Ethria 3: The Liberator

by Holloway, Aaron

  Shaking my head, and leaving my minions and allies to their own battles, I turned back to help my companions. The laughing of the playfully murderous brothers now behind me echoing over the snow covered battlefield.

  Chapter 28: The Sorcerers Servants

  "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." - Friedrich Nietzsche

  The Sorcerer's Tower, Outskirts of the City of Sowers Vale, 9th Novos, 2989 AoR

  The Imps above me seemed to reach a kind of critical mass. They organized themselves into a formation I had seen birds use, before launching themselves at the penal legion. The legion had advanced to the crest of the ridge and had loosed two more volleys at the flying pests. But now it was time for the sorcerers’ servants to strike back.

  Three separate masses of imps launched themselves at my forces. Men screamed in rage and pain. Imps cried and laughed as steel met shadow stuff. The central and largest of the three groups of imps crashed in the middle of the penal legion. I couldn’t see the fighting from where I was, but the sound was near deafening. The other two groups moved much more slowly around the sides, as archers picked them off at range.

  I couldn’t help them anymore. I had to focus on my immediate surroundings. Tol’geth had ripped the arm off of one of the three Shoto’s, and had brained the man senseless with it. The other two struck, one sending a spear through my friend’s thigh, and the other trying to skewer him with his long curved blade. Tol’geth blocked the blade with his hand. Coated in the remaining stone from Pina’s support spell, Tolg’eth’s flesh resisted the damage. Still, I could clearly see blood as it trickle down his arm as he held the blade still.

  The spear wielding Shoto tried to yank his weapon free, before receiving six Force Bolts to the chest. The man staggered back, leaving his weapon in my friend’s leg. This gave Tol’geth a moment he sorely needed, bringing his makeshift club down on the central Shoto’s head. The strike cracked bone and skull with a loud snapping sound that sent shivers down my spine. A second Shoto fell to his knees, and Tol’geth pulled the spear from his leg. He lifted it high and skewered the stunned samurai through the top of his skull.

  Seeing my friend had some breathing room, I found Pina and Ailsa desperately fighting what looked to be a losing battle. Tentacles of writhing shadow stuff emanate from the cultist woman. Her eyes and hands glowed a sickly green that felt as much as it looked wrong. The magic that poured from her felt like oil in a world filled with water.

  Dale’s blade glowed a hot white as he activated some knightly ability and slashed at one tendril. The shadow stuff melted away at the touch of the blade, replaced by the sickly green that the cultist has used to augment her casting. Ailsa blasted the shadow encased woman with lightning, but a tentacle met it and guided the electricity into the earth. The spell did little but exhaust my fairy friend.

  I quickly glanced at my mana pool. I didn’t have enough mana for a Light Lance 2, but I could try the weaker variant. I raised my hand and let loose a small beam of condensed light magic directly at the cultist. She blocked it with a thick tentacle. The shadow stuff melted away from the arrow, but instead of boring a whole through the tentacle as I had hoped, it just burned and sizzled.

  “Pathetic! How you managed to frustrate the sorcerer so I will never understand.” The cultist reached out and swatted Ailsa out of the air. Dale cut through two more tentacles with a wicked slash of his sword, but it had little effect on the evil woman’s concentration or lethality.

  Pina simply stared at the fighting, a tense expression on her face. Not wanting to disturb the druid, I raised my staff and let loose a barrage of several Force Bolts with the acid augmentation. They splashed against the shadow flesh of the cultist, sizzling and burning away several of the smaller tentacles. I let the damage notifications roll through my mind; I was barely doing anything to her, but hopefully I was doing enough to distract.

  Dale launched another attack, using an ability directly at the woman’s heart. The cultist grunted, battering the attack aside with two thick tendrils as she backed up a few paces. Dale knelt down and picked Ailsa off the ground, then retreated, shield raised, glowing a soft white.

  I kept a close eye on my mana pool. With nearly 5 mana per second regeneration, it would take me two minutes to regain enough mana to use Light Lance 2 without bottoming out. With the cost of maintaining the summons, I realized it would take even longer. I gritted my teeth and aimed a few more Force Bolts at the crazy woman’s face. They splashed nearly harmlessly on her writhing tentacles, and she lashed out at Dale and Pina.

  The druid jumped back and spat at the black tendril that struck at her. It missed, but only barely. “I’m out of mana, you?” I asked, as she stepped next to me. She nodded and lifted her club.

  “Didn’t have that much to begin with. My regeneration rate depends on how strong of a connection I have with nature.” We both had to dodge an attack from several weaker tentacles. It wasn’t hard, but it was distracting. “With everything desiccated for nearly a quarter mile, that connection is weak.”

  I pulled back another couple of feet and opened up my satchel, looking for something that might be useful. “Control rods, no. Light magic lore book. No.” Then I found something. The small flashlight, half charged and poorly constructed by elvan standards, still held quiet a bit of mana. I had fully refilled the gift that Lisander had given me when we first met, and had just left it there waiting. I had gotten a higher quality one that I had sold as part of our upgrade trade at the magic market, but Lisander’s first gift? I had kept that. “Sorry Lisander, but I need the mana.” I touched the lamp and pulled the mana into myself. A good portion of it dissipated, but most came back refilling my mana pool a little.

  You have reclaimed, 327, mana. You can reclaim an additional 100 mana points if you wish to unravel the enchantment that grants the device structure. Unravel enchantment: Yes / No.

  I mentally selected Yes, and I cast a small version of the new spell that Zed had taught me earlier. The principles were the same, even if it wasn’t really a spell in the traditional sense. I unraveled the mana construct that was clinging to the physical lamp, pulling the mana that gave the enchantment structure into my mana pool.

  Mana pool: 973 / 121,040

  “What are you grinning about? You’re more useless than I am right now.” Pina pummeled one tendril that got past Dale with her makeshift club. The club packed a wallop, and she knew how to use it. As the tendril recoiled from the bludgeoning it had taken, I poured mana into one hand. I then touched the tiny pebble that was the first experience I had with enchantment here on Ethria. I had thought it had unraveled, but I was pleasantly surprised. I received the notification that I could unravel the enchantment. It still held one charge of Pain Relief 1 attached to it. I unraveled the enchantment, though the increased inefficiency from manipulating someone else’s enchantment and converting someone else’s mana into my own was greater than I had hoped Total I gained 87 mana, bringing me just barely over the top of what I needed.

  I poured mana into my other now free hand and brought them together, shaping the golden light into what I needed it to be. My will suffused the spell and the world around me filled with a vibrance and importance that I had rarely known. Only when touching Light magic did I feel so connected to the surrounding world. I felt a pang of regret about needing to excise the wound that was the person in front of me. She, whatever her name was, was important. She was part of the tapestry, part of what gave everything in the world vibrance and uniqueness. She was important. And I was about to delete her.

  Dale cried out as tendrils of darkness wrapped around his legs and pulled, dragging him prone across the rock and snow. Green, eerie fire erupted from the woman’s outstretched arms aimed at the knight. That sickly green glow was repulsive to me. Every sense was in overdrive, and was bombarded with the most grotesque sensations just from looking at it. It was not from Ethria; it was wrong, and no light or shadow should ever touch it. Whatever it was, every fiber of my
being screamed, it was here to destroy me. And that I should destroy it first.

  My hesitation evaporated as I choked back bile and threw my hands forward. A streak of iridescent light shot forward, as if the mana was almost eager to meet and destroy the green flame that flickered in the woman’s hands. The sense of rightness intensified. When the beam struck, the cultist screamed incoherently. It bore through several of her thick tentacles she rose to block the attack before boring square through her chest.

  You have struck an Unknown Cultist Leader for 153 base plus modifiers. Modifiers: Light Weakness +1.5. Forsaken Influence Purge +2. Ethereal Form: -1.5. Total Modifier: x2. Total Damage: 306 Light Damage. Effect: Forsaken Purge - All Forsaken Influence is removed from the target. All damage prevented by Forsaken Influence is doubled and returned as the influence is purged.

  The green light dimmed and then vanished as the shadow that the cultist had been using shrank. The hole I had bored through the shadow stuff was gone. It had taken what she had left just to support her normal form. The tendrils left were small and came from the back of her robe. She collapsed to her knees and the tendrils quickly pulled her up, supporting her.

  “The book from Jekkel,” she said despondent. “I can no longer hear its voice. The book lied. No, the voice lied. She didn’t augment my power. She replaced it, syphoned it away. Why, mother why did I—” Dale ran up to her and lashed out in a single smooth horizontal strike. The attack landed, bisecting two black tentacles as they attempted to intercept the blade and removing her head from her body.

  “You fight this crap often?” Dale asked, panting as he cleaned the blood from his blade. Before responding I turned and found Tol’geth holding a defeated, yet still oddly living Shoto by one arm. The man was unconscious and was bleeding from several major blows. This was the one whose arm he had ripped off and used as a club. But somehow he was alive.

  “He has surrendered. I can not take his life, nor allow any of you to do so. He is under my care.” The large barbarian said, shaking his head sadly.

  “And now we’re burdened with him.” Pina chided the large barbarian. “Just leave him here. Whatever the fates have in store for him, it has nothing to do with us.”

  Tol’geth hesitated, then explained his dilemma. “If I do this, I will lose the honor I have gained from this fight.”

  “If we give him over to the legion, would we be able to leave him in their care?” I asked as I glanced back at the fighting just over the hill. My summons were all but gone, only a handful of hounds now masterless, and my Lord where in the fight. They have proven effective, and if I lived past today, I was strongly considering finding a Lord to form a pact with. Nearly the entire back line of the enemy was down or gone. The cultists who had followed Mr Electric, and the slayers who I thought must have been Shoto’s followers, were running for their lives or dead.

  “That should work, yes.” Tol’geth said. I reached into my satchel. It was about time to use that trump card. Several of the larger portals were still open, with imps coming through in ones and twos. I didn’t know what else might get summoned, or where Jekkel was and what he was up to. Honestly, I really didn’t want to find out.

  I pulled out a bundle of nearly three dozen control rods and forced what little mana I had left into them. Forming a bond with each one to my will. “I think it’s time we got out of here. What do you all say?”

  Chapter 29: The Great Retreat

  "I came, I saw, I conquered." - Julius Caesar

  Just Outside the Sorcerer's Tower, Outskirts of the City of Sowers Vale, 9th Novos, 2989 AoR

  Ailsa healed us all after Pina used one of her last healing spells to revive the tiny fairy. Ailsa used nearly half her mana pool, but we were all restored to perfect health. Which was good, because I was at less than half when I had helped my friends. I passed the weak mana potions around, and everyone restored a bit of their pool before we started looking for a way back to the city. The conversation was quick, but in the end my friends agreed. There really wasn’t anything we could do but try to fight our way through.

  “Tol’geth, would you mind, um, you know, carrying me? I’m going to be busy with these.” I hefted the control rods. My friend laughed and picked me up, placing me on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Before I activated the rods, I tasked my last two Shadow Hounds with protecting us as we moved up the hill. Then, as my friends started up the slight incline, I activated the bundle.

  ---

  My will connected to nearly a hundred constructs at once. The control rods acted as a buffer between me and their inquisitive. Even though these were golems and not summoned creatures, the weak connection they required would have taxed or even overwhelmed me if not for the magic inherent in the rods. I told the rods what to do, and the rods then told the golems what to do.

  The small fire braziers the archers had carried that out of the city walls to allow them to ignite their oil soaked arrows and bolts erupted. Nearly a dozen basic fire golems emerged from each. The ground to the sides of my forces groaned as two rows of three deep stone-golems pulled themselves from the snow and earth. These were the ape like variant on the basic design. From the snow piles that had grown in the forest as the battle raged, the same number of water golems emerged. Half frozen into ice, but still with the will and mind to obey my commands. I then connected to the three ‘experiments’ that I had specially placed before the battle had started.

  I commanded the rock golems to move forward in front of the legion. Though my men were fighting with swords and spears against the flying imps, the best they could do without ranged weapons was to hold them off. It only took a slight tweaking of the earth golems through their control rods to teach them how to throw rocks, or each other, at the pesky aerial menaces. As the slaughter began among the shadow imps, I tasked my Fire golems to make themselves tempting targets. While they spread out in ones and twos spitting small streams of fire at stragglers who broke from the groups of imps or dodged the rock golems attacks, I connected to the Water golems.

  The water golems were half frozen, but oddly they looked to have incorporated the ice and moved it around their forms to where it would be effective. Some made it into armor, others into weapons, and others gave their physical shells simply more cohesion. A few of the golems, however, had frozen solid and lost nearly all their enneagramic matrix cohesion. It was sad to lose those. But the new slightly improved water golems I now had at my command were far better at nearly everything I was going to use them for.

  I commanded the water golems to move out of the tree line where I had them stationed, and to launch ice and water attacks at the imps that had attempted to flank. Their attacks, along with those from the archers, whittled the imps down to virtually nothing. Sending dozens of the small summoned creatures back to the shadow realm. When my newly dubbed Ice Golems were finished, I ordered them to move forward. They slowly advanced until they were at the northern perimeter of the fight. I ordered the earth golems to make their way to the center. They would be the bulwark of my plan.

  When the earth golems made it, placing themselves between the archers and fighting, I had the fire golems stop acting as distractions. They assembled to the south of the battle. When the last earth golem slammed its gorilla-like fist into the ground, a horn I had given Quinn blew long and deep. Images of the deep parts of the world filled my mind as the sound hit my ears.

  Mist rolled over the battlefield starting from where Quinn was standing, just the other side of the earth golems. The mist quickly dissipated as short, shadowy figures emerged. A dozen dwarves, thick, glorious brown and black beards nearly reaching to their feet, with armor as thick as their hair, carrying massive crossbows as sturdy as their legs stood ready for a fight. One of them looked to Quinn, and when the leader of my legion pointed at the imps, the squad of angry short dudes pulled their crossbows to their shoulders and started firing.

  “Legion, retreat! Back to the walls!” Quin shouted. The men who had been desperately fight
ing off the swarm began an organized retreat. Well, as organized as a bunch of people who had tried this move only twice could be. About half way through the process, the remaining men and women simply raised their shields above their heads and ran. I ordered all of my Golems to launch their attacks at the same time the archers let loose their last volley before they joined the retreating forces.

  As I reached my will out to activate the three golems that the archers had left behind, my final going away present to the sorcerer and his minions, something bad happened. The earth shook, and a rumble of rage split the air. “NOOOO! I will not fail! Brother, you vex me much, but even you can not stop my wrath!” I opened my eyes, allowing only a weak trickle of my will to touch the control rods. Just enough to keep the golems doing their jobs.

  “What is? Oh, sweet marry mother of Jesus, that’s not good.” I whispered to myself. The two brothers grappled with one another. My Lord, the last of my summons still on this plane of existence, was being held by both arms by his brother. The Taller, larger, stronger Lord had left his hammer behind somewhere, choosing to deal with his half pint brother with his own hands.

  My summon beat his wings hard, trying to push his brother over, but the behemoth was too sturdy. Instead, he pushed him backwards, into my barely finished line of earth golems. I ordered two of the burly golems to charge forward. Two in the center of the line charged at the large enemy lord, grabbing on to his legs and weighing the brute down. The powerful wing beats coupled with my golems found the gigantic lord falling. He spread out his on wings as if to catch himself, but it was far too late. What the enemy Lord did instead was scatter the imps, sending several of them back to their home realm.