Abby wasn't sure why, but her anger towards Nicodemus completely evaporated. In place of her anger, she felt a sort of tragic kinship and compassion for the man. Even though she should have been angry still. Even though she should have been furious with him. She had every right to continuing screaming at him, but she didn't want to, not anymore.
Here he was, ready to take the blame for years of hurt and insults directed her way, whether it was Nichodemus's fault or not. This man shared in the blame for why she had grown up without a father and without a mother, why she had never known either except for the stories about them she heard second hand that she realized had been heavily redacted for her benefit.
In spite of all that, Abby pitied him anyways and couldn't bring herself to hate him. Instead, she cast aside the residual anger that clung to her and threw it away and threw her arms around this man in a comforting embrace.
Each of them had a good cry, followed by a good laugh before pulling apart and falling on their backs in the sand.
Abby rolled over on her side and looked at Nicodemus. "Tell me something about my mother, something I wouldn't have read in some report or book on tactics."
Nicodemus grinned and made an exaggerated show of trying to remember before he answered, "Your mother was the most disciplined woman I've ever known. Even as a little girl, she was practicing and training, making sure to hone her skills while being stricter than most with her Decorum. But she had one vice. Peanut Brittle. I can't tell you how many times I had to cleanse her room of mice because she'd sneak back there and forget to sweep up the crumbs after.
"That's boring, Nicodemus. I want substance. Tell me then, how did my mother meet my father, Micah?" Abby asked, trying to play it off as more a casual curiosity, while inwardly, she screamed in excitement, wanting desperately to know.
Nicodemus shrugged his shoulders, "Sorry, I don't really know the details of what happened, but make no mistake. When Micah went to the Hades Dungeon, he didn't go alone, it's part of why the Empire ordered the dissolution of adventurers. My daughter Marie was powerful in her own right, gaining all of her strength from her dungeon dives, but for the Empire, no matter how powerful she was, a Silver-blood was never supposed to marry her. Not that it mattered to the two of them, they saw in each other kindred spirits and were able to battle alongside each other. Its envious, and part of the reason the Empire ordered the Adventurers Guild to disband."
"Why, though?" Asked Abby completely enthralled, wanting to know everything.
Nicodemus prepared to answer, but from above them, a loud breaking sound could be heard as a doorway splintered, and glass spilled out onto a floor.
"Find the girl.!" A loud voice yelled out as both Abby and Nicodemus jumped to their feet. Nicodemus took a look at the stairs and then at Abby in contemplation.
"I'm sorry to have to leave you like this, I had meant to take you to the Dungeon of Reach, but it seems our time together has run out of time. Go now while I stall them. The sands below us lead to the hidden treasure of the Ruthiare family. Survive Abby. Build a tunnel and collapse it behind you. I'll have to join you later some other way." Nicodemus ordered, his voice not giving her a choice. Abby didn’t need one i times like these training, and the chain of command kicked in.
She went to work, shifting the sand beneath her, and he started to run up the stairs, stopping for just a moment to whisper to the bottom step and feed it a drop of his blood.
"For what its worth granddaughter," He said before disappearing upstairs out of sight. "They both would have been proud."
Chapter 24: A Warriors Resolve
Nicodemus ran up the stairs, hearing the sound of heavy boots grind glass to dust in the storefront. He had only just been reunited with his granddaughter and was already being separated from her. His heart ached at the thought, so much of his daughter reflected in his granddaughter. His being around Abby, even if just for a few hours, had reignited embers in his heart. His heart where darkness had only festered after the death of his daughter.
He sighed. Life was like that, frustrated by what he knew was about to happen. Porthos must have failed in covering up whatever he had done to get her here. There was nothing he could do but help her, and as the silent alarms went off upstairs that only he could hear that followed the loud sounds of a break-in, he had an idea of just who and what he would find.
Nicodemus braced himself for what he knew was to come. Secret alarms screamed out to him, alerting the man to the presence of the soldiers of the Empire he was concerned but thought he would be able to manage.
As an Arcane Mage, Nicodemus was powerful, and from among the rank and file, few lived who would ever be able to challenge him. Even if they attacked him in mass, the only beings he truly feared were the other Silver-bloods and their Emperor.
Nicodemus doubted any of them would have come to fetch an old, washed-up has-been. A pitiful man who cowered away as those who relied upon and looked up to him were killed.
Cowardice. Cowardice had been the secret shame seared into his soul. A shame that he had been burdened by for all these years.
The life Nicodemus lived a testament to that guilt and the Guildhall his personal monument to the dead. Every empty uniform in the Guildhall belonged to those adventurers who died; Killed after joining the resistance to march on the capital alongside his daughter and Micah. Those adventurers had called him Master.
Though he claimed neutrality in the uprising, Nicodemus knew the truth. He had been too scared to follow along with them and join their cause. Every day of life since had not been worth the shame that he bore of not having died alongside them.
He could only hope that in the eyes of his daughter wherever she was and in whatever afterlife awaits that his actions today would garner her forgiveness. Though he had called Micah a fool and his daughter far worse. He knew that neither was the truth. Nicodemus had just hated that his daughter had chosen to love a man whose love was forbidden to her. The same man who was heir to the throne, not by birth, but by right. Micah was ranked second in power. The strongest Silver-blood always was next in line of succession to be Emperor.
All these thoughts racing through his head as he reached the top of the stairs and triggered the secret compartment behind him. Sealing the doorway shut and hiding the staircase. Giving his granddaughter additional precious minutes to escape if he was to fall. He was giving her a better chance to reach safety. He hoped it would take them at least a little while to find it.
As an arcane mage, his was a power born from the battlefield. The power strengthened in conquest against the elves in combat and against the orcs and the goblins and the ogres. His growth fueled by the monsters of found in the woods and in the serpentine labyrinths of dark caverns beneath the earth. But mostly his was a power tempered by the dungeons.
It was from that strength Nicodemus weaved his magic imagining in his head the faces of his dead comrades. Summoning shades from the afterlife. A mere imitation of who they had once been, a specialized sentient golem.
He directed each of the shades to possess the many uniforms he had laid out within the Guildhall. Commanding them to join him a small army at his back, and though Nicodemus was powerful, he was no Silver-blood; his power was not near infinite. He could already feel the strain of his spell taxing his strength it would not last long he would need to be quick
As Nicodemus burst into the storefront still with his training uniform on. A number of Imperial soldiers, already in fixed combat with the miniature Homunculuses which attacked by throwing shards of glass and shaped wooden stakes built from the island in the middle of the storefront. Despite of the severity of the situation, Nicodemus couldn't help but smile, amazed already with what Abby was capable of doing.
"What are you doing here?" Nicodemus demanded, making sure to emphasize every point he made in viewing each word with a bit of the power of the school of the Wind so that all could easily hear him.
Some of the soldiers flinched in response. Obviously aware
of who he was and what he was capable of. But it was the small handful that continued staring in his direction that concerned him.
"Watch your tongue, Nicodemus, you are in no position to take a harsh tone," Said an older man with a voice Nicodemus recognized.
"Darius, I thought you retired," Nicodemus responded dryly.
Darius glared back, "Retired in name only long have I served as overwatch to that girl and her grandfather. A favor to my oldest of friends. The Emperor is merciful, but his mercy is not endless. Porthos has committed a grave sin against the Empire. It was within his rights to change her orders but to obscure himself with glamours and assumed the position of head Proctor of her test undermines the credibility of the very foundation of the Masons Guild, which defends the Empire; and the Silver-blood's upon which the Empire is built."
Nicodemus scoffed in disbelief. "Merciful like the mercy he showed my daughter and her husband as he struck them down in the capital?"
Darius responded sternly, but his voice was not unkind. "You and I both know, Micah was not without fault. Tell me how many souls did he condemn to death. How many died by his hands so that he could gain the power to bring your daughter back to life and how many more died in his crusade to overthrow the Emperor?"
Truthfully Nicodemus didn't know, and he didn't care. Micah was not the first to turn to aspects of the arcane that others would find less than savory to bring someone back from death. He could argue the point with Darius as he had always been an honorable man. But it would be a wasted effort. The man was duty-bound.
Nicodemus knew for Abbys sake he could not let them pursue her. He nodded his head in seeming agreement with Darius before attacking, hoping to catch him off guard and was not lost on Nicodemus that Darius, though a higher numbered one, was still a Silver-blood.
With grim-faced determination, he prepared to die.
Chapter 25: An End Before the Beginning
A phantom wind kicked up all around Nicodemus, his greyed hair blowing in the wind as he called upon the power he wielded through the school of the Wind. Summoning an indoor typhoon and merging it with the Arcane power had taken from a group of slain wood nymphs in his youth to summon forth razor-sharp petals to drift on the wind and cut into the soldiers of the Empire.
The tiny leaves of green and gold gleamed with a soft glow as they smashed and cut through the ingredient jars that stored Nicodemus’s wares. The wind was lifting up the jagged shards alongside the shattered glass and wood fragments from where the soldiers had broken into his store. A deadly whirlwind from which the soldiers of the Empire were forced to retreat.
As most of the soldiers ran out of the building, it was with no small satisfaction that Nicodemus saw his spell had drawn blood. Of the score of soldiers that had come to take his granddaughter, only three remained. The Silver-blood Darius and two soldiers who remained beside him, their resilience in the face of Nicodemus’s attack marking them as elites. Engineers, too, by the look of their gauntlets and the respective barriers of rock and ice they had erected for themselves to take cover behind.
Nicodemus's heart was pounding as adrenalin flooded his body. He knew the fight was already lost, it was just a matter of time, and all he needed to do was buy his granddaughter as much time as he could manage.
Steading his breathing, Nicodemus focused on ceasing his quaking hands. He could feel the strain all over his body as he put more of his strength into the magic. But falling now was not an option. He would last. He had to. Today the world would be reminded of why he had been considered one of the strongest users of the Arcane.
With his offhand, Nicodemus manipulated the school of the Earth as he tore through the very foundation of his former guildhall and current storefront. The harsh wind of the raging storm helping to dampen the noise of the destruction. The lull in activity, allowing him to send a silent command to the army of haunted golems he had created. Sending them through the cracks in the walls to corner the fleeing soldiers, ordering them to disperse within the city and cause mayhem to buy his granddaughter time.
Even though Nicodemus had put more of his strength behind the spell, duel casting as he had down still had drawbacks. Feeling the power of the wind around him dampen, Darius saw his opportunity to counter-attack and thrust the palm of his hand into the floor. Deep lines of red fire spawned in front of him, welling up and burning through the ceiling in a wall of fire.
The fire was completely incinerating the flying glass debris and rapidly burning the air in a firestorm. For a moment, Nicodemus panicked, full of unease about how to proceed. Nicodemus let the typhoon die down and instead focused on the school of the Arcane, focusing in his mind on an Ifriiti he had slain in his prime in a long-ago conquered dungeon.
Magic flooded his body as arcane energies warped and molded his body and his flesh, changing him into the monstrous personification of fire, to fight and rampage until aether until his magic was utterly exhausted, or he was killed. His last thought before losing consciousness, "It is in your hands now, Abby."
Darius sensing the change, grabbed the two Engineers that were with him, and dragged them out of the storefront as he watched in disappointment as Nicodemus allowed himself to become a monster. The bullheaded flaming beast was impervious to many of his attacks.
The beast slammed a fist into the floor of the store, cracking the ancient stone as seismic vibrations caused the ground all around to shift, heavily injuring the ordinary soldiers who had fled the shop. The fight spilling out into the street as the regular citizens ran and hid, realizing the danger that had not been seen for over a decade once again visited their streets.
Out on the street, Darius was able to move freely. Yelling at the two Engineers who accompanied him to try and save as many of the common folk as they could damage to a minimum. With a nod, they acknowledged his orders as one erected gigantic stone fencing around the ruined storefront while the other built support pillars from ice to keep nearby buildings from collapsing.
In front of him, the Ifritti bellowed and roared as it ran towards Darius, a clawed talon outstretched in a flaming fist. A savage blow, Darius was not sure he would survive if it hit him.
The Ifritti screamed in rage as Darius dodged it. Dodged by burning the air with his fingertips, Darius was able to move faster and with more agility than a man his age.
"Stop this madness, and just talk to me, we can find a way to work this out" Darius yelled, looking directly into the eyes of the Ifritti, trying to connect with Nicodemus, seeing reflected in those eyes the dark truth of almost all who chose to follow the arcane, the terrible never-ending hunger for more.
In response, the Ifritti summoned a giant ball of fire in its mouth, spitting it towards a nearby building, not seeing, or not noticing the family that took shelter in it. That was the last straw for Darius. He had tried to be accommodating and reasonable.
Centering himself in the span of microseconds, Darius allowed his power to unseal itself as it traveled throughout his body, tracing his very veins in glowing silver, turning his skin a metallic hue as he took on an almost ethereal appearance. With a flick of his wrist, Darius summoned a whip of pure flame and snapped it at the ball of fire, catching it midway and swooning it overhead to come crashing into and flatten the Ifriiti.
The beast collapsed on the ground, growling as it tried to get back up on its hind legs to lunge out and attack. Darius was in no mood. "Hellfire Prison." He shouted as bars of flame descended onto the Ifriiti, interlocking together, unbreakable. Every time the Ifritti moved, Darius added another bar to the cage he was building until finally, the monster’s eyes becoming glossy as it gradually started to rever to human form.
Disgusted by the destructing around him, Darius cursed the man for at least not trying to reason things out. He shook the thoughts from his eyes instead of calling out to the two Engineers who had accompanied him.
The two elites looked at Darius, his silver form beginning to disappear, no longer needed, as the two Engineers looked at D
arius with open admiration and respect. His strength a reminder of their faith in the Empire to keep them and their families safe.
Not in the mood for any hero-worship, Darius snapped out his orders. "I need this man in a duel-elemental restraint. Fully body immersion without space to move. He’s too dangerous to be allowed freedom without a Silver-blood around, and I refuse to be a jailer again."
Elsewhere in the city, the first of many screams could be heard.
Chapter 26: The Beckoning Dungeon
“The Dungeon of Reach, those had been my orders. I was supposed to investigate.” Abby thought to herself as she mused over his words. But having seen Nicodemus bound up the stairs had caused her to express some doubt, wanting to follow him and help him as she could. This was not his fight alone.
She knew deep within her heart it was the last time she was going to see this man who had entered her life with all these connections to her past that she had never been able to explore before. The man who was by technical definition, her grandfather. The thought briefly touched her, and her stomach churned oddly in response. I don't know him, though, not really. It was an odd, unbecoming thought, and as soon as it crossed her mind, she felt embarrassed. He's trying to help me—my mother's father.
Putting her ungloved hand on her face and biting her lip Abby forced the thoughts out of her head as the floor above her began to thumb with the sounds of substantial movement and magic being used. Trickles of dust falling down, illuminated by the torches ringing the training arena. Abby was conflicted about what to do, but judging from the way the floorboards creaked and the foundation cracked, it was intense.
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