“Don't let it get in your head!” Karalti called out, her telepathic voice ringing like a bell.
“You have to control it!” Rin added to the chorus.
“I can. I am.” Suri - not Withering Rose, but Suri - craned her head up toward the ceiling. “There’s some tutorials in here… and see those lines in the floor? This platform is an elevator. I can make it rise and we can get out of here. To tell you the truth, I don't want to be in this thing any longer than I have to be. It’s creeping me the hell out.”
“What's it capable of?” I held my arm up against the wind, heading toward it.
“At the moment? Not a hell of a lot. I'm getting alerts every minute telling me that it's only at four percent power and twenty percent integrity. But I got a Path change, and a tutorial. I've got to level up as a Warsinger Pilot. It's got its own Combat Ability tree: Physical attacks, energy attacks, sonic weapons, and a mass combat tree... I've only got four things I can do so far.”
Karalti and I crossed the lines, standing as close as we dared. I'd gotten used to riding and living with a creature larger than me, a creature capable of absently stepping on me and turning me into sandwich spread if she wasn't careful. But Withering Rose was a whole new level of huge. Suri wouldn't even have to try to crush either of us - or incinerate us. The heat gathering around her spiked feet was so intense that the stone directly underneath then was turning red.
“Alright. Here we go.” Haltingly, Suri laid the hand of Withering Rose down on the floor. “There should be just enough mana to get us out.”
We heard a series of clunks and thumps beneath us. There was a rumble over our heads, and I looked up on reflex as panels slid back, opening the ceiling from the center and letting a torrent of sand rush in. The rumbling was so intense it drove Karalti and I to our knees, and as the platform began to rise, we stayed that way, pinned by gravity, falling sand, and the intense vibrations. The elevator pitched from side to side under the artifact's weight, cranking its way up, and up. Suri shielded us from the worst of it, resting on hands and knees over Karalti and I as the platform vanished into a tan haze of desert sand... and then we burst through it, rising to the surface of the desert with a resounding BOOM that echoed over the empty wasteland.
“Joy. Every fucking sandworm in two hundred miles now knows we're here,” I said.
“Yeah. And… uhh…” Suri’s voice, transmitted through the grille of the Warsinger’s helmet, seemed to ring across the entire desert. “How the hell are we supposed to get this bloody old piece of shit back to Vlachia?”
Rin laughed over the party chat. “Umm… good question.”
“Much as I hate to say it, we march,” I said. “All we can do is just start walking. If Rose is anything like Nocturne Lament, you should be able to eat stuff on the way to keep yourself fueled. Monsters and plants and shit.”
“Eat… stuff?” There was a pause. “Oh. Yeah. Look at that. I can eat stuff in this thing. And she reaaaally likes that idea. She wants to eat you, she wants to eat Karalti, and she actually also wants to eat me. We’re havin’ a bit of… tug of war up here.”
“Are you okay?” As Karalti and I backed up, I shaded my eyes to look over the Warsinger’s smoldering face.
“Gonna have to be. But I can assure you this machine is animated by pure fuckin’ spite.”
Karalti dusted herself off and jogged out into the open. Dark light and scales swirled until she was a dragon once more... a dragon dwarfed by the titanic machine that loomed over us on all fours, dust swirling around it like a cloak. I equipped Karalti's saddle, then mounted her as she launched into the air. Suri waited until we were clear before getting one foot under her, rearing up, and then rising with surprising ease. As she did, the red spikes flared white. Sand boiled underneath her, slagging away to magma as the heat built and built, then discharged through a dozen discrete vents, blasting the ground around her feet like the trail of a rocket. As Karalti gained air and we looked back, I got a sense of the true scale of it.
“Every Vlachian villager we pass on the way to Taltos and-or Myszno is going to shit themselves.” I laughed nervously, holding on to Karalti as she navigated the vortex of bumpy air cycling around the Warsinger's body. “You’re frigging huge!”
“Yeah… the irony of suddenly becoming the size of a fuckin’ battleship hasn’t-” Suri stopped speaking as an eerie, whale-like moan resonated over the desert. “Hang on. Sensors are goin’ off: We've got incoming.”
Karalti winged over and hovered, looking out over the sea of sand. We sure did have incoming. A pod of sandworms was headed right for us, and in the lead was big momma herself.
Chapter 54
At her full length, The Sandworm Queen was even longer than the Warsinger was tall, with a five-lobed mouth big enough to swallow Karalti like an oyster. It let out a piercing cry that made my eardrums throb and Karalti flinch.
“I've got enough for a few attacks!” Suri's voice rang out as she took a fighting stance, holding her swords the way she usually handled her twin axes. “Karalti! You need to land!”
“Land?!” She let out a piercing cry of her own, beating her wings hard. “Landing and taking off uses a lot of stamina. How far away do I need to be?”
“As far as you can get.”
Withering Rose tensed, and then the corona behind her dissolved and extended out like whips, hovering and dancing around her. The worms gained on it, diving in and out of the sand. They ignored Karalti and I both, angling for Suri as we tried to put distance between us and the Warsinger.
Withering Rose's jaw opened, distending like a snake's... and she let out a piercing, pure, note that built into a deafening multi-layered keen. It was like throat singing on steroids: The sound beat out like a shockwave in all directions, causing the sand to lift and then swirl in a geometric pattern around Withering Rose's feet. Even at a distance, the noise made my teeth vibrate, my hair lift, and my skin crawl. The worms screeched, thrashing to the surface.
“AAAAAHHHH!” Karalti dipped crazily in the air. She couldn't seem to control her wings: the right and left began stroking out of sync, pitching her into a fatal angle of attack.
“Teleport! Now!” I barked, holding on with all my strength as she plummeted toward the earth at high speed.
Karalti didn't argue. One moment, the ground was rushing toward us; the next, we were twice as far away from the Warsinger and out of range of its sonic weapon. The sandworms were routed. Juveniles cooked from the inside out and ruptured, carapaces. Adults thrashed in agony, bellowing as they belched clouds of smoke. Even the Queen was struck dumb, her ability to navigate the sound crushed by the Warsinger’s voice. Nocturne Lament had used its voice like this… but as the sound built and sandworms curled and charred and died, I realized exactly why they were called Warsingers.
“My gods…” Rin breathed over the group chat.
Suri strode forward, plunged her sword into the back of an injured sandworm like a toothpick, and bodily pulled it out of the earth. It thrashed, its mouth opening and closing, but Suri just simply threw it... and gravity did the rest of her work for her. The huge worm bounced and tumbled before sliding to a stop, crushed to death by the weight of its own invertebrate body.
“I'm down to two percent!” Suri's voice had taken the edge of panic as she used her whip limbs to haul another [Sandworm Adult] out and fling it over her head like a toy.
“Focus on the Queen!” I bent down over Karalti’s neck, holding the Spear low. “Come on, Karalti! Let's get back in there!”
The dragon snarled with effort, boosting herself into the fight. She dove like a falcon, swooping in low and fast over one of the Level 45s that had survived the sonic onslaught. It reared back to strike at Suri's knees. Karalti cut around and blasted it with a long plume of white fire, causing it to rear back and twist away.
“Hold level!” I gathered into a crouch, then sprung up into open air.
I knew I still didn't have the full grasp of Dark Lancer on
the ground or in tight spaces, but in the sky, Karalti and I were unstoppable. I landed on the back of the worm like a thunderbolt, driving the spear down with Jump, burning a third of my AP on Shattering Darkness, then blowing back up into the air in a black haze. Death rained down on it, earning a squeal as it plunged back under the sands. Karalti tipped a wing and glided underneath me as I came back down. I landed with Spider Climb to make sure I stuck, caught the saddle grips and held on. She boosted forward again, and I found myself laughing as the sandworm, still burning, reared up again and lashed out at us with a bouquet of tentacles from its mouth. Three whiffed, but one hit Karalti and latched onto her.
“NO! LEGGO!” Karalti's body jerked, the tentacle tongue reeling her in toward the gaping, fang-lined mouth. She angled her mouth down, lips peeling back as she sprayed a plume of liquid fire right into the hole. The sandworm thrashed and screeched, burning from the inside out, but didn't let go. The side-to-side motion threatened to fling my dragon out of the air.
“Get ready to play catch!” I ran up along her neck and Jumped as high as I could.
Time slowed as I hung over the worm's open, flaming mouth. I flung out a whip of dark energy, snapping it taut around the worm's tongue - but instead of trying to choke it off, I used the Black Lotus lasso to reel myself in. The energy slingshot me forward, and I collided with the thick, barbed purple rope of flesh. I pulled Davri's Dagger from my hip and used it to slice and cut. I didn't get the sneak attack bonus, but it hurt. The worm's flesh pulled apart under the blade, then tore. I clung to it, and so did Karalti. She grabbed the tongue with her hand as worm and dragon separated, the annelid toppling back onto the sand in agony as her sticky fire cooked it from the inside out.
[Karalti killed Sandworm Juvenile! You gain 1091 EXP ! Karalti gains 1091 EXP!]
Suri was wrestling the Sandworm Queen, Godzilla-style. She had both swords through the worm's head, barely holding it back as the sandworm wrapped her head in biting tentacle tongues. The whips lashed over it, burning everything they touched, but the Sandworm Queen was a Level 100 monster. She wasn’t going down without a real fight.
“Get in and set those tongues on fire!” I ordered, climbing the flopping worm tongue hand over hand until I reached Karalti's forearm. “We might not be able to kill her, but we can make her regret messing with us!”
Karalti angled in, and as she did, I took a healing potion, a stamina potion, and prepared to use Shadow Lance. The dragon's stamina and mana were heading south, but not fast enough for me to worry. Arrow-straight, her scales as hot as the steam erupting from Withering Rose's helmet, she dove between the juggernauts and blasted the tongues. I jumped off her arm onto one of them, bringing the Spear down on the violet sticky flesh. The blade pierced it and froze the meat - and when the Sandworm Queen pulled back, it shattered like it had been dipped in liquid nitrogen.
[You deal 3637 damage to Sandworm Queen! HP: 992,063/1,500,000]
Lord have mercy: it had one and a half million HP.
“Yeah! Get some!” I Shadow Danced along the frozen length towards Suri, keeping half an eye on Karalti as she pivoted on a wingtip and came hurtling back toward us. “Suri! I'm on your head!”
“On my head?” She snarled with effort, pushing the worm back. I was flung into the air as the piece of tongue wobbled and flipped away. With my remaining AP, I dashed in the air and landed neatly on the Warsinger's scalp - and immediately began to yelp and dance around.
[You are taking Heat damage! 20 HP per second!]
“Burning! Burning! Ow ow ow ow!” I hopped from foot to foot as my HP went down and my AP skyrocketed back up, but there was no getting away from the pain. Karalti swooped in, snatched me with a back foot, and hauled me off into the air.
The Sandworm Queen still had five tongues wrapped around Withering Rose's head and shoulders. She let out another jarring, whale-like scream, pulling until the Warsinger was bent forward, her head even with the opening of the sandworm's mouth. Rather than fight it, Suri charged forward, plunged both flaming whips into its maw from the top, and stabbed it from underneath.
The Sandworm Queen moaned and let go of Suri's head. Her remaining tongues were smoking and charred, her belly gushing bluish ichor. She twisted over herself, angling for the sand, and plunged into it before slithering away. All of the other sandworms had fled.
“Yeah! Run, bitch!” I shook my fist at the massive creature as it swam away. “Level 100! More like Level Pussy-Ass Bitch!”
Suri drifted forward a few steps. As massive as it was, Withering Rose did not shake the earth as she walked... other than the creaking of metal, she was almost soundless, skating over the land as if on ice… until suddenly, she drove a smoldering foot into the earth and stumbled forward.
“Hector,” her voice gasped over P.M. “Not to alarm you, but I just ran out of juice.”
Karalti and I could do nothing but watch as the Warsinger fell to its knees in slow motion. Suri had just enough power to soften the fall, but there was only so much you could do to slow the momentum of a 5000-ton mecha. The corona shattered around it as it sunk into the boiling black sand to the elbows, coming to a smoldering stop.
“It's takin’ my fucking blood!” Suri's voice sounded panicked now. “Through the needles! It's draining me to try and fuel itself!”
“We're coming!” Karalti pumped her wings. By holding me in her foot instead of carrying me on her back, she could drive her shoulders without worrying about a rider. “Quick! Eat a sandworm!”
“I’m trying, but I don’t bloody know how!”
“Stay calm!” Rin said. “Stay calm, breathe, and focus on getting it to withdraw. The c-core is going to try and keep itself powered, but you have to override it!”
Karalti landed on the back of the Warsinger's neck, struggling against the updraft of oven-like heat that rose from the metal. I vaulted down, ignoring the heat damage, and ran over to drop down to the door - a hatch, now it was on all fours. I checked the party menu: Suri's HP was low and draining fast. The machine was exsanguinating her.
“You... bloody... prick of a...!” Suri's feed abruptly cut.
“Fucking hell! Stop it!” I banged on the hatch, but there was no opening it. It was sealed tight, flashing red at the touch of my hand. “Goddammit!”
“What's going on!?” Rin’s voice was high with fear.
“It's killing her, is what's going on!” I snarled back.
There was no message from Suri. Withering Rose gave one last sigh, shunting a cloud of heat out of its vents, and then fell completely still.
[Party Member Suri Ba’Hadir has died.]
“FUCK!” I smashed my fist into the door half a dozen times, then reeled away. Before anything else, I went into my HUD and urgently scanned for her location. She hadn't appeared yet: there was a short timer between respawns, and while it was almost certain she would reappear in Kalla Sahasi...
After a minute, a small white dot appeared in the South of Myszno. Relief flooded me in a wave, and I hastily opened up our P.M link. “Suri? You okay?”
“I’m bloody anemic, is what I am,” she grumbled. “Piece of shit machine. But I’m back at the castle.”
I rubbed my sweating face and slumped against the wall for a couple of minutes. It was intolerably hot. when I couldn't stand it any longer, I Jumped up to the edge of the gorget and pulled myself over, only to freeze as a large shadow passed overhead. I looked up, squinting against the setting sun, but couldn't see what had caused it.
“Yeah!” Karalti stretched her wings out and let out a bellow.
“Well... umm...” Rin waited a few seconds before piping up again. “We got the Warsinger? I've got no idea how we're going to get it back to Vlachia like this, but it works?”
“Yeah. We got the Warsinger.” I dashed the back of my hands over my eyes, trudging toward Karalti. “We got Suri, we got the Warsinger...”
Karalti’s eyes suddenly widened, as did mine as the heat haze resolved into the form of a tall, w
hite-haired, chalk-skinned man in armor that was fit for an Emperor.
“And boy oh boy, did you save us all a heck of a lot of work,” Baldr Hyland drawled from behind me. “I’ll be taking things from here, Hector. But rest assured: The Ilian Empire would like to thank y’all kindly for your service.”
***
Will Hector be able to defeat his nemesis in their first show-down since Dragon Seed? Can he unlock the potential of the Dark Lancer Path, and take his abilities from middling to God-Tier in the quest to save Archemi?
Pre-order Spear of Destiny today and be the first to know!
The End.
Well, not quite: keep reading for Discord links, more LitRPG, and a note from the author!
Author Note
Whew – what a ride this book was. To be honest with you all, I really wasn’t sure about Warsinger. Come books, you go into knowing exactly what they’re about. While the goal of Warsinger was always the discovery and retrieval of Withering Rose, I had no sense of how the plot would play out. No matter how I planned, the twists and turns kept coming. I feel that I ended up with a very character-focused book… a book primarily focused on Suri’s growth (and Karalti’s?), more-so than Hector’s.
There is a very longstanding tradition of this kind of character story segues in JRPGs, which is what Archemi always returns to… the series was inspired by my love of older SNES and Playstation JRPGs, especially Final Fantasy 6, Final Fantasy 7, and a lesser-known game called Terranigma. Hector’s choice of weapon (or his weapon’s choice of person, really) is homage to the protagonist of Terranigma, Ark.
The FF7 remake is really bringing this character-driven trait of JRPGs into relief, too. While I was writing Warsinger, I watched a playthrough of the remake and the original FF7 for comparison, and remembered that hours and hours of game time is focused on the various character backstories in games like these. Archemi may well continue that tradition.
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