Kingdom Come

by James Osiris Baldwin

  Enervation Strike (Entropy)

  Black, liquid energy coats your weapon like venom. As you strike your enemy, Darkness flows into the wound and spreads through their veins, leaving them weakened and sapping their strength. On a successful hit, you drain 5 points of your opponent’s strength per skill level and add it to your own for the duration of the battle. This ability does not affect creatures lacking Vitality, such as constructs or undead.

  Dancing Fly (Life)

  You prey on your opponent’s fears and lack of confidence, remaining forever just out of reach of their weapon. When this ability is activated in combat, it drains one Adrenaline Point per second. Each time you successfully evade an attack while activated, your Evasion increases by 5%. The bonus is cumulative and ends when the combat ends or you run out of Adrenaline.

  My ears pricked as footsteps became audible outside: two pairs of boots with an awkward, shuffling gait, and one set of softer shoes.

  I liked the idea of draining the strength out of my enemies, but Dancing Fly had more strategic potential - plus it affected all enemies, including undead and constructs. I selected it, made sure I was up to date on the most important changes - HP, AP, my stats - and closed my HUD to wait and see who was coming.

  Sure enough, the footsteps came to a stop outside my door. I stood, ready to look for a gap in security - and as I did, the bracelets on my wrists warmed, and then my arms were forced behind my back by an invisible, irresistible force until the metal touched. My ankles grew heavy, too - I looked down to see a faint energetic tether connecting the cuffs.

  "Great," I muttered.

  The door opened, revealing a pair of... I wasn't entirely sure. Two identical guards flanked Violetta, who had swapped her form-fitting battle armor for a modest black battle dress and scarf. Her spell gauntlets were fully charged, humming with mana.

  "Nice dress. The soulless black really complements your eyes." I scowled at her as the two guards advanced. They were heavily armored in the Vlachian style, wearing tarnished, grotesque masks under their helmets. There was something unsettlingly squishy about the way they moved, as if there were no actual joints in their limbs. Despite that, they took my elbows in an unnaturally strong grip. "C'mon, Vi - you've got to be in there."

  "And how do you fathom that?" She turned, her eerie voice echoing off the walls of the cell.

  "You lied for us when you came with Lucien to Taltos." I tested the grip on my arms as the guards hauled me off.

  "I didn't lie for you. I lied for myself."

  "Okay, fine. So why are you working for Baldr?"

  She walked ahead of us, her soft shoes pattering on the floor with each step. "Because I have to."

  Had to? A light flickered to life in my head. "Oh, shit. Baldr has control of the geas?"

  Violetta opened the door ahead of us with an arcane gesture, walking on through.

  "Look, Vi, you don't have to strongarm me into anything when it comes to Baldr, okay?" I said, carefully testing each restraint. They were extremely secure. "I'm willing to put aside our differences and help you take him out pro-bono. No debt, no hard feelings, no nothing."

  "You will help me, yes," she replied.

  I kept trying to talk to her, to reach her somehow, but my words were met with calm silence as my escort took me on a brisk drag through the ruins of Egbolt Castle. Egbolt was built on top of a cliff overlooking Karhad, but its resemblance to Vulkan Keep ended there. The castle had the stately appearance and intricate stonework of an old cathedral: soaring stone spires, intricate buttressing, tall gold-trimmed towers. It was built to a draconic scale, but it on only had walls on one side: the side that, through the gate, fed out onto a road to the city. The smoking ruins of Karhad was nestled in the alpine valley below the cliffs. Once, it must have been green and blue and gorgeous. What I could see of it now was gray and brown, as dead as the army of zombies toiling on repairs in the oval-shaped courtyard that linked the guardhouse to the Main Hall.

  Hundreds of Kalxat perched on the crenellations of the inner keep, croaking and preening, tracking us on our way through the great double doors. I braced myself for the stench of rotten flesh and burned wood, but we entered into a scene straight out of a Conan the Barbarian story. The Great Hall had been hella cleaned up, hung with gauzy silks, lain with carpets and exotic furs, painted benches, stuffed chairs and cushions. People stood together in knots, laughing and chatting in artfully draped robes, loin cloths, gauzy dresses and other ancient finery. The women wore intricate plaited wigs; the men had long curled beards, gold beads glinting on every coil. Every single person was undead, from the cadaverous [Wight Officers] to the most morbidly beautiful of the [Napathian Vampires]. And at the back of the room, lounging on a chaise sofa and surrounded by a heap of attractive, naked, collared [Vampiric Thralls] of all sexes, was none other than the Demon himself.

  The sofa was big enough to seat an ogre, and for a moment, I thought the Demon was one. He was not the tall, pale and interesting stereotype of a vampire. He was huge, big and brawny, with bronze skin - true bronze, like an antique lamp. His hands and forearms were streaked with black and blue-green tarnish, like old metal. He was dressed like an ancient Pharaonic warrior in a fine loincloth, leopard skins, and scaled armor. His face was handsome in an artificial, statuesque way: eyes shadowed and narrow, set above high cheekbones; a large aquiline nose, and a thick, rubbery mouth. To either side of him stood a pair of superfluous bodyguards - big, dark-skinned dudes in fancy armor and Egyptian style headdresses with tower shields and swords - and a shrunken lich in white linen robes. He or she was so old that they looked like a well-used haunted house prop.

  The lich drifted forward, hands clasped in their sleeves. Their voice was as sexless as their appearance, dry and crackling, like old wood. "You are brought before the Chosen of the Sun, His Divinity Ashur of the Ten Thousand Swords; the Ox of the River, the Undying, hero and general of Napath's armies."

  I cocked my chin at the wispy, skeletal person, then turned a hard glare onto the vampire at about collarbone height. “I'm Dragozin Hector: Queensrider, Commander of the Myszno Defense Force, and if I have to listen to your litany of trumped-up titles ever again, I’m going to stab my own eardrums out.”

  Ashur sat up and slapped his knees with a booming laugh, flashing a mouth full of flesh-tearing teeth. The fangs were as black as pitch, fitting together as neatly as the teeth of a bear trap.

  "Ah-hah, so this is the general who gave us such an interesting battle at the Prezyemi Line." The vampire’s accented voice was a low bass snarl, like a lion's roar turned to human speech.

  "You mean the general who kicked your ass?" I scowled back at him as the two guards forced me to my knees.

  "That very same one." Ashur bent forward and caught my chin in unnaturally icy fingers, lifting it. It was an effort not to recoil as the rusty stench of iron and old blood washed over me. "You are smaller than I expected. And pretty, with exotic features. A Tuun… I suppose it makes sense that a member of the oldest human people to walk this place should become the Spear Bearer. Look at me, boy."

  I didn't know a huge amount about vampires - especially this kind - but I knew one rule from every game and movie I'd ever played that had them. Never look a vampire in the eye, especially the old ones. “No thanks.”

  "Hmmph. As you wish. Violetta: now that we have this man, you have the Spear that unseals Matir’s crypt, yes?" Ashur let go of my face and leaned back, his hands resting on his thighs.

  "Yes," Violetta replied. "We have it warded and under guard in the Mage’s Oratory."

  “Utuapsu. Do we need this man, or just the weapon?” Ashur addressed the lich and motioned to me.

  Fuck. I had to think fast. Combat was out of the question: There were about fifty vampires in here, all my level or higher. Even the naked slaves purring around Ashur's feet had red skulls next to their character titles, and the guards behind him had violet skulls, making them Level 30 or higher. If I died, I’d respawn in my
cell thanks to the Incarcerated status.

  “You can’t unseal Matir with just the Spear,” I blurted. “You need the Triad.”

  The lich vizier raised a hand. My cuffs heated, and then a jolt of electric pain flashed through the muscles of my arms, back and chest. "You will address His Divinity with proper respect, breather, or lose your tongue."

  “Stand down, Utuapsu. The Tuun were the first to break free of the Deceiver’s enslavement, and they have never forgotten it.” Ashur waved him back with a clawed hand. "They know not of respect nor nobility, but they do know much of the past. And this man is the Spear-Bearer, as was recorded in our lore.”

  “Not if the woman was able to take it from him,” the lich responded. “The histories are clear that the Spear chooses the wielder, and the Spear-Bearer is always able to call the weapon to their hand from any distance. So is it written.”

  I frowned, then concentrated. When I tried, I could sense the weapon almost the same way I could Karalti, like a mental presence that tickled my brain when I thought about it. I focused on summoning it the same way I had on the battlefield. There was a moment of resistance, and then a surge of power as the familiar haft appeared in my hands, behind my back.

  I didn't see Ashur or his slaves get to their feet. One moment, they were seated - the next, they were standing, all twelve men and women clustered around their Master with burning red eyes and exposed metal fangs. I couldn't do anything with the weapon - my hands were still bound behind my back - but there it was. Even Violetta looked shocked.

  "So as I was saying." I looked up to just under Ashur's jaw. "You can't unseal the Dragon Gates with just the Spear. You need three components."

  "Components." He repeated the word after me. "And what are these ‘components’?"

  "The Spear-Bearer, the Spear of Nine Spears, and the Keystone that you already possess," I lied. “The three parts of the Triad.”

  Ashur turned to his vizier. The lich hung in the air, watching me impassively.

  “There is mention of a Triad in the Ea Enggura,” they admitted after a time. “The Hymn of the Salašu, ‘The Three who Bind and Unbind the Gate.”

  “You can’t find the Gate without the Triad,” I replied. “The Stone has to go in the Spear, and when they’re combined, they tell me where the gate is. You see that Ruby in the blade? It told me where to find the Dragon Gate of Khors.”

  The lich made a dry crackling sound. “It is true that the stone has a powerful resonance similar to the one that was gifted to us, Your Divinity.”

  The crowd of slaves dispersed, slinking back to the ground. Ashur's face drew into a craggy expression of curiosity.

  “I believe all of it, except for one thing. You already know where the Dragon Gate of the Black God resides,” Ashur said. His voice was warm, calm... trustworthy. I could almost taste the way it sounded, warm and soft and cozy. Safe. “You bear his mark and have been gifted with his divine powers, yes?”

  “Yeah.” I rarely trusted anyone on first meeting, but I found myself feeling like I could tell Ashur everything and be perfectly okay... and that was a problem. “Stop it.”

  "Stop what, Spear-Bearer? I ask only that you to tell me where the Dragon Gate is located." Ashur purred. His voice wrapped around me like a fuzzy blanket, urging me to trust him. To answer truthfully.

  I forced my face to relax, and dug my nails in against the haft of the spear as hard as I could. I thought of Suri and Karalti and Rin, and then, Lord Bolza’s face as he looked down at us on the battlefield. They march with the other thralls.

  "It's okay to tell you, isn’t it?” I asked. “I can feel it."

  “It is the right thing to do, Spear-Bearer. In fact, all of this terrible violence could have been averted if only I had met you earlier.” The vampire leaned back on his divan, the power of his gaze washing over me like the heat from an open oven "I am the last hope of my people, Dragozin Hector. For thousands of years, I lived with my family in a great palace, surrounded by my wives, my treasured concubines, the warriors who were closer to me than brothers. The dragons almost ruined my country with their infernal magic, but we made the best of our circumstances. Napath’s rivers no longer teem with fish, or nurse the orchards of pomegranates and dates that I remember from my living youth, but we have art and peace and beauty there still. I tired of conquest many centuries ago, and have spent many millennia in deep sleep. These days, I prefer to pass my time in study of the stars and in painting, but what can be done when duty summons one to war?”

  I stared at his mouth, struggling to buy for time. If I met his eyes, I would lose my ability to resist and blab the truth. “You answer the call.”

  "Precisely." Ashur sighed, a sound that passed over my skin like an embrace. "The Dragon Gate has surged in its activity these last twelve months. It drains our land like a hundred thousand Stardrinkers, Hector, and it is killing us. My wife crumbled into dust, along with thousands of others. Every day, we lose people like Utuapsu here, who hold lore and languages that are thousands of years old. The Vlachians call me a vampire - but truly, the vampire is the god who enslaved you. The one whose symbol is etched upon your skin."

  The Mark of Matir burned with a steady cold fire on the back of my right hand. Ashur was annoying me now, and that was good. It helped me focus. "Matir didn't enslave me. We made a bargain. I accepted his help in return for helping him, and he pays me back every chance he gets."

  “That simply makes him a clever master.” Ashur reached out and stroked the hair of one of his slaves, petting the woman like a dog. She curled up closer to his knee. “A miserable, unvalued slave is a rebellious slave. I spoil my servants endlessly in gratitude for their devotion and service. Matir is old enough and wise enough to do the same. You do not know how it was, but the dragons kept humans and other creatures the way that we keep dogs."

  No matter how nice his mind tricks felt, that little speech was like a shock of cold water to the face. I swallowed back my rising bile and nodded. "I... wish I could tell you the location of the Dragon Gate, Your Divinity, but I can't. Not until the Star of Endless Night is set in the Spear. It will lead me to the Gate then, as the Ruby did to the Gate of Khors."

  "Truly?"

  "Yes, Your Divinity."

  I marshalled every ounce of willpower to keep my eyes down, my conviction in place. As I so often did when I was under duress, I thought of Karalti's mother... her will and her resolve, and her belief in me to care for her daughter.

  "I am merely a simple man of war, Utuapsu," Ashur drawled. “Do you believe him?”

  “A young Breather such as this one, even the Spear-Bearer, could not resist your diplomacy, Your Divinity,” the lich rasped.

  Ashur hmm'd. “Bring me the Sarrum Adar. We will add the gemstone to the weapon and reveal the location of this Gate.”

  "No."

  Violetta, who had been silent for all of this, came forward. She looked… normal. Her voice had lost its jarring alien quality. Lips were pink and flush with life, and her eyes were blue instead of black. They glinted with malice as she looked down at me. "He is attempting to deceive us, Your Divinity.”

  "He is, is he?" The vampire regarded me with interest as my blood ran cold. "Now that you mention it, he smells like a man unnerved. Yet I would know if he was lying… no ordinary man can resist the presence of a Nasaku.”

  “Neither Hector or I are ordinary humans. We are Starborn,” Violetta said sweetly. “We are the immortal seeds of fate, capable of manipulating reality and the feelings of men. As you have been impressing your will on him, he has been impressing his will on you. If you want him to speak the truth, you should turn him into your damu and ask again.”

  "Turn me?" I blurted. "What do you mean 'turn me'? What the fuck is a ‘damu’"

  “It means ‘Child’ in your tongue. She is asking me to make you a Nasaku, my blood-bound prodigy.” Ashur rumbled. “That may be too high an honor for an enemy.”

  I glared at Violetta. “You can’t do t
his.”

  “Who’s going to stop me? The mods?” She regarded me with a sweet, blank expression. “Any idiot knows that NPCs are programmed to always try and give your pathetic roleplaying serious consideration. The game tries to advance quests in favor of the 'hero'. But you're not the only hero here today.”

  “The game won’t let it happen.”

  “Player protection features were disabled when the game reset.” Violetta smiled faintly. “Suffer.”

  “The woman is the servant of an Architect,” Utuapsu whispered. “Given the circumstances, the dire need of our people, I would advise that we defer to her wisdom.”

  Ashur stirred up from his recline and stood. "The Architect chose his servant wisely. Very well."

  Violetta curtsied.

  "Wait. You can't 'turn' me." I wracked my brains for what to do. "Matir hates the undead. He'll remove the Mark."

  "But you will remain the Spear-Bearer." The vampire reached out for me with clawed hands.

  I threw myself away from him, skidding down the steps leading to the dais and onto the floor. There, I tried to flip up to my feet - but as I did, the ankle cuffs locked tight, and I ended up smashing my face against the hard floor instead. My HP was already in the pits, throbbing red as Ashur lifted me up by the neck with one hand. As my breath cut, I saw an oxygen meter appear in my overlay.

  Violetta watched me struggle with a strange expression: lips parted, eyes wide with mingled fear and fascination, one hand resting lightly around her own neck.

  "Fuck off!" I opened my inventory, searching for some way out of this. Poison, some other way to die before he could bite me. There was nothing - my gear was gone. I snarled, and prepared to use Shadow Garrote - but instead of biting me, Ashur's nails lengthened and plunged into my neck like hypodermic needles. My eyes widened as a numbing wave of cold passed through my body.

  [You are Paralyzed!]

  [You are Hemorrhaging!]

  "Do not fear. Your old master may reject you after the embrace, but I will take good care of you." The vampire's bracelets chimed as he painlessly embedded his fingers deeper into my neck. Frothing at the mouth, I watched the veins of his arm swell in size, writhing like worms under his skin as he drew my blood into them. "You were an honorable and interesting opponent, Dragozin Hector. I shall be honored to add you to my household. Once this is over and done with, you will know comfort with me for the rest of eternity."