by Cheek, Jason
That’s when it hit him as to what our relation together had been when I’d rescued them from the Sea Orcs. The rumors had been flying amongst the Kayden Troopers and my other new vassals. In that moment of silence, everyone present seemed to connect the dots. If there were any doubts, General Dell’s next comment put them to rest.
“Sir Anon was not trying to covertly inform the staff of your previous relationship with Lady Fylreh,” General Dell said, unable to help the amused smile that came to his lips. A thud sounded from behind us as one of the maids swooned looking at the Centauride’s rump, while a low murmur went through the Heavy Cavalry troopers as Fylreh and I turned beet red. “But, you’ve done a mighty fine job of doing that yourself, milord.” He glanced towards the Guardian Knight. “I believe Lady Fylreh will work just fine.”
“Thank you for clarifying that for everyone, General Dell,” I groused in annoyance, as I held my arm out for the Guardian Knight to continue. “Can you please continue leading us to the Red Room?”
“Of course, Overlord,” Sir Anon said, visibly flinching at my tone as he continued leading us through the halls.
The corridor ended at an ornate red door with two Guardian Knights standing outside. A quick Identify caught me up to speed on their names, before Sir Anon was able to call out a greeting. Immediately the names of Sir Briicot Curteis – Level 42 Guardian Knight and Sir Judd Beroldus – Level 42 Guardian Knight appeared over both men’s heads. I was just thinking that there was something odd about their eyes, when both Guardian Knights stood up straight.
“By Queen Isolde’s command, no one is to enter this private meeting,” both Guardian Knights chanted out in unison with blank staring eyes. The oddness of the tone in their voices made the hairs on the back of my neck stand out straight as I studied their glazed over eyes.
“Stand aside, brothers. As you know, Queen Isolde herself commanded me to bring Overlord Ironwolf directly to the meeting without fail,” Sir Anon said, with a hint of confusion in his voice. “You were present when she issued those same commands.”
“By Queen Isolde’s command, no one is to enter this private meeting,” both Guardian Knights droned out again as I traded a suspicious glance with General Dell and Lance Leader Warf. With a snarl, I pushed past Sir Anon and yanked both Guardian Knights away from the door.
“Something’s wrong with these men,” I said, as I physically shoved the flailing men towards my companions while a feeling of dread started to come over me. “Ulia and Rayne, keep an eye on them. Everyone else, we’re going in.”
“Wwha-what is wrong with them?” Sir Anon stuttered with wide-eyes, as the two swordswomen manhandled the Guardian Knights to the floor with little effort.
“I don’t know, but we’re going to find the fuck out,” I snarled, as the adrenaline began pumping through my veins. Some primitive fear in my hindbrain warned me that this wasn’t going to be anything good as I squared myself up to the door. I just hoped that our detaining of the two Guardian Knights didn’t somehow alert the enemy to our presence. Focusing on the latch, I kicked the door in with all my might.
There was a metallic ping of an iron lock giving away as the door slammed open. As soon as the doorway was clear, I rushed into the large meeting room with Helgath at my side. One hand held the Vicious Executioner's Axe of Cruelty at the ready while the other was glowing with the blackish-purple light of an Enhanced Shadow Bolt poised to be let loose. Sir Merrill, who had taken the full brunt of the door swinging open, had immediately collapsed into a heap, while Sir Degarre and Sir Hemmet simply began striding towards us with their hands held out and pointing towards the door.
“By Queen Isolde’s command, no one is to enter this private meeting,” both Guardian Knights chanted out in unison in a dull lifeless voice like before.
Talk about bizarro, I didn’t even spare a glance at either men as my eyes scanned the rest of the room for any immediate threats. While I was doing that, Neristhana charged past me heading directly for Sir Hemmet. A step behind her, Lance Leader Warf rushed into the room and went right to tackle Sir Degarre to the ground, while Keela and Brenna went left, heading for the downed Sir Merrill. By the time the Gnomeling was tackling Sir Hemmet, General Dell, Fylreh, and Sir Anon had stopped next to us and were scanning the conference room for danger while the rest of our guards filed in behind us.
The situation of the two people at the long conference table was the most eerie part of the whole room. Queen Isolde sat frozen with a face set in a rigid mask of fear. The only warning as to what might have happened to her was a spilt wine glass that had rolled to the edge of the table. While the Queen couldn’t move her eyes, the look of absolute terror in them was enough to send a shiver of dread down my spine.
The older man sitting across from her was on my end of the table and wore rich clothing. That he hadn’t even flinched or bothered to look around when we burst into the room was setting alarm bells off in my head. The quick Identify I did on the man didn’t ease my doubts either as I read the information that instantly appeared over his head, General Olin DeKhayed – Level 40 Swordsman. What Level 40 would be acting this confident when caught in a compromising situation like this?
“Queen Isolde, I’ve brought Overlord Ironwolf as you’ve requested,” Sir Anon hurriedly said, unsure of how else to respond appropriately to the situation before him. “He has proof of the Orc hordes invading the Kingdom of Kader and of General DeKhayed’s involvement in hiding this information from the Kingdom of Kader.”
“Ah,” General DeKhayed said in an amused tone, “so I finally get to meet the insufferable Startum Ironwolf that I’ve heard so much about,” General DeKhayed contemptuously sneered, without turning around to face us. “I’ve heard so much about you from your scorned lover.”
“Though, I will have to admit, Cristiane Sekhmet warned me of your possible interference,” he said, as he casually took a sip from the wine glass before him with a casual indifference to what we might do to him. It was as if he thought he was in complete control of the situation. I was debating on whether or not I should simply kill him or listen to his monologuing to get as much information as possible out of him. “In truth, I must admit that I hardly considered you a concern. Obviously that was a misjudgment on my part, but one that I can now easily resolve since you’re here in my den.”
“In the name of Queen Isolde,” Sir Anon said, as he realized that something was not right with his charge, “I demand that you drop any weapons you might have and kneel to be taken into custody.”
“Kneel?” The old man suddenly roared, as he spun around on us with his face twisted in hate. “I’ll make you suffer a thousand deaths for such insolence, worm!” As he drew in a breath to monologue more, I decided enough was enough.
“Toss him, Fylreh!” I casually ordered, as the Centauride roughly grabbed the Human by the back of his tailored leather suit and threw him hard enough to bounce off of the stone wall. Before the asshole could hit the ground, I blasted him with an Enhanced Shadow Bolt as an extra fuck you as he collapsed into a heap on the ground.
“Listen up, General Dickhead,” I said, purposely mispronouncing the asshole’s name like I did to his son. “You need to start saying something that I actually find interesting, or I’m going to just slaughter you and be done with it. I would threaten you with using your corpse to defend the city of Palnisdale, but honestly, I’m not even sure if you’d make a halfway decent zombie.” I know I was being a dick by not letting him monologue, but honestly it was late and I just wanted to log out to get some sleep.
“Gak … gak … gak,” the old man made a wet hacking noise as his entire frame shook from the effort. It sounded sickening as hell. Almost like he’d broken some ribs from his fall and they’d punctured his ribs as they grounded together with his every breath. While it had been a solid hit, it hadn’t been hard enough for all of that jazz, I thought, when it slowly dawned on me that he wasn’t painfully gasping for breath. As the old man looked up at me with
his burning hate-filled eyes, I realized the mother fucker was laughing.
“You dare tell your dumb beast to lay a hand on me!” he roared, while pushing himself up to his hands and knees. I was still trying to decide where the sickening crunching noise was coming from, when I saw something that made me gag. Overlarge purplish tentacles were starting to push their way out of his mouth as the skin of his face began to stretch and split open.
‘It’s a Dil-Hilth!’ Helgath’s mental warning ripped through my mind as her clawed fingers urgently gripped my bicep. ‘You must slice off its tentacles!’ While that sounded like a great idea, I wasn’t about to get closer to something like that at least not more than I had to. I’d seen too many horror movies in my lifetime. Still, I didn’t hesitate to act as I hollered out to the rest of the team.
“Hit him from range!” Yeah, I know it wasn’t hacking off the thing’s tentacles, but it was the first thing that came to my mind, as I blasted General Dickhead with another Enhanced Shadow Bolt. Mostly, that was because I wasn’t willing to give whatever was happening to the old man a chance to fuck all of us over by getting any of its body parts on us. Honestly, the first thing that came to my mind at the sight of the purple tentacles coming from its mouth were the strange vampires on that series, The Strain.
Figuring I’d use the Vicious Executioner's Axe of Cruelty to slice through any tentacles that came shooting from its mouth, I held my axe at the ready as I repeatedly blasted the thing with everything I had. As the old man’s lips ripped open further, Fylreh was just raising her bow for a Multi-Shot while I was sending Enhanced Shadow Bolts at the fucker along with Helgath, when an explosion of magic flared out from the old man’s body. It was a white globe that covered everything in a spherical field that expanded across the room in the blink of an eye.
One second, I was blasting General Dickhead and the next, I was frozen in place just like that, like a deer in the headlights of a car. It had been instantaneous. A quick glance around the room let me know that everyone else was down. When I say down, I mean down. Helgath’s body was limply hanging from my bicep, while Neysa was collapsed in a heap next to me. Fylreh lay sprawled next to the conference table with drool coming out of her open mouth, while General Dell, who was on my other side, had simply crumpled where he stood.
In my peripheral vision, I could see everyone had been affected. Sir Anon was down. Neristhana and Sir Hemmet were lying on top of each other. Ulia, Rayne, Brenna, and Keela, had all collapsed wherever they been standing along with their Guardian Knights they’d been subduing. Whatever had hit us had affected everyone in the room and possibly beyond, except for the princess who still sat frozen in her seat at the conference table.
My eyes were pulled to a sickening hurgiggergal sound as the old man began climbing to his knees while the skin of his face began to split down the middle. I swore, it was like he was being torn open from the inside. Weirdly enough, the look on his face was one of either pure agony or ecstasy, I honestly couldn’t decide which. Even though that was horrifying to watch on multiple different levels, the worst part was watching the growing mass of thick purplish tentacles that continuously kept forcing their way out of his mouth. You could hear the bones of his face snapping and breaking from the intense pressure coming from deep inside his body. If I’d still had control over my body, I’d have been dry heaving as the old man’s eyes bulged out from his eye sockets like they were about to explode while his entire body began to swell like a bloated corpse.
As I tore my eyes away from the creep show happening right before me, I began trying to understand what in the hell was wrong with me. Immediately checking my HUD, I saw a debuff that I’d never seen before called, Psionic Stun. Even crazier, next to the icon were all of my regular buffs of Bone Shield, Holy Shield, and Enhanced Mage Armor. From the look of things, whatever had hit me hadn’t damaged my shields. The attack had bypassed everything like they weren’t even there.
Pulling up the description of the debuff, it said that this was a lesser form of Psionic Paralysis which was what I’d initially been hit with. A quick glance at my system window said that I’d managed to resist the Elite Dil-Hilth’s Psionic Paralysis due to my high Spirit. Not that it helped me much with the weaker version of the spell which still had a three minute Stun effect. Still, I guess it was better than a sharp poke in the eye and it had allowed me to stay on my feet when everyone else was taken down.
It was at about that time when I noticed something strange about my Spirit. The system window was reporting my Spirit as being two-hundred and eighty-two points instead of my normal one hundred and seventy-seven points. For a long moment, I just stared at the number trying to understand what that could mean, when I once again looked down at Helgath’s slumped body and immediately understood what my soulmate had done. She’d given me all of the Spirit Attribute she had and made it mine.
The effect of the Psionic Stun seemed to have deadened all of my emotions and made my thoughts fuzzy. It was like I’d stayed up too long and had one of those sleep deprived kind of hangovers. It was almost like my brain synapses were trying to fire but something was blocking them from functioning correctly. Staring at the agonized look frozen on Helgath’s green face, I felt a spark of fury flare up deep inside my chest. It was that innate hatred at all of the injustices in my life, but magnified tenfold as I stared down into my soulmate’s face. Within seconds that flare had erupted into a raging bonfire that began burning away the fog weighing down my mind.
While that was going on, General DeKhayed’s body started growing bigger and bigger. His agonized screams began filling the room, until there was an immense ripping sound. A second later, the old man’s body exploded like I’d triggered a corpse explosion as bone and viscera painted the room and its occupants in gore. Standing in the place of the old man was a nude purple-skinned monster with a tentacle bundle located above a toothy mouth and two massive ovipositors sticking out from its crotch like some mutant alien pornstar. Rising up to its full height, the Elite Dil-Hilth threw its head back and bellowed.
“I Grimblood DeKhayed have been born!”
Watching the monster turn towards me with a look of superiority, I howled in my own mind as enough of the mental fog cleared away for me to reach out to my zombie pets in the courtyard below. Through our shared link, I could feel their hunger and hatred for all life clearing the last remains of the Psionic Stun from my mind. Due to my physical connection to Helgath and our soulmate bond, I wasn’t just able to reach my twelve undead pets, but Helgath’s too. As the fourteen undead consciousnesses connected to my mind, I ordered them to attack the monstrous entity before me while my blood raged in my veins.
“You inferior creatures are nothing but food for our master race,” the Elite Dil-Hilth pontificated, as it turned to me and held it arms out to show me its monstrous glory. The creature was nearly twice my width and was now nearly seven feet tall. “I was going to suck out your brains for dinner, but seeing the plethora of your unique magic trees, I think I’ll implant my seed-worm into your body instead.”
In the distance, I could hear the terrified screams from the Royal Guards and the servants as my undead pets raced to my aid. At the same time, my eyes watched the timer to my Psionic Stun click down to zero. Even though I was now free of the monster’s psychic influence, I didn’t dare attack until I was sure I could do enough damage to stop the Elite Dil-Hilth from taking me out again. Remembering Helgath’s urgent words, I waited as the naked monster strutted over to me.
“The process of implanting a seed-worm is quite enjoyable,” Grimblood DeKhayed said, leering meaningfully as he slowly stroked his lower ovipositors with a clawed hand in case I hadn’t fully understood his meaning. Just for the record of how horrible that looked, the things were the size of Wiffle ball bats. “At least, it’s enjoyable for the Elite Dil-Hilth.”
I couldn’t help my ass from clenching up as the thick tentacles of its mouth flared out as if the monster were laughing at his own joke. J
ust for the record, this was sickening as fuck to say the least. Whatever developer that had come up with this monster needed some serious mental help, especially with the added grossness of the viscous liquid that seemed to constantly be oozing off the creature’s tentacles as it spoke.
“Though, I’ve heard that some prey come to enjoy the penetration after a time.”
As the monster came to a stop to tower over me, Grimblood DeKhayed paused for a moment and cocked his head to the side, listening to the odd sounds coming from the open door. I couldn’t help the grin that came to my lips as I felt the approach of my undead pets. I could feel them as they hungrily hurled themselves into the corridor that led to the conference room’s open door. In the exact instant that the Elite Dil-Hilth heard the Elite Orc Warrior Zombie horde come ripping up the outside corridor like a juggernaut from hell, I swung the Vicious Executioner's Axe of Cruelty striking the thick rubbery tentacles hanging right in front of my face.
“Suck on that, Grimblood Dickhead,” I snarled in triumph, as the thick mass of tentacles went flying in a spray of viscous liquid and blood.
The agonized roar of pain that echoed throughout the room fed my fury as I viciously hacked at the hateful monster. It also signaled the end of the Psionic Paralysis that had been holding everyone in place as my friends and companions gagged and sought to help out wherever they could. Urgently, the Elite Dil-Hilth tried to back away from my follow-up attacks as my second strike hacked off a long clawed hand, while my third sliced deep into the monsters chest as it fell back on top of the conference table.
Twisting around onto its hands and knees, the Elite Dil-Hilth saw Queen Isolde still frozen in place on the far side of the table. With a shout of triumph, it went to leap at the helpless woman just as Fylreh rolled up to her knees with a long dagger in her hand. Seeing the monster’s dual ovipositors flopping before her face, the filly lunged forward to stab her thick blade through the monster’s meaty bits and into the heavy wood of the conference table, pinning the Elite Dil-Hilth in place.
