Awaken Online: Dominion

by Travis Bagwell

  He needed to become more ruthless.

  He rummaged through his bag and withdrew a severed limb. The hole carved in the palm glared at him like a jagged, fleshy eye. The blood had long since dried and the hand was slowly beginning to decay, the process only slowed slightly by holding it in his bag. It was all that remained of Thorn.

  Without giving himself time to second guess his decision, Jason dropped the ruined hand into the mana well. Before it struck the surface, tendrils of dark mana rocketed into the air, deftly catching the limb and holding it suspended. The energy ran along the dead flesh, lapping at its surface experimentally, as though it were tasting it.

  Then the mana seemed to come to a decision, and it pulled the hand into the inky blackness, the limb submerged below the pool of mana. A moment later, the surface of the well was placid – leaving no evidence that Jason had just interred Thorn’s remains.

  “What are you planning, boy?” a voice spoke up from behind him. He didn’t need to turn to know that it was the Old Man.

  “I’m planning to do what needs to be done to protect my people,” he answered calmly, turning to face the dark god. The Old Man wore his typical ensemble, a midnight-black robe covering his lean form and a worn staff held in one wrinkled hand.

  The god stepped closer, his face obscured under his hood. He seemed to peer at Jason, as though searching for something. “You seem different. Your thoughts used to crash and swirl against one another. You were constantly at war with yourself. Now it feels as though I am gliding across an icy lake.”

  It felt strange to hear the god talk about reading his surface thoughts – about how they felt. But he couldn’t disagree with Dark One’s conclusion. He had changed. “Much has happened since we last spoke. I’ve been forced to evolve,” Jason answered coldly.

  “Hmm, well I can say that I am pleased with the result,” the Old Man replied, a small smile curling his gnarled lips. “Yet I also sense a request. What exactly would you like from me?”

  Jason faced the dark god, mana pulsing through his body and his eyes glowing with unholy power as he considered what he wanted – what he demanded. “I need to speak with Thorn,” he said firmly.

  He wanted much more than that, but he was counting on the Old Man to pick up on the remaining details of his plan on his own. His thoughts drifted back to Logan, the creature comprised of cloth and mana that they had fought during the second challenge – a member of the Order bound to the well and compelled to serve the darkness.

  The god’s wrinkled lips curled into a hungry smile and he let out a low growl. “Ahh, I see,” he murmured, tilting his head to the side as he sifted through Jason’s thoughts. “What you wish to do is possible, although it will require a few drops of power. It is a fitting punishment for a member of the Order.” He spat out this last word like a curse.

  The dark god hesitated, peering at Jason. “But why should I do this for you? Even now, I can sense doubt in your mind. You do not entirely trust me or my purpose.”

  “Can you blame me?” Jason demanded. “You speak in cryptic riddles and only act in your own interest – as do your siblings. It doesn’t matter, though. It is clear that you need me, and I need information. Look at this request as a way to demonstrate that I can trust you.”

  “Can you not obtain this information from Logan? He was once a Scion – like this Thorn,” the god said, gesturing at the well. “His will has already been broken.”

  “The world has changed much since Logan was committed to the well,” Jason explained. He had already anticipated this argument before coming to this room. “I suspect Thorn will be able to provide me with more information – provide us with more information. That is, if you truly wish for me to find these gate pieces…” He trailed off, letting this statement linger in the air – the challenge clear.

  The Old Man considered his words, his head tilting to the side. Then he gave a curt nod. “You make compelling points. You have grown much since you first embraced the darkness.”

  The god let out a pleased cackle. “Yes, yes, I believe this will do nicely – a favor and a show of my good faith then. I will do as you ask. You need only embrace the well,” the Old Man explained, gesturing at the column in the center of the room.

  Jason turned in time to see two tendrils of dark mana leech out of the bowl, the tentacles drifting into the air and the tips refining to needle-sharp points. Without hesitation, he stepped forward toward the lip of the bowl, lingering along the edge. The tendrils seemed to sense his presence, tilting in the air until they were facing Jason. They bobbed and weaved as they centered in front of his face.

  “Make him pay,” the Old Man intoned. “Introduce our new guest to the darkness.”

  The needles plunged forward, but Jason didn’t flinch as the energy stabbed into his eyes and the icy chill in his veins flared into an all-consuming torrent of energy. He had endured worse, and he knew that the pain would be fleeting. The world flashed out of existence, and the dark god’s voice faded as Jason was consumed by an all-encompassing darkness.

  * * *

  Jason opened his eyes to find himself standing in front of a door, a stone staircase spiraling downward behind him. He wasn’t certain how much time had passed. A rumble of thunder vibrated the wall beside him, and a glance out of the nearby window confirmed what he already suspected – that he was in one of the keep’s many towers. The boiling black clouds and occasional flash of lightning easily gave away his location.

  Good. The Dark One did as I asked.

  As he turned his attention back to the plain wooden door, Jason felt his resolve harden into steel. He knew what lingered on the other side – the step he was about to take. He didn’t shy away from it. Not anymore. This is what it took to rule a dark kingdom. This was what it took to survive.

  Without hesitation, he pulled open the door, the ancient hinges creaking ominously. Inside, several cells ringed a rounded room, the bars made of obsidian crystal. The enclosure was lit by a lone blue torch. The light flickered and danced across the room and cast shadows where it lapped at the bars.

  Inside one of those cells sat Thorn.

  His former enemy was collapsed on a dilapidated cot, his back to the stone wall and his lone eye closed. The other ruined socket had been covered by a crude eyepatch. He wore loose rags, the material coarse and stained. The clothing did little to hide the scars that riddled the man’s body. Dirty bandages had been wound around Thorn’s hands and feet. Jason suspected that if he lifted the wraps, he would find gaping, poorly-healed wounds where the crystals had once been buried.

  “Wake up,” Jason said gruffly.

  Thorn twitched, and his lone eye drifted open slowly. He looked confused for a moment, his gaze skimming across the cell and he groped at his own body with his bandaged limbs as though he was surprised to find it still intact. It took Thorn a moment to realize that his hands were covered in cloth bands, and he stared at them uncertainly before his gaze settled on Jason on the other side of the bars. There was a flash of some unknown emotion as their eyes met – the moment so fleeting that Jason almost thought he had imagined it. And then a familiar calculating expression settled on Thorn’s grizzled face.

  “Jason. How good of you to visit,” Thorn said, his voice sounding dry and raspy, as though he hadn’t tasted water in days.

  “Oh, the pleasure is mine,” Jason replied. “I’d say you are looking well, but I try to make it a habit to be honest with my prisoners. I find this helps speed things along. Trust is important.”

  “Is that what you think I am now? A prisoner?” Thorn demanded, leaning forward on his cot. “You think that this cell will hold me? I have endured and escaped from much worse. You would be better off killing me now.”

  “Tsk, tsk. There’s no need to rush things. I still have a need for you,” Jason replied evenly.

  Thorn snorted. “To do what? Clearly, I have failed in my mission. You have won,” he admitted this grudgingly, as though each word pained him.r />
  “Ahh, but you still have information – something that I have found in short supply of late. I’m curious about your Order. How many of you are left? Where is your headquarters located? What powers have you cultivated, and is the air relic the only item you stole from the other gods?”

  Jason waved a hand. “Then there’s the matter of this competition among the gods and these gates. You seem to be well-acquainted with these topics – surprisingly so. I guess you could say that I’m here to pick your brain.”

  Thorn barked out a harsh, incredulous laugh. “What makes you think I would tell you anything?”

  Jason spread his hands. “Out of the kindness of your heart? Respect for a worthy opponent – someone who bested you? Or perhaps just plain futility? Your silence serves no one, at least not anymore. Pick your favorite.”

  The man just stared at him, humor dancing in his lone eye. “I will tell you nothing,” he said with the sort of certain finality of a man who has stared into the eyes of death many times.

  “I was afraid you were going to say that,” Jason murmured. “Please remember that I tried to handle this peacefully.”

  Jason clapped his hands, and the door behind him creaked open. He turned to find Rex stepping through the doorway, his skeletal body fully intact and the bones gleaming a dull off-white in the flickering torchlight that lit the room. Leather armor hugged his bony frame, and a sword swung from his waist. This was the Rex that Jason remembered – not the wispy dark doppelganger that lectured him in the training rooms below the Keep.

  “Ahh, Rex! Good of you to join us,” Jason said, slapping the skeleton on the back.

  Rex peered back at him, his expression sober as he met Jason’s gaze. “You as well. What did you need from me?”

  “Well, it seems our friend here – his name is Thorn, by the way – is being obstinate,” Jason said, waving at Thorn where he still sat calmly on his cot. “This gentleman is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of our own people and the near-destruction of the Twilight Throne. He also happens to have some information that I desire, but, unfortunately, he seems to be rather tight-lipped. I was hoping you could loosen him up a bit.”

  As Rex’s gaze settled on Thorn, the dark vortexes that were his eyes flashed menacingly – hatred creeping into his expression. “I can certainly help with that,” Rex said grimly.

  Thorn let out another laugh. “Torture? You hope to torture the information out of me? You really don’t know who you’re dealing with, do you? We are trained from childhood to endure hardship – pain the likes of which would cripple a lesser man. These scars are evidence of my fortitude.”

  “Oh, trust me, I think you’ll come around,” Jason said, a grin curling his lips. Then he gestured at Rex to get on with it.

  The skeletal man stepped forward, opening the cell door and stepping inside. Thorn tried to rise, but the movement was slow and uncoordinated – his body weak from malnourishment and lack of water. Rex promptly backhanded him across the cheek, the blow causing Thorn’s head to slam into the cell wall with a dull crack. He fell to the ground, a gash splitting his scalp and blood running freely down his face. Thorn’s single eye blinked rapidly as he struggled to concentrate. He tried to push himself from the ground, his arms buckling and shaking from the effort.

  “Ahh, no need to get up,” Jason said. “You’ll find yourself to be a bit out of sorts here. Lack of food and water and all that. Your crystals are also gone.”

  Rex yanked a dagger from his belt, kneeling and holding the blade to Thorn’s neck, the metal slicing a thin line through his flesh and crimson blood welling beneath the dagger. “So, do you feel like talking?” he growled.

  Thorn let out another raspy laugh. “I would rather die.”

  Rex’s jaw clacked as he grinned at the helpless man. “I was hoping you would say that.”

  A sharp jerk and the dagger ripped through Thorn’s throat. His blood jetted from the wound, spraying the stone floor of the tower. Thorn clutched at his throat with his bandaged hands. The already dirty cloth was quickly stained a motley brownish red. His lone eye was wide – panicked and pleading as he stared at Jason. His mouth opened and closed convulsively as he tried to draw breath, only to find his windpipe blocked by his own blood.

  Jason and Rex watched impassively as the life leaked from Thorn’s body; as he choked on the blood that was slowly filling his lungs. He held out longer than Jason had expected. However, eventually, even Thorn’s impressive fortitude gave out. He gave a final twitch and then stilled, lying motionless on the cool, stone floor.

  The pair didn’t move. They simply stood staring at Thorn’s corpse. Without warning, the cell around Thorn’s body stuttered and jerked erratically. The man seemed to flicker in and out of existence, warping and twisting the area around him. Then, only a moment later, Thorn was sitting back on his cot, his blood no longer staining the floor.

  Thorn inhaled harshly, breathing in air like a drowning man as his eyes stared at Jason wildly. He pawed at his own throat, only to find his flesh intact once more.

  “What… what is this?” Thorn demanded.

  Jason smiled at him, his expression cold and calculating. “Ahh, I see the confusion. You must think this is all real. Maybe I should have led with that. But you know what they say, a death is worth a thousand words.”

  He paced into the cell, Rex stepping aside to give him room. “Like I said, trust is important. So, let me be perfectly honest with you. You are dead. You died in that battle in the market, and your body was ripped to shreds by the monsters that you helped create. But I managed to salvage a piece – your hand in fact.” He could see Thorn’s eye twitch, his skin turning a shade paler.

  “I interred your remains in the mana well. You are now part of the thing that you hate most – your body and soul committed to the darkness for eternity. Now, normally I would try to carve into your mind and take the memories I want by force, as I did with your accomplices. However, I suspect that what I want to know is buried too deeply, and, you would almost certainly resist. As you mentioned before, you would die before you gave up that information.”

  Jason sighed. “Which leaves us with this rather crude alternative,” he continued, gesturing at the cell. “This is something like a spirit world for the Kin – a projection of our will. You can’t die here, not really. Rex and I can also alter this space at will.”

  Jason snapped his fingers, a blade materializing in his hand. He promptly stabbed the dagger into Thorn’s shoulder, the man letting out a hiss of pain as Jason twisted it brutally and blood welled around the wound. “You can also still feel pain, and, as you just noticed, death is rather transient here. So, we don’t have to worry about going too far with our encouragement.”

  He paused for a moment, letting the full import of the situation settle in Thorn’s mind. Despite the man’s previous assurances that he couldn’t be broken, he seemed far less certain now. The fire had begun to leak from his lone eye, and his shoulders had slumped imperceptibly, each subtle change highlighted in blue as Jason’s Perception skill triggered.

  Jason leaned forward, his face hovering only inches away from Thorn’s. His eyes were a solid black as he channeled his mana, the energy surging through his body in a wave. This is the man who had killed his people and had threatened everything he had built. He deserved far worse.

  “Rex here is going to cut, stab, prod, and poke until all you know is pain. When you become numb to the physical pain, we will conjure images of the things you care most about. Those surface thoughts are available to us. And then we will destroy them before your eyes. There will be no time limit. There will be no escape. Death will not be a release. This will continue until you tell me what I want to know – even if that takes an eternity. But don’t worry. I bet you will break before then. After all, you are only human.”

  Jason saw the moment when Thorn realized his true situation. When he accepted the truth of what Jason was saying – that brief moment when hope finally faded a
nd gave way to bleak oblivion. It was written on his face, and in the way the light dimmed in his eye.

  “Welcome to the fucking darkness, brother.”

  Jason plunged the blade into Thorn’s eye. The man let out an involuntary scream as he fell to the floor, blood pooling around him once more as he struggled to pull out the dagger with his bandaged hands. His fingers strained desperately against the constricting fabric, trying to find purchase, but his efforts only served to twist the blade, burrowing it further into his flesh.

  Jason didn’t spare him a second glance, turning to exit the cell. Rex’s eyes met his own as he passed. Jason wasn’t certain what he expected to find there. Judgment? Fear? Concern? What he found instead was respect and a cold fury that mirrored his own. Rex might be a protector. He might also show kindness to their friends; to their own people.

  However, Thorn was an enemy. Rex had grown up on the streets of Lux – had lived in the shadows. He knew that the darkness had no compassion for those that harmed its own.

  “Break him,” Jason ordered curtly. “Let me know when he comes around.” Rex simply nodded, stepping around Jason and approaching Thorn. With a snap of his bony fingers, another blade appeared in his hand.

  With that, Jason headed toward the door leading out of the tower. The screams were already echoing down the stairs before the door slammed shut and the world began to fade, drifting away and turning into dark eddies of energy that swam and spun around him. The cries landed on deaf ears. There was no one living to hear Thorn’s shouts. Jason could sense souls lingering in the waters of the well. He could just barely hear their whispered voices. They were curious about what occupied the Keeper’s attention in this remote corner of their world. However, they recoiled as they touched at Thorn’s soul. They had no remorse for the man that had wronged their people.