I frowned, confused. “But I-”
Vash took a step forward, getting right up in my face. “You-” he pointed. “-lie so readily and so easily to yourself that it has left you pitted and rusted, like bad metal. And thus you took a sacred oath in vain and betrayed that oath when it was convenient for you, immortal.”
“Wait.” I held my hands up. “Immortal? You... you know I’m-?”
“Starborn? Yes. I also know this: you and your friends do not truly die. Had you kept your word, they would have suffered briefly, then woken up somewhere.” Vash never raised his voice, but now that I had met his gaze, I found I couldn’t tear my eyes away. “You lied to yourself, told yourself there was no other way, that you are not smart enough to think through the dilemma. So you broke the oath to spare yourself the burden of your growing, and to ward off the brief suffering of their passing. That is the truth of it.”
“But I-”
“The Moon Pact is important to our people. The Tuun were the first humans in Archemi to understand the power and burden of magic, the knowledge that words have power to unite or separate, to form or dissolve. To speak untruth is to fray the bonds of reality itself. By doing so, you spread your corruption to all of us, like a sick person coughing in a crowded room.”
I took a nervous step back. “Okay, I admit it. I fucked up. But you need to understand something: if Suri dies, she won’t wake up somewhere safe. I will, Rin will, but Suri won’t. She’ll wake up inside the prison where she was tortured since she was a little girl, and I would lie, cheat and steal to protect her and make sure she never goes back.”
The monk then did something I would never have expected of an NPC in any game I’d ever played. His piercing stare and menacing scowl wavered. He scratched his chin, looking over toward Suri. She was hanging back, waiting for us to finish speaking.
“There is some truth in that,” he admitted. “The woman is a walking mass of scars, some so deep it is a miracle that she is sane. What she has seen, I can only guess at. It has left her callused and opaque. But still - you are a vector, Dragozin, and your word is meaningless to me until you atone. Sane men must pursue reality at all costs. We will talk about it another time - for now, we must kill zombies, yes?”
“Uhh... okay?” Just like that, the supernatural gravity of Vash’s presence snapped like an elastic band, releasing me. I looked up to Karalti, who chirruped and shrugged her wings. She bent forward, but Vash didn’t climb her. His form blurred, and he teleported onto her back in a crouch. I motioned Suri to join us, and she ran in to catch my hand and pull herself up.
With her stamina refilled, unburdened and rested, Karalti was able to take off into the air at her full adult speed, shooting past the warship and the quazi on her way to where smoke rose in thick black clouds. Only once were we away from the waterfalls did we hear the true volume of the battle: the boom of mortars and cannons, the sharper rapport of rifles, the screams of men.
At a glance from the air, the battle was not going well. The wall was a formidable defense - as static fortifications went - but the Western Wall didn’t command the same kind of awesome strategic position as Korona. Ten-foot walls faced a thirty-foot ridge that dropped sharply into a muddy no-man’s land. The sodden earth was buckled and treacherous, trenches zig-zagging behind wooden spikes and reams of barbed wire. That mess was only about 400 yards long. It ended in a stacked ring of felled trees, their sharpened crowns pointing toward the south - a crude abatis made to stop siege engines and other large things, like tanks.
Abatises are great – if they’re arranged properly. These ones were not. The positioning of the trees meant that the thousands upon thousands of civilian corpses hurtling themselves across the battlefield could just slip through. They sprinted through the relentless pounding of grapeshot and canister fire from the cannons lined up along the wall. For every zombie that fell, another three seemed to trample over it. Legless bodies dragged themselves by their arms, filling the trenches, forming bridges over the barbed wire, and permitting their fellows to climb them and continue toward their goal: the wall. They crawled up their makeshift siege towers like lizards while terrified soldiers shot at them with guns and bows, or plunged pikes up and down like butter churns, trying to shove them away. People poured buckets of oil through machicolations and hacked off dead hands with axes as they reached up over the parapets to grasp for whatever they could grab. It took no time at all to see there was a growing problem. Every zombie that fell was picked up by its shambling comrades and hurled onto the burning, moaning ramps that were being built against the base of the fortification, with every sacked body making it easier for the ones behind to climb.
“There!” Vash pointed toward one of the bastions, where Istvan stood among his men, alternating between firing the rifle in his hands and barking orders at the archers and artillery surrounding him. A knot of mages held a protective magical shield over them all, sheltering them from the mortar fire that rained down from above. They were doing everything they could to stop the zombies in No Man’s Land.
“Karalti, get as low as you can.” I ordered her without thinking. “We have to watch out for those shells.”
“Okay! Vash, get ready to jump!” The dragon dropped a wingtip and swooped down.
Just then, I got a short quest alert. [Quest Update: Objective - take out the Demon’s artillery before the siege train arrives.]
“Fuck, I just got assigned a quest objective!” Suri yelled so I could hear her, leaning in.
“Me too!” I called back. “Was yours about taking out artillery?”
“No - it’s for protecting Istvan on the wall! Drop me off!
Karalti’s twin hearts pounded with mingled excitement and nerves beneath us as she dove under the next round of arcing shells, then lifted above the explosions and shrapnel. Senses in synch, I felt her pulse surge as those soldiers on the wall saw us and scattered cheering broke out among the pointing and shouting men, loud enough to be heard over the cannon fire that drowned out almost all else. Two sergeants hustled men from the walkway as Karalti came to land on the parapet’s edge. She bowed down, and when the troops saw who we were carrying, this time the scattered cheers became a roar that went up and down the line.
“Ah hahah, my boys! Guess who’s back!?” Vash jumped up over Karalti’s head to roll and bounce up on his feet, as light as a champion boxer. “This motherfucker, that’s who!”
As I helped unbuckle Suri, I saw Istvan break through the thinning crowd and tackle Vash in a hug. The wiry monk caught him on reflex, then laughed and pounded the other man on the back.
[Quest Updated: Unto Death. 270 Exp, +150 Renown (House Bolza), -75 Renown (House Soma)]
“Praise the Forge! You found him!” Istvan called to us joyfully. “The filthy old wolf’s back from the dead!”
“Not that old or that dead, but absolutely that filthy.” Vash squeezed him around the shoulders. “Speaking of that: let’s go see how hard I can go kick a zombie in the cooter!”
“Anything you want, old friend.” For the first time since we’d met him, Istvan looked happy. He beckoned to us. “Come on, Fireblood! We need your strong arm! Dragozin - go attack the artillery! We have no idea what’s behind that curtain of smoke!”
I clasped Suri’s hand to let her down. She leaned in to kiss me, and I kissed her back, long and lingering.
“Fight hard,” she said in PM.
I smiled when she moved back, squeezing her forearm. “You too.”
Suri dropped to the rampart. Karalti turned and dove off the wall like a swallow, her roar of challenge echoing across the field. The sight of her galvanized the troops below. Looking behind, I saw archers aiming around her as we shot out over No-Man’s land and plunged into the heart of the assault.
Chapter 24
“We need to hit those guns. As soon as the cannons appear, I want you to use that new ability split. Get behind the artillery and get ready to flame.” I hopped up into a crouch, holding onto the s
addle with one hand. “If I die, keep your head. I’ll respawn at the Fort and catch up. If I fall, don’t try and pick me up unless you’re absolutely sure you can make it without being nailed by a cannon. Okay?”
“Okay!” Karalti dodged to the right and down as a ballista bolt shot just over her wing. “Get ready!”
We broke through the smoke to see the ruins of the swamp crawling with undead. My HUD highlighted the individual units: the zombies were grouped in companies of a hundred each, which were blobbing together as they ran. The last unit of zombies were staggering up out of the mud, followed by a tidal wave of [Plague Rats] and [Skeleton Swordsmen]. Primitive iron mortars - smoothbore cannons not seen since the late 1700s back home - were set up in a line of shallow trenches, where three units of [Gigim Artillery] were set up. Each artillery unit was comprised of ten guns, each animated by two billowing humanoid shades. Each lot of twenty ghosts was supervised by a [Wraithlord Commander] riding a huge skeletal bull dripping in beaten gold and lapis lazuli barding. The heavily armored commanders carried magical staves, shadow matter streaming off them into the air.
“You focus on the guns! I’m going for that commander!” I targeted the nearest one, banged my helmet a couple of times, swallowed the knot of fear in the pit of my belly, and jumped.
We were going fast - very fast. The undead literally had no idea what hit them. They aggro’d on us, dragging their mortars around through the mud, but we were too fast. At the end of the Jump, I shouted and drew the dark power from inside myself, letting it spill out into my weapon: Master of Blades. A wheel of black energy lances unfurled around me like a pair of wings, shooting past like bolts of lightning to strike the gunners. They groaned and shrieked like the wind as the lances fell down among them, evaporating into black mist. I used Rain of Glass to change my trajectory, the shattering energy acting like a cushion to halt my momentum and throw me back into the air. I focused all of those shards of dark energy on the [Wraithlord Commander].
“Edin na zul!” The undead champion thrust his staff up above his head and made an arcane gesture with the other hand. The bolts of darkness thumped into a greenish energy barrier like arrows into a shield, embedding before they - and the shield - overloaded and shattered. He took no damage, but was defenseless as I soared down and hit Shadow Lance for the first time.
The Mark of Matir surged, and a liquid rush of power flooded through my hand and into the Spear of Nine Spheres. There was a strange ghostly sensation - like the energy was searching for something in the weapon, but couldn’t find it – just before the flames generated by the Ruby of Boundless Strength surged into roaring black fire. “DIE PROPERLY THIS TIME, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!”
“MAXIM XU-uhhh!” The shield shattered on contact, and the Spear plunged through the Wraithlord and burst out of its back in a cloud of dark embers. The Wraithlord’s skeletal mouth gaped as if in shock. There was a frozen moment where I looked into the glowing points of light in his sockets, and saw something I’d never seen in a monster before.
Absolute pants-shitting terror.
[You deal 4725 Darkness damage to Wraithlord! It’s super-effective!]
[You gain 350 EXP]
“TARN TAKRARHN MOTHERFUCKER!” I sprung up as the [Wraithlord] burst into ash and his staff fell, launching straight into an oncoming wave of skeleton infantry.
[Objective partially complete: Artillery Brigade 1/3]
“Karalti!” I called to her in my mind - slashing, vaulting, dodging sickle-shaped desert swords and pickaxes as the unit surged in around me. The skeletons at the very front were nimble warriors, carrying nothing but their weapons. Behind them lumbered rows of [Burdened Skeletons] wearing what looked all too much like suicide bomber vests. “Karalti, whatever you do, don’t light up those guys in the vests until you’ve got space!”
Even as I spoke, the sky darkened as my dragon rolled gracefully towards us out of the smoke. I smashed a creaking skeleton out of the way with the butt of my spear as she swooped in, kicking skulls and raised axes out of the way on her path toward me. I Jumped, caught her arm, and held on for dear life as she gained altitude. “Yeah, baby! Waaooh! Get ‘em, girl!”
“Toasty bony time!” Karalti’s narrow jaws gaped as she wheeled back over the teeming skeletons, blasting the entire front line with her breath weapon. They struggled on, burning, but finally stumbled forward onto their knees. Some of their brethren tripped over their fallen fellows as the bombers lumbered up. They began to struggle through the pile, wading toward their burning fellows. And when they caught fire...
“Bones away!” The explosions rang out beneath us, the shockwave forcing air up under Karalti’s wings. Whooping, I swung wildly from her wrist. “Hell yeah! Bone Appetit, bitches!”
“Oh my god,” Karalti muttered. “Suri’s right. No puns allowed.”
“My grandparents were Millennials, Tidbit. I was born into puns. Memed by them.” Karalti was already headed toward the next artillery battery along the enemy line. “And tibia honest with you-”
“AHHHHH! I HATE YOU! STOP!”
This barrage was expecting us. I scrambled up, ready to leap at the rows of mortars suddenly facing east. Before they could fire, Karalti burst forward in a surge of speed, and her form divided in two as we came out of the dark cloud of power that disguised her Wings of Deception ability. We split to the right as the mortars fired on the left. The dragon shuddered with referred pain as twenty shells obliterated the illusory Karalti, but she wasn’t damaged - and we were in position. The Wraithlord commanding this unit must have seen something on my face as Karalti spat fire down along the trench, because he pulled his bull mount around and turned to flee.
“Oh no you don’t! You get back here right now, young man!” I dropped, dashed in the air, then Jumped and landed right on the ass-end of the bull. The Spear danced with black fire as I plunged it through the Wraithlord’s back, toppling him - and me - from the saddle.
[Objective partially complete: Artillery Brigade 2/3]
I hit the ground awkwardly - it was muddy enough that I didn’t concuss myself, but there were bony feet surging toward me from all directions. The Spear spilled from my hand. In the brief panic that followed, I called to it- and it responded, shooting up into my hand from the pile of ash that remained of the Wraithlord. Whoa. Okay. Gotta remember I can do that.
Dense battlefields was where the Dark Dragoon class shined. Clashing infantry battled behind me as lances of shimmering dark energy struck down in an expanding double ring, blowing rats and skeletons into the air. When I landed from the combo, I struck the end of my spear into the ground, discharging a field of indigo-blue energy from my body. Twisting whip-like bolts of shadow sprung from the ground, destroying every rodent in a ten-foot radius around me, freezing the mud into a natural bulwark. But more skeletons were coming, and Karalti wasn’t there. Kalxat were flying in from the swamp: she was held up fighting them in the sky, about a hundred yards away. And I was out of AP.
“If you can pick me up right about now, that would be great!” A knot of sword-wielding skeleton rushed me, scimitars raised to strike. I kicked a dead rat at them and followed up with the spear, ordinary attacks only. I caught a sword blade on the haft and shoved it back, kicking the warrior right in the pelvis. It was one thing to know they couldn’t feel pain, quite another to have an enemy who could get kicked in the remains of their junk and not even slow down. They fought without artistry - heavy strikes, overhead swings, shield bashes. Rats swarmed around our feet, squealing and nipping, trailing clouds of contagion. My Tuun resistance to disease held me in good stead, but my HP chipped away every time something bit me or got through my guard. And after the boss fight...
“Poison! Fuck! All kinds of poison!” I struggled toward Karalti as my HP ring throbbed red, covered in ichor and mud. “And no fucking potions! Fuck!”
“Hang on! Almost there!” Karalti split-turned in the air, tearing toward me with three undead vultures in hot pursuit.
�
��I just killed like fifty skeletons! Maybe eighty!” I called out happily, stumbling as my stamina ran out and forced me to rest on one knee. “Whew. This… this Path is awesome!”
“Get up!” Karalti bellowed as she leveled out toward me. “Something big’s coming!”
“That’s what she said!” I spun around to stab a zombie coming up on me from behind, and was still stabbing it when Karalti’s foot caught me by the back of my armor. She lifted me off into the air, showing me the battlefield - and the titanic saurian shadow pushing through the smoke toward us. It had a head that looked like a soggy potato, small eyes staring stupidly over a sagging jaw lined with peg-like teeth. A Brontosaurus. The massive dinosaur was covered in at least four tons of sacks, barrels and rigging strapped around its bloated eighty-foot long body. Skeleton archers shot arrows at the wall from its back. A flock of what looked like winged snakes circled around its head.
“That is... a zombie brontosaurus suicide bomber,” I said. “Words I never expected to say in the same sentence together. Let’s get that third artillery bank and then go murder this thing before it reaches the Line.”
“Yay! Murder!” Karalti dove toward the last remaining line of mortars, coming around from the back through the smoke. As we broke through, I saw the Wraithlord looking up at us, staff raised.
“Dodge!” A bolt of green fire shot out from the Wraithlord. Karalti dropped to the side, but not fast enough. It hit her square on.
[Karalti takes 670 damage!]
[You take 49 damage!]
“AAAAAAH!!!” It was the most damage Karalti had ever taken in a single hit - almost half her total health. She keened with pain, limbs spasming as the force of the impact flung me off and sent me cartwheeling through the air toward the mortars. The Wraithlord’s shadow soldiers dragged them around into position and began to load.
Archemi Online Chronicles Boxset Page 101
