by Jez Cajiao
The last set of stairs to the balcony I’d seen the figures on was up ahead, and as I clattered onto it, my armor announcing my arrival, a figure blurred nearby, sweeping my legs out from under me.
I smashed to the floor, rolled, and came up swinging, my thumb flicking the activation lever on the kill-stick and sending all three circular blades whirring to life as I aimed for whoever had tripped me...
And for the second time, my heart cramped.
It was Bane. His flesh was covered in black veins that crawled and multiplied, and his arms spun and dipped, each holding a different dagger.
He sprang at me, and I dove aside, rolling and coming to my feet, planting a foot against the wall and kicking off, jumping to the side as he followed me, blades flashing and slicing through the air.
“Bane!” I shouted. “Stop, man!”
He didn’t respond beyond a low grunt of pain as he closed the distance between us.
He lunged, hooking out and down with his upper arms, digging the curved backs of the daggers around my shield and kill-stick, then grabbing with the lower arms, having dropped his blades to hold me fast.
Then he let rip with a blast of Worldsense that jarred me to my teeth, before stomping down on my left knee, forcing it sideways.
He clambered up me, using my knee as a stepping point and shifting his grip on his lower arms to hold on, while he lifted the upper arms and stabbed down, aiming for my exposed throat and face.
I dropped the kill-stick, unwilling to use it on my friend, slamming the shield into his back instead. My two arms were fortunately stronger than his lower arms, and I managed to bring my armored right arm up to deflect the daggers in time.
I cried out as one sliced my right cheek to the bone, then I grabbed his right wrist in my right hand and spun, throwing myself from my feet.
He’d not been idle, though; when his first stab had failed and his right arm was locked down, he kept ahold of me and brought his free left upper dagger back, stabbing it down into the gap in in my armor at the back of my neck.
The blade dug deep, missing my spine by luck more than skill on my part, and I felt horrific pain from it, and more so when I landed on him, fully armored, and smacked him into the ground.
He tried to use the grip he had on the dagger embedded in my upper back to stop me, and I grunted in agony before releasing my shield and shoving up with all my strength, pushing myself almost to my feet.
He came with me, grunting in pain, but determined to hand onto the dagger he’d managed to get into me, even as he yanked himself back and forth trying to break my grip on his wrist.
I saw his mouth open wide as he drew in a deep breath, about to blast me with a stronger Worldsense, and I knew that’d be it. If I lost the grip I had on him for even a second, he’d slit my throat, and I did the only thing I could think of.
“Relax! That’s an Order!” I snapped frantically, and just as the first high pitched note washed over me, I felt Bane’s body forced to relax by the magic of the Oath.
It lasted only a second, as the Domination warred with the Oath, but it was enough.
I head butted him, then whipped my arms up, wrapping them around his and yanking down hard, pinning his arms to his sides.
I pulled back and nutted him again, and again, aware from our conversations where his species had their sensing nodes in the front of their ‘faces’. With each blow, his tendrils flared out in shock and dropped, and he took longer to recover.
After the fourth hit, his body went limp, and I let go long enough to flip him over and get my arms around his neck, one in front and one behind in a triangular choke hold, grabbing onto my opposite arm and squeezing for all I was worth.
As he recovered from the blows to his face, he reached up, clawed hands frantically grasping at my arms, searching for a weakness, a way to break my grip.
I felt tears burning my eyes as I doubled down and forced his airway closed, choking my friend out. He kicked and thrashed around frantically, trying to get free, or to injure me, and I managed to slam his face into the stone floor again.
This time, it was enough, and he went limp. I was about to release him when I saw his symbol in my vision. It was flecked with a warning redness that pulsed, and I somehow knew this was to show he was Dominated, but it didn’t give the same ‘sense’ that I’d had before when someone was unconscious.
I almost released him anyway, fearful I’d kill him, and then I gritted my teeth and held on, two seconds more, four; at seven, he seemed to come to life, panicking and kicking and slapping again, but now, was too late, and his blows landed with less force than a summer rain.
Three more seconds… and he was out. I saw the flash on his icon, and I knew it in my heart; he was unconscious.
I released him and shoved his limp form aside.
I desperately wanted to heal him, but I didn’t dare, and I forced myself to my feet, staggering, then got to the balcony wall and coughed, before shouting down to the struggling groups below.
“Lydia! Jian! Miren! I order you to drop your weapons!”
I staggered as the Oath pulled at me, draining me of… something… as it took hold, and I saw all three freeze and drop their weapons for a second as the others jumped on them.
I turned back, looking at the entrance to the final series of rooms at the top of the building, and I dismissed the rest of the group. Either they’d be okay, or they wouldn’t. I couldn’t take any more time now.
The best chance they had was if I stopped the assholes controlling them.
I reached back and let out a scream of pain when, after three attempts, I managed to tug the blade free of the back of my neck, sending me collapsing to my knees. I pulled the ‘Greater’ healing potion out of my bag and bit down on the top, spitting the cork onto the floor, and spitting again as a wax seal broke in my mouth. I chugged the potion, feeling a weird grittiness in the liquid, before my eyes shot open and I lunged to my feet.
Whatever was in the ‘Greater’ potion, as opposed to the weaker ones, I needed that recipe.
It felt like I’d been given a triple espresso, a Redbull chaser, and then a hit of cocaine, all while plugged into a defibrillator.
I practically flew forward, grabbing my shield and gripping Bane’s dagger by the hilt hard enough to make it creak as I ran from the balcony and into the first suite of rooms.
They were different to the ones below, in that they were clean, tidy, and had an almost familiar feel to them. One wall was covered in a rough painting, one that looked scarily familiar, like a twisted re-imagining of one of my favorite childhood movies, but here, the evil Empire was the good guys. The apprentice sorcerers that were leading the rebellion against them were shown with mocking smiles and glowing eyes, and as I paused in shock, the small bear-like helpers of the rebels… were gnomes…
I glanced around, seeing more, drawings, devices, strange things that looked almost like they’d fit in back home.
I glanced around and set off again, racing for the single path to the next room, seeing a shimmering wire stretched across the doorway at ankle height at the last second and jumping over it.
I landed, skidded on some debris and scanned the space. This room was huge and circular, with cabinets and display cases ringing it, and a solitary massive device in the middle. It was ringed in concentric circles of runes, and it struck me with a powerful sense of ‘wrongness’ as I looked at it.
It was connected to an arched doorway, with the outer edge twisting as it went, until it became the inner, and then the outer, and try as I might, I couldn’t see a second edge on it.
I froze as I realized what it was.
A portal. Just like the one I’d been sent through to come here, and like the one that was at the top of my own Great Tower.
On the far side of the portal was a cage; a cage with two bodies in it, slowly rotting and slumped in death. The room around me made a twisted sense, suddenly, as I looked about, noticing the almost-familiar sights of home.
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I also saw a rack on the wall stacked with portal ‘keys.’ There were four of them, with a space for a fifth. I remembered seeing the gnome with something that had looked like a key, and I swore loud and long.
There were three ways out of this room: the hole in the roof and demolished wall that went down to the ground on my right, the doorway to my left, and the large doors out onto the balcony ahead, and one of them had to hold someone like me.
Someone from Earth, sent by the Baron and his kin… and they were responsible for all of this. The roof was unlikely, I decided, where the ceiling had come down when I’d taken out part of the building earlier. There was no point to fleeing me now, only to fall to your death when the floor gave out. That left the balcony ahead, or the room to the left.
I chose left, sweeping up a big rock and throwing it at a half-hidden tripwire strung across that doorway as well.
There was an explosion, followed by a scream, and I grinned, seeing the wall collapse that led to the room, exposing the black-robed figure as it reeled back, arms pressed into the cowl of its hood.
I had thirty-seven mana left, and I spent twenty on a Lightning bolt, hurling it through the gap in the wall to smash the robed figure from its feet and backwards into the edge of a four-poster bed.
It fell onto the bed, thrashing and screaming, and I stepped through the remnants of the doorway, hefting the dagger and looking around. There was nobody else that I could see, and I strode forward, determined to end the fight as quick as I could and go looking for the red-robed one to free my friends.
I made it to the bed, tore the cowl back, and saw the ruined face of a red-headed woman. The flesh was burned and pocked, her eyes white and milky, and her lips missing, exposing broken teeth. I paused for a second, seeing the injuries and wondering what had caused them, knowing that only two were new: the gash that ran from her left eyes to her ear, and that had possibly blinded her entirely, when the explosive went off, and the burned patch on her shoulder.
Then she howled at me like a mad dog and tried to bite me, aiming for the hand that gripped her shoulder.
I stabbed down without pause, ramming the blade into her heart and pinning her to the bed.
She seemed to freeze for a second before sagging back, and a look of peace and relief crossed her face. Pain suddenly ripped its way up my left leg, and I collapsed to the floor, seeing the evil grin that covered the face that looked out at me from under the bed, as the black tendrils wormed their way up my leg, and pain continued tearing into me.
Beware! You have been afflicted with AsVier’s Darkest Domination!
I gritted my teeth and tried desperately not to piss myself as the black veins ate their way up my limb, digging deep into my flesh and traveling along my veins, surging faster and faster as each panicked beat of my heart spread them throughout my body.
I shook as I tried to crawl free, rolling to my right and starting to drag myself along, reaching out with a shaking hand to grab onto the doorframe in an attempt to drag myself free of the room. I glanced back, to see clambering out from under the bed on the far side of the room, the red-robed figure.
Where the black had been obviously a human, or some similar species, this one was anything but. It looked human in its size and dimensions, but as it emerged, it shifted, an arm lengthening as it slammed down on the floor with a loud crunch.
It dragged itself forward, rising to stand hunched over, and it lifted its other hand into sight, clutching my goddamn naginata.
It hunched forward heavily, its inhumanly long right arm hanging low out of the robes. Its fingers twitched as the bones of the arm rearranged, growing shorter with a popping, cracking sound as the body shuddered and gasped.
I looked back in growing horror as it shrugged the hood off, exposing its face and letting out a high-pitched giggle.
The face that was exposed was like something out of a nightmare; it had clearly been human at some point, but now, it was stretched and distorted; the jaw was almost the correct size, but the teeth that filled it were a mix of canines and incisors, grown to at least double the normal size, and jutting at all angles with a thick line of bristling hair erupting from the upper lip.
The flesh looked stretched past the breaking point, with dozens of livid red lines showing through the pasty white exterior and bulging sections where… something… shifted and rolled under the skin.
The figure hobbled forward, letting out another high-pitched giggle, and it rubbed the haft of my naginata lovingly, while drooling as it tried to speak.
“I… I have to thank you; yes, thank you my pet. You brought me so much!” The voice was weird; one minute, it was a mumble, then a hoarse whisper, as though someone desperate to share a secret. “You came to me, yes… called here to serve, as they all are…” He seemed to be talking to himself, then suddenly his head shot up and he fixed me with a glare. “You came alone? You brought no others, no hunters? SPEAK!”
At his command I felt my mouth open involuntarily and I gasped as I tried to stop the words tumbling out.
“No hunters!” I heard my own voice declare, and I saw the creature relax as it nodded to itself, the skull shifting under its flesh as though the two were only imperfectly attached.
“Good… good!” it mumbled, nodding and shifting its weight with a creak of bones that sounded terrible.
“Hmmmm, perhaps it is time for a new sleeve? A new coat for my soul?” It asked itself, looking at me and trying to smile widely, succeeding only in grimacing and drooling.
He pulled himself more upright, using my goddamn naginata, and started to stumble forward while looking at the weapon admiringly, drawing his fingers down the blade and shuddering in pained pleasure as he sliced himself open.
“It’s your own fault, slave…” he whispered. “Not only did you trespass in my realm, but you brought me a new toy to help me to be free…” He stroked my naginata slowly, and its haft flickered with blackness, absorbing the Domination spell that he still channeled.
“Ah!” he said, grinning at me. “You see? My new toy recognizes true magic; it hungers for it, it needs it, to be wielded by a master…” He gazed on the weapon adoringly, before stopping and lifting it to his eyes, staggering as he stared at a small mark etched into the wood around halfway up the staff section.
I knew what he was looking at, having traced it with my fingers a thousand times, and more. It was the maker’s mark that graced the haft, a pair of stylized wings with a spear rising between them.
He stared at it for long seconds, then spun with an outraged hiss.
“Where did you get this! Where!” he snarled, and I fell back, my vision narrowing to a single point of light as he screamed and did… something… The world seemed to rocket back into focus, and I panted, staring up at him as my body stayed locked in place.
“Answer me, slave! Where did you get this weapon!” he screeched, hobbling over and reaching down, his arm lengthening with a crack and pop of shifting bones to backhand me with a twisted claw of a hand.
I looked at it, and at him, now that the cowl had fallen back, exposing the rest of his face. He had once been a man of late middle years, skinny to the point of emaciated, with pock-marked cheeks, grey eyes, and scraggly black facial hair. His face was heavily scarred, and he obviously had physical problems, judging from the way he moved, the staggering and weakness, and three questions sprang into my mind at once.
First, and most important, what had brought on the change? He’d gone from a creature that was clearly possessing a body, into seemingly the human shell, but he was in control now, and whatever was under the skin had sunk back into quiescence?
Secondly, was he really from Earth; and third, why do moustaches always make seemingly normal people look like sex criminals? Needless to say, it was number three that forced its way from my mouth.
“You… look like… a… kiddie fiddler…” I gasped out, glaring up at him. “I’m… not telling you… shit.”
“Kiddie-fid
dler?” he gasped, then snarled and stabbed the naginata into my exposed inner left thigh, slicing deep into the gap between the armored sections. “They sent you here, didn’t they? The nobility… my father,” he spat. “He sent you to kill me, didn’t he?” He suddenly began writhing, as whatever was under the skin shifted again, coming to the fore, and a seemingly different face glared down at me, its eyes full of hatred and fear.
“What are you? Why are you here?” it screamed. The voice carried weird timbres and inflections, and before I knew what I was doing, I heard my voice speaking up in answer, desperate to appease this freak of nature.
“I am Jax! Lord of…” I clamped my teeth shut, almost taking my own tongue off in the process, and scowled at the creature, even as I felt the weird subsonics that had been in its voice tugging at me to obey.
“Lord?!” it whispered in a voice that carried before dropping to a lower octave and assuming a wheedling quality. “You were a lord? A lord of where? Of what? Are there… are there more? More fleshlings?” it whispered, its face splitting in a wide smile as it nodded frantically. I got a horrified impression of the creature under the skin that was trying to get free, before he barked out a roar of pain, and then a self-conscious little giggle. “I’m sorry, you shouldn’t see that; oh no, not him, he's been naughty, you see, so he can’t come out to play now… but you have to tell me what you know, okay? Tell me… TELL ME!” he screeched, his lips growing flecked with foam and an uncontrolled shudder flowing up and down his body.
I gasped and tried to reach up as pain wracked through my body again, but I stayed frozen in place, barely quivering, as he lifted his right hand and waved it almost negligently, the fingers twitching spasmodically as he glared down at me.
“You will tell me the truth; then I’ll let the spell finish, and you will be mine. The only choice you have left now is how painful you make this!” With his words, the spell shifted, the blackness filling my veins, twisting and flowing back and forth, tearing the vessels as it went, making me bleed into myself. “It’s your own fault, you know…” he added conversationally.
