was a mushroom stalk.
Heaving myself onto the spongy shore, I glanced over to see the Wither going back and forth with Gastard. Somehow, he had gotten to his feet to rejoin the fight, and taken its other arm for his trouble. It was still launching skulls, and the ground around Gastard was littered with Bubble bone fragments.
¡°Thanks,¡± I said to Kevin, slapping my armor back on. Without my gear, one blast from the skeletal behemoth would have finished me. Caliburn was somewhere in the pond, and the buster was still jutting out of the Wither¡¯s torso, so I summoned my shield once more and started forward.
A moment¡¯s difference, another step, and I would have made it in time. Gastard¡¯s cuirass was gone, and the Wither¡¯s long tail had snaked behind him. Its pointed end lifted like the head of a viper, seeming to move in slow motion, wavering for a second that stretched into eternity, and then struck.
Gastard didn¡¯t let go of his sword, his father¡¯s weapon, now imbued with the blessing of his class. Even as the bone spike jutted from his chest, he cut a flaming skull from the air, then glanced down. I reached them in the same instant, batting a Bubble aside with my shield and reaching for the buster.
I wrenched it free with one hand, fury rising in my throat, and spun, severing the bundle of bones that connected to the spike embedded in Gastard. He coughed, blood splattering from his mouth, and dropped to his knees.
The Wither wouldn¡¯t let up, still spitting skulls. One burst against the runic barrier, and another hit my abdomen. Hearts flashed, and I ignored them, the tendons in my arm screaming as I swung the buster wildly, hacking the abomination with everything I had. Shards of bone and clumps of the tar that held it together flew in all directions.
The crocodile head lost its jaw, and the Wither, falling apart, lunged. Its one remaining mouth stretched wide enough to swallow my helm, and I felt something. Not the pain in my arm, or the weight of its body pressing down on me, a Presence buried deep in its chest. Its mouth had covered my head, but I let go of the buster and reached blindly for the thing that I felt. My hand passed through a gap in its ribs and closed around something hard and sharp. I ripped it free.
The Wither shuddered, its bindings disintegrating, and collapsed into a mountain of old bones.
A crystal sat in my hand, a Moravian star with a violet, burning core. In the swamp''s silence, there was a ding.
162: My Viridium
The star was cold, even through my gauntlets. Frost was forming on my fingers as I held it. Its radiant core had an almost physical pull; I could feel my awareness being drawn into it, the world around me fading as the glowing flower within the crystal unfolded endlessly.
I dropped it. Whatever it was didn¡¯t matter right now. Gastard was slumped over on the wet ground, his armor in pieces, dark blood soaking through the back of his tunic beneath jagged shards of diamond.
Summoning the chest from my inventory, I threw it open and started unwrapping potions. Not a lot of boosters, though I had an Invisibility left, but that wasn¡¯t what I needed. I grabbed a Healing Potion and turned to Gastard.
He was unconscious, so I carefully laid him on his back and removed his helm. It was damaged anyway. His dirty blonde hair was matted and wet. A fragment of the interior of the helm had cut his forehead badly enough to leave a hanging flap of skin, the drawback of making armor out of crystal, and half his face was slick with blood. It looked bad, but it wasn¡¯t the real problem.
The end of the Wither¡¯s tail was still poking out of his stomach. We¡¯d been through this with Esmelda. He could drink a potion first, and then I¡¯d remove the spike and give him another. I could get his mouth open, but pouring liquid into an unconscious man¡¯s throat was generally a bad idea.
Was he even breathing? Couldn¡¯t tell. But he didn¡¯t need to drink a Splash potion.
I was out.
¡°Kevin!¡± I shouted. The former Dark Lord paused with his hand outstretched. He had moved behind me and was reaching for the Wither¡¯s star. ¡°Splash Healing? You got any.¡±
¡°I used them all.¡± He didn¡¯t drop his arm, and he was looking at me like he was waiting for me to command him not to pick up the rare resource. This was not the moment to test me.
¡°Bring that here,¡± I said, and started rifling through Gastard¡¯s belt. Miraculous as it seemed, he had exactly what I was looking for in an otherwise empty pouch. Why hadn¡¯t he used it against the Wither? That wasn¡¯t too much of a mystery. He was a sword-first thinker.
I smashed the bottle against his chest, and red mist bloomed around us, sinking into his skin. My heart bar partially refilled, so the potion obviously worked, but he didn¡¯t wake up. Kevin brought the star, his hand clenching so tightly around it that its points pricked into his skin, and I snatched it away from him.
I put it in the Storage Ring.
Maybe the spike was preventing him from healing. Rolling Gastard onto his side, I put my hand around the broken end of the bone and pulled. The sound of its ridges dragging through Gastard¡¯s flesh was sickening, and fresh blood dripped from the wound, though not as actively as it should have.
Was his heart not beating?
I forced open Gastard¡¯s mouth and poured in a potion.
¡°He¡¯s dead,¡± Kevin said. ¡°His essence is already gone. A hit like that does DoT.¡±
Damage over Time. It hadn¡¯t been an instant kill. If I had been faster, or if Gastard had possessed the presence of mind to drink the potion in his pocket as he went down¡
I pulled him up into a sitting position, supporting his back with my arm. Red liquid poured from his mouth, mostly wasted potion. He hadn¡¯t swallowed, but he also wasn¡¯t choking. My heart was beating in my ears, the aftereffects of the battle and magical stimulants still coursing through my veins. Despite the adrenaline, I felt calm. My mind had pulled back from the situation, from myself, and it was like I was observing a scene in a film.
¡°You should keep mining,¡± Kevin said, ¡°or give Digger to me and I¡¯ll do it. More mobs are going to come.¡±
He was right about him. I focused on the aetheric sense, reached for Gastard, and felt nothing.
My hands moved of their own accord, harvesting Gastard¡¯s boots, which were the only piece of his set still in reasonable shape, and collecting his sword. My inventory needed to be shuffled around a bit to give it a slot, but I couldn¡¯t risk losing it, even aside from the essence Gastard had already imbued it with; this had been his father¡¯s weapon. He¡¯d never forgive me if I left it behind.
¡°What are you so freaked out about?¡± Kevin asked. ¡°He¡¯ll be back.¡±
I shut the lid of my chest and popped it in the Storage Ring. ¡°You said Towk could claim our souls if we died here.¡±
¡°Yeah, well. He might. Whatever, man, I was trying to be nice.¡±
¡°You¡¯re bad at it.¡± I walked back to the pit. ¡°Come down here with me.¡±
With Gastard gone, I couldn¡¯t let Kevin out of my sight. Not that he would get very far in this swamp without equipment, but I couldn¡¯t underestimate him. There could be material here he could use to give himself an edge, or if nothing else, to make himself more of a nuisance.
Before the fight had started, I¡¯d harvested a single block of a new material. There was more amid the bedlamite. Not a massive vein, ten blocks, ?and that was it. Durin¡¯s Digger was giving me a weak pull, another deposit farther away.
<<<>>>
Viridium
A meta-material with unlimited potential. While Viridium will not accept enchantment, each item crafted from this meta-material develops in its own fashion relative to how it is utilized. When worn, it will continually absorb essence from its bearer, as well as the environment, becoming more and more akin to what it believes it is meant to be.
<<<>>>
¡°Do you know anything about this?¡± I asked Kevin, and he shrugged.
¡°Never found any,¡± he said, reading the entry with interest. ¡°You can let me try to use it. I¡¯ve got a quest for crafting meta-materials, and this is the last one I need. If I get another unique formula, it would be a win for both of us.¡±
¡°I¡¯ve got the same quest,¡± I said. ¡°No way you¡¯re getting any of this.¡±
He pouted, and I scrolled down to find the other new entry in my Materials Log.
<<<>>>
Heart of the Hollow King
These crystals form over millennia of slow accretion in areas where ambient essence is sufficiently tainted by Discord. They can be used to craft a Hollow King, a rare mob that attracts Hollows and absorbs them into its body to increase its power. Though Hollow Kings can assert influence over lesser entities, they accept no authority but their own, and are as likely to attack their crafter as anything else they see.
The Heart of the Hollow King is highly volatile.
Do not drop.
<<<>>>
I flinched at the warning. I¡¯d already dropped it once. At least the ground here was soft.
So the Wither was called a Hollow King. Other than that, it was pretty close to the Maincraft version. They dropped Nether Stars when they died, and those could craft beacons, structures that gave players bonuses when they were nearby. I had to assume there was potential for a Survivor equivalent of the beacon as well. Not that I was interested in building any permanent structures in this swamp.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Another healing potion put me at full health, and an arrow zipping through the stalks told me it was time for us to go. Hollows were incoming.
¡°So, are we going back?¡± Kevin asked.
¡°Not until we find atreanum.¡± The viridium sounded like a double-edged sword. Unique items that drained your essence if you used them. I¡¯d craft something with it for the Quest reward when we got somewhere less hostile.
Leaving Gastard in the swamp was not an option. He¡¯d get a new body when he respawned, but still no. If nothing else, any zombie that got to him would have a shot at becoming another Bill. I hadn¡¯t thought about my doppelg?nger in a while. The last time I¡¯d seen him had been in Bedlam; the other swamp. Maybe he¡¯d gotten trapped in the time dilation and eaten by the Kulu. That would have been nice.
I used the Elytron to zip me back up to the mushroom cap where we¡¯d left the other wyverns. It would have been too difficult to climb while carrying Gastard¡¯s body. After removing the planks that had kept the wyverns in their box, I wrapped him in cloth and tied him onto Epsilon¡¯s back.
¡°You take Gamma,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m on Delta.¡±
The three wyverns were similar enough that I wouldn¡¯t have been able to tell them apart without the benefit of long familiarity. Gamma had a wider mouth, and Delta¡¯s demeanor was calmer. He took direction better. He wasn¡¯t Noivern, but if we had to do any fighting in the air, that was the beast I wanted underneath me.
¡°Do you even know where you¡¯re going?¡± Kevin sulked. ¡°I haven¡¯t found any other metals on this island.¡±
¡°Digger¡¯s got a bead on something,¡± I slowly waved the orichalcum pick in an arc, feeling for the direction of the pull. ¡°We keep looking until there¡¯s nothing left to look for.¡±
We didn¡¯t have to fly far, a couple of miles over the uneven canopy. Reds, browns, and purples passed below us. The fungal jungle could have been a work of Jackson Pollock.
I¡¯d never liked modern art.
A fist of bedlamite rose a hundred feet above the canopy ahead of us, draped in thick layers of moss. Spores poofed as we landed and I checked out bearings. The pull of the rare material was almost directly below us, and it was strong.
The wyverns got a new stable. We wouldn¡¯t be taking any of them with us. Some mobs ate each other, but we hadn¡¯t encountered any that could threaten the wyverns in the skies above this island, so they were safer by themselves than with us.
¡°What are you doing?¡± Kevin asked as he saw me carrying Gastard¡¯s body further up the pillar.
¡°Burying him,¡± I said. The wyverns, tame as they were, would have definitely eaten him when they were out of my sight. And leaving him out would just attract other monsters.
¡°You¡¯re wasting time.¡±
I ignored him. It was only a few minutes of hiking to the top, and I cleared away the moss before encasing his body in basalt. It occurred to me that out of all the coffins I¡¯d crafted since arriving in Plana, this was the first that would actually be one.
¡°Rest well,¡± I said, patting the smooth blocks. ¡°I¡¯ll see you soon.¡±
Kevin was impatient to get moving again, though that didn¡¯t stop him from nagging me as we made our way down to the canopy.
¡°It¡¯s just us now,¡± he said. ¡°I need better equipment. You should try to make something from viridium. I could use it if you don¡¯t want to. Take one for the team.¡±
Team? No, thanks.
We reached an outcrop without a straightforward way to descend further, and I chose that moment to drop a worktable.
¡°You¡¯re really going to?¡± Kevin¡¯s mouth dropped.
¡°You can have steel,¡± I said. ¡°I didn¡¯t bring any orichalchum.¡±
¡°It¡¯s better than leathers.¡± He held out his hands as I sorted through coins. ¡°I¡¯ll make them. My stuff looks better.¡±
I gave him a long, blank stare.
¡°C¡¯mon,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s been forever since I got to make anything, and I¡¯ve been good, right? I got you out of that pond, didn¡¯t I? You could''ve drowned.¡±
He had helped, and I wasn¡¯t sure why. If he had chosen that moment to run away, I couldn¡¯t have ordered him not to, and the Wither, the Hollow King, would have finished Gastard before going after him. Kevin could have made it back to the wyverns and gone his own way. I¡¯d given him a standing order not to leave me to die if it came up, but that would only delay his escape, not prevent it. The Curse of Paralysis was as limited as the Curse of Weakness.
¡°Hop on one foot,¡± I said.
¡°What? N¨C¡± Kevin froze, his eyelids twitching.
¡°Just checking.¡± The oath was still in effect. Gastard¡¯s ability was binding Kevin beyond death. Did that mean the One Who Knocks hadn''t captured his essence? At the very least, no one had torn apart his soul. He was a hero, he would come back.
To stave off a tantrum, I passed Kevin a handful of resources as soon as he unfroze.
¡°Have at it,¡± I said.
He crafted a full set of steel plate, a sword, and a shield. His insistence that his stuff looked better than mine wasn¡¯t wrong. My equipment was made from superior materials, so he couldn¡¯t match that aspect, and my tools had once been his, but the effect of a higher Artisan skill was undeniable. His armor came with fluting, excessive ridges, and decorative inlays.
His gaze fell on my shield with a look of jealousy. ¡°I don¡¯t have enough XP to do the runes.¡±
He must have gotten experience from dousing magma blobs, but he hadn¡¯t taken part in the Hollow King fight, or done much else in the swamp that would earn advancement. We could face just about anything where we were going, and I did want him to be useful.
¡°Take this one,¡± I said, tossing him my already half destroyed shield. He frowned but didn¡¯t complain, which was big of him. My level was back over ten, and the Looting Orb was half full. We¡¯d killed plenty of monsters on the way here, and the Hollow King had been worth a significant uptick on its own. A couple of minutes later, I had a fresh wooden shield to slip my arm into.
Kevin had been frowning at his sword while I worked, no doubt silently bemoaning its mundane nature, and as he clipped it on his waist, my hand went automatically to my own.
There was nothing there. I¡¯d retrieved the buster and popped it back into the Storage Ring, but Caliburn was at the bottom of the swamp, in the hands, or tentacles, of god knew what.
I took a deep breath. We could go back. Retrieving it would delay us by a few hours, which wouldn¡¯t be too significant in the scheme of things, but the thought of doing so¡ª
¡°Expletive!¡± I kicked the worktable hard enough to knock it off the cliff. It bounced off of a mushroom and disappeared further down. Whatever, I had plenty of wood. Falling in the water, feeling myself sink, it had been too close to what had happened to me before. As far as I knew, that pond wasn¡¯t a time sink, and there was no Kulu waiting at the bottom to drag me deeper, but still.
My hands were shaking. I didn¡¯t want to go back.
¡°Dude,¡± Kevin said, ¡°did you just yell, ¡®expletive?¡¯¡±
¡°I left Caliburn, my sword. Lost it in the pond.¡±
¡°Ick,¡± Kevin grimaced, ¡°how good was it?¡±
¡°The best I could make when I made it. Xanthium.¡±
¡°So you want to go get it?¡±
I shook my head. ¡°I¡¯m going to craft a new one.¡±
Caliburn was valuable, and it had served me well, but I couldn¡¯t bring myself to dredge a swamp to get it back. There would be other monsters, and I¡¯d have to block off the water and drain it in sections. My new armor didn¡¯t have Aqua Affinity. Hours was a conservative estimate.
Kevin looked out over the dim sea of fungus, lit here and there with eerie greens and whites.
¡°Probably shouldn¡¯t have kicked that table then.¡±
I crafted a new one, and then a furnace. A phantom did a flyby, and Kevin killed it. He didn¡¯t question me as I inserted coins into the furnace and stood there glowering as it smelted the viridium. It stole essence from its bearer, and the Looting Orb absorbed extra for me to use. Maybe they would cancel each other out.
¡°Hey,¡± I asked, ¡°where did you get the Looting Orb? It wasn¡¯t a drop, was it? And what about the Storage Ring? Did that come from another hero?¡±
¡°Nope and nope.¡± Seeing that we would be here until the furnace had done its job, he plopped down on the edge of the outcrop, kicking his legs like a kid sitting beside a pool. ¡°Those are unique formulas from quest rewards.¡±
¡°So you can make more of them?¡±
¡°Nah. Well, sort of. The unique part means you can only have one at a time. Since you attuned the ring, I could make myself a replacement, though.¡±
The first viridium coin plinked into the dispenser, and I picked it up. It looked like copper rusted green. As an ingot, it wasn¡¯t much to look at, rough and greenish-brown, somewhere between orichalcum and cerulium in weight.
Two of them would make a sword. When the second coin plinked, I brought them both to the worktable. Center top, center middle, and a stick below. I pulled the level.
<<<>>>
[Viridium Sword]
Damage Rating: 8
Speed: Average
Weapons crafted from viridium are Hungry. They absorb essence from those they strike, or if they go unused, their bearer. Absorbed essence will allow the weapon to approach Perfection only when fully repaired. Fortunately, such blades recover lost durability provided they have sufficient aetheric resources to do so.
<<<>>>
It was ugly, but also kind of beautiful; gray and brown metal eighty percent covered in a suspiciously organic looking pattern of pale green rust. The edge, pitted and cracked, was still sharp. There was nothing outstanding about its stats, but it sounded like they would improve.
Viridium couldn¡¯t be enchanted, but it came with Mending and Looting baked in, as well as the evolution factor.
Perfection. Capital P. What would that look like?
Ding.
163: My Selection
<<<>>>
Congratulations, Master Crafter! Meta-Materials reveal an entire world of possibilities, and there is still more to be discovered. You have earned access to one unique formula. Due to a heavy aetheric burden, these items can only be crafted once by a single Survivor, though if lost or destroyed, they can then be replaced. Make your choice carefully. Even if you know a unique formula, the crafting will fail if the item in question is not already unlocked for you.
Please select your reward.
[Storage Ring]
The Storage Ring grants its bearer access to an extradimensional space capable of containing a vast array of items and materials without affecting its external appearance or weight. After attuning the ring, the wearer can mentally access its contents. Only the bearer can perceive or retrieve the objects contained within.
3 Gold Ingots
1 Void Pearl
1 Essence of Water
[Eternal Elytron]
Soar like a beetle!
The Elytron is a device modeled after the wings of nature¡¯s most beloved flying species, the noble beetle. Wearing a pair of these will allow you to glide safely from the greatest heights, and with the proper propellant, even ascend to the skies.
The Eternal Elytron will never degrade from use and does not require gunpowder for propelled flight.
3 Orichalcum Ingots
1 Terror Beetle Membrane
1 Essence of Fire
[Master Sword]
A legendary blade from another Realm, renowned for unparalleled sharpness and high Harmonic Resonance. It is most powerful when its wielder has full health and can be charged with essence for a special attack.
1 Orichalcum Ingot
1 Cerulium Ingot
1 Sacred Rod
[Iron Golem]
A towering guardian crafted from iron, this golem is a stalwart protector of villages and fortresses. Possessing immense strength and resilience, it can stand alone against the forces of Bedlam, or operate as a valuable addition to an adventuring party. It can understand simple commands, carry messages, and watch your stuff for you.
4 Iron Blocks of Runic Protection
1 Iron Helmet of Runic Speaking
4 Sanguinum Dust
[Compass]
Feeling lost? The compass will always point true. Each version of this formula guides the bearer unerringly toward their destination. The standard model will sync to the Point of Origin of the bearer, while those crafted from Meta-Materials will seek the source from which they were made. Obsidian compasses will seek the nearest Portal, and a Golden Compass will guide you to other heroes.
Unfortunately, the unerring nature of the compass can be compromised by unstable Realms. No compass can guide you toward objectives not in your present dimension.
4 Iron Ingots
1 Sanguinum Dust
All compasses are considered a single formula regarding this selection: one of each variety can be crafted without violating the unique item limit.
<<<>>>
I stared at the screen for a long time. Everything on the list looked too good to pass up. A second Storage Ring would have been nice, but expanding my inventory wouldn¡¯t change my capabilities much, and I had no intention of giving Kevin his back, so I mentally crossed that one off, but that still left four options.
¡°What¡¯s a Sacred Rod?¡± I asked Kevin. He looked at my screen, but I turned to keep it out of his line of sight.
¡°Don¡¯t know,¡± he said, still angling to get a look. ¡°What are your options? I can¡¯t give you advice if you won¡¯t even show me what you got.¡±
There wasn¡¯t really a reason to keep it from him, so I relented, holding out my arm so he could read through the list. His eyes lit up when he was halfway through.
¡°I told you!¡± He bounced on his heels. ¡°I told you it was Princess Zelda!¡±
¡°I¡¯m sure it¡¯s a different Master Sword,¡± I said, unable to convince even myself. ¡°And I just got a new weapon with its own weird stuff going on, so I¡¯m not as interested in that one.¡± Also, if neither of us knew what one of the ingredients was, the chances of us running across it by chance were despairingly low.
¡°What are the Essences? And where do I find a Terror Beetle?¡± An Elytron with unlimited range would be invaluable for getting around Bedlam.
¡°Not sure about the terror part, but I¡¯ve seen an island with a lot of beetles before. We could probably find it. And the essences are just elemental cores. Essence of Fire is what powers the brewing stands. We could get another one of those from around my shelter.¡±
So it was a possibility, but it would take some doing. The Iron Golem sounded amazing. They were strong in the game, and this would be one that responded to commands. It could be a guardian for Mount Doom when we were gone, or be part of the assault on Gundurgon. And who didn¡¯t want a robot helper?
As for the recipe, it was doable. My Inscription skill wasn¡¯t high enough for Runes of Speaking yet, though, and inscribing enough ingots to make that many blocks, as well as a helm, would be extremely essence intensive. It wasn¡¯t getting crossed off immediately.
Still, for sheer utility, there seemed to be one clear winner.
Using Fortune to hunt meta-materials was far from a perfect system. The compasses would allow me to always find exactly what I was looking for, though it sounded like Bedlam would interfere with how they functioned somewhat. The term ¡°unstable realm¡± certainly applied to this one. Aside from that, though, the basic model had its uses, and the Golden Compass seemed like a godsend.
I didn¡¯t know where Gastard would come back to life. He might be on the other side of Plana, and this would allow us to find him. If I got separated for any reason, I could make my way back to them. It would also have the potential to tell us if there were more heroes on Plana we didn¡¯t know about.
How would that work? Would it always point to the hero closest to me? If that was the case, it was decidedly less useful. Still, overall, Compass was the most must-have of the five. The obsidian version would mean I didn¡¯t have to worry about not being able to get back to base while in Bedlam. The mere fact that selecting Compass would give me multiple items to craft instead of only one made it stand out as a deal.
I selected the Compass, and my screen flashed. The other options disappeared, and the new formulas added themselves to my Crafting Log.
¡°Did you bring redstone?¡± Kevin asked.
¡°Sanguinum,¡± I corrected, ¡°no.¡± There was plenty of the crimson dust, and even whole blocks, back in Mount Doom. But I hadn¡¯t brought much in the way of meta-materials along on this trip, and aside from playing around with pistons and sliding doors, had never used sanguinum for anything. We could harvest some from Kevin¡¯s base, but if we were going all the way there, we might as well have crossed through the portal and gone home. ¡°Let¡¯s get this atreanum and get out of here.¡±
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
¡°You don¡¯t know what¡¯s down there,¡± Kevin said glumly. ¡°We should just go back.¡±
¡°I thought you¡¯d be more concerned with extending your freedom.¡±
He gave me a shrewd look. ¡°You mean you¡¯re going to put me back in that box as soon as we go home if I don¡¯t keep playing along?¡±
Kevin was going back in his box no matter what. The oaths were not sufficient to let him walk around, and neither Esmelda nor Gastard would stand for giving him real freedom. I closed the visor of my helm so he wouldn¡¯t see the answer in my face.
¡°Cut off my hands,¡± his voice was barely a whisper.
¡°What?¡±
¡°My hands, cut them off. Not now. When we get back. I won¡¯t be a threat to you, to anyone. And that¡¯s a pretty metal thing for the Dark Lord to do anyway, have the other guy walking around your castle as a cripple. What a flex.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not a dark anything.¡± That was a heck of a thing to suggest. Would it completely prevent him from crafting? Even without hands, he might wrangle some coins onto a worktable and pull a lever. He wouldn¡¯t be able to use any weapons or tools, though, not unless he got some utility attachments for his stumps. Was he serious?
¡°I¡¯m serious,¡± he said. ¡°I don¡¯t want to be in a box anymore. You have no idea what that¡¯s like. I¡¯ll do anything to get out.¡±
His lack of awareness, as always, was stunning. He¡¯d done the same thing to me, and others before. Aside from that, I knew what he was going through. My stint in isolation had been more comfortable than his current housing situation. They¡¯d let me have books to read, and paper to write on. There had been letters, and once a month or so, a phone call to my family.
Boredom was torture. Lack of stimulation is maddening. Of course, it was less than he deserved. In a perfect world, we wouldn¡¯t have to treat anyone this way, but this wasn¡¯t a perfect world.
¡°We can talk about it,¡± I said. ¡°For now, let¡¯s get moving.¡±
He nodded, and we took a quick inventory. Healing Potions for both of us, he had fresh gear, and I had mine. After a moment of indecision, I crafted him a bow and passed over a handful of arrows and food tokens so we wouldn¡¯t have to waste the potions in between fights.
Then we jumped off of the mountain together.
Our Elytrons allowed us to descend in an orderly fashion, dropping between mushroom caps into the thick jungle beneath the canopy. The scents of decay filled my nose, and a zombie moaned somewhere in the gloom.
We landed in a cloud of spores, a soggy patch of ground beside the bedlamite cliff. A warty frog about the size of a dog lifted its head out of a nearby pond, its head crowned in a spiky shell. It took one look at us and dipped down beneath the water.
¡°What was that?¡± It hadn¡¯t appeared threatening, but I didn¡¯t like leaving monsters behind me while I mined.
¡°Passive mob,¡± Kevin said. ¡°Baresh. The zombies hunt them.¡±
¡°There are passive mobs in Bedlam?¡±
¡°It¡¯s Bedlam,¡± Kevin shrugged, ¡°it¡¯s got everything. I¡¯ve never seen one big enough to be dangerous.¡±
Durin¡¯s Digger was still pointing us down, though now at an angle that suggested the deposit was in the substrate of the bedlamite formation. The chalky, porous stone vanished at the touch of my pick as I quickly mined out the beginning of a tunnel. Having Kevin to watch my back wasn¡¯t ideal, but it was better than being alone. After I began cutting out a stair to move lower, the first beddlemite appeared.
The squirming, silver insect was a foot long and triggered every disgust response I had. I stomped it before it could spit acid on my boot, and after that, Kevin was on bug duty.
He killed dozens more as I continued to dig. The bedlamite was slick, as water was already seeping through to fill whatever space I opened, and I worried that if there was a cavern below us, it would be completely submerged. The stone, however, soon gave way to clay, and I switched to using a shovel for more efficient digging. Beneath the clay layer, which was only a few feet thick, was actual soil, something I¡¯d never encountered in Bedlam before.
We were thirty feet down when I hit rock again, smooth basalt, and on the other side was a crystal cave.
Amethyst, enough to refill the entire wall of blocks I¡¯d discovered inside Jason¡¯s old base many times over. We were inside a massive geode, a stone egg, the interior of its shell lined with purple crystals. Though Kevin and I could see in the dark, I summoned a torch to illuminate the space, marveling at the glimmer of ten thousand facets.
¡°Let¡¯s loot it,¡± Kevin said. ¡°It¡¯s good for enchanting.¡±
¡°I know what it¡¯s good for,¡± I said, ¡°but I want to explore more first. This isn¡¯t what we came for.¡±
There was a break in the lower half of the egg, an opening large enough for a horse to ride through. We picked our way across the crystalline expanse to reach it, and discovered a natural tunnel. In Maincraft, this would have been totally normal. You dug around just about anywhere on the map, and you¡¯d run into a cavern. The networks of the underground world were almost as expansive as the land above ground, procedurally generated to create a sense of endless exploration.
Caves existed on Plana too, of course, just as they did on Earth. They simply weren¡¯t as common, or usually, as big, as the ones in the game. Things could work differently in Bedlam, and I hoped whatever we had stumbled upon didn¡¯t go on forever. As we went, I placed torches at regular intervals to mark our progress.
The tunnel soon branched, but the Fortune enchantment told us which direction to follow. Though the passage was bare, silent apart from our footfalls, I had no idea a mob was waiting for us until it appeared at the edge of the torchlight.
It looked like a flesh-colored cactus with legs, lots of legs. No other limbs, but at least a dozen appendages supporting the bottom of its cylindrical body, each ending on a soft-nub. It slipped forward soundlessly, spines covering its skin, along with more eyes than were necessary. They were arranged haphazardly, a pair here, a single lonely orb plopped near the top of what I hesitated to call its head. No mouth, at least not an obvious one, but maybe there was something toothy hidden by the legs, like an upright squid.
¡°Creeper!¡± Kevin shouted, retreating up the passage toward the split.
Creepers existed? None had ever spawned around me, and Kevin hadn¡¯t had any in the pens under Mount Doom either. I lost a second deciding whether to drop my shield to summon a bow, and the mob rushed forward, faster than it had any right to be.
I raised the shield, hearing a sizzling sound as its body ballooned.
Boom.
As soon as it touched my shield, the mob exploded, the force of the blast throwing me back. Dust fell from the ceiling as I blinked away the aftereffects of the flash. Even through the shield, it had hurt me.
There was a crater where I had been standing moments before. Somewhere between ten and twenty cubic feet of stone had vanished, leaving behind only a few chips and shards on either side of the passage. All that was left of the monster were a few scraps of its skin and a lone, scorched foot.
¡°I told you to run,¡± Kevin said. Though he hadn¡¯t, his shout should have been enough warning. I¡¯d been too slow to react.
¡°You can carry the torch,¡± I told him, pointing to where it had flown. The runic barrier around my shield faded a moment later, still intact, though that must have cost it some durability. My armor seemed fine, given the kinds of attacks I was accustomed to tanking, the fact that it had damaged me through several layers of protection spoke to the sheer power of the kamikaze mob.
¡°What does the System really call them?¡± I asked, my ears still ringing.
¡°Thermits,¡± Kevin picked up the torch, ¡°but that¡¯s dumb, you know what they are. You¡¯ve played the game.¡±
¡°This isn¡¯t the game, and why haven¡¯t I ever seen one before.¡±
¡°Because they blow up, duh.¡± He had a particular tone he adopted whenever he thought other people were being stupid, and I didn¡¯t like it. How could someone that old be so childish? ¡°You can¡¯t keep them around. Even if the demons take control, they still blow up if another mob bumps into them. It¡¯s not worth it.¡±
¡°Will they blow up if we shoot them?¡±
¡°Yeah. The only way to stop it from going nuclear is to kill them in one hit.¡±
¡°Challenge accepted.¡± Despite my enthusiastic front, it would be smarter not to bother trying. Committing to an attack would leave me open. Though I could try to hide behind my shield, a poke wasn¡¯t going to be enough. I would likely have to cut one in half to avoid another boom.
After wolfing down a beet to restore my health, we continued exploring the cavern. Some passages were larger, others were too tight to go down, and it was easy to pick out the craters in the walls and the floor that had to be signs of the death throes of more thermits.
Rather than keeping the pick out, I was carrying my sword, then switching them out to check our bearings wherever we came to a decision point. We¡¯d entered a chamber as big as a house, a mixture of basalt and bedlamite dotted with stalagmites. Water dripped from the ceiling, not a good sign, considering the swamp above us.
Durin¡¯s Digger didn¡¯t want us to take any of the available passages, its orichalcum tip pulled down as if begging to be used to mine out the floor.
¡°Back up,¡± Kevin hissed, and this time I reacted immediately, retreating into the passage from which we had just emerged.
¡°What is it?¡± The pick went into my inventory, and I drew the viridium sword. It didn¡¯t have a name yet, I would have to think of one.
¡°On the ceiling,¡± Kevin said.
Inching to the entrance with my shield in front of me, I looked up. Amid a nest of stalactites, a thermit was hanging upside down. Its eyes didn¡¯t blink, but at least one of them was focused on us. It had been waiting for me to walk underneath it.
Kevin carefully placed the torch at his feet, followed by his shield. The mob didn¡¯t move as he aimed with his bow, standing behind me and to one side. The arrow flew straight, embedding itself in the fleshy cylinder, and the thermit dropped, expanding as it went.
Even fifteen paces away, the explosion was deafening, echoing in the confined space. A section of the floor vanished, revealing a vast cavern below.
164: My Turtles
¡°That¡¯s a big hole,¡± Kevin said, peering down into the cavern on his hands and knees. We¡¯d done a quick sweep of the chamber for additional thermits, and it was clear, though more could always come parading out of the tunnels after hearing the explosion.
It was a hundred-foot drop to the bottom, a glassy black lake spotted with little spiky landmasses. Even from this height, the full extent of the space was too broad to be viewed at once, though I could see a wall on the left side studded with irregular shelves and cavities.
¡°Hold on,¡± I said, summoning a torch and dropping it through the opening.
¡°Hold on?¡± Kevin scoffed. ¡°Did you think I was going to fly right down there?¡±
The torch fell at what seemed like the correct speed, a pool of light that descended until it hit the water and was swallowed. Why didn¡¯t torches float? It wasn¡¯t something I¡¯d considered before, but they were mostly wood, so they should have been relatively buoyant. Maybe magic was heavy, or crafted wood was denser than natural wood. Regardless, I was looking for time distortion.
While I had no reason to believe that the presence of atreanum made time dilation more likely, it was something to be wary of, like things moving or falling faster or slower than they should have. I threw a few more torches to be relatively sure nothing wonky was going on in that department. In the other swamp, the kulu had been imprisoned in a region where time barely passed at all relative to the reality outside it. Before being trapped there myself, a torch had hit the barrier and appeared to stop moving.
The third torch fell, and one of the little landmasses moved. A broad mouth rose out of the water, and a long tongue snapped out, snatching the torch out of the air like a frog catching a fly. Then the head dropped again, disappearing with hardly a splash.
¡°Little¡± applied when I was thinking of them as landmasses, but not if they were monsters floating in the water. Each was ten to twenty feet across.
¡°Kevin,¡± I said slowly, ¡°was that a Baresh? Those things you said never got big enough to be a problem?¡±
¡°Guess those are older,¡± Kevin sat back on his heels, then held out his hands as I continued to stare at him. ¡°Hey! What do you want? I don¡¯t have a Pokedex.¡±
It was deeply weird to be talking to someone that shared my frame of reference, and for that person to be Kevin. I waved the pick, and Durin¡¯s Digger told me that the atreanum was roughly in the center of the lake.
¡°We can glide down to one of the ledges,¡± I said, ¡°then work from there.¡±
¡°What are we going to do about the Bareshes? I¡¯m not fighting in the water.¡±
¡°Try shooting one of them.¡±
With minimal grumbling, Kevin obliged, standing beside the hole and firing a few arrows into the lake. The Baresh that had eaten a torch was almost directly below us, allowing for a straight shot. The visible part of its body was armored with a spiky shell and the arrows bounced off without so much as disturbing the mob. I gave him a couple of enchanted arrows to test, and they were equally ineffective.
Shadowbane didn¡¯t penetrate, and the Flaming arrow resulted in a brief flash that couldn¡¯t catch in the wet environment.
Hssss¡
The viridium blade was instantly in my hand, and I spun, sweeping it in a broad arc. A thermit, its fleshy, cylindrical body wobbling, had crept within a pace of us. The green-tinged edge of the blade passed through its form with ease, separating its legs from its body.
The top half deflated, hollow, and the bottom sagged, a bundle of ill-organized limbs. My pulse jumped up, it would have blasted us into the hole. The thermits were disturbingly silent and possessed almost no aetheric presence to sense.
Kevin¡¯s first instinct was to scramble away, but the immediate danger had passed.
¡°I hate those!¡± He practically shrieked. ¡°This is why I don¡¯t come here!¡±
¡°Keep a lookout,¡± I said, scanning the chamber, ceiling included, to see if there were any more about to drop.
The entire thermit was harvestable, producing leather, tainted meat, and a new material.
<<<>>>
Volatile Sac
Some monsters are not long for this world. Rather than hunt and play with the other mobs, they would prefer to live on the edge, enjoying a brief, exciting existence that ends with a bang. Volatile Sacs can be used as an alchemic ingredient, or crafted directly as a source of gunpowder.
Not for use in games of catch.
<<<>>>
My supply chest included some gunpowder, but we needed a lot more than I¡¯d brought for what I had in mind. Kevin and I moved to one side of the chamber clear of stalagmites and I dropped a worktable, then quickly set up a small perimeter of fencing.
A single Volatile Sac yielded three gunpowder coins, less than I needed for one block of TNT, but a start.
The thermits did seem to be attracted to noise. Up to this point, we hadn¡¯t stayed in one place long enough for it to be an issue, but the previous explosion had echoed down the tunnels, a signal for every mob in the area. As I was placing the fencing, another thermit scuttled out of one of the entrances and Kevin shot it, resulting in another boom. The floor was thicker there, so it didn¡¯t end up opening a hole, but it did attract yet more of the explosive mobs.
¡°Don¡¯t shoot them unless there are too many for me to handle,¡± I said. ¡°Otherwise, just keep pointing them out when you see them and make some noise.¡±
I sheathed the viridium blade in favor of the extra reach provided by the buster, and we proceeded to farm gunpowder.
The thermits didn¡¯t travel in packs, thankfully, but the caverns had to be full of them, or else they were spawning somewhere nearby, because they kept coming. As long as they didn¡¯t have a chance to sneak up on you, they weren¡¯t hard to deal with. Single-minded, with only one trick up their sleeves, they charged as soon as they spotted us, and I bisected them when they came within reach of the oversized blade.
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One decided to wall-crawl, its long body bouncing laterally as it approached, and Kevin shot it. The sound attracted even more, and one of them managed to kamikaze the fence. That crater was deep enough to open a small hole at its lowest point to the chamber below, and the sides were steep enough to make it difficult for me to get a good slice on any thermit approaching from that side.
I let Kevin fire at will while I shifted our defensive position to a new point along the wall, clearing a few stalagmites as I went to give me a killing field around the fencing. We kept it up for at least an hour, and the rate at which the thermits appeared slowed to a trickle before stopping entirely. The chamber was littered with dead thermits, and I harvested them all. Kevin kept watch as I generated enough gunpowder for a dozen blocks of TNT, though I saved a few Volatile Sacs for later use as potion ingredients, since the System had mentioned it was an option.
¡°You ready to go down?¡± I asked Kevin, shifting resources between the Storage Ring and the chest to make room for the TNT in my inventory.
¡°Not really,¡± he replied.
¡°Great, you go first.¡±
After fencing off the hole, we dropped down. The Elytrons made the glide down almost pleasant, and we landed on a ledge of bedlamite twenty feet above the water. Kevin shot a suspiciously wobbly shape along the wall to our right, and it exploded. Rock fragments disturbed the lake, and the nearest Baresh shifted its position, though it didn¡¯t raise its head.
More thermits, how fantastic.
I provided him with a new supply of arrows before mining a set of stairs to get us closer to the water. How deep was this lake? The first stone blocks I dropped vanished, plop after plop, into its placid surface. After emptying half a stack of basalt from my inventory, the pile began to rise out of the water. This close to the edge, at least, it wasn¡¯t that deep. The frog mobs could even be standing on the bottom, rather than floating.
A single Baresh drifted closer to investigate the disturbance, and I retreated further up to stay out of the reach of its tongue. Its broad head lifted, eyes like dim embers in the dark, and it quickly came to the conclusion that the heap of stones was of no interest, lowering once more. The shells covered their backs as well as the top of their heads, though they would be vulnerable if they were attacked from below.
When I tossed a torch out over the lake, the Baresh reacted instantly, its tongue zipping out to swallow the offending light source. Another thermit exploded, and I glanced up. Kevin was doing his job, at least.
A block of TNT, a torch, and flint and steel. Affixing the torch to the top of the block of dynamite, I lit it and heaved it out. True to form, the Baresh snagged it before it could splash into the lake, and the result was predictably effective.
A shockwave stirred the water as its shell came up, bits of Baresh still attached, and then dropped back down. Chunks of its flesh floated on the surface, and more of the frog mobs took this as an opportunity for a free meal. Their shells drifted closer, giving me ample opportunity to repeat the performance. Like the thermits, they didn¡¯t learn from watching what happened to their fellows. Some mobs were clever, but these were not, and soon, the lake around my pile of rocks was nothing but uninhabited shells.
Kevin came down to admire the result.
¡°Nice,¡± he said, ¡°that was easy.¡±
¡°Shhhh!¡± I glanced around, expecting a mother frog to pop out of the lake, or a rain of thermits from the ceiling a hundred feet above. ¡°Flags, man. Flags.¡±
He laughed, a full-on ¡°hyuck-hyuck¡± that was both awkward and annoying, but seemed genuine. ¡°Right,¡± he said, ¡°shouldn¡¯t have said anything.¡±
Building a bridge to the center of the lake was a tall order, and I started by turning the pile of blocks into a flat platform attached at one end to the cave wall. A couple of torches, and a double layer of stacked fencing went up to prevent any thermits from sneaking up on us. Though they could still potentially drop from the ceiling, it was so high up that there wasn¡¯t much we could do about that other than work faster.
Producing the supply chest once more, I picked out a cabochon of granite and split it into tokens between us. Kevin seemed happy to be a part of the project, humming tunelessly as we extended the platform. Thirty feet out, I made another rock pile to give the bridge support to rest on, and we continued that way until Durin¡¯s Digger was once again pointing straight down.
¡°How much sand do you have?¡± Kevin asked.
In Maincraft, the quickest way to clear a body of water was to wall it off and soak it up section by section with sponges collected from Ocean Monuments. We didn¡¯t have sponges, but I had enough material in the chest, most of it taken from Kevin¡¯s storerooms on Mount Doom, to build a small island of stone blocks and sand at the center of the lake. It wasn¡¯t an ideal solution, but when the mound was almost fifteen feet across, I stepped onto it and dug down.
Shoring up the sides of the hole with stone as I went, I crafted a five-by-five shaft straight down. The Fortune enchantment was telling me the deposit was close, and more than that, a familiar sense of wrongness was working its way up my spine. Atreanum created a disturbance in the Force. These were the droids I was looking for.
When I hit the lake bed, the vein was right there waiting. Atreanum ore, one block, then another, mixed in with the basalt. I kept mining, my excitement growing as the pull of the meta-material intensified. The substrate was solid, free of porous bedlamite, and dug out a tunnel beneath the lake, following the trail of atreanum.
¡°You okay down there?¡± Kevin¡¯s voice echoed down the shaft.
¡°It¡¯s here,¡± I called. Twenty, then thirty, blocks, and the pull diminished, but there was still more to be found. What had died here? Some ancient entity, a cosmic force? It didn¡¯t matter. The resources it had left behind were all I needed to kill every demon on Plana.
¡°Hurry up!¡± Kevin shouted, ¡°I¡¯m getting antsy.¡±
When the pull of Fortune was gone, the sensation of wrongness vanished with it, and a nearly full stack of atreanum sat in my inventory. My heart was beating faster than it had when we were fending off wave after wave of thermits. This was what we had come for.
I rushed back to the shaft and placed a ladder to climb out. Kevin was waiting for me at the top, all but tapping his feet, and he shoved a handful of coins at my face as soon as I appeared.
¡°What are these?¡±
¡°Shells,¡± he said. ¡°I don¡¯t have anywhere to put them.¡±
¡°Thanks,¡± I stowed the coins. He was being helpful, a tendency I certainly wanted to foster, but it didn¡¯t change who he was. The fact that our solo adventure was going well didn¡¯t alter the nature of our relationship. ¡°Let¡¯s get the eff out of here.¡±
A trio of thermits was waiting for us behind the fencing, but we weren¡¯t going out that way. Once a pair of fireworks were slotted into our Elytrons, we rocketed up to the opening in the ceiling. He was better at flying than I was, so only one of us bumped into the roof of the chamber when we got there. Kevin laughed at my awkward landing, clearly enjoying himself,
We followed the trail of torches out of the tunnels, shields up. A couple of thermits got in our way, but we soon returned to the surface of the swamp. I tried not to think about how smoothly this had gone. Even thinking about it could be a jinx.
It was a quick jet to get above the canopy, and the wyvern pen was still in place on the bedlamite formation when we landed.
Higher up, at the peak where I had laid Gastard to rest, a light flashed, and a bird appeared over the rise. As big as a harpy, its feathers were green and blue, gleaming like gems, and flames trailed from its wings as it descended.
I drew the viridium blade, readying my shield as Kevin attempted to hide behind me, but it didn¡¯t attack, instead alighting atop the stone blocks of the wyvern pen, flames still dancing around its wings.
We stared at each other for a long moment. Its Presence was familiar, as were the bright feathers of its crown.
¡°Hello, Will,¡± the demon said, perfectly amiable.
¡°Astaroth?¡±
165: My Demon Buddy
¡°What the frack is this?¡± Kevin lowered his shield a fraction.
¡°We¡¯re good,¡± I said, half-turning. ¡°Get out from behind me, you¡¯re creeping me out.¡±
Things may have gone this far without betraying me, but that didn¡¯t mean I felt comfortable having him at my back. He obeyed without needing to have the curse freeze him first, stepping around to my side so we could both look up at the blue-green phoenix that rested atop the granite pen. A wyvern hissed within the stalls, and I heard the others scratching their claws against the walls, impatient to be free.
¡°Fascinating,¡± Astaroth said. ¡°There¡¯s two of you.¡±
¡°Who is this?¡± Kevin said again. ¡°How do you know something in Bedlam?¡±
¡°You don¡¯t recognize me?¡± The phoenix spread its wings, their feathers several shades darker than its crown, and flames crossed them like a band of light moving over still waters. ¡°I am Astaroth, Twenty-Ninth Harbinger of the One Who Knocks. Or I was. I suppose that seat will be given to another now.¡±
¡°You were one of mine?¡± Kevin said, his expression hidden by a steel visor.
¡°I was, and then his,¡± Astaroth bobbed his beak to me. ¡°Though I was banished from Plana, I consider us allies still in the greater game.¡±
¡°The shamans disintegrated you,¡± I said. ¡°I thought you wouldn¡¯t be able to come back for a long time.¡±
¡°They wounded me sorely. I am not strong enough to cross the veil into that world, or any world, for now. But this is my natural plane.¡±
¡°Allies?¡± Kevin directed the question to me. ¡°What is it talking about?¡±
¡°We had an agreement,¡± I said, ¡°outside of the normal demon stuff. He helped me deal with the others when I broke my oath to Orobas.¡±
¡°That¡¯s crazy. It betrayed Towk? It should have gotten ripped apart as soon as it got to Bedlam.¡±
¡°That¡¯s a good point,¡± I admitted, addressing Astaroth. ¡°Weren¡¯t there consequences for you switching sides?¡±
¡°My essence is my own,¡± the phoenix¡¯s eyes flared gold, then dimmed. ¡°My only injury since returning to this realm has been to my pride, in learning that I am not significant enough to punish.¡±
Was that true? It was impossible to read dishonesty in the face of a phoenix, but a betrayal from Astaroth at this point would feel too convoluted. Unless, of course, the One Who Knocks had taken him back into the fold under the condition that he lure me somewhere uncomfortable whenever I appeared in this plane.
¡°Where is he? The One Who Knocks. If you sensed me, wouldn¡¯t he? Am I about to get ganked by a demigod?¡± The last time I¡¯d been in Bedlam, I hadn¡¯t been accosted by any demons, let alone the entity they served. That didn¡¯t mean it wasn¡¯t a risk, and the fact that Astaroth had flown to meet me suggested he wasn¡¯t the only one who could find us here.
¡°Ganked,¡± Kevin¡¯s laugh ended in a snort. ¡°That sounds right. I¡¯m going to get my throne back sooner than I thought.¡±
¡°He resides in a realm of his own making,¡± Astaroth said, ¡°not Bedlam. Bedlam does not belong to him, though he uses it as a staging ground.¡±
¡°That didn¡¯t answer my main question. How did you find me? Are there other demons coming?¡±
¡°My oath to you is gone. I assume you have broken the blade we swore upon. But I attached a thread of my essence to you in that other world, and the thread, though frayed, remains. I followed it as soon as I realized you were here.¡±
¡°You did what?¡± I hadn¡¯t felt him doing anything like that, and my awareness of him wasn¡¯t any clearer than it would have been of any other entity we came across. Though I was glad that Astaroth was okay and still willing to help, I didn¡¯t enjoy the thought of him performing weird demon magic on me without my knowledge or permission. That was definitely crossing a line. ¡°You should have said something, at least asked me first.¡±
¡°There was no ill intent to my actions,¡± Astaroth said. ¡°If there had been, the oath would have punished me for it. I will be more forthright in the future.¡±
¡°It¡¯s lying,¡± Kevin said. ¡°You can¡¯t trust them.¡±
¡°I have more reason to trust him than you,¡± I replied, and I could have sworn I heard him grinding his teeth under his helm. ¡°How do I know the other demons didn¡¯t do the same thing?¡±
¡°Some did,¡± Astaroth clucked, ¡°and I severed the links after Malphas and the others were slain.¡±
¡°Well, thanks. But again, that¡¯s something you could have told me about.¡± If demons could put tracers on me I had no way of sensing or dealing with on my own, that was a serious tactical disadvantage.
¡°I suppose.¡± He didn¡¯t sound apologetic, but it wasn¡¯t like the expressions of a flaming bird were easy to read, and if he was telling the truth, he¡¯d acted for my benefit.
¡°Bereth knew I¡¯d switched sides. Was that because his link got cut?¡± The tiger had said he¡¯d felt it as soon as the other demons began to die, but this would be a simple explanation for his lack of surprise in learning that I was the one killing them.
¡°I cannot say.¡± Astaroth shifted on his perch. The talons on his feet clicked against the stone. They looked like sharpened topaz. ¡°As to my brethren, they are not coming here. But your entrance into this realm did not go unnoticed. I came to warn you that they are gathering around your portal.¡±
¡°How many?¡±
The phoenix lifted its head, gazing into the void of floating islands as if he could see the way we had come. ¡°Bael, Beleth, and Vepar.¡±
¡°Three dead demons,¡± I said. Of course they would be here, and they had each had longer to reconstitute than Astaroth, especially Beleth. I¡¯d killed the cat over a decade ago in Plana time. ¡°Wait, Vepar was the squishy one with the tentacles, right? Shouldn¡¯t he and Bael be against each other? He helped me and Bojack overthrow him.¡±
¡°My brethren are often at odds, but given the events that followed, Bael was likely willing to overlook the quarrel.¡±
Three demons, and even if they were still recovering, it was safe to assume they would be much tougher opponents in their natural environment than they had been on Plana. ¡°Do they have the same affinities as before? Or are things different here?¡±
¡°Bedlam is easier to shape than a more stable realm, but their affinities remain.¡±
So we would be dealing with fire, water, and air. If Bojack showed up, that would complete the set of traditional elements. Hopefully, three wouldn¡¯t be enough for them to go all Avatar on us. Now that we knew they were there, this was a fight we could be prepared for. And for once, I had more atreanum than I needed.
¡°Are you going to help us?¡±
He nodded.
¡°Screw that,¡± Kevin threw up his hands. ¡°I¡¯m not going back there if demons are waiting for us. We can just use another portal.¡±
I stared at him. Under the circumstances, I had fully expected him to use this as an opportunity to get me out of the way and resume his place as Dark Lord of Dargoth. That was the obvious play. The Kevin I thought I knew would have pretended to be on board until the opportunity came for him to side with the demons. The curse would cause him some trouble, but even if I ordered him to help, I couldn¡¯t force him to be an effective battle companion. It would have been necessary to incapacitate him before the fighting started. If we could get to another portal, it would keep us from having to deal with the demons. Even if we appeared on Plana far from Mount Doom, that was still the safer option.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
¡°Kevin,¡± I said, raising my visor. ¡°Not that I¡¯m complaining, but why aren¡¯t you trying to use this to your advantage?¡±
He went quiet and stayed that way for an uncomfortably long time. Astaroth looked between us, a curious light gleaming in his already brilliant eyes.
¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± he said at last. ¡°I guess they would be on my side, wouldn¡¯t they? I was the Dark Lord for a long time, and it wasn¡¯t always great. I might¡ªI don¡¯t know. There could have been things that I might have done differently. It¡¯s been so long since there was anyone else like me¡¡± He trailed off.
¡°Are you trying to say that you regret being an evil bastard for so long?¡±
¡°I saved the world,¡± he said, stiffening. ¡°But it might be better to do that without so many demons around. Like, this hasn¡¯t been so bad. Fighting monsters, I remember it being scarier, harder. Plus, Towk, he¡¯s not really as cool as I thought he would be. He talked to me the last time I died. It was¡he was¡not cool.¡±
¡°You spoke to the One Who Knocks?¡± Astaroth asked. ¡°Directly?¡±
¡°Something.¡± Kevin made a move like he was going to scratch his head, but there was a helmet in the way, so he let his arm drop. ¡°Something has my soul. He kept saying how I¡¯d disappointed him. That I was running out of time. I don¡¯t want to go wherever his souls go. If I help you, if I help Plana, do you think Mizu would take me back?¡±
¡°I honestly have no idea how any of this works,¡± I said, looking up at Astaroth. ¡°What about you?¡±
It seemed obvious to me that Kevin wouldn¡¯t find much in the way of forgiveness from the people he had harmed, but Mizu was another story. My impression of the goddess and the Hierarchy was that they let heroes grow up free-range, and the ones who joined the dark side were eventually destroyed by the consequences of their own choices or became tools of Discord. The heroes who did well advanced to become realm guardians or whatever.
Would they categorically reject someone who¡¯d already failed the morality test? Probably, but I didn¡¯t really know.
¡°You don¡¯t have to depend on gods and devils,¡± Astaroth said. ¡°If you grow strong enough, your essence can be your own. An entity that learns to retain its consciousness after the death of its body has more freedom to evade the shackles of the gods.¡±
¡°You mean we¡¯ve got to level up?¡± Not that I had a particular beef with the Hierarchy of Harmony. There was plenty to complain about, but I didn¡¯t feel at risk of having them tear up my soul the next time I died. Still, being an independent operator was far preferable to having your immortality in the hands of beings you didn¡¯t completely trust or understand. ¡°Then what, we get to fly around as spirits and pick our own point of re-entry?¡±
¡°Advancing to the next rank would make the transition easier, but it is not the only path. By the standards of the Hierarchy, your rank and mine are the same. But you were born as a mortal in a highly fixed realm, whereas I have always been much as I am now. My essence is more flexible than yours. Developing your Presence, and your awareness of it, would be the first step toward becoming truly free.¡±
¡°Eeeeh.¡± Kevin imitated the sound of a game show buzzer in the most annoying way possible. ¡°No way. You already said the only reason you¡¯re around is because you''re not important enough for Towk to bother with you. So you¡¯re not free either, right?¡±
¡°Freer than you,¡± Astaroth ruffed his feathers. ¡°If I needed a god to remember myself, then I would be in his clutches now.¡±
¡°So there is a way for you to be out of the hands of the One Who Knocks,¡± I said to Kevin, ¡°if you¡¯re being real about wanting that. But it¡¯s not something that¡¯s going to happen today. Do you know how to get to another portal from here?¡±
¡°Oh, not really. Jason broke most of his, and my other one got eaten by a leviathan.¡± He sighed. ¡°I lost so much stuff.¡±
¡°Come again with the leviathan thing?¡± He was focusing on the wrong details.
¡°A greater entity,¡± Astaroth said, peering at Kevin, who was scuffing over some loose shreds of fungus with his boot. ¡°We are beneath their notice, though if enough resources were gathered in one place to interest one of them¡ª¡±
¡°So much stuff!¡± Kevin threw out his hands. ¡°It ate the whole island, and I barely got through the portal in time. That was the last straw for Bedlam for me.¡±
¡°This whole time,¡± I said slowly, ¡°there have been space whales floating around Bedlam big enough to eat entire islands, and nobody ever mentioned it?¡±
¡°What do you think dies to make meta-materials?¡± Kevin said. ¡°Duh.¡±
¡°Alright, we¡¯re getting off track. You suggested we go to another portal, but you don¡¯t know where another portal is.¡± Jason¡¯s base still existed, but I had no way to find that place either on this side of the veil.
¡°So what? Just make a compass.¡±
¡°I told you I don¡¯t have any sanguinum.¡±
¡°We can find some in a desert biome. You¡¯ve got Durin¡¯s Digger. It will work. Or we just make a new portal on this side. How much obsidian did you bring?¡±
¡°Some.¡± It wasn¡¯t a material I used often, but I knew there was a bit tucked away in my chest. Crafted obsidian was far more durable than it had any right to be, harder than most stone blocks. ¡°What¡¯s the minimum viable size for a portal?¡±
¡°Thirty blocks,¡± he said instantly, ¡°and it takes XP to start it up the first time.¡±
I cast my gaze over the mushroom jungle, a red and brown sea enveloped in a cloud of spores. It wasn¡¯t a place I would want to visit often, but planting a portal right next to where I¡¯d entombed Gastard felt kind of right. ¡°Any idea where we are relative to Plana and Dargoth?¡±
¡°How should I know?¡± Kevin said, annoyed. ¡°Am I supposed to have all the ideas?¡±
¡°I¡¯d still rather have a compass then¡ªseveral compasses¡ªin case we pop out somewhere unfamiliar. Would that island with all the Voidmen count as a desert? You think there¡¯s sanguinum there?¡±
¡°Yeah, that¡¯s what I said.¡±
¡°But you¡¯re not sure?¡±
¡°Pretty sure. It¡¯s Bedlam. We could get swallowed by a leviathan before we get anywhere.¡±
¡°I sense none,¡± Astaroth said. ¡°And I will inform you if the void stirs.¡±
¡°Great.¡± The last thing I needed to be worrying about now was having a Pinochio arc in the belly of a space whale. ¡°We fly to the Voidmen island, do some digging, and either build our own portal or get lucky and find out there¡¯s a lost one floating nearby. First, though, I¡¯m going to need a lot more buckets.¡±
To that, Astaroth and Kevin had the same response.
¡°Buckets?¡±
There was plenty of iron, even if I had wanted to craft an entire stack of fresh buckets. Kevin had emphasized their importance before for the potential of clearing out a lava pit and collecting an elemental core, but that wasn¡¯t the project I had in mind at the moment. On the way to the swamp, we¡¯d passed by an island that wasn¡¯t really an island at all, just a liquid Mobius strip that somehow held itself together like a river that had been picked up and tied into a ribbon.
That was another weird thing about Bedlam. Though the islands floated in space, there was a universal down, gravity where there should have been none. After I¡¯d finished with the crafting table and we were on our way, I asked Astaroth about it.
¡°The pull of the void,¡± he said, and that was enough for me. Things didn¡¯t have to make sense here. They just had to be appropriately spooky. Kevin pestered me about the buckets, and I gave in.
¡°You said we can get water source blocks from the river island, right? What do I have to do, scoop anywhere, or swim down?¡±
His wyvern, Gamma, was a wingbeat behind Epsilon, while Delta followed close behind. Astaroth¡¯s speed appeared to be disconnected from the actual motion of his wings. The demon was flying literal circles around us, with shimmers of heat trailing behind his tail feathers, as the water world came into view.
It wasn¡¯t as big as an ocean, I thought, though maybe a great lake. Only a few miles from top to bottom of the figure eight, and half as wide. Not a world unto itself, exactly, but more than enough to play home to a host of phantoms like I¡¯d never seen, and I had seen a lot of phantoms.
Water and air, they seemed equally adept in either environment, rising and falling in flocks. Their wide wing flaps would have darkened the sun if there was one to darken, and we weren¡¯t above them. The water itself was glowing, some kind of bioluminescent plankton, which the phantoms were hunting.
Avoiding the flocks, I rode Epsilon down to the current, stretching precariously to swipe a bucket at the water over the wyvern''s broad head. A small chunk of the river vanished, leaving behind an indentation as if it had been ice cream attacked with a spoon. It restored itself almost instantly, but my bucket was full, so I converted it into a medallion and summoned the next from the Storage Ring.
This was going well enough until a wall of phantoms rose from the water twenty paces behind us. Not that I was afraid of phantoms, but there were enough of them to smother me to death if it came down to it. Hundreds of floating mantas, a cloud of wings and spiked tails.
Astaroth zipped by, diverting the flock with a series of fireballs. The chained explosions were a welcome relief from the white noise of the continually rushing current itself, as well as the susurrus of countless phantoms. I got a few more buckets filled, Epsilon skimming along the surface of the Mobius strip, before Kevin called out a warning.
¡°Big thing!¡± He shouted. ¡°Big bad thing!¡±
It was a shadow in the water beneath me, growing as it rose.
166: My Annoying Gravity
At Kevin¡¯s warning, I pulled up sharply. Epsilon beat his wings, and we rose higher above the water. The dark shape beneath its surface grew and grew, and when it breached, it reminded me of nothing so much as a whale shark, though enlarged to unbelievable proportions.
Its mouth was broad enough to swallow me and Epsilon whole, lined with rows of tiny teeth as well as a forest of bristles for filter feeding. While the bristles suggested humans and wyverns were not its preferred prey, none of what was on offer there would result in a pleasant experience. It rose ten, then twenty, feet from the rushing water, and my wyvern banked, escaping to one side of the behemoth¡¯s mouth, which snapped shut a moment later.
The monster¡¯s moan echoed above the shrieks of the phantoms and the cry of my mount, and it fell back into the ribbon of endless water with a tremendous splash.
¡°Was that a leviathan?¡± I called to Kevin as we flew away.
¡°What? No. That was just a big fish.¡±
It was hard to gauge how long travel took in Bedlam. The realm was both larger and smaller than Plana in its way, extending infinitely, at least by appearances, but with countless unique worlds all clumping close together, and no sun or moon to mark the days. It was a matter of hours before we reached the island of pale sand, though how many hours, I could not say.
Tall shadows slipped across the landscape, projected into three dimensions, with eyes of violet fire. Some seemed to wander, shuffling listlessly, their too-long arms swinging. Others stood still as ice, only to periodically blur into motion, reappearing some distance away and in a stance that suggested they had never moved at all.
The Voidmen didn¡¯t look up at us as we approached and circled one of the dark towers jutting from the surface of the barren region. The space was silent apart from the rush of air under the wings of our wyverns and the occasional guttural cough from the tenebrous entities below. Their vocalizations didn''t seem to signify anything, but for all I knew, the monsters spoke in some eldritch tongue of their own.
We alighted atop the tower. The peaked roof was a tight fit for three wyverns, and the material of the structure was too dense for their claws to dig in, but a lip of blocks around the rim of the peak allowed them to find purchase.
Obsidian. If I didn¡¯t have enough in my chest to build a portal before, there was more than I would ever need right here.
¡°Why up here?¡± Kevin said.
¡°I want to go down through the tower if we can to avoid the Voidmen. Did you see if this thing has an entrance?¡±
Kevin shrugged in response, and Astaroth circled closer, tongues of flame trailing from his multicolored wings.
¡°It does,¡± he said, dipping down and then winging up to hover in midair. ¡°This is the front face, marked by an open arch.¡±
I looked at Kevin. He was flexing his right hand. Having an appendage as twisted as that one likely came with plentiful discomfort.
¡°Can the Voidmen cross running water?¡± They were harmed by water in the game, and wouldn¡¯t cross through it. If it didn¡¯t work that way here, I still wouldn¡¯t regret having collected the source blocks. Having a reality-defying liquid in your back pocket was always a plus.
¡°They don¡¯t like to,¡± he said. ¡°It doesn¡¯t kill them. But it would keep them out.¡±
Of course, I could have always walled off the entrance when we got down there, but a barrier of water was less of an impediment than a wall if we needed to get out of there in a hurry, and we wouldn¡¯t have to reach the bottom before putting it into place.
After reconstituting one of the buckets, I spent a moment in contemplation of its apparently innocuous contents. No special sheen or sparkle. Just water.
¡°Do I have to do something special to place the block?¡± I asked.
¡°Dump it where you want it,¡± Kevin said. ¡°It¡¯ll spread from there.¡±
Slipping from Epsilon and navigating the narrow ledge with a full bucket in one hand was awkward, but the center of the front face of the tower was only a few steps away. Glancing down gave me a hint of vertigo. The tower was more than a hundred feet high. For whatever reason, flying never bothered me, but looking over the verge of a steep drop still made me uncomfortable.
I dumped the bucket.
It emptied instantly, and an oddly stable glob of water appeared on the obsidian ledge. It wobbled for a second as if deciding which way to go, then it poured. I had to take a step back as it spread to either side, only a foot in each direction, and a thin stream poured over the edge onto the sands below.
As waterfalls went, it wasn¡¯t wildly impressive, but it fell to the foot of the tower and spread from there. The water followed paths of least resistance, never rising, even as it propagated down every channel where gravity could pull it. It pooled around the front of the tower and slipped along a dip in the sand to fill a small well between two dunes beside the edifice.
¡°It never runs out?¡± I said. My thermos had a source block inside of it, and Kevin used them in his underground farms, but I¡¯d never placed one myself before.
¡°It won¡¯t rise any farther than it has.¡± He carefully made his way over to my side of the peak, placing one hand against the sloped roof to help himself balance. ¡°Once it stops going down, it never fills anything deeper than a block.¡±
An Voidman appeared near the waterfall, seemed to ponder it for a moment, and then slipped away. There were five or six more within a hundred paces of the tower, but they didn¡¯t appear concerned with the pair of Survivors that had landed in their midst.
Calling Durin¡¯s Digger out of my inventory, I tapped away at the slope of obsidian beside me until the first block disappeared. It wasn¡¯t a sufficient window for me to take stock of what was in the tower, all I could see was more obsidian, so I continued to harvest until there was enough of an opening for me to squeeze inside.
The Fortune enchantment on the pick was giving me a slight tug, down and to one side. There was meta-material here, though we couldn¡¯t be sure what it was until we found it.
¡°Hey,¡± I said, waving at the wyverns. ¡°Don¡¯t fly away.¡±
Epsilon chirped, and I took that as agreement. The other two gave me blank stares. They wouldn''t be able to follow us inside, and the taming mechanic made them inclined to stay close to me, so I didn¡¯t expect them to disappear as soon as we were out of sight.
¡°Any info about what¡¯s inside?¡±
The question was for Kevin, but it was Astaroth who answered.
¡°Duraks,¡± he said. The way that he was floating made his wings seem like they were just for show, a brilliant statue suspended in space. ¡°Lesser entities that hide within dense shells. They have a modicum of magic, and it allows them to manipulate gravity to a degree.¡±
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Shulkers, then. They were annoying in the game, but not much of a threat if you were within a structure. If there was no ceiling overhead, though, you would keep rising until the attack wore off, and the ensuing drop was never pleasant. That and they would keep shooting you while you rose.
¡°Great. Any particular weaknesses?¡±
¡°They will close their shells when you draw close, so you may be better served by a bow than a sword. Water wounds them, and being less mobile than Voidmen, they are more threatened by it.¡±
Were shulkers hurt by water? It was hard to remember every detail of the game. I should have made notes when my previous life was still fresh and easy to recall.
¡°You feel like coming with us?¡±
Astaroth paused before replying, beating his wings once, which released a shower of sparks.
¡°I will keep watch above.¡±
¡°Fair enough.¡±
With a nod to Kevin, I pressed into the gap I had made in the peak of the tower and found that there was nowhere to stand. It was a twenty-foot drop to the floor below, but I didn¡¯t see anything that looked like a shulker, or a durak, whatever. Dropping from the opening caused my elytron to open, and I drifted to the glassy black stone to land with minimal clanking.
The floor was bare, the room empty, and a staircase in one corner led to the next level down. Kevin got out his bow, and so did I. There was no light within the tower, so the scene was cast in the gray shades of my darkvision.
As soon as I was halfway down the stair, I spotted the massive, blocky clam in one corner of the room. Its shell cracked open, revealing a gleaming yellow eye as large as my fist. Before I could nock an arrow, the air between us rippled, and I felt the strike of an invisible fist. The attack was accompanied by a ringing sound, the loss of a half-heart, and my feet lifting off of the steps.
It didn¡¯t feel like weightlessness so much as being tugged up by my navel. Kevin bumped into me as I rose, and a few seconds later, my back jarred against the peaked roof of the tower. It didn¡¯t do any more damage, but the effect had been more immediate than I expected. This wasn¡¯t floating upward, it was like I¡¯d been thrown.
Kevin backed up quickly, an arrow ready to fire, but the string was not yet pulled.
¡°Guess we found one,¡± he said.
¡°Do you know how long this lasts?¡± I asked, still pressed against the ceiling. Aside from up becoming down, the effect didn¡¯t restrict my movement, and it no longer felt like my guts were being pulled out through my back.
Almost as soon as the words left my mouth, gravity remembered how it was supposed to work, and I dropped.
¡°About that long.¡±
My elytron kept the fall from being too precipitous, and I set the bow down to produce another bucket. At the top of the steps, the second source block wobbled like a happy little slime before vomiting a thin river down to the lower floor.
Not long after, a grating sound rose from the darkness. The durak was moving.
If it had been something like a troll, I would have hacked out a section of the floor and attacked it from above. But after seeing that shell, I was certain there were no arrows in my selection that would have the slightest effect.
Kevin and I rushed down the steps, and the current tugged at my boots. A few inches of water had a surprising amount of pull to them, but neither of us slipped. The ringing came again, but the rippling in the air passed behind me and struck Kevin instead.
¡°Dick!¡± He shouted, falling upward. I slid to a stop, water splashing around my greaves, and leveled my bow. Pallid tendrils had extended from the lower half of the durak¡¯s clam shell and were strenuously dragging it away from the spreading pool. Their flesh steamed where they touched the water.
Its eye focused on me, and I fired.
The shell snapped shut, but not before the broadhead penetrated. The damage was already done when the wooden shaft crunched, and the feathered end dropped to the obsidian. It didn¡¯t make a sound, but its tendrils writhed, scrabbling against the wet floor to turn its heavy body away. As the floor was perfectly flat, and the next stair was on the other side of the room, the water from the source block didn¡¯t spread much farther than it already had.
I switched out the bow for my viridium blade and approached the mob, crouching just out of reach of its tendrils, and waited for the clam to open. It was still blindly dragging itself in a full turn, and I followed it.
Kevin came back down the steps, grumbling to himself, and the shell parted a few inches. The tendrils slipped up. It was trying to remove the arrow.
I stabbed it through the gap. The clam snapped shut again, and I experienced a brief moment of terror at the sharp sound of its shell striking the green-gray blade, but my weapon did not break. Its tendrils shivered, then went limp, and the top of its shell rose as its muscles relaxed in death.
I harvested the body for materials. No bones or leather, but the shell was a new coin.
¡°Are the shells good for anything?¡± I asked. In the game, they made a special chest that could carry items while in a player¡¯s inventory, but regular chests did that in this world, so I wasn¡¯t sure what the difference would be.
¡°Shields and chests,¡± he said. ¡°If you get enough of them.¡±
¡°These would make some tough shields. Why didn¡¯t you have any?¡±
¡°Didn¡¯t use shields much. I passed a couple out as rewards, but that was a long time ago. They could be anywhere.¡±
My sword was scratched where the durak had bitten it, though it hadn¡¯t cracked. The weapon¡¯s description had claimed it would repair itself with stolen essence, so I could soon see how effective that was.
We made our way down to the base of the tower, encountering more of the gravity-magic spitting mobs as we went. The only snag we ran into was on the bottom floor, where we found three of them waiting, each in its own corner. After being battered by the blasts, we were forced to retreat and eat beets and carrots until we¡¯d recovered the lost health.
Our shields, with runes of protection, proved the deciding factor. They didn¡¯t negate the magic, but they absorbed it. The gravity reversal was at least loosely tied to weight, so when they took a hit, our shields jerked up, but we were both strong enough to hold them down through at least two shots, and the duraks weren¡¯t capable of rapid fire. It was annoying, and slow, and we had to go back up to heal a second time before we¡¯d blinded the first of them, but these clams would not stop our descent.
Once all the shells were harvested, I saw that a pair of Voidmen stood just beyond the thin stream of water that protected the entrance. The waterfall, such as it was, didn¡¯t fully reach the sides of the open arch. Still, it was enough to deter the shadowy humanoids from interfering with our fight with the duraks.
They stood stock still, their violet eyes and blank faces focusing on me as I approached the thin screen of water.
I waved at them. Nothing.
¡°Are we going to dig or what?¡± The back and forth with the duraks had put Kevin in a huff. Being repeatedly thrown into the ceiling by magic clams had not been beneficial for the ego of the former dark lord.
¡°We are.¡± I said.
The obsidian foundation was deeper than I expected, ten blocks before it gave way to sand. Durin¡¯s Digger was tugging me away from the tower, but not by much, and I planted torches as I went on the off chance that it would keep Voidmen from popping into existence around us, if that even happened here.
There wasn¡¯t much to find in the sand aside from sand, but the Fortune enchantment knew what it was doing. I handed the pick over to Kevin so he could give me directions while I used a shovel, and after a solid twenty minutes of digging, I reached a vein of exactly what I was looking for.
Sandstone laced with hair-thin crimson lines. Sanguinum.
¡°Redstone.¡± Kevin sounded excited. ¡°I told you. Let¡¯s get out of here.¡±
¡°You craft the portal.¡± I stowed the shovel in my inventory and reached out for the pick, which he handed to me automatically. ¡°I¡¯ll make the compasses. Then we¡¯re gone.¡±
A golden compass would lead us to other heroes, and obsidian would lead us to portals. Wherever we appeared in the world, with both of them, we could navigate our way to Mount Doom. Now that I had the materials I needed, crafting the compasses was the work of moments.
My worktable took a place of honor next to the entrance so I could monitor the Voidmen. Despite respectively calling for four blocks of obsidian and four ingots of gold, the pair I crafted were of identical size and weight, small enough to fit in my palm. The slim arrow within the obsidian compass spun madly, fixed on a point through the back wall of the tower, then spun again. It might not be much help in Bedlam. The golden version pointed directly at Kevin, rock steady.
He had to knock out the ceiling on this level of the tower to make room for a portal, but I¡¯d given him Durin¡¯s Digger to do it, and the task was almost complete.
Astaroth burst through the waterfall in a cloud of steam, the Voidmen blinking out of his way and coughing aggressively.
The bird demon landed, his topaz talons clicking on the glassy black stone of the floor.
¡°You must hurry,¡± he said, tilting his head up to look at me from down his beak. ¡°The demons come.¡±
167: My Whalesong
My materials chest was already open beside the worktable, so a moment after Astaroth gave his warning, I was crafting atreanum. Even with a healthy amount of material to work with, the short blades were still the most efficient use of resources. Better reach would have been nice, but any actual sword fighting was out of the question with how easily they broke.
¡°How far?¡± I asked, pulling the worktable lever to combine a stick with a single atreanum coin.
¡°Beleth is nearest,¡± Astaroth lidded his eyes. ¡°The other two lag behind. The manx is swift enough that he will arrive on the island in moments.¡±
I glanced back to Kevin, who had just finished clearing space for the portal. ¡°You got all the blocks you need?¡±
¡°Don¡¯t rush me,¡± he snapped, counting coins.
¡°I wasn¡¯t¡ªnever mind. Take this,¡± I threw a dagger medallion at him and it bounced off his chestplate. He¡¯d been too absorbed in his task to catch it. ¡°It won¡¯t take long,¡± he said, picking up the medallion. ¡°You keep them out.¡±
Me fighting demons while Kevin constructed an escape hatch, what could go wrong? The alternative wasn¡¯t much better.
¡°Don¡¯t go through the portal without me,¡± I commanded, and he shrugged. The curse would delay him, at least. He still hadn¡¯t jumped ship to side with the demons, so that was a good sign, though he could always do so after they arrived.
My viridian blade was clipped on my hip, there were only so many inventory slots to go around, and I preferred to keep atreanum weapons in the Storage Ring where they couldn¡¯t be damaged accidentally. To start things off, however, I elected to go with the bow and a few of the remaining Shadowbane arrows. We used them more than the alternatives, and I would soon be left with Knockback and Flaming variants only.
¡°Can you keep the Voidmen off of us or do I need to start killing them?¡± I asked Astaroth before downing a Fire Resist potion.
¡°I will push them back,¡± he said. ¡°When the others are here, they will be too difficult to control.¡±
The phoenix whistled, and I heard coughs from around the tower. The lithe frames of the mobs flickered as they blinked away. The extra distance likely wouldn¡¯t accomplish anything but buy us some time, but I took advantage of the clearance to step through the water and get a good look outside.
A mile away, a sandstorm had risen. It was rolling across the pale desert in a wave, heading directly for the tower. I didn¡¯t need Astaroth to tell me that was Beleth¡¯s doing. Raising my bow, I tried to find a target amid the whirl. A creature was leading the wave, flying fifty feet above the dunes. Too far and too obscured for me to make out many details, but the gray and black fur was a dead giveaway.
Like Astaroth, the demon no longer held a humanoid form. Beleth was all cat here. Behind me, Kevin was placing blocks, but it would be a few long minutes at least before he finished the portal, and the storm was fast approaching. The wyverns flew down from the peak of the tower, surrounding me protectively. As the Voidmen were leaving us alone, I aimed, waiting for the demon to come close enough for a shot.
My first arrow was taken by the winds and cast harmlessly aside. Like Malphas, Beleth could protect himself from missile fire, and the Shadowbane enchantment was insufficient to break through his defenses.
Atreanum might be a different story. It was a costly experiment, one ingot yielded four arrows, and they were sure to shatter with use. But the demons had never seen me use them before, and if I got lucky, it would be worth it.
The sandstorm consumed the horizon, it was only two hundred yards away and closing fast. There were no Voidmen in sight, and the wyverns were hissing angrily at the encroaching wave. They wouldn¡¯t be able to fly in that mess.
I fired, and the arrow flew true. Beleth was the size of a leopard, and given that he was supermanning toward me, didn¡¯t present much of a target. The demon didn¡¯t try to dodge, expecting the winds to protect him, but the atreanum arrowhead cut through his magic as if it were dead air.
It struck his shoulder, and the cat demon¡¯s yowl rose above the din of the storm. I felt his Presence shiver, and the wall of sand rushed forward, swallowing him, curving to slam into the tower from all directions.
Astaroth¡¯s cry cut through the din, and he rose in a blaze of red-orange power. Flames materialized in the air above me, rolling out to meet the storm, and the phoenix dove into the cloud to hunt his counterpart.
¡°Get inside,¡± I commanded the wyverns, who were huddled against the onslaught of sand that was already rasping against my armor. Their eyes were slits as they crouched low to the ground, and they slipped under the water at my words. Astaroth could hold off Beleth, especially if I¡¯d weakened him. We¡¯d be gone before the other demons arrived.
As I moved to follow the wyverns, buffeted by wind and sand, the waterfall and the pool at the base of the tower coalesced into a mass of tubular limbs. They struck out as one, grasping and binding, ripping me off of my feet.
I kicked out as I jerked up, and my boots ruptured the limbs they touched. The Shadowbane runes that imbued them were useful for more than containing my corruption. It wasn¡¯t enough to free me, however, and as the water pulled me up the side of the tower, tendrils sought to press through my visor to drown me.
My duel with Berith had taught me how to survive this. With an application of will, a burst from my own Presence, I prevented the encroaching water from forcing its way into my mouth and nose. My body and my being belonged to me, and the demon¡¯s magic was not welcome within me.
It had to be Vepar. Astaroth had thought he was farther away, but demons could disguise their presence, and he could have used Beleth¡¯s more dramatic approach to disguise his own. Should have picked up the source block, it was the perfect tool for a demon with a water affinity.
The waterfall rolled me up, all but immobilizing me. My bow dropped below, and I summoned an atreanum dagger. Living liquid retreated from the edge of the blade. Wherever I sliced, the water fell away, losing its animation even as the pressure on other parts of me increased. Vepar gripped me in a translucent fist, slamming me against the obsidian flank of the tower. My armor rang with the impact, but I kept hold of the dagger, slicing wildly to weaken his grip.
Where was he?
The sandstorm obscured my vision, lit here and there by flashes of lightning and flame. Shards of glass clinked against the tower, and my armor, like hail. Smashed against the tower once more, a wide slash from my blade severed the watery limb at its tree-trunk thick wrist, allowing me to fall.
Instead of drifting gently down on the wings of the elytron, I activated the rocket and sent myself shooting straight up. A new limb reached for me as I passed the peak of the tower, and a bucket materialized in my left hand. With a swipe, it consumed the source block resting on the obsidian ledge, but the limb still hit me, smothering the rocket and catching me in mid-flight.
Vepar was there, clinging to the steeple with a host of rubbery arms. A blue-gray squid the size of a pony, his pinkish eyes were bigger than my fists. Instead of trying to drown me again, his limbs wove a tapestry of arcane gestures, and the liquid around me crackled as it froze. The phase shift happened too quickly for me to dispel it with the dagger.
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I sliced up with the dagger, but I was caught, and a second later, only my blade and my boots were free.
¡°Survivor,¡± the demon¡¯s voice sounded like squelching mud, ¡°this is the end of your journey.¡±
Cold stung my skin, seeping through the orichalcum, as ice crept over my face mask. Though he couldn¡¯t drown me directly, he could still cut off my air. It would be a slow, helpless death, suspended in an icicle stuck to the top of the tower.
I tried to move, to break free of the grip of the ice, and heard the pops as it fractured. Vepar, however, was not still. He continued his working, and his grip on me redoubled. I wasn¡¯t strong enough to break free, and he could shape and reform the cage he had made for me at will.
My vision flashed white as a fireball struck the tower, blasting Vepar from his perch. The icicle broke, and I dropped like a barbell. The elytron couldn¡¯t do anything to slow my descent while its wings were encased in ice. My heart bar flickered at the impact, but the frozen fist shattered as I hit the sand.
The storm washed over me, I couldn¡¯t even see the entrance arch, and then I was struck by lightning.
The thunder was deafening, the heat searing, and the strike took me off my feet just as I had begun to rise. Astaroth had acted to save me, and his distraction had been enough to allow Beleth to attack.
More hearts gone. Half health, and mostly blind, I reached out with my Presence to find Beleth. The cat demon wasn¡¯t far, and he was drawing fully on his power. His aura was strange, pulsing, but with an obvious wound, a dark spot in the electric brightness where he had been struck by an atreanum arrow.
Twitching nerves resisted my choice to run, but I forced my limbs to obey. Magic gathered around Beleth as he prepared another bolt. The last time we had fought, he had sought to capture me. He wasn¡¯t bothering with that this time.
If I died here, his master could claim my soul.
I wasn¡¯t going to reach him before his spell was finished. The winds were too strong, the distance too great.
I threw the dagger.
He dodged, but the fear of atreanum disrupted his spellcasting, and my boots surged across the shifting sand. Beleth leaped over me, carried by the wind, and I slid to a stop, pulling the viridium sword from my belt. I charged again, and he evaded me easily. Working completely off of my aetheric sense, all I actually saw of him was a dark blur amid the wash of sand.
Then a white-blue arc.
I barely avoided the crackling spell as it gouged a burning hole in the dune where I had been standing a moment before. It wasn¡¯t as strong as the lightning that had struck me before, but I did not doubt that he could keep up this dance all day, or at least until Bael arrived.
Astaroth might or might not defeat Vepar on his own. Water probably trumped flame as affinities went. One slip from me and I would be shocked into submission. This had to end fast. An explosion reverberated from the top of the tower, was that Astaroth again? I couldn¡¯t see what had happened and didn¡¯t have time to worry about what the noise meant.
Beleth was toying with me, leaping directly overhead, high enough to be out of reach of my sword, and coming down at my back. I tried again, knowing I would never reach him, and as he lifted off the ground, I spun.
The Heart of the Hollow King appeared in my hand, summoned from the Storage Ring. Bitter purple light thrummed within its countless facets. The weird thing was, this fight felt like something out of a kung-fu movie training montage. Are you having trouble following your opponent''s movement? Why not put on a blindfold?
I really could feel him, and I knew where he was about to be.
Do not drop. Thanks for the warning.
I threw it.
An arc of electricity cut through the sandstorm, followed by a bloom of awful light. A deep, resonant note rolled out from the point of impact, and I felt the world twist. My soul, Beleth¡¯s Presence, I felt us both stretching, snapping, but he was closer to the epicenter than I was. For what felt like the tenth time in less than five minutes, I was knocked off my feet.
The sands were pushed outward, leaving a sphere of clear air within the cloud for a moment that extended unbearably as Beleth seemed to hang in suspension. The cat demon¡¯s face was painted with almost comical surprise, and then the rip in reality sucked him in like an image reflected in water just before it went swirling down a drain.
The Heart of the Hollow King had broken, leaving behind what looked like a portal. Only this tear in reality wasn¡¯t bounded by an obsidian frame. It was jagged, twitching hungrily. Wind died, and sand fell in sheets, nearly burying me. I got woozily to my feet, only a few hearts left in my health bar.
Astaroth and Vepar had paused in their contest a hundred yards away. The squid was protected by a shifting wall of ice, the dunes around him already scorched as the phoenix circled. Both were looking past me now, toward the wound in the world. Voidmen, dozens of them, were flickering in from every direction. Their coughs were the loudest sounds in the silence left behind after the fracturing of the artifact. It would have been nice to use the Heart of the Hollow King in a recipe, but ending Beleth was a worthy use for the rare drop.
The viridium blade was only a few feet away. I picked it up.
The gap in the fabric of Bedlam was five feet wide, with fractal arms like a twisted snowflake, and getting wider. I shuffled away, back toward the tower. The lightning strike was catching up with me, my legs felt like jelly one moment and stiff as logs the next. A healing potion would have been appreciated. With a last jet of water at Astaroth, Vepar launched himself into the sky, swimming through the void as freely as one of the phantoms. Instead of going after him, Astaroth banked away from the jet and dove around to me.
¡°We have to go,¡± he said. ¡°Immediately.¡±
¡°That¡¯s not news to me.¡± I was ten seconds from reaching the arch, even at a snail¡¯s pace. ¡°Can you keep the Voidmen back?¡±
¡°They will obey me,¡± he said. His feathers were ruffled, and his spirit felt worn and small in my aetheric sense, but he wasn¡¯t done for yet.
The steeple of the tower was gone, and obsidian blocks littered the surrounding dunes. Astaroth¡¯s blast hadn¡¯t been that powerful. Through the arch, I could see Kevin standing before an almost-finished portal. His back was to me, and he wasn¡¯t moving. Frozen by the curse? That didn¡¯t make sense. He hadn¡¯t betrayed me, and he couldn¡¯t disobey my order not to leave me behind when the portal wasn¡¯t even complete.
And where were the wyverns?
Astaroth screeched a warning, and instead of stepping under the arch, I lurched to one side of the opening on instinct.
Flames, rich red, hotter than any natural fire, poured out in a burning cataract. The near miss was uncomfortable, but the potion I had taken before the start of the battle did its job, and my health bar remained stable. One demon was gone, the other had fled. That left Bael.
¡°How are you, Mr. Toad?¡± I called, pressed against the obsidian wall beside the arch.
¡°Reborn, and with the favor of the One Who Knocks, more powerful than ever.¡± Had his voice always been so deep? It was like talking to Darth Vader.
¡°Was he that pleased that I killed you?¡±
¡°More pleased than you know.¡±
I had no idea what to say to that.
¡°Kevin,¡± I called. ¡°How¡¯s it going in there?¡±
¡°He won¡¯t let us go. I can¡¯t finish the portal. I¡¯m¡sorry.¡±
Kevin apologizing for something was leagues more surprising than Bael getting in our way. Astaroth flapped to my side. His affinity was the same as the toad demon¡¯s. He was weaker than Bael, but he could still protect me, couldn¡¯t he? At least long enough for me to give the older demon a dose of atreanum.
Most of the Voidmen were standing around the tear left behind by the Heart of the Hollow King like they were having a religious experience. Some of them had their arms in the air, and most were swaying. One got too close and was dragged into raw chaos with a sound closer to laughter than I wanted to think about. Where did it lead to? Nowhere I wanted to go.
Four of the lanky mobs ignored the growing portal, instead blinking to join me and Astaroth at the side of the tower. He had them under control.
¡°Should I count to three or something?¡± I said in an undertone.
¡°Three,¡± Astaroth replied.
At the same moment, a new sound rolled across the island. It was vast, resonant, and oddly beautiful. It reminded me of whalesong.
I looked toward the source of the sound. Another island was fast approaching through the void, or not an island. A tremendous, green-gray mass, vaguely fishlike. It had a tail, and it was covered in hair that was actually probably tentacles thicker than my body.
So that was what leviathans looked like.
168: My Old Buddy
¡°Three,¡± I repeated, slipping my shield back onto my arm. There was nothing we could do about a leviathan but get out before it reached the island.
I held the shield in front of me, my sword hanging to one side, as I rushed under the arch. I had the briefest glimpse of Bael before he launched a wave of fire. Unlike the other demons, he had retained a humanoid form. He actually looked better than the last time I¡¯d seen him. No longer a fat, squat toad, he was now a tall, lean man with slick green skin. His eyes were bulbous yellow spheres, and his mouth opened in a too-wide slit as he uttered a guttural incantation.
Flames leapt from his hand, filling the space between us. The protective rune on my shield flared, and the barrier activated. It wouldn¡¯t have been enough on its own, the burning wave was as tall as I was, but Astaroth was behind me, weaving magic of his own.
At a cry from the phoenix, the flames parted and died. I continued forward, but the Voidmen outpaced me. Four distended shadows blinked into the room, their long-clawed hands reaching.
¡°No.¡± He said, his tone carrying the weight of his Presence. Even I felt the power behind it, a will as dense as the demon¡¯s spirit, and faltered. Two of the Voidmen stopped in their tracks, swaying as if they had been struck. The other pair blinked again, slicing and rending.
Long gashes opened along one of Bael¡¯s bare muscular arms and across his chest. He struck one of the Voidmen with a closed fist, and a chunk of the mob¡¯s abdomen disappeared as if it had been smuggling a bomb that just went off. Shadowy flesh and violet blood splattered the surrounding chamber, and the Voidman collapsed.
I lunged, the point of my sword aimed for Bael¡¯s throat, and he twisted to one side. The Voidman blinked around him again, talons raking across his back, and the demon¡¯s throat expanded like a balloon with a rubbery, creaking sound. I wanted to slash open the balloon, but the other two Voidmen turned on me, wrapping their long limbs around my shoulders and arms.
Astaroth shrieked, latching onto the back of one of my assailants, and buried his beak in the base of its skull. Steam rose from the point of contact, and I smelled burning plastic. They barked in anger, and as the grip on me weakened, I ripped free of the other, the Thorns of my armor tearing its hands apart, and slammed my shield into its broad, blank face.
As it skipped back, I saw Kevin. He was standing by the unfinished portal with empty hands. Caught either by indecision, or the wrong one. The wyverns were all dead, burned and crumpled.
A white-hot whip lashed my backplate, ringing against the orichalcum. I spun, and his next crack sparked against my shield barrier. Bael¡¯s neck had grown to the size of a basketball, and when his mouth split, a wash of flame spilled out, expanding into a luciferous maelstrom.
The rune on my shield flared, then broke. Wooden planks fell away from my arm in charred chunks, along with the leather straps I had used to hold it. My heart bar flashed, but did not lower. Astaroth appeared in front of me, wings outstretched, and diverted the flames into a column that thrust through the hole in the ceiling into the floors above.
Bael¡¯s whip wrapped around Astaroth¡¯s slender neck and snapped him against the wall.
¡°NO.¡± He said again, and the Voidman that had been clawing him shuffled back with a pained grunt. The one that had been fighting me came in again, and I swiped through its leg with my gray-green sword. I hadn¡¯t even looked. I could feel it.
¡°Finish the portal, Kevin.¡± I said, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him finally start to move again.
Bael croaked, but all that came out was smoke. His whip struck like a viper, wrapping around my blade, and I let him have it, rushing forward and calling another dagger out of my inventory in the same instant. The atreanum glinted, and Bael raised his hand to protect his face. The dagger punched through his palm, and he twisted his wrist, snapping the blade while it was still sheathed in his flesh.
Instead of retaliating, he hopped to the portal and backhanded Kevin aside. His whip disintegrated, and a light shone in his uninjured hand, a ball of plasma too bright to look upon. He pressed the orb into the arch, speaking eldritch words, and hairline fractures raced across the obsidian structure. Half the portal crumbled as his spell raced up and down its length.
¡°Dick!¡± Kevin shouted, thrusting his own atreanum dagger into Bael¡¯s lower back. The demon croaked, jumping away, but there were no more flames. He turned to face us, his already bulbous eyes nearly popping out of their sockets.
¡°You understand nothing.¡± He said. ¡°Children playing a game you¡¯ve already lost.¡±
¡°What does killing you with atreanum do here?¡± I asked. ¡°Will it be permanent this time?¡±
He didn¡¯t answer, and the ground rumbled with the approach of the leviathan. The entire tower was made of obsidian. We could craft another, if we had time.
My arrows were lost in the sands along with the first dagger, and the backup was ruined as well, though having the blade stuck in Bael¡¯s palm was a worthy end for it. I was out of atreanum weapons, but Kevin still had his.
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Astaroth was still struggling to recover, he¡¯d used too much energy, and the last Voidman seemed caught between two masters. It wasn¡¯t attacking. So I tackled Bael.
Thorns dug into his skin as I grabbed him from behind, and they dug in deeper when he tried to throw me off. If he hadn¡¯t already been stabbed, he might have been stronger than me, but I was able to bring his arms around his back and turn him toward Kevin.
The former Dark Lord did not have to be told what to do. He lunged forward, and drove his dagger into Bael¡¯s abdomen. Then again, and again. I heard the blade snap when it hit breastbone on the third entry, but the damage had been done. Bael slumped in my grip.
¡°Too late,¡± he rumbled, blood leaking from his too-wide mouth. ¡°Still too late.¡±
I dropped him and went outside.
The rip in reality had doubled in size, and a host of Voidmen were busily worshiping the gap. It sounded like grinding glass. It was hard to gauge how fast the leviathan was moving, but it was even closer, and even bigger, than it had been moments before. It wouldn¡¯t be able to swallow the island whole, but it could take a chunk out no problem, and my intuition suggested that it was coming right where we were, attracted by the scent of raw chaos in the air.
¡°I need more obsidian,¡± Kevin said, taking Durin¡¯s Digger from where he had left it beside the portal. ¡°But I think we¡¯re good. There aren¡¯t any more demons, are there?¡±
¡°No,¡± I said. ¡°Just a leviathan.¡±
¡°A what!¡± He jogged out beside me, and lifted his visor. His mouth hung open. ¡°Screw the portal. We¡¯ve got to go now!¡±
¡°The wyverns are dead.¡±
¡°Don¡¯t you have more rockets?¡±
I did. But they wouldn¡¯t get us back to his base, so we would end up stuck on another random island, likely without access to more obsidian. Also, my Elytron was damaged from the ice and the fall.
Before I could bring it up, a familiar, birdlike trill interrupted us, and something heavy thumped onto the dune at our backs.
We turned, and were greeted by the sight of a wyvern almost twice the size of the ones we had rode in on. It¡¯s dark beady eyes were tinged with green, and its maw gaped in a horrific imitation of a happy-to-see-me dog.
¡°Noivern!¡± Even if he hadn¡¯t represented our salvation from inbound consumption, I would have been overjoyed to see him.
The wyvern bobbed its wide sharklike head.
¡°Get on,¡± I told Kevin, rushing back inside to quickly harvest my chest of materials and snap the viridian blade back on my belt.
¡°Can you fly?¡± I asked Astaroth.
¡°I can.¡± The phoenix was missing some feathers, and his flames had gone out, but he was on his feet.
Outside, Noivern was giving Kevin some trouble.
¡°Kneel,¡± he demanded. ¡°What¡¯s wrong with you?¡± The wyvern had shuffled aside when he went to mount him, and Kevin was easy to frustrate.
¡°I guess I should go first,¡± I said. ¡°Noivern, chill.¡±
The massive monster trilled at me like a friendly cockatiel, and I hopped onto his broad back. He barely seemed to notice the extra weight.
¡°Can he carry both of us?¡± Kevin eyed the minimal seating area with skepticism. This was going to be tighter than sharing a motorcycle. His question was nearly lost beneath another sonorous call from the leviathan. The sand shivered under my boots..
¡°Get on, man. This island is about to get swallowed.¡±
Kevin obliged, and Noivern only hissed at him a little. Astaroth fluttered out of the tower, and with a bit of a running start, we lifted off into the void.
The Voidmen ignored us, concerned only with the fractured space in the center of their crowd. As we rose higher, I saw that they were walking in droves from all across the island. They looked like lines of ants.
The leviathan rose above the island, its vast form taking up more and more of my vision. It was even less coherent now that it was closer. Much of its body was either covered in, if not composed of, a thick, sickly fog. There were no eyes that I could see, but it did have a mouth, a gaping hole that led to nothing but darkness.
It would have been better if it had teeth.
Noivern didn¡¯t need to be told to fly faster. His wingbeats became more rapid, and he dove to increase our speed until we were skimming just above the dunes. We were already a mile from the void portal, but we weren¡¯t out from under the leviathan. Its song vibrated in my armor, in my breastbone, growing so loud that I thought I might lose my ears.
Kevin shouted something. I couldn¡¯t understand him. Sand was rising from the dunes, floating weightlessly, affected by the gravity of the beast. Its Presence was so intense that I was sure I would have felt it even without an aetheric sense, a physical pressure that pressed me down into Noivern. It was a miracle the wyvern could fly at all.
A line of light ahead of us. The land beyond its ever expanding shadow. The force of its being grew and grew, but we slipped from beneath the leviathan. The edge of the desert approached us, and Noivern took us out into true emptiness. It was at that point that the leviathan landed.
The sound was more than an avalanche, it was an entire mountain driving itself into the earth. I didn¡¯t look back for long minutes, simply listening to the tumult and thunder behind us.
When I did look, we were far enough away that the true scale of the scene was less shocking. From a distance, with no proper frame of reference, it was possible not to be overwhelmed.
The island had fractured, chunks of its bedrock floating in disparate directions, much of the sands drifting freely in clouds. The great fish was swiping its tail as it twisted to gulp down more of the landmass, searching for any hint of the delicious chaos it had already swallowed.
We kept flying, and didn¡¯t speak again until Kevin¡¯s base was in sight.
169: All Caps Conversationalist
There was something wrong with Kevin¡¯s island. The mobs were still. Magma slimes relaxed by pools of lava, not so much as bothering to hop as we flew over them, and there wasn¡¯t a fire elemental in sight.
His glass house was intact, and two figures waited in the portal room. They were too far away to make out any details other than that one was taller than the other, but the fact that anyone was there was ominous enough. I used my knees to guide Noivern to the side, taking us in a wide circle around the base, well beyond its protective dome.
¡°Kevin,¡± I said. ¡°Who the balls is that?¡±
¡°No,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s not him. It can¡¯t be him.¡±
Unhelpful, and really cranking things up on the ominous scale. Astaroth darted before us, then matched our speed, flying backward beside Noivern.
¡°Leave this place.¡± He said. ¡°They are hiding their Presence. But I fear whoever it might be.¡±
Where else could we go? Regardless, I turned Noivern around. That was a warning that could not be ignored. As soon as the base was at our backs, half a dozen fire elementals rose around the edge of the island in the direction we were headed. They weren¡¯t throwing fireballs at us, but the implication was obvious.
¡°Can you control them?¡± I called to Astaroth. They were his element, even weakened, he should have been able to at least get them out of the way. My potion of resistance had long since worn off, and if Noivern got cooked, so would we.
¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± the phoenix sailed. ¡°He is too strong.¡±
Whoever was by the portal was swinging a massive aetheric appendage around. I guided Noivern back.
¡°Don¡¯t!¡± Kevin said, pressing himself against my back. ¡°We can still run.¡±
¡°You going to tell me who that is down there?¡±
¡°He gave me my eye.¡±
Wonderful.
¡°Well, it looks like this is him playing nice. He¡¯s standing somewhere we can see him, so it¡¯s not an ambush. Let¡¯s play nice too and see where this goes.¡±
¡°Are you insane?¡±
¡°You sound like my psychiatrist.¡± I¡¯d eaten enough beets and carrots on the way back to restore my health, so we could fight if we had to. Making a break for it through the line of elementals was still probably the smarter move. The truth was, I was tired. Seeing the leviathan had taken something out of me. Coming back to Bedlam had felt necessary, but it also felt like a mistake. I was out of my league.
If this was the entity who had given Kevin his eye, I doubted he would kill us. Maybe he¡¯d just do something worse instead. Even if we did manage to get away, which I didn¡¯t think we would, we would be stuck in Bedlam for who knew how long. The adventures of Kevin and Will, buddies forever, needed to come to an end. Plus, I didn¡¯t like the idea of this mysterious entity getting to decide where I could go. I was stuck between being fatalistically resigned and stubbornly determined, and both versions of my mind were saying the same thing.
¡°William,¡± Astaroth said, ¡°what are you doing?¡±
¡°The portal is right here. One way or another, I¡¯m going through it.¡±
Astaroth whistled sorrowfully but continued to follow us. Kevin made a choking noise.
We landed, and the magma slimes made no move to harass us. The runic barrier had been deactivated, so we could walk right in. Noivern had some trouble squeezing in the front door, but I felt better having the huge beast behind me.
Both men were dressed in tan cloaks. The larger of the pair was otherwise covered in bandages like he thought he was Makoto Shishio and the other had on a chain shirt as shiny as any elven Mithril. The smaller guy was relatively young, at least by appearance, maybe in his twenties. Handsome, lean¡ªthere was something familiar about his eyes.
I had my sword out, and Kevin was clutching his as well, but they were both unarmed. Not that entities as powerful as they probably were would need swords to beat us. The fact that they were veiling their Presence suggested they had a lot of it to hide.
Kevin drew in a sharp breath as we entered the chamber. ¡°You¡¡± His weapon was trembling in his hand. Astaroth, who had latched onto the back of my armor when we came into the building, shrieked.
He stretched his neck above my head and launched a bolt of fire at the bandaged man.
His young companion stepped in front of the attack and took it. The skin of his handsome face was seared away, revealing musculature and bone beneath, then instantly regenerated. He didn¡¯t even flinch. Noivern hissed and retreated a step into the hall.
¡°Don¡¯t fight,¡± the young man said. ¡°We could have killed you already if that was what we wanted.¡±
¡°Who are you?¡± I asked.
I AM THE ONE WHO KNOCKS
The glass house trembled. It was the bandaged man who said it, but he wasn¡¯t talking from his mouth. His voice was just¡there. And it was huge.
His companion touched his shoulder, a worried expression crossing his face. ¡°I will speak. You must not draw attention to yourself.¡±
Astaroth dropped off my back. Tiny flames rose and fell along his feathers. ¡°We are lost,¡± he said.
¡°Not lost,¡± the young man replied, smiling kindly. ¡°Found. You should never have run from us, Astaroth.¡±
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¡°I wanted to be free,¡± the phoenix lowered his head.
¡°If he¡¯s Walter White,¡± I said, ¡°who are you?¡± This situation should have had me more freaked out, but it didn¡¯t come as a complete surprise, and at this point, I was just done. Whatever happened, happened. I was still getting through that portal. It wasn¡¯t active anymore, but all that took was a little blood.
¡°I don¡¯t know that name, but you do not have to call him the One Who Knocks if it displeases you. He was Calcion, once. And I am Prem, his son.¡±
¡°His¡son?¡±
¡°Adopted, of course,¡± Prem said wryly. ¡°My blood father was a hero, like you. Though he has since been taken by the Forge.¡±
Those eyes. God. Damn. Was this Fladnag¡¯s kid? That was so messed up.
¡°I did everything you asked,¡± Kevin pleaded. ¡°Look, I even brought Will to you, just like you wanted.¡±
Calcion turns his blind gaze upon Kevin, and the former dark lord¡¯s trembling was obvious even through his armor.
DID YOU
That voice made my ears ring. I looked at Kevin. ¡°You knew he would be here?¡±
¡°He did,¡± Prem said.
¡°Why even send the demons then?¡±
¡°My father cannot move freely in this realm without drawing attention from other great entities. He is veiled. And we did not trust that Kevin would fulfill his end. He has never been a reliable partner. ¡°You were planning to leave through another portal, were you not?¡±
¡°No,¡± Kevin protested, his voice breaking, ¡°I was going to do what you asked.¡± He took a step forward. ¡°I¡¯m on your side, I was always on your side. Please¡ª¡± The bandaged man blinked like an Voidman, appearing in front of Kevin.
YOU HAD EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS
He reached for Kevin¡¯s face, and the steel visor boiled away like liquid. Kevin screamed, and I tried to slash the bandaged arm, but Prem intervened. He moved with supernatural swiftness to grab my wrist, pushing me back with his other hand. He was stronger than me, stronger than any demon. I felt like I¡¯d lost my attributes to the Curse of Weakness again.
Noivern surged forward to protect me but froze at a glance from the man who held me.
The bandaged man plucked out Kevin¡¯s black eye, and Kevin dropped to his knees, wailing. Astaroth shuffled back from us both, keeping his head bowed.
¡°Don¡¯t fight,¡± Prem said. ¡°You aren¡¯t in danger. He was living on borrowed time.¡±
Kevin¡¯s wail cut off and the One Who Knocks placed his other hand against his cheek. Black veins spread across Kevin¡¯s exposed skin, and he stiffened, a violet flame sprouting in his now empty socket.
He smiled.
¡°The pain is gone,¡± he said. ¡°All of it.¡±
IT WAS YOUR FREEDOM THAT PAINED YOU
¡°Thank you,¡± Kevin said, disturbingly earnest. ¡°This is what I always wanted. I feel¡real.¡±
¡°Wait for us outside,¡± Prem said, half turning to Kevin. ¡°You are not needed for this.¡± He let go of me to take a step back. Kevin hopped to his feet, and then looked down at his still-armored right hand, flexing it cautiously. A wide grin spread across his face, and he left the chamber without looking back.
¡°What now?¡± I said. Even if the One Who Knocks, Calcion, couldn¡¯t melt orichalcum like he had steel, the slimness of my chances was becoming increasingly clear.
¡°My father prefers willing partners to joyous slaves,¡± Prem said. ¡°If you accept his gift, you are free to return to Plana.¡±
¡°His gift?¡± I said, my eyes drawn to the wet black orb held between the bandaged man¡¯s thumb and forefinger.
¡°I think I knew your father,¡± I said. ¡°All he wanted was to get you back. He was willing to do awful things to do it, but I understood his motivation. Did he know you were a¡ªwhat did you say? Willing partner?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know the man whose blood I share,¡± Prem said, ¡°Calcion is my father. Calvin was just a man with the wrong idea about the nature of the universe.¡±
It really was Fladnag¡¯s son.
¡°What do you mean?¡± I asked.
¡°He perceived the universe from the perspective of mortality, as you do. So many useless attachments. Calcion has taught me better. As I can see you have surmised, the eye is the gift. Kevin failed to make use of its full potential. We have high hopes that you will do better.¡±
¡°I won¡¯t take it,¡± I said, ¡°I saw what that did to Kevin. The taint was bad enough, with that eye, what would I become?
¡°You don¡¯t want to turn into a monster,¡± Prem said, ¡°that is understandable. My father can give you whatever form you choose. He can help you control the influence of Discord before it begins to control you.¡±
¡°Isn¡¯t he on Discord¡¯s side?¡±
¡°Calcion serves no one but himself. And he will not ask so much of you. Everyone you love, every soul on Plana, can be kept safe. Ruining that Realm is not his goal.¡±
¡°Gremory said something like that. He wants to pass through, to kill Mizu, is that right?¡±
¡°He wants to survive. The darkness of the void is not quiet, and there are dangers even to an entity as great as him. But yes, my father has a personal grudge against the blue goddess.¡±
¡°What happens if he kills her? Won¡¯t all the realms in her sector, or whatever you call it, be consumed?¡±
¡°Not by Discord,¡± Prem sounded so understanding, so reassuring. It had to be an act. ¡°The Hierarchy is more negotiable than you imagine. All the realms under her protection would fall to my father, and he would keep them stable. Calcion was not born in Discord, but on one of the worlds in the blue goddess¡¯s dominion. He served them, once, and then fell to the void. Once he returned, he was in no mood to serve. The Hierarchy despises anything outside of their control, but they would prefer to cede a portion of their territory to him than allow it to fall to chaos.¡±
¡°I won¡¯t turn Plana into Bedlam.¡±
¡°You will have an opportunity to transform the world however you choose.¡±
¡°What about the demons? If I take that eye, will he just call them off?¡±
¡°No. Multiple possible outcomes would be acceptable to him, and others would be unacceptable. The demons who are already on Plana will continue to fight for control of the realm. If you defeat them, we will consider you worthy of being the master there.¡±
I looked at the portal, wondering whether I could get around Prem and bleed on the obsidian fast enough to launch myself through and back to Plana. The bandaged man let the hand with the eye drop and raised the other. A golden sphere appeared upon his palm.
SENSE IT
His words fell on me like the pressure of an ocean. I let my Presence extend, and with it, touched the sphere.
It was Gastard¡ªthe soul of my friend.
¡°He¡¯s your hostage. Your adopted dad seems to do a lot of that.¡±
¡°You say that like it means something,¡± Prem shrugged. ¡°Of course he does. Survival is what matters. You should feel the same.¡±
On some level, that was hard to argue with. They weren¡¯t just stronger than me. Even if I did manage to get by them and back to Plana, Gastard would be in the hands of the enemy, and he would never come back. The templar would have told me to leave him behind, I was sure. But he wouldn¡¯t have left me behind. The kind of loyalty he had shown was something I could never repay.
¡°What do I have to do?¡±
170: My Green Text
|
Quest Update
Mentor
Secondary objective failed. You could not preserve the lives of your mentees for the duration of their tutorial. No one was surprised.
Continue to safeguard the new heroes for the remainder of their tutorial to receive your reward.
Kevin
Quest completed.
You are now Unbound.
Mizu¡¯s geas has been lifted. As a ranked entity, you are free to pursue any path you wish. However, actively acting against the interests of Harmony may result in disintegration. This is not a promise, it is a threat.
Additionally, as an Unbound, you have been granted significant resistance to psychic influence and Presence manipulation. You¡¯re welcome.
|
The blue-semi-translucent screen hung in the air over my arm like a question mark. I tapped the elder sign on my hand to dismiss the notification.
¡°A message from Harmony?¡± Astaroth, still wearing the form of a colorful phoenix, warm orange light seeping from beneath his blue-green feathers, sat atop Noivern. The wyvern didn¡¯t seem to mind the company, and his mouth lolled open as he took in the temple Kevin had built around his portal to Bedlam.
My portal. I wasn¡¯t simply holding the throne while a captive dark lord stewed in a cell anymore. Kevin was gone. Not erased, but out of this world, likely forever.
¡°Essentially.¡± I glanced back at the swirl of purplish static within the portal, and with a mild effort, extended my Presence to command the portal to close. There was slight resistance, the chaos lying between worlds didn¡¯t care for being stymied, but that was the difference between a portal and a rift like the one I¡¯d accidentally torn in Bedlam by using the Heart of the Hollow King as a grenade. ¡°Can you take Noivern to the aery and stay there until I send for you? I¡¯ve got a few things to take care of, and I don¡¯t want my family to see you¡¯re back until I¡¯ve had a chance to talk to them.¡±
¡°As you wish,¡± the phoenix bobbed his head and whistled at Noivern, who waddled toward the entrance of the dark stone hall where the portal was kept. I lingered on the platform. There was so much to do and catch up on, it was hard to be sure exactly how long we¡¯d been gone. At least Mount Doom didn¡¯t seem to be a smoking ruin. I needed to visit the forge, but Esmelda and Leto had to come first.
¡°Spawns! To arms!¡±
A pair of soldiers threw open the broad doors at the entrance of the hall, and confronted by a massive wyvern with a burning bird on its back, were appropriately alarmed. Their swords, flashing in the torchlight from outside, were solid diamond, and they wore armor of interlocking crystal. Esmelda¡¯s templars.
¡°Chill out! It¡¯s me. I¡¯m back.¡±
The Templars didn¡¯t drop their guard, but they did look past the hulking form of my waddling wyvern to see me standing on the granite platform ahead of the giant ring of obsidian. One of them raised his visor, Hurin. Tall, handsome, he could have been Gastard¡¯s cousin.
¡°My lord! You look¡ª¡± He cut himself off.
¡°Better or worse?¡± I stepped lightly down from the platform. My armor was in storage, so I was in my underclothes. A linen tunic and my runic boots.
¡°Better.¡± He smiled. ¡°You¡¯ve been healed?¡±
His expression faltered as I got close enough for him to get a good look at my eye. Calcion had been as good as his promise. No more horns for me, no claws, no fur growing over my arms. I hadn¡¯t lost my night vision, oddly, though my catlike pupils were back to a normal human shape. At least in my left eye. The right was something else entirely.
¡°It¡¯s a long story,¡± I said. ¡°Send someone to let the Lady of Dargoth know that I¡¯ve returned.¡±
¡°Of course,¡± he brought his fist to his chest. ¡°Do you require an escort?¡±
¡°I don¡¯t. I¡¯m headed for the royal suite.¡±
We were only a few paces apart, and a pale green readout appeared beside his head. It was similar to my System screen, except that the writing looked more like the symbols over an enchantment table than any alphabet I knew. Their meaning was as clear as if I had been reading these alien characters all my life.
|
Human (F Class)
Bearer of Heroic Title - Templar (Minor)
|
It wasn¡¯t a lot of information, but if I focused, I could cause the readout to explain its terms. It was more than my System had ever done for me. With a flex of intent, I selected the keyword.
| Human: Lynchpin species of the local sector. A warm-blooded biped. Moderately sapient. |
There were humans in nearly every realm under Mizu¡¯s protection. Something to do with Earth being at the center of the sector. Prem had explained a few things after Calcion ripped out one of my eyes and replaced it with his. He¡¯d been remarkably informative, a refreshing change from my relationship with the agents of Harmony.
The templars hustled off to spread the word of my return and assure the incoming guards that their alarm had been mistaken. Noivern spread his wings as soon as he was through the doors, and I felt the wind muss my hair as he took off with Astaroth circling behind him. Somewhere above, a harpy cried a greeting.
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As I made my way across the fortress, I nodded at the people who welcomed me. Bows and salutes, then someone insisted on sounding horns. Their peals spread from the inner wall to the outer curtain, and I could hear voices raised in the streets below the main fortress. The night was early, so there were still plenty of residents about. Things seemed, if anything, more relaxed than normal. We could have been under siege, or I could have returned to a ruin. The demons, for whatever reason, hadn¡¯t taken advantage of my absence. Readouts appeared beside the heads of my subjects as I passed by. I could will the visual displays away, but it was easier to let them appear and disappear on their own.
It was hard to quantify what the eye did to my perceptions aside from the AR overlay. Kevin had said it made everyone who didn¡¯t have a System look like NPCs, and there was something¡ªoff. Like everyone was farther away than they actually were. Otherwise, my sense of my own impending corruption had drastically improved. No nausea. No intrusive thoughts about human beings just being sacks of meat. What if the eye didn¡¯t work the same way for everyone, and Kevin had been the problem? The bad combination of a questionable artifact and an awful individual.
I knew I couldn¡¯t be that fortunate, but at least I was home.
A sharp sensation grazed the furthest extent of my Presence as an entity sought to slice its way through the veil of the world. I paused, smiling at a child who was looking at me from behind his mother¡¯s skirts. He looked clean, well fed. The boy was nervous, but not truly afraid. There wasn¡¯t a Dark Lord here anymore, only me, and I¡¯d lost my horns.
With a moment¡¯s concentration, I sealed the slit in reality that the entity had been trying to use. It had been a small one, maybe a koroshai. A demon would have been able to press through my intent, and so would some of the more advanced monsters. Relief swept over me. It worked. All the fear, all the running, all the fighting, it didn¡¯t have to be like that anymore. I didn¡¯t have to be a walking wound in the world. The shadows here were only shadows again, but I couldn¡¯t let myself get overconfident. Still better to rely on torches and warpstone until I was more sure of my new ability.
When I asked Calcion to teach me how to heal the world, I assumed he would refuse.
Instead, Prem had shown me how the eye could be used to understand and manipulate my Presence.
There had to be a word for this in German. Something you knew was wrong but was too valuable to pass up. A gift you would accept knowing that it could destroy you. The One Who Knocks had decided that he could catch more flies with honey.
And it was such good honey.
Esmelda didn¡¯t wait for me to get to our rooms. She met me on the stairs that led to the third level of the fortress. Her bare feet barely touched the stone as she ran down the steps and flung herself into my arms. A green overlay flashed into existence, and I dismissed it. The distraction was not welcome. All I wanted at that moment was to feel her pressed against me.
¡°You were gone so long.¡±
¡°A week,¡± I said. ¡°I knew you could hold down the fort. Things look great here.¡±
¡°A week?¡± She pulled back enough to be able to meet my gaze. Because of her position on the steps, we were nearly the same height. The gray of her eyes was the most lovely color I had ever seen. ¡°It¡¯s been a month. Will¡ª¡± she blinked, ¡°what happened to you?¡±
A month? As far as the time skips I¡¯d endured because of misadventures in Bedlam, this wasn¡¯t so bad. Still, that meant that I¡¯d been in a time dilation without realizing it, or else I was missing time. Calcion hadn¡¯t shown off his power, but he was functionally a deity, and it was possible he¡¯d done something to my mind I had no inkling of.
Forget it. I couldn¡¯t change what had already happened. I needed to focus on what I had now.
¡°A lot,¡± I said. ¡°We can talk about it all. But for right now, can we just spend time together? Where¡¯s Leto? Is he okay?¡±
¡°He¡¯s fine,¡± she frowned. ¡°But what about Gastard? And where is Kevin?¡±
¡°Gastard¡¯s going to be respawning soon. We had some trouble, but he¡¯s going to be fine. And Kevin¡¯s gone.¡±
¡°Gone?¡± Her gaze widened further.
¡°Gone.¡± Kevin was bound to Calcion more tightly than ever, and he was going to be sent to another realm to do his master¡¯s bidding. Calcion had been clear that after the remaining demons were dealt with, he wouldn¡¯t be doing anything to destabilize Plana further until he came to personally knock on the door. At that point, he expected me to be ready to let him in.
It was an odd play. I respected his confidence. It suggested he really did believe that I would come around to his way of thinking. If he hadn¡¯t stuck the eye in my head as well, I might have been more inclined to trust that he would let me come to that decision on my own.
Leto¡¯s greeting was somewhat less effusive than Esmelda¡¯s had been, he stood up from the lounge chair in our sitting room and froze when he saw me. I knelt in front of him, taking in the face that was so like mine, and so unlike it. He was leaner, more angular than I had ever been, and in a good way. In another world, he could have been an Instagram sensation. I wasn¡¯t sure that I would trade demons for social media, at least demons came with a permanent solution built in.
¡°You lost your horns,¡± he said quietly.
¡°Sure, but isn¡¯t my eye kind of cool?¡±
He considered it, then shook his head. ¡°Too spooky.¡±
I hugged him, and he stiffened for a moment before returning it.
¡°Gastard?¡± His voice was barely audible, even though his mouth was right next to my ear.
¡°He¡¯ll be back tomorrow. He wouldn¡¯t miss practicing with you for anything.¡±
We ate some food. It wasn¡¯t a full meal, they¡¯d had dinner already and I wasn¡¯t terribly hungry, I just wanted to have the normalcy. Zareth appeared hovering in the doorway to the dining room as I was buttering a slice of bread, and I excused myself to have a moment with him.
¡°I thank the goddess for your safe return,¡± he said. He didn¡¯t comment about the changes in my appearance, but there were lines of worry creasing around his eyes. When had he started worshiping Mizu, or was that just a turn of phrase around here now imported by the lillits? ¡°There is much for us to discuss. I¡¯m sure the Lady has already shared some of this with you, but there has been a letter from Egard, as well as missives from some of the demonic fiefdoms outside of Gundurgon.¡±
¡°Thank you,¡± I said, ¡°but all of that can wait for tomorrow. Unless we are going to be attacked before morning, I¡¯m taking the night off.¡±
He blinked, surprised, but not displeased. ¡°Of course, my lord.¡±
The overlay hovering beside him came with an interesting note.
|
Human (F Class)
Bearer of Heroic Title - Castellan(Minor)
|
Was that something he had developed himself, or had Esmelda¡¯s class skill advanced while I was away? Zareth reiterated his happiness at my return and saw himself out with a wave for Esmelda and Leto. I noted that he hadn¡¯t brought his scrolls with him. It was the first time I could think of seeing him without paperwork tucked under his arm.
Esmelda read us a story, a folk tale. It was clear that our son thought he was getting a little old to be read to, but he still enjoyed listening to his mother. And given that I was there as well, if the lord of Dargoth wasn¡¯t too old and serious to be read to, then he could hardly make the argument that he was. It was a quiet evening, and our footman made sure that we were undisturbed. Leto went reluctantly to bed after I assured him that would be the quickest way to skip forward in time to Gastard¡¯s return, and Esmelda and I went down into the safe room.
The Anchors were there, their runes thrumming from within the obsidian.
I called the golden orb from my inventory and set it atop the Anchor we had selected for Gastard. The chamber was cool, but I could feel the warmth of the essence within these artifacts. Yet another formula I would have to rediscover on my own now that Kevin was gone. It melted into the glossy black stone, and Esmelda drew in a sharp breath.
¡°What was that?¡±
¡°Gastard¡¯s soul.¡±
¡°William¡what?¡± Her voice raised with the question.
¡°Gastard was killed by a monster called a Hollow King. Then I met the One Who Knocks. His name is Calcion.¡± The words came out fast, almost scrambled. ¡°He was with Fladnag¡¯s son, Prem, doing an odd-couple bit. Calcion had Gastard¡¯s soul, and he said I had to accept his eye to get it back. So he ripped the eye out of Kevin and gave it to me instead.¡±
¡°Wait,¡± Esmelda stepped closer to grip my arm. ¡°Slow down. Start from the beginning.¡±
I told her everything.
171: My Bursting Sac
Gastard dressed without speaking, and then accepted his father¡¯s sword.
¡°Thank you.¡± He did not seem overjoyed at being returned to life. The knowledge that he had fallen in battle with a random Bedlam boss, leaving me alone with Kevin, weighed heavily on him. Though it was in no way his burden or his mistake, it was easy to guess his feelings on the subject.
The sword belt cinched firmly around his waist. I¡¯d crafted him a new set of diamond full plate, but there was no battle to prepare for, at least not yet. He looked me up and down, then sighed.
¡°Something happened. I should have returned before you.¡±
¡°A lot happened. Do you want to hear about it first, or see the others? Leto¡¯s waiting in the sitting room.¡±
He frowned, considering. ¡°I¡¯ll see him. I¡¯m sure whatever you have to say is going to put me in a foul mood. We can address it after.¡±
That was the truth.
Esmelda and Leto were both relieved to see Gastard back. They¡¯d believed me, of course, but this was the first time one of us had respawned other than me, and there was always room for doubt, especially given the complications in this case. Gastard regaled them with the tale of the Hollow King, including his own end, and I quickly finished the story, leaving out any mention of Kevin. We¡¯d kept Leto away from the former dark lord, and he didn¡¯t have any questions for us about him, which was for the best.
Over the last month, the lillits who had decided to leave Nargul had been busily establishing a more organic community in Mount Doom than the fortress was accustomed to. They had taken over an old barracks to make a school, and Leto had been spending some of his days there. He wasn¡¯t quick to leave us, but there were affairs of the state to take care of, and at a firm word from his mother, he went to class.
Once Gastard had been filled in on the situation, he was exactly as happy about it as I expected.
¡°You gave up the old bargains only to accept something far worse.¡± Gastard looked down at the cup in his hands. Esmelda, true to lillit tradition, had made us all hot tea. The bitterness of the beverage mingled with the bitterness that was already on my tongue.
¡°There wasn¡¯t another way out.¡±
¡°You accepted a deal with the literal devil. You should have left me.¡±
¡°You wouldn¡¯t have left me behind.¡± I could hear his teeth grinding at my response.
¡°It is my duty to protect you, as I have sworn to your service. Your duty is to the world first, not to me.¡±
Esmelda tapped her slipper on the plush carpet of the sitting room. ¡°Calcion wouldn¡¯t have let him go. And though we have no idea how powerful Prem is, we can assume he is higher ranked than we are. The mistake was going to Bedlam in the first place, everything after was the consequence of that choice.¡±
¡°We needed the atreanum,¡± I said, ¡°and we have it.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t know that we did need it,¡± Esmelda said, a little sharply. ¡°We received a missive from Torgudai two weeks ago, the shamans are eager to fight. Their magic can banish the demons without the same risk that comes with killing them with a sword.¡±
¡°There are too many entities for them to handle on their own. And if we were there fighting, our taint would grow. It would be exactly what the One Who Knocks wanted.¡±
¡°And this isn¡¯t?¡± Gastard met my gaze, and I almost flinched. ¡°The issue of corruption has hardly been resolved.¡±
¡°Fair point. But I¡¯m still me. I feel better. The eye thing¡ªit isn¡¯t exactly what Kevin said it was. It gives me information, it¡¯s helping me develop my Presence. I was worried that I would get back and stop caring about our friends, the people of Plana, but I haven¡¯t.¡±
Behind Gastard¡¯s head, an overlay floated. His class and rank entity rank were nothing new. There was, however, an additional piece of information.
I¡¯d already looked into what it meant by evolution, and it was the Discord way of talking about Taint. Gastard¡¯s scaly arm was hidden by a long sleeve and gloves, but the changes that had come from killing Stolas weren¡¯t going anywhere. The eye scanned other people, but it didn¡¯t give me data about myself. Definitely a metaphor in there somewhere. I could assume that my percentage was higher than his, likely correlated to my Tainted achievements. My System wouldn¡¯t tell me how ranks of that achievement existed, and whether there were five levels or ten or any other number made a big difference in guessing how bad my problem was.
Did you turn into a demon at one hundred percent? It would have been nice to get one last look at Fladnag and see what the eye had to say about him.
¡°It isn¡¯t ideal,¡± Esmelda said after a long pause. ¡°I¡¯m glad you seem to be safe and well, and I¡¯m glad that your other¡quirks have been put to rest. It¡¯s only that I cannot trust this gift from the Dark One.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t trust it either, but I can work with it.¡±
¡°How do we know you¡¯re truly yourself?¡± Gastard¡¯s gaze was hard. ¡°You returned alone. You are changed. What if this Calcion is wearing you like a mask? What if he gave your body to Kevin? Surely, such things are not beyond his power.¡±
¡°Feel free to monitor my behavior,¡± I held up my hands. ¡°If I¡¯m secretly a bodysnatcher, there¡¯s not much else you can do.¡±
¡°I know who you are,¡± Esmelda said, her hand slipping over mine. ¡°There¡¯s no doubt in my mind that it¡¯s really you that has returned to us. Besides, you still have the mark the goddess gave you, and her words within it.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t think they¡¯re her words, exactly,¡± I scratched my chin. ¡°But I get what you mean.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not sure that¡¯s enough for me,¡± Gastard shook his head, the conflict clear on his face. ¡°You brought that demon back with you. We were supposed to be finished with them.¡±
¡°I have mixed feelings about Astaroth as well,¡± Esmelda tapped her cup with her fingernail, causing the tea it held to ripple. ¡°That I can have mixed feelings about a demon at all is itself a source of more mixed feelings. He has proven himself, at least in some ways, but it is another sign that we are still following a path that was set before us by the enemy. It feels as if no matter what we do, we play into his schemes.¡±
¡°I will not be a pawn.¡± Gastard stood up. He was getting angry, and there was nowhere for him to direct it, so he paced behind the couch instead. ¡°This is not acceptable to me. I have been to their realm. Seeing what I have seen, I cannot walk with a demon at my side, no matter the form that he takes.¡±
¡°Zareth,¡± I said, ¡°you can come in now. ¡°You¡¯re a part of this conversation.¡± I¡¯d sensed him enter the suite, and he was currently hesitating on the other side of the entrance to the sitting room from the antechamber. The others looked up as he cleared his throat and stepped into view.
¡°Forgive the interruption,¡± he said, ¡°but there are matters that need your attention.¡±
¡°Please sit with us,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°You mean the letters. Where shall we start? The demons or the king?¡±
In my absence, King Egard had replied to our overture of peace. He expressed his lack of faith in my goodwill and demanded the immediate return of Henterfell and a withdrawal of my sorcerous influence from the region before he would consider meeting with me or my representative. There were two demons to deal with there, Asmodeus and Vual. I¡¯d never met Vual, but Zareth had him down as a lion with a wood affinity. We didn¡¯t know how many monsters were left under their control, but it wouldn¡¯t be anything we hadn¡¯t slaughtered before.
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The issue was that Henterfell was very much out of our way, and though Mount Doom hadn¡¯t been attacked, the other demons hadn¡¯t been hibernating while I was gone.
Zareth shared the letters with me. There were dozens of them, so he summarized the contents. Demons were offering to take my side against Valefor, some assuming that I was still the Dark Lord, others seeming to accept that I wasn¡¯t interested in opening Plana for their master. Some of the missives had been written on what I dearly hoped was sheepskin.
¡°You aren¡¯t truly considering them?¡± Gastard loomed behind the couch, placing his hands along its back.
¡°No. I¡¯m not accepting any new friend requests from that side. We can always invite some here to kill them. It would save the time of having to hunt them down.¡±
¡°A cowardly ploy,¡± his lips turned down, ¡°but I will not object.¡±
Zareth cleared his throat again. ¡°The harpies report strange doings in Gundurgon. The storm there has strengthened, and they are working to build a monument. A great ring, like your portal. We can¡¯t know the purpose, but whatever they are crafting is sure to make your victory more difficult.¡±
In the back of my mind, I felt the impulse to grab my stuff and jump on Noivern, fly off, and finish things right now. We had more than enough atreanum to kill them all, three heroes, and a backup line of mortals with templar titles.
Was that what I¡¯d been doing this whole time?
Running off at my first impulse? Zareth¡¯s report didn¡¯t make me angry, or afraid, or even anxious. It was just data.
¡°I¡¯ll speak with Celaeno,¡± I said. ¡°We need more specific info. My thought is that they know I won¡¯t help them, and there aren¡¯t any more Survivors for them to lean on¡they¡¯re trying to bring something through.¡± My mind flashed to the leviathan. Not that bad, surely. Something like the Pebblemite? Whatever it was, I¡¯d rather knock down their portal before anything had a chance to step in, but I had no interest in running off unprepared. There was so much about my class and my abilities that I hadn¡¯t explored, resources I hadn¡¯t exploited because I was always rushing off to the next challenge.
Half-prepared. Half-thinking.
¡°It can wait,¡± I said. ¡°It¡¯s already been a month. We¡¯ll do more reconnaissance and build up our defenses. Under the storm, we¡¯d be at a disadvantage. Outside of it, they will. I want them to have to come to us, even if they bring a dragon.¡±
¡°I have seen enough of dragons,¡± Gastard said sourly. David hadn¡¯t been a real dragon, he was a shapeshifter, but the point remained. If we faced anything like what the immortal boy had transformed into, the likeliest outcome was a party wipe.
¡°Fair point,¡± I stood up. ¡°I need to get some crafting done in the forge, but there¡¯s something I¡¯d like to test first.¡± Flipping through my inventory, I produced the Golden Compass.
Esmelda pulled my wrist down so she could get a better look at it. ¡°This is lovely,¡± she said, ¡°why is it pointing at Gastard?¡±
The compass was, of course, encased in gold, with a glass shield over a thin needle of obsidian that spun around a metal spine. It had begun to turn toward Esmelda, and when she touched me, it had spun once, then settled on Gastard.
¡°This is a compass that finds heroes.¡± I watched the needle shift as Gastard came around the couch to examine the device.
He grunted, unimpressed. ¡°What¡¯s the range?¡±
¡°Anywhere in the realm. So, the whole world.¡±
The tone of his follow-up grunt shifted up. ¡°Then why does it point to me instead of her?¡± He nodded at Esmelda.
Esmelda let go of me, and the needle spun again, bouncing back and forth between her and Gastard. With a little more testing, it became clear that the compass registered us as its mutual bearer as long as we were in physical contact. When all three of us were together, it spun and spun, refusing to settle on a target, or even hint at one.
¡°Does this mean we¡¯re alone?¡± Esmelda asked.
¡°Perhaps those who can hide their Presence can hide from this trinket as well,¡± Gastard let go of me, causing the needle to jump to him as if the compass was surprised to see him there.
¡°That may be true,¡± I said, ¡°but I think we are alone. There are never many heroes at one time. Fladnag and Kevin were both holding out from an earlier era, now they¡¯re gone. We can¡¯t be sure what Mizu is doing, in Kevin¡¯s time, there were at least ten running around. His party and a villain. Fladnag¡¯s group was only five, and she sent me alone. The goddess isn¡¯t putting a lot of resources into this fight anymore.¡±
¡°She would never give up on our world.¡± Esmelda crossed her arms over her chest, looking up as if daring me to argue.
¡°There could be a lot of reasons for the change in strategy. The other way wasn¡¯t working.¡±
Gastard, losing interest in the compass, turned to Zareth, who had taken up an inconspicuous position on the couch.
¡°Will King Egard attack Henterfell?¡±
¡°Almost certainly,¡± my vizier looked thoughtful. ¡°The King of Drom has harassed the border march on an annual basis since he lost the region. He may see our request for a treaty as a sign that our hold there is weakening. I expect he is already marshaling his forces as he awaits our reply.¡±
¡°I¡¯m going to the garrison,¡± Gastard almost growled before stalking out of the room.
I sighed. ¡°I don¡¯t know what to do about that.¡±
¡°Gastard isn¡¯t a problem to solve,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°He¡¯s frustrated, and he has every right to be.¡±
¡°I know, but I¡¯m worried about him. Dying isn¡¯t easy.¡±
Esmelda, Zareth, and I talked for a few minutes more about the state of the empire. Nargul and Mount Doom were both flourishing since the breaking of the storm. The forests of poisonous mushrooms were swiftly dying off, though they would still be a problem in secluded areas and caverns for years to come, if not forever. The wasteland was still a wasteland, natural plant growth had been stifled for centuries, but things could get better. Especially if I ever had time to do some terraforming.
The destruction of the cauldron was what had resulted in so many letters from demons. Without the storm, their power was limited, and the fiefs they controlled might resist them if it became obvious that they were no longer a part of the power structure that had governed Dargoth for so long. Gundurgon was the largest single concentration of demons, but they were scattered across the empire, and that would be a massive mess to clean up even after Valefor and his pack were taken care of.
When I brought my new sword to an anvil, I found that it had already named itself.
|
Smaragdine of the Bursting Sac [Viridium Sword]
Damage Rating: 10
Speed: Average
Perfection: 10%
[Looting I]
[Mending II]
[Evolution I] Smaragdine of the Bursting Sac has absorbed sufficient Thermit essence to alter the course of its Perfection. Each strike carries the chance of releasing a portion of the weapon''s stored essence in a wave of pure destruction.
|
¡°Bursting Sac,¡± I muttered. ¡°Why would you do this to me?¡±
My eye scanned equipment imbued with essence as easily as it did people, and it provided some context for the whole ¡°Perfection¡± thing.
| Perfection: A state achieved by entities with limited evolutionary potential. The final form. Truly perfect entities can never reach perfection. Such is the limited vocabulary of Harmony. |
It would have been nice if I could ask the Discord System questions. I wasn¡¯t even sure if that was what fed me information, or if Discord having a System even made sense conceptually, but that¡¯s how I was thinking about the eye now. Two Systems, the one that gave me my class, which had come from Mizu, which meant it had come from Harmony. Now this other thing. They had opinions about each other.
So the sword was already ten percent of the way to reaching its final. Using it to kill thermits had influenced its growth. That was as cool as it was annoying. It would have been better if I had saved it to only kill monsters whose attributes I wanted to see included in a magic weapon. It had gotten the job done, though, and releasing a ¡°wave of pure destruction¡± on hit was nothing to complain about, except that it was random. Depending on the blast radius, that could screw me.
I dug up Jason¡¯s armor and put it on. It felt good to be in the old suit again. It was better than the set I¡¯d made, overall, and didn¡¯t come with all the bad guy vibes from spikes and claws.
Gastard¡¯s Presence approached the entrance of the forge, and I went to meet him at the doors.
¡°Hey¡¡± I said, then faltered. His expression was deadly serious.
He looked me up and down. ¡°I do prefer this version of you.¡±
¡°Thanks. So¡ªwhat¡¯s up?¡±
He squared his shoulders. ¡°I seek your permission to venture to Henterfell with a companion.¡±
¡°You don¡¯t need my permission, Gastard. Of course, you can go. If you can fix things there for me, that would be a huge weight off my shoulders.¡±
¡°As I have sworn to your service, a request was necessary.¡± He relaxed by an inch.
¡°You¡¯re worried about Johanna?¡± The way his face stoned up at the mention of her name made me regret bringing it up. That had to be the reason he was so concerned about Henterfell. Egard wouldn¡¯t make a difference in the war at this point, and having the wastes between us and Drom meant he wasn¡¯t a meaningful threat to Dargoth even if he did retake the border march on his own. Still, I wanted this dealt with.
¡°I admit,¡± he said after a lengthy pause, ¡°Johanna has been in my thoughts.¡±
¡°We can talk strategy then. There¡¯s a bunch of equipment I want to send with you.¡± The phrasing of his request finally caught up with me. ¡°Who''s the companion?¡±
Gastard¡¯s mouth thinned into a smirk.
¡°Astaroth.¡±
172: My Visitors (Chapter and Announcement)
Gastard didn¡¯t typically use shields, but when I made one for myself from a Durak shell, there was no reason not to present him with the duplicate. It was an odd-looking piece of equipment, pinkish white, basically just a giant clam shell with straps for your arm, and you definitely could not use a two-handed weapon with one of these hanging from your arm. It wasn¡¯t exactly a tower shield, but it was as heavy as one.
I added runes of protection to both of them.
Gastard hefted the glossy shell unhappily. ¡°Its appearance is not satisfying.¡±
¡°It¡¯s made from monsters, your favorite.¡±
¡°That is not my favorite.¡±
I smiled. At least he wasn¡¯t doubting my identity. ¡°Using the power of the enemy against them is a good thing, right?¡±
His frown was as deep as a canyon. ¡°It is not. The power of the enemy naturally corrupts the wielder, as we have discussed.¡±
It had only been a day since he told me he was taking Astaroth with him to Henterfell. The idea had surprised me, but I could understand his perspective. He wanted to keep the demon away from me, as well as get to know him better. Though, ¡°get to know him better¡± was not the phrase he had used, of course. Gastard would monitor Astaroth. Closely.
While I¡¯d initially had a flicker of concern that my Knight of the Realm would use this as an opportunity to send Astaroth back to Bedlam on the end of a sword, I didn¡¯t think that was the intention. Astaroth would be a significant ally against the pair of demons supporting Godwod, and despite so recently declaring that he would never walk at the side of a demon, it suited his ideal of honor to be the one to take up the burden of that sin in my place.
¡°Fair enough, but it¡¯s a good shield. At least take it with you. I¡¯ve got potions for you too, and this,¡± I grabbed a stick out of a pile of coins on a nearby table and tossed it to him. It was covered in a spiral of arcane markings. ¡°Check it out.¡±
I found its partner, another wooden rod with identical markings and an extra notch at the top, and spoke into its end.
¡°Can you hear me now?¡±
Gatard stared at me blankly. ¡°Of course I can hear you.¡±
¡°No. I mean, through the stick, take yours and put it up to your face.¡±
After a bit more coaxing from me, my friend and I were on opposite sides of the forge, testing my Speaking Sticks. It was Kevin¡¯s cup and string setup, except the strings had never been necessary. It had taken me a few attempts, and some lost experience, to get it to work. Speaking runes first, then Fixation, applied to both sticks at once at the crafting table. It would be easier once my Artisan skill was high enough for me to carve these out instead of having to burn through bags of material coins to turn them into runed items.
They didn¡¯t come with volume controls, but the sticks would get the job done. Being a foot long, the situation reminded me of the original cellphones, plastic bricks with antennas. It was silly, but communication at a distance was a huge deal. Harpies would be taking Speaking Sticks to Torgudai and Nargul. And I was going to ask Boffin to collect the tin cans from the Eternal Engine and see if we could get them to work the same way. The process was too essence-intensive to lead to mass production, so every extra pair would count.
Once Gastard was burdened with enough new equipment to give his old horse a backache, we said goodbye. Zareth insisted on a hint of ceremony, given that Gastard was heading off on both a diplomatic and military mission, so the entire garrison turned out to see him off. Horns blew as the outer gates of Mount Doom groaned open.
Trolls were no longer required to turn the wheels of the great gates. We¡¯d added some pulleys, and they were turned by oxen now, which were altogether more friendly and less smelly than the monsters they¡¯d replaced.
Astaroth circled above the templars, three were going with him, all new additions. Esmelda had been handing out titles since I left, which unlocked the second option, Castellan, that she had given to Zareth. The benefits of his title were less straightforward than that of the templars. It increased his Presence, and for some reason, seemed to help his memory. He rarely carried his scrolls for reference anymore.
Leto cheered at our side as we stood atop the ramparts of the outer wall. Harpies called overhead. A handful would be following to keep an eye on the party, though now that we had Speaking Sticks, they weren¡¯t as important for communication. They would still do reconnaissance for Gastard.
I felt the warmth of the sun on my back and smelled baking bread wafting through the air. Neither sensation would normally be associated with Mount Doom, but things were changing here.
¡°I don¡¯t like this,¡± Esmelda said, standing close enough that her arm grazed mine. Maybe I should have gone back to my habit of being fully armored at all times, after all, the walls were no deterrent to demons. With the sun out, though, I felt relatively secure in my fortress.
¡°It¡¯s what he wants.¡±
¡°We could have gone with him.¡±
¡°There¡¯s too much to do here. Henterfell isn¡¯t a priority right now.¡±
¡°It¡¯s a priority to him.¡± She sent me a questioning look. ¡°You understand that, don¡¯t you?¡±
¡°Sure.¡± I wondered if Gastard¡¯s death and rebirth had anything to do with his immediate need to solve the problem of Godwod and Egard. He never mentioned Johanna unless someone else brought her up, which we seldom did. But he was still in love with her, and Henterfell was in the weakest position it had been in years. No support from Dargoth, and the king of Drom sensed blood in the water. Maybe our trip to Bedlam had highlighted for him how quickly things could change.
¡°Is Gastard going to get married?¡± Leto asked. It was a complete non sequitur, I hadn¡¯t even thought he knew about Johanna. And regardless, deposing a girl¡¯s father was a pretty awkward way to start a proposal.
¡°I¡¯m sure he will,¡± Esmelda said, warm affection in her voice.
I hoped he did. They weren¡¯t taking an army with them, just official seals from me and a demon that, under the right conditions, could wipe out an entire battalion by himself. We watched them shrink into the distance. Astaroth was forced to use his wings to fly, as the sun dampened his magic. That was a quandary all its own. Should they act during the day when Asmodeus and Vual would be weakest, or at night, when Astaroth would be strongest? That was a decision I¡¯d leave to Gastard.
He¡¯d refused to take an army with him and had barely accepted the templars as an escort. They all had atreanum. Arrows and daggers. It would be enough.
The following days were unusually pleasant. I spent most of my time in the forge crafting equipment or our rooms, training my Artisan skill. Esmelda had been fighting monsters every evening with a group of templars to grind experience. It had allowed her to hand out a total of ten titles, including Zareth¡¯s, without losing any progress in her overall level. Another month like that, if she stopped spending essence on titles, and she¡¯d have nearly completed her ¡°tutorial.¡±
It was almost sickening to think about how long it had taken me to reach that milestone. Of course, I¡¯d had a lot more things to spend experience points on, and a lot more deaths to make up for. Gastard had to start back at the beginning of his advancement. Everything he¡¯d put into his sword was still there, however, so it had been a good investment. I should have counseled him to dump as much essence as he wanted into it, banking on the likelihood that something would go wrong before he reached level thirty. It had. But it might not have.
You never knew.
When I commented that Esmelda fighting monsters without me or Gastard around felt reckless, all I got in response was a raised eyebrow.
Fair enough.
Letters went out to my demon suitors, so we would soon see how many of them would be stupid enough to show up at my doorstep, and Gastard gave me regular updates on their progress. The group was small enough to make good time, and once they hit the Wastes, it was a straight shot across Redroad to get to the mountains at the border. He was in good spirits, oddly good spirits.
¡°This is something he¡¯s been thinking about for a long time,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Henterfell has been weighing on him, in one way or another, since he left it.¡±
That was a lot of years to have something eating at you. ¡°It¡¯s going to work out,¡± I said, trying not to consider how many ways his journey could go horribly wrong.
Leto would take the stick from me so he could talk about his day with Gastard in the evenings. It was cute, and a little sad. My son and I got along, but he was still closer to Gastard than to me. I made us a fresh pair of wooden swords to practice with while his primary sword tutor was away to give us something to do together.
Stolen story; please report.
It was a week after his departure that I got a stick call from the Orkhan. I carried them in my belt at all times, it wasn¡¯t as if they came with a way to leave messages, and when I heard a voice speaking in the Atlan language, I briefly thought I was imagining things.
¡°Lord of Dargoth, many greetings.¡±
¡°It¡¯s good to hear from you, Torgudai. Thanks for not shooting down my harpy.¡±
¡°It was a near thing, but the dark-winged ones have shown themselves to be an enemy of my enemy. As have you.¡± The reception on the sticks was fantastic. His voice was quiet, but as clear as if he was standing beside me.
¡°I do my best. Can you tell me how things are going on your side of the map?¡±
¡°We raid again. There have been no words from the Great Eagle Dragon to guide us, but all of us who touch the weave of the world can sense that darkness gathers in the city of the demons.¡±
He had to mean the shamans sensing what was being built in Gundurgon. My mastery of his language wasn¡¯t perfect, and also, it was a bit more poetic than English.
¡°Do you know what they are constructing?¡±
¡°If Salenus is a shield, this is a knife. We fear it will cut the veil too deeply to be healed. Will you fight with us?¡±
I looked across the forge to a growing pile of diamond equipment, armor, and weapons. Mount Doom''s supply of diamond, even with a machine that could produce it from coal, wasn¡¯t technically infinite, but it was close enough. While I didn¡¯t want equipment like this to be looted by our enemies and reused, my plan wasn¡¯t to send a few well-armored guys and hope for the best. When we marched, it was going to be big, and it was going to be in style.
¡°I will. But I need more time. Gastard is in the West, trying to get us on the good side of the king of Drom.¡±
¡°Gastard? Your swordsman?¡±
¡°Yeah.¡±
¡°He will be missed on the field. But I do not think there is such time to wait. Their monument grows by the night, and the beasts of the Shadow multiply.¡±
¡°They¡¯re still coming through? With no heroes around?¡±
¡°Not everywhere, but near the city of demons, near their knife against the veil, the sky fills with the screams of the winged ones.¡±
¡°Could those be leftover monsters?¡±
¡°Some. But their numbers grow. All my scouts say so.¡±
The compass didn¡¯t show another hero. Was someone hiding their Presence, or did the demons have another way of bringing lesser entities through? Either way was bad. My harpies hadn¡¯t mentioned increasing spawns, but I wouldn¡¯t be getting a new update for another day or two. They had to do a lot of flying to make a round trip.
¡°Any idea when the monument will be finished?¡±
¡°I can not speak for the shadow. I only know that it rises. Will you join us?¡±
¡°Give me a week.¡± Even that wasn¡¯t enough, there was still so much to do, so many things to test. ¡°You can give me updates if we need to move faster, but I¡¯m bringing an army, so it won¡¯t be that fast even when we do come.¡±
¡°A week may be too long to begin your ride.¡±
¡°I¡¯ll try to be quicker.¡± Zareth and Esmelda were handling most of the logistics, and we hadn¡¯t been rushing, working on the assumption we wouldn¡¯t move until Gastard got back anyway. We were gathering soldiers from Nargul while trying to figure out how many we needed to leave behind to keep our strongholds sage. If the demons came in force, no amount of regular people would be enough, even if they were all dressed in diamonds.
¡°We will speak again soon.¡± He sounded disapproving. ¡°May the sky watch over you.¡±
On the bright side, I¡¯d finally made a potion of Turtle Mastery. The Baresh shells were my missing ingredient. The resulting elixir was pale green, Mountain Dew green. In the game, as far as I could remember, these potions made you super tough super slow. That didn¡¯t seem to be the case here.
Both the System description and my eye were in agreement.
| Potion of Turtle Mastery: Imbibing this single-use item will result in the user becoming the Master of Turtles. |
Zooming in on the definitions of the individual words was no help. Master meant, ¡°one who has control over another.¡± Turtles got me: ¡°A common advanced species, found in a majority of stable realms in the local cluster. Cold-blooded reptilians protected by dense exoskeletons, turtles are beloved by Harmony and Discord alike. The Bearers of All Burdens.¡±
The potion meant controlling turtles. And turtles were special.
Wild.
Footsteps sounded in the hall outside the forge, and a fist hammered on the doors. I hurried to open them. It was one of the templars, stocky and ruddy¡Yent? Yeah, Yent.
¡°My lord,¡± the words spilled out before I could say anything, ¡°there are demons at the gates.¡±
¡°How many?¡±
¡°Five.¡±
¡°Let me get dressed.¡±
Getting my armor on took only seconds, all I had to do was slam the medallions against the appropriate part of my body to summon each part of the suit. Organizing my inventory took a little longer. Five was more than I¡¯d been expecting at one time. It made sense, they were wary. They hadn¡¯t simply come over the wall and started slaughtering people though, so these couldn¡¯t be from Gundurgon. These were some of the wild cards who had written me.
The guards were naturally on edge, but no one had fired any shots yet. The demons had paused a quarter of a mile out from the outer wall and sent an old man in to speak for them. For a single, terrifying instant, I thought it was Fladnag. White bushy hair, a peaked cap, and brown robes with a tall walking staff. He was a contender for the Gandalf lookalike contest, but not the same man. My eye assured me of it.
|
Furcas
Entity Rank: E
Alignment: Discord
Affinity: Fire
|
A demon without monstrous features. He couldn¡¯t hide his identity from Calcion¡¯s gift. Even without the help, I could sense something off about his Presence. Though his spirit was partially concealed, it didn¡¯t feel human. An oilcloth concealing a burning coal.
Instead of having them open the gates, I floated down from the rampart on the wings of a fresh Elytron. Esmelda was already underground with a few of her templars preparing for the nightly spawn slaughter. She hadn¡¯t heard about the demons yet. Otherwise, she would have tried to stop me. This wasn¡¯t being rash. It wasn¡¯t going into a fight unprepared, I assured myself. It was simply confidence. Besides, night hadn¡¯t quite fallen. They wouldn¡¯t be at full strength.
¡°Hey there,¡± I said. ¡°You looking for me?¡±
The old man narrowed his eyes as he took in my armor.
¡°We are, indeed. I am Furcas, Knight of the Fallen, and we seek an understanding with the master of the mountain.¡± His voice was as rough as a lifetime smoker¡¯s.
¡°We can talk out here,¡± I said. ¡°I won¡¯t welcome you into my home until we know each other better.¡±
He looked confused, and even more so when I walked past him toward his companions, but he tried to get ahead of me by fast walking so it seemed like the move was his idea.
¡°Where¡¯d you guys come from?¡± I asked.
¡°The Fallen travel far and wide, delivering the justice of the Dark Lord¡,¡± he glanced at me, ¡°of Dargoth. We were in the East, occupied with the meddling of Thalassos, when it became clear to us that a new hero had come to sit upon the Throne of Shadows.¡±
¡°Yeah, that¡¯s me. So why aren¡¯t you trying to kill me?¡±
¡°I believe our letters made that clear.¡±
¡°Sorry, didn¡¯t read them. But I take it you were one of the groups that was fine with delaying Calcion¡¯s entrance into Plana?¡±
He blanched at my use of the name. I¡¯d been curious whether the demons knew the One Who Knocks by his title only.
¡°We are¡open to negotiation.¡±
¡°Glad to hear it.¡±
Pale orange light gave warmth to the scene, but Furcas wasn¡¯t showing any skin, and the other demons were in a canopied vehicle. Not exactly a wagon, a platform with five wheels on each side and curtains around three walls. Only the front face was open.
As we approached, my eye gave me the cliff notes.
|
Alloces
Entity Rank: E
Alignment: Discord
Affinity: Flesh
Vine
Entity Rank: E
Alignment: Discord
Affinity: Crystal
Sabnock
Entity Rank: E
Alignment: Discord
Affinity: Metal
Murmur
Entity Rank: E
Alignment: Discord
Affinity: Metal
|
An unusual group of affinities. Two with metal. That could get annoying fast, considering what I was encased in. They were all E-Rank though, so nothing to worry about. The timers for multiple potions were ticking down in the corner of my vision. I might not even need them.
Three lions and a griffon. Were the animal heads random or did they get to pick? Had all these guys bonded over their manes?
¡°Brothers of the Fallen,¡± Furcas said as we reached the vehicle. ¡°I present you with the new Lord of Dargoth.¡±
I selected the bomb in my inventory. What a perfect opportunity for a test.
173: My Problematic System Note
The griffin, Alloces, inclined its head. ¡°There is much to be discussed.¡± His golden eyes narrowed as I stepped closer to the covered vehicle and a red cylinder appeared in my right hand and I tossed it to my left.
¡°First,¡± I said, ¡°an offering.¡± An arrow popped out of my inventory. The Flaming variety had come in hand on a few occasions, but they wouldn¡¯t have been any use against a party of demons. The griffin squawked, and one of the lions growled as they rose from their seats. Their hands twisted in arcane gestures, and I felt the pull on the aura and essence of the world around me as they called upon their affinities.
Using flint and steel to light the bomb would have been awkward, and too slow. When I jabbed the arrowhead into the side of the cylinder, its enchantment activated.
It was just a firework, except I¡¯d added extra powder and the broken shards of atreanum from the daggers I¡¯d used and lost in previous fights.
The explosion wasn¡¯t huge, less of a blast than a single block of TNT, but it carried the fragments with it. My heart bar flashed, I¡¯d been holding it, after all, but Jason¡¯s armor, along with a potion of Fire Resist, absorbed all but half a heart of damage. It didn¡¯t even rock me on my heels.
The sound echoed in the evening air, mingling with the cries of the demons. It wouldn¡¯t have done more than annoy them apart from the tiny shards of dark metal that had lodged in their skin. Alloces fell back, his hands going to his face, and the lions roared in pain and anger, tearing through the fabric covering the other sides of the vehicle to take cover behind it.
Furcas spat a demonic word as he stepped away from me, and flames leaped from his hands. His position relative to me had shielded him from the shrapnel, and his spell washed over me. The heat made me grit my teeth, but I would have to have stood still in the cone for long seconds before it was enough to deal damage through the layers of my protection.
I lunged forward, a black-bladed dagger appearing in my hand, and thrust it into his chest. The demon wearing the face of an old man coughed blood, then collapsed.
As I turned, my armor resisted me. One of the metal workers was trying to freeze me in place. With a swell of my Presence, I shrugged off his influence. It was similar to when Berith had tried to drown me, my will against his, and the eye made it easy.
The green screen informed me that it was Sabnock I stabbed in the neck as I stepped around the now smoldering vehicle. Its curtains had caught, from Furcas¡¯s onslaught, if not the bomb. My dagger gave out, snapping as the lion twisted away, but two for one wasn¡¯t bad. The demon stumbled away, falling to his knees. There would be more than enough atreanum to cleanse the world if things kept us this way.
Three left.
I jumped over the canopy, the Potion of Leaping giving me plenty of clearance, and came down Smaragdine in my hand. The blade whose full name would not be spoken. My elytron slowed my fall, an automatic effect that I hadn¡¯t counted on, and the two remaining lions had an extra breath to prepare as I descended. One, Murmur, was dressed like a soldier. He wore a breastplate with oversized pauldrons along with chain leggings.
His armor had allowed him to take the least damage from the shrapnel, there was only a single line of blood dripping down his furry cheek. His mane was dark and stringy, and he held a sword that rippled like water as it extended to nearly seven feet in length.
It clashed against Smaragdine as I fell, the force of the blow pushing me into the through the ripped curtain of the carriage. Fabric tangled around me as I rolled into a shrieking demon. Alloces''s beak was wide as he snapped at me. He had taken the worst of the atreanum, his face and bare body were peppered with it. No armor, not even a shirt. His heavily muscled chest was dusted with feathers.
A slash across his stomach left him scrambling away from me just as Murmur¡¯s oversized blade jabbed into my back. The force was more than I was expecting, and if I hadn¡¯t already been on one knee, it would have knocked me off my feet.
The lion¡¯s next chop severed one of the struts holding up the smoking canopy, and I launched myself forward to get out before I found myself under a canvas blanket.
Alloces shrieked, the wound on his belly knitting together as wicked talons extended from his hands. Tiny fragments, like black glass, popped out of the smaller wounds across his abdomen. Flesh affinity, like the owl that had killed me. The lions were on the far side of the carriage. Murmur was stalking around it to get to me, while the other, Vine, was pouring out a pouch of what looked like glitter.
He had a canary yellow robe spotted with holes and a nearly white mane. A little less lion-like than his partner, Vine could have been mistaken for a human at a distance.
Murmur and Alloces attacked together. The griffin was getting bigger, and even so, he was faster than me. He darted in and out, his claws scratching orichalcum plates, narrowly avoiding my sword. Even so, with the boost to my Might and Speed that came with potions, I could have cut him down with relative ease, except that I was forced to divide my attention.
The lion battered me, and our blades clashed. His magic reinforced his weapon, which was improbably thin and should have been as malleable as sheet metal, as well as his armor. As he closed the distance, his sword shrank, becoming liquid for an instant, then congealing into a dense bar that ended on a spiked head.
I swiped at Alloces to keep him back, then raised my free arm as the fresh mace came down. My new shield popped into existence, and the mace bounced off as the barrier bound in the Durak shell activated. Murmur snarled, and the Griffin tackled me from behind, making me miss the plentiful thorns that came with my other set of armor.
We went down together, and Smaragdine jabbed into the dirt, then went boom.
It wasn¡¯t as bad as when a Thermit went off, but the blast threw all three of us and sent the sword spinning into the sky.
Random discharge. Hopefully, the weapon¡¯s evolution would give me some control over that, but I was grateful to be out of the griffin¡¯s grasp.
As Alloces came at me again, I called another dagger from the stack in my inventory and thrust it up under his ribs. Rippling abs or not, the blade sank easily, and the demon jerked away with an earsplitting shriek.
The fading light reflected off Murmur¡¯s mace as he tried to brain me. Blocking, I barely felt the impact through my shield. My breath came out in a harsh gasp as I slammed the heavy shell into the lion¡¯s soft nose, and he yowled in surprise. Any atreanum weapon would break before it got through that armor, and as we fought, his breastplate was growing slats to protect his head with a metal cage.
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Slipping forward, I placed one of my heels behind one of his and bashed him with the shield again. He fell back, and before he could recover, I called a bucket from my inventory and doused him with its contents.
The abrupt rush of heat from a cubic foot of lava that hadn¡¯t been there a moment before was sufficient to sear me through my resistance. A gold-orange molten mass splattered across Murmur¡¯s chestplate, and the lion roared in pain and surprise as his mane and fur burst into flame from proximity to the superheated stone.
He rolled, and somehow still in control of his magic, caused his armor, along with the globs of lava attached to it, to slough off of him. At which point I was able to drop my steaming bucket, produce another dagger, and stab him in the back.
One more, I thought, looking for the last lion, but he and his bright yellow robe were already down. Arrow shafts stood out from his prone form, one shaft still quivering.
Four templars, along with one visibly incensed little woman, had ridden from the gates of the fortress. Two of them had crossbows readied, but Esmelda had her bow in hand and was clutching an atreanum arrow like she was considering whether or not to use it on me.
¡°We need to check them,¡± I said. ¡°They aren¡¯t all dead.¡± Furcas and Alloces were both holding on, their essence weak but present.
Esmelda didn¡¯t respond other than to instruct the templars to finish the demons with atreanum. Her mouth was a flat line, and there were storms in her eyes as I retrieved my viridium sword. Though I¡¯d expected it to be marred by the explosive energy it had released, it was undamaged. After beheading the demons, we returned to the walls with the carriage still smoldering behind us.
¡°Thank you for your assistance,¡± Esmelda told our escort. ¡°The Lord of Dargoth and I need to speak privately to discuss the safety of the fortress, so I¡¯m afraid our excursion in the pens will be delayed.¡±
She accepted their salutes, and instead of heading for our suite, Esmelda led the way to the war room. It was one of the few areas in the fortress that was properly spawnproofed. Not just in itself, but with every space where a monster could spawn within one hundred yards of the room either being fully lit, blocked, or reinforced with warpstone.
We dismissed the guards stationed at the entrance, and Esmelda asked one of them to fetch Zareth.
¡°I know what you¡¯re going to say¡ª¡±
¡°Do you?¡± Esmelda spun, resting one hand on the massive map of the continent. Her chestnut hair was already in a braid, and she wore the chain shirt I had made for her, ready for battle.
¡°That I took an unnecessary risk, and my judgment may be influenced by what Calcion did to me in ways I don¡¯t realize.¡±
¡°What happened outside does upset me.¡± She closed her eyes for a moment, seeming to settle herself. ¡°But it¡¯s hardly new behavior. I want you to respect me enough to not do dangerous things without consulting me because you think I¡¯ll try to stop you. For better or for worse, we rule a nation together. We have to make choices together.¡±
¡°I do respect you, and your judgment, it¡¯s just¡¡± I trailed off. What was I even trying to say here? There hadn¡¯t been any overriding urgency to deal with the visiting demons that required me to leave her out of it. I couldn¡¯t pretend I¡¯d been trying to protect her. As odd as it seemed to me, she fought monsters every night. Maybe I wasn¡¯t used to thinking of her as an asset in battle, though she had undeniably become one.
¡°Just what?¡± She said, exasperated.
¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±
Her face softened. ¡°This is less about the kingdom than about us. I¡¯ve accepted responsibility for the people under our banner just as you have, and the bond I made with you, under Mizu¡¯s name, is not something I would ever willingly dissever. But I can¡¯t¡I can¡¯t accept this. I wasn¡¯t happy about you returning to Bedlam, but at least it was something we discussed. You are my husband, and I know you well enough to know that when your mind is truly set, there is little I can do to change it. Still, if we are to be partners, we must be partners. You can¡¯t treat me as an obstacle.¡±
I felt a tiny spark of annoyance. I was a king, I could do whatever I wanted, and my decisions were my own. Reality shifted in front of my eyes, and suddenly, I wasn¡¯t looking at Esmelda, the woman I loved, I was looking at an E-Rank entity. I could see the essence accumulating in her body, the bright influence of the goddess in the mark on her hand. Unbidden, the green status screen appeared behind her head.
|
Entity Rank: E
Alignment: Harmony
Affinity: Pending
Warning - The subject¡¯s Presence presents a risk of entanglement likely to dampen your evolution. Consider elimination.
|
My jaw tightened, and I glanced away, willing the screen out of existence. Looking back, my vision had returned to normal. Essence was just a background sensation again, not something I could see, and my feelings for Esmelda welled up in a tide so strong I had trouble speaking.
¡°William,¡± she stepped closer. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡±
¡°I think I¡¯m not used to having a partner, a family.¡± I shook my head. ¡°The timeline from my perspective has been really disjointed. And I¡¯m still making choices like I¡¯m alone. I¡¯m sorry.¡±
¡°Is that all there is?¡±
¡°No,¡± I took a deep breath. ¡°The System that came with the eye just suggested you''re a threat I should consider getting rid of.¡±
¡°Ah.¡± She didn¡¯t shy away, didn¡¯t so much as look surprised.
¡°It¡¯s never offered an opinion before. Well, not directly. It doesn¡¯t exactly have a neutral tone when it provides me with information, but it¡¯s never suggested a course of action.¡±
¡°Was it only words, or can it influence you in other ways?¡±
¡°What Kevin said about seeing people as NPCs, I haven¡¯t experienced that. But I think I just got a taste of it.¡±
¡°Well, that is a problem.¡±
¡°Yeah.¡± I looked at an old banner hanging on the wall, something abstract and ominous, and then the world laid out before us on the table. The forces gathering here and in Nargul. The positions of the troops and strongholds of our enemies around Gundurgon as best we could piece them together from what the harpy scouts brought us. Anything but her.
¡°If we had been able to talk about me accepting Calcion¡¯s deal, what would you have said?¡±
I felt the warmth of her hand against my cheek. ¡°I would have said that I don¡¯t want to lose you, and that you should do whatever you must to come home.¡±
¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± I hugged her.
¡°About what?¡±
¡°Everything.¡±
¡°Not everything is your fault. Only some things.¡±
¡°It feels like that sometimes.¡±
Her answer was quiet. ¡°I know.¡±
¡°Pardon the intrusion,¡± Zareth said from the doorway. ¡°Was I not called for?¡±
I¡¯d closed off my extrasensory impressions somewhat when I¡¯d banished the screen, so his approach had gone unnoticed. Esmelda shifted out of my embrace, remaining at my side.
¡°You were,¡± she said, suddenly all business. ¡°We need to talk about Gundurgon.¡±
174: My Dirigible
Zareth gave a slight bow as he entered the war room and came to stand with us at the grand map. He reached under the table to bring up an ashwood box filled with models and markers, using them to fill in the latest information on the movements in the Grimwald region.
Gundurgon, at its center, had the largest concentration. And there was a tower marker beside the city to represent what they were building.
¡°The harpies have been invaluable,¡± he said. ¡°And I thank you for trusting me with their administration.¡±
Organizing the scouts was more a job for a general than a castellan, but Zareth¡¯s mind was as well suited to ordering the movements of resources and troops as arranging the shifts of the fortress staff. Gastard was off on his adventure, and Esmelda and I were too distracted to keep up with the now constant stream of harpies coming and going from the aery.
¡°You''re the best one for it,¡± I said, then pointed at a few coins he¡¯d added to a stack by Gundurgon. ¡°Are those more demons?¡±
¡°Yes,¡± he tugged at his goatee. ¡°The city housed eight influential demons, and most of those had at least one of lower rank working under them. While keeping an exact count is difficult, the total is likely nearly thirty now.¡±
¡°That¡¯s almost all of them,¡± I said. Orobas had been the fifty-fifth demon to enter Plana, and only Gremory, as far as I knew, had come after him. Two were in Henterfell, three counting Astaroth. Almost twenty were dead. Zareth would have a more exact list than I kept in my head.
¡°A few unaccounted for,¡± Zareth nodded, ¡°but nearly so. There have never been so many gathered in one place in my lifetime. He moved a few more pieces, the blue triangles that represented Atlan raiding groups.
¡°Our window to act is closing, we need to break that monument before it is finished,¡± Esmelda said. We¡¯d previously discussed my conversation with Torgudai, and she hadn¡¯t taken a firm stance on whether waiting or attacking preemptively was the better move, so this certainty surprised me.
¡°They¡¯re still recruiting in Nargul,¡± I said. ¡°We¡¯ve got new weapons and armor for the entire garrison here, but I haven¡¯t crafted enough for the entire army. Plus, it takes time to train new people. I don¡¯t want to field a bunch of laborers who¡¯ve never held a sword before.¡±
¡°I know that a large offensive is what we discussed,¡± Esmelda looked up at me, ¡°and I no longer think we can afford it.¡±
¡°It¡¯s not like I¡¯m going to run out of diamonds.¡±
¡°I mean we can¡¯t afford to wait. With the tools you have made, we can trust the garrison to defend the mountain. The two of us, along with our templars, can attack alone.¡±
¡°That¡¯s a lot of demons,¡± I said. ¡°I know I just killed five of them, four, since you shot the last one. Thirty, though, that¡¯s too much magic flying around, especially if they see us coming. Ten might be too many.¡±
¡°If you destroy the monument,¡± Zareth said, ¡°it would alleviate some of this urgency. A few more demons banished, and you will be that much closer to your goal.¡±
¡°It feels like a mistake. Wouldn¡¯t this be doing the sort of this I always do?¡±
¡°No,¡± Esmelda said, taking my hand. ¡°This time, you will not be alone.¡±
I wanted to protest. A part of me had been considering doing exactly this, a quick in and out to blow up their portal by myself. No risk to anyone else. That would never fly with Esmelda though.
¡°Noiverns back,¡± I said, ¡°but wyverns aren¡¯t reliable travel anymore. There are clouds over Gundurgon, so we could fly in at night, but we¡¯d be stuck there at least a day, or have to come back on foot.¡±
¡°The Atlans would be glad to lend us horses for a return journey,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Or we could camp with them. Wyverns would bring us there fastest, but I had something else in mind.¡±
¡°What?¡±
¡°Do you remember when we talked about hot air balloons?¡±
***
Aside from what ended up being more of a dirigible than a hot air balloon, Esmelda had given me a list of equipment she wanted me to craft for her that was more suited to the fighting style she¡¯d developed since gaining her class. Her stats had improved on a different track than mine, with improvements to her Speed and Presence rather than Might. She wasn¡¯t any stronger than a regular human soldier, though that was still more than one would expect from a glance at such a lithe, tiny woman. Her Speed, however, had already caught up to mine.
She was getting a complete set of enchanted leather, along with new weapons. While the bow was still her mainstay, I¡¯d made her a pair of swords, cerulium, and atreanum. Both were more fragile than I would have liked, but she¡¯d insisted that orichalcum, or even a xanthium alloy, would be too heavy for her combat style, and she flat-out refused my offer of a durak shield.
The fact that we were leaving together meant we had to figure out what to do with Leto.
¡°I want to go with you,¡± he said as we boarded the wooden gondola of the largely untested flying machine.
¡°You are going with us,¡± Esmelda said.
¡°Not all the way,¡± he said. ¡°You¡¯re going to leave me in Nargul.¡± This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
¡°Your grandfather will love having you there, and you should be excited to be able to spend time with him again, and with Brenys,¡± she chided him.
He crossed his arms and frowned like he felt he was being tricked.
¡°Enjoy the flight,¡± I said, ¡°this is going to be different than riding a wyvern.¡±
¡°We still could,¡± Leto said, glancing out the window at Noivern, who rested under a canopy out of the fading sunlight. ¡°He¡¯s right there.¡±
The gondola quickly became crowded as the templars filed in to join us. Hurin, Thrund, Yent, and¡others. Esmelda knew who they all were, we were taking six with us, leaving one behind with Zareth to look after things while we were gone.
I¡¯d parked the dirigible on the parade ground so the garrison could see us off. Major Garron and my vizier were there to say a few words and make it more of a ceremony, but I was ready to be off. It was hot in the gondola, and it was only going to get hotter.
Instead of a furnace, I¡¯d brought on my brewing stand. The elemental core that powered it was an unlimited source of heated air, and with a trapdoor and some creative use of planks and slabs, it could keep the airship filled. The balloon was cloth fortified with runes of Unbreaking, and the gondola was basically made of Protection shields. Hot air wasn¡¯t as good as helium for generating lift, but aside from not having a ready source of lighter gasses, I wasn¡¯t interested in flying under a giant fire hazard.
A flying machine powered by some combination of Fixation and Speaking runes would have been nice, but I hadn¡¯t been able to figure out how to make it work.
We rose to the cheers and shouts of the garrison, and the fortress slowly shrank beneath us.
Attached to the gondola, a set of propellers allowed us to generate thrust in different directions. They were powered by redstone switches connected to pistons that spun the propellers, with the only downside being that someone had to rapidly press the button attached to the chosen piston to keep it pumping. Noivern was going to be helping us with forward momentum as soon as night fell.
Until then, we had a flock of harpies to help tow us through the air.
Celaeno had been less than enthusiastic about the prospect of her brood being reduced to the status of draft animals, but she understood the importance of swift travel, and the harpies had no trouble grabbing the towing lines that hung from the thin wooden frame of the balloon.
Leto and Esmelda claimed a spot by the side window to watch Dargoth drift by beneath us.
It wasn¡¯t as swift as a wyvern¡¯s flight, but we would make better time than on horseback, and the view was gorgeous. Dargoth looked so different bathed in light than it had beneath the brooding shade of a sorcerous storm. Still not much in the way of vegetation, but the mushroom forests had been reduced to desiccated gray swaths, and the rocky, rugged land had a solemn beauty of its own.
The air smelled fresh, and I felt hopeful for our prospects. A quick voyage to Nargul as a test run, and soon after, we would be dropping bombs on a demonic construction site.
¡°Can you hear me?¡±
The voice was coming from one of my sticks. No room for privacy in the gondola, so I gestured for a templar to keep pressing the rear propeller button and took two steps to the fore of the cabin.
¡°Gastard?¡± I held the stick to my ear like a long, cylindrical cell phone.
¡°Yes. Are you available for a debriefing?¡±
¡°Sure, are you guys in Henterfell already?¡±
¡°The city is secure.¡± The statement was crisp, matter-of-fact. Had he just told me they were already done?
¡°I need some more context, buddy,¡± I said, waving to Esmelda to join me. ¡°What about Godwod and the demons.¡±
¡°Asmodeus wasn¡¯t prepared to face crystal arms, and I hunted Vual myself.¡±
¡°Is that Gastard?¡± Leto said, brightening. ¡°Tell him I said ¡®Hi¡¯.¡±
¡°Leto says ¡®Hi,¡¯¡± I said, then segued quickly. ¡°What about Godwod? Did they try to ambush you? What actually happened?¡± With such a small party, we¡¯d expected taking back control of the city to be an ordeal. Now he was acting like it¡¯d been a walk in the park.
¡°Hello, Leto,¡± Gastard said. ¡°It is good to hear your voice.¡±
¡°Hello, Gastard,¡± Esmelda said warmly, getting on her tiptoes to speak at the stick.
¡°Seriously, guys,¡± I put my other hand on top of my head, momentarily bemused by the absence of the horns I¡¯d grown accustomed to. ¡°Important information is missing. Please let him fill us in.¡±
¡°There is little to tell,¡± Gastard sounded almost bored. ¡°Vual was in the field when we arrived, orchestrating a sally against King Egard¡¯s men. Godwod allowed us entrance to the keep, pretending to seek diplomacy while Asmodeus prepared to strike us from the shadows. Astaroth gave us ample warning, revealing the demons'' hiding place behind a secret door, and he was swiftly dispatched by my companions. The mortal soldiers loyal to Godwod were no threat to me, and with your authority behind us, it took less than an hour to establish a chain of command with the more reasonable nobles of the city.¡±
¡°Well done,¡± Esmelda beamed. ¡°I¡¯m so relieved.¡±
¡°What about King Egard? Is his army still there?¡±
¡°Camped beyond the city, yes. We are attempting to establish a line of communication.¡±
¡°Holy crap,¡± I said.
¡°What?¡±
¡°Sorry. If you can get the king on the line, I want to talk with him. That would be amazing.¡± It was hard to imagine how this could have gone better. Now all we needed to do was make nice with a foreign ruler who saw me as the ultimate bad guy.
¡°On the line?¡±
¡°On the stick, I mean. He might not be willing to use it, with how Drom feels about witchcraft, but we can at least try.¡±
¡°Understood. Godwod is imprisoned, I expect Egard to ask for his head.¡±
¡°What about Johanna?¡±
¡°He will not have her head,¡± his voice hardened.
¡°Not what I meant. Is she okay?¡±
There was a pause, then, ¡°She is¡here.¡±
¡°Good. Listen, we¡¯re flying right now, so keep us up to date. We don¡¯t have anything to do but talk until we get to Nargul.¡±
¡°Flying?¡±
Oh, yeah. We hadn¡¯t explained what we were doing to Gastard. I gave him the gist of the situation, and he came very close to yelling at me. He was not pleased at being left out of the assault. It was ¡®his duty to be at my side¡¯ and all that. Esmelda took the stick from me after a few minutes of this to talk him down.
The broken land of Dargoth spread out before us, slowly becoming whole.
175: My Bad News
The journey to Nargul was uneventful, though it did come with the added surreality of having a long-distance conversation with the king of Drom. Gastard had given me a rough description of the man. He was no Godwod, a warrior, though well past his prime, with a beard impressive enough that Gastard felt the need to mention it specifically. ¡®Like a wild bush,¡¯ he¡¯d said.
¡°Greetings, sorcerer.¡± Egard had a gravelly voice, and it sounded distant enough that I imagined he was holding the speaking stick as far away from his face as he could while still hearing me.
¡°Greetings, King Egard. Thank you for agreeing to speak with me.¡±
¡°Your man has done his best to convince me that you are not a demon.¡± Gastard had ridden out to meet Egard¡¯s force, a huge risk to himself to give us this chance to negotiate.
¡°I¡¯m not,¡± I said. ¡°Some magic is tainted, but my power comes from Mizu, the goddess of the lillits.¡±
¡°So you say. All sorcery leads to the shadow. Only the light of Gotte can free us from its cloak of sin.¡±
This was going to be tough. ¡°I appreciate your willingness, anyway.¡±
¡°Your man claims you are ready to surrender.¡± That was certainly not what Gastard would have told him.
¡°Henterfell and the border march are yours. I don¡¯t want war between us. The Dark Lord is gone, and I want to turn Dargoth into a good country, free of demons.¡± Except for Astaroth, but we didn¡¯t need to get into that. The phoenix was hanging back and out of sight.
¡°That is difficult to believe.¡±
¡°I don¡¯t expect you to go out of your way to help me, and I know you have a cordon around Henterfell. All I want is for you to let my people go safely, and Gastard will hand the city over to you.¡±
¡°I want Godwod.¡±
¡°You can have him.¡±
¡°I want your oath that you will remain beyond the mountains. I want no traffic from your nation. No dark birds in the sky. I will take the sight of any strange beasts as a call to war.¡±
That was a bit much. It wasn¡¯t as if I had control over all the monsters in the world. And people were probably going to claim they saw monsters even when all the demons and spawns were gone. It was an empty threat, regardless. Egard was never going to try to take an army across the wastes and into Dargoth. They hadn¡¯t done that for the lillits, they wouldn¡¯t do it because they saw black wings on the horizon.
¡°It¡¯s my hope that, in the future, there can be peaceable relations between our nations.¡±
¡°The only peace I will accept is in your absence. You claim that you will rid the world of demons, but I hold the evidence of your tainted sorcery in my hand.¡±
¡°I¡¯m willing to give you my word.¡± We could try working out proper diplomatic channels when things were settled in Dargoth. Gastard had gotten rid of the only two demons on that side of the mountains, and I wanted him back as quickly as possible.
I spoke with the king for a few minutes more, but there wasn¡¯t much to be said. He wasn¡¯t interested in developing a relationship between our lands. Magic was magic, in his eyes, and all of it was bad. Esmelda joined in the conversation with a few points about the manner and timing of our withdrawal from Henterfell.
There were Dargothian soldiers stationed there, as well as others who had crossed over and made their homes along the border march. They had families now, and anyone with an accent was likely to be ejected or worse once Egard had control of the region. Gastard would be bringing back a lot of people, which called for planning and supplies.
This business with the demonic monument would be long over by the time he returned, one way or another.
***
Boffin and Duke Keldorn had a welcoming party ready for us when we landed on the great keep in the center of the city. Kevin had converted the massive structure into a train, and though it no longer moved, it was still coiled up at the center of Nargul along a broad iron track.
My boots clinked on the steel roof of the car as Esmelda and Leto came around me to greet her father. Boffin wrapped Leto in a long embrace with only the mildest of resistance before following up with his daughter. Brenys came next, and Duke Keldorn stood a pace behind the lillits. Unobtrusive functionaries accompanied the ruddy man, and he had a gray fur cloak draped around his shoulders.
He bowed to me, and I was about to speak to him when Brenys poked me in my orichalcum-clad flank.
¡°It¡¯s been too long,¡± she chided. ¡°You can¡¯t keep my grandnephew cooped up in that fortress all the time. You should have brought him to visit sooner.¡±
¡°They have a school now,¡± I said, ¡°he keeps busy.¡±
Her only response to that was a derisive snort. Brenys hadn¡¯t changed much from when I first met her. Though her wavy gray hair was cropped shorter than I remembered, she still wore a patchwork dress she had made herself. Instead of seeming like something a homeless person would wear, it managed to be a consummate example of her skill as a seamstress, incorporating half a dozen different materials into a coherent whole.
¡°We¡¯re glad you brought him,¡± Boffin said, his gray eyes crinkling as he shook my hand. ¡°We already have a room ready.¡±
Though I was eager to be on the road, or in the sky, rather, Keldor took us all to a high-end restaurant to catch up. I¡¯d never been there before, but it was clearly frequented by the nobles of the city. I waved off the men and women in silks who tried to approach us. Boffin and Keldor had done a fine job governing Nargul, and I wanted no part of it.
We were sat at a long table in a private, candlelit room. Keldor took a place across from me, and after wine was served, he leaned forward to address me in a low tone.
¡°Has the time come? Are you here to lead the army north?¡±
¡°They won¡¯t be coming with us,¡± I said. ¡°At least not on this run?¡± Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
¡°I assure you,¡± he said, a look of concern creasing his broad face, ¡°they are ready. The men are happy enough to train and serve when the alternative is the mines.¡±
That made me frown. My plan for reforming the region''s jurisprudence had met with resistance from the start, and I hadn¡¯t been able to wipe out debt slavery so much as to make it more comfortable for those who got themselves into the system. There would always be nobles taking advantage of any given situation, and I couldn¡¯t give civil issues my focus until we weren¡¯t actively at war.
¡°It isn¡¯t like it was,¡± he said, seeing my expression. ¡°I had to replace half the magistrates, but corruption has consequences now. Innocent people are no longer bonded, and usury has been largely stamped out. But when prisoners refuse military service to pay their debts, there has to be somewhere for them to go.¡±
¡°I know,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m not here to debate about labor camps, and I¡¯m glad that the army is prepared. There¡¯s a situation in Grimwald that calls for immediate action, and we can¡¯t afford to walk a force up there.¡±
¡°Then we send them behind you,¡± Keldorn made an open gesture with his hands. ¡°Reinforcement and support.¡±
I glanced at Esmelda. She¡¯d been deep in conversation with Brenys, but I well knew she was capable of tracking multiple conversations at once.
¡°What do you think?¡± I asked.
She smiled at Keldorn. ¡°I think it¡¯s an excellent suggestion, Duke. If all goes well, we will be back before the men can reach the border from here, but we will still have need of them.¡±
¡°We can¡¯t send everyone,¡± I said. The last thing we wanted was to leave Nargul and its surrounding towns undefended.
¡°I¡¯ll speak with the generals,¡± Keldorn said, his mouth quirking as he anticipated my worry. ¡°The walls won¡¯t go unmanned.¡±
The conversation turned to lighter things. Boffin was already well aware of where we were going, and he and Brenys engaged Leto with questions about his studies, though the only study he cared to speak of was what he did in the training yard with the garrison or Gastard. Music drifted in from the public room, the soft murmur of a woman¡¯s voice layered with the quiet cries of strings.
Dinner was served, and I found it to be tasteless. A light soup, followed by pheasant and roasted vegetables. The others appeared to enjoy every dish, so it had to be me. I¡¯d found less and less pleasure in food since returning from Bedlam.
¡°What¡¯s wrong,¡± Esmelda asked, her words pitched low.
¡°Nothing,¡± I said. ¡°I was just wondering what life will be like when there are no more demons.¡±
¡°More like this,¡± she said, nodding toward her father and our son. Leto was attempting to do a coin trick for Boffin, somewhat limited by the circumstance of doing it with a fork. He very nearly made it disappear, and Boffin acted as if the world had turned upside down before his eyes.
I smiled but didn¡¯t feel it. Green boxes appeared and disappeared in my vision as the Discord System gave commentary on everything around me, the people, the food, everything. I dismissed them as soon as they manifested, though I couldn¡¯t help but catch a few things.
| Lillits¡favored by Harmony¡naturally resistant to evolution. |
| ¡a three-tined eating utensil capable of causing great harm to the unsuspecting. |
| Human, lacking in potential. Unworthy of anything beyond abject servitude. |
¡°Pardon me, lord.¡± The judgemental text box vanished from behind the head of the server bowing to me. ¡°A messenger is asking for you outside.¡±
¡°Who?¡± I asked, and the table quieted.
The mortal entity appeared uncomfortable. Small, weak. It was a natural state for someone like that. His obeisance was appropriate.
¡°A harpy, my lord. It did not give a name.¡±
¡°I¡¯ll be right back,¡± I said, standing and moving around the server to leave the private space. Esmelda excused herself and followed me. So many eyes upon us in the public room, and all of their attention meant so little.
The dark-winged creature had perched upon the spire of a wrought iron fence just outside the restaurant.
|
Harpy
Entity Rank: F
Alignment: Discord
Affinity: Flesh
|
That was odd. The eye had never shown an alignment for the harpies before.
¡°What is it?¡± I asked.
¡°Fell tidings,¡± the harpy crooned. She wasn¡¯t a member of a flock that I recognized, but she was old enough to speak English clearly. ¡°The shadow spreads under the storm, and the mountain walks.¡±
¡°The mountain?¡± Esmelda asked, a quaver in her voice. ¡°Do you mean our home?¡±
It¡¯s caw was like a laugh. ¡°No, Lady. The beastkin have called out to void, and void answers. Their gate burned like an emerald sun, and then went dark. For what came out, we have no name.¡±
Then it was already too late.
¡°Do you know what the Atlans are doing?¡± I asked.
The harpy didn¡¯t have an update regarding Torgudai for us, but I could speak to him directly if he answered his stick. He hadn¡¯t, on my last few attempts, but I doubted he kept it on his person at all times. Esmelda and I endeavored to pull a more distinct description from the bird, but it was a largely fruitless effort.
A walking mountain with flame and smoke spouting from its back. The demonic forces hadn¡¯t left the safety of the storm yet, but I could assume that was the point of whatever titan they had summoned. Wherever it went, a cloud would follow, safeguarding the lesser entities from being banished by the sun. There were demons with it, though the harpy couldn¡¯t give an exact number. Gundurgun, and maybe all of Grimwalkd, was on the march.
¡°You can join us when we leave,¡± I told the harpy. ¡°We¡¯ll be in the air soon.¡±
It nodded in response, its yellow eyes alight, before taking wing.
¡°It can¡¯t be moving quickly,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°Should we return and form a different plan? Even wait for Gastard?¡±
The street wasn¡¯t busy, and I barely noted the people who saluted or bowed as they passed by the other side of the fence. Noivern was hiding somewhere to be out of the sun, but if we left now, he would still find us when night came. His bond with me had only gotten stronger since returning to life.
¡°We brought enough bombs to break their monument. What if we broke their cauldron instead? The storm would clear, and they would be stuck sheltering around their titan.¡±
¡°The cauldron is in their stronghold, isn¡¯t it?¡± Esmelda looked skeptical. ¡°How well is it defended?¡±
¡°Can¡¯t really know,¡± I shrugged. ¡°They went through the trouble of summoning a greater entity though, so that had to cost them. The majority of their forces, and probably their demons as well, are moving away from Gundurgon. It¡¯s as good a shot as we¡¯ll ever have apart from actually killing all of them first.¡±
Esmelda frowned, thinking deeply, before coming to a decision.
¡°Nowhere is safe until this is finished,¡± she said. ¡°The new monster will call for a new strategy, but we can move swiftly enough to break their hold on Grimwald before returning to Mount Doom.¡± Her jaw firmed. ¡°Let us break it then.¡±
176: My Decision
¡°That¡¯s¡concerning.¡±
Aside from the workings of the pistons that kept the propellers spinning, Esmelda¡¯s voice was the only sound in the gondola. Intercepting it wasn¡¯t our goal, and the dirigible was tacking along a course sure to swing us miles around the demons and their new weapon, but we could still see it.
The titan¡¯s body was obscured by smoke, which filled the sky above it, providing shade for the host of monsters that marched and shambled below. My first thought was that this entity was the granddaddy of the Pebbleheart, but it was impossible to be sure what it was made of from this distance. It had four pillars for legs, and a massive hump on its back that resembled an active volcano.
Beneath the center of the cloud, the only available light came from the ominous red glow at its peak.
¡°It¡¯s faster than I thought it would be,¡± I said. Not that the behemoth was racing across the landscape, but there was a trail of spawns at the rear edge of its covering smog, shamblers who couldn¡¯t keep up with its inexorable progress.
¡°How can we fight such a thing?¡± One of the templars, Thrund, asked. He stood out from his fellows in that he was shorter, stockier, and completely bald. A dark complexion suggested he was from one of the farther-flung segments of Kevin¡¯s empire, one of the many places that hadn¡¯t even heard there was a new lord in charge.
Dargoth was huge and mostly empty. Properly unifying it would be impossible until Gundurgon was liberated.
¡°Bombs,¡± I said. ¡°Lots of bombs.¡±
¡°I have seen some of your tests¡¡± he trailed off rather than complete the statement to voice his doubt. Sure, my dynamite sticks, rockets, and TNT blocks wouldn¡¯t be more than a nuisance to something that big. But they¡¯d never seen me set off more than one at a time.
¡°We aren¡¯t fighting it yet,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°By the time it comes anywhere near the mountain, we will have siege weapons capable of taking its legs out from under it.¡±
¡°I do not doubt it, my Lady.¡± That was Hurin, who stood at the rear of the cabin, stoically fast-pressing the button that made the propeller spin.
Harpies called to each other in the air around the dirigible. We were approaching the border of Grimwald, as clear as any drawn on a map, the stark line of the storm powered by the cauldron we intended to destroy.
A sudden wind battered the gondola, causing it to sway beneath the balloon. We began to turn.
¡°Keep us on course,¡± I told Thrund, who went to help Hurin push the propeller buttons. Through the windows, we could see that the gusts were giving the harpies trouble. Even Noivern, who flew at the head of the flock, was struggling.
Even with all the propellers running and a leashed wyvern keeping us on course, we were soon veering to the right. The wind was too steady to be natural, and the gusts of the cursed storm had never been this consistent.
¡°I think we¡¯ve got a demon problem.¡± Esmelda nodded at my words as she walked around the gondola, searching the sky for signs of a flying spellcaster.
¡°They could be above us or below us,¡± Esmelda said, ¡°or hiding in the clouds. If it is a demon, this isn¡¯t an attack. It¡¯s herding us.¡±
We were miles away from the titan, which must have plodded out from under the storm before nightfall. Even with the wind pressuring us to fly at an angle, we would never cross its path. It was already behind us.
I reached out with my Presence, but didn¡¯t feel the aura of a demon nearby.
¡°I need to get out there,¡± I said. ¡°Have a look around.¡±
¡°We¡¯re still on course,¡± Esmelda looked worried. ¡°I don¡¯t want you separating from us unless you have to, and if a demon is doing this, they could be far away.¡±
I agreed to wait and see, and in the following minutes, the resistance intensified. Our progress didn¡¯t stall, but we were being driven to the right.
Then the phantoms arrived.
There was a flash of red lightning as a swarm of dark, triangular shapes descended from the storm. Hundreds of them.
Esmelda readied her bow as the templars undid the window catches and grabbed their own ranged weapons. The harpies screeched, dropping their tethers, and Noivern echoed them. My airborne homies had repeatedly proven that phantoms were no match for them, at least individually, but as the swarm closed in, it became obvious that this was too many.
I shouldered my Elytron and slotted a firework.
¡°William,¡± Esmelda said, the warning clear in her tone.
¡°They need help,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯ll stay close.¡±
Her frown was deep, but she nodded, and I donned my helmet.
The wind was already loud in the cabin, but when I opened the door, it became a roar. Hopping out, my Elytron spread, and I was immediately thrown into a tumble as a gust tossed me up and into the dirigible. Its Unbreaking enchantments kept it from being punctured, and I spent the next half a minute fighting to get control of my flight. I could have lit the firework and zoomed through it, but I wanted to save that for when it was needed.
A harpy squawked as we nearly collided, and I spun away from the dirigible. A phantom snapped its tail spine against my armor, and I lashed out with Smaragdine, severing its wing.
The next few minutes were hectic, fighting gusts while avoiding being as much a menace to my allies as the floating manta spawms. Arrows leaped from the windows of the gondola, but only Esmelda had much luck in hitting her marks amid the chaos. There were simply too many phantoms, and I saw more than one harpy fall from the sky after being run impaled by their spines.
Several mobs were hovering around the balloon, stabbing the cloth like angered wasps, but the enchantments were holdings, and I cut through them in fly-bys.
Then a coil of wind wrapped around me like a hand, and I found myself thrown bodily into clouds.
Crimson lightning flashed around me, blindingly bright, but it was gone in an instant, leaving barely a tingle behind. There was no thunder at all.
I felt the demon¡¯s aura as the air cleared around me, and was shocked to discover a literal dragon floating ten paces away. Silver-blue scales, a long, regal neck, and eyes that glowed with amber flame. My aetheric sense told me he was a demon, but I didn¡¯t feel under assault by the magic he had woven to bring me to him.
¡°Greetings, human.¡± The quality of his voice was unaffected by the prevailing winds, carrying perfectly. ¡°I am here to deliver a message.¡±
¡°Sure,¡± I said, gripping my sword and preparing to activate the rocket strapped to my back. ¡°What do you have to tell me?¡±
¡°You have seen the Kachua striding behind us. Bringing it here was costly, both in essence and in life. Five thousand mortals walk with us toward your doom.¡±
¡°Why are you telling me this?¡± This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
¡°Because those mortals will be consumed before we reach our destination. Every one of them will die, and their deaths will be on your shoulders for passing us by.¡±
No. They wouldn¡¯t be. I wasn¡¯t responsible for the actions of demons, and this was obviously a trap to force me to take on their titan before I was ready.
But logic wouldn¡¯t change the fact that those people were going to lose their lives if I didn¡¯t act. Citizens of what was supposed to be my kingdom. The whole never negotiate with terrorists thing is hard to argue against as government policy, but it¡¯s a very different feeling when the decision is resting on your shoulders.
My mouth opened, but no words came out. A wave of calm swept over me as a screen appeared beside the dragon¡¯s head.
|
Bune
Entity Rank: E
Alignment: Discord
Affinity: Air
|
¡°Thank you for the warning.¡± I activated the rocket socketed into my Elytron and shot forward out of the loose bonds of air. I¡¯d never considered whether a dragon¡¯s eyes could widen in surprise ¡ª this one¡¯s certainly could. He narrowly avoided being skewered, twisting out of the way as my viridium sword cut a clean line through the scales of his left side.
He hissed his anger and spat a bolt of lightning as I zoomed by.
It came within inches of cooking me, and I felt the electricity crackling over my armor even from a narrow miss. Making a sharp turn with a rocket-propelled Elytron was virtually impossible, so as I banked, I called an atreanum dagger into my other hand and threw it.
It would have likely missed either way, but he couldn¡¯t use a spell to deflect the atreanum weapon, so he dodged, and the distraction gave me a few more seconds to swing around. The essence of his next spell twisted in the air around him, strands of magic that Calcion¡¯s gift allowed me to see.
I rolled out of the way of where the lightning was going to be a moment before it appeared. The crack of its passing burst one of my eardrums, and then I drove Smaragdine into Bune¡¯s abdomen. My momentum carried us both forward into the thick of the storm, and as I ripped the blade free, I lost control of my flight.
Spinning wildly, I barely held on to Smaragdine as I tumbled down out of the clouds. My stomach lurched, and even when I got the rocket switched off, it was still a struggle to right myself. A phantom slammed into me, and a scattering of harpy feathers passed before my face. The dirigible was a thousand feet away.
Dismissing the sword and swallowing against impending nausea, I managed to pull back into a controlled glide. But I was too low now, the battle and my companions were shrinking as I continued to fall.
A massive, leathery body swooped in behind me as huge talons latched onto the pauldrons of my armor. Noiverns wings beat, carrying me back to the dirigible.
Though the phantoms still outnumbered the defenders, they had lost their cohesion, and parts of the swarm had already broken off. Their shrill calls filled the air as templar arrows began to find their targets.
When Noivern brought me alongside the gondola, I grabbed the edge of its frame and heaved myself inside. Esmelda shot me a worried glance, but seeing that I was still intact, continued her volley.
She was firing at an absurd pace, almost an arrow every second. The draw of the string appeared effortless - it gave her no resistance at all. With a few slow breaths, my heart rate fell, and I watched the phantoms fall.
¡°We¡¯re back on course,¡± Hurin reported. It sounded like he was talking to me through a wall, and I realized I¡¯d gone deaf in one ear. A loaf of bread had it fixed in a few swallows, along with restoring the few hearts I¡¯d lost in the aerial skirmish.
¡°You found the demon?¡± Esmelda asked as her bow twanged, slowing her rate of fire only a fraction.
¡°Yeah, I think he¡¯s dead. At least he¡¯s wounded enough not to bother us for a while.¡± If Valefor was expecting me to fall for his bait, it suggested Gundurgon would be practically undefended. If we kept to the plan, the cauldron would soon be broken, and we could knock down the monument as a bonus. Then all our problems would be in one place.
No. That didn¡¯t feel right.
¡°Esmelda¡¡± I had trouble completing the sentence. It was like I had two brains that didn¡¯t agree with each other.
My wife looked at me with concern, lowering her bow. ¡°Raise your visor,¡± she said, and I did.
Her cheeks paled.
¡°The blackness in your eye,¡± she said, ¡°it¡¯s nearly total.¡±
¡°Really? I hadn¡¯t noticed.¡±
¡°Don¡¯t joke,¡± she frowned. ¡°Did something else happen? Has Discord shown you something?¡±
¡°Not exactly,¡± why was my tongue sticking in my mouth? I shook myself, dispelling the strange sense of sharing bodily control. ¡°The demon, Bune, said they brought captives to feed the titan. They¡¯re going to kill them all before they get to the mountain, if that¡¯s even where they¡¯re going. He wanted us to go after them unprepared.¡±
The templars stilled, watching us. Though the skies were not silent, they had quieted.
¡°They¡¯ve used hostages before,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°I¡¯m sure he wasn¡¯t bluffing.¡±
¡°It¡¯s a trap,¡± I said. We ignore it - I didn¡¯t say. That wasn¡¯t a thought I wanted to be mine.
Her nod was slow. ¡°We are not the ones who will suffer the most risk.¡± Esmelda turned to address the handful of men who had accompanied us. ¡°What say you, my templars? Do we go forward to complete our mission, or back into almost certain failure in an attempt to save lives that may already be lost?¡±
They were a long second in answering. It was Hurin who replied. When he lifted his visor, he could have been a cousin to Gastard.
¡°My Lord and my Lady, we served the Dark Lord before we served you, and we have seen many changes come upon the realm. A true sunrise¡¡± he shook his head, ¡°even that much was a miracle. If our aim is to release this land from the hold of demons, then we must banish the storm. How many reside in Gundurgon and Grimwald? How many can we save by going forward or back? I do not know the answer, but I will follow you both wherever you lead. That is the oath I gave, that is the path we have chosen.¡±
The others gave their agreement. Heartening, though not particularly helpful in making our decision.
Logic told me we should leave the titan for another day. Attempting to save those sacrificial victims could cost more lives if we failed. Assuming the demons had no way of trapping Esmelda and me, which was a big assumption, we would respawn. That would still mean losing all the resources I¡¯d brought with me, and the atreanum was irreplaceable in the short term.
The atreanum.
I¡¯d killed the dragon with my sword. Why hadn¡¯t I felt its tainted essence corrupting me after its death? The eye didn¡¯t stop my ¡°evolution,¡± it only controlled it.
Esmelda and the templars all gave me variations of odd looks as I brought up my nice, blue, not evil-at-all System screen.
|
Smaragdine of the Bursting Taint [Viridium Sword]
Damage Rating: 12
Speed: Average
Perfection: 20%
[Looting II]
[Mending II]
[Evolution II] Smaragdine of the Bursting Taint has absorbed sufficient Thermit essence to alter the course of its Perfection. Each strike carries the chance of releasing a portion of the weapon''s stored essence in a wave of pure destruction.
Smaragdine of the Bursting Taint has absorbed sufficient demonic essence to alter the course of its Perfection. It has gained the attribute [Greedy].
[Greedy] This item has developed a taste for the essence of Discord. Its Looting effect is doubled when absorbing the death emissions of entities aligned accordingly.
|
That name was¡not worse? Still bad. Awful, really. And it was evolving fast. It would probably slow down as it got further along, but already being at twenty percent was almost scary. The damage had gone up a touch as well.
Did this mean using Smaragdine was as good as using atreanum for killing demons? It didn¡¯t have the magic-breaking effect but it would reduce the corrupting influence. All of it, or just most?
All the more reason not to risk losing a weapon I couldn¡¯t replace.
Still, the perspective granted by the eye, Calcion¡¯s perspective, told me to turn away from people who needed saving. That wasn¡¯t advice worth taking.
¡°If it seems impossible,¡± I said, ¡°we can turn back. But I want to try.¡±
Esmelda smiled. ¡°There is the reckless hero I married.¡±
I squinted at her.
¡°I thought you wanted me to stop being reckless.¡±
¡°Only without talking to me first.¡± Esmelda¡¯s hand grazed my vambrace before turning back to address the templars.
¡°Gentleman,¡± she said, ¡°adjust our heading.¡±
177: My Drawn Out Fight
Night had fallen, which meant the demons and, presumably, the Kachua would be at full power. Waiting for daylight was an option, but it would mean leaving Noivern, a more reliable means of flight than the Elytrons, and letting however many people die that the Kachua needed to eat to keep going.
Given the size of that thing, it would not be a small number.
On the bright side, Torgudai and an army of horsemen were not far off. I¡¯d finally gotten ahold of him as we turned the airship around to follow the titan. The orkhan had been trailing the monsters after a disastrous initial assault on the monument at Gundurgon when the titan first appeared.
A weakened army was better than no army, and now that he knew I was here, he was willing to try again.
The gondola rocked slightly as a harpy alighted along its side. Its thick, curved beak tapped against the glass. It had to duck for me to open the window, and then it stuck its head inside.
¡°The riders near,¡± it croaked, not as accustomed to human speech as some of its fellows.
¡°Thanks,¡± I said. ¡°How long until they catch up to us?¡±
¡°Minutes, moments, miles, that way.¡± It bobbed its head in a north-easterly direction, then it tilted and opened its beak, so I handed it a clump of old zombie meat as a reward before it flapped off. Some of the younger ones expected treats for a job well done.
The green text box behind it informed me that it was unaligned and had no elemental affinity, like most of its kin. What had been different about the bird that brought me a message in Nargul? Celaeno had an air affinity, which made sense¡ªnot an alignment.
¡°Not terribly exact,¡± Esmelda commented, looking in the direction the harpy had indicated, back toward the storm over Grimwald.
I went to look with her, seeing nothing but darkness and wasteland.
¡°There,¡± she said, pointing. "That¡¯s a sizeable force.¡±
¡°Your eyes are still better than mine.¡± Was that a dust cloud? I squinted, seeing nothing.
¡°Was there any question that Mizu¡¯s gifts are superior to Calcion¡¯s?¡±
I stopped myself from arguing the point. Both Systems had their benefits, and I was only getting a touch of what Discord had to offer, but going full Chaos Marine was not something I intended to do.
¡°How far off, do you think?¡±
She bit her lower lip, thinking. ¡°It warrants a delay. The demons are moving at a snail¡¯s pace compared to the Atlan cavalry. They will catch us well before the moon has reached its peak.¡±
The cavalry wouldn¡¯t be much more than a distraction, but their shamans could mean we actually had a chance at this. Hearing from Torgudai had been a considerable relief, and even with my concern for the hostages, it didn¡¯t make sense to attack without them now that we had the opportunity.
Hurin dropped our speed as we paced the titan and its cloud. We were a mile behind them, so either spawns or demons must have spotted us by now. They weren¡¯t attacking us, though. Bune had wanted us to come to them, and it looked like they were willing to wait for us to do just that. From the direction of their march, it appeared they weren¡¯t headed for Mount Doom directly. Instead, their path would take them to Nargul. The city was closer. We still would have made it to Gundurgon and back before they reached it, but the margin for error would have been tight.
If there had been any delays, that titan would have put its foot through the walls of Nargul.
Time passed slowly, and aside from distributing potions and sorting through my inventory, there wasn¡¯t much to do. It was only a few minutes before I could make out the line of the orkhan¡¯s forces, but it was a long wait before their route would intersect ours.
The seconds ticked by, and a plume of fire rose from the walking mountain to color the cloud that followed it. It allowed us a brief moment to take the measure of our enemy, the shambling horde, the loping beasts, and the swarm of dark shapes in the air around the titan.
¡°The humans are marching ahead of the kachua,¡± Esmelda said, and I nodded. Not that I could tell if it was five thousand of them or not, but it would have made for a reasonable estimate.
The seconds ticked by, and as Togudai and his people drew closer, it became clear that they wouldn¡¯t ride to meet us; they were aiming for the titan. I tried reaching him on the talking stick several times, but he wasn¡¯t answering. Not surprising, considering that his army was now nearly at a full gallop.
They were a fraction of the size of the force they approached.
¡°Increase speed,¡± Esmelda said, and furious button-pushing ensued.
As we closed on the cloud, I signaled the templars to start taking potions, and they threw back vials of shimmering liquid, Potions of Speed, followed by a pale purple elixir. Slow Falling had never been helpful for me. I¡¯d had the enchantment first, and now, the Elytron, but they would be our men¡¯s only hope of survival if the blimp went down.
Let¡¯s be honest ¡ª When it went down.
If I¡¯d had enough Elytrons for the templars, I would have been happy to equip them properly, but with the damage I¡¯d done to every set I¡¯d worn, there weren¡¯t that many extras to go around. Whenever I figured out a working formula, we could have a fleet of gliding knights, but all my attempts to replicate them had only wasted resources.
Esmelda and I would be the only ones with wings: us, the harpies, and Noivern. We swung to one side of the kachua. There would only be so many chances to hit this thing with everything I had, and I wanted that bomb to get dropped on its head.
As we came within its cloud, a scattering of phantoms tried to harry us. The harpies made quick work of them. A wyvern came with the next batch, and Noivern ripped it apart. He was almost twice the size of a normal spawn, so it was barely a contest.
No demons appeared even as we made the halfway point, close enough now to see the red-rimmed caldera at the peak of the kachua¡¯s back. I could make out its form better this close, though much of it was still shrouded in smoke.
Four elephantine legs and a broad, rectangular body. The mountain fused seamlessly with its body, but it wasn¡¯t made of stone. The legs were gray and scaled as if coated in iron. A steady roar emanated from the caldera, and that sound was nothing compared to the booming of its footfalls. Each step boomed, and a noise like the grinding of stones accompanied its every movement.
Where were the demons? Most couldn¡¯t fly, but Bune couldn¡¯t have been their last airbender. And even if he was, we should have been assailed by fireballs, launched stones, or magic-propelled bullets by now.
The Atlans were closing, the thunder of their hooves lost to the distance and the background noise of the titan. We would reach the head of this thing before they came under the cloud. It was not as coordinated an assault as I would have liked, but I would take it.
As we came around the forward shoulder of the titan, we were greeted by our first glimpse of its head. Smoke billowed from its mouth. Mouth or beak? It was flat but hard, and I didn¡¯t see any teeth, only a burning orange glow emanating from its throat. Its eyes were dull silver orbs the size of wagons, slit with black. We could have landed the airship on the dome of its skull without trouble if it let us.
Esmelda shot down a stray phantom, and then all the harpies shrieked.
Searching the sky for threats, I saw another flock of phantoms descending from the cloud, but they weren¡¯t numerous enough to warrant that response.
¡°There,¡± Esmelda said, drawing an atreanum arrow from her quiver. Another shape followed the phantoms, one as large as Noivern¡ªa black bird with eyes of emerald flame. The flock around us moved to intercept and then broke into two streams, curving away from the demon.
¡°My children,¡± it screamed, ¡°have you forgotten the face of your father?¡± Somehow, its voice, high and wild, carried over the din of the moving mountain.
A green box flashed over its broad wings, informing me that it was the same harpy who had set me on this course.
¡°Fiddlesticks,¡± I swore, opening the gondola door and whistling for Noivern.
¡°Be careful,¡± Esmelda said, leveling another shot. ¡°They''re coming back.¡±
She was right; the harpies weren¡¯t just running away from the demon whose name, apparently, was Harpy. They were circling back in what could easily be interpreted as an attack pattern. If Celaeno had been there, maybe she could have gotten them under control, but she was back at Mount Doom managing the rest of the flock and the scouting network. Even if she had been with us, maybe she would have been just as much in the thrall of this demon as the others.
Its proclamation flew in the face of what I knew of the harpy origin story, but that was something I could ponder later.
Noivern emerged from beneath the gondola, and I hopped on his back. He growled at the sudden addition to his weight and quickly accommodated my arrival with a few powerful beats of his massive wings.
The Elytron could be a backup; Noivern was more reliable. As we rose toward the demon, I saw one of Esmelda¡¯s arrows blocked by a phantom, which promptly fell from the sky as the magic that kept it aloft was cut off by the atreanum tip.
A harpy got in my way, scratching at my helmet, and I batted it off with my gauntlet. I didn¡¯t want to kill any of my homies if it wasn¡¯t necessary. This wasn¡¯t their fault. It was a demon thing. Most of them were flocking around the dirigible balloon, alighting to attack it with beaks and claws. The Unbreaking enchantment would hold for a little while, but its effectiveness was relative to the material it was applied to. That cloth would not last under sustained assault.
The demon swooped down, easily avoiding the first swipe of my sword and Noivern¡¯s teeth. Its talons scraped my pauldron, leaving deep lines in the orichalcum. Even the lion with a metal affinity hadn¡¯t been able to do that kind of damage with its sword.
Its raucous laughter seemed to echo as it barrel rolled around us. The green System screen held stable when I focused on it.
|
Harpy
Entity Rank: D
Alignment: Discord
Affinity: Flesh
|
Its rank had gone up. It must have been hiding its aura. That made it one of the strongest demons I¡¯d come across. As powerful as Bael. And its affinity was flesh, the same as Stolas, the owl that had killed me.
A good fight, then.
I switched our Smaragdine for Kevin¡¯s buster sword, the extra reach was critical, and readied for its next fly-by. It sent in phantoms first, and Noivern caught one in his mouth, but I had to slice through two of them to keep them away from my face, and the demon took advantage of that moment of distraction to hit us.
It battered me with its wing as it went by, nearly dislodging me, but its real target had been Noivern. A long gash opened in the stretched skin of his right wing, and he screeched in anger as our flight became unsteady.
¡°Keep fighting, buddy,¡± I called over the wind. ¡°I¡¯ve got this.¡± Rolling from Noivern¡¯s back, I drew the buster to my chest and activated the fresh rocket in my Elytron. Flame sparked behind me as I shot up toward the demon, my body becoming the shaft of a comically large spear.
The move caught the demon off-guard. Though it still moved to evade, the buster sliced through its left wing as I went by. Its reflexes were insane. Even as it dodged, it must have cut at my back, because the rocket exploded.
It gave a very human shout of surprise at the detonation that claimed one of its claws. I couldn¡¯t revel in the victory.
My heart bar was flashing from the damage, and my Elytron had shattered, leaving only the straps over my shoulders as I fell.
We were hundreds of feet up, and a small legion of monsters was beneath me. Mostly shamblers, with a few more prominent shapes mixed in as well. No time to waste categorizing what I¡¯d be falling into.
The last time I¡¯d had a fall like this, I¡¯d tried to use leaf blocks to cushion it. It had worked, sort of. The force that kept them suspended wasn¡¯t strong enough to make them a platform.
But what happened when you made leaf blocks with a Fixation rune?
Using the Storage Ring was second nature now, and dismissing the buster sword barely required a thought. Sticking out my hand, I placed a leaf block in the air just below me and dropped onto it like a falling man encased in heavy armor.
The situation was too urgent for proper metaphors.
The leaf block hit me in the breastplate, compressed, but didn¡¯t break apart. A success, except that it was only one cubic foot, so I slammed into it and spun right off.
I was much closer to the ground for my next attempt, but I placed three blocks in a rough triangle before smacking into them, and they held. Didn¡¯t even cost me hearts.
The sounds of the moving mountain, the harpies, monsters, and everything else, were largely replaced by the beating of my heart in my ears. I didn¡¯t have a full stack of leaves in my inventory, making anything with runes was too essence-intensive for that, but I had enough to make myself a floating platform to stand on, and I quickly did so.
Shamblers groaned fifty feet beneath me, raising their arms to catch the prey that would not fall. The Kachua was still moving, but it had slowed, and seemed to be coming to a stop. An unasked question, why the demon hadn¡¯t pursued me, was answered as I looked up.
It had tangled with Noivern, who could still maneuver and keep himself aloft as long as he didn¡¯t have a few hundred extra pounds to carry. But the wyvern alone would have been no match for the demon. Esmelda glided in an arc around the monstrous pair, firing arrow after arrow. Her aim was unerring, and each atreanum-tipped missile weakened the demon, who summoned the harpies with a cry.
The harpies broke away from the now sinking dirigible with angry cries, the entire flock angling for Esmelda. Without an Elytron, I was stuck on my makeshift platform, the leaves shifting and compressing beneath my boots.
¡°Run!¡± I shouted, but Esmelda didn¡¯t need the warning. She activated her rocket and shot away.
Calling up a bow, I targeted the demon, who thankfully wasn¡¯t giving chase. He fended off Noivern, giving the wyvern a wide gash along its face in the process, and took my arrow to its back. The black-winged demon¡¯s cry cut through the air as it looped, spotted me, and dove like a missile. I got off one more shot before it hit me, the force of its landing breaking through the already overstrained leaf blocks, and we barreled toward the ground.
All I could see was its black feathered body¡ªthe golden talons that gripped me as my bow fell away.
The zombies, at least, cushioned my landing. Being pile-driven by a demon into a horde of spawns did surprisingly minor damage, but small injuries added up. It took the wind out of me and jarred me to my bones. Half my health bar remained.
Talons raked my breastplate as the demon loomed over me. Hands and tentacles reached in from all sides, grasping my limbs. In response, I spammed Shadowbane torches, a dozen dropping from my Storage Ring in a few seconds. The zombies pulled back even as the demon knocked my head to one side with a swipe that nearly ripped off my visor. He had multiple atreanum arrows in him and was within the aura of the torches, but he was still strong enough to peel me out of my armor.
He struck me again, disorienting me, and when I summoned Smaragdine, he knocked the viridium blade out of my hand.
A lance of light blinded us both in the next instant, and the demon¡¯s voice broke in a ragged scream. The weight lifted from my chest as he retook flight. The flare had only lasted a moment, but I lost long seconds blinking back my vision. Spawns encircled me along the edge of the light of a pile of glowing torches, though there was a break in their ranks where the beam had disintegrated a line of zombies. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
Through the gap, I could see the Atlans, still hundreds of yards away. The shaman at the head of their charge had to be Torgudai, a brilliant gem held aloft as the demon swooped down. There wasn¡¯t enough time for him to cast another spell of that power, but three smaller beams leaped from the galloping ranks. Twisting in the air, the demon avoided one, and the second grazed his wing. The last, coming from a different angle, hit him full in the chest, seemingly with the force of a runaway elephant.
Harpy spun head over talons and dropped to the ground, overtaken by the horsemen a moment later. Hooves pounded, and blades flashed down. The already wounded and weakened demon was quickly lost in the chaos.
In the sky above, the harpies were scattering, released from whatever hold the demon had over them. I saw Esmelda zooming back to the airship, which was sinking fast, losing air from countless punctures in its balloon.
Ranks of spawns moved to meet the Atlan charge, led by hollows riding varghests, and among them, I saw the lanky shapes of voidmen blinking forward. Trolls bellowed battle cries, and a chimera roared. A vorokai, one of the giant spider scorpions, landed atop a horseman, crushing him and his mount alike, its barbed tail lashing out to take another warrior¡¯s life.
For the moment, the torches were still protecting me. So I downed a healing potion, followed by Might and Speed. Grimacing against the too-sweet elixir, my attention was drawn to the shift in the grinding din of the behemoth behind me. It had come to a stop, and now it was turning.
A leg thicker than the monument of Salenus swung out, threatening to crush whatever happened to be underfoot when it came down. I grabbed a torch, then Smaragdine, and ran.
The Kachua seemed to move with aching slowness, but that was a trick of its size. Once it was up and moving, its step covered ground faster than I could. Thankfully, it wasn¡¯t trying to squish me; the titan was merely turning to address the commotion along its side.
I was headed for the cavalry to help them if I could, and as I glanced back, I saw the Kachua¡¯s head turn on a stubby neck, its great eyes settling on the new arrivals. Its Presence was immense. Now that I wasn¡¯t struggling for my life, I could feel the pressure of its spirit against my own. It was not trying to overwhelm me; it was naturally overwhelming.
How could the demons control something like this? Was that why I¡¯d only seen the two so far? The rest were all busy trying to keep a titan in line?
The spawns that got in my way fell swiftly, and the torch kept them from mobbing me. It looked like the templars were trying to steer the airship behind the Atlan forward line, the safest place to land.
Though safety here was relative.
As I reached the Atlans, Torgudai recognized my armor, raising his crystal in a salute. He was using it to generate a protective field, a supercharged version of my torchlight, to help keep his people pressing forward in a wedge.
They couldn¡¯t stop. They needed to charge through and around. They weren¡¯t outnumbered yet, but there were battalions of monsters all around the Kachua, and the other groups were already moving to converge on the riders.
Shamans targeted the larger spawns, vorokai and trolls, that regular warriors could not hope to kill. Troll hide and spider carapace were both too tough for most unenchanted weapons to pierce. Arrows buzzed through the air; every Atlan rider was a consummate bowman, but they weren¡¯t nearly as effective as they would have been against human opponents. Zombies could suffer horrific wounds before falling, and the hollows had to be dismantled to be stopped. No matter where I looked, the Atlans were at a disadvantage.
Heads dropped as Smaragdine swiped, and an explosive discharge of essence removed a troll''s leg at the hip. But I could kill monsters all day, and there would still be more. It was the titan that mattered.
I pushed for a gap, shouting for Noivern, and the wyvern swooped down. Riders parted to make way, and I had to stop a man from shooting. To them, Noivern looked like another big spawn. My familiar gave a sad trill as it hit land, bleeding from multiple wounds, with an arrow sticking out of its tail.
¡°Open wide,¡± I said, feeding it a healing potion, and the long gash in its wing knitted together before my eyes. As its wounds closed, I climbed onto Noivern¡¯s back, and it took a few lumbering steps before catching enough lift to get us airborne. People had to scatter to get out of our way, but they would get over it. The Atlans were already mostly past us, continuously in motion, preparing to circle the enemy they had just split in two.
The Kachua opened its mouth, and flame spilled out. A cataract of superheated destruction that swept over hundreds of square yards. It didn¡¯t distinguish friend from foe. Spawns died in droves, but so did the rear line of Atlans. The roar of the flames drowned out all else, and the sudden updraft gave Noivern enough lift to send us spiraling into the sky.
But we didn¡¯t need to go up. The airship was landing in an open stretch of desolate clay well beyond the clashing armies. I urged Noivern down, and we dropped beside the deflating balloon as the templars and Esmelda exited the gondola.
¡°I need you,¡± I said, holding out my hand to my wife.
She glanced between me and the templars, then to the wall of flame that was just beginning to die down.
¡°This isn¡¯t what we brought you for.¡± She said, ¡°Stay as clear of the battle as possible and keep yourselves alive. If you spot a demon, call us.¡± Esmelda tossed Hurin a speaking stick, and he saluted. We were in the air a moment later.
For all the death its attack had caused, the Kachua, at least, seemed to take a long time between breaths. Smoke and steam curled around its maw as it surveyed the destruction it had caused and continued to turn its body at the pace of a sliding glacier. The glow from its gullet had dimmed, suggesting a built-in cooldown between uses of its breath weapon.
Esmelda clung to my back as Noivern banked, bringing us up and around the titan¡¯s broad head.
¡°When I drop it,¡± I said, ¡°hit it with a flame arrow.¡±
It took a bit of readjusting for Esmelda to find a position on Noivern¡¯s back where she could comfortably fire her bow, and we passed into the dark cloud just above the Kachua¡¯s head. Its eyes had followed us as we circled it. Not interested, certainly not afraid, simply aware.
TNT blocks, when stacked together, converted into a single medallion. It wouldn¡¯t work with all combinations, but any even cube would do.
A four-by-four cube, sixteen blocks of TNT, popped into existence under my hand and fell toward the flat expanse of the Kachua¡¯s head. Esmelda watched it fall, bowstring taut, and fired a heartbeat before impact.
The explosion was bigger than I¡¯d bargained for. A deafening boom and a shockwave that sent Noivern reeling. It blasted much of the smoke that surrounded us away, only to replace the cloud with more of its own, and the Kachua emitted a long, drawn-out moan like the sound of straining metal.
It wasn¡¯t dead, not by a long shot, but we had hurt it. As Noivern took us in a loop, it was hard to tell how much damage had been done. The Kachua¡¯s head lowered, then raised, as it twisted to get us in sight. I was preparing to drop a second bomb when the titan¡¯s presence hit us.
The force of its will drove us down, Noivern and all, into the rocky outcrop where its neck connected to the mountain on its back. My familiar shrieked, one of its wings snapping as we hit the ground. Esmelda did a diving roll off his back, and I crawled off. The pressure wasn¡¯t holding us down. It had been like a psychic slap.
We¡¯d just been chastised by a god. The last time I¡¯d felt anything close to that was when we fought David at Salenus.
Noivern got to his feet, but he wasn¡¯t in any condition to fly.
¡°You think another bomb will do it?¡± I asked Esmelda, staring down the titan¡¯s neck to see the section of its head where its steely flesh had burned blasted away to reveal white bone. Not much of a crater, but proof that we could hurt the thing.
She pointed up the hillside, which, now that we were on it, seemed more like a gnobbled shell than an actual mountain. Near the caldera, half hidden by smoke, was a stone temple. A high arched entrance, with columns running on either side. It could have been something out of a Roman city, except it was on the back of a giant monster.
Beneath the arch was a demon, a hybrid of wolf and man. Valefor. He saw us, turned his back, and disappeared into the temple.
¡°I guess we found the demons,¡± I said.
¡°They don¡¯t seem concerned about the Kachua,¡± Esmelda said, glancing back at its head. The titan was once again surveying the battlefield, perhaps deciding where to send its next cataclysmic breath. ¡°How many more bundles do you have?¡±
¡°One,¡± I sighed. It would have been more than enough for the monument, and I had some single blocks to work with, but they wouldn¡¯t do anything for us here.
¡°The demons, we can kill,¡± she said. ¡°This thing,¡± she looked down at the rocky shell. ¡°I do not know.¡±
¡°Is an out-of-control titan any better than one they¡¯re directing?¡±
She shook her head. ¡°It isn¡¯t worse.¡±
I gave Noivern another one of my healing potions, then told him to follow us as we made our way up on foot. Flying would have been faster, but it left us more exposed. It was hard to believe the demons weren¡¯t watching us, and we had no idea how many there were in there, or the nature of their affinities.
Esmelda and I set off at a jog. Uphill. In armor. Fortunately, my potions were still in effect, and she was light enough on her feet that it looked like she could have kept this pace all day. She kept her bow in her hands, but the twin swords I had made for her were bouncing on her hips, and I was sure she would soon have a chance to test them.
The sounds of the battle were distant now, replaced by the rumbling of the caldera and the sound of our footfalls. A quick mental inventory didn¡¯t leave me feeling confident¡ªplenty of daggers, and one stick of dynamite filled with atreanum shards. The encounter with Harpy had shaken me. Valefor had to be at least as strong as that, and there could be ten more demons with him in that temple, or even more.
Still, this is what we were here for. We would do as much damage as we could, and, if it came to that, be ready to fight again when we respawned.
What do you think, Calcion? Can we win?
There was no answer to my thoughts, of course. The eye didn¡¯t work like that. It also refused to give me a reading on the Kachua. It was that far out of my league.
¡°Esmelda,¡± I said between hurried breaths. ¡°If it goes¡bad¡I want you to run. Take¡Noivern.¡±
She shot me a look that told me all I needed to know about what she thought of that plan.
They weren¡¯t guarding the door, and there were no windows on the front facade. We stopped at one of the columns at the corner of the building. It was perfectly smooth granite, as was the rest of the structure. It had been made, not built. There was someone with an earth affinity here.
We crept to the entrance, and rather than rush inside, I lit my dynamite stick and tossed it inside. I didn¡¯t sense the demons, but that just meant they were veiling themselves. If they were waiting for us, we could start this off right. Otherwise, I¡¯d wasted a single-use weapon.
Considering all the explosions that had preceded it, the resulting boom was anticlimactic, but that was our cue.
I rushed in first, Smaragdine in one hand, the Durak shield in the other, and a Shadowbane torch clipped to my waist. All that greeted us was a wall.
It was ten feet inside the entrance and only five feet wide, a bulwark erected in the middle of an otherwise open chamber. Partially blackened from the explosion, the texture of the stone looked like what would form in a cavern from the slow drip of water, raised by a spell.
I didn¡¯t stop moving. My heel scraped the smooth floor as I made the corner of the barrier, turning to face whatever was hiding behind it.
|
Marchocias
Entity Rank: E
Alignment: Discord
Affinity: Earth
|
A hound instead of a wolf. He looked like a Doberman on two legs, covered in interlocking rock plates. Not as big as Agares had been, but the same kind of armor. At least he didn¡¯t have a hammer.
Before I could charge him, I was forced to dodge as a shape dropped from a ledge over the door. Valefore didn¡¯t wear armor. He dressed like a noble. His bestial appearance made a silk vest, a ruffled shirt, and embroidered trousers all the more incongruous. His claws sparked off my shield as I hopped back, and he easily avoided my counterswing.
He was nine feet tall, his rippling muscles evident beneath the fur on his arms. The text box informed me that he had the same rank and affinity as Harpy.
I didn¡¯t have time to take in the scene, but it struck me how empty the temple was. A church with no pews, only an altar and some kind of ritual circle lined with glowing gems at the far end of the hall. No more demons, at least none in the open.
Valefor and I exchanged a few blows, and I felt the stone beneath my feet soften in time to avoid being caught. Fighting Orobas had given me the experience to deal with earth magic, but one mistake would put me at their mercy.
¡°This is the end of your adventure,¡± Valefor said, his voice like velvet, as calm as if we were having tea.
My blade nearly took off his fingers, and I felt like he was grinning, but it was hard to tell with a full-on therian. ¡°Where are the rest of you?¡± I asked. If we were talking, I might as well get some information.
His amber eyes flared. ¡°The Kachua came at a price.¡±
Had they sacrificed themselves? That didn¡¯t seem very demonlike. More likely, the strong had volunteered the weak. Fending off a flurry of strikes from Valefor prevented me from thinking about it too deeply
I spotted Esmelda creeping around the other side of the temple, and she launched an arrow at the hound. Even with her aim, there wasn¡¯t a single chink in his armor sufficient to let the atreanum head through. It shattered against stone, and the demon turned.
He charged with a howl.
Valefor¡¯s body blocked the scene as he continued to push me back. I managed to cut his upper arm, but the wound sealed almost as soon as it was made. I wanted to help Esmelda, she¡¯d never faced a demon alone, but I couldn¡¯t get past Valefor.
She dropped her bow, drawing her swords almost in the same instant and slipping around the reckless charge of the stone-covered demon.
Valefor wasn¡¯t stronger than me; he wasn¡¯t faster. The potions more than made up for whatever difference there would have been between us. He was, however, more experienced. And my potions were running down. About two minutes left on each.
It was unlikely that he would agree to a time-out.
His claws couldn¡¯t scratch the Durak shield; I could rely on its defense for as long as I needed to. The groove he¡¯d dug out of my bracer with a bare miss suggested that was the only thing I could rely on. As I tried to get around him, we shifted left and right, his blows coming fast and wild. He seemed to know every move I would make before I did, reading my stance, my tells. Gastard would have been able to trick him with a clever feint, but as swordsmanship went, I was still pretty basic.
He avoided my swings rather than blocking them, only occasionally turning my blade with his claws. The makeshift wall was to my right, and I started overcommitting my swings so that I tapped it, or the floor, with almost every stroke.
¡°Getting tired, human?¡± He sounded smug. The extra motion wasn¡¯t doing me any favors in fending him off, and I had the impression that he was toying with me. If he¡¯d really wanted to get around my shield, he could have. But he liked seeing me flag.
The timers ticked down. One minute. Thirty seconds.
Gacha games are the worst.
He stepped back to avoid a downstroke, and Smaragdine rang against the floor between us. The essence it had stored from the spawns we¡¯d fought on the ground discharged in a violent cone of green-black energy that rolled over Valefor¡¯s lower body. His legs vanished.
The wolf howled, his upper body falling to the floor, his hips charred stumps. I was so surprised by the power of the wave that I lost a beat, and he pushed off the ground hard enough to throw himself out of the way of my follow-up stab.
I spun, sprinting to where Esmelda danced around the other demon. Stone spikes had risen from the floor to impede her, but the hound was limping. Even as covered as he was, she had managed to slip her cerulium blade into a crack under his knee.
Smaragdine vanished into my Storage Ring, replaced a moment later by the buster, and I brought the flat of the enormous blade around into the back of the demon¡¯s stone-encrusted head.
It wasn¡¯t as good as a hammer, but it made him stumble. Esmelda slipped between the spikes and thrust her blue-edged blade at the eye hole in the demon¡¯s mask. The gap wasn¡¯t large enough for her to drive in fully, but the tip entered, and he jerked his head back with a bark.
The buster dipped as the effects of my potions wore off, suddenly too heavy to be used one-handed. We needed to finish this. As the demon swiped to keep Esmelda back, I switched out the buster for a pick. His next punch was for me, and I took it on my shield. The strength of the blow drove me back, my boots scraping on the floor.
The demon¡¯s hand twisted, and one of the spikes ripped out of the floor, spinning through the air and slamming into Esmelda¡¯s side as she lunged again. It didn¡¯t pierce her, but it knocked her to one side, and I heard her gasp in pain.
My jaw clenched, and I swung Durin¡¯s Digger at the demon¡¯s chest. A square section of his armor disappeared, harvested, and he batted my shield away, stepping into my guard. He jabbed, his fist knocking my head back, and my vision swam. I tried to mine more of his armor, but he pressed his advantage, hitting me again, and I hid behind my shield.
Esmelda reappeared, and he turned to meet her just as she drove her atreanum sword into the bare space on his chest. His armor had already begun to close, but her blade slipped in and through, clinking against the stone of his backplate.
He dropped silently.
A howl filled the hall.
Valefor had regenerated. Becoming immense, and all human resemblance was gone. He crouched on all fours, though his limbs were longer than any wolf¡¯s and oddly jointed. His eyes blazed with amber light, and his mouth hung open, revealing a long tongue that ended on a barb like a phantom¡¯s tail.
No more talking, then.
Switching back to Smaragdine, I took a single step forward and was abruptly thrown back ten feet into the wall. He¡¯d moved too fast for me to see, blinking forward like a voidman and hitting me with the force of a raging troll.
Esmelda moved around to flank him, and he watched her with one eye.
I charged ahead, struggling to catch my breath but unwilling to give him a chance to go after Esmelda. She couldn¡¯t tank a hit like that.
Valefor grabbed me by the shield and tossed me like a doll. My shoulder popped, and pain flared as I rolled across the floor. Esmelda made to lunge, then jumped back to avoid claws that had grown to the length of sabers.
My mind raced. A bomb wouldn¡¯t stop him. Even if he stayed still long enough for me to use one, he¡¯d already survived getting half his body blown off. It had to be atreanum. Esmelda narrowly avoided being sliced in half as I levered myself up. She had to stay back.
¡°Shoot him,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯ll hold him off.¡±
The wolf laughed, a rough sound that set my teeth on edge. He took a step toward Esmelda, forcing her to retreat. Still playing with us.
¡°Face me.¡± The words were harsh, but they didn¡¯t come from the demon. A man in diamond armor had stepped around the bulwark. He held no shield, and pure white light wreathed his sword.
¡°Gastard?¡± My mouth dropped open. The green notification behind him confirmed his identity, not that it could have been anyone else. He saluted me with a fist to his chest, then stepped toward the demon.
Valefor had spun at the new voice. He launched himself at the Guardian of the Realm in a blur of dark fur. Gastard moved so quickly that it took me a moment to understand what I¡¯d seen. As the wolf lunged, he¡¯d slipped under the extended arm, slicing along his flank as he went by.
The light of his blade remained burning where it had cut. Valefor dug his claws into the stone, using it to flip himself around and face Gastard again. His next attack was more measured, testing his opponent, and the pair traded blows. There was no more laughter.
Gastard was¡ridiculous. He was outmatched in reach, strength, and raw speed, and though his blade could cut the demon¡¯s hide, Valefor was still regenerating. Still, he held his own, refusing to give ground and even driving the monster back.
Valefor grunted as an atreanum-tipped arrow appeared on his shoulder. Esmelda had taken my advice, and I decided to follow her example. Unable to break Gastard¡¯s guard and suffering the sting of our arrows, Valefor leaped to the wall, latched on, then launched himself at Esmelda.
He was too fast, crossing the room in a flash. There was nothing I could do to save her.
A fireball exploded against Valefor¡¯s head, knocking him off course just enough for Esmelda to dive out of the way of his claws.
Valefor raged wordlessly as a green and blue feathered phoenix rose to the vaulted ceiling of the temple.
Astaroth sang, raining fire. Valefor crouched, preparing to leap again and pluck the other demon from the air. He lowered his head enough for it to be within reach of Gastard. The sword wreathed in light swung up, severing the wolf¡¯s head at the neck.
Valefor gnashed his teeth like a snake refusing to acknowledge its own death.
Esmelda dropped her bow, redrawing her atreanum sword as she rushed in. She stabbed Valefor through one huge, amber eye, and he stilled. The wolf¡¯s body wavered before its legs gave out. Its neck spurted dark blood, and did not heal.
178: My Turtle Mastery
We stood over the body of the man-wolf, watching to be sure it was dead. The temple was quiet apart from the everpresent grinding of the beast beneath us.
¡°How did you get here?¡± I asked Gastard.
¡°A compromise,¡± he lifted his visor and gestured to the small phoenix who had alighted on the altar at the far end of the temple. ¡°Your bonded imp has proved his worth, if not his sincerity.¡±
¡°I am no imp,¡± Astaroth called, his talons clicking as he circled the surface of the stone altar. ¡°And I am pleased to note that your sword-minded minion has at least become accustomed to the idea of the possibility that my loyalty is sincere.¡±
Gastard grunted, nudging Valefor¡¯s furry shoulder with his boot.
¡°He carried you?¡± Esmelda sounded scandalized, and I knew how she felt. Gastard¡¯s feelings on the subject of demons had always been crystal clear. It was one thing for him to have traveled with Astaroth to keep an eye on him, quite another for him to allow himself to be carried by magic he couldn¡¯t trust.
¡°In a basket,¡± Astaroth answered.
Gastard¡¯s face was reddening, so I changed the subject.
¡°What do you see? Is it safe to be in that circle?¡±
¡°It won¡¯t activate without intent,¡± Astaroth said. ¡°Valefor and the other demons were using this to guide the Kachua.¡±
¡°You already knew what it was?¡±
Astaroth flapped off of the altar and landed on my shoulder. He weighed almost nothing, though he was still too big for him to ride around like that.
¡°Yes. This entity is not unique. Creatures of flame and shadow, notoriously difficult to kill. It¡¯s higher ranked than any of Calcion¡¯s demons. Many of them must have given up their essence to bring it through the veil.¡±
¡°What if it isn¡¯t fed?¡± Esmelda asked. ¡°Will it return to Bedlam?¡±
¡°An entity this size,¡± Astaroth whistled sadly, ¡°no. Without food, it will eventually enter a static state. Pushing it back through the veil would be almost as costly as bringing it here.¡±
¡°It can¡¯t be banished?¡± I was thinking about what Torgudai had done to Fladnag. He had a lot of power behind his spells, but all the light he could summon wouldn¡¯t cover one leg of this behemoth. We hadn¡¯t been able to destroy the Pebbleheart either. ¡°What about sealed?¡±
¡°Both are possible,¡± Astaroth said. ¡°However, I doubt there are any of this world who possess the raw force and will necessary to do so. Forcing it to slumber is your only choice.¡±
Gastard looked at his weapon. ¡°Perhaps if I had a longer sword.¡±
I looked to the altar. ¡°Can we use that circle to control it?¡±
A roar from outside drew our attention, and we hurried out of the temple. A pillar of light had risen from the wheeling Atlans, a bright needle piercing the black cloud rising from the Kachua¡¯s back. The titan turned its head, and I could hear it draw a great breath.
¡°The circle allows a single entity to engage with the mind of another,¡± Astaroth said, ¡°and I am not strong enough to command such a creature.¡±
¡°It¡¯s going to breathe fire!¡± Esmelda gasped. Hundreds would die.
¡°Astaroth,¡± I snapped out, ¡°go help divert what you can.¡±
The phoenix lifted from my shoulder and zoomed ahead. There was no way he could challenge the kachua¡¯s will, but fire was his element, so he had to be able to do something to soften the attack.
¡°I should be down there,¡± Gastard said, his grip tightening on the hilt of his sword.
¡°Noivern will take you,¡± I said. ¡°We left our templars on the ground. If both of you go, you might be able to help the Atlans get away.¡±
¡°Both of us?¡± Esmelda said. ¡°What about you?¡±
¡°He said the circle only works for one person. I need to try to get in this thing¡¯s head.¡±
Esmelda looked worried. ¡°If Astaroth can¡¯t, I don¡¯t see how any of us will be able to. I felt its Presence, even without an aetheric sense. If you establish a link with its mind, what would that do to you?¡±
¡°I¡¯m the highest-level person here. Not high enough, but it would be crazy to leave this place without trying. If I can¡¯t do it, I can¡¯t do it. If all I can do is distract it, that¡¯s still something. You guys try to figure out a way to get the captives away. There have to be more demons down there. If all of them are dead, the spawns won¡¯t be able to coordinate. But we don¡¯t have a shot if we¡¯ve got this thing vomiting fire and lava wherever it wants.¡±
¡°It is what he must do,¡± Gastard said. ¡°This is the only path, even if it may prove fruitless.¡±
She hesitated, then nodded, and I whistled for Noivern to come down from where he was circling above the temple. The wyvern gave me a pitiful look when the other two mounted and I didn¡¯t.
¡°Take care of them, buddy,¡± I said.
My companions rose from the mountain and headed for the fighting. I could see the light of the fire pouring from the kachua¡¯s maw, though my vantage didn¡¯t give me any inkling of how much damage it was doing or how much of a difference Astaroth was making.
That wasn¡¯t on me. I had one job now.
If there had been a complex ritual involved in activating the circle, I would have been at a dead end right there. As soon as I stepped up to the altar, however, I extended my aetheric sense and could feel something else reaching back for me.
It wasn¡¯t the titan. The circle itself had a kind of spirit. Vague, insubstantial. The ghost of a ghost. Maybe some fragment of the demonic essence from whoever they¡¯d killed to make it. It responded to my intent, my desire to engage with the kachua, and the chamber seemed to dim.
The titan¡¯s Presence was everywhere, and it felt like I was swimming down into a well, the pressure increasing with each stroke of my descent.
The kachua¡¯s aura had layers, and I was experiencing the outermost. Its spirit grew denser as I mentally approached its center. Slow going, and after a few minutes of intense and uncomfortable focus, it noticed me.
Its awareness was like a blast of heat and wind. The kachua didn¡¯t care about my intentions. I was no more than an insect.
A moment later, I found myself lying on my back just outside of the circle.
It had worked. Kind of. I was just too weak, too inexperienced, to use the tool in front of me.
Valefor had done it. He was a rank above me, and we¡¯d only been able to kill him by working together. It was also likely that the demon only told the kachua to do things that it had already wanted to do. Walk, smash, eat.
I had my work cut out for me.
After two more attempts, I was exhausted. The temple tilted as the titan shifted in place. The battle was still raging, and I was sitting in an empty building, wasting time. The attempts didn¡¯t cost essence; they just wore me out. Though I¡¯d gotten closer to its mind each time, I couldn¡¯t count that as success. Even if I dove in far enough to where it could hear my commands, that didn¡¯t mean it would obey them.
More likely, it would squish me like the bug I was and leave me to live out my days as a vegetable.
Still no information from the Discord System. I wouldn¡¯t have been able to do even this much without Calcion¡¯s eye helping me manipulate aura and Presence, but it wasn¡¯t a cheat code.
What was this thing, really? Not a dragon. It was too blocky for that. The mountain on its back was practically a shell. I called up an old System notice.
| A common advanced species found in a majority of stable realms in the local cluster. Cold-blooded reptilians protected by dense exoskeletons, turtles are beloved by Harmony and Discord alike. The Bearers of All Burdens, some carry worlds. |
¡°Are kachua¡¯s a species of turtle?¡± My question hung in the air, unanswered. It kind of looked like one, and it couldn¡¯t hurt to try.
I didn¡¯t keep the Potions of Turtle Mastery in my inventory. It would have been a waste of a slot, so I had to summon a chest and dig one out. The bottle held a moss-green liquid that was noticeably more viscous than average.
It tasted like grass and had the consistency of syrup. It was hard to get down.
A timer appeared in the corner of my vision. Ten minutes, just like the other potions.
Back in the circle, it only took a moment to get myself back in the headspace to shift my perspective to the spiritual. Its outer aura felt different this time. Still huge, still heavy, but no longer oppressive. I wasn¡¯t being treated like an intruder anymore.
For the fourth time, I reached the point where the kachua noticed me. This time, however, I was not immediately ejected from the circle. The pressure increased, and my knees nearly buckled. Still, I could keep going.
Totally motionless, and yet swimming, swimming down. Its core was somewhere in the great mass of its body, close to where a heart would have been in a normal animal, thrumming with power.
Hello?
I wished I¡¯d told Astaroth to come back so I could ask him how to do this. I knew that trying to think verbal commands wouldn¡¯t work. Whatever happened here, it wouldn¡¯t be a conversation in English. Whenever I¡¯d been able to influence spawns aside from Noivern, it had been almost instinctual. Aura pressed against aura, and the greater will won out.
Only here, there was no question that I was the lesser party.
It didn¡¯t fight me. Despite the intense pressure, I felt welcomed, and I extended my aetheric sense a little further.
My perceptions shifted abruptly. I was not a speck traveling within a vast entity; I was a part of that entity, and I could see everything within the domain of its Presence.
¡°See¡± was too strong of a word. Feel, vaguely.
The Atlans were a soft, nearly indistinguishable mass. Needles poked from the mass, the shamans, or their spells. The lesser entities were all around us, and they had a few sharp edges among them as well, whereas the spiritual signature of the human captives was as fragile as a spider¡¯s web. Not good food. We had to eat so many to receive even the barest satisfaction.
The kachua was hungry. We were hungry. It was so frustrating to have that hunger restrained. But no one was restraining us now.
We sent out a pulse of our will, incapacitating a group of lesser entities and mortals alike. It was only a bite, but we could always eat more.
We lowered our head, maw gaping, and then drew back. No. Why no? We didn¡¯t want to eat mortals? Strange. They were not ideal prey, but they were prey nonetheless. No matter.
There were a few sharper points among the indistinguishable masses. Mortals touched by Harmony. They would offer more sustenance than a thousand of the unchosen.
No? We grew frustrated. The demons had been a nuisance, but they would not have refused us this meal.
Demons.
There was one now, busily working its meager magic. We seized it with our will, lowered our head, and snapped. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Delicious.
We felt surprised at how far our neck could stretch. Odd that we would feel surprised by the working of our own body. Nonetheless, there were a few more morsels to take, and the strange compunction that had prevented us from devouring mortals did not rise in defense of Discordian entities.
Our feet crushed scores of lesser entities. Wasted meat. Still, a pleasant sensation.
The best morsels were gone now, but the crumbs remained.
I blinked up at the vaulted ceiling of the temple and had to remind myself to breathe. That had been¡intense. The kachua was shifting again, more active than ever, and I scrambled to get up and find the right speaking stick.
¡°Gastard! Can you hear me?¡±
I had to yell a few more times before I got a response.
¡°I¡¯m here.¡± There was a pause and something that sounded suspiciously like a zombie moan being cut off by a beheading. ¡°The beast is wild. What are you doing?¡±
¡°Trying to get it to eat demons. Was it working?¡±
¡°Ah. Well done. It did attack the enemy, though I could not see its victims.¡± Chop. ¡°The Atlans are not faring well.¡± Chop.
¡°Are you fighting mobs right now?¡±
¡°Of course.¡± He didn¡¯t even sound winded.
¡°I had to use a special potion to commune with the kachua, and I¡¯ve only got one more. I¡¯m going to try to get it to turn around and stomp some mobs on its way out. Can you and the Atlans try to separate the hostages from the monsters?¡±
¡°I will speak with Torgudai.¡±
¡°Thanks, talk soon.¡± I clipped the stick to my waist and fished out another potion. Dawn was still hours away, so the mobs wouldn¡¯t despawn the moment the kachua and its protective cloud moved off, but if we were lucky, some would follow it. Then the goal would be to survive until morning.
After downing more liquid grass, I dove back into the mind of the titan.
So little essence in this world. Why should we remain? The portal that brought us had closed, and we are too large to slip through cracks in the veil. Still, there had been much food in the place where we were summoned. More than here.
No more demons. Disappointing, but some of the lesser entities still had flavor. As we turned toward the storm, we dragged our will like a net across the ranks of the little ones. Why leave morsels behind? The humans were not good meat, and less susceptible to our command as well. Not worth the effort of pulling them in our wake.
An exhausting realm, with so little essence to sustain us. Perhaps we should rest and allow the morsels to come to us. Not yet. The land under the storm is more pleasant than the land under the sun. Hateful sun. It cannot harm us, and yet, it persists in trying.
Perhaps we should eat the sun. A pleasant daydream. What warm sustenance. The sun would fuel the fire in our belly for an age.
A shift in the aether. Worthwhile prey at last.
Once again, I was ejected from the circle, my head pounding. What had we¡ªNo, it, the kachua, seen? Out of Turtle Mastery, I collected my chest and went outside. The titan had turned around and taken a few steps in the right direction, and the plan had worked even better than I¡¯d hoped. It had come up with the idea of using its will to bring the mobs with it as food on its own. Without demons to direct them, the lesser entities were helpless to resist its desire.
A few small stones rolled by me as the mountain shook, and a spurt of lava erupted from the smoking volcano atop its back. I didn¡¯t need a mental link to the titan to feel its eagerness or its anger. The aether was charged with the kachua¡¯s killing intent.
Working my way back down to the edge of its shell near its neck, I kept an eye out for the ¡°worthwhile prey¡± and did a double take when I caught a glimpse of the offender.
A glimpse of red-gold feathers through the cloud of smoke. Astaroth? No, it had been too big to be him. Way too big. Oh, crap. Had the kachua already eaten Astaroth? I hadn¡¯t been able to differentiate the demons we snapped up when I was inside the titan¡¯s mind. Hopefully, he¡¯d gotten away.
I could worry about that later. For now I needed to get down from this things back and go help the others. My boot slipped as the mountain shook again, causing me to stumble. As I grabbed a rocky outcrop, the new arrival showed itself.
A burning crane the size of a 747 burst from the cloud and hit the kachua¡¯s head like a slap. His Presense wasn¡¯t as intense as the titan¡¯s, but it was still powerful, and I recognized the feeling.
David, formerly known as Captain Murderface. I didn¡¯t know enough about the rules governing entities at his level to guess if he was breaking them by coming back to Plana, but seeing him sent a wave of relief through me. The kachua was out of our league. Was he out of David¡¯s?
The giant shapeshifter flew off as the kachua snapped at him. A wave of flame followed, but David dove under it, flying faster and more nimbly than any harpy, and countered with flame of his own.
How could I help? There was still one more massive block of TNT in my inventory. I jogged to the end of the Kachua¡¯s neck and lodged it under the edge of his shell below me, used flint to light its charge, and ran.
David was strafing the kachua, going for its eyes. The titan roared, and the world shook. After that, the explosion of the TNT was an anticlimax, but it must have hurt, because the kachua punished me a moment later. I went from a full run to flat on my face against the rock, its will crushing me.
I guess we weren¡¯t friends anymore.
The next few minutes passed with very little progress on my part, crawling forward foot by foot until the pressure lessened. Though I couldn¡¯t overcome its Presence on my own, the kachua was busy. The noise of its fight with David filled the air: roaring flames, grinding stone, screeching and bellowing, an avalanche in a fistfight with a hurricane.
I drank a healing potion so it wouldn¡¯t feel like half my bones had been ground to shards, and I could actually walk to the side of its mountainous shell and look down. It was a long way to go without an Elytron. Trying to mentally summon Noivern was a no-go; there was too much aetheric interference from the giants. The kachua had stopped moving forward, and mobs swarmed around its feet like ants. A few flying spawns had risen in its defense, and David burned them to ashes as soon as they arrived.
I¡¯d already had one big fall today, and I wasn¡¯t looking to repeat the performance. From where I was standing, it looked like the Atlans had taken up a position guarding the captives from Gundurgon, and they were holding their own. The battle had largely moved on, and they simply had to deal with the monsters that hadn¡¯t been caught in the kachua¡¯s wake.
With a sigh, I summoned my chest and grabbed a handful of material coins before dropping a worktable beside me. My looting orb was topped off with monster essence, so I could imbue a few runes without having to dig into my experience. I crafted a full stack of ladder sections, converted most of them into a much smaller stack of ladders with Fixation runes, and then made more regular ladder pieces.
Casually crafting on the back of a kaiju while it dueled another kaiju felt a tad odd, but there was nothing I could do for David at this point. After shifting around my inventory to make room for the ladders, I pointed at the air in front of me and affixed a ladder segment. It hung there, suspended by magic, and I summoned additional segments until it was ten feet long.
When I jumped off the back of the kachua, the rung I grabbed gave a disturbing crack, but didn¡¯t break, and the ladder held my weight. Extending the ladder while I was on it was awkward but doable, and I used most of a full stack of unruned segments after running out of the enhanced versions.
It had to look ridiculous, a man in full armor climbing a rickety-looking ladder suspended in midair. I was also nowhere near the ground. The fixation runes, however, had a weight limit. Adding to the ladder segment by segment allowed me to find the point where the runes couldn¡¯t quite do their job without giving out entirely. When the ladder was forty feet tall, it began to sink, bringing me gently toward the ground and the mobs.
The descent gave me time to watch the fight. It seemed to be going well for David. He¡¯d taken out one of the kachua¡¯s eyes. Still, faced with a much larger and sturdier opponent, hitting and running was his only option. One mistake could lead to disaster, and it did.
The kachua¡¯s head lunged suddenly, its neck extending, and its massive jaws clamped on one of David¡¯s brilliant wings. It shook its head, and a moment later, David¡¯s wing had been ripped off. The great crane fell, blood streaming like fire, and began to change.
Feathers fell away as scales grew in their place. David grew and grew, and in the few seconds it took for him to hit the earth, he already had new limbs, and he had become a totally different monster. A void dragon, dark and gleaming, roared up at the kachua as it swallowed a stolen wing. They were still no match in size, you could have been a town on the kachua¡¯s back, but David had grown large enough to swallow a wagon whole.
A titanic foot moved to stomp the dragon, who launched himself out of the way, returning to the air. I was so absorbed in the scene that I didn¡¯t notice my ladder had touched ground until a zombie tried to climb it to get at me.
Hopping down with smaragdine in hand, I cleared a path through the mobs and set out at a jog. A flash of light from the Atlants informed me that the shamans still had essence left, though they had to have used up most of their strength already. Dust rose from the pounding of my boots, and a voidman flickered in front of me before being cut down. I didn¡¯t see Esmelda, but Gastard and the templars were easy to spot, clad in diamond armor.
Dead mobs, zombies and trolls, and a chimera that was made entirely of snakes lined the ground. The Atlans had spread themselves thin to shield the throng of captives from Gundurgon, and they had suffered losses, but they had won.
Gastard saluted me from a distance, and Torgudai rode to meet me. He was so covered in gore that I barely recognized him, his leathers and face slick with the blood of monsters.
¡°Have you seen it?¡± He said, ¡°The Great Eagle fights for us.¡±
¡°Hard to miss,¡± I replied, glancing back at the kachua. Their clash thundered across the plain. ¡°Did you know he would come?¡±
¡°We cannot summon the Great Eagle,¡± Togudai shook his head. ¡°But we did call, and we have been blessed with his answer.¡±
Esmelda appeared out of the line of Atlans a moment later¡ªshe had found herself a horse. A little phoenix was riding on its rump behind her, his head tucked into his wings. I couldn¡¯t sense him, so Astaroth was masking his Presence. I was glad I hadn¡¯t accidentally killed him.
¡°Is there anything we can do?¡± She asked, looking past us toward the titan.
¡°Our spells are nothing to that evil,¡± Torgudai said. ¡°It is in the hands of the Eagle now.¡±
A purple cloud swallowed a cone of flame, competing breath weapons. The void dragon¡¯s breath burned essence and destroyed souls. The kachua was not pleased. It roared again, a sound that resonated in my chest, and David was pushed back by the force of its will alone. But the shapeshifter didn¡¯t have to kill the kachua, he just needed to tucker it out. Still, this battle had to be costing him as much as it cost the turtle. If he ran out of steam first, the kachua would devour him. There was no telling how long it could sustain itself with David¡¯s essence.
¡°What are you doing?¡± Esmelda asked.
¡°Making sure I have ingredients.¡± I¡¯d dropped the chest out of my inventory and begun sorting coins while thinking. I had base elixirs prepared, and some leftover shells. All I needed was the brewing stand, and that was in the collapsed airship. Noivern landed nearby, trilling happily. What a good boy.
¡°Please continue explaining,¡± Esmelda said, annoyed.
¡°I need to make a potion to help with the kachua situation. It¡¯s perfectly safe.¡±
¡°Perfectly safe? Why would you feel the need to add that qualifier?¡± Her voice rose in pitch.
I grabbed what I needed from the chest and didn¡¯t bother putting the rest back in my inventory before climbing onto my wyvern¡¯s back.
¡°Perfectly safe!¡± I yelled, and we took off. ¡°Get the civilians farther away if you can!¡±
Getting to the brewing stand was a bother, but after cutting through the deflated balloon, I got into the gondola and started the process. The Base Elixir bubbled as powdered baresh shell filtered down through the tubes, the elemental core that powered it all burning contentedly in its compartment.
The kaiju battle continued outside as I waited impatiently for the process to finish. Interfacing with the kachua hadn¡¯t left me with any negative side effects so far. It was a surreal experience, and my identity felt less solid while I was in there, but it would eject me whenever the potion ran out. Nothing to worry about.
As soon as the potion was finished, I snatched it out of its holster and jumped back on Noivern. The wyvern made a noise of complaint during the rough treatment and then took off a moment later.
The immensity of the kachua was hard to comprehend. Flying up to it didn¡¯t feel like flying toward a monster, it was a landscape all its own until you noticed it move.
It shifted, launching a spout of lava from its back. The stream was meant for David, but globs of superheated stone were flying everywhere, and Noivern had to swing around to avoid them. A few droplets sizzled against my armor, and the wyvern gave a pained cry as cinders burned small holes in the flesh of his wings, but we made it to the temple. A glowing river of lava, excess from the attack, was flowing down from the caldera.
It probably wouldn¡¯t get into the temple. Probably.
¡°Take care of yourself,¡± I told Noivern as he deposited me at the entrance. He gave a sharp chirp, gnashing his sharklike teeth as if to chide me for not doing the same.
¡°Yeah, yeah, I know.¡± It was darker inside the temple, and my eyes adjusted in a blink. The potion made me gag. Three in one day was a lot. Then I was in the circle.
Troublesome. This prey was troublesome. One of Mizu¡¯s chosen. Stronger than it appeared. We would win. It could not kill us. Nothing can kill us. Its breath, though painful, was only a shadow of the true void. Shapechanger. Imposter. We had faced true dragons and devoured them. This creature was not a threat. It had taken one of our eyes, but we did not need our eyes to see.
Its power was waning. Our core was the greater of the two. A vast store of essence. Our flesh would restore itself in time. Damage to our body was a superficial concern. So quick, so sharp. Without a head, our capacity to eat would be diminished. Would we lose our head to this echo of a dragon?
Unacceptable.
If we retreated within our shell, it would waste the last of its strength in seeking to destroy us. We could rest while the prey exhausted itself.
Yes. We could rest.
This hateful, empty world. We would devour it entirely. Every morsel. Every speck. But not now.
We pulled ourselves within ourselves and hardened our aura. Foolish pretender. We have your scent. We can always find you now.
But first, we sleep.
179: My Ending
Flowers were blooming along the slopes of Mount Fate. One could argue that they were weeds. Fine. Weeds still had flowers.
The name change for the mountain had felt appropriate. Fate meant the same thing as doom, just without the negative connotations. Zareth had approved.
I stood atop the cube, the vast, ugly structure I¡¯d thrown together to hold Kevin and his spawns, thinking about what the building might become. We checked the golden compass every day, and it told us that there were only four heroes in this world. There was no longer a need for a diamond cell.
After the kaiju clash, breaking the cauldron at Gundurgon had been a vacation. We¡¯d fought a couple more demons, but hardly any were left now. The skies over Dargoth were clear, and Gastard would hunt the remaining few.
After his honeymoon.
¡°My lord?¡± A boy had ascended the ladder to the top of the cube¡ªpage livery. I recognized him vaguely, but it was getting harder and harder to tell humans apart.
¡°What''s up?¡± I asked. A lot was happening around the fortress, most of which didn''t require my direct attention. Maybe Esmelda was looking for me.
¡°Apologies,¡± he said nervously. My subjects didn''t fear me, exactly, but it was hard to find anyone outside my inner circle who would look me in the eyes. ¡°The emissary from Thalasso has arrived.¡±
Already?
¡°Thank you. Be careful getting back down that ladder, okay?¡± The boy bowed, and I stepped off the edge of the cube. My slippers, silk enchanted with Unbreaking and Featherfall IV, allowed me to float down gently.
I hadn''t worn armor in weeks.
A guard hailed me in the courtyard, and I made my way to the great hall. It had undergone a makeover¡ªit was brighter, with more windows and a host of colorful banners. Instead of an obsidian Throne of Shadows, the dais housed a pair of eminently comfortable wooden ones so Esmelda and I could sit side by side, doing the Lord and Lady thing.
Destroying the throne hadn''t lowered my Sheltered Achievement. It had actually given me a new one.
[[[Achievement: Sheltered (7)
You sit at the head of a nation, and this realm has become your home. While your influence is strongest in the seat of your power, your status will benefit you wherever you go within your Domain. Followers and champions will seek to enter your service.
Presence is boosted by two steps within your stronghold and one outside of it.
Only one rank remains in this achievement tree.]].
Achievements hadn¡¯t come up much after the ¡°tutorial¡± phase, though there were still a couple for me to fill out for the sake of completionism. I didn''t have to rush anymore. What would the next Sheltered be anyway, taking over the world?
I took a back entrance to the hall so I could come in from the throne side instead of the big doors. Zareth was waiting for me in the corridor. He always seemed to know exactly where he needed to be.
¡°Good morning,¡± he said, one hand absently stroking his goatee.
¡°Morning,¡± I said. ¡°Where''s this Thalasso guy?¡±
¡°In the hall. He appears amiable enough. A strange name, Jesse Pinkman.¡±
Why did that sound familiar? It certainly didn''t fit with the language pattern of a place called Thalasso.
I didn''t think much of it until I saw him in the hall, standing at the foot of the dais and speaking with my wife. Esmelda was already in her seat.
¡°Everybody out,¡± I said.
¡°What is it?¡± Esmelda remained seated. She wore a green silk dress and a golden circlet I had made for her, looking every bit the Lady of Dargoth.
¡°Lord?¡± Zareth questioned.
¡°You too. We can talk after.¡±
He bowed and swept away. After some initial hesitation, the guards stationed along the hall saw themselves out as well. The great doors closed behind them with a note of finality.
¡°He¡¯s not who he says he is,¡± I told Esmelda, before shifting my gaze to the entity. ¡°What are you doing here?¡±
Prem, adopted son of Calcion, gave a dramatic bow. He wore a simple grey cloak and a shirt of silver chain, bearing no weapons I could see. A handsome face, though also somehow indistinct. He looked both familiar and unfamiliar¡ªas if his visage slipped from my mind as soon as I looked elsewhere. His eyes, however, were just like Fladnag¡¯s. Blue and oddly old-seeming in his youthful face.
I didn¡¯t sit.
¡°Acting as an emissary,¡± he smiled. ¡°Did your castellan not inform you?¡±
Seeing my face, Esmelda rose and picked up the sheath of the atreanum blade beside her chair.
¡°If you have come to us under false pretenses,¡± she said, ¡°I¡¯m afraid we cannot deal in diplomacy.¡±
¡°My pretenses are anything but false,¡± Prem¡¯s smile did not falter. ¡°I have come as an emissary all the way from Thallaso.¡±
¡°What do you have to do with them?¡± I said. ¡°And what in the name of the god of dated pop culture references inspired you to use that name?¡± As soon as I had seen him, I made the connection. Jesse Pinkman was Walter White¡¯s student in Breaking Bad. Prem shouldn¡¯t have even been capable of making that reference. He¡¯d never been on Earth.
¡°It was Kevin¡¯s idea, he found it amusing.¡±
¡°Is he here?¡± My hands clenched into fists.
¡°No. As we told you, the former Dark Lord will not be returning to this world. He is undergoing a sort of rehabilitation. My father intends to make him useful, and he has many failures to account for.¡± Prem¡¯s eyes wandered casually, taking in the thrones and the light streaming in from high windows. ¡°You¡¯re doing well for yourself, as well as we expected. My father¡¯s gift suites you.¡±
¡°Your father?¡± Esmelda asked, growing pale.
¡°This is Prem,¡± I said, confirming her suspicion. ¡°Calcion¡¯s right hand.¡±
She paled but held steady. The eye, naturally, refused to give me any reading on him.
Esmelda recovered quickly. ¡°You haven¡¯t explained yourself.¡±
¡°I suppose that¡¯s true,¡± he agreed. ¡°If you can believe it, my arrival here is a favor to you.¡±
¡°I can¡¯t.¡±
¡°Still so little trust. You¡¯ll find that an entity like my father is very attached to oaths and honesty. Words can be twisted, yes, but not broken. At a certain point in our evolution, abiding by rules of one¡¯s own making is all that separates us from the madness of the lower realms.¡±
Stolen novel; please report.
¡°Words can be twisted,¡± I said, ¡°as in, you came from the direction of Thallaso, and you are an emissary, but not theirs.¡± We¡¯d sent several letters to the island kingdom, hoping to open communications, and the only response we¡¯d gotten was that someone would be arriving when storm season was over. Whatever that meant. This was not that someone.
¡°Precisely. Now as to the favor, it is twofold. I am to inform you that Calcion will not seek to enter this realm again for a century under the condition that you do not forsake his gift.¡±
¡°And if I do?¡±
¡°Then Plana will have his full attention,¡± the statement was quiet, but it carried the weight of the end of the world. ¡°As to the second fold, it is merely a warning. Another great entity has recently taken an interest in this realm. They will likely begin attacking the veil in the eastern sea within the year.¡±
¡°And that has nothing to do with Calcion?¡± Esmelda snapped. ¡°That¡¯s difficult to believe.¡±
¡°They are not aligned,¡± Prem tilted his head as if something had suddenly occurred to him. ¡°Though he may have had a hand in its release.¡±
¡°Release?¡± I said. This conversation was infuriating on several levels, but it wasn¡¯t as if I could beat the answers out of him. For all I knew, Prem was every bit as significant a threat as the kachua had been.
¡°I¡¯m told you have encountered it before; an Elder Kulu trapped in a pocket of still time.¡±
It had taken the intervention of a goddess to get me out of that mess, and just thinking about it made my heart beat faster. The monster itself, though, had simply been a Kraken, and I¡¯d been much weaker at the time, without allies. How much of a problem could a Kraken be?
Two pairs of light footsteps drew my attention. Leto and David had entered from behind the dais.
¡°You can¡¯t be here,¡± I told my son.
¡°Why?¡± He complained. ¡°You said I can go anywhere as long as I¡¯m with David.¡±
The young-appearing shapeshifter in question stepped forward. His eyes were gold, and he was dressed much like Leto¡ªin a simple vest and comfortable trousers. But he didn¡¯t need armor or weapons. He was a weapon.
¡°I don¡¯t like you,¡± he said to Prem. ¡°You smell like the void.¡±
¡°I¡¯m not here for violence, good Captain,¡± Prem responded. ¡°We are having a discussion.¡±
¡°Too bad.¡±
While I didn¡¯t feel anything from Prem, David¡¯s Presence bloomed suddenly and forcefully enough to make me stagger. Esmelda gasped, but Leto was unaffected. David¡¯s control was fine enough to stop him from accidentally crushing people with the force of his will. He just didn¡¯t bother to coddle heroes.
The shapeshifter lunged, doubling in size in an instant, his skin turning gray and leathery as claws formed on the ends of his fingertips.
Prem made a cutting motion with his hand and ripped a portal open behind himself, slipping into it before David could get ahold of him. David slid to a stop at the portal, a slit in space that opened onto swirling green chaos. It closed a moment later.
¡°He was going to tell us more,¡± I said.
David went from looking like a lithe troll to his original childlike body in a breath. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t talk to him. He¡¯s bad.¡±
¡°I¡¯ll talk to anyone who has information I need.¡±
¡°Nope. Mizu said I¡¯m your mentor, and I say you can¡¯t talk to him.¡±
I sighed.
¡°Understood.¡±
¡°Great.¡± David grinned at Leto. ¡°Wanna chase harpies?¡±
¡°Yeah!¡±
¡°Please don¡¯t harass the harpies,¡± I begged.
¡°Justgonnatugontheirfeathersdon¡¯ttalktoevilpeoplewhileI¡¯mgone¡ª¡± The words were almost as fast as his feet as Leto and David exited the hall.
¡°I like that Leto has a friend,¡± Esmelda said.
¡°His friend is hundreds of years old.¡± On the one hand, I was excited to finally have a mentor, especially as I was approaching a rank-up for my entity status. It was also comforting to know that Mizu hadn¡¯t given up on me, cursed right eye and all. But did it have to be David?
¡°He is and isn¡¯t,¡± Esmelda¡¯s expression sombered. ¡°Regardless, we have had good news today.¡±
¡°How was any of that good news?¡±
¡°A century of peace.¡±
¡°And a Kraken.¡±
¡°Yes,¡± she laughed. ¡°But you have faced Krakens and worse than Krakens before.¡±
¡°And I¡¯m literally cursed. Calcion wouldn¡¯t give us this grace period if he didn¡¯t think I would become what he wanted on my own.¡±
Esmelda set her sword down and took my hand, looking up at me. ¡°You will not be Kevin. You will not be anything they want you to be.¡±
¡°It hasn¡¯t¡not affected me.¡± How I looked at my family and those close to me hadn¡¯t changed. But the eye altered my perspective in ways more subtle than throwing up System screens. Though it was better than having intrusive thoughts about eating people, it was more insidious. Where the corruption of Bedlam had before been like a sickness and a fire, now it was a coldness in my heart that threatened to spread to every part of me.
¡°Kevin was alone,¡± Esmelda said. ¡°He didn¡¯t have anyone because he chose not to have anyone. You have not made that choice. And even if you tried to push me away, I would not go.¡± Her hand was small and cool in mine.
My throat tightened. ¡°I¡¯m okay now. I don¡¯t know that I will always be okay.¡±
¡°Whatever comes, we will face it together.¡±
Soon there would only be one demon left in Plana. Astaroth was currently recuperating in what had once been Bael¡¯s tower. He¡¯d used up a great deal of his essence in his contest with the kachua, and he might never be as powerful as he had been when I first encountered him. Regardless of his capabilities, I had no doubts about his allegiance, and even Gastard had gravitated toward a reluctant acceptance of the reformed phoenix. David had been dropping hints about obliterating him on principle, but so far, he hadn¡¯t drawn any lines in the sand about Astaroth.
Even with the demons gone, however, there was work for us to do, and a Kraken was just one more thing on the list. With magic compasses of every variety, I could find every cache and base my predecessors had left behind, providing me with meta-material to work with without returning to Bedlam. There were skills to grind, monsters to slay, and a kingdom to unify.
What I wanted was to slow down. To stop fighting. To be with my wife and son. And for once, I could be.
Thallaso was still an open question. They¡¯d quarreled with Kevin and might still see Dargoth as a threat. Torgudai wanted a land grant to compensate for his losses fighting the demons, and King Egard still saw us as enemies. I didn¡¯t even know who the leaders of the other Free Kingdoms were. My eye could make me into a villain, and now I knew Calcion would treat any attempt to remove it as a declaration of war.
But I had time. Gastard had gotten married and taken Johanna on a wilderness retreat that I could only assume was a less-than-ideal wedding present for a noble¡¯s daughter. She seemed nice, though, and I was happy for them. Godwod was stuck in a gaol somewhere in Drom, and would likely be executed. Not that I was going to spare any sympathy for the former Margrave.
I took Esmelda into my arms and held her against my chest, grateful that there was no longer armor between us, that I no longer felt the need to live in constant readiness for an attack.
¡°Thank you,¡± I said.
¡°For what?¡± Her voice was muffled against me.
¡°Everything.¡±
A long time ago, in another world, I had made choices that had landed me in a cell. Being separated from normal society and isolated from the people I cared about had changed me. Unsurprisingly, not all those changes had been for the better.
But I wasn¡¯t in prison anymore. And for all the challenges ahead of me, I was not alone.