by D. R. Rosier
Lastly, it had a central arm in the front twice as thick as the others, which had enchantments to help it quickly destroy a very large city wall. I had no intention of destroying the wall, but it was still intimidating to see.
Right then, there were two of them, playing merry hell in the middle of ten thousand soldiers, tearing them in half or smashing them to a pulp with every swing of their twelve arms.
Of course, a thousand mortals with power was nothing to sneeze at, and they were taking the siege engines apart slowly but surely as Lila and I watched. She looked… really turned on. I on the other hand was merely catching my breath as my dungeon self fed me more energy, magic, and reenergized my reserves.
Since the cat was out of the bag, I also upgraded Lila’s armor and sword to mithril, which would make her only slightly more dangerous and safer, but it made me feel better anyway. Almost none of them were paying attention to Lila and I with the siege engines in their midst.
I started to summon larger fire and earth elementals, and had ten of each when the siege engines were finally taken down.
They’d managed to kill about four thousand of the soldiers, and some of the warriors as well. The mages and clerics were distance fighters, so were never really in range of the many arms on the two siege golems. I sent in my elementals, and nodded once to Lila who charged the enemy as well, homing in on a master. She loved violence, but not slaughter, as she always sought the hardest challenge. She zig-zagged and changed up her speed, somehow avoiding several spells on her way to the warrior.
I reluctantly took my focus from her, as several mages were casting in my direction, and I was being charged by warriors, paladins, and several terrified looking church soldiers.
I launched several stone lances from the ground, the exploding on impact kind, and aimed to where the clerics, paladins, mages, and warriors were grouped heavily. It would destroy a lot of the soldiers as well, but I’d try to spare as many as I could, at the end of the battle.
I also launched several at the ones charging me as I debated what to summon next. I was no warrior, and several of them were getting closer than I cared for. My robes were protective, but several powerful warriors with magical swords and maces were no joke.
I thought about creating some man-sized golems to engage them, but I’d shown off enough, and I didn’t need to. Instead I summoned the largest earth elemental I could control, and set it to defending me. This was war, not my dungeon, and I didn’t have to be fair and give the warriors a chance. The warriors might’ve been able to defeat the earth elemental if they could get to it, but the large elemental stayed underground, and simply used its massive ability and control over earth, and sent earth attacks at them. The ground exploded in activity, as it raised walls and stone breastworks from the ground to stop the charge. Several of the warriors were impaled by stone spears from below, where their armor didn’t protect.
I left the greater elemental to its work, and focused back on the main host, which was still strong. Lila was dancing around the warriors, her new sword taking its surfeit of blood and lives, as those around her couldn’t seem to pin her down. She was too fast, and moved from encounter to encounter too quickly for them to react and box her in. Still, she was only one being among thousands, and it would take her days to finish things alone, assuming the enemy didn’t get lucky.
I launched stone spear after stone spear for a very long time, careful to avoid the area Lila was in, as the earth elemental protected me and killed any who dared rush my position. It was just a matter of time.
A bright white light filled my vision, and I felt it as the elemental was banished. Then I was hit by several light bolts that threw me back. My whole body felt like a rung bell, and my head was splitting. There was blood too, but my robes seemed to have saved my life. Damn, got cocky again. Maybe it was a flaw of the gods?
I looked up and forward just in time to hear Lila’s scream of rage and denial, and to see the large maul coming straight at my face. Let me just say, getting your head torn off and sent flying, really fucking hurts. The pain faded, and before my essence could fade, I started to create another body, all the way back with Selwyn and his team.
It didn’t take long, but it was harder than building a golem, even a siege golem. I also said screw it, since the cat was out of the bag, and didn’t hamstring myself. My new avatar could channel all six elemental spheres of magic.
When I was done about thirty seconds later, the warriors were rather close. They’d kept charging to get at Selwyn and the rest of our team, but obviously, they were now very focused on me.
Selwyn said, “What the fuck are you?”
I ignored him, now wasn’t the time.
In the same way I’d combined all six elements for protections, I’d also created spells of a similar nature. Spells I’d never expected to use as a dungeon, or with an avatar with only three of the spheres. But now I was angry, and had the capability to use it.
Simple magic bolts, but at the same time incredibly complex, but no more complex than a crystal that could hold all six. Even if the person I was fighting was protected from four or even five of those, the sixth part would break through. Perhaps the only exception to that was dark and light magic, which could shield from all elemental spheres including their opposite to a lesser degree.
Even that second group wouldn’t have helped much, since I was casting at above master levels of power.
But none of those charging me were clerics or paladins. Close to fifty warriors and a couple of hundred church soldiers were cut down quickly under a rapid fire of the magical bolt spell. Selwyn, and the seven remaining mages also helped. They might have been unsure of me, but they were sure that Jennesar was the enemy. The warriors didn’t have a chance.
I took particular delight in the death of the master level warrior holding a large glowing maul.
“Nurien?”
I shook my head, “Later,” as I brought up the spell form in my mind for a much larger and explosive six elemental bolt, and then teleported back to my old spot which was in range of the army. It was time to end it.
“Jump out Lila.”
Lila was in the midst of the clerics and paladins, killing, but also bloody and bleeding from several wounds. She’d obviously lost it at my previous avatar’s destruction, and hadn’t bothered to heal herself.
She growled in my mind, and then teleported next to me.
I filled the complicated large spell form with light, dark, earth, air, fire, and water magic, and cast the spell.
It was like the heavens opened up, as a flash of golden light, followed by a large bolt rained down from the sky like a meteor, scintillating in six colors as it hit the ground right at the feet of the highest of Jennesar. It was a two-stage spell, the first a powerful light spell to suppress protective enchantments and break temporary spelled protections, similar to what I cast at the invasion battle back in Nysten but more complex and more powerful by several magnitudes given the use of all six affinities. The second stage was the six-elemental mage bolt, just magnified by a thousand, I had to draw on the power of my dungeon hard to power it.
The explosion was huge and threw up a wave of billowing and rising dust as it expanded outward.
Lila kissed me hard, still obviously upset, and then stepped in front of me as her body healed. She looked fierce and protective, and I felt a surge of love for my wild and unpredictable dark angel. I knew it was in my imagination, a phantom pain since it had happened to a different body, but my neck still kind of hurt.
When the dust settled, the whole area was littered with corpses. Frozen and entombed in ice, burned to a crisp, turned to or buried in stone, or sliced up with air. Some corpses had no obvious wounds, but showed signs of light or dark magic damage. It was a mess, but it had also killed all the rest of the mortals with power save a random handful that weren’t being used as a protective shield for the highest. Only the normal church soldiers farthest from the highest had survived, perhaps four hu
ndred or so.
“Surrender,” I demanded in a cold voice, even as I wondered at what I’d just done. I hadn’t realized just how powerful that spell would be. I’d never tested it. It was the combination of piercing protections before the powerful pulse of damaging magic that had made it so horrifyingly effective.
The church soldiers dropped their weapons. Every last one. The evil ones, the seventeen left with power who had for so long enjoyed their position of authority and abused it, ran for it in every direction.
“Lila?”
Like me, Lila could cast in her mind, simply bring up the spell form and fill it with magic. The advantage of being an angel and no longer a fell demoness. Quick as a thought dark magic curses followed the fleeing warriors and mages in just seconds. Fifteen of them died horribly, the remaining two survived her attack. Their protections warded off the follow up fire bolts too, and then a pair of light bolts. They must have been very well protected from magic.
Lila sighed in annoyance, and then looked at me and rolled her eyes, before she teleported in front of the mage and took his head with a quick swipe of her sword. Then she took care of the second in a similar fashion.
I penned in the soldiers like last time, walls rising from the ground, and guarded them with earth elementals after they retrieved the enemy’s weapons.
Selwyn walked up behind us as Mary went over to talk to the soldiers, the peasants with weapons forced on them, to start the converting process. Fuck, this conversation was not going to be fun. I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to tell him, I had two options. Well, three really, but refusing to tell him anything wouldn’t work well at all, the human imagination would assume the absolute worst, so I discarded it as a viable option.
The truth of course, which was that I’m an avatar of a dark god who is at war with Jennesar’s pantheon, was one option. The second one while less scary, would perhaps be more problematic. I could just claim I was a runaway dungeon, who wanted to remove the threat against me, since Jennesar had tried to kill me thrice already. I supposed, from a certain point of view, it was even a true if horribly incomplete version of events. Of course, the advantage to the first option, was that there was no connection to my dungeon in that version of events.
At least, not a definitive one.
Still, I’d been looking forward to living in Tenemin, staying out of mortal’s free will, and raising my child with Ebony. I might have to disappear, I wasn’t sure what to do. Thankfully, I didn’t have to decide in that moment…
Chapter Nineteen
I managed to put Selwyn off further as Lila and I entered the city, after releasing the peasants that is. I wasn’t sure what to do with all the mithril, it was a thousand kings’ ransom, so I just sunk it back into the ground as deeply as I could reach. There was nothing and no one left to fight with in the city though, the highest must have been desperate, and put it all on the line in an attempt to win. Perhaps he was advised to do so by my family.
Our group moved in and took over the temple district, while Lila and I found an inn to check into, to both get cleaned up, and then scratch that itch as we usually did after every battle. Lila was wild, and seemingly insatiable, but I managed to satiate us both in the end. When we came downstairs for some food over two hours later, Selwyn was waiting on us along with Mary. I still had no idea what I wanted to tell them.
No matter what they decided for the church, or Carlton decided I supposed, I was also sure the mages had reported back to Catalina about what they’d seen, even if they weren’t in here looking for the full truth of things.
I decide on option one, and hoped I could keep my dungeon out of it. The connections were there if they were smart enough to see it, maybe I’d get lucky?
“Selwyn, how’ve you been?”
He smiled weakly at my sad attempt at humor, “I can’t force you to tell me, but I have to say I’m disturbed by what I saw. I don’t… understand.”
I gave a very basic answer, I was an avatar of a god, and the Jennesar’ pantheon was my true enemy, and that destroying the church and converting the peasants was just a means to that end.
He shook his head, “That’s what I suspected. But an avatar of a god when on this plane, can only inspire, teach, and advise if asked. What you’re doing is an abrogation of free will, which isn’t supposed to be possible.”
I sighed, “True. And when I’m finished, I will no longer be able to do what I’ve been doing. You see, I was betrayed, imprisoned, and banished. I am part of the pantheon worshipped in Jennesar. Once I’ve returned myself to that plane, or most of myself, I will once again be bound by the rules.”
His face went white, “How can your full power exist on this world, it should be impossible.”
“Most of my essence is imprisoned and contained,” is all I said. I couldn’t and wouldn’t say how. Telling him I was stuck in a crystal would be too big of a clue. Especially since all this started when my dungeon woke up.
Then I said, “I’d like you to tell Carlton to keep this a secret, no more than him and those who were here now should be told about me. I’d like the same offer to be made to the mages and Duchess. No one else can know.”
He sat back, “Why would Carlton or Catalina agree to that?”
“Truthfully, access to me. When I return to the higher planes, I want my avatar, this avatar, to settle right outside of Tenemin. I enjoy this world and want to experience at least a lifetime here, and even though I could no longer be an ally once I return to the higher planes, I would be available for friendship to both of them, and that advising you spoke of.”
Selwyn asked, “And if they don’t agree?”
I shrugged, “I don’t want everyone knowing what I am and bothering me or the people with me. That means if they decline to hold my secret I’ll simply disappear when we’re done in Jennesar. Six villages to go, all probably mostly defenseless. It won’t take us long. They and you will never see me again, and they’ll lose the opportunity of my friendship, advice, and quite possibly knowledge.”
I’d already figured out a fix, mostly. No one had met Ebony yet, and I could easily change the looks of my avatar, cut back to maybe two affinities, and just purchase another house somewhere else around the city. Maybe I should do that anyway, but a part of me wanted at least a handful of people to know the truth that I could have a friendship with. So, it would solve the problem of being mobbed and recognized, but my fix would also destroy any chance of having a friendship with the two most powerful people in Tenemin.
Selwyn’s eyes widened, “I see your point, but wouldn’t knowledge be interference.”
“Yes, but I said me or the people with me. My companions will be free to share knowledge if they wished it. But you’d only meet them if I have an oath from all of you, as well as the Highest and Duchess.”
It was true, and Ebony knew almost as much as I did. I’d created a handful of new spells since I’d taught her everything I knew, but that was a puddle next to a pond. Ebony also wasn’t mortal, so I’d be free to pass any knowledge I cared to onto her even after I went back to the higher planes, and she could share with whoever she wished to of her own free will. Besides, she’d even be learning new stuff before me, by gaining knowledge from the dark elf libraries.
Selwyn nodded, “Alright, I’ll pass that along. I don’t think I understand though, what could you possibly have an interest in here that wouldn’t be overshadowed by your true home.”
I didn’t even have to think.
“Connections. I’m not immune to them. I like you Selwyn, you’re a good man, and I got to know the Duchess and your highest the few days at the castle as we planned our campaign. Call it greedy, but I wish to stay for simple friendship, but I won’t be gaped at or worshipped by pilgrims from all over the world either. So… secret, or I leave. Simple enough.”
I left out that I knew Catalina and the others very well from her visits to my dungeon, but I’d managed to tell the truth regardless of what I’d left out. I a
lso left out the most important reason of all that made me want to stay, to raise my son or daughter.
Perhaps I was foolish to think they could keep the secret, but I did ask for oaths. That really should do it, an oath to a god wasn’t something easily discarded.
I supposed I’d know the answer soon enough…
The four new levels were finished, and I’d had to build another ten large elemental stones, along with the vaults. I had over twenty of the things now, which was far more power than I knew what to do with, but nothing to complain about.
Weeks passed as my avatar cleaned up the six remaining towns with Selwyn’s help. A few things went on during that time, the most significant being that both Catalina and Carlton agreed to make an oath to keep my true self a secret. The others with us that witnessed it also took the oath.
I’d also found time to get away, and give Ebony a tour of our new home, though it was still being fixed up. We also managed to find a cook, servants, and a groundskeeper. The stableman could wait until we’d moved in and bought some horses and other livestock. For now, the servants we did have were helping to get the house cleaned and ready.
I also had planned exactly what to do with my family pantheon during that time, and got things ready. Although, I hadn’t decided what to do with my sister Hedea yet, I didn’t think I’d be able to decide until I looked her in the eyes. There was no way to stop all their worshippers, but they should be weakened enough for what I had in mind once the villages were cleared.
My dungeon was busier than ever, people of all rated ranks and levels were coming to train, or collect elemental stones, rare herbs, and other loot. It was still fun for me to rearrange things, and move the ambushes and traps around every night to keep things fresh. Truthfully, I didn’t think it ever would get old, it was fun to try and challenge and outsmart the adventurers.