Ethria 3: The Liberator

by Holloway, Aaron

“Another one? You’ve met one of these beasts before?!” Dale yelled. He brought his shield up to block a striking tendril of pure writhing darkness. It glanced off his shield, and the creature shrieked as small tendrils of smoke rose from the offended appendage. The knight had activated some kind of ability, and his shield and sword now glowed slightly.

  “Only once, and they were trapped in cages. And, a lot smaller than that.” I pointed my staff directly at the creature and cast a Ball of Light, followed by a Jet of Flame. The flame did minor damage, but what it did was distract the Abomination while the light burned it. “They’re vulnerable to light, and that’s basically it!”

  “Everything dies if hit hard enough!” Tol’geth yelled as he charged in. His sword glowed red hot, like an iron fresh from the forge fire. He swung the blade in a long arch around him, severing several dark tendrils.

  Meanwhile, my ball of light had stuck itself firmly on what looked like the creature’s right eyeball. There it sat, and the creature boiled. First its eye burst, black liquid ichor spewing over everything around it. Then its bones audibly cracked as it writhed in pain. The skin around the ball of light burned and sloughed off. The Abomination lashed out at me several times, but each time either Tol’geth or Dale stood in its way.

  When Jett of Fire was done, the creature had decided it wanted to find whatever was actually burning it. As it thrashed, I thought it might be a good time to do a bit of experimentation. Smiling, I pooled light magic in my hand as I would if I were about to cast a Ball of Light. But instead of the simple weave that bled light like a siv, or the more complex healing magic that came with Cure Light or Moderate Wounds, I simply condensed it. Then I poured in more before condensing it with my will again. Finally, as the world took on a more lively, intimate feeling as if I were connected to all living things, I switched magic Types.

  Using Force magic I bore a small hole in the center of the dense ball of Light magic and planted a dense seed of my will. It was the beginning of a Force Bolt, but just the beginning. The will, the CPU of the spell so to speak. I connected it to the dense mana around it, and suddenly the deadly mix of magic vibrated in my hands. Uh oh, I thought as I pushed harder to stabilize what I had made. But the more I pushed, the less stable the spell became. Realizing that I had probably done something stupid, I wrapped my hands and whole body in a protective shell of Force magic. Then I opened the palms of my hand in the only direction that I thought was safe for that amount of deadly magic to go.

  A searing spear of white and yellow light lanced out of my hands and hit the creature's center mass. The Abominations screeching took on a new pitch as it went from enraged to terrified. The light tore through its center, leaving little in its wake but seared shadow flesh and flowing ichor. A notification filled my vision, and I allowed it to disappear, the information absorbed into my mind using the technique that Ailsa had taught me.

  Congratulations! You have learned a new spell, “Light Lance 2”! This is a spell of Light with minor elements of Force magic. This spell was augmented using “Overcharge”.

  Congratulations! You have learned to use the augmentation “Overcharge” on “Spear of Light 2” for up to double the natural damage range of the spell.

  You hit “Unnamed Abomination - Adult” for 132 Light damage base. Overcharge ability maxed, applied multiplier of x2. Unnamed Abomination - Adult, is weak against Light spells. Multiplier applied, x10. Total multiplier applied, x12. Total Damage Dealt: 1,584. Secondary Effect: Cleansing Light - all buffs of Tier 1 or lower are removed from the target if max or more damage is applied. Status Effect Applied: Bleeding: 100-350 damage / minute until treatment or additional Dark, Abyssal, Daemonic, Demonic, Deific, Titanic, Forsaken (Bound One) Magic or Power is administered.

  As I watched the creature deflate from the hole my spell had burned through it, I felt the heat dissipating from my still glowing hands. I wondered, not for the first time, what the heck is a Forsaken? My companions finished it by using the light sources I had given them to burn it away into nothing more than mere smoke. As they did, I pulled up my new spell.

  School / Type

  Cost

  Casting Time / Duration

  Cool Down

  Light Lance 2

  Type: Light / Force

  1,000 + 100/second overcharged

  0.5 Seconds / Instant

  10 seconds

  Effect: Creates a beam of super dense light that must be physically directed at the target.

  Damage: 100 - 300 + Modifiers

  Modifiers: Light Skill Score + Evocation Skill Score + Mental

  Augmentation: Overcharge - Can multiply the damage dealt by 1.X, where X = seconds overcharged to a maximum of X = 1.0

  I looked at Light Lance 1 and found that it was practically the same, except for the base damage. The base damage for the first level of the spell had only been between 10 and 30. The second was clearly magnitudes more powerful. The level one version also didn’t have the Overcharge augmentation on it, which made me wonder just what was required to ‘discover’ different tiered versions of different spells.

  “Meathead, the thing is dead. We should move on.” Ailsa said as she gently landed on my shoulder. She had cast several protective spells in the mix of fighting, but had largely stayed out of it as we had all agreed she should. She needed to save her spell-casting for when we encountered stuff we really couldn’t deal with on our own. Ailsa was, according to the plan, our secret weapon.

  You have slain ‘Unnamed Abomination - Adult’ for 5240.5XP. Multipliers in effect “Bardic Inspiration” x2. Total XP gained = 10,481 XP

  Dale shouted in joy as a light appeared around him for just a moment, casting him in odd shadows. “I just leveled up! I haven’t done that in almost a year, level 21. Wow, this feels awesome! I didn’t expect to do that until at least the end of the year. That bard lady really helped me out. I can select a secondary class now.” Tol’geth grinned from ear to ear.

  “Did you level as well?” I asked, amused by the knight’s antics.

  “No, but I am much closer. By the end of the day, I should level. As long as I can maintain my honor points at their current state.” Tol’geth said the last more somberly. But the jovial glint in his eyes didn’t waver for a moment. I pulled up my own XP meter and found I was right on the cusp of level 12.

  “It looks like I’m right there with you, Tol’geth. I only need around a hundred more XP and I’ll be leveling up.” As we started our way up to the next level I wondered, where were all the other creatures from the other cages? Shaking off the thought and the creeping worry that it brought, I led the way this time. I activated several defensive spells just to ensure I could take a hit from out of the blue. I was rather eager to level up and see what new options became available.

  These stairs were part of a central spiral that looked far more like what I had expected to encounter in the tower. I rounded the last rise and found another door. On the other side of the door, I found a hallway that led to three different rooms. I stood straight, trying to catch my breath from the climb. A brown blur whooshed through the air and my vision straight at my head.

  Suddenly everything was black, and that sneaking dread was no longer my concern.

  Chapter 24: The Druid Awakens

  "War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace." - Thomas Mann

  The Sorcerer's Tower, Outskirts of the City of Sowers Vale, 9th Novos, 2989 AoR

  Pina

  Pina was sore. Every muscle in her body cried out in desperate need to be stretched and cared for. Her legs, back muscles, and those in her feet tensed and cramped painfully. It was nothing compared to the agony she had experienced at the hands of the petty sorcerer, but it was enough to force her to use her pain suppression training.

  She hid in a small closet off to one side, down on what she guessed was the sixth level of the tower. But the place was filled with micro-dimensional space, so she couldn’t be sure. Such enchantment, she knew, was beyond
the sorcerer. But clearly the child had made pacts with powers far greater than himself. And such pacts, though often deadly, had their rewards.

  With a thought she urged her new clothing - the apple wood vines that covered her and now formed the vestment of her office as a Nature Speaker - to softly begin messaging her aching muscles. What soothing they brought eased the tension in her mind, allowing her to focus more intently on the connection she now had to nature.

  Nature magic was, she knew, not a natural or base Type of magic. It was artificial, a construct of the interaction between different powers as they interacted with living things. That fact had always made her smile at the oddities in the world. Nature was not natural.

  It was a mixture of several types of magic. Earth magic liberally mixed with a healthy dose of Water magic in equal measure made up the backbone of the artificial Type. When mixed with Life and Blood in a smaller amount, it breathed into being Nature magic. The hallmark of Nature Speakers, or as the Torish knew them as Druids. There were others who could touch and use Nature magic, but they were few and far in between. It was the domain of the druids. It granted versatility, power, and swift growth.

  Nature Magic also demanded things of the user, however. Quick whits, wisdom, and the demand for connection. Without those things, a druid would be weak, dead, or powerless. Just as she had been all these months.

  Mentally shaking herself, she focused on her connection. After a moment, she found several small creatures within range of her abilities. There was a mouse on level 2 that lived in a small hole made when Jekkel had blasted the tile in anger a few years ago. It was terrified. Something had been shaking its home, causing dust and small rocks to rain from the ceiling. The poor thing trembled and was so consumed by fear it couldn’t move. She soothed it with a thought and told it to flee the building and find a new home. Somewhere away from humans. It happily obliged.

  The second creature she found was a rat. It was massive, and had clearly been experimented on by Jekkel at some point and been long forgotten. It was nearly the size of a small dog. It and its small pack of three other rats hid among barrels and empty crates on the fourth level. Something there had attacked something else, and their normally dark world had been filled with flashes of light. Add the shaking of the tower and the rats had decided that their best method of survival was to hide and wait for the deadly scary things to go away.

  I need your help, rat-kin. Can you come and scout for me? She asked through her connection to the creature. She could sense that the enormous rat was fully willing to respond to her pleas for help. But he had a responsibility to his brood. All three of the females he had with him were pregnant and about to nest. I will send a small mouse brother to guide them out and to safety, if you come and help.

  The Horned Rat, for that is how he thought of himself, growled low in agreement. Eager to be about helping one of the Nature Speakers. He hoped to earn him and his line a place in the world. Pina contacted the terrified mouse. He still hadn’t moved from his hiding spot, and asked him to guide the females to safety. The mouse squeaked in agreement and explained that he would feel much safer among a pack.

  The mouse was fast as it zipped out of its hiding spot and down the stairs to the fourth floor. Crawling on the wall in total darkness rather than walking along the ground. This mouse had also been experimented on by Jekkel she realized as it found the pack of Rat-kin and introduced itself by squeaking and sniffing the air in greeting. The three pregnant females were none too happy at being forced to leave their pre-selected nesting spots. But when the rat-kin male put his paw down, they agreed and followed behind the magically swift.

  As soon as the three females were underway, the Horned Rat charged up the stairs, following nearly the same pathway as the mouse. Avoiding several things that walked on the ground as it made its way up two levels. She could sense it growing closer and realized she was far higher in the tower than she had hoped.

  Level seven, maybe even eight. With that thought, and the fast approaching support, her attention shifted to the wooden table, leg in her hand. She had broken the small table in the upper ‘research’ room, intending to use it as a club. But her body had rebelled when she even tried to walk. Now though, with her body suit doing its job and her muscles growing looser and far less painful, she thought she might be able to use it.

  She felt down the haft of the table leg and realized that it would be too bulky and far too light for her needs. If she tried to use this thing to brain someone, it would shatter into splinters before giving them so much as a headache. Pina looked at her mana pool. She had recovered nearly eight hundred mana during her freedom. Enough to cast a basic hardening spell.

  Pina plucked one of the small apple seeds off her vestment and implanted it in the handle's base where the wood was frayed and cracked. She infused just a trickle of mana, not wanting to disturb the ambient mana around her too much as she cast the spell. After nearly thirty seconds, the spell was complete. The wood had reformed into a smooth surfaced length of hardwood, far heavier in the striking end. With a handle grown specifically for the contours of her hand. Weapon finished, she reached back out to the Horned Rat.

  Mistress, I have not yet made it to you. There is a creature in the cave between us. I can not make it to you without being seen by it. The Horned Rat sent a picture of this mysterious ‘creature’ to her, and her heart fell.

  It was Jekkel’s butler, slave, puppet thing. A deformed and decrepit man who had served Jekkel for years, according to the sorcerer. Since they had both been children. The sorcerer had taken great pleasure in torturing and abusing the man nearly as much as he had Pina. Jekkel had eventually told her about the origins of their relationship, and she had felt pity for the slave. The man had once been their village’s strongest boy, the one destined, according to everyone in the village, to become the yeoman’s newest guard. He might have even been able to earn his way to the petty nobility through a knighthood if he had been given the chance.

  But the boy had bullied Jekkel and had eventually come to the point of nearly killing the nascent spell caster. It was that day, when the boy had beaten Jekkel nearly to death, that the sorcerer learned of his affinity for magic. It was that day that he had turned a once proud, sturdy boy into a monster. Eventually Jekkel had turned him into a slave, promising him one day to reverse the curse. But over the long years they had both realized that Jekkel never intended to do any such thing. The boy was now a slave and would be forever.

  Sighing, Pina put her ear to the door’s wood and tried to listen. Hearing nothing, she reached out to the rat-kin and asked to share his ears. He obliged and after a moment she could hear everything he could.

  The man, misshapen as he was, cut a strikingly dangerous image. He carried a dagger with a long and black blade as he paced the floor up and down the hallway outside the closet. He whispered to himself, and it took Pina a moment to understand. “I should kill him. Screw the curse. No, no, we can’t hurt master. If we do, he’ll kill us. Wait, those outside. I could open the door! No, no, no I can’t I can’t! I hate him, I hate him sooo much but I can’t, I can’t.” He sobbed angry tears as he paced faster and faster, his grotesque bulbus face growing red with rage and frustration. “He wants her. If I find and kill her, that will hurt him. And he can’t be mad at me because she escaped from a session. I would have to defend myself. She is dangerous.

  And? And, and I could have some fun. My turn to have some fun, to make other people hurt. My turn to hold the knife! Then, maybe as he has his back turned? Maybe I be holding the knife then too?” He started madly cackling and whispering even harsher, darker things she didn’t want to hear.

  Pina waited until he turned away from the Horned Rat. When he did, she mentally screamed her order. Attack him, now!

  The Horned Rat, the progenitor of his species, rushed forward. The horns on his head and the teeth in his mouth extended forward as he hissed his mighty rat fury. The crippled evil man turned, face red with rage as he
pulled up the dagger.

  “Masters experiments!” He yelled as the dagger-like teeth of the rat-kin bit deep into his leg and pulled him down to the ground. “AAaiiieee!” He yelled in pain. The slave lifted his black bladed dagger to stab down into the rat. “I should have killed you, not let you go like master said!” As the dagger made its arch downwards, Pina emerged from the closet. She smacked the dagger away in a backhanded swing before spreading her legs for balance and bringing the head of her weapon down square on his skull.

  Blood and brain matter scattered over the floor as she crushed his skull with repeated blows. The entire time she was silent, gritting her teeth to keep from screaming her rage. As she received the notification from Ethria that she had slain the man, sending his putrid, rotten soul to whatever hell he deserved, she straightened and stretched her back muscles. Finally relieving them from the nearly constant spasming.

  Pina saw herself through the rat’s eyes. She was covered in blood, her applewood vestment barely covering her for modesty’s sake, but it would grow as she healed and fed it mana. She did so now, sending a small yet constant trickle into the thing, allowing it to grow thick and to spread over her body.

  “Well, I’m a sight,” she whispered to the rat. The Horned Rat titled his head in confusion, and she felt a smile crossed her lips. She pulled her tangled and ratty red hair back behind her head. She tied it with a simple green offshoot of one of her vestment vines, keeping it out of her eyes.

  “Lead on, oh King of Rats.” She whispered. Sending the meaning directly into the rat-kin’s mind. He squeaked before turning and leading the way down the hall.

  ---

  Three stories down, and she had encountered no one. She had occasionally glanced outside through a window and saw and heard a great battle going on. Men from the nearby city whose walls loomed high on the horizon were doing battle with men, undead, and what? Other monstrosities, experiments, creatures of ghoulish visage. “So that’s what he meant about Jekkel’s orders to release his experiments.” She whispered to herself. The Horned Rat squeaked his agreement, explaining that they had only been free for roughly an hour or so before she contacted him. Most of the others had been let loose and then lured to the bottom entrance of the tower, where black-robed figures had taken control of them.