AVARICE ONLINE: KEL'VAN RED HAND

by Titus Nettles

  “Only the one asking the boon may approach…”

  The others looked at each other. Kel’Van put a palm up facing them, motioning for the party to stop. He slowly resumed his pace towards the hovering eye just above the steps. Fer’shad, who he passed by briefly, crouched in an almost tip-toe fashion, came up to his side.

  “Captain,” he whispered. “ I do not think it is a wise decision for you to go up there alone.”

  Kel’Van turned to face his tank, left eyebrow cocked. “Fer’shad, he is a god. I’m pretty sure he can hear you, whispering or not.”

  “I can hear you…”

  Fer’shad visibly shuddered, if only for a moment, as he looked past Kel’Van and towards the Eye.

  “More importantly,” continued Kel’Van, “Him being a god in all, I doubt we could do anything to him even if we wanted. We came here for his help, not the other way around. Loot the bodies and stand by.”

  “Understood captain,” Fer’shad then walked back to the rest of the party, still skulking as if the eye couldn’t see his massive frame.

  The knight shook his head and continued his climb up the final steps to where the God Robahn awaited.

  Kel’Van stood only a few feet away from the floating eye in front of him. Its red and black haze began to shimmer then slowly condense around the entirety of the dais, including themselves.

  “Speak your boon mortal…”

  Kel’Van felt a certain measure of unease as he watched the haze surround him as it were but shouldered on reminding himself of his purpose here.

  “Robahn, a great army of mortals come to make this land their own. This army is made up of elves, dwarfs, men, and other Terran creatures not native to this land. They would have all of us under their boot if allowed to come here. I ask that you help us fend off the invaders.”

  “I hear your reasonings for wanting to keep out these…invaders... yet, I hear nor see any reason to interfere on your behalf,” Robahn thundered.

  “What do you mean?!” He was immediately taken back by the god’s response. “We defeated the monsters in the dungeon and in your temple! By your own words, we’ve earned this!

  “Do not assign blame to me for your own lack of comprehension mortal!” the god said sharply. “I said I would hear your boon if you defeated my temple guards. I did not say I would grant them!”

  Kel’Van forced himself to cool his anger. Whether he liked it or not, the floating eye was correct. He did say he would hear his request, not agree to it. He needed to concentrate on the problem and come up with a solution instead of getting emotional about the issue. Maybe he had to make this god see that this was his problem too.

  “You are right mighty Robahn. You did not promise me help, but this is a problem for you as well. They will not stop at conquering just the races here. They will storm the dungeons and take your place as well.”

  “You give these mortals beings too much credit,” the eye bellowed. “If it is power they crave, they seem more likely to be ones I can work with, mortals who will worship the power I give.”

  “Worship?” thought Kel’van. He remembered vaguely the offering that Olgan had said earlier if they found the god in the temple.

  “There are worshippers already here, who stand outside of your dungeon. They will gladly offer worship for your guidance and protection,” The knight pointed out. “And unlike the Terrans from outside, they will not betray you. Besides, the Terrans already worship gods of their own. What need of them to start over with you, Lord Robahn?”

  “Hmmm…a good point mortal. “

  The eye took stayed silent for a time before it spoke.

  “To be clear, for the boon of defeating an army of Terrans and the for protection, guidance, and shelter for your people, you offer… worship. Is that your offer mortal?”

  Kel’Van closed his eyes to slits as the anger started to return. Not at what Robahn had said; he actually had a point. He was upset with himself. Here he was trying to negotiate terms for fighting a force he couldn’t on his own, and all he could come up with as a benefit was worshippers. The reason the deal he had sounded bad coming out of Robahn’s…eye…was because it WAS a bad deal. Worse, he didn’t have a clue on how to sweeten the pot to make a better offer.

  “Your offer has almost no incentive for me to interfere on your behalf. Here is my counter-offer if you wish to hear it?” the hellish eye proposed.

  He nodded his head grimly for the eye to continue.

  “ I Robahn, will offer my power in defeating the invading Terran army. In exchange for this boon, I will receive worshippers. In addition, Kel’Van of the Ulgo will become my herald in this world. Which includes establishing my territory, building my influence, and leaving me a piece of his essence to complete the boon.”

  “Wait…WHAT?!” cried Kel’van. How is that a deal?! It sounds to me you are making me a slave for you…I am not giving up my freedom for your help”

  “Nowhere in my offer did I ask you to be a slave mortal!” snapped the eye of Robahn. “You are naïve in the way of negotiating with a god. Any deal you make with one will cost you in some capacity. A herald is not a slave. They are physical representatives of their god and power. As far as the essence, it is needed for me to gift the power you need to defeat your enemy. You are fortunate beyond measure that it is I you are dealing with and not some other god. I am one of two gods of justice in this world. The offer, while brutal, is fair compensation for what you are asking.”

  The anger still smoldered behind Kel’Van’s eyes. The offer was not something he was happy with at all. Fair or not, he was asking for more than what he would ever give in a situation like this. He didn’t fully understand what it meant to be a Herald. It was more than what he was saying, that was for damn sure. Particularly the “brutal” part. He then shook his head in frustration as he remembered what G.A.I.A. told him about Robahn. She did ensure that the god would not cheat him, and was more like him in temperament and fairness. He was going to have to trust that it wasn’t a lie.

  “I accept your terms as I understand them,” Kel’van breathed out. “In for a penny, in for a pound” was the thought that ran through his head as he agreed.

  “Your timing is impeccable. The Terran army you were afraid of is no longer on their way.”

  “They’ve turned around?!”

  That would make no sense to abandon a raid when you were so close to the end. Especially the guild they sent to do the mission.

  “Are you sure Robahn? That just doesn’t seem likely.”

  “That is lord Robahn mortal, and yes, I am sure. They are no longer “on their way.” they are here… now.”

  “Oh shit,” was all Kel’Van was able to mutter as his hands went to his face. “We’re too late.”

  “They are on the outskirts Ulgo; there is still time to stop them from coming through this temple. I would have rather have prepared you more thoroughly for the ordeal, but there is now little time. Lay your hand upon the orb.”

  Kel’Van tentatively began to reach out towards the floating eye.

  “No…not your sword arm.”

  The Elemental knight’s eyebrows knotted in confusion, but he complied and reached his left hand toward the eye of Robahn. The eye changed back into its original form of a red and black orb as he laid his hands upon it. Immediately the red and black haze closed in from around the room and began to surround the pedestal. Then the mist solidified and encased both Kel’Van and orb in a glass-like substance. It was almost like tinted glass, only the color of maroon and darkness.

  Kel’Van looked around, alarmed at being blocked off from his teammates. Likewise, they unsheathed their weapons and looked at their leader, waiting for him to give an order. He lifted up his right hand for them to hold before turning back to face the orb.

  “Now what, Lord Robahn?”

  “Pain…”

  Kel’Van didn’t even have time to retort as his hand sunk into the orb.

  A puzzled look crossed hi
s face, right before tendrils of what looked to be a cross of rock and molten lava, snaked up his arm, pulled it further into the orb, and stopped at his elbow. He immediately out of reflex, began trying to pull his arm back. When that didn’t work, he tried feeling inside of the orb for something to grab on to and force his way out. It felt as if his hand was inside a large room instead of this orb. His arm was deep enough inside that he should be able to feel the bottom of the globe but had touched anything.

  “Where the hell is my arm?”

  Then he felt a force pull his arm straight, then his fingers. His puzzlement turned to panic as he tried even more furiously to pull his hand back out. Then whatever had pulled his arm straight, then snapped his middle finger back until it broke.

  “Gaaaah!!” Kel’Van cried out as he renewed his struggle to free his arm. He glanced to his side to see Belar pounding her fists on the tinted glass barrier. Fer’shad and Voresh were clanging their weapons against it as well. Even Lan’kar sent balls of fire at the glass to no avail. It was at that moment his thumb was wrenched backward, and he felt his bones snap again.

  “God Damnit!” he yelled, now pounding his fist against the orb in order for it to let go.

  The remaining fingers were then all pulled in different angles until Kel’Van felt the audible crack of broken fingers and the stabbing pain of bones piercing their way through flesh. He fell to his knees, eyes clenched so tight in pain, he could feel the blood vessels in them pounding. The sensation, other than ruined flesh, was a feeling of blood pouring up instead of down. He frantically yanked his sword from its sheath and clumsily began hacking away the sphere. The results only netting him a dull clanging sound for every blow struck. On his fourth strike against the globe, the wrenching force holding his arm snapped the bone in his wrist.

  “Mother fucker!” he screamed as he dropped his sword and clutched at the orb fully to his chest in absolute agony.

  “Hold on, mortal…you are part way through your ordeal,” thundered Robahn.

  The elemental knight barely heard him. “Partway through?!” he thought. He didn’t think he could bear another couple of minutes of this. It felt as if his arm was being pulverized an inch at a time. In an attempt to minimize the pain, he mentally tried cast heal on his injured limb. Trying to picture the bones mending and punctured flesh re-knitting.

  “You are making this harder for yourself mortal...” said Robahn. “Bear through the suffering.”

  The few bones mending from Kel’Van casting heals like a madman suddenly burst in pain as they were broken for a second time. He let a silent scream escape his lips as he redoubled his clutching of the orb in anguish. Very slowly, the round glowing sphere began to float higher above the pedestal. It did not relinquish its hold on Kel’Van as it pulled the Aberrant knight with it skyward. As the orb raised itself higher, and his toes scraping the floor, a hot searing pain began at the edge where his arm connected to the globe. Then, with a sickening crunch… the sphere separated his hand from his body.

  “aaaAAhhhHHHHHHH!”

  Kel’Van fell from the orb, his shoulder slamming against the ground, screaming his lungs sore. He hugged his injured arm to his chest, cradling it like a child. The man started kicking, pushing his way from the orb. Not to get away from the god who took his arm, but in a manic way to get away from the mind-numbing hurt. His eyes again was shut tight, only now streams of tears painted his face. He started coughing heavily and shaking as sweat and a cold chill wracked his body. His breathing laboured in a rasping tone as bubbles began to froth from his nose. Teeth were clenched as noises escaped unbidden from his mouth. He didn’t bother to look down to see the injury. He knew what it felt like to lose an arm. It was almost the most vicious form of karma for it to be the same limb he lost in life.

  “Did the god just devour the captains arm?” said a mortified Lan’kar. He was sending fireballs at the shield the moment Kel’Van screamed in pain. But now, after watching him fall to the ground missing a limb, he was struck numb.

  Fer’shad did not answer his question with words. He merely backed up and triggered his charge ability and rammed his shield into the barrier with all the force he could muster. The impact sent him flying backward and sliding across the marble floor.

  “Fer’shad!” screamed Belar, but he moved the woman's hands from him roughly as he got back off the floor.

  “No time for talk! Peirce the shield that is keeping us from our captain, NOW!!”

  Voresh vaulted into the air and came crashing down on the very spot where Fer’shad rushed in with his attack. Taking his cue, Lan’kar began firing blasts in the general area, careful not to attack his teammates with friendly fire.

  Fer’shad ran directly at the spot the others were attacking with a roar of defiance.

  “God or not, we will reach our captain!” he screamed, and the barrage continued.

  As the team rallied behind Fer’shad and were pummeling the shield holding them back, the orb’s surface began to ripple. A column of light of translucent red flowed down from the orb to the pedestal below it. From the bottom of the sphere, Kel’Van’s mutilated gloved hand began to slowly fall. Its descent slowed as it reached the center of the column of light. Then dark and yellow rivulets began floating upwards into the red and black orb from the hand. The flow of colored droplets started to diminish, red and black veins began snaking their way into the hand from the orb above it. As the tendrils grew larger, so did the sphere. Its magnitude swelled to the point of being half the size of Kel’Van. The hand inside the column began to slowly spin and then mend. Its bones and flesh contorting back into its original state, even the armor it was clothed in. Then the veins began to wither and disappear, fading out as if they’ve never been.

  Kel’Van spied all of this while curled up with his back up against the enclosed shield the orb created. He was shaking badly, and his garments and armor were plastered to his skin from the sweat pouring out of his body. Though he still cradled his injured arm close, the eyes never left the orb nor his missing limb underneath. It sat there, floating and turning, like someone's ornament or trophy from a kill. He was mentally casting heal upon his injured arm, sealing the cauterized limb and burning through what was left of his mana stores.

  The Orb began to ripple once more, the part facing Kel’Van split itself down the middle like a knife through a strawberry. A red and black hand pushed the sides of the orb apart. Then a head, with a crown made of stone and a fiery sun floating above it, made its way out of the globe. The torso floated above the orb, the lower body a mist of dark and red smoke billowing silently out the sphere’s opening and covering the entirety of the floor. The orb closed itself, and Kel’Van slowly tilted his head upward to get a better look. Now that the form “birthed” from the orb was fully out, he got a terrifying view of the god towering over him.

  The crown that Kel’Van had seen, also seemed to serve as an alabaster stone helmet, adorned with 4 large diamonds on each side. The apparition had stone pauldrons that curved upwards at its ends. He was bare-chested, but veins of dark red peppered throughout its black sooted torso. What was haunting was its face or lack of one. He could not tell, so dark was the shadow covering it. But the eyes…They were exactly the way they were before the orb changed…both of them. Almost too disturbingly human with the rings of fire circling inside them. This god, with the lower body of smoke, floated towards Kel’Van. A man whom was shaking and hurt but looked up at the towering god as if he would rend him to pieces if he could.

  The god Robahn looked upon Kel’Van. Staring deeply into the eyes of the man who asked him for a boon. Kel’Van neither flinched nor looked away, despite his apparent condition.

  “Yes…you will do nicely Ulgo,” The dark god pronounced.

  He looked over and saw the injured hand starting to heal over, creating a stump over the severed portion of his injured limb, and shook his head. “ I told you that you were making this harder than it needed to be already mortal.”

 
; He then thrust his hand into the smoke billowing around them on the floor. He scooped up a cloud in his hands, holding it in front of him. The god's eyes flash a quick blue, then red and then the cloud in his hand began to coalesce into something solid. When he opened his hand, a shiny onyx black lump of rock lay in is his grip. A rumbling started underneath them, then a stream of what seemed to be lava and fire shot forth, bathing both the rock and the hand holding it. The hot molten stream ended almost as quickly as it began. He then brought the dripping rock towards his face, and a blue-colored haze escaped from his helmet. It formed around the burning rock, then slowly seeped into it. It seemed to cool and then harden, then he brushed off the layer covering the stone. What was left was large rock burning intensely red at the bottom but black and shiny toward its top. Robahn stared at it awhile before his eyes rested on Kel’Van, then he floated downward to where Kel’Van laid against the shield.

  “Stay away from me,” he muttered as he tried to kick his feet to move his body away from him...

  “I cannot do that Kel’Van,” uttered the dark god. “A pact was made, and all parts of it will be satisfied. There is great strength of will in you. Draw on it to finish what we started. It is almost over now.”

  The god closed in on him with the rock in hand. While Kel’Van’s team continued to attack the shield separating them, his screams began anew…

  CHAPTER 42

  He couldn’t remember the moment he stopped screaming.

  Only an agonizing ache, almost pulsating…wracking his body and soul with the smell of his own burning flesh enveloping his nostrils. Then suddenly, it diminished into a rhythmic thud in the back of his mind. He opened his eyes painfully. They were shut tightly throughout the ordeal when Lord Robahn had all but stabbed the dark rock into what was left of his arm.