The hooded figure cut off the Vizier before he could continue to explain his delusion. “Either as servant under the Golden Hand, or as servants of the dead. Such a luxury of choice. I wonder which you will choose at the end of this path you so briskly tread upon.”
“Bah.” Amon spat on the remains of the ‘servant’ that had apparently been an assassin. He tired of this conversation. “Why should I believe your words, glow-mouth?”
That dreadful gravelly voice made the Vizier feel awful each time the man spoke. It was something about the depth… as if the throat used wasn’t alive enough to properly make the sounds. “For while you are a flame, Amon. I am but the moth, inexorably drawn. Your ventures have been seeing success, yet the results have only brought you low. How strange that victory would cause… demotions.
“Again and again the gold bangles have been taken from your arms and body, until the last earring was wrested from you. Even now, the ritual paints on your form are sub-par, when they used to be applied with the most exquisite of lathers. Is it really my words that need proving? Or is it perhaps the hidden intent of others that need unearthing? Such is my offer to you, old friend. Such… is my Favor.”
Setbacks had caused the Vizier several bouts of poor health. His servants had mysteriously left one after the other, ‘repurposed’ to other services. Fortune had not been kind, and the figure’s words did not carry lies. He could smell it on his tongue, flicking the forked member from between his lips to have a taste of the air. “I… shall entertain this. What then, do the dead need a mountain for?”
The hooded figure shook his head. “It is not what the mountain is needed for, but rather what the mountain is in the way of. It entraps an ally to our cause that we dearly need to free. It simply happens to require a… roundabout method. This is why I suggest you let the new ‘princess’ take the sacrificial plunge for you, rather than take it yourself.
“What we need rests deep, deep in the depths of that mountain. Which they will no doubt seek to explore after a little bird whispers about secret passages to the inhabitants. All these gathered raiders will be a great feast to awaken our Ally. Golden Hand raiders will defeat the denizens of the mountain, and flood its innards. When the way is cleared, they will be but bodies for the cause.”
The hooded figure smiled, and the stench was awful as Amon again tasted the air. How putrid. This thing was definitely only a vessel for whatever voice was speaking through it. “What, then, is the cost of a Favor?”
The mocking steeple of the hooded figure returned. “Ah, onto business then. It is always pleasing how swiftly the intelligent turn to see the value in things. I shall grant a maximum of three favors. Each favor shall cost you one of your chosen. Yet… each favor will gain you more than you might imagine it at first would.”
That was a hard meal to swallow. It would take a few days to ascertain the validity of this ‘free’ favor, yet he already smelled its accuracy. His chosen were the linchpins of his success, but dark favor wasn’t something one took lightly. “It will not harm me to lose one chosen. So… one favor I shall take now.”
The hooded glow-mouth nodded in delight. “Then one of the emerald eyes I shall take, and one favor I shall bestow.” Glove removed, a skeletal hand and arm reached into his own distended, gaping mouth to pull free a goop-covered memory stone. The hand dropped the shiny marble into shadow, and a weight appeared in the Vizier’s hand.
“The first favor I grant is one of Power. The use of it, you understand. The purpose of it, I shall reveal. Delay the Golden Hand’s foray to the mountain for two decades. Your princess has gathered thousands of troops, yet she does not understand the dangers of it as I do. That region holds many rogue cultivators, which increases the location’s might. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of raiders will be necessary. The power I have granted shall ensure that you are able to accomplish this task. Whether you do… or do not… is your choice. Yet it is rare that one granted this power does not seek to use it in full. I would see you relish in its knowledge and sate your hunger for fame. For that… is what it will do.”
Amon pressed the stone to his forehead, and he knew. “I...oh. Oh. I see. This… I understand. It makes me consider what your other favors may grant.”
The undead visitor glowed a green smile. “Does this one request the second favor?”
Burdened with knowledge of unholy power and its uses, a similar green glow began to burn in the back of the Vizier’s throat. He was already greedily using the gifts he had been granted. “Oh, I do, old friend. I do.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Artorian shielded his eyes as he peered into the distance. A fantastically dressed Pine, Birch, and Human were all standing in the middle of a lake. They stood on the water, using a widespread net of water Essence to gather water tension and remain stable. This method copied water striders in some sense, but for creatures magnitudes larger.
Ember kept guard nearby, standing arms crossed at the edge of the nearby outlet to the bay. Her frilled petal dress matched her healthy crimson hair swimmingly. She’d filled out from her previous grandmother’s frame over the last few years; back to a spartan-built powerhouse sporting sleek and obvious muscle. Power visibly corded beneath her Mana skin.
Little was happening in the physical world, mainly because the Elves-turned-nomads were keeping a sharp eye on the oily, Blighted Core-tree in the far distance. It was such a filthy, obvious, smoke-belching source that you didn’t need the phantom wails to realize it was one of the sources that the Blight used to repopulate its smoky forms.
Where the Blight had become stifled, the Elves had flourished. The Senate had done majestic things to their combined growth. Something akin to a golden age had occurred since the advent of their shared mental prowess. A revolution of cultivation sharing and advancements had been brought forth by a foolish human, and his invitation to what any Wood Elf had previously considered a racial secret:
The inner workings of a cultivation Core. What one had begun, others had spread. It had been the young ones at first; opening the path from the Forum to their tree Centers, showing where they were stuck, and what was causing them to experience blockages and difficulties directly, rather than through troubled explanation. With the secrets of elder trees revealed by the machinations of the young, a joined effort to grow the saplings as best as one could had arisen between them.
No longer did a sapling depend purely on their parent tree for guidance. Now the entire culture shared, and shared freely. When it was safe to do so, great orders of Elves each opened pathways to their Cores, showing how their Core-tree operated. While exploring refinement enhancements which had caused even elders to get stuck, younger trees had found easy solutions. Centuries of cultivation progress was made in the handful span of seasons as Wood Elves traveled from hometree to hometree, purging the region of Blight with ever more powerful and methodical efficiency.
The Forum was a constant cacophony of activity. Considerably improved methods of communication had been devised; ones that did not deafen the rest of the Forum upon use. To Artorian’s delight, it had once more been the youngest among them with the most fascinating of ideas. Their exposure to so many cultivation methods, ideas, and freely shared techniques had opened their eyes and minds to combinations the older of their flock could not imagine. Permutations of existing techniques, variations in simple patterns causing great effects, abilities such as standing on water accomplished easily.
What had been a society of shy, separated, distanced groups were now a thriving nomadic species. It was going to take many, many more decades, but the saplings of the future would gain cultivation Cores in brand new hybrid trees that vastly outstripped any that lived now. What had been shattered and stale was unified and allowed to evolve anew.
Entire new species of trees were developing as Core-tree techniques improved, merged, or were replaced altogether in favor of something better they had found. They’d even crafted a brand-new type of plant specifically mean
t to combat the Blight’s toxic air when they were close to a spewing source.
All the plant did was purify the air, creating good oxygen at a rate that vastly outstripped existing plant outflow through some truly ingenious applications of air Essence. They planted these filtration ferns everywhere they went to passively combat the Blight. They were sure that, one day, this plant might save the world from itself.
Their descent was swift, but the ground—rather than their bones—rippled and broke in waves as one would expect of water when they made three-point contact with the floor. The impact made a quake of Essence roil from their bodies, absorbing all of the harm that gravity would otherwise have demanded of them.
They hurried, but a growing set of lights in the Forum said they might arrive too late.
The chipper young voice shouted into the Forum, but the sapling stood and held his ground. He was ready to bolt if that was the conglomerate order. Voices joined and spoke as one. Easily fifty to sixty Elves had joined a single conscious mind and voice within the senate, and their incredible intelligence decided on a course of action before the sapling finished its outcry.
Artorian imbued his starlight Aura. Unlike years before, he was no longer slapping the Essence combinations in and altering the identity effects on the fly. Now all of his Essence was ever-present in his Aura, and differing amounts of it were activated depending on what was needed.
Hookah-assisted control was paramount, but the effects were a marvel after plenty of time and practice. The starlight Aura didn’t cause a lick of light. His physical being remained entirely unchanged as it stood on the lake, overlooking the scene with Pine. The effect moved inwards and pressed through the connection of his Core, entered the Forum, and was passed like a baton to the eagerly outstretched hand of the sapling about to get Blight-mobbed.
The connection was made in time, and a retributive Aura of sunlight exploded from the previously hidden sapling. He charged the Hive of Blight, releasing a sanctioned, unbridled warcry that made even Ember smile approvingly. The youngster set off traps that had been set by the Blight. Huge pipelines wrenched from the ground and bellowed infernal wails. Phantom shapes formed and counter-charged towards the miniature sun vaulting straight at their hive.
No amount of billowing Blight was enough.
The young Elf blitzed through the disintegrating smoky masses and into the target like a guided lightning strike. With Essence-enhanced speed, the boy was a blur of motion, eradicating swallowing darkness in a straight path. Eventually he got close enough to the hive to strip the outer layer of fireproof muck from it.
The Blight screamed bloody murder at the boy. It was helplessly forced to watch from outside the radius of murdering light. The lad smiled at the abyssal enemy that had taken its parents, and given it a life of fear and grief. This was payback! This was retribution! This was…
*Fwoomph*!
Ember’s spiraling tower of cleansing flame ripped through the vulnerable Hive-connection. The swirling pillar of ebon-orange compressed to the width of a boat’s mast as it bored a hole straight down to the Hive’s source. The young Elf, the surrounding Wood Elf Scouts, and all current lookouts turned on their heels and ran for their lives.
Atop the burning pole, a white-hot ball concentrated and collapsed in on itself. It looked suspiciously like Artorian’s cultivation Center. A rumble went through the landscape as the Fire Mage’s searing ray breached all the way down into protective bedrock. Ember compressed the bear-sized fireball to the size of a pea in an instant.
Her hand reached for the flame, clasping it from afar as she released a burning scream. The physical exertion controlled the pea-sized orb as her clasped hands struck downwards, and the white-hot solar orb split the inside of the searing beam, guided like a water drop through a straw. In a blinding, explosive flash of light, the gaseous pockets, oily masses, and infernal corruption beneath the hive tore behemoth-sized chunks from the landscape as the world trembled.
The explosion wasn’t just thunderous and deafening; it caused earthquakes for miles in every direction as hundreds of tons of earth spilled vertically into the air as the main gaseous pockets combusted. The amount of fire it generated was… exhilarating for Ember, and awe inspiring for everyone else even remotely close.
Every inch of the heat and flame that the earth coughed up became hers to control. All that heat, volume, mass, and raw power she took and compressed. She kept the gathered power in orb-shaped stasis as the risen earth crashed back down like a mountain that had just toppled over.
Ember crafted a mimicry of her earlier solar orb. Rather than compress it down to the size of a pea, this one was… massive. With the hole gouged in the earth and the majority of the pathway cleared, she copied the initial attack. The impact of a Mana meteor shuddered the landscape once again as the ground cracked for miles further. That solar meteor slammed down in the exact same place where the original pea had exposed the weakness.
While there was no name for that which lay beneath the deep bedrock, they had found it was an intricate tunnel network that connected the Blight across the various landscapes. It was what allowed the mass to repopulate swiftly and seemingly anywhere. To stop the spread, they decided they had to crack the continent itself. So, crack it would.
Tectonic plates shifted. They shattered deep beneath their feet as their long war on the Phantom Blight came with the cost that it may alter their world from the form they knew it to be. If that was the cost, it would be paid.
Artorian had been flabbergasted when he learned the truth. The entire world was one big continent, on a vast round globe. If Ember kept slam-dunking small suns as she was, that may not be the truth forever. Though it wasn’t a problem they would ever deal with. Such a shift and breaking of the land would take an amount of time simply inconceivable to perceive.
Their worry was the here and now. Volcanoes popped in the distance when Ember’s sun hit home, rearranging the under-earth’s insides. It was a long, arduous task that really took it out of Ember, but the warrior woman relished in the extreme application of Mana-control it took. She hadn’t been challenged like this in a thousand years. Not even the average volcano held the heat and blast power a Hive-clearer did. The wells of oil and gas beneath were just too rare, and just tearing up the landscape without purpose wasn’t any fun.
If anything, she was sad… sad that they were almost done. Wild cheering erupted through the Forum, and Ember snapped from her victorious post battle haze as her friend bumped her in the shoulder. Her human had joined her on the hill, and Artorian was all smiles as the youngster who carried the final payload to bear bolted up to both of them. “High Human! I did it!”
Artorian bellowed out a congratulatory cry, dropped to a low stance, and smiled wide while using both hands to point at the charging lad with an outstretched finger on each. “Well done, my boy! A beauty of a delivery! You’re the Hero of the grove!”
He caught the kid in his arms after taking a knee. The impact would have cannonballed the old man a hundred yards across the lake, but Ember outstretched her hand and caught them. Rather than bowling far, they went in a few circles as her arm controlled the momentum. Her arm carried them in an arc, and they flew into the sky and cheered.
Artorian stretched out his open palm, and fir
eworks blew from his hand. It was really a direct Aura emanation, but flair was what mattered. Colors sprang to life above them, and when the sapling attempted the same, he shared his Aura with the boy through the integrated Forum connection. From the sapling’s hand, more fireworks bloomed and filled the sky.
Merriment filled the youth’s face as they began to fall. Festival pleasantry broke out in both the Forum and the real world as Wood Elves rejoiced! They hugged one another, shed tears of joy, and shared deep moments of relief and newfound freedom.
Ember caught her human and the woodling on the way down. Her Mana spread to capture and disperse all of their inertia and kinetic energy. They harmlessly set feet down upon the ground, and Ember turned to raise an eyebrow at the old man. “Why are they… celebrating?”
Artorian let out a single, “Ha!”
“Well that’s what you do when you win a war, my dear! You celebrate! It’s done. It’s over! That was the last Hive node of Blight. There’s no more anywhere in or near the forest. We’ve checked with animals, trees, and Elves alike. That Hive you just punched in the gullet? That was it! The Wood Elves are free!”
His elated smile went for days, but the Warrior Mage didn’t share his joy. She was heartbroken. She shook her head. The last few of her years had been amazing. Full of life and survival treks, tactical execution and well-laid strategic plans. Surely it was a mistake. There was another… right? There had to be!
“What’s wrong, Emby?” Artorian laid his hand on hers, and made a ‘hmm’ noise at the child to give them a moment. The Elf obliged without concern and zipped off in a flash of yellow, leaving only fluttering leaves and ripped-up grass in his wake.
Artorian's Archives Omnibus Page 57