Evolution

by Travis Bagwell

  Suddenly, the skeleton sitting on the throne shifted, dust cascading from its body. Jason started in surprise, not expecting the sudden movement. The creature’s head shifted slowly on its neck, and the skull turned to face the group. Two black voids flickered into existence in its eye sockets and honed in on the group. “Who disturbs my slumber?” a deep voice echoed from the skeleton.

  “We have come for the Dark One’s grimoire,” Jason declared with more confidence than he felt. Stepping forward, his Death Knights parted to allow him to speak with the skeleton. He saw Frank tense, tightening his grip on his axes, but Jason waved him away. Trying to talk his way out of a fight was becoming his specialty. Even if it didn’t work, it would give him a chance to feel out the situation, and they might end up with information that could help them in the future.

  “Dark One…?” the undead creature whispered as though confused. He shifted on the throne and Jason could see that the skeleton’s left hand rested inside the crude pillar, rivulets of liquid obsidian mana curling around the bones of his hand.

  Shit, I need to be careful, Jason thought. Having gone through the process once, he couldn’t even imagine what it would feel like to hold his hand inside a mana well – or how much power this skeleton was currently capable of channeling.

  “Dark One…” the creature murmured again. “I remember that name. He forsook us, his Kin!” he continued, his voice now colored with anger.

  “How did he forsake you?” Jason asked cautiously, confused by the creature’s response. Was this one of the temple’s priests or something?

  “He let us die!” the skeleton answered, slamming the butt of his staff into the stone floor.

  “Wait… no… we did this to ourselves. We brought our own doom with our arrogance,” the creature said, his voice suddenly changing in pitch and tone while his skeletal expression grew confused once again.

  Frank glanced at Jason questioningly, twirling his finger near his head as though asking, “Is that thing nuts?”

  Jason just shrugged before turning back to the skeleton. “We don’t understand. We’re just here for the grimoire. Do you have it?”

  “The book?” the creature whispered, its voice taking on a completely different cadence. “We have the book, but it is not ours to give away.”

  “Where is it?” Jason asked, growing impatient but still unwilling to start a fight with a creature that had its left arm plunged into a mana well.

  “It is here, of course. We brought it here as our last act,” the skeleton continued in a new, more aristocratic tone and waving the staff in a grand sweep of his arm.

  “Last act…” Jason echoed in a whisper. “Oh… oh shit,” he said as the revelation hit him.

  “Are you the Keeper?” Jason asked tentatively. His teammates’ eyes widened as he posed the question, and he saw Frank’s burly form tense.

  “We were a Keeper,” the skeleton continued. “Yet now we are merely adrift among the tides of time…” it trailed off as though losing focus.

  “Should we just grab the tome and run?” Frank tried to whisper to Jason, but, in his slightly intoxicated state, his voice echoed loudly through the room.

  “You would steal our book?” the creature demanded, its eyes training on Frank. An aura of dark energy suddenly engulfed its fragile frame. “We can’t let you. We won’t!”

  “Crap! Crap, crap, crap,” Frank muttered, backing away from the throne quickly as waves of dark mana radiated out from the former Keeper.

  Jason didn’t have time to yell at Frank. They needed to retreat further back into the room. He mentally ordered his Death Knights back out of range of the Keeper’s dark aura. Riley and Eliza had wisely kept their distance. The water mage was already beginning to cast her Obscuring Mist in anticipation of a fight, the contents of a healing potion staining the dense cloud red.

  “You are like the rest of the humans!” the creature cried, slamming its staff into the stone floor. The blow struck with such force that cracks radiated out from the impact and a cloud of dust shot into the air. “And like the rest, you will die!”

  Around the room, each of the four pillars that Jason had noticed earlier was suddenly surrounded by a globe of dark mana. Tendrils of dark energy lashed at the air around the columns and Jason could just barely make out what looked like some sort of urn sitting on each pillar.

  Before Jason could react, a dark form darted out from behind the throne. It raced toward the front line of Death Knights in a blur of motion while Jason frantically commanded his minions to attack. One of the massive skeletons lunged forward and swung its spiked shield at the enemy. However, the dark figure slid under the shield, coming up inside the undead’s guard. In a lightning-fast series of gestures, the dark figure painted an intricate set of glowing red lines on the skeleton’s torso before dancing away.

  The Death Knight promptly exploded in a torrent of flames, showering the air around it with bone and debris. The force of the blast threw Jason to the side, and one of his Death Knights barely caught him before he hit the ground.

  As he regained his footing, Jason could see that the dark figure now stood calmly beside the throne. He was robed in black leather, a dark hood concealing his face. In one hand, he held a plain metal stylus. Jason had seen that item before. “It’s his son!” he exclaimed, before turning back to his group. “Be careful, Noah can draw explosive runes.”

  “Yeah, no shit,” Frank replied sourly as he pulled himself back to his feet, wobbling unsteadily for a moment before catching his balance.

  “You humans will pay. You think you can insult us after the torture we have endured at your hands!” the skeleton on the throne cried. “Noah, release them from their mortal coil! Bring them back to the dark!”

  Instead of racing forward again, Noah’s hands began to wind through a rapid series of gestures, Jason’s eyes having trouble following his movements. Suddenly, intricate glowing red runes appeared all along the walls and floor of the throne room. The crimson energy crackled ominously.

  “Avoid the runes!” Jason screamed, trying his best to move his Death Knights onto the few clear portions of the floor.

  Several of the hulking skeletons were too slow, their massive forms standing directly on the runes. Nearly a dozen columns of flame erupted from the floor, the torrents of fire disintegrating Jason’s minions and blasting against the ceiling of the throne room. A few seconds later, several piles of ash were the only evidence that Jason’s minions had been standing there only a moment before.

  Jason whirled and saw that Eliza and Riley were trapped behind rows of runes. Yet several of Jason’s Death Knights were still standing nearby, and he ordered them in closer to the water mage and archer.

  Frank had barely survived, a blast searing his arm and side. Blisters now riddled his skin and the flesh along his shoulder had peeled away in layers, revealing bloody tissue. Eliza’s healing cloud had already swept over him and was trying vainly to repair his ruptured skin.

  What the hell is this? Jason thought frantically, his gaze turning back to the Keeper and his son – or whatever they had become. How are we supposed to beat these two?

  He needed to buy himself some time to think. Acting in desperation, he ordered two of his remaining Death Knights to rush the throne, directing them to dodge the explosive runes that littered the floor. He wasn’t intending to harm the Keeper and his son, and he gave his minions instructions to stay alive as best as they could.

  Then Jason turned his attention back to Riley and Eliza. He saw a small path winding through the runes, and he started running, whispering a silent prayer to the Dark One that he wouldn’t accidentally land on one of the glowing orange landmines. He planned his next step poorly, and his boot grazed the side of a rune. Acting quickly, he dived forward the remaining few feet, explosive flames showering the area behind him.

  “I hope that was worth it,” Riley said, pulling him to his feet and gesturing to the remains of the two Death Knights he had sent toward
the Keeper and Noah. The Keeper was now hurling bolts of dark mana at Frank, the barbarian barely dodging the missiles while trying his best to avoid the runes along the floor – flames fountaining into the air as Frank raced through the room.

  “I needed to get back here,” Jason said quickly. “Eliza, inspect them and tell me what you see.”

  The water mage nodded sharply and then turned her attention back to the pair of undead near the throne. “They have a massive amount of health. The dark one seems like a normal boss.” She hesitated for a moment, chewing on her lip. “The skeleton is listed as… immortal? What the…?”

  “That’s what I was worried about,” Jason muttered, gazing at the massive sphere of dark energy that hovered around the throne protectively. He pointed at the columns along the walls. “I think we need to take out the urns on each column to kill the Keeper.”

  “You are guessing,” Riley said through clenched teeth as she cast Transfer Life on Frank to keep up his waning health. A dark missile struck a little too close to the barbarian, tendrils of dark energy lashing at his skin. “Besides, this whole room is covered in explosive runes. How are we going to take out the columns if we can’t stop healing Frank?” Riley demanded.

  “I think I can fix that,” Jason muttered, his voice sounding distracted as he pulled up his chat log. He quickly typed out a message to Frank in group chat, hoping his friend would be able to read it in the middle of combat.

  After he was finished, Jason turned back to Riley and Eliza. “I need to use Custom Skeleton. Don’t move and when I finish casting, get your healing cloud back to us as quickly as you can,” he instructed Eliza. “Also, maybe try not to die.”

  “What does that mean…?” Riley’s voice trailed off, her syllables lengthening under the time compression effects of Jason’s spell as he already began casting. He didn’t have any time to lose.

  His remaining Death Knights were now outlined in blue as Jason skimmed through his list of materials. He needed to clear the runes so that they could take out the urns. However, the field of traps littering the room was incredibly dense. He lost count of the number of runes after hitting fifty. This was going to be challenging…

  Jason deftly began slicing his Death Knights apart in a rapid-fire series of gestures, fragments of bone hovering in the air beside him as he worked. He left three of the hulking skeletons standing beside Riley, Eliza, and himself. If this plan worked, they were going to be the group’s shield wall. As soon as he finished deconstructing his other minions, Jason began forming a legion of Drones – not caring whether they looked pretty.

  He quickly hit his Control Limit and promptly dumped his remaining unassigned stat points into Willpower to eke out a few more minions. With his leftover materials, he then reinforced the shields of the three Death Knights standing nearby, the barriers stretching until they were nearly six feet tall and four feet wide.

  As soon as he was done, Jason glanced over at Frank. Feathered wings had begun to sprout from his back, flapping ever so slowly as he took flight. He must have received Jason’s message.

  “Thank the Dark One,” Jason murmured.

  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, willing his nerves to quiet and forcing himself to concentrate. This was going to take pinpoint timing, and he would only get one chance.

  He opened his eyes, his dark mana flaring forcefully and tendrils of energy curling away from his skin. “Let’s do this,” he said before slamming his hand down on the completion button on the editor’s interface.

  The world immediately sped back up, and several things happened at once. Frank dove back toward the group, flapping his wings as hard as he could and performing a tight barrel roll as bolts of dark energy raced through the room after him. Meanwhile, the remaining Death Knights knelt in a small circle around the group, slamming their reinforced shields into the stone to create a triangular, shell-like barrier. Jason pulled Eliza and Riley to the center, gesturing for them frantically to kneel within the barricade.

  As he saw a feathered wing flit over the edge of the shield wall, Jason reached up, his hand cresting the top of the skeletal fortification. When he felt Frank grab his hand, he pulled hard even as he issued a mental command to his minions. Frank fell into the interior of the formation as Jason’s three bone shields spun at an incredible pace – spraying a payload of hastily-built Drones in every direction. The little skeletons tilted in the air, trying to position themselves above the runes.

  “Stay down and close your eyes!” Jason screamed.

  A moment later, the world around them was awash in flame. The throne room was engulfed in fire as Jason’s Drones ignited dozens of runes simultaneously. The explosions promptly triggered a chain reaction, igniting the rest of the runes in a roaring crescendo of flame. The maelstrom of fire slammed against the three Death Knights encircling the group and Jason watched in concern as he saw their ivory bones blacken and then start to glow as the flames ate away at their shields and bodies.

  After a few seconds, the world quieted and Jason’s remaining three minions slumped to the floor, the last of their health depleting and their charred bones beginning to disintegrate. Jason pushed himself back to his feet, helping Riley up while Frank grabbed Eliza and physically lifted her to a standing position. Both girls looked flustered and confused after being slammed into the ground by Frank’s burly form.

  Jason turned to Riley and Frank. “Now, blow up those urns!” he ordered, pointing at the pillars.

  They didn’t need to be told twice. Frank sprinted to the right side of the room as his legs grew thick fur and his knees inverted with a sickening pop. Riley immediately leveled her bow at a pillar on the left-hand side of the room, a mixture of black and red energy already curling around the tip of her arrow.

  “What do we do?” Eliza asked quietly from beside Jason, turning to look at the Keeper and his son. The pair were unharmed by the explosions, standing safely inside the Keeper’s protective dark aura.

  “We distract them,” Jason said evenly, dark mana cascading through his veins. “As best as we can anyway. Keep your healing mist on Riley. She’ll need the health to keep casting.”

  “Okay,” Eliza said, centering her mist on the archer. “I have an idea. Just try to keep them off me,” she said in a distracted voice.

  The water mage rummaged through her pack and pulled out another wand along with a few potions. She downed the little vials quickly and then her free hand began twining through a complicated series of gestures. A patchwork of sapphire designs suddenly appeared along the floor, multiplying in number as Eliza kept casting. The mage would occasionally stop to drink a potion before summoning more of the glowing circles. Jason couldn’t help but think that the designs looked remarkably similar to Noah’s runes.

  Not having time to question the water mage, Jason began running toward the Keeper and his son, his three bone shields twirling around him protectively. The Keeper laughed as he saw Jason approach. “The little necromancer plans to fight us by himself. How quaint,” he cackled. “Noah, take care of him.”

  His son darted forward toward Jason at a blinding speed. Jason was clearly outmatched, and he knew it. But he also didn’t plan to fight fairly. His hands were already moving through his Custom Skeleton spell as he raced toward one of Eliza’s runes.

  His timing would have to be perfect.

  As Noah neared Jason, his movements began to slow imperceptibly – the time compression effects of the Custom Skeleton spell beginning to take hold. The undead lunged forward with his stylus, and Jason ducked. At the same time, he gave one of the bone shields a mental shove, canceling his spell before it could complete, and he was locked in place.

  I guess this will be one more thing for Alfred to patch, Jason thought as he watched Noah’s stylus sweep above him – missing his head by less than an inch.

  As time sped back up, his bone shield slammed into Noah and shoved him onto one of Eliza’s runes. Spikes of ice jutted from the floor and penetrated Noah
’s body even as Jason crashed into the ground. The wind escaped his lungs in a rush and he gasped for breath. Eliza’s trap had also managed to shove aside Noah’s hood, revealing his face. Jason’s eyes widened in surprise as he witnessed Noah’s skeletal features and his vacant eyes. He had seen that same expression on dozens of his own minions.

  Did the Keeper raise his own son? he wondered in horror.

  He didn’t have a chance to ponder this question. With a concussive blast that rocked the room, one of Riley’s arrows struck a pillar and blasted apart the urn resting on its surface. The Keeper gave a massive roar of pain, his voice echoing off the walls of the room and his shield faltered, the mana growing visibly less dense.

  Another blast immediately followed as Frank slammed his axes through a second pillar. The barbarian was hurled across the room by the force of the explosion, his body slamming into a wall with a sickening crunch. He groaned in pain, and pulled out a healing potion, downing its content in one go. Then he pushed himself to his feet and hurtled toward one of the two remaining columns even as Riley took aim at the other.

  “Stop them, Noah!” the Keeper roared, rage filling his voice. “They cannot be allowed to destroy the urns!” He began hurling blasts of dark mana in a frenzy, Frank and Riley forced to dodge out of the way as the obsidian energy raced through the air toward them.

  Noah’s arm abruptly inverted at an odd angle, the bones snapping. However, the movement freed his limb from its icy prison, and his stylus immediately darted through the air. A moment later, the shards of ice entrapping him exploded in a cascade of miniature blasts. Instead of finishing off Jason, the undead shifted his stylus to his uninjured arm and sprinted toward Frank as he approached the other column.

  “Watch out Frank!” Jason shouted at his friend.

  Frank tried to dodge out of the way as he saw Noah coming, his lupine legs bulging powerfully. Yet a jet of air rocketed from Noah’s palm, yellow runes emblazoned across his palm. The blast halted Frank’s leap prematurely. He landed awkwardly and stumbled to the side. Then Noah was upon him, glowing red runes curling up the barbarian’s back before he could get out of the way.