by Aaron Oster
“Well, I suppose since I now know your name, I may as well tell you mine…” Morgan began.
“I don’t care what your name is, mortal,” Gwendolyn replied. “You’ll be too dead for me to care in just a minute. So, any last words?”
There was a loud crash from below, followed by a cry of pain and a roaring, whooshing sound. Morgan twisted in the air, just in time to see a force of beastmen, followed by dwarves, rushing through Ivaldi’s trap-littered yard, and making a dash for the smithy.
“I’ll take care of them,” Lumia said, leaping from his shoulder. “You get rid of her, and don’t you dare hesitate. Not when so many people are counting on you!”
Morgan had no idea how Lumia had known. Perhaps it had been the surge of emotion, the sadness and pain that had gripped him, and was still roiling around inside him, as he looked upon this woman. She looked like Gwen in every way, except the one that mattered. When he looked into her eyes, he didn’t see the unconditional love of his mother, but the malice and contempt of one who wished him dead.
It was painful to look at her. It was so painful, in fact, that he hadn’t even been sure if he’d be able to bring himself to fight back. But Lumia’s words reminded him that he was fighting for something greater than himself. He was fighting for the preservation of the Five Kingdoms, to protect those who were here with him and to bring Sarah back. If that meant fighting a Gwen look-alike, then he would just have to bear the pain on his own.
Morgan whirled back to the face the woman and used his Suppression to all but turn off his emotions. A frightening calm settled over him then, his inner turmoil settling and then vanishing as he turned to face the woman once again.
“If you think beating me will be that easy, then you’ve got another thing coming!”
Morgan vanished, appearing right before the goddess, and lashed out with a powerful punch. He’d been expecting her to dodge or teleport away. That was why, when his attack actually connected, he was too surprised to follow up. Gwendolyn let out a scream as she was blown back, sent hurtling into the sky under the force of the blast, tumbling end over end.
It didn’t take him long to recover, and Morgan followed quickly, already preparing his most devastating attack. There was no way in hell that he could kill a god, not without the weapon, but if he could incapacitate her for long enough, he might buy himself enough time for Ivaldi to finish.
The woman recovered her balance some three hundred yards later, forcing herself to stop by throwing her arms out. The air around her seemed to shimmer black for an instant, then she blasted towards him, the air behind her exploding as she did. Morgan teleported away, just as she reached him, appearing to her right and sending her flying once again. The woman screamed in anger as she flew through the air, and Morgan followed once more, building the power within himself.
This attack would take a few seconds to charge up, but he was hoping he’d manage to pin her for a bit and give himself some time. The woman righted herself again, and this time, sent a blast of burning pink – Yes, pink, Morgan realized – energy, right at him. He teleported once again, appearing beneath her, and blasted the air in a wide cone using Compression.
The loud boom was accompanied by another scream as the woman was sent hurtling away. But it was clear to Morgan that despite all of his attacks, he was failing to leave so much as a scratch on her body. He’d expected as much, but to see it playing out was disheartening. He’d pushed his emotions down, so they didn’t hamper his ability to keep going, continuing to fight as needed.
“Stop flying around like a coward and fight me head-on!” Gwendolyn screamed as she righted herself once again.
“Sure,” Morgan replied, coming to a halt some fifty feet away. “Why don’t you come get me?”
“With pleasure!” she screamed, lunging forward and gathering a mass of pink energy in her open palm.
Despite having pushed his emotions down, Morgan felt a small sense of satisfaction at having so successfully goaded a goddess into attacking recklessly. Muscles bulged all over his body as the skill finally activated. A loud rumbling began below as massive chunks of stone began rising into the air. They flew so quickly and with so much power that Gwendolyn was sent flying upwards, the mass of stone catching her and dragging her along.
Morgan looked up, feeling the RP draining away as the Massive Meteor grew and grew. From all the way down here, it looked quite small, but he knew how large it really was. The mass of stone would grow to be well over three-hundred feet in diameter and weigh in the hundreds of tons. Normally, he’d bring the mass crashing down on top of something, but now, he’d managed to trap the goddess within and was going to throw it as far as he could.
Taking a deep breath, Morgan’s muscles bunched once again. With a mighty effort of will, he hurled the gigantic meteor into the distance. He stood there in midair, breathing hard and watching the mass of stone streak away, a red trail of light stretching out behind it as the stones began to heat up and stick together. He really hoped this would hold her for a bit, or at least give her some trouble.
According to Ivaldi, the spear was almost done. All he could do now was hope that it was finished in time. The meteor glowed brighter as it fell, now a white-hot streak dropping quickly. The light vanished for an instant, and then there was a bright flash. Morgan could see the ripple from the impact moving through the trees in the distance, and felt the wave wash over him, followed by the sound a few moments later.
The explosion was nearly deafening, even all the way out here. Flying higher up, Morgan could begin to see the crater that had been left in the wake of the explosion. His Massive Meteor had hit with just that, the force of a falling meteor, leaving a crater well over a mile in diameter, and a swath of destruction for nearly three miles in all directions. He watched the crater carefully, keeping his eyes locked on the area where the goddess had gone down.
That attack had enough power to level a small city and kill even the strong supers and mages within. He could hardly imagine it killing a god outright, but he could hope that he’d at least inflicted some damage, or that it would hold her for some time. A loud roar from behind altered him to Lumia’s fight, and he turned midair to see what she was dealing with.
Beastmen swarmed around her, all leaping and tearing at her body and wings, while Lumia fought back, blasting them with fire and destruction. Clearly, they hadn’t expected to run into something like her, as they were woefully unprepared and far too weak. For just a moment, he debated going to help her but decided that she could handle herself.
He needed to take the time to recover his RP, because he was sure the goddess Gwendolyn would be coming back soon, and when she did, he wanted to be at full capacity. Stalling tactics would only work if he could use them, and right now, his Extra skills were the best tactics he had.
Truthfully, his Massive Meteor wasn’t actually his most powerful skill. Morgan couldn’t very well level a twenty-five-mile area just to slow Gwendolyn down, as that would mean killing everyone within. And seeing as Massive Meteor was now on cooldown for the next ten days, his next skill would be weaker and subsequently hold her for less time.
Whatever she was doing now, Morgan knew that the goddess would be pissed when she eventually broke out. He was hoping that this would result in another reckless charge, which he could then take advantage of. In the meantime, though, he may as well head over to the crater and wait. He’d already gone through the trouble of hurtling her away from the mountain. It would be foolish of him to allow her to come back.
He felt a worm of worry in the pit of his stomach as he looked back. He was worried about Grace, scared that something would happen to her while he was away. Morgan gave himself a mental shake then, reminding himself that Lumia was still there and could look after her if anything happened. Feeling much better now, Morgan turned, streaking off in the direction of the fallen meteor and the raging goddess.
55
Grace sat in Ivaldi’s smithy with her chin restin
g on both hands, and her elbows propped on the table. She was annoyed that Morgan had sidelined her again but understood why he’d done it. Judging by the crashes and roars coming from outside, he and Lumia were locked in a serious battle, one that Ivaldi seemed less than happy about.
“Living here in peace until all these damned intruders came along…” he muttered, slamming a hammer down on the long, glowing length of metal.
He pulled his hammer up once again when a massive wave of force washed over the house. Everything began to shake. It was so violent that Grace was thrown from her chair, and items and implements all over the forge fell to the ground. The clattering crash of breaking glass and other implements filled the air for several seconds, and when it finally stopped, Grace looked up to see that the place was a mess.
Ivaldi had managed to retain his balance and get the glowing spear out of the way of falling items. The damage to his forge was substantial, and though most of the permanent structures, like the forges, anvils, and heavy worktable were mostly unharmed, the delicate paneling lining the walls was completely shot.
“Damn it all!” the dwarf raged as he surveyed the damage.
Much to his credit, he didn’t abandon his work on the spear, continuing to hammer away. Now, though, he was doing so while complaining very loudly.
“It’ll take me forever to get all those traps reset and that surveillance system back in place! Do you have any idea how long it took me to set it up the first time? Three years! Three years of work, gone! Just like that!”
“What the hell was that just now?” Grace asked, getting to her feet and rubbing at the back of her head.
She’d whacked it pretty hard when she’d fallen and could already feel a bump forming there.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Ivaldi said sarcastically. “Why don’t you ask that destruction-happy friend of yours?”
“Morgan did that?” Grace asked, trying to remember if she’d ever seen him use an attack that could cause that amount of damage on something he wasn’t aiming for.
“Obviously,” Ivaldi said in a flat tone. “Why, if I wasn’t…”
Grace ran from the room before the dwarf could really get into it, making a dash for the house so she could see outside. She knew Morgan wouldn’t be happy with her for disobeying a direct order, but she was too curious to just sit inside. The house had been damaged as well, broken furniture and casks lying on the ground.
She briefly wondered what the dwarf would be angrier about — his wrecked forge or the wasted beer. Her thoughts didn’t linger on that for too long, as she pulled the door open, revealing all that was happening outside. The first thing that grabbed her attention was the massive mushroom-shaped cloud in the far distance.
Trees lay scattered and broken some way down the mountain, but whatever had caused it, was too far away for her to see. For an attack to have caused damage from an impact so far away, told her that she’d been severely underestimating Morgan’s power if he had indeed been the one to unleash it. Judging by the fact that he was nowhere to be seen, she was pretty sure he’d been the one to use the attack.
A deafening roar shook the entire area, and Grace found her attention diverted to massive, flying lizard currently battling an entire battalion of beastmen. For several long moments, she panicked, thinking that some sort of beast was going on a rampage. Then, she looked closer and began to see some recognizable features.
While this beast was several times larger than the largest form she’d seen, Grace had no doubt in her mind that this was how Lumia really looked. It made much more sense that Morgan, who she assumed had just dropped a mountain from the sky or something, would partner with a beast as massive and ferocious as Lumia.
She briefly wondered if she should go help or not, but it was clear from the way they were fighting that she’d only get in the way. So, with a sigh, Grace turned to head back into the forge. However, as she did, she caught some movement out of the corner of her eye. She almost whipped her head in the direction of the movement, but stopped herself when she remembered one of Morgan’s lessons on spotting an enemy.
“If someone is sneaking up on you and you’ve spotted them, don’t do anything to alert them to their discovery. This will allow you to turn the element of surprise on them, thereby giving you a greater chance at success.”
It took everything she had not to whip her head around, and instead, slowly turn as though looking back to observe Lumia’s battle once more. She caught the movement again, this time, out of the corner of her eye and felt her heart sink. She recognized the figure crouching behind a boulder as one of the elves from the cult that worshipped the World Beast Strangler.
Cursing silently to herself, Grace turned back to the entrance and headed inside, all without giving them any clue that they’d been spotted. It seemed that they’d indeed come back to carry out their revenge, and it was just her luck that no one else was around to help her. Ivaldi needed to be warned, and she had to prepare to fight back. The spear was the whole reason Morgan had come here, and she would make sure it was completed, no matter what!
“We have company,” Grace said, bursting back into the forge and nearly making Ivaldi drop the hammer he was currently wielding.
“So?” the dwarf asked, bringing the hammer down with a loud clang.
“So?!” Grace repeated. “What are we going to do about it?”
“Nothing I can do,” Ivaldi replied. “I’m in the last stages of making this thing, and if I have to stop, I’ll have to scrap the whole thing and start from scratch.”
“You have got to be kidding me!” Grace exclaimed. “What kind of bullshit excuse is that?”
“My hands are tied,” the dwarf replied with a shrug. “You’ll have to fight them off yourself.”
“But I can’t fight off an entire group of cultist elves! I’m only at rank 7!”
“And?”
“And?! Who the hell knows how strong they are?” Grace yelled, throwing her arms up in the air.
She was beginning to panic. On the way in, she’d been determined to drive them away. However, that had been before she’d known that Ivaldi wasn’t going to be able to help her. Now, with the prospect of facing six angry elves alone, she wasn’t all that excited or confident.
“They’re definitely not all that powerful if my shock rod was able to lay one of them out so easily,” Ivaldi retorted, bringing the hammer down in several swift blows.
“Wait…what?” Grace asked, Ivaldi’s calm voice finally breaking through her panic. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” the dwarf said, increasing the speed of his hammering. “That despite what the idiot said about being second-in-command, the entire group is probably nothing more than a bunch of grunts. The weakest of the weak. Why do you think I turned them away without a second thought?”
“I don’t know,” Grace replied. “I thought you just had no patience for them.”
“I’m not stupid enough to turn away the second-in-command of the Stranglers, no matter what I said,” Ivaldi replied with a snort.
The hammer strokes were coming fast and hard now, and Grace could now begin to see the spearhead taking shape at the end of the long pole.
“They would have been much stronger than the idiots sent here, and I value my safety too much to turn someone that strong away. No, the likely answer with this group is that they were the welcome card. The Stranglers sent them here first to see if they could convince me. I’m sure they expected them to fail and come back, at which point they’d have sent someone much stronger.
“However, this group seems to be made up of a bunch of idiots, and instead of doing the sensible thing, they decided to get revenge on behalf of their cult. Bunch of freaking idiots, if you ask me. They’ll be signing their own death warrants if they attack.”
“I’m confused,” Grace admitted, though she was far calmer now than she had been.
“You would be,” Ivaldi said with a snort. “Not to stroke my own ego or anything, but I’m
the best smith on the continent. In fact, the next best doesn’t even have a hundredth of the talent I do, so I’m considered to be off-limits, so to speak. No matter who comes here, everyone knows not to mess with me.
“The Stranglers might be a big cult full of some pretty scary individuals, but even they wouldn’t dare kill me. They might try and imprison me, maybe inflict some light torture, but they’d never go that far.”
“You seem pretty confident about that,” Grace muttered. “I just don’t see why.”
The dwarf sighed, even as he dropped the larger hammer and switched it out for a smaller one.
“Girl, I’m under the direct protection of two rulers on this continent, and seeing as all the races are allied right now, the Stranglers would be wiped out to a man if they killed me.”
“But these cultists are going to attack you anyway?” Grace asked.
“Yup,” Ivaldi answered, the blows now making light chiming sounds instead of the earlier clanging. “And as I said, they’re signing their own deaths.”
A slight creaking sound floated down the corridor towards them, and Grace let out a curse as she realized she’d been sidetracked. Ivaldi couldn’t help her, and if the rogue Stranglers came in here, they’d undoubtedly disturb the dwarf’s work. That could mean only one thing. She would have to take them on alone.
“When this is over, you are so going to be making me a cool weapon!” Grace grumbled, already moving to the tunnel entrance.
“Yeah, yeah, just keep them out of here,” Ivaldi said distractedly.
Grace took a moment to shoot the dwarf one last glare – which he didn’t see, on account of not paying her even the slightest bit of attention – before heading into the tunnel. She looped around the first bend, then clicked her tongue and used Echolocation.
The soundwaves were sent bouncing off the walls and ceiling as they floated through the multiple switchbacks. A second later, the sound came back, revealing the presence of only two of the Stranglers. She hadn’t actually checked their hiding place to see if there were more, which she was now regretting. But, if there were only two, then perhaps she’d have an easier time handling them than she thought.
