by Aleron Kong
The Barrow of the Chaos Serpent had used its Blood nature many times. The Deeper magic manifested when the Dungeon grew monsters, absorbed spilled blood and performed several other instinctual actions. Until now, however, it had ignored and neglected an even greater reservoir of Power, the Higher Energy of Chaos. It did not understand the Power. It had felt that the infinite possibilities of the roiling grey energy seemed as likely to hurt as help.
Now it turned its focus to that side of its nature like a baby examining its legs for the first time. On an instinctual level it reached within itself and felt the Chaos that dwelt there. The Dungeon did not try to force a specific outcome; such a thing went against the very nature of Chaos, and the barrow lacked the requisite cognition to even try. Instead, it searched deep within itself and, by feel alone, twanged a single string of infinite possibility. The exertion to reach that side of its nature exhausted the Dungeon’s fledgling consciousness, and it sank into a pleased torpor as it continued to feed on both the people of the mist and tree and their enemies alike.
Though the Dungeon did not know it, its effort had made two small but vital changes. The first was that the gateway to the Mausoleum shifted slightly. Rather than running perpendicular to the sphere of destructive energy above the Core building, it now angled upward and faced it directly. That small change would shape the destiny of many.
The second effect was that a tendril of Chaos magic, as thin as a pine needle, snaked out of the walls and across the ceiling of the Dungeon. It stopped when it found a small chrysalis. The creature inside wakened from her magical slumber and flew through the portal. Her mindless instinct drove her to find a strong creature to bond with. As the lich’s staff exploded, she raced to the top of the Mausoleum. With every flap of her small wings, she could feel the essence of the one she sought growing closer.
CHAPTER 106 – Day 150 – Kuborn 39, 0 AoC
*Master. Master! MASTER!*
Richter came back to himself, blinking. He sat up with a wince. When he had formed the Messeji, his draconian body had been fully healed. That freedom from pain had been a profound relief. The staff’s explosion had fixed that. It was a strange situation spitting with such sharp teeth, but the gobbet that shot out of his mouth was bloody. He looked around, his head still spinning. Why did it feel like he was falling?
*Master! The walkway is collapsing!*
That got through to him. His mind cleared and he realized that he wasn’t falling, the walkway was! Accompanied by the horrible sound of shearing metal, the ground Richter was sitting on tilted even further downward. Before the staff exploded, the angle had only been about fifteen degrees. Now it was closer to forty and the end of the walkway was dropping further every second.
He stumbled to his feet. Even after losing consciousness, he had managed to keep Black Ice in his hand. Richter’s eyes fell upon the body of the lich. Smoke was rising from what was left of Singh’s body. The lich’s left arm was missing and as well as some of his face. That entire side of the undead’s body was charred. The once-powerful king of a soon-to-be extinct kingdom was laid low. Richter’s hand tightened on the grip of his Named weapon and he stared at the Mage with actual hate in his heart. It still wasn’t enough.
He took a step towards the undead caster, but then another bolt of energy hit the Mausoleum. The end of the walkway dropped another twenty feet and the angle of the dangling walkway increased from forty degrees to almost sixty. It also began to tip to the side. The lich’s body slid somewhat before stopping and Richter had to struggle to keep his feet. None of that would have forestalled his vengeance, but something else happened that almost made his heart stop. He saw that Sion’s unconscious body was sliding down and to the side, inching ever closer to the abyss.
In that split second of decision, Richter made a choice. The same choice he had made in the tunnels beneath Law so many months ago. He chose to preserve the life of a friend rather than ensure the death of an enemy. In a move he barely thought about, in under a second, Richter had spun Black Ice above his head and sheathed it. As he turned to sprint up the collapsing walkway, another prompt appeared and was automatically minimized to be read later. The chaos seed did not notice. He had to save Sion!
The rumbling continued. Not just in the walkway, but through the entire Mausoleum as it lost structural integrity. Great rents could be seen in the Core building where the rays of destructive magic had struck it. Hundreds of undead had fallen into the abyss and more than half of the lich’s army had been destroyed. The voidlings and Death creatures continued their battle, neither side concerned with their own preservation. They were true lessons in hate, creatures that would let the world collapse around them if only they could see their enemies die along with it.
High above on the roof, Richter used Cloud Running. His feet set down after each glide, but the jumps let him climb the falling ramp much faster than running alone. Sion continued to slip towards the edge, but Richter got to him in time. The back of the sprite’s head had left a bloody smear across the metal ground as he’d slid. His friend breathed, but would not wake up even when Richter shook him. Analyze showed that Sion had less than one hundred life left.
In that moment, the chaos seed realized that the only thing that mattered was saving his best friend’s life. The battle, his hatred of the lich… it was all less important than the man he trusted above all others. Richter picked Sion up with one hand and left the lich to his fate. He started running with his comrade thrown over his shoulder. It was time to go home. He was almost to the gap in the wall when his body was surrounded by eldritch fire and his mind exploded in pain.
Richter fell down with a scream. Sion’s body spilled out on the ground beside him. They had almost reached the opening in the wall of faces and, for a moment, he had thought it was all going to be alright. Now that he was closer to the end of the walkway, he’d been able to see through the rent in the metal wall and, for once, fate seemed to be on his side. The beam of energy that had wrecked the barrier had continued through it and burned into the trap floor as well. Most of the ground beyond the wall was just ruined metal. The traps had been destroyed! They would have made it to safety… if not for the lich.
The chaos seed felt his immobilized body being lifted into air on ropes of magic. When he was turned around, his draconian face was only inches from the undead master’s green fire eyes. The furthest part of Singh’s eye socket had been destroyed, but the ball of flame within it remained intact.
The lich’s words almost dripped ichor, “You thought you would run to safety?” Singh’s eyes burned into Richter’s. “No,” he pronounced with the finality of the grave. “There is no safety.” His voice had become even more unnatural after the injuries he’d suffered.
Neon green light began to surround Singh’s remaining hand as it wove unfamiliar spellforms. Richter tried to struggle free, but he had no more control of his body than the last time he’d been under the lich’s thrall. Sion still lay unconscious and bleeding on the ground. In desperation, he even tried to force a psychic battle with Singh, thinking that in his Messeji form he just might be strong enough. Though he met the lich’s eyes however, Richter could not even force the mental bond. His mind ran into the barrier of the Mage’s mental defenses and was stop cold.
All the chaos seed could do was watch as the lich enacted his vengeance. The gold light of poison had stopped spreading through the caster’s body, and though he’d been hurt badly and his staff had been destroyed, the master still clung to his otherworldly life. Another beam of energy struck the fourth floor of the Mausoleum and the Core building groaned in response. The furious Mage did not stop. With a final guttural word of power, the eldritch light on his hand lengthened into a blade of fell magic.
“You thought your new body would protect you or give you the power to destroy my mind?” The fires in Singh’s eyes burned brighter, and the next word was thick with hate and judgement, “No.”
The lich swung his hand forward and the fell
blade of eldritch Thought magic cut through Richter’s body. It did not physically harm him. It did something much worse. The Messeji bond between him and Alma was severed and they were ripped apart. A pain worse than anything they had ever experienced permeated their minds, bodies and souls. Alma’s essence left his body in a torrent of blue light and Richter transformed back into a human.
This was not the end of Singh’s retribution. The lich cast a containment spell of pure eldritch Thought magic and a sphere of green appeared around Alma’s essence. Not only did it keep her imprisoned, but it kept her body in an ethereal state of psychic energy. Alma was a creature born of Thought magic, but she was never meant to be incorporeal for an extended period. Singh watched her dispassionately as she began to take damage from being in a disembodied stated for too long.
The sphere of wild magic above them expanded again.
This time, Richter could not even control his body enough to scream, but his pupils widened in unexpressed pain. Slowly, the lich turned his ruined face to regard him before speaking once more.
“You thought your ability to be reborn would protect you?” The fires in the lich’s face burned brighter than ever before. “No!” Singh spat before chanting once again.
Alma screamed inside of Richter’s head as she was tortured inside of the containment sphere. Once again, all he could do was stare at Singh as the lich completed another spell. The chaos seed had never known hatred so intense in either of his lives. Something deep inside of him strained against chains that were weaker than they had ever been.
Singh stared back at him as the lich’s hand was enveloped in green flames. Disgusting words of Power spilled from the undead’s disfigured mouth and filled Richter’s ears, until seconds later, when the caster slammed his burning hand onto the chaos seed’s face. The magic took root in Richter’s soul.
A prompt filled Richter’s gaze unbidden.
You are CURSED! The lich Singh has cursed you with the Curse of Eternal Servitude! If you die before this is removed, you shall not be resurrected. Your soul shall not pass on. You will serve the lich until he himself suffers the final death and, even then, you will be bound to this plane. You will wander as a mindless shade, hiding in the darkest corners of The Land, never to know peace or succor. You shall be damned!
“You thought you would save your people?” Singh screamed into Richter’s face. “No! You cannot even save this one!” The lich cast a spell and eldritch light surrounded Sion’s body; the sprite rose into the air. As the lich continued to vomit words of Power, rents opened in the sprite’s armor, flesh and bone. Blood fell to the ground in wet splashes and Richter screamed inside of his own head. He had lost, and Sion was about to pay the price!
Then something unexpected happened. As was the case in many great tales, the fates of all were determined by the actions of a small and most unlikely creature. A bolt of Primal magic laced with Gravity struck the Mausoleum its death blow at the same moment that a sakeru Life pixie flying faster than the eye could track struck Singh in the face. It was not an attack. It was an attempt to bond with a powerful creature that was the opposite of her element. In time, the eldritch mage could have used her celestial nature to gain power beyond his wildest dreams. In that key moment, however, the lich lost control of all the magic he was employing.
Richter’s paralysis vanished. Sion dropped to the ground screaming, his health dropping more with every moment. Alma was released from the containment spell, and her body reformed in an instant, but she dropped senseless to the ground. Only time would tell the full effect of the psychic wounds she had suffered. And Richter…
Richter unleashed all his rage on a Mage that was finally defenseless and within reach.
With a savage scream of rage and pain and the growl of a monster, he stood and unsheathed Black Ice. In the same motion, he swung his sword in a perfectly executed sword form, for the first time not even needing to think about the attack prior to executing it. Another prompt appeared and was minimized without his notice as the blade flew true. The edge of the Named weapon struck the side of Singh’s neck and passed through with barely a pause. The lich’s head flew free the instant after that.
The Life pixie child that had started to bond to the undead tumbled through the air as well. As she hit the ground, one of her delicate wings was crushed. The head bounced twice on the ground before tumbling out into the abyss. Once, Richter would have hesitated to strike with an innocent at risk. Once, he would have dove after the head in a vain attempt to save the child, but in that moment, witnessed by no Exile, god or man, Richter just grinned at the falling corpse of his enemy as it suffered the final death.
So ended the story of Singh the lich and a pixie child so young that she would never be named.
CHAPTER 107 – Day 150 – Kuborn 39, 0 AoC
Several things happened at once. The undead split into two broad factions, those that were mindless and those that were sapient. The voidlings continued to attack both sides indiscriminately, but the ghasts, vampires, draughr and several other self-aware Death species looked around in astonishment. They were finally free after centuries of captivity. They had to keep fighting against both the mindless undead and the voidlings, but they fled the battlefield as quickly as they could.
The portal also began to flicker. The lich had invested it with a great deal of energy from the Mausoleum to keep it stable, but now that well had run dry. It would remain open for a while longer on the reserves it had, but it already had begun to shrink and soon it would vanish altogether.
More importantly, two prompts appeared in Richter’s vision.
Know This! The caster of your Curse of Eternal Servitude has been slain! His death has greatly weakened the curse but has not broken it. You may now be cleansed of it with the appropriate magic. If you cannot find such a spell, the Curse will fade in 7 days. You are no longer at risk of becoming a servant. If you die before the curse is removed, however, you will not be reborn. You will be bound to this plane. You will wander as a mindless shade hiding in the darkest corners of The Land, never to know peace or succor. You shall be damned!
Another fucking countdown. It was good news of a sort, but Richter was insanely tired of other people having power over his life. There wasn’t the time to worry about it though. The next prompt changed everything.
Know This! The Mausoleum of Saginald has been destroyed. All status effects it enacted are now suspended. All slaves held in its thrall are now freed.
More prompts also appeared and were autominimized by Richter’s settings. He wouldn’t have cared about any of them in that moment though, even if he had known. Something vital, something that had been missing since he’d come through the portal, returned. He had full access to his magic once more and there was a life he needed to save!
The chaos seed wasted no time. Kneeling, he dual cast Minor Slow Heal on Sion. It cost him nearly two hundred MPs and he almost lost control of the spell, but his will firmed and he finished the incantation. Golden light surrounded the sprite as Life energy poured into him. It would take sixty seconds for the over two hundred and fifty points of health to be fully restored, but Sion’s color and breathing began to improve immediately. Richter’s throat clenched when he used Analyze and realized his friend had only had twenty health left when he’d finished his spell.
Sion continued to bleed, and though dual casting Weak Stabilize helped with that, it did not stop the debuff altogether. Richter already knew Alma had plenty of life left thanks to her status icon, but after casting his two spells she still hadn’t awoken. He picked up her small body and gently examined her while casting Weak Slow Heal, hoping it would wake her up. She remained limp in his hands. Her small breast rose and fell, but that was the only movement. A tear threatened to fall from his eye and his heart ached, but he could not afford weakness, not now.
Richter turned back to Sion and was relieved to see that his friend had regained consciousness. That feeling was wiped away when he saw the stark fear i
n the sprite’s face. Sion was looking straight up. The chaos seed had intentionally not been looking at the giant ball of death hanging above their heads because he knew he had to heal his friend. He couldn’t have done that while running, Sion never would have made it to the portal otherwise. Since he couldn’t stop the bolts of destructive magic from being fired, he’d just put it out of his head and focused on the issue at hand. That was when he realized something was different though. For the past ten seconds, there hadn’t been any sounds of explosive bolts being fired from the sphere. In fact, the sounds of battle had diminished a great deal as well. With trepidation, Richter looked up.
The originally slowly-spinning sphere of eldritch magic had been twenty yards across. High above, it had seemed small. After the Exile had disrupted the mana flow, it had grown more every second until it was more than five times as large. It had seemed like a malignant sun that was gradually swallowing the world. As it had grown larger, the flashes of magic on its surface had grown more violent and more vivid. The bolts of destructive power had also come more frequently. Now though, it was beginning to shrink.
No more beams of wild magic were being fired out of it, but the swaths of color were more turbulent than ever. In the first few seconds it lost what looked like ten percent of its mass. As it continued to shrink, the battle of magics within it grew even brighter and its surface shifted faster and faster. A few moments after that, the shifts were occurring so frequently that it seemed like it was flashing. Dread filled Richter’s heart as he realized what was happening. Whether the Exile had altered the flow of magic upon Singh’s death or the globe of Power had just reached critical mass, he didn’t know. What he could see was that it was beginning to implode. He was no expert, but he only knew one thing that happened to explosive material after that.
Looking at Sion he bellowed, “MOVE!”
