Durability: 307,000/307,000
Damage: 6D20
Enchantments: Immortal Blow, Mortal Strike
Ability: Absorption* – Can be used by the Destroyer to absorb the fallen.
Ability: Distribution* – Can be used by the Builder to distribute Experience.
“I don’t understand,” I said as I stared at the weapon. “The abilities still pertain to the Destroyer, and the notes just say it’s more powerful than before.”
“Honey,” my mother said as she reached out and touched my cheek. “Don’t you understand what’s happened?”
“No?” I said, trying to figure out what she meant.
“By completing all the achievements, you’ve become the Destroyer as well.” My father pressed the newly reforged Excalibur into my hands. “You are both Destroyer and Builder in all ways that matter.”
As his words rattled around in my head, I couldn’t help but think of Dred, but then again, he’d lost his ability to use the armaments, and I’d gained the ability to use them.
“You seem to understand,” my mother said, wrapping me up in another hug. “I always knew you were smart.”
My father once again joined in the hug, and when it ended, he smiled at me. “Now go, Arthur. Restore the tree and put all things right.”
“Okay.” I nodded to them as they once again began to fade from view. “I won’t let you down.”
I stared at them until long after their smiles had faded from view, and then stayed a while longer until my feet had gotten soggy from the stream. I knew I had to leave, but for just a moment, I was at peace, and once I left, I’d be back to fighting.
Only, part of me was ready to go, to do what needed to be done. It was time to finish this.
“I’m coming for you, Empress,” I said, taking a deep breath and turning toward the exit, and as I made my way through it, I found Lucifer sitting cross-legged only a few feet away.
“Took you long enough,” Lucifer said, her eyes snapping open at my approach. “Can we leave now?”
“You’re not going to tell me who she is, are you?” I asked, offering her my hand.
“No. I’m sure you can guess though.” She took my hand, letting me pull her to her feet.
“She said you were deserving, by the way. The most deserving.”
She seemed to stiffen at my words before shaking her head. “She would say that.” Only her words were less harsh than I expected. She turned, and I could have sworn I saw tears at the corners of her eyes. “What now? There’s a lot of dust in the air here.” She wiped at her eyes with the back of one hand.
“Now, we get Michelle and Dred and head to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”
This time Lucifer sucked in a breath before turning her gaze heavenward. “It is as though you mock me.” Then she broke into a laugh and squeezed my hands. “Come, let us redeem the unredeemable.”
47
It took over an hour to get back to our stronghold within the Darkness, and another hour after that to get everyone ready and to the stupid Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Only now that I was standing there with Michelle, Lucifer, and Dred, I suddenly had cold feet. I had no idea what restoring this tree would actually do, but I just had to trust it was the right thing to do. After all, an achievement was tied to that, and those were never bad, right? Right?
“So, uh, what do we do?” I asked, glancing at my friends and Dred.
“I’m not sure,” Lucifer said, rubbing her chin. “But I vote we slit Dred’s throat and water its roots with his blood.”
“Seconded.” Michelle nodded fervently, one hand reaching for her spear.
“I’m not feeling a lot of love here,” Dred said, eyes flicking to me. “And I’d hate to kill your angels.”
“You think you can beat me?” Michelle raised an eyebrow at him.
“Lady, I’ve taken shits that were a bigger deal than you.” He snorted at her and turned to look at me. “Honestly, how can your work with her? I’ve been back around her for like a day, and already I wanna stage another coup.”
“Quiet,” I said, dismissing his comment with a wave of my hand. “We’ve got a job to do.” I took a deep breath and glanced at Lucifer. “I thought you’d dealt with the tree before.”
“That was a long time ago, and it was a lot different then.” She gave the tree a once over. “You’ll understand when it wakes up.” She shrugged.
“Right …” Turning back to the tree, I pulled the Darkness Essence belonging to One out of my pocket and approached because I wasn’t sure what else to do.
Part of me had expected the essence to, well, evaporate or glow or something, but nothing like that happened. Instead, I wound up walking all the way to the tree with a rock in my hand. Worse, the cold emanating from the gateway beneath the roots grew stronger. That’s when I felt it. The raw, unceasing hunger of the Darkness.
The emerald crystal containing One pulsed with green light, and as I approached the portal, the massive crimson tree swayed. Then the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil opened its fucking eyes, looked right at me, and stretched, causing the ground beneath my feet to rumble.
“Hello,” it moaned in a voice so high-pitched it actually hurt my ears. “Why have you awakened me from my slumber?” It shook its branches at me. “I no longer bear any fruit, and I’m not about to let you cut me down to build your house or anything.” It crossed its arms over its trunk. “I will give you nothing.” It shut its eyes and pretended to snore. Loudly.
“Funny story,” I said, holding the essence out to it. “I have something I’d like to give to you.”
One large red eye cracked open. “You do?” It didn’t seem convinced.
“Yep.” I waggled the essence. “I heard you like the Essence of Darkness Generals.” I waggled it some more. “This is from One.”
“It is?” the tree leaned in close, and as it did, a huge nose with a bushy black mustache appeared on its trunk right below its eyes. Then it inhaled sharply, causing the nostrils to flare.
“Am I the only one who thinks they’re going insane?” Dred muttered, shooting a glance at Michelle who shook her head.
“No. I’m with you,” the Archangel of Justice replied. “This is a whole bag full of crazy.”
“That is the good stuff there,” the tree said, its huge mouth opening wide, and that’s when I realized it didn’t have a mouth before. It did now, and its bright green lips stretched wide as a huge floppy tongue licked them.
“Would you like it?” I asked, holding out the Essence even though I was with Dred. This was insane.
“Yes.” The whole tree practically shook with glee as it opened its mouth wide. “Just throw it inside.”
“Um… right.” I glanced over my shoulder at my comrades who merely shrugged, and then for lack of a better plan, I flung the essence into its maw, and as I did, a notification flashed across the air in front of me in gilded script.
Achievement: Restore the Tree – Destroy the Ten Darkness Generals and return their Essence to the tree. Current Progress: 10%.
Better still, the spot that marked One as a General had been checked off. This was going perfectly. Wasting no time, I quickly fed it the last three essences I had, and like before the numbers for Five, Three, and Two all got checked off, and our current progress sat annoyingly at forty percent.
“So, um, I’m not sure what to do about you,” I said, glancing over at Dred when I was done. “Do we feed you to him?”
Dred gave me a horrified look. “I fucking hope not.” His hands clenched into fists. “I can’t stop you from doing it, but I’ll damned sure try.”
“What say you, tree?” I asked, ignoring him because as much as I disliked Dred, I felt a little bad about feeding him to a giant ridiculous tree. “How do you propose to get the essence out of Dred?”
“You mean he ate them?” The tree raised a newly formed bushy eyebrow at me. “What kind of savage …”
“N
o.” I waved my hand. “He absorbed the Generals using Excalibur.”
“Oh, then it ain’t no thang.” The tree bobbed a bit. “I can suck it out of him.”
“Suck it out of me?” Dred said, raising one eyebrow.
“Or off you, whatever.” The tree shrugged, which was a bit weird to see. “Have us a good old-fashioned suck off.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Yeah, Dred. Go let the nice tree suck you off.” I gestured for him to move closer.
“I’m not sure I like this plan more than the one where I get eaten—”
Dred’s words were cut off when the floppy tongue shot out of the tree’s maw like a goddamned rocket, slamming into Dred with a wet thwack. Tendrils exploded out of the tip, wrapping all around him as he began to glow with dark energy. Black veins appeared along the tongue’s pulsing pink flesh, and as Dred started to writhe, the whole of the tree quivered in ecstasy.
“Should we help him?” Lucifer asked, moving closer to me. “Cause that looks like the opposite of fun.”
“If we’re having a vote, I vote no,” Michelle added unhelpfully.
“I don’t even know how to help him—”
Achievement: Restore the Tree completed. The way can now be revealed.
As I read over the cryptic message, a red door the size of a barn appeared before us bearing two gleaming locks.
“Those locks look familiar,” Dred said from behind me, and I turned to find him standing there, goo dripping off his body to puddle at his feet.
“Look, fruit!” Michelle cried, and I turned to find that ten glowing red apples had appeared on the tree’s boughs, and not only was its weird face gone, but the portal to the Darkness below its roots had vanished. In fact, the whole of the world around us seemed to shine a little brighter, the colors more vibrant, the smells more, well, smelly.
An explosion drew my attention from the surroundings right in time to see Dred fly backward. He slammed to the ground a few meters back, smoke curling off his body.
“What the fuck happened?” I asked, torn between rushing toward him and fighting off the new threat.
“He tried to put that key in the lock.” Michelle pointed to a key that lay on the ground beside the door. It was the one we’d used to unlock the door to Heaven back when we’d fought Nine, and as I stared at it, something occurred to me.
I fished out the Key of Torment from my pocket and examined it. The last time I’d given it to Lucifer it had given me a quest prompt that I’d had to ignore because Lucifer had been too hurt. I’d thought that had just referred to the doors we’d opened, but maybe it didn’t. After all, that weird one-eyed lady who had given me her eyepatch had told me specifically to bring Lucifer and Michelle with me.
“Michelle, can you grab that key?” I gestured to it, and she gave me a wary look.
“You want me to grab the key that just blew up Dred?” she asked, confused.
“Yeah, I wanna see something,” I added as I offered my own key to Lucifer.
“Um, thanks,” Lucifer said, taking the key, and as she did, the quest prompt from before popped up.
This item can be used to start the quest The Seal of Torment. Would you like the Archangel to begin the quest? Please note, this quest will fail if the Archangel is killed.
This time I accepted the quest, and as I did, a glow surrounded both the key and the left lock on the door.
“I’m a genius,” I said, gesturing for the Devil to go to the door. “Would you do the honors?”
“If I get blown up, I’m going to be very annoyed at you, Arthur,” Lucifer said, before gesturing toward Michelle. “I’d also like to note that she hasn’t even picked up her key yet.”
“I’m waiting to see if you explode too.” Michelle shrugged. “Surely, that’s fair.”
“You’re just less brave than me,” Lucifer said before setting her chin and marching toward the door. She quickly put the key in the lock and twisted. This time there was a flash of light, and the lock exploded into a million scintillating shards.
Quest: The Seal of Torment completed.
I expected there to be more information, but there just wasn’t so I turned to Michelle. “Your turn.”
The Archangel of Justice gave me a wary look before picking up the key, causing a prompt to appear above her head. Swiping it open, I read the text.
This item can be used to start the quest The Seal of Salvation. Would you like the Archangel to begin the quest? Please note, this quest will fail if the Archangel is killed.
As Dred stumbled over to us groaning, I accepted the quest.
“Go ahead and open it.” I gestured to the lock.
“I trust you, Arthur,” she said before swallowing hard. Then she put key to lock, and as with Lucifer, it worked like a charm. As the lock exploded into a flare of color, Michelle let out a sigh of relief. “Phew.”
“I thought you trusted me?” I asked as she proceeded to wipe the sweat from her brow.
“Yeah, I do, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t worried about exploding. For all I knew, it only worked on demons.” She shrugged.
“Sure,” I said, rolling my eyes as I approached the door. When no weird tooltips popped up, I pushed on it, causing the door to creak open and reveal an ascending stairway.
I stared at it for a moment, thinking. I’d seen an achievement talking about ascending the throne, and this was a stairway.
“Come on,” I said, moving through the door and onto the stairwell. There was another explosion, and as I turned, I saw Dred shaking his head, smoke rising from his left hand in a way that made me think he’d reached out to the door before trying to walk through it.
“I’m gonna just keep watch out here,” he said, frowning at the door. “Seems it doesn’t want me inside.”
“Yeah, you do that.” Michelle elbowed him in the side before following me up the stairs.
My eyes flicked to Lucifer who just shrugged before entering the door herself and joining us on the stairs.
Then we climbed.
And climbed.
And climbed.
It took six hours to ascend the stupid stairs, and when we finally did, I found myself staring at a platform about two meters by ten meters. It overlooked all of Heaven, and as I stepped onto it, a throne appeared in the center. The golden frame glittered, and the crimson cushions looked so plush they were a dream, but at the same time, despite its obvious quality, it didn’t seem humble. Rather, given its current position, it seemed almost humble.
“Arthur, be careful,” Lucifer whispered, and as I turned, I saw both her and Michelle prostrated before the throne.
“What are you two doing?” I asked, peering quizzically at them. “Get up.”
“We can’t,” Michelle said, swallowing hard.
“Why?” I asked, confused, and as I spoke, they both looked at me.
“Because you haven’t taken the throne and told us we could,” they both said.
“Right,” I mumbled, spinning on my heel and making my way toward the throne. As I sat on it, I realized it wasn’t just Heaven I could see from here, but Hell as well. Both were spread out as huge expanses of land, and what’s more, I could see the Darkness. Not its lands, but I could see where it encroached upon both Heaven and Hell.
The thing was, sitting here, the infection didn’t look so bad. It looked like it could be contained, no not just that, it looked like it could be defeated.
And I suddenly knew how.
Achievement: Ascend the Throne completed.
Thank You for reading!
Curious about what happens to Arthur next?
Find out in The Builder’s Conquest, coming soon!
Author’s Note
Dear reader, if you REALLY want to read my next Builder novel- I’ve got a bit of bad news for you.
Unfortunately, Amazon will not tell you when the next comes out.
You’ll probably never know about my next books, and you’ll be left wondering what happened to Arthur,
Gwen, and the gang. That’s rather terrible.
There is good news though! There are three ways you can find out when the next book is published:
1) You join my mailing list by clicking here.
2) You follow me on my Facebook page or join my Facebook Group. I always announce my new books in both those places as well as interact with fans.
3) You follow me on Amazon. You can do this by going to the store page (or clicking this link) and clicking on the Follow button that is under the author picture on the left side.
If you follow me, Amazon will send you an email when I publish a book. You’ll just have to make sure you check the emails they send.
Doing any of these, or all three for best results, will ensure you find out about my next book when it is published.
If you don’t, Amazon will never tell you about my next release. Please take a few seconds to do one of these so that you’ll be able to join Arthur, Gwen, and the gang on their next adventure.
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The Builder's Throne Page 23
