by C. M. Carney
Myrthendir returned his attentions to the bag. Sweat trickled down the man’s brow. Whatever method he was using to break the stasis took an extreme amount of effort. I have to get free.
The booms smashing against the door grew in intensity but were not enough to break Myrthendir’s focus. Maybe I can catch him unawares. Gryph suspected that the man was not stupid enough to leave Gryph to his own devices without keeping some kind of eye on him.
An answer came to Gryph in the form of an arachnid. His Night Vision spotted the creature before it emerged from the shadows clinging to the ceiling, but the glint of gold and brass as it emerged into the light, heightened the predatory zeal in every motion of the once friendly service machine. The foot-wide mechanical beast eased close to him its eyes bearing a specter of life.
A part of him is watching me, Gryph realized. Time to give that part a show.
“You don’t think the arboleth will accept what you are, do you?” Gryph said, staring at the cluster of crystals that were the construct's eyes. “An aberrant who is both Prime and El’Edryn, but also neither. You’re an obscenity. You have no place in this world or any other.”
Below, the elf lord moved slightly, his meditative state nudged by Gryph’s taunt. The booming against the door grew louder and more particles of dust fell like slow motion rain from above. I need to buy more time.
The arachnid stood tall, spreading its forelegs wide. A small nozzle pushed from what Gryph had thought of as the machine’s mouth and a wad of sticky, fibrous webbing erupted from the nozzle. It smacked Gryph in the face with enough force to draw blood from his lip. It only took a few points of his health, but he was now gagged. Guess he isn’t in a talking mood.
The elf lord returned to his task, his left hand still worked the intricate movements, but his right now hovered over the bag’s opening.
Gryph moved his body back and forth, pushing his momentum into a slight pendulum rotation as he looked for his spear. After a minute, Gryph found his weapon and frowned. Thick webbing held the spear to one the stone columns. The dark gray color told him it was already solidifying. Soon it would be as hard as stone.
His eyes moved back to Myrthendir, whose hand shook as if he was trying to push it through solid stone. The Prince Regent was sweating from the effort. The effort of breaking the seal is costing him dearly. I need to end this now.
He let his mind strategize and a few moments later he had a plan. Not a great one, but he’d take anything. He closed his eyes and let the mana flow through him. He focused his mind onto the glowing sphere of multicolored light as it pulsed into the center of his chest. His mind drew several strands from it and they pulsed and spun in many directions, ready for Gryph to unleash their pent-up power.
He was ready and the fate of thousands, if not millions, of people would come down to timing and luck.
He activated his Ring off Air Shield, his mind shaping and forming the field of solidified air. He hoped the webbing was incapable of resisting the force exploding from the shield. If not he’d be hanging up here until Myrthendir had what he wanted. He knew the elf lord would kill him the second he no longer needed him. The sound of rushing wind battled a crunching tear as the hardened webbing exploded around Gryph in a halo. His bonds cut, Gryph’s body was again the victim of gravity and he fell, his head speeding toward the stone floor ten feet below.
He spun, tore the gag of webbing from his mouth and landed on his feet as three tendrils of mana sped down his arms. Two pulsed into the bracers at each wrist while the third made his arm as rigid as stone. The repeated booms of the monster trying to smash through the massive door brought a surge of joy to Gryph’s heart. I need to buy time.
Gryph extended his arm towards his trapped spear and a cylinder of rock flew from the outstretched palm. He’d cast this Flying Stalactite with a flat nose instead of the spell’s standard sharp tip. It cracked into the hardening fibers trapping his spear like a battering ram as Gryph tugged with the magnetic force of his bracers.
The stone’s impact cascaded shards of the hardened webbing and the stone of the pillar in a wide arc, but the spear held fast. Gryph pushed more mana into the bracers and he willed virtual muscles to flex.
Behind him, he felt Myrthendir stir, and panic rose like bile in Gryph’s throat. He forced himself not to look back, concentrating all his will into the bracers. He felt the tearing of the webbing before he heard it and his spear was free and flying to his outstretched hand.
Gryph spun and brought the tip of the spear down, activating Penetrating Strike, Impale, and Yrriel’s Bite. He heard the thunk of metal on wood as Myrthendir parried his blow with his staff. Sparks of electrical discharge flowed harmlessly along the spear’s tip and the aberrant elf grinned at Gryph through malevolent eyes.
“Too late,” Myrthendir said, and he held the second arboleth egg in an upturned palm like Eve holding the forbidden apple. Gryph’s eyes went wide with shock and he spun his spear back readying another attack.
Gryph thrust forward but another foul screeching rose in his mind and he winced in agony. He pushed his way through the pain and stabbed with his spear, but first one, then two, then a dozen strands of thick webbing wrapped around his wrists, arms, torso, and legs, tugging him from all directions.
Myrthendir pushed the second egg into another of the stasis devices and walked to the Nexus table at the center of the room. There he placed the Seal of the Dwarven King into the slot and pushed down. The clang of metal on stone rose in the chamber and a circular pedestal rose up from the stone table.
Gryph struggled against his bonds bringing the spear’s tip down upon one of the sticky strands of webbing. He sawed at it, slicing through the splice strands.
“Drop the spear,” Myrthendir said almost absentmindedly, like an exhausted teacher scolding a teen with a spitball.
Gryph struggled more and the strand of webbing snapped. Another two replaced the one he’d cut, and they wrenched his arm into an impossible angle. The pain forced him to drop his spear, its dull clang of metal on stone echoing through the suddenly silent room. Both men knew what the absence of sound meant.
“Looks like your friends have given up. Guess it is just you and me now.” Myrthendir closed his eyes and held his hand over a rune covered section of the Nexus table and the walls of the column spun back down into the table, revealing a hollow that contained a skull, a skull bearing a crown of simple iron, encrusted with jewels.
The Iron Crown rests on the brow of the last Stone King, Gryph thought hearing Errat’s words in his mind. Then a rather macabre thought occurred to him. I'm staring at my own skull.
Myrthendir reached into the hollow in the pillar, hands hovering an inch from the crown. He closed his eyes as if performing some reverent ceremony, then he pulled the band of cold iron up to his brow. He set the crown onto his head, opened his eyes and stared at Gryph. The movement cast a multihued halo around his head and he smiled.
Gryph used Identify on the crown.
The Iron Crown
The Iron Crown was the symbol of the Stone King of the Thalmiir, a symbol of his authority over all the Thalmiir. The first Thalmiir High King Durgath the Doom Bringer crafted it as a symbol of authority and unity after his victory over the last Dragon King. Each of the seven gemstones embedded in the band of cold iron is an Icon that represents the power of each of the seven great Thalmiir kingdoms. The six smaller stones represent the six smaller kingdoms, all subservient to Dar Thoriim as represented by the central luminescent diamond.
Item Class: Elder Artifact - Item Category: Passive/Active.
Passive Powers.
Power(s): Unknown
Active Powers.
Power(s): Unknown
Mana Limit: Unknown Cool Down: Unknown.
Icons Slotted: 7 of 7.
Icon Powers: Unknown.
What is an Elder Artifact and why does my Identify talent not tell me anything? Gryph gazed upon the wondrous crown. A part of him wondered why the Thalm
iir had crafted it from base iron when they had access to more precious metals. The Icons were all many-hued gemstones glowing with internal light.
“Have you ever possessed real power Gryph?” Myrthendir asked. “Not the martial skills of a warrior or the petty magics of the elements.” He held his hand palm upwards and let arcane fire dance across it. “But real power? The ability to make another’s mind your own.”
“Like you did with the Dwellers?” Gryph said, struggling to free himself.
“Of a sort, I suppose. They were weak of mind, the so-called Dwellers in the Dark, but they served their purpose. A bit over the top and dramatic for my tastes, what with their foolish masks and their inane ceremonies. But, they did provide the perfect distraction. And the irony was too good to pass up.”
What irony? Gryph thought. I’m missing something here.
Myrthendir seemed ignorant of his slight faux pas and pushed another rune covered stone on the stone table. A rumble built in the ceiling and a torrent of water exploded from the pipes above them. The sluiceways filled and plunged into the pipes at the far end. The water went from raging to calm as the sluiceways filled. Then a rumble of stone sliding against stone rose, and the wall behind Myrthendir parted and slid into the floor.
Light globes popped to life one by one, revealing a room that extended hundreds of feet into the mountain. The size of the room was impressive, but what the light revealed was downright terrifying. Thousands upon thousands of tall, featureless men stood silent and unmoving, as if waiting for someone to command them.
“The warborn,” Gryph said, an icicle of fear punching into his heart.
“I know nothing of where you come from, this place you call Earth, but I know one thing, we have both been lied to all our lives. They tell us that we are unique, important, that we are here for a higher purpose, part of a great plan. It is a pleasant fiction I once believed. Then my body, my mind, perhaps even my soul was fed upon.” The Prince Regent’s hand moved to the back of his neck, where spine met skull. Fearful fingers hovered above the nape and for a moment, his eyes were distant and his thoughts were elsewhere. “When all else is stripped away, the truth is exposed.”
“And what truth is that?” Gryph said struggling against his bonds.
“That we are alone in an uncaring universe and malevolent beings lurk in the darkness. There is no higher purpose, no Source that loves us all. There is only the endless repetitive cycle of death and rebirth, the here and now, and we are not the masters of the Realms.”
“I know what you are,” Gryph said.
A sinister grin crossed Myrthendir’s face “Oh, I doubt that.”
“You are that darkness. You are an aberrant of the Prime."
A look of rage crossed Myrthendir’s face and without warning a half dozen of the arachnids close to him imploded as if they’d suddenly found themselves beneath a thousand feet of crushing water. He turned his gaze on Gryph and for the tiniest of moments, Gryph felt as if his own head would implode as well. Then the elf lord calmed and gave Gryph a malevolent grin.
What the hell was that? Telekinesis?
“The xydai. He has filled your mind with false understanding. He has no more idea what I am than I once did. I am unlike anything the Realms has ever seen. I am so much more than any of you, and so much less. I am the divine and the base. I am all and nothing.”
“You think you’re a god.”
Myrthendir laughed, and it was a genuine laugh, not the wicked chortle of the mad, or the cartoonish muahaha of some maniacal villain. "The gods," he said with a dismissive wave. "The gods are petty power brokers who use fear, violence, and lies to sway the masses. They are pathetic, seeking to force their small order on the peoples of the Realms. You know the truth as well as I that civilization stands forever on a precipice and all it needs is the slightest of nudges to fall into chaos."
“And you plan to give the world a nudge?”
“You don’t see, even now?” disappointment crossing his face. “I’d hoped you of all people would understand.”
“Why would I understand?”
“I felt it on the Deep Water. You and I are more alike than you admit. You have seen some of what I have seen.” He held out his hand. “I will show you more.”
Visions exploded in Gryph’s mind. Arboleth larva, all voracious teeth, and tentacles digging into his brain. The Prime armada soaring down upon Korynn, laying waste to cities and towns. An army of xydai led by illurryth sorcerers and overseen by arboleth in their massive, floating tanks of water and elementum. Mighty armies falling before the onslaught of the Dark Ascendency, cities razed, kingdoms destroyed. For all of this Gryph was a bystander, unable to move or help.
Then came the worst of it all. A planet conquered and hundreds of arboleth working in concert, performing a ritual, casting a spell on a massive scale. Fear bit into Gryph as he stood on the blasted plains of the world he now called home and looked skyward as a cancerous infection ate away at the light of the sun turning the world dark.
“They are coming. You know it to be true. You have heard their call in the back of your mind.”
Gryph had heard, and he had tried to pretend he had not. A horrid truth filled Gryph. He felt it in his bones and in his soul. The Prime were far worse than Ouzerio the Barrow King, who had sacrificed the eternal souls of uncounted thousands to extend his horrid half-life. They were worse than Aluran whose threats of murder and violence were just the tip of the evil he was capable of.
The Dark Ascendancy was coming. Gryph knew it to be true and knew they were a danger greater than any he had yet encountered in the Realms, and it was coming for them all.
“Yes, you see it don’t you? The Prime will not rest until they extinguish all life, until nothing but Prime remain.”
“And you want to help them?” Gryph said and spat. “They will never accept you.”
“I'm not going to help them,” Myrthendir raged, causing nervous skittering among the arachnids. “I will crack open their watery prisons and turn them into coffins.”
“That is why you need the warborn?”
“The warborn?” Myrthendir laughed. “They are mere tools, impressive ones if our friend Errat is any indication, but tools nonetheless. They are a means to an end, but they are not the weapon the Thalmiir were so desperate to protect. You know that don’t you?”
The look on Gryph’s face spoke volumes.
“Oh my foolish friend you disappoint me, you are not who I’d hoped you were. When we first met, I sensed another mind touched by the Prime that was somehow still free and I rejoiced. Here I thought was someone like me, someone strong enough to do what must be done.”
“I will not help you.”
“We shall see. I had hoped you would join me willingly, see that what I do is necessary, but one way or another you will help me destroy them.”
“Work with me then, not against me,” Gryph begged.
Sadness, perhaps even loneliness crossed Myrthendir’s face. He went silent, staring at Gryph with melancholy as a moment of debate raged inside the aberrant elf prince. Then Myrthendir’s eyes went from Gryph to something behind him.
Gryph could not turn, but a sizzling hiss grew and then a deep orange glow backlit him. The sound grew louder and a jet of superheated air blasted into the room, bringing an instant sheen of sweat to Gryph’s skin. Worse whatever small chance Gryph had of swaying Myrthendir burned away in the heat.
“Your friends are persistent, I’ll say that for them, but they are too late.” He pushed down on another of the rune-covered stone buttons. For a moment nothing happened, but then yet another rumble of stone on stone thrummed into Gryph. It was a sound he was growing very tired of hearing. A circular depression on the floor in front of the table irised open and a large cube of cast adamantine rose from the depths.
Identify gave him no information, but he knew one thing, this, not the warborn, was the weapon Thalmiir had sacrificed their city to protect.
“You alre
ady know that the last Stone King went mad, but do you know why?”
