by Cale Plamann
Silence filled the clearing. Other than a disinterested snort from Telivern, none of the creatures responded. Despite that, Micah knew that they understood. Maybe it was the way the Onkerts panted or the gleam in the Brensens’ cyclopean eyes, but they knew that their moment was fast approaching. That soon, Micah would let them off of their leashes to destroy.
With a motion of his hand, he began walking through the woods toward the road to Westmarch. Once they arrived at the road, Micah directed the daemons to stay in the woods, just out of sight while Telivern and he walked toward the citadel. After an hour or so of silence, the buck lowered its nose and nuzzled Micah.
Tension. Illness. Worry.
“It’ll all be over soon, buddy.” Micah smiled slightly as he reached up to scratch the back of the deer’s neck. “I don’t know if we have enough daemons, but we’re out of temporal energy. If this isn’t enough, well… It’ll end one way or another soon.” He pursed his lips. “Tomorrow’s my eighteenth birthday. For better or worse, we’ve run out of time to prepare. Unless we act now, we have maybe four months until Westmarch falls.”
Confusion. Worry.
“In just over three months, the Durgh are going to march forth from the Great Depths and lay waste to the countryside,” Micah replied. “We’re going to beat them to the punch. We’ll descend into the Depths and do enough damage to their forces that the Durgh can’t even think of an attack.”
Grudging Acceptance.
With that last exchange of thoughts, Telivern stepped away and they kept walking, only stopping when the deer needed sleep. Micah either kept watch or hunted with the daemons, quickly and easily finding rabbits or other small game to fill his meager food requirements.
Finally, they reached Westmarch. A great tower, unimpressive after the architecture of Bitollan but an achievement in and of itself, surrounded by a great wall. Even from a distance, Micah could see the siege equipment stuffing the upper levels of the tower, their impressive height giving them a commanding advantage when attacking anything encroaching on the small hill that the citadel was built upon.
He didn’t even bother. Micah had the attunement to go into town and shop, but it would just be a matter of procrastination and he knew it. His fate, for good or ill, lay under the nearby mountains.
They followed the road further, this time not even trying to hide the daemons. Without the forest, it would be impossible anyway. Luckily, they didn’t meet too many people, just a handful of intrepid merchants that braved the Great Depths to trade food and surface medicine to the Durgh in exchange for their superior metalworking.
The quiet trade between human lands and the Durgh clans had never really made sense to Micah. While not explicitly evil, almost no civilization actually liked the Durgh. Their tendency to suddenly attack neighbors and allies without warning in order to fulfill Ankros’ mandate didn’t exactly earn them many friends.
Even if the clans were peaceful, the Great Depths themselves were as dangerous as any dungeon. Expeditions needed to be large and well-equipped to fend off the various horrors that dwelt in the shadows long enough to even reach the Durgh.
They reached the guard post protecting the yawning cavern without incident. Not much more than a walled fort with a couple of huts in it to house the soldiers that worked the outpost, Micah made to simply walk past it into the Depths themselves.
His brow furrowed slightly as a soldier hesitantly left the guard encampment to meet him—a nervous woman in her forties, her knuckles white around the halberd she carried. Behind her, the other three or four troops on duty quietly snuck into the fort.
Micah stopped, allowing her to approach. By the time she reached him, her companions were watching silently from the outpost’s walls.
“In the name of King Gosswood and the Pereston Kingdom, I—" She paused for a second, her voice cracking slightly just before she licked her dry lips. “I request that you stop.”
“I’m stopped,” Micah replied, trying not to laugh as the soldier almost jumped out of her skin when an Onkert whined plaintively at her. He couldn’t help but wonder what her thoughts would be if she could feel even the barest hint of the daemon’s hunger—not for her flesh, but for the very primal essence that made her a coherent entity.
“Thank you.” She gave Micah a pained smile. “I know that you don’t have to humor me, but I appreciate it. I’ve seen Onkerts before and I know that four of five of them is more than enough to tear down our entire outpost. I can’t recognize the other daemons, but every instinct in my body is telling me to throw down my weapon and run away right now.”
“You have good instincts,” Micah chuckled. “Now, if you could let me know what this is about, I have places to go and things to kill.”
“I’m required to stop every party venturing into the Great Depths to ensure that they can handle themselves and to ascertain their purpose.” She paled at Micah’s words but did her best to continue normally. “Now, for you, I know that this is a formality, but could you tell me your class, level, and goal in the Great Depths?”
Micah opened his status screen. Ever since his entourage had grown, his levels had started growing at an exponential rate. It helped that for experience purposes, the tethers turned the daemons into extensions of himself. Even without Micah present, his summons cleared every dungeon that wasn’t regularly raided by Basil’s Cove on a daily basis.
Micah Silver
Age 17 [ERROR] / 27
Class/Level Thaumaturge 32
XP 17,250/40,000
HP 650/650
Class Specialty
Chronomancer
Attributes
Body 10, Agility 10, Mind 53, Spirit 52
Attunement
Moon 16, Sun 2, Night 15
Mana
Moon 2112/2112Sun2084/2084Night 2110/2110
Affinities
Time 10
Tier V - Foresight 4, Time Echoes 1, Temporal Transfer 2, Haste 5
Wood 6
Tier I - Refresh 10, Mending 9, Plant Weave 9
Tier II - Augmented Mending 12, Root Spears 11
Tier III - Heal 8, Paralytic Sting 3
Tier IV - Regeneration 4, Healing Wave 6
Air5
Tier I - Gale 7, Air Knife 15, Air Supply 4
Tier II - Wind Shield 6, Sonic Bolt 11
Tier III - Updraft 2, Pressure Spear 5
Tier IV - Flight 2
Blessings
Mythic Blessing of Mursa - Blessed Return, Ageless Folio
Skills
Anatomy 7
Arcana 7
Enchanting 11
Fishing 1
Herbalism 5
Librarian 5
Ritual Magic 23
Spear 11
-Wind Spear 8
Spellcasting 25
The Thaumaturge class was finally beginning to show its strength. The constant advancement to his Spirit attribute had over doubled his mana totals since level 20. When combined with his incredibly high Mind attribute, which increased the power of his spells as well as decreasing their mana cost, Micah could cast his fifth-tier Time spells dozens of times before exhaustion. Hells, if he could get his hands on a sixth-tier Time spell, he could probably cast that as well.
Of course, his Air and Wood magic were much less than half as effective. Each rank in an affinity represented a major shift in power. Even his Wood spells, at affinity 6, cost an average of 30% less than his Air spells at affinity 5.
Micah returned his attention to the quaking soldier. She’d obviously misinterpreted his moment of silence, and now he could practically see her knees rattling through her greaves.
“As for my class” —Micah just laughed—"I’m a spellcaster. I’m level 32 and my goal is to prune the Durgh clans before they can rise up and attack Westmarch. One of my dungeon rewards alerted me that they planned an attack before the end of the year, and I consider this my patriotic duty.”
“But,” she sputtered, her eyes wide as she too
k in the ranks of daemons, “Pereston has a peace treaty with the Durgh. If you attack them, you’d break that treaty and they’d be fully justified in starting a war.”
“I plan on honoring that treaty just as much as the Durgh do,” Micah replied, rolling his eyes. “Look, I realize that I am venturing into the unknown and attacking a vastly superior foe, but I am out of time. If I’m not strong enough, well. That is what it is, but I’m not going to sit around cowering behind a wall and waiting for someone else to save me.”
Micah’s voice took a bitter turn. “I have seen what is coming to pass. No one takes the invasion seriously, and the powerful flee, leaving the rest of us to our fates. Eventually, the Royal Knights retake the land and we start over. Even if averting that tragedy seems impossible, I still have to try. No one is coming to help.”
He looked her dead in the eye. “I am your last hope. If I fall, you die. Westmarch dies. Basil’s Cove dies. Tens of thousands up and down the Horn Coast will be butchered or enslaved.”
43
Old Age Should Rave and Burn At The Close of Day
The Durgh sentries died quickly. Brensens dropped from the ceiling of the great cavern on top of them, their bony claws ripping through the guards like a boulder through paper. Only their warbeasts—great chitin-hovered hounds with fangs the size of Micah’s forearms—survived the initial surprise attack. They didn’t survive the daemons’ follow-up.
The sliver of light that marked the entrance to the Great Depths had long since disappeared behind Micah, assigning the expedition a sense of finality. Intellectually, he understood the magnitude of his task, but as the last of the day's light disappeared behind him, the truth of the matter set in. He was single-handedly challenging a small nation, and there was no room to return home a failure. Either he succeeded or the tunnels and caverns of the Great Depths would be his tomb.
Luckily, whatever the rituals were changing in Micah’s body extended to his eyes, allowing him to see in the dark without pause or trouble. Although Telivern could glow softly and illuminate the heavy darkness of the Great Depths, it would be as good as announcing their presence to every subterranean creature they came across.
Micah didn’t even spare a look in the direction of the dead Durgh. Although the soldiers were strong by human standards, roughly between levels 15 and 20, they were merely an appetizer for the battle to come.
The next group of scouts spotted his party from afar. They managed to fire a volley of bone arrows at Micah before the Brensens reached them. With a wave of his hand and a word or two of power, a Wind Shield sprang into being. The arrows—with heads molded from strange alloys that bit into the stone itself—clattered to the ground around him ineffectually.
Screams of alarm echoed through the cave as the Durgh quickly found out how outmatched they were. They tried to resist, swinging axes and mauls at the daemons, but the Brensens were too fast and their claws too sharp to be denied. In a flurry of motion, limbs and blood littered the cave’s floor.
Ahead, voices began to echo through the empty caves. Even if Micah had spoken the harsh and guttural Durgh tongue, he wouldn’t be able to understand them, but the content of their words hardly mattered. He wasn’t here to parley, just to eliminate the threat that the tribes posed. The only significance the voices had to Micah was as an indication that he’d been noticed.
A shame, but not really unexpected. He’d only be able to get so close to the nearest Durgh encampment without being spotted. An army of almost fifty hulking daemons with glowing eyes was more or less the opposite of a stealthy approach, after all.
Ten minutes later, Micah approached a gate made of dark bone and bound with finely crafted clasps of metal spanning the mouth of a cavern. Within, lights of flame and magic illuminated buildings and humanoid shapes, but blocking his way were two Durgh, much larger than even their oversized brethren.
“Human.” The male of the two stepped forward, a glaive over his massive shoulder. “You stand before the Rokdur clan at the head of a great host. Your creatures’ claws are stained with the blood of our clansfolk. Tell me, why should I let you pass?”
Micah looked the massive, musclebound Durgh up and down and shrugged.
“You shouldn’t, really,” he replied dismissively. “I know that the Durgh are amassing an army. That in a couple of months, you will spill out of your caves and invade the surface. I’m here to thin your numbers enough that your invasion never comes to pass. I fully plan on killing every warrior in your clan.”
“I don’t know where you’ve heard such slander,” the female Durgh cut in, “but our clan isn’t making any such preparations. If you attack us, we would welcome the challenge. Your blood will make our warriors stronger, after all. There is no need for conflict today. Turn around, manling. Return to your safe wooden homes in the placid overworld. Be thankful that today the Durgh Host does not need your life.”
The entire time she spoke, Micah’s eyes never left the male Durgh. He refused to meet Micah’s eyes as he shifted his weight from leg to leg nervously. The Durgh’s hand grasped the bone haft of the glaive so hard that his dark knuckles began to turn white from lack of blood.
“Your friend may not have corrected you,” Micah answered blandly, “but his actions are as obvious as any words. He may as well be shouting the truth at me.”
“She doesn’t know,” the male Durgh interjected. “The Khan demanded that the clan heads keep our preparations secret until the last moment to preserve the element of surprise.”
Micah nodded slowly, ignoring the look of shock on the female Durgh’s face. She stepped forward, lips flaring around her tusks, and grabbed the male’s massive forearm.
“Horrl,” she bit out, “I am your prime wife and the clan’s lead warrior. What is the meaning of this?”
“You heard the human,” Horrl said shakily. “I am not sure how he learned of the Khan’s plans, but the edict is clear. His discovery is our failure. Honor demands a duel to silence him.”
Horrl smiled ruefully. “I apologize. As much as I enjoy a good fight, this feels too much like subterfuge and dishonor to me. I know my duty, but I am uncomfortable performing it.”
“I understand.” Micah smiled slightly in return. “It feels like another lifetime, but I was a scholar of sorts. I am well aware of your people’s honor and how it binds you. Do what you need to do.”
“Human.” The giant Durgh turned to Micah, slamming the butt of his glaive onto the cavern floor with a deafening crash. “I stand before you, Horrl of Clan Rokdur, head of that clan. I challenge you or your representative to a duel of honor. If I win, I only ask that you turn back from your mission. If you win, I ask that the noncombatants in my clan be allowed to evacuate before your attack.”
“Noncombatants?” Micah cocked his head as he motioned with a free hand toward one of the two Luocas.
Horrl shied backward as the great daemon approached, leering at him from its human face. “Those without blessings.” The Durgh’s eyes were fixed on the Luoca. “Children too young to receive them and their caretakers, those passed over by Ankros in his wisdom.”
Telivern grunted beside Micah. He reached up without turning around and ran his hand through the deer’s fur.
“I was thinking the same thing, buddy.” Micah smiled slightly before turning back to the Durgh, his face returning to its previous severe expression. “Your deal is acceptable. I will warn you that you do not stand a chance in this duel. I would ask that you begin the evacuation now. Your survivors may let your Khan know that I am coming. My goal is not to destroy your civilization, just to stop this war before it spills over onto the service.”
Relief flowed into Micah’s hand from Telivern.
“I thank you for your honor and mercy.” Horrl inclined his head slightly toward Micah before turning to the female Durgh. “Chuth, gather the Unblessed and the children and prepare them for the journey to the Khanmoot. Make sure that they tell the Khan that a human has come to thwart him, and—�
��
The Durgh’s voice caught slightly. He shook his head before continuing.
“Make sure they know that Clan Rokdur died on its feet on the field of honor.” He smiled slightly at the other Durgh, his tusks reflecting the distant light of the village. “There is no need for vengeance or a blood feud in an affair of honor. They must not seek out this stranger. If he survives his attack on the Khanmoot, he is well beyond any of the little ones. I would not have them throw their lives away.”
“Horrl.” Chuth’s voice was incredulous. “How can you be so sure of our failure? I’ve seen you take down two cave skulkers, bare-chested and unarmed. The fight has not yet happened. It is not our way to surrender before the first blow has landed.”
“Chuth.” Horrl’s voice betrayed a definite note of sorrow. “My blessing gives me the senses and reflexes of a predator. I can see and smell what others cannot. Despite his size, that human over there is a vortex of energy and danger. I might prevail against him, but my odds are not good. The creature he has selected as his champion is so far beyond me that I would be lucky to land a single blow before it ends me. I have accepted my fate and I shall face it with honor.” He motioned back toward the clan gate. “Now go—you and the other warriors have work to do before it is your turn to face your destinies.”
Chuth paused for a moment, obviously wanting to disobey her clan leader’s orders. Eventually, duty got the better of her and she turned back to the gate. She pressed her hand against one of the ornate metal clasps, which glowed brightly for a second before it swung open and allowed her to pass.
“Thank you, human.” Horrl inclined his head once more. “May I ask your name before we begin this duel?”