by C. M. Carney
“You’re not going to like it,” Gryph said with an intense stare and explained his idea. Though he swallowed hard, Herne did not object and a moment later nodded his head.
“There’s something you'll need before we do this,” Herne said and held his hands out, asking permission to take Gryph’s head in his hands. Gryph stepped forward, and the Seeker placed his fingers at Gryph’s temples. A hum of energy flowed through Gryph and in an instant his strength and power returned.
“You’ve re-activated my Godhead.”
“We’ll need it. And you’re a better god than I ever was,” Herne said and stepped to the edge of the outcropping. He raised his hands and gray energy twined about his fingers. He fired a dual volley of Aether Bolts towards the closest gray swooper.
The Aether Bolts slammed into the aetherial beast and the foul creature howled, diving towards Herne. Gryph’s stomach churned, only partially from fear of the beast. Being called a god unnerved him. Despite bearing the Godhead for so many months, he’d never once considered himself a god. Perhaps it was his own humble nature, or a cultural bias against such blasphemous braggadocio, but the concept did not sit well with him.
A high-pitched screech, felt more than heard, pummeled into them. The noise made the small bones inside Gryph’s ears ache affecting his equilibrium, but he forced himself to readiness. He gripped the length of empyrean spider silk and cast Animate Rope.
The swooper got close, and Gryph’s face squeezed up in disgust. The beast resembled a large leather kite with a pair of clawed feet and two vestigial talons protruding from the tips of its wings. A wide singular eye stared down from above a thin mouth filled with needle-sharp teeth. A pair of thick, tufted ears fanned outwards and back from its flat head. Oily fog surrounded the creature bringing with it the smell of rotting garbage.
It screeched louder, its one eye glaring hatred at Herne. The older man took an involuntary step back but did not flee. Perhaps he truly wishes to make amends, Gryph thought, readying the rope. The swooper spread its wings wide, ready to envelop Herne inside their folds. Gryph activated his tier ability Swift as the Wind and powered up his Elven Boots of Deftness. His speed and agility tripled, and he jumped, tossing the rope towards the swooper.
The beast tried to pull up, but Gryph and the rope were quicker, and the coil of empyrean silk twined about its body, cinching it just enough to bind it, but not so tight as to bring it crashing to the ground.
Gryph activated the rope’s Compel ability. The beast’s mind opened to him and he pushed calm obedience into the foul mass of anger and insanity. It struggled against him, but soon fell silent. Gryph climbed onto its back, scrunching his nose against the stench and looped the rope around his fist, like a cowboy atop a bucking bronco. He then helped Herne up, grabbed the beast’s furry ears and ordered it aloft.
He used the beast's ears like a primitive steering system and turned the creature towards the top of the tower. Gryph sensed its rage as it struggled against him, but he ignored it, laser focused on one goal.
He would get to Lex before Aluran could tear the NPC’s mind apart and end the Realms or he would die trying. As he flew towards the raging flock of gray swoopers, that latter option seemed much more likely.
44
“I'm pretty sure you've got me confused with someone else, dickknocker,” Lex spat. A part of him knew antagonizing a god was not the best idea in the world, but he was still reeling at finding actual proof that he wasn’t a real boy, and it elevated his brashness. “Now, let the naked weirdo go, turn around and shove that big sword right up your own ass. Otherwise we’re gonna have a real problem.”
“Just like the old Cerrunos, hiding your fear behind humor.”
Lex threw his arms in the air. “Is anybody listening. I am not Cerrunos.”
“It's a shame I didn’t realize who you were the last time we talked,” Aluran said, ignoring Lex’s denial again. “But wasted time and missed opportunities are part of life are they not?”
A rebuke started to push past Lex’s lips, when Bart drew his leg back and full on junk kicked the High God. Unfortunately for Bart, he was still naked and Aluran was armored. Bart’s foot crunched into the metal codpiece with a dull thunk and a sharp crack of bone. Bart grunted in pain and his foot hung limp, his ankle broken. That failed to dissuade the mad Seeker though, and he pulled his other leg back and kicked again, with the same predictable results.
Bart scowled at Aluran, either driven mad by pain and fear, or already crazy enough where he noticed neither. He tried to punch the High God, but Aluran was done playing. He held Bart over the open hatchway and cracked his spindly neck. The light in Bart’s eyes faded and a gust of air exploded from the High God’s hand, sending the body of the deranged Seeker flying into the room below. With an almost casual flick of his hand, he slammed the round door shut.
“Where were we?” Aluran asked, turning back to Lex.
“You were about to surrender, apologize for being such a cunt and then jump into an active volcano,” Lex raged, surprised at how angry he was over Bart’s murder. Eris, Vonn and Ovrym shifted next to him.
“Did I go too far with the C word?” Lex whispered.
“No,” all three of his friends said together.
“Okay, good. Was afraid I got a little carried away there.” He turned back to Aluran who was eyeing them one at a time, looking for a weakness he could exploit. “So, chop chop, I don’t have all day. Drop your sword, lay face down and I’ll accept your ignoble surrender. After that, maybe I’ll get a nice massage and facial. You know, take a me day.”
Aluran chuckled lightly, but genuinely. “You always were funny Cerrunos. It’s why we kept you around as long as we did, despite your inferiority.”
“Inferiority?” Lex said, offended. “Now listen here you pompous …”
“You cannot rightly be offended at him calling Cerrunos inferior if you don’t believe you’re him,” Vonn said in a whisper.
“Oh, right, you got a point there,” Lex whispered back. “Wait, you don’t think he’s right, do you?” Desperation filled Lex’s eyes, begging his friend to say he didn’t or to at least tell him a convincing lie. Sadness filled Vonn's eyes. Lex swallowed hard and then turned his eyes down. “Well, fuck me.”
Lex’s heart sank, and he wanted nothing more than to wallow in misery, but there was still the small problem of a despotic god wanting to dig around in his brain for secret knowledge that he didn’t have. He looked at Vonn and nodded. “We’ll deal with my personality disorders later, if we survive the day.”
“I’m there for you, no matter how many years it takes,” Vonn said.
Lex nodded his thanks and turned back to Aluran, when Vonn’s words hit him. “Wait, years?” Vonn pointed at the High God. “Oh right, that.” He poured spirit energy into his hammer, roared “I must protect Gryph” and attacked.
*****
Well, that could have gone better, Lex thought as Aluran lifted him off his feet. Lex was bloody and beaten, his arm hanging useless at his side. He tried to speak, to make some witty joke, but a coughing fit interrupted his thoughts, and nothing came up but a gobbet of congealing blood. It splattered against the High God’s armor and trickled down his breastplate.
“I’m sorry, were you saying something?” Lex asked, his head lolling to the side like a baby whose neck was too weak. The bodies of his friends lay scattered across the floor of the Archive, some unconscious, others wrapped in tight Soul Bands. The battle had been short and brutal, for even without his Godhead powers, Aluran was one of the strongest combatants in all the Realms.
“Tell me what I want to know freely and with no further witticisms and I’ll let your friends live. Fail to do so, and I will shred your mind until I find what I seek, and then I will make what is left of you watch me kill your friends slowly. If you are lucky, you’ll be too far gone to care what I do to them.”
“So lemme see if I’ve got this right.” Lex tapped Aluran in the chest with a stub
by finger. “You think I’m Cerrunos and I know how to remove that pretty, sparkly Godhead you’ve got lodged in your brain? Am I right, so far?” Lex didn’t wait for an answer. “Well, your logic is just plain dumb. If I knew what the hell you were blabbing about and I could remove your Godhead, why would I let you smack me around like this?” Lex walked his fingers up Aluran’s chest. “Maybe, cuz I’ve been waiting for you to pull me close enough to do this.”
Lex’s hand snapped upwards and grabbed Aluran by the forehead. The High God flinched and pulled back as Lex started to make a series of absurd electrical explosion noises. The NPC laughed and wagged his finger under Aluran’s nose. “Made ya jump.”
“The Realms have had enough of your buffoonery,” Aluran said and pointed a finger at Lex’s forehead. Colorless energy distorted the air around the finger and then exploded into Lex’s head like a spear of ice. Lex’s eyes rolled back in his head and his mouth opened in a silent scream.
Memories wrenched from Lex’s mind, drawn out like taffy and then folded back in upon themselves. None had any context. Names and faces he should recognize became a jumbled mess as the High God searched through Lex’s mind with all the care of a child digging in his toy box for that one awesome toy.
Though Lex could make no sense of the memories, Aluran could, and amidst the myriad flashes and recollections several stood out. Cerrunos casting off his Godhead and using the energy to build the very Realm they now stood in. Cerrunos walking the edge of the Bay of Ruin mere hours after its formation as debris rained from the sky, bringing death to much of Korynn. Cerrunos ending his life to create his five Aspects and using the Soul Siphon to transfer both soul and memories to the Lexicon of Cerrunos. The Seeker Aluran had resurrected at the Foundation hiding the Lexicon in an ancient temple. Eris finding the Lexicon and delivering it to …
“Brynn,” Aluran said in shock. The energies tearing Lex’s mind asunder stopped, and he pulled the NPC close. “Brynn has betrayed me.” The hurt and pain in Aluran’s eyes was genuine, desperate. “Tell me what you know of this.”
“What’s to tell. She knows you suck just as much as everyone else does. You didn’t think she liked you for you, did ya?” Lex laughed and pain wracked his head. “I got a newsflash for ya guy, everybody hates you cuz you’re a steaming pile of assholes.”
Aluran pulled back his fist, waiting for Lex to realize what was coming, and then punched him full force in the stomach. Lex felt something burst, his spleen, or maybe a kidney and he gasped in agony. With pure force of will Lex spat through bloody teeth. “Punch away asshole, it's not like this is really my body, anyway.”
Aluran pulled Lex close. “I’ve already seen so much. Let’s see who else is in here? Who else are you trying to protect?” Aluran brought his finger back up and resumed his none too gentle exploration of Lex’s memories. Aluran saw a bleeding man at a bar, a man named Dalton, a man who’d once worked for him, but then betrayed him. He was talking to another man, one that seemed somehow familiar. “Hello Finn,” the man said and Aluran realized he was seeing a ghost, a man he'd long believed dead.
Curious, Aluran thought and pursued those memories. He watched Finn beat a mercenary strike team and then drive to a warehouse. In the warehouse was an NI rig. Finn used it to enter the Realms, used it to become the El’Edryn Gryph, the man with the Prime Godhead. Dread filled the High God as he realized the true depths of Brynn’s betrayal.
The memory shifted and Lex sat across the table from him in Avernia. He watched Lex give him the finger as he died of self-administered poison. He saw Lex reunite with Gryph, in a long empty valley. This is where my enemies are, Aluran realized. An older, but still attractive elven woman smiled and Aluran felt the depth of Lex’s feelings for the woman.
“Leave her alone, you fuck,” Lex said through trembling lips, surprising Aluran with his strength.
“You’re about to die Lex but take some small solace in her love for you. It is all that matters in the end and is worth sacrificing everything for.”
He wasted no more time sifting through the minutia of Lex’s life and resumed his search. Deep down, at the bottom of an endless well, Aluran found what he had sought for millennia. A faint, shimmering glow hidden so deeply that Aluran was sure Lex had no idea it was there.
“I guess you weren’t lying. You didn’t know you knew.” Aluran grabbed the memory and began the journey back up the dark well. Lex began to shake, caught in the throes of a violent seizure. Foam sputtered from his mouth and his eyes rolled back in his head.
Aluran gritted his teeth as the resistance grew. Lex went limp in his hands and the resistance disappeared. Aluran chortled in triumph, closed his eyes in concentration and pulled harder. The memory was almost his when a voice spoke in his ear.
“Hey dickhead, let go of my Lex.”
Before Aluran could open his eyes a shocking pain exploded from under his ribs and he lost his spectral grip on Lex’s memory.
45
Gryph pushed his spear into the gap under Aluran’s armor and got great satisfaction from the sensation of metal raking against the High God’s ribs. Before the High God could react Gryph activated a host of perks and abilities. Arcs of electricity surged through the High God’s body as both Yrriel’s Bite and Yrriel’s Maelstrom unleashed. He’d added all 200 points of stored mana to his spear’s attack ability Penetrating Strike, unleashed his regained tier ability Perk Surety to guarantee the success of Impale, which earned him a Stun debuff. The surprise coupled with the concentrated power of the attack also earned Gryph a Critical Hit.
The attack would have laid most foes low, but this was the High God of the Pantheon and Gryph’s attack put the smallest of dents into Aluran’s 4,567 points of health. However, it did save Lex. Aluran grunted in pain and the NPC slipped from his grasp. The distraction also caused Aluran’s Soul Bands spell to fail, freeing Gryph’s companions.
The bands of gray soul energy unraveled from around Raathiel and Vonn snapping back on the High God like broken rubber bands. Mana feedback did a small amount of damage, but Gryph doubted it would make any difference in this fight. Good thing his plan did not involve killing the High God. It did, however, involve inflicting as much pain as possible, and Gryph relished that as he leaned into his spear.
Raathiel, heal Lex and then wake Eris, Ovrym and Errat. Herne, the moment Lex is awake unlock his knowledge. Vonn, you’re with me. We need to do everything we can to keep Aluran down and distracted.
Raathiel rushed to Lex and enveloped him in her healing flames. Herne knelt by Lex’s side, hovering his hand over the NPC, like a man hesitant to reach out to a long-lost brother. Vonn retrieved his fallen vorpal blade and rushed towards the High God.
Vonn raised his blade, prepping a blow to Aluran’s neck, when one of the god’s perks or abilities counteracted the Stun debuff. The High God reached a hand out and his fallen two-handed sword flew to his grasp. Vonn’s vorpal sword clanged against the golden blade and Aluran flexed his forearm. A wave of invisible force punched into Vonn, sending the half-elf tumbling head over heels into a bookshelf lining the wall.
Raathiel flew from Lex to Eris, as Herne helped Lex sit up, slapping his face to wake him.
Aluran swung his sword towards Gryph, forcing him to pull his spear free and roll away. Before the High God could get to his feet, Gryph cast Sticky Mud. The floor beneath Aluran turned to cloying muck, sucking the heavily laden god down. Gryph stood and sheathed his spear. He flexed both wrists and a pair of throwing knives dropped into his hands. He tossed both, upping their power with a magnetic nudge from his bracers.
The High God roared, more in anger than from pain. His eyes flared, and he turned his hatred on Gryph. The throwing knives altered course and arced upward, adjusting their trajectory back towards Gryph.
“Shit,” Gryph muttered and erected a hasty Life Shield. Right before the shimmering field of green flashed into existence two thunderous booms filled the room and both knives exploded. Gryph turned to se
e Eris bearing her pistols. She paid him no heed as she turned her aim on the High God and fired several more times.
Enhanced metal rounds shot from the barrels of her pistols and sped towards Aluran. The armored god’s eyes flared again as he tried to redirect the speeding bullets but grunted in surprise and then pain as they slammed into his breastplate.
A sly grin crossed Eris’ face as she stepped closer, took aim and unloaded both cylinders. The rounds exploded off the High God’s armor doing minimal damage but kept him off balance. He extended his arm and fired a volley of Soul Bolts in Eris’ direction. The small woman dodged the first volley, but the others sensed the movement and homed in on her. She screamed and fell to the ground.
With an effort, Aluran pulled himself from the Sticky Mud and stood. He looked up just in time to raise an arm to block a downwards strike from Ovrym’s Bleed Metal Saber. The High God grunted in pain and swung his sword one handed in a clumsy arc.
Ovrym leapt over the strike and thrust his stump out, sending a wave of telekinetic force slamming into the High God. It surprised Gryph that the xydai could direct the attack without a hand, but it was far from the first time the adjudicator had impressed him.
Aluran collapsed to one knee. Ovrym spun aside avoiding the High God’s clumsy counter-attack and Gryph smiled as he watched Errat slam his axe into the gap in the High God’s defenses. The massive axe blade bit deep into Aluran’s shoulder, driving him to the ground and cleaving the arm from the god’s body.
Aluran howled in pain and rage, and Gryph started to believe they might win this fight. Errat pulled the axe free and brought it over his head, ready to make Aluran a double amputee. Aluran thrust upwards and a shimmering fist of barely visible force punched hard into Errat’s stomach. The warborn flew back and slammed into the wall of bookcases, forcing Vonn, who’d stumbled to his feet, to duck.
Aluran held his good hand over his cleaved shoulder and a golden glow burst from the metal-laden fingers. Tendrils of red-gold tinged blood stretched outwards from both sides of the amputated limb and burrowed into his flesh, dragging the two sides together. Gryph gasped in shock as the arm reattached itself. Aluran flexed his fingers and rolled to his feet, perfectly intact once more.
