by Hugo Huesca
Murmur probably wouldn’t have been happy at all if his bet with Ed had gone unresolved due to Kharon’s trickery. Any other death was fair game, as agreed. But the Boatman was Murmur’s agent, and his godlike power came with a set of godlike duties.
In other words, Kharon had helped Ed because otherwise Daddy Dearest would’ve pitched a godly fit.
“Your pride grows dangerous, Edward. Mortals sacrifice thousands of experience points to me in the hopes of earning the favors that could’ve been yours freely. Don’t expect me to repeat my offer. From now on, our friendly chats shall have to be strictly business, for I have chosen a new Champion.” Despite his nasty mood, a small grin spread across Kharon’s mouth, flashing Ed the sight of a black worm-like tongue. His headache grew as the distant music of Murmur’s sycophants flooded his mind.
“Ryan,” Ed said. “Not exactly an impressive choice.” He refused to give Kharon the satisfaction of seeing him squirm.
Kharon’s grin grew a tad. “Trust me, Edward, mortals are never impressive. What you can be is interesting. Entertaining, even. Your suspicions are right, I chose Ryan to annoy you. But I’m also curious about what happens to him. Murmur is so grandstanding! Always proving how fallible, how corruptible mankind is. But to find out where a spoiled brat ends up after imbuing him with powers no one else in Ivalis has? That’s more my jam. I’ve no idea what’s going to happen, but you can bet your carcass I’ll enjoy the show.”
“One day, Kharon. One day a mortal is going to do something to you you won’t get to enjoy. Perhaps it will be me. Probably not. But one day, it will happen.”
“You know what, Edward? I don’t think so. But even if you’re right… well, so what? I’ve gotten away with countless horrible, nightmarish, hilarious deeds for eons. What’s the score in the end? Untold millions for Kharon, one point for everyone else.” Kharon bent forward, making his black, tattered shroud ruffle over his thin and inhumanly proportioned body. “That’s the beauty of it. Even if you somehow beat me, I already won.”
Ed found he had no answer to that. Only a sliver of truth in the core of his being. He wasn’t competing with Kharon. The demigod had to go so he could not terrify mankind further. To try to defeat the Boatman one day was a duty beyond the Lordship or anything of the sort. It was his duty as a human being.
“How inspiring,” Kharon said, amusedly. “That’s the problem with you, Edward. Your pride won’t let you accept there are things you cannot influence. It makes you so easy to talk to I cannot stay mad at you for long. I gloat and you stand there and brood, instead of the usual mortal spiels. ‘Oh God, what are you doing to my liver?’, ‘Please, not my daughter!’, ‘Just kill me already you monster!’” Kharon shrugged. “It gets old after a while. Once you’ve heard one plea for mercy, you’ve heard them all.”
The Dungeon Lord sighed tiredly and sat down on a nearby snow bank. “Now you’re just being edgy. Look, since you’re here anyway, you may as well answer a few of my questions. You owe me. For stealing the guy I stole first.”
Kharon rubbed his nonexistent chin. “That sounds almost fair. Ask away. But you still owe me the experience points anyone else should have sacrificed for saving their asses.”
“Nicolai, the man who attacked the Haunt years ago. We believe he was using mindbrood parts to enhance himself. If he was working together with Ranger Ioan, there may be others as well, but our investigations have come out blank. What do you know?”
“Well, they aren’t with us. Not everyone in Ivalis is aligned with the Dark or the Light, Edward. Your friend Nicolai, whose death changed you so much, never so far as stepped into the Netherworld. Whatever is going on is an affair between mortals.”
Ed winced. Had Alder been there, the Bard would’ve pointed out how much Kharon had just tempted fate right there. “You didn’t answer my question. You’re being vague on purpose. Give me something I can use, don’t try the ‘wise man who only speaks in riddles’ routine on a Dungeon Lord. I am not a naïve orphan on a quest."
“Fair enough. To be honest, Nicolai’s organization is shielded from my gaze. As you know, I’m limited in the ways I can affect Ivalis. Unless his people, to give you a few examples, use a Dark Artifact, leave the Ivalian plane, or at least pray for my intervention, I cannot bypass their shrouds. However, the limitations of the Light are different. They act through champions that go wherever there’s a need to ruin everyone else’s fun. That means that if your friends’ intentions involve Heiliges or the Militant Church in any way, the Light is at least vaguely aware of them.”
“So I should ask the people I’m currently at war with?” Ed shook his head. “Alright, at least it’s something.” He could either try to just ask Gallio, or attempt to infiltrate his own spies into Galtia, which would require stronger beings than the simple-minded spiderlings he used locally.
“Anything else?” Kharon asked. “I’ve got stuff to do, Edward.”
“What do you know about the Summoned Hero? The person that created the Inquisition’s Heroes in the first place. I believe he was deleted by Objectivity before I came here, but his creations remained. Is there a way to bring him back? Or at least to find out more about him at all?”
“Bring him back from Objectivity? That’s like asking if you can reverse entropy. Not even the gods know what happens after Objectivity’s intervention. It was here before us. However. You may investigate further. Objectivity leaves traces, that’s how people even know something is missing in the first place. My advice? Earn the favor of my sister, she has a penchant for collecting Artifacts. You already know of the Shadow Tarot. Be careful, though. Skirt the matter instead of delving straight in, or it’ll be me who is left wondering about the Edward-shaped hole in my memories.”
“Fine,” Ed said. That was a bit helpful. We’ll need to go on the hunt for some Artifacts. That should be fun. “One last question. Back there, Ryan asked me something. I don’t even remember what, but it really fucked with my head. Can Objectivity somehow affect Earth?”
“Earth has its own set of rules,” Kharon said. His black beady eyes glinted with hilarity, as if hearing a joke whose meaning only he understood. “You know, Edward? The fun part is, anywhere but Ivalis and you would’ve solved that particular mystery yourself. But as it is, there is no way Objectivity will let you put two and two together—you’re too close. My advice? Don’t think about it. Perhaps you’ll stumble into it by sheer luck.”
Ed studied Kharon’s expression and found he couldn’t read the demigod. It was true that, the harder he thought about it, it was as if a white fog spread through his thoughts. “I see,” was all he said.
“Well, those were the customary three questions,” Kharon said, patting a few frozen snowflakes out of his shroud. “We are done here. Nice talking to you, Edward, as always. I’m still angry at you, though, so if you try this shit again next time I’ll teleport you to the void between two seconds and leave you there forever.”
“Sure. And you remember to stay out of my business.”
Kharon snapped his fingers, and Ed and Shrukew were in a familiar tavern, standing right in front of a table where Kes sat. There were a few screams of surprise behind Ed, and Kes almost upturned the table and was midways from drawing her sword when she locked eyes with the Dungeon Lord.
Outside, something roared, there was a crash of broken glass, and people started screaming.
“What in the Wetlands?” Kes asked.
At that very moment, the doors from the tavern flew open and Alder rushed in like an exhalation, almost running into a purple half-fiend waitress in his path.
“Everyone watch out, there’s an ice giant outside, the thing just came out of nowhere! And, Kes, Ed is stuck in the Netherworld! We need to rescue him before he freezes to death—” Alder blinked. Behind him, the ice giant Ed had faced in the Netherworld swung his mace around the street in a blind panic. “Oh. There you are, Ed. Damn, Kes. You are very good at rescues.”
The giant grabbed a horse
and threw it at a passing white carriage, which didn’t end well for anyone involved. “I think someone owes me an explanation,” Kes said. “But fight first, talk later, alright?”
By the time Ed and the others had rushed out of the tavern, the giant had somehow gone out of view, half hidden by the crowd of fiends and Dark-aligned fellows rushing in the other direction.
It was easy to follow the path of the giant. Just backtrack through the destruction and go in the direction of the most heartfelt screams. The problem was making way through the terrified crowd.
“We should let someone else do the fighting,” Zcaceet said while he, Crait, and the rest of the carrion avians tried their best to take off in flight. The street was too packed, though, for them to extend their arm-wings.
“I mean, we are in Xovia,” Alder told Ed, as the Dungeon Lord shouldered his way past a group of slime men. “These people are not exactly saints.”
Ed shook his head. Every part of him, body and soul, begged him to just clock it out for the day. “No, the giant is our responsibility.”
“Indeed,” said Shrukew. “Lord Wraith promised to gut him open with his bare hands. He was about to when we appeared here.”
“What the hell kind of dinners do Dungeon Lords go to?” Kes asked loudly, before Ed could tell Shrukew he had merely been joking.
They turned a corner past the “Dark Cloak Emporium” discount store and found their prey. The giant was swinging his mace against an empty set of ornamental plate armor that had been in display i a storefront. The mace turned the unenchanted steel into useless slag. Ed winced. That could’ve been him.
The giant looked like shit, though. His gray face looked ashen, and his breath was ragged and difficult. His animal eyes were bloodshot, and the saliva trailing from his mouth bubbled with a nasty strain of yellow liquid mixed in.
“What’s his deal?” Alder asked.
“The heat is suffocating him,” Ed said. “He’s dying. But he can fuck a lot of shit up if we don’t speed along the process. Shrukew, you and your avians take flight. Grab anything heavy and drop it on his head. Alder, illusions duty, don’t let him strike anything or anyone real. Kes, use your shield to cover me and Alder. I’ll get his attention.”
Sadly, he had lost his sword in the Netherworld, but he still had two advanced spells left. “Stone pillar!” he said, taking aim. His tired body produced the charge for the spell, and the ground right below the giant exploded upward after a second, into a perfect circular pillar that would’ve launched a man tumbling backward. The giant, though, merely stumbled back and fell on his ass.
He looked back, straight at Ed, and the Dungeon Lord could swear the dumb creature had recognized him. “Here we go,” Ed said as the giant charged.
Ed ducked, and Alder created four copies of the Dungeon Lord that charged the giant with flaming swords, all yelling dramatic nonsense taken straight from the Bard’s subconscious. At the same time, the carrion avians did a flyby at the confused giant and dropped debris straight on his head. Again, it did no apparent damage, but added to the confusion, which was the entire point.
“Fall back,” Ed told the others, as the giant swung and turned one Ed illusion into mist.
The giant rushed through a rain of falling debris, striking fake Dungeon Lords left and right. A drone rain would’ve done wonders in this situation, but the Netherworld lacked the ley lines to summon them. Instead, Ed turned to Alder. “Any runes left in your pocket?”
“Shit, that’s right,” Alder said, rummaging frantically through his jacket. “Fireball?”
There were still a few people rushing out of the street. “Wait a moment.”
“We don’t have one!”
The giant finished off the last illusion and, once again, locked eyes with Ed.
“Into the stores!” Kes exclaimed, grabbing Alder by the cuff and tossing him through the open space left by a broken glass storefront. She was about to do the same to Ed, but the Dungeon Lord saved her the effort by just jumping through.
He almost went unconscious from the pain in his abdomen as he fell. Glass shards stabbed his forearms. He just wanted the day to be over. Kes fell, rolled through the impact, and stood covered in glass next to him. Alder picked himself up as the other two ran into the store. A couple small fiends hidden under a table gave them a fearful look.
The giant smashed against the building’s concrete, fell on his ass, and went on all fours to crawl inside like a dog digging into a rabbit hole. His extended hands were big enough to close around a man’s waist, and he was strong enough to tear one apart like wet tissue.
“Ed!” Alder exclaimed frantically.
“Not yet! Stone pillar!” The pillar surged forth from underneath the giant’s head, pinning him against the ceiling like a prisoner on an executioner’s block. The giant struggled frantically, pushing against the pillar, making terrible raspy sounds as he slowly suffocated to death on the warm Xovian air. “Now, Alder! Put him out of his misery.”
The Bard didn’t wait for him to say it twice. The eldritch fireball rune, courtesy of Lavy’s magical research, surged through the air in a controlled burst. Kes stepped forward at the same time, bringing her shield down in front of herself and the others. Nonetheless, the impact tossed Ed back and shook the store to its core, cracking the ceiling and showering Ed in a cloud of concrete dust. His ears rang and his throat burned. He coughed and gasped for air as he stumbled upward.
Kes, who was caked in the same dust, gave him a hand. Only a few meters away, the remains of the giant slid wetly to the floor.
“Finally,” Ed said.
Alder gave him a confused look. “My prompt says all experience points from the kill counted as a sacrifice to pay what the Haunt owed Kharon. What the hell happened in the Netherworld? You were there like two minutes!”
Kes’ eyes widened. “What do you mean Netherworld? You two were supposed to have some canapes, then come back here!”
Ed gave her a weak grin. “Infirmary first. I’m this close to passing out here, guys.”
You have gained 20 experience points for defeating an ice giant. The experience has been forfeited as a sacrifice to the Dark.
Your attributes have increased: Endurance +1.
Your skills have increased: Leadership +1. Your aura’s energy expenditure has been reduced.
There are new talent advancement options for you.
15
Chapter Fifteen
Schemes
Lavy pulled back just in time to avoid the gigantic hand about to close around her neck. A series of enchanted straps and silver-infused chains stopped the undead appendage from escaping the confines of the dissection table and a safety spell triggered an instant later, dousing the table with an anti-magic field strong enough to disable the necrotic energies animating the hand.
“Well, baby certainly has a bite,” Lavy said dryly. Behind the dissection table with all her tools, books, and scrolls strewn about, a vat filled with green viscous liquid cast a long shadow that reached down to engulf her. Lately it seemed as if it mocked her.
All the resources at her disposal, all her riches and supposed talent, and yet what was supposed to be her biggest accomplishment eluded her.
Animating Rolim’s body was no trouble in itself. Although she was a Witch and not a Necromancer, the process of creating a zombie was easier than animating a skeleton. With a skeleton you needed high Necromantic ranks to create the magical pathways to give it a “mind” capable of following simple instructions. A zombie, on the other hand, was an angry animated corpse running on leftover instincts, Dark magic, and an appetite for human flesh that no Necromancer could really explain. Zombies just seemed to like the taste.
The problem was, Lavy didn’t want to create a zombie. She wanted to return Rolim’s spirit into the land of the living and force it back into his body. She wanted to create an intelligent undead.
Her hand brushed against the unholy book lying open on the table.
—Brief Introduction to the Dark: a layman’s guide to the worship of all things Unholy and Uncanny, by the emeritus Sage Obed-Ax-Tish—
To say the tome was cursed was like saying a batblin bathed in butter running from a hell chicken was having a rough day. “Brief Introduction” had a long history of appearing at random at the worst places and unleashing horrible doom onto the poor fucks that read it without proper precautions, then disappearing again for years until some other idiot found it, then it happened all over again.
Randomly, a Necromancer or a cultist with aspirations would manage to get his hands on it, and then the Inquisition, or the Adventurers Guild—or whoever was closest to the clusterfuck, really—would have to deal with an army of empowered undead abominations plowing through the countryside like a group of sailors through their first brothel.
For some reason the tome preferred to appear to teenagers. Maybe, Lavy guessed, because teenagers often lacked the developed Spirit ranks to know not to open a book with such a title. Maybe they were just that gullible.
Lavy had found it through the contacts of her shopkeepers, and their agents had found it in turn in the smoking remains of a Summer Palace in Plekth, after hiring the help of the Adventurers Guild to clear the site out of the angry aberrations that had murdered the poor princess—along with all her friends and retinue—who had found the book in the palace’s library. The Guild leader, the Rogue Katalyn, had assured Lavy in her letter that clearing the palace had been quite the adventure, and had thanked her profusely for the experience points.
Lavy knew her witchcraft allowed her to bolster her Spirit with her Charm ranks when confronting cursed objects. Even then, she made damn sure not to even glance at the most dangerous parts of the book, confining herself to the eldritch secrets she knew she could handle. To avoid confusions, she had marked the risky sections with pink papers with warnings such as “Outer Realm Summoning: 5 ranks in Enhanced Witchcraft required.” The slips meshed well with the human-bound leather dust-jacket.