by C. M. Carney
Ovrym was a xydai, perhaps the only one in this Realm. His gray skin was the color of spent charcoal, a dusky gray hue, that seemed more dead than alive. He was lean and tall. His shining silver white hair was long. Two thin strands of twined hair draped from the side of his head and past the pointed ears that were a daily reminder of his people’s stolen heritage. A long thick braid draped to the middle of his back, clasped with rings of elementum. Badges of honor. Badges of office. Reminders of his betrayal.
He stood and walked to a small shelf against the wall. He drank water from an ancient clay vessel and stoked the coals in the fireplace. The room that had been his home these last several years had likely once been a servant’s quarters. Long before he arrived. Long before he’d gone into exile not once, but twice.
Now the small space was home. But as he urged the slumbering coals back to fiery life he knew today, everything would change. He placed a pot of too old mushroom stew over the fire. He willed the gurgles in his stomach from his mind and practiced his forms.
Ovrym had once been an Adjudicator, a warrior monk who had mastered his mind in the service of order. As he moved through the forms with practiced ease, his mind settled once more. He drew back from the negative thoughts that daily threatened to smother him and opened himself to the aether as sweat rose on his body.
The aether was ever present and had always been, the first of the spheres. To the uninitiated, the aether felt like an endless sea of sameness, but to one attuned it was a flowing ocean of current and potential. It was the most dangerous force in the universe, desperate to drag all of existence back into its primordial soup. But it was also the All from what all creation rose. He had been trained in Thought Magic as a defense against the aether.
Ovrym stilled his body, rigid as a statue, relaxed as water and sent his thoughts into the aether. His mind snaked through the tunnels and passageways like blood through veins. Pockets of light pulsed like organs as he traversed the body of the Barrow. He avoided the large glow in the depths and slipped around the wyrmynn camp. He slowed as he passed through the small outpost he had once called home but moved on before sentiment could grab hold of him.
He zipped and flowed and found what he sought. It was a man, a high elf, a race long believed to have abandoned this world as his own people had. He stretched himself around the newcomer and saw a mote of pure power at his core. Ovrym sent his thoughts into the mote and it pulsed with violent light.
Back in his cave Ovrym fell to the ground, stunned. Surges of all the spheres of magic bit into him sending cascades of pain into every cell. He opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out. After a moment, the pain disappeared and Ovrym regained control of himself.
“A Godhead. So, it is true,” Ovrym said with fearful glee.
Ovrym sat and ate. The warmth from the stew brought comfort to his body as he tried to bring calm to his mind. After eating he stood and walked to a chest in the corner of the room. It was time to suit up. The Order had long followed a ritual of preparation. Patterns brought meaning to life and helped to shield the mind from the aether.
First, he pulled on breeches made from the spun silk of aether wyrms and felt a rush of wellbeing enhance his stamina. His empyrean bull leather jerkin came next, and he felt a surge of health pump through his veins. Arm wraps of treated celestial tree bark came next along with boots made from the hide of a prismatic serpent. His mind grew clear and his body grew stronger and more agile. He pulled his bow and quiver onto his back.
Finally, he took his Bleed Metal Saber from its pegs on the wall and strapped it to his waist. The traditional weapon of the Order was a razor-sharp curved blade made from elementum that had passed through a bleed zone, a place where the spheres of magic held no sway. The saber, like the Bleed itself, acted as a magical null zone, capable of dispelling all magics. In the hands of an Adjudicator it was a powerful weapon.
Ovrym exited his small cave and entered a larger one. The steady trickle from the stream that fed his garden helped ease his mind. Even here, in the depths of the Barrow life held sway.
He stopped at a wall of rough stone and gestured a pattern with his fingers. The stone flowed apart, its base structure altered by his thoughts. He stepped through, wrapped himself in Stealth and made his way towards the disturbance.
It took several hours to find the newcomer. During the journey Ovrym felt ripples of pain, fear and triumph pulse through the aether. He passed many a beast on his journey. Wyrmynn and ridge worms, gnome and umber beasts. Once he was so close to his old companions from the Gray Company, he could hear their joking. He pushed back his feeling of loss and let them pass.
After a long search, he found him. The man with the Godhead.
Ovrym was at the end of a long unused tunnel, one blocked by an ancient cave in. Beyond he could feel the man. He was in a large chamber dominated by water. An underground reservoir. He raised his hand ready to ease the broken and fallen earth aside as he had the barrier that protected his home.
But then he felt something else. Something primal that dredged up ancient feelings of terror in all xydai. Something that should not, could not, be here.
“An arboleth. The ancient enemy," Ovrym said in fear and disbelief. “How?”
His hand hesitated and shook. Ovrym pulled his attention away from the chamber and to his hand. He attempted to calm it, yet for long seconds it ignored his commands. Fear battled purpose. Ovrym knew he had to reach the man, but to face an arboleth was worse than suicide.
He closed his eyes and centered his thoughts. After long moments, he was back in control.
Ovrym sent pulses of thought magic into the dirt and stone in front of him. Slowly the rubble morphed and melted and spread open. There was just enough room for him to shimmy through, and he found himself on a ledge high above the water.
The cavern was huge, the largest he had seen so far in the Barrow. The man was far below on a small island in the center of the lake, standing in front of an open chest. He was pulling pieces of armor from the chest and donning them. From this distance his Identify skill could not make out the items stats, but their quality was exquisite.
As Ovrym turned his Analyze skill on the man with the Godhead an invasive feeling of longing flowed into his mind. He wanted what was in the chest. He had to have it. Before realizing it, Ovrym had taken several steps forwards and his mind was calculating a dive into the waters.
By Ymiir? Ovrym thought, shaking his head to regain control. He focused and flushed the toxic thoughts from his mind. The room was rife with powerful magic of a kind he had never encountered. Something that grabbed onto the core of his being and dragged him forward. It was only his stringent mental training and his skill level in Thought Magic that had allowed him to regain control. No wonder the man below could not resist the siren call.
It was the Barrow, Ovrym realized. It had to be. He’d known for some time that the Barrow had the ability to compel creatures of all kind to enter its depths. That is how he and the Gray Company were snared. But this level of hold on the mind was much stronger than any he had felt even on that day so long ago.
The chest. The powerful magic was centered on the chest, drawing the man in like a vulture to carrion. The man must have awakened the arboleth. That was why Ovrym had never felt the stained thoughts of the aberration before now. It had been slumbering.
Ovrym snapped his head up, about to warn the man regardless of consequence, when a spiny tentacle twined around the man’s ankle and dragged him into the water. Ovrym nearly jumped into the water, but fear took a hold of him. Ancestral memories rose in his mind. The arboleth had enslaved his ancestors, perverting their souls into a servitor race that had been a scourge on all the Realms.
He froze, unable to move. His thoughts fled into the past, back to the boy, the apprentice in the Order. An entourage had arrived that had struck fear and respect into his master. Ovrym was ordered to stay in his room, but he’d felt compelled by something he did not understand and snuck
onto the balcony above the Grand Adjudicator’s reception room.
That is when he saw them. Xydai like himself, but older, stronger and terrifying. Even the Grand Adjudicator had shown these men and women deference. He learned that they were called the Purity, hunters of aetherials.
The Purity had come for help, but the Grand Adjudicator refused. The Order were upholders of laws he said, not warriors and assassins. Ovrym had studied the Writs and knew the Grand Adjudicator spoke true, but he also knew the real reason he refused. The Grand Adjudicator was afraid.
The Mistress of the Purity, a tall woman with the same yellow eyes and dusky skin as Ovrym, stepped forward hand held above her head. The Grand Adjudicator then saw what the Purity faced. Ovrym knew because he saw it too.
Ovrym was elsewhere. A small army of Purity stood on a blasted plain as several tall beings in flowing robes emerged from the mists. The squid like humanoids were illurryth, aetherial adepts of Thought Magic. Flashes of telepathic energy erupted from the illurryth and xydai fell. The Purity were fierce and would not go down without a fight. They struck back with magic and blade and the battle turned.
But the illurryth were merely servants and their masters were about to enter the fray. The arboleth, massive aquatic demons ensconced in hovering, water filled tanks of metal and glass, emerged from the mists. Terrific mental assaults poured from the arboleth and pummeled the Purity with waves of psychic pain.
Xydai fell screaming, and the arboleth pushed the Purity back. Yet, they did not kill their enemies. Instead, they took them as hosts for their young. These powerful enemies of the arboleth would be infected and reborn as illurryth. They would become Other.
Ovrym felt it all as if it had happened to him. In a way it had happened to him.
Ovrym could still remember the psychic scream that tore from him that day. He had never felt such fear, such despotic evil as he did that day. The images halted and the tall xydai woman locked eyes with Ovrym. Sympathy poured from her and her thoughts soothed Ovrym with love and kindness.
He’d spent a week in the infirmary recovering, his master never leaving his side. The Grand Adjudicator visited, gazing on him with a kindness few had ever seen on the old man’s face.
The Mistress of the Purity came to him as well and spoke in a soft voice. For the first time in his life he felt what most children in the Realms took for granted. He knew what it felt like to have a mother. He could still remember the warmth of her touch, the odd floral scent of her hair. She had taught him of his people and given him a gift.
“An icon to keep you safe,” she had said of the intricately carved emerald held fast in a necklace of platinum and mithril. Ovrym kept it with him always.
Ovrym returned to the present, and he found his left hand had drawn the necklace from within his jerkin. Caressing the icon brought him comfort. He closed his eyes and banished his own fears.
He looked down at the still water.
“I am sorry I am weak,” Ovrym said to the doomed man.
26
Once again, Gryph was drowning. It was becoming a habit he did not enjoy. The tentacle wrapped around his leg pulled him down fast and hard. He saw his stamina bar plummet as the air in his lungs grew scarce. His health bar also sank at a steady rate and his mind became foggy.
Debuff: You have been poisoned with aetherial neurotoxin. This toxic substance causes surges of pain, mental confusion and if left untreated brain death. It does little damage as it incapacitates prey instead of killing.
2 dmg/sec
Well, Shit, Gryph thought. He stabbed down at the tentacle with his spear, slicing into its spongy surface. The tentacle detached and disappeared leaving rivulets of black ichor that turned the water brackish. Gryph kicked towards the surface, but before he got five feet, another tentacle snapped from the depths and wrapped around his waist.
This tentacle was larger and stronger than the last one, covered in sticky cup shaped pads. Crustacean like nodules covered most of the exposed surface, acting as armor. It squeezed Gryph, forcing the little remaining air from his lungs and pulled him deeper into the darkness.
Panic took ahold of Gryph, heightened by the venom causing surges of confusion in his mind. There was something at the edge of his thoughts. Something tickling at his mind. Something he was desperately trying to remember.
He heard a voice in his head screaming and realized it was his own voice. It was screaming, Air, air, air.
Well, no shit, subconscious Sherlock, Gryph raged at his inner voice. His lungs filled with water and his inner asshole continued to yell Air, air, air at him. Then, in a distant part of his mind, he understood.
Air Magic. Gryph shoved his hand into his inventory and extracted the Halo of Air spell stone. He held it tightly and tried to concentrate, but his mind was adrift, sinking with his body into the depths of the suffocating waters.
He was losing consciousness. As his mind went dark, a tingle of warmth throbbed in his palm. A torrent of air swirled around his arm and into his mind. The surge of power exploded into his mind, jarring him awake.
You have learned the spell Halo of Air
Sphere: Air Magic - Tier: Base.
Allows the caster to summon a bubble of continuously renewed air around his or her head. This is used for breathing underwater or anywhere else where fresh, clean air is needed.
Mana Cost: 30 - Casting Time: Instantaneous - Duration: 5 minutes + 1 per Air Magic level - Cooldown: None.
Gryph cast Halo of Air and the water exploded away from his head in a sphere that measured about two feet. He tried to gulp in the fresh, amazing air, but vomited up copious amounts of water instead. The halo siphoned the bile soiled water away from Gryph’s face.
He was breathing normally, but his body still throbbed with pain from the neurotoxin. He pulled another spell stone from his inventory and soon knew Detoxification.
You have learned the spell Detoxification
Sphere: Life Magic - Tier: Base.
Allows the caster to cleanse themselves or another of the ill effects of poison, venom, spores, gases or other attacks that cause poison damage.
Mana Cost: 40 - Casting Time: Instantaneous - Effectiveness: Reduces Poison Damage by 2 points/sec per level. Poison is eliminated when the reduction per second is greater than the damage per second - Cooldown: Five minutes.
You have learned the skill LIFE MAGIC - Level: 1 - Tier: Base - Skill Type: Active.
You can now wield the power of life magic. Life Magic allows the user to tap into the animating forces of life and sentience itself. Life magic makes use of defensive and healing spells, but it also has some potent offensive spells.
Note: Users of life magic are beloved for their abilities to heal, to enable crops to grow quicker, and to make life better.
A quick casting of Detoxification cleansed his body of the toxin, but he was still being dragged deeper into the darkness. His eyes, perhaps shielded from the water by the halo, saw details of this watery underworld. Then he saw the beast that was dragging him downward and wished he hadn't.
Gryph screamed as the beast came into view. It looked like a primeval eel had mated violently with a squid. Its body was long and bulbous. It had a huge singular eye atop a swirling vortex of teeth that spun in concentric circles. Two large tentacles, one dragging Gryph down, protruded from the arboleth's underside. Four smaller tentacles emerged from its back, the underside covered in needle like spines. One still bled from the wound Gryph had inflicted. He used Analyze, thankful for the boost given him by the cowl.
Arboleth: Level 42 - H:1004/S:820/M:900/SP:0
Arboleth are horrific aberrations. Natives of the aetherial realm, they are among the most ancient of all sentient races. They are highly intelligent, incredibly cruel and vastly dangerous. They are masters of both aetherial and thought magic, spheres normally incompatible in one being. This suggests that they were birthed in the earliest era of creation when the thought and aetherial realms clashed to give birth to the cosmos as w
e know it.
Strengths: Unknown. Immunities: Unknown. Weakness: Unknown.
The weight of impending doom threatened to crush Gryph’s psyche. He was Level 7 and this offense to all sanity was level fricking 42. Fear and adrenaline built in his mind creating a cocktail of horror that Gryph wouldn’t serve to his worst enemy.
The beast’s mouth pulsed in an awful display of gyrating flesh and spinning teeth. Even with the sound dampening of the water, the roar hit Gryph like a fist. The arboleth's anger surged up the tentacle that continued to drag Gryph down, and despite the armor he felt a rib pop.
Gryph cast Flying Stalactite and watched as it slowly moved towards the arboleth's eye. The water slowed the missile's pace just enough for the arboleth to smack the stalactite aside with its other large tentacle.
The creature’s eye pulsed with light and a wave of energy shimmered towards him like the waves of heat pouring off a desert highway. It passed over Gryph, and his brain exploded in a nova of migraines, one piled atop another in flashes of light and pain. Layers of sanity peeled back like a rotten onion, and he knew he was losing his mind.
The effect passed, but the damage was done. Not only was his health plummeting, but the sea beast had dragged him closer. Its mouth gaped and the rings and rows of teeth spun. Gryph was being dragged into a massive, living garbage disposal.
Gryph thrust forward with his spear seeking to pincushion the arboleth's massive eye. The large tentacle was there again, moving much faster that Gryph thought possible. It smacked Gryph’s spear thrust aside, the force of the deflection nearly tearing the spear from his grip.