Kaiju- Battlefield Surgeon

by Matt Dinniman

  The scene with the five men resumed. The radiant leader of the group threw the chained human to the ground. The rift glowed, and Epsilon and Paskunji appeared, both emerging like leviathans from the deep. Epsilon flew on a wave of blue flame while Paskunji flapped her mighty wings. The two guardians separated, Epsilon heading east and Paskunji coming straight toward our position.

  Behind the guardians, the rift sealed itself, closing like a pair of continental plates smashing together, forming a craggy ridge.

  Heat washed over me as the phoenix kaiju approached. The worm surgeon man flinched, but the other four did not. I remembered reading that radiants were immune to fire and heat.

  The guardian appeared as if she was going to land directly on top of us, but as the mighty phoenix descended, she disappeared in a puff of smoke. No, not disappeared. She changed form. An angel emerged in the very center of the mist. With olive skin and black eyes, and a brilliant set of red wings that appeared to be made of smoke, she descended gently upon the ground before us. She stood just about six feet, tall for a human female, but no larger than any of the men here. Her crimson armor appeared to be of a material similar to the composite that made up the sundered race. A simple, black headscarf covered her head, but wisps of black hair escaped and caught in the wind. Her skin was smooth and unblemished, making her look like she was barely 20 years old.

  Her obsidian eyes belied her youth. Those black eyes told a story of time, of pain, of thousands of years of conflict. And something else. There was insanity there. I’d seen it in the eyes of Jenk, of Clara. In my own eyes, too.

  If one did not see those eyes, they’d say she showed a visage of quiet, gentle serenity.

  The four men fell to their knees, prostrating themselves. One of them started to openly sob.

  The transformation from giant phoenix to angel did not stop the heat radiating off of her. Even though I wasn’t really there, sweat started to bead on my head. I had to take a step back. The worm surgeon on the ground groaned in pain, his skin starting to blister.

  “It is done,” Paskunji said. “We have made it so they can not return, not for a very long time.” She looked upon us, and her eyes opened with surprise to see the men on the ground. A mirthless smile curved her red lips. “Oh, get up,” she said after a moment. I couldn’t tell if she was feigning the annoyance or not. “I am not a god. I am a tool of the Creator. Do not worship me like those fools who supplicate themselves before the mindless badger.”

  The four men awkwardly stood. “Your grace,” the leader began. “Words cannot convey how deeply…”

  “What is this?” Paskunji interrupted, her eyes settling upon the worm surgeon.

  The radiant leader straightened his back. “Your grace, this man’s name is Charnel. He is the traitor who cast dark magic to bring the demon back from the dead.”

  Paskunji laughed. She moved closer. I watched in horror as the man’s skin began to bubble. He shrank back, but the others held him tight.

  “Unbind him,” she said.

  They complied.

  She ran a hand across his face. It left a long, black streak of charred skin. His eyes were clutched shut in agony.

  “You have placed yourself into the service of my brother. You have done this at great cost. Not just to yourself, but everyone in your family from this point forward. Resurrection magic grows very deep roots. That is why we only use it sparingly. Have you seen what is happening with the viceroys and the lycan? How the resurrection magic is twisting their bodies? Their transformations are tempered with other magics. Putting yourself into the service of my brother submits you to pure dark magic. Each generation will get more and more vile in appearance.”

  About halfway through her short speech, Charnel passed out. The men holding him allowed him to crash to the ground. He was not quite dead, but his skin had become blackened and charred. He gasped in short, quick bursts like a fish pulled from the water.

  “What should we do with him and the others, your grace?” the radiant asked. “We thought perhaps you might destroy the aberration who sits within the city. Kill him, and we shall dispatch this man and all his family.”

  “Kill Zagan?” Paskunji asked. She shook her head sadly. “I cannot.” She gestured at the rift. “You know how the magic here works. The rift is sealed. If I kill him, he will return. The creator made this place so demons and angels alike are truly immortal. Only within their realm may they die. And if Zagan cannot go back to hell where he belongs, then I cannot kill him.”

  “But,” the radiant said. “Your Grace, what about the black flowers? The ones you have planted within the other two angels? You said they can be used to bind demons and angels both.”

  The angel growled, dropping any pretense of tranquility. The quick-change reminded me of Clara’s sudden mood swings. The angel kneeled and hurriedly placed a hand against the forehead of the unconscious Charnel. His face melted, caving in on itself as if her hand was a hot poker penetrating snow.

  “Never, ever speak of the black sprouts where others may hear,” the angel hissed. She pointed at the corpse of Charnel. “Even the dead have ears when their bodies are infested with ghoul magic. Only when you melt the brain may they not tell tales.”

  And as if on cue, the body of Charnel jerked. The arms twisted, puppet-like. The four men stepped back in surprise. Even Paskunji looked taken aback.

  An octopus-like tentacle, as long as a human arm, erupted from the hole in Charnel’s face. Three mouths covered the appendage.

  “Parasite,” the radiant hissed, the first to recover. He pulled a sword and stepped forward.

  “Hold,” the angel said.

  “Sister,” the tentacle rasped. It had no eyes. It waved in the air. “Sister. I can feel the grief in the world veins. You betrayed our brothers and sisters. You promised them safe passage home.”

  “Home?” Paskunji hissed. “They have no home anymore. What I did was a mercy.”

  “The rift is sealed. They are no longer a threat,” the tentacle said. This was the voice of Zagan, the Shrill. I could sense the soul power leeching from the body, animating the tentacle. The magic wouldn’t last much longer. “Pluck the flowers from their chests. Grant me an audience. Let me speak on Baal’s behalf. We can end this.”

  “It is already over,” Paskunji said.

  The tentacle waved. “You did not kill our brother. Baal lives. I can feel it. But you left your mark, didn’t you? He will return. It might take some time, but he will come back. More will die. We must work together to stop it. If we awaken Raguel and Jeremiel, they can fix it.”

  “I will let your people live,” Paskunji said. “Just so the others will see what the resurrection magic does to their bodies. I will have my people build a new city, this one built around the temple. Your people will be shunned, not allowed within. You will be an outcast here just as you were in hell, just as you were before.”

  “Your aggression is just as virulent as Baal’s. We need to unchain our brothers. No more fighting. Please, sister. It has to stop.”

  “No,” Paskunji said. “It will never stop, not until Baal is dead.”

  The tentacle started to fall in on itself, the soul power finally running low.

  “Mark my words, sister. One of my people will set our brothers free. They will see what you have done, and you will know their wrath. Father never wished this for us. In the end, you will see. In the end, you will regret.”

  The tentacle disintegrated, leaving nothing but the blackened corpse of Charnel.

  Paskunji breathed heavily for several moments. She looked up at the four radiants who stood, looking bewildered and afraid. She raised her hand, almost casually, and a triple lance of fire shot forth, skewering three of the four in the head. They dropped.

  The last remaining radiant was not the one who’d been talking. It was the one who had sobbed at her return.

  “The resurrectionists shall not be culled. Not yet. My brother was correct. One day, the demons will return. I
f we kill Zagan’s followers, Zagan will turn on us. We cannot afford this. But do not trust them, do not allow them into the new city. Tell them that this worm surgeon, this Charnel murdered…” She gestured at the dead radiant who had been talking. “What was his name?”

  “It… It is, was, Medina,” the terrified radiant stammered.

  “Tell them Medina was slain by this worm surgeon. It’s important you do this. One of these days, one of them will seek to tear the temple down, and he shall pluck the blooms from the chest of the chained gods. We mustn’t let this happen. Go. Go now and tell them all.”

  The radiant stared stupidly at the angel for several moments before he turned to run.

  The scene turned back to black and white as the angel transformed into her guardian form. The field on which I stood burst into flames.

  Sad, orchestral music started to play, startling me. It was the first music I’d heard since character creation. Some games utilized song, especially during boss fights, but it was rare here. The voice spoke. “From that moment forward, Paskunji began her patrol over the rift, waiting for the day that the demons would return. Zagan was correct, and she knew it. She had not killed Baal. It was her biggest regret.” The camera switched, showing the massive phoenix circling the ridge as time moved forward, trees rising and then falling. Rivers rerouting. Hills growing, the ridge eroding. “Not since that moment on the hill has Paskunji taken her angel form. All attempts to speak with her have gone unanswered. It is worried that a deep insanity has rotted her mind.”

  The camera switched again, this time to a view within the white and gray marble halls of the Temple of the Chained Gods. The music swelled, changing in tonality to something less ominous, almost hopeful. Radiants, caduceus, fae, night barbers, and groundlings crawled about the temple as the camera slowly panned across the large structure. Three, not two, statues dominated the halls here.

  NPCs prayed before each of the three statues. The temple was shaped like a massive cross, and each angel was positioned at the ends and tip of the T. The statue at the tip was human-sized, but it stood upon a golden dais, raised high into the air. It was clearly the angel form of Paskunji. Only radiants worshipped at the feet of this statue. The other two were each thirty feet tall, and they faced each other over the distance of the cross, which was about 150 meters. Blood drained from the eyes of the two large angel statues, falling into carved channels. The blood merged into a large, triangular pool at the center of the cross while robed radiants collected the blood. NPCs entered the temple, paid a tithe, and collected the blood by dipping small glasses into the pool. The pure blood worked better than the congealed nuggets, but one could only collect it directly from the source.

  No one was allowed to approach the two taller angels. Magical barriers prevented anyone from getting too close. A safe zone of about fifty meters separated the base of the statues with the barriers.

  Groups of NPCs gathered at each of these two barriers. Fae and night barbers favored one. The lizard-headed caduceus favored the other. The groundlings, who worshiped Moritasgus, only came to the temple to collect the blood and to refill their celestial power. The radiants did not have a barrier separating them from the smaller Paskunji idol, and the NPCs filled the alcove before the beatific angel.

  The camera zoomed in on one of the taller angels. The closer the camera got to the skin, the clearer it became that this was not a statue. This was a creature of living flesh, but with hardened, lily-white skin. The hands of the 30-foot angel were clasped together in prayer, pressed up against his chest. The camera zoomed in on his hands, then rose while turning its gaze downward. The music reached its crescendo as the tiny space between the hand and the chest of the angel was revealed.

  Growing within that hidden space, where no person could possibly see, sprouting directly from a crack in the chest, was a single, black chrysanthemum.

  The cutscene ended abruptly, and I found myself standing before Guildmaster Fiona. I stared at her open-mouthed. She’d been talking the whole time. A notification appeared.

  Quest – Error.

  Loading…

  Loading…

  Please Wait…

  The screen flickered, but not like it usually did. This was a long, singular pause. When the new quest appeared, it showed up in golden, glowing letters, something I hadn’t before seen.

  Celestial Quest – Broker Peace Between Heaven and Hell.

  Chapter 62

  The description of the quest was unfortunately short on details.

  Using your knowledge of the black sprout and the relationships between all the players, broker a peace between the angels and demons.

  Note: In order to complete this quest, you must have access to the rift.

  Reward: You will win Kaiju: Battlefield Surgeon.

  That was it. It gave no further details.

  That note was a clue. We had to be able to get into hell in order for this to work. I believed we first had to free the two angels. Then I hoped to convince them to travel with Clara and me into hell where we would get to Baal. And instead of fighting and killing the big guy, we’d somehow talk him into putting aside all our differences.

  “And how are you going to do that?” Guildmaster Fiona asked me when I explained my plan. “If you somehow manage to convince the angels to get into hell, what is to stop Baal from eviscerating them? He does not want peace. Not anymore.”

  “Let me worry about that,” I said. I said it with a confidence I did not feel.

  “Okay,” Fiona finally said, unbuckling the gloves from her hands. “If you really want to do this, you must clear out the demons surrounding Medina. This will never work while they are on our doorstep…”

  ***

  I stared up at the tall, angled roof of the Temple of the Chained Gods, the only part of the building I could see from my hiding place in the alley across the wide street.

  Clara, as a fae, was welcome in the temple. She spent the day scoping it out and planning our attack. We had hoped there would be some sort of side entrance or hidden alcove from where we could approach. There was nothing. One had to pay to get inside, and there was only one way in as far as she could tell. The temple was shaped like a massive cross. The two trapped angels were thoroughly guarded and protected.

  We’d gone over several different ideas. Until he hit level 50, Banksy was still able to travel within and under the city. The first plan was for Banksy to burrow up from underneath and destroy the center of the temple. By destroying the walls, the barrier would break, and we’d have free access to the two angels. From there we could pluck the flowers and hopefully hold off the attacking radiants long enough for the angels to wake up and come to their senses.

  That was now plan B. At this moment Banksy was buried deep underground, ready and waiting.

  We went with stealth instead. Clara used her pool of skill points to buy herself a skill called Locksmith, and she brought it up to level 3 with a cybernetic upgrade. It not only allowed her to disable all physical and magical locks and barriers, but level three allowed her to place dummy versions of the protection, so the owners didn’t know their security had been breached.

  Earlier today, she had successfully replaced the barrier in the western hall, the one before the angel Raguel. This particular angel was worshipped heavily by the caduceus, and as such, the barrier was the least crowded.

  This alley was as close as we could get without raising suspicion. It was time.

  “You ready?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Don’t drop me,” I said as I downed the acumen potion.

  The potion normally raised your acumen by five points for two hours. Thanks to my potion skill, my acumen was instead raised by 10 points for four hours. That brought my acumen to 44.

  My level two of miniaturize wasn’t enough, so I’d spent the last of my skill points to bring me to level three. The cybernetic upgrade allowed me to alter my size between 1/8th and 1/20th, and it allowed me to shrink for ten seconds of every le
vel of acumen. So 440 seconds, or seven minutes and twenty seconds.

  The world rose around me as I cast the spell. I shrank myself so I was about four inches tall, which was as small as I dared go. I would be tiny, but not so small that I wouldn’t be noticeable. Clara snatched me up and stuffed me into the pack attached to the leg of her armor. From there she rushed to the entrance of the temple. The world swung back and forth. I received an Unsteady debuff, but it quickly faded. I jostled as she rushed up the stairs.

  Entering Temple of the Chained Gods.

  The haunting, Gregorian chant-style music filled my ears. Clara’s feet echoed loudly across the marble floors. I listened as she paid the radiant cleric for the privilege to enter the temple. I had flashbacks of going to church as a child.

  Clara wasn’t going straight for the barrier. Instead, she went for the triangular pool of blood, and then she’d walk as far west as she could along the bloody duct, getting me as close as she could without being suspicious. She’d managed to change out the barrier before without getting questioned, but we didn’t want to press our luck. Fae did not normally approach Raguel. But she got as close as she could.

  She was going to reach into her bag, grasp an empty jar, and dip it into the pool of blood. I would jump into the blood and swim my way up the channel as quickly as I could until I was on the other side of the barrier. Thanks to my breathless ability, I wouldn’t need to come up for air. From there I would approach the frozen angel and make my way up his body to the flower.

  Thanks to my soul power potions, I could recast Miniaturize if I started to run out of time, so I wasn’t too worried about suddenly popping into existence in front of everyone. I was worried that fighting the bloody current would exhaust me. With my tiny size, I feared the trek up the channel would take a long, long time.

  “Okay,” Clara whispered. “I’m about fifteen feet from the barrier. That’s as close as I dare get. There are five of the lizard heads worshipping. Try not to splash around too much. Here we go.”