by Kyle Johnson
“You okay, Martina?” the red-headed Wizard was asking. No, Sorcerer, she corrected. He said there’s a big difference, I think.
“I’m fine,” she smiled. “I have some solid intel, though. Should we go back to the Library?”
“I can take you if you want,” Aranos nodded. “The others have pretty much finished for the day.”
Martina glanced at the party members, who were starting to clear away the draeg corpses. “I can go later,” she shook her head. “I’ll help out here, and then I’ve got some news for everyone.” She grinned at the Sorcerer. “I’ve found a way into Zoridos’ palace.”
Chapter 18
Lily was pissed. No, that wasn’t right; she was way beyond pissed. She was super, fucking pissed, pissed enough to rip someone’s head off if she got the chance. She was so pissed that she’d just done something stupid, and she hated when she did something stupid just because her emotions got the best of her.
That had pretty much been the story of her life. She’d been royally fucked up, not her fault but there it was, and since then everything just made her so, damn angry all the time. She tried to control it – she’d gone to therapists, taken the meds, talked it out in support groups – but nothing worked. Whenever something triggered her, she lashed out, and later she’d spend weeks cursing her own stupidity.
One of her biggest triggers was losing control, and here she was, as out-of-control as she’d been any time in this damn game – although not in her life. That damn Zoridos controlled all the undead in the city, thanks to its stupid necrotic zone, and now that she was one of them, it could basically make her do whatever it wanted. Lily fought, of course. Lily always fought, even when she knew she wouldn’t win. She’d fought in that piss-smelling, sealed-up dungeon of a room that man had kept her in, every single time, no matter how much it hurt her. She wasn’t going to be broken by some rotting corpse with a trinket it called a crown.
Still – fighting hurt. A lot. Lily shuddered as she remembered the pain. No, it wasn’t pain; it was way beyond it. There were other words for pain – agony, torture, torment – but none of them could describe what the thing had done to her. Every fiber of her body had been on fire; every nerve ending, every tiny cell was shrieking at her and telling her to PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!
But Lily hadn’t begged. She’d cursed, she’d screamed, she’d promised dark vengeance – but she hadn’t broken. She didn’t break then; she wouldn’t break now.
Only she had broken, or been broken, she guessed. And that brokenness – was that a word? It should be if it wasn’t – that was what made her so angry. That was why when the rage flared up in her, she couldn’t think, she couldn’t argue, she couldn’t resist. She had to act; the rage had to be satisfied, or it would eat her from the inside. She knew that, deep down in a way that she could never explain. The only way to keep the hate from destroying her was to let it destroy someone else.
So, when one of her pets saw that idiot Martina hanging out, thinking she was all stealthy, Lily snapped. Instantly, she blamed Martina for everything that had happened, although she knew that was stupid. Lily had been the one to approach Martina, she’d been the one to lure the Ranger and her mangy Warrior to this city, and she’d been the one to urge them to bring Aranos to the temple. It had been Lily’s idea, really – well, mostly, it had. Morx had given her some nudges, but the decision had been hers, and hers alone. She always took responsibility for what she’d done.
And it had all gone so perfectly. The temple had been free of the city’s necrotic zone, just as Zoridos had agreed. Aranos had come, as she wanted; the ritual required that she got killed by someone she considered an enemy, someone that she feared or respected. Geltheriel counted just fine; every time she saw that elf girl, she could almost read all the torments Geltheriel wanted to visit on her in the woman’s eyes. Lily respected Aranos, admitted that he was strong, just like her, but he didn’t scare her. He had limits, lines he wouldn’t cross. He’d kill Lily, but he’d make it quick. Hell, he’d done that the first time they’d met.
Geltheriel, though, scared the shit out of Lily, even though she’d never admit it. Geltheriel would cross those boundaries or break those limits if it meant getting to Lily. That woman hated, the way Lily hated, and hatred was way scarier than anger. When that woman had promised that one day, she’d make sure Lily met the final death? She’d meant every damn word of it.
Lily wished her all the luck in the world, and damned if she didn’t mean it, too.
Of course, it had all gone tits up after that. Zoridos had been playing her – fucking Morx had been playing her – and now, here Lily was, shackled to the lich-thing, not even able to leave the city without dropping to the ground, curled up in pain. All her new power, and she was a fucking slave. And to make it worse, not only had Aranos gotten away – they’d all gotten away, because goddamn Aranos had fucking planned ahead, too, and while she’d had her victory, he’d had his, as well – he’d hurt Zoridos. Badly. The thing’s hand was gone and didn’t seem to be coming back. Its bones were cracked where they hadn’t been before, and it moved slower. It was still powerful beyond Lily’s imagining, but it had felt pain, and that pain reminded it of death.
In a moment of clarity, Lily understood that while Zoridos was surrounded by undeath, real death terrified it. It was afraid to die, afraid of what would come in the afterlife, assuming there was one for NPCs in the game, and that fear was what really drove it. It had found a sort of immortality in whatever it had become, but it wasn’t eternal life so much as an endless reprieve from death. Zoridos was basically spending its eternity fearing death, longing for life, and never really able to get it.
Kinda like your sorry ass, if you think about it, a snide voice whispered in her brain. Lily accepted what the voice said; it usually spoke the truth, and she couldn’t hide from truths just because she didn’t like them. It was right, after all. She was just the same as Zoridos. She’d given up life for something she thought would be immortality, but really it was just keeping death away forever, and ever, and ever…
She shook off the morbid thoughts. Lily wasn’t much for regret; she’d never seen a point to it. She’d acted, right or wrong, and now, half the damn undead around the palace were out in the city, looking for the Ranger. Lily was pretty sure she’d get away. Martina was decent at Stealth, good enough that Lily hadn’t noticed her, but more importantly, Lily hadn’t been able to sense the woman’s life energy. That had been a weird feeling: when she’d first gained her new form, along with yet another World’s first for being the first player to get a racial Evolution, Lily had been a bit overwhelmed by how she could feel the other creatures in the room. They’d practically glowed in her mind, and a tiny part of her had felt a bit hungry for the energy that emanated from them.
But not Martina. Oh, when the woman was tied up on the altar, Lily had felt her just fine. Now, though? She felt like an undead, and if Lily’s pet hadn’t noticed the woman, Lily never would have known Martina was there. It was a neat trick, and if the Ranger could keep it up, the undead would have a lot of trouble finding her. The whole Life Sense thing was a cool Ability, but that was the problem with cool Abilities: if you relied on them too much, once you found someone who could shut them down, you were shit out of luck.
If Lily had been able to think about it, been able to think clearly, she would have used the Ranger to send a message to Aranos. Zoridos was powerful, but it was one of those villains that thought itself so powerful that it could act carelessly. It had spoken freely around her, told her how it had brought down the city, how it created the necrotic zone, how it became so powerful. That was stupid, but Lily knew it was doing it for a reason: it was rubbing its power over her in her face. It had given her enough information to bring about its downfall, but she was utterly unable to use it.
Aranos, however, probably could, and if he did – well, if Zoridos was weak enough, Lily would be able to use her new Energy Drain Ability on it. She’d take its l
ife, its power – and maybe even its crown.
Lily, Queen of Antas. Yeah, that had a nice ring to it. Now, how to get the damn info to where it could do the most good…
Aranos sat quietly, pondering the information Martina had brought them. The Ranger was currently in the Library with Geltheriel, looking at Advanced Class options and, apparently, doing some training. It seemed that Martina had a bit of an epiphany while she was out in the city and had asked Geltheriel for advice. The Shadedancer hadn’t minded guiding the woman a bit – as she’d told Aranos some time back, Rangers were the closest thing humans had to Keepers, and Aranos suspected the elf felt a tiny bit of kinship with the daywalker. So, now, the two of them were training together, and Lily would message Hector when they were ready to return, just in case the Parmassae wouldn’t let them leave on their own.
He wasn’t really worried about the assault on the tower. In fact, part of him wondered if that was a real thing or just a distraction to lure the party out into the open. The fact was, they couldn’t hold the tower and this camp, both. There simply weren’t enough of them for that. At the same time, Aranos was a bit curious, himself, how far his Title’s power extended. It said that any place he Redeemed was immune to further Corruption, but surely there had to be limits to that. There had to be some amount of Corruption that would overwhelm what he’d done; otherwise, couldn’t he just go around, Redeeming everything in sight, until the Lands of Light were free of Darkness again? Granted, that would take years and be boring as heck, but it was technically doable.
The only real issue was that if the tower was occupied, it wouldn’t work for them as a respawn point. However, Hector and Martina’s respawn at their tower showed Aranos that if they did have to respawn, the AIs would find a way to keep them in the same region. They’d probably just find themselves at a safe spot near the tower, rather than inside it. At least, that’s what he hoped, because if Zoridos really wanted to take the tower, Aranos could only stop it by abandoning the city, and that wasn’t happening.
However, if Martina’s intel was right, they had something of a rare opportunity presented to them. Lily and a large chunk of undead would be out of the city, presumably going out the main gates, while another large contingent of the undead were apparently guarding the Library or hunting for Martina. He’d spoken with Silma, and the fenrin confirmed that something over a thousand undead were surrounding the Library, with a swarm of naktraps overhead. Zoridos was making very sure that if the party was in the Library, they wouldn’t be coming out.
And that was what gave them the unique opportunity Aranos saw. Zoridos was hunting for Martina, thinking that everyone else was trapped in the Library. It wouldn’t be watching as carefully as it should, wouldn’t be guarding the places that it might if it knew Aranos was free in the city. And, it wouldn’t be watching its own back door, which is how Martina had gotten into the Treehome in the first place. She’d found an old servants’ entrance, one that the undead knew about but rarely used, and one that led into a series of concealed passageways that eventually opened on the throne room, along with most of the other major rooms of the palace.
Aranos didn’t want to pass up this chance, but he couldn’t make this decision himself. He’d have to talk to the party, to see if they were okay with his plan. It was likely that one or more of them would end up respawning, after all, but if they succeeded, they’d certainly make up any lost XP and then some. Sighing, he lay back against the wall of the room, staring at the bubbling fountain, his mind whirling in thought.
“You are pensive tonight, Liberator,” a voice spoke beside him, and Aranos turned to see Rhys crouching next to him, a half-smile on his face. “That is heartening; I have noticed that your best plans are often presaged by a bout of indecision. One imagines that your plan involves some level of risk to us, and you are uncertain if you wish to put us into a situation that may lead to our deaths. That is, if one were inclined to read the clues upon your face.”
Aranos snorted. “I’m sure there’s a Bluff Skill. Maybe I should learn it if I’m going to keep having these deep thoughts.”
“There is, yes. It is based upon Charisma, so I never learned it. While that Stat is not quite so abysmal for me as for the Lieutenant, mine is quite low. I have simply never seen a need to improve it, and time has borne out my judgment. I have yet to encounter a beast of Darkness that could be swayed by mere words.”
“I honestly haven’t tried. My Charisma’s pretty high, so I guess it’s possible, but we haven’t really encountered anything I could talk to. None of the urukkai seemed to speak Elvish, and I haven’t bothered to try and convince any of the lanohtars to put down their swords and walk away. It never seemed like a good time, you know?”
“That would be quite the sight, Liberator,” the Druid chuckled. “And could any accomplish such a feat, I suppose it might be you. You have done much already in this city, have you not? If you were to tell me that you were to attempt to convince Zoridos to set down its staff and quit the city, I would sigh, roll my eyes – where you could not see, of course – and then sit to watch as you charmed the qualintar with your words. You have a disturbing habit of accomplishing what others would call impossible, after all.”
Aranos was about to protest, but he stopped and considered the Druid’s words. That was the real problem he was wrestling with. It wasn’t that he was worried about telling the party he intended to split them one more time. It was that he couldn’t tell them why, and he was worried they’d balk at being kept in the dark. He would have to ask them to trust him, and he wasn’t sure he’d earned that trust.
Yet, here Rhys was, basically assuring him that he had. Even if the others didn’t agree, it was up to Aranos to convince them. He’d been chewing on this idea for a day, now, and he was convinced it was the best chance they had – really, the only one he could see that didn’t bring the whole city down on their heads. All he had to do now was make sure they saw that. Hopefully, his Charisma would help with that.
The party spent the time waiting for Geltheriel and Martina to return training. Saphielle took the fighter-type players out into the tunnel to work on their Weapon Mastery Skills – the guardswoman had training with one-handed, two-handed, and exotic weapons, and while she’d specialized with her spear, she knew enough to work with the relatively novice players. Rhys and Meridian sat apart, working on their mana training together, which left Aranos to his own devices. He wanted to do some Skill training, but he’d learned that it was difficult to rouse him from his mindscape. Silma had been able to do it mentally, though, and thanks to one of his new Spells, he thought he could replicate that effect.
He walked out of the room and over to Saphielle, who was watching Phil and Hector spar with a critical eye. “You must control your axe more, Warrior!” she snapped. “The Spellsword is not a tree to be felled. When you fail to connect or are blocked, you are unable to recover and leave yourself open for an attack!”
She glanced at Aranos as he stepped to her side. “They have made progress,” she murmured in a low voice. “Yet, the Warrior still tends to flail his axe, relying on sheer Strength rather than the sharpness of his weapon. I will train that out of him, though.”
“I don’t have any doubt of that,” Aranos smiled. “I actually have a favor to ask you, if you don’t mind. I’m planning on doing some Skill training, but Silma’s not here to wake me if we get attacked.”
“You wish me to wake you forcefully? I can do that, although I do not think I will enjoy it.”
“Well, maybe as a last resort,” he chuckled. “I’ve got a new Spell that will let me communicate mentally with someone else, and I think that you’d be able to wake me with it if it’s necessary. Are you okay with that?”
Saphielle glanced at him a bit suspiciously. “I will need more information, Aranos. How will the Spell work? Will you hear my thoughts or sense my emotions? I have shared much with you, but I am not ready to share all.”
“Oh, no, nothing like t
hat! You have to direct thoughts to me if you want me to hear them, and the same goes for me. You’ll only hear what I specifically send you.”
The woman looked relieved for a moment. “Then that is acceptable. Cast your Spell, and let us see how it works.”
Aranos laid his hand on her shoulder and gathered mind mana, weaving it into a simple lattice that stretched down his arm, into the woman, and touched lightly against her mind. The pattern created a simple pair of conduits, nothing more, and when he drew his hand away, the link remained. It was an odd feeling; it was as if there was a tunnel in Aranos’ mind, one that he could shout into if he wanted, but when he stopped paying attention to it, it seemed to vanish. Can you hear me? He sent the thought at Saphielle, who blinked in surprise.
I am able to hear you, Aranos. I presume you can hear me in turn?
Yep. I’m going to go train, now. Let me know if you need me.
I assume you mean, if I need you for battle, not other, more pleasant things, she sent back to him, and he could sense a slightly playful undertone to her words. Although it might be interesting to try those other things with this active. I could be less restrained, knowing that the others could not hear my words. Perhaps we can attempt it this night?
Maybe, he chuckled silently. Although if you’ve been restraining yourself so far, I’m a little worried what might happen.
As well you should be, my love. Remember that I am a soldier, and while my direct experience in this area has been limited, I have overheard much that I choose not to repeat.
Aranos let that line of thought drop; he did sometimes forget that, at her heart, Saphielle was a soldier. She’d lived in barracks for years, spent plenty of time on the battlefield, and had seen more death than he could probably imagine. She wasn’t exactly sheltered from the seamier parts of life, since she’d been living them. She’d apparently been keeping that side of her personality in check a bit; Aranos was suddenly intrigued to see more of it. Maybe using the Spell isn’t a bad idea…