by Ryan Rimmel
I glanced around at the field of eggs. The room itself was the size of a soccer field, only slightly wider. The pyramid in the middle was about twelve feet tall, and eggs covered nearly everything. The one clear bit was a very narrow walking path, leading to the pyramid.
“Oh, yeah, this is going to be fun,” I stated.
With Heightened Senses still active, I looked carefully around the room. The Ghoulster eggs were wrong, somehow. The recently laid ones seemed sickly, and the older ones were, according to Shart, full of Necrotic energy.
“So, let me see if I follow this,” I said, trying to make sense of the situation. “The eggs are born alive, but, since they can’t get any Holy energy, they go cancerous, like with the Life energy glitch we found. Then, they rot, which means they generate Necrotic energy.”
“Yes. Simple organisms in the egg get out of control and start eating each other, generating Necrotic energy,” said Shart. “If the font was drained, it would allow the Holy energy to rebalance itself. The newer eggs would start getting instructions again, and the older eggs would die properly. The undead Ghoulsters would still be up and moving, but they would lose most of their power.”
I considered that. “So, if there is no Holy energy, dead things become undead?”
“Correct, again, my precious Dum Dum,” stated Shart. “Look, everything in life has balance. That includes Holy energy, the divine spark that sustains a soul, as well as Necrotic energy that causes your body to wear down. If you cease to have Holy energy long enough, your body will rot from the inside out. Without the divine spark to send your soul into its next incarnation, you become undead.”
I understood that. Ordinal was weird, but it did follow some standard rules. Balance seemed to be one of the more critical ones. Remove one aspect of that, and you get giant, undead bird eggs.
“I take it that moving the anti-magic field into here wouldn’t accomplish anything,” I said.
“Nope, that blocks MAGIC. This deals with Mana,” said Shart simply. “Before you ask, it will take months for your body to filter out all your Holy Mana. No need to worry about that, either.”
“I have a plan. I just need to know how long it will take to drain the font.”
***
Badgelor grumbled. Of course, the plan was for him to do all the important bits. The wee git of a companion just had to get the competent person to do the hard work. Then again, having a person as a companion did mean making compromises, Badgelor supposed.
At least he didn’t have to creep around to do what needed done. Jim’s part seemed simple enough, as long as the stupid zit could do his business. Over-promising and under- delivering was the bread and butter of those Jersey spawned abominations. It was yet another reason from an increasingly long list of why Badgelor hated demons. Especially Shart.
“You hate that name, don’t you?” growled Badgelor.
“Shut up,” hissed Shart.
“One of the most powerful beings in all of Ordinal, and yer just a shitty fart,” chuckled the badger.
“Well, at least my power is internal. Without ‘Jim O’Really Dumb’, you are just a cute, little critter,” stated Shart.
“And without Jim, you are just stuck in Limbo,” laughed the badger. Badgelor would have spent more time taunting him, but Jim had gotten himself in position quickly. He was a damn sneaky one, that Jim.
“Ready?” asked Jim, all polite, like a good companion should be.
Badgelor didn’t need to respond, at least not verbally. Activating Laser Vision, he started blasting eggs left and right. Each egg he hit with his Laser Vision exploded in a fountain of putrid, black yolk. It splattered everywhere, causing a brash hissing noise. Destroying one egg often destroyed the surrounding eggs, which would pop and spray more acid everywhere. They lacked the splatter range of his primary targets, though. Damn shame.
Whipping his head around, he spotted the big bird. Curiously, it didn’t seem to stir, even though he was attacking its brood with abandon. How dare it not respond to the glory that was Badgelor? Badgelor interpreted that insult as an excuse to attack more. He decided against using his claws or eating the eggs, though, after catching a whiff of how badly one smelled. He didn’t need that on his fur and, even with all of his digestion talents, eating something like that would be worse than eating EstherSasha’s cooking.
Suddenly, he felt a pain down his left side.
● Spectral Claws: You have suffered 18 points of Damage
The big beasty wasn’t moving, but those spectral hands seemed to have stopped their loving pets. In the hands’ place, a host of floating bird specters were flying around the room. Most seemed to be headed straight toward him.
Fear hit him like a hammer, but Jim’s borrowed Mental Fortress perk did the trick, fending off most of that fear. Badgelor activated Badger’s Rage and expanded to his Ultimate form, able to ignore it completely.
Now, the specters were pissed. They started moving toward him in ever greater numbers, even as Badgelor began blasting around the room, exploding egg after egg. Strange, the big birdy hadn’t started moving yet. Maybe they had to bust all these ghosts first.
And, of course, who was going to get called for that? Badgelor!
In truth, the plan was excellent. It focused on what each partner did best. Badgelor could be awesome and wreak vengeance upon all that had wronged him, and Jim could do whatever it was that Jim did. Mayoring?
Badgelor’s Laser Vision pierced one specter, disrupting its form. It immediately stopped being a ghost and started being a blob of ectoplasm. Another one came in toward his furry face, allowing Badgelor to rake it with his mighty claws. They didn’t do much, causing only minor imperfections in the ghost’s unearthly body. However, his paw did move it just enough for Badgelor to swallow it whole. The specter squirmed in his gullet for a moment, before suddenly realizing that it couldn’t phase through Badgelor’s stomach. Then, it stopped.
● Badgelor has gained: Spectral Powers. Your body becomes less solid. Your jumping and movement speed increases.
While Badgelor had taken the Devour All talent for eating that bastard Charles, it had other uses. Aside from allowing him to digest any creature he ate, it also kept them in place while he did so. A large bit out of Charles from their last encounter had been the only thing letting him keep pace with the bastard, though now that same bit was just giving him indigestion.
Unfortunately, Shart, the failure, had told him how long he needed to delay the specters, and that was in the order of several minutes. Even with his new mobility, it was only a matter of time until the stupid specters surrounded him. Several were floating right above him, ready to swoop in.
“They got me,” Badgelor muttered.
An instant later, his guts were being hauled through spacetime. Badgelor reappeared five feet off the ground, hovering over some of the younger eggs. He crashed down, splattering yolk everywhere. Then, he continued dashing off, blasting away with his crazed laugh.
***
“How much longer do you think he can keep this up,” I asked, watching Badgelor race around the room a second time. I could summon him at will, causing him to appear near me. That had been important to the plan, because I could pull him out of a threat zone and to somewhere safe. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a cooldown on the power, and the massive bird was stirring.
“I’m drawing power now, but I have to pull all of it. If I don’t, it will rebound, and you’ll get nothing, probably,” stated Shart. Sneaking to the middle of the room had been painfully simple. There were massive amounts of cover everywhere, and most detection spells that looked for humans detected their Holy energy rather than their biological life.
Shart had explained it to me. Basically, a detection spell based on life showed every plant, fungus, mold, and bird egg in the room. Even the necrotic eggs, which were in the process of rotting, had some form of life inside them. A detection spell based on Holy energy detected just that, Holy energy. Those spells worked by
showing the spark that connected your soul to the great beyond. Furthermore, using a spell like that made it much easier to filter out the limited number of souls you wanted to see. If my Holy energy was suppressed, my living body would look much like any of the countless eggs in the room to a detection spell that was based on biological life.
I was hiding between two nearly man-sized, freshly laid eggs. I held one hand on the altar, while Badgelor attempted to go full monster truck rally on anything he could find. The specters were being smarter about their attack this time, though. This is going to be close.
“Just hold them off for a few more seconds,” I said to Badgelor.
“You better cut me loose,” called Badgelor.
“Almost there,” stated Shart, as Badgelor smashed through several of the rotten eggs. His fur was promptly covered in more hissing acid, as a dozen specters chased after him.
‘I can’t hold them,” yelled Badgelor, as several of them scored blows on him. Their spectral claws were partially blunted by his magical hide, but they were still capable of leaving painful wounds.
Badgelor rolled himself into a ball, as even more specters joined the chase. Snarling, he jumped backward into the mass of ghosts, tearing at anything he could find with his claws. The specters were momentarily distracted. I checked and saw that the cooldown to summon Badgelor was still in place.
I was on the knife’s edge of running out to help Badgelor, when Shart yelled, “It's away!” Suddenly, the UnHoly field collapsed, and I felt power flooding into me. It felt like leveling up, without the leveling up aspect of it. It gave me a hollow feeling. I spared a moment to check the prompt.
● You have absorbed an unknown
For Badgelor, the results were more practical. His claws were magical weapons, having just enough of each type of Mana to reliably work on an opponent. With the UnHoly field active, he was only able to minorly affect the specters, which they both knew and expected. With the field down, the first swipe of his claws ripped the face right off a ghost.
The group of confident specters paused, as one of their own brought its clawed hands to its face hole. An instant later, Badgelor ate another one and slammed a third through the ground. It phased away at the last moment. With his weapons no longer stunted by the UnHoly effect, the specters tried to escape. By then, I’d gotten too close.
Using a Smiting Cleave followed by a Smiting Hack and Slash, I was able to dispatch nine of the specters in short order. Now, Badgelor and I were both in the thick of it. Without the UnHoly field, my Smite was incredibly effective against the significantly weaker ghosts. Meanwhile, Badgelor found he could grab a spirit in his claws and smash it against his chest. He executed this trick multiple times; he was faster about the smashing process than the specters were able to phase away.
The remaining ghosts did not last long. That left us in a room that reeked of death and decay, and we still had the big bad bird to deal with.
“Now all we have to do is kill...” I began, as the big bird in the middle of the room slumped forward. The last few ghosts propping her up had fled. She shook herself clean of an eternity of dust, leaving her feathers shining in the dim light. One of her great eyes cracked open. She blinked several times, as she looked around. Finally, she spotted us.
“You have saved me,” she said, again looking around. “Oh, and some of my children, too. That’s, that’s just...awesome.” Of course, it came out as lots of coos and caws, but Badgelor was able to translate it for me.
“Our expectations,” I finished, looking down at Badgelor, who shrugged. “We have to kill our expectations.”
Chapter 36 – The Bird is the Word
“And that is my tale,” said Beakatrix. Fortunately, her language, Macaw, was pretty easy to understand, assuming you had Woodsman’s Lore and a War Badger to help you. The fact that she was a ‘natural creature’ speaking a language made my job easier, I guessed. She also understood Ordinal’s common human language, which, despite the changes it had gone through, still contained some words she recognized. She did note that my accent was terrible. In the end, she talked in her language, and I talked in mine. She also understood War Badger, which had its pros and cons.
Beakatrix had experienced the worst luck that I’d ever heard of a bird having. Eons ago, her civilization had been on the verge of collapsing, so she’d escaped to the pyramid to rest and recuperate. We were standing in some sort of lab, where her people had been researching the UnHoly glitch. The ghosts had broken free, killed everyone, and placed Beakatrix on the altar. The rest was ancient history.
Shart wasn’t even sure how long she’d been trapped here. His rough estimation was in millennia.
“Well, I’m glad we were able to help you,” I said, looking around at the devastation. Badgelor had not destroyed every single egg, but a significant number of them were splattered around the room. Some of the crushed eggs might have been able to survive, if not for Badgelor’s tender mercies.
“Do not worry yourself, Honored One,” Beakatrix said, cocking her head and looking toward Badgelor. She bowed her head in a sign of profound respect.
“Seriously?” I asked.
“I am a War Badger. We are quite important,” said Badgelor self-importantly.
“Do not fret. My lineage will always remember you,” she said, cocking her head at me. It was difficult to ignore the fact that her cock for me was far less respectful.
“What are your plans now?” I asked. “I can’t imagine you living down here in this deep, dark cave.”
“Alas, no,” she replied, “But I fear I have no idea where to go. The Dark Overlord overcame the Hero of Light and destroyed us.”
“Grebthar?” I asked. He might be an absolute bastard, but I knew the legend.
“No! Who is this Grebthar you speak of? I am speaking of the Talon Lord, Umamabo,” Beakatrix said slowly. “It was her sacred task to defeat the Dark Overlord, so she ascended the great dragon to do battle with him. She was defeated, tortured, and killed.”
“That’s unfortunate,” I said. “So, the Dark Overlord won before you fled?”
“Correct. After the defeat of the Talon Lord, the Dark Overlord began his breaking of the world,” she continued solemnly.
“One moment, please. Let me take this all in,” I said, sitting down. Then, I asked Shart, as politely as I could, “Yo, asswipe, explain.”
“So, the Dark Overlord keeps coming back. You know this. Usually, he gets defeated for several thousand years, and we can ignore him in those peaceful times. Unfortunately, he’s back a little early this time.”
“Because we released him?” I asked, already dreading the answer.
“Yes,” replied Shart.
“And he sometimes wins?” I questioned.
“Occasionally, sometimes,” stated Shart. “Okay, initially, he normally always wins. It’s one of the things that built upon the legacy of the Dark Overlord. We thought Grebthar defeated the Dark Overlord. We thought Grebthar won outright! We just turned out to be incorrect, is all.”
“You suck,” I said to them and looked back up to Beakatrix. “That’s a lot to take in, but I also have news for you. The Dark Overlord has returned.”
She seemed to take that in easily enough, causing me to raise an eyebrow. It was a gesture she clearly understood, as she began to explain. “Oh, you are wondering why I am not more concerned, yes? The Dark Overlord just returned, correct? The Talon Lord and the Dark Overlord fought for decades. I’ll have time to slide somewhere safe.”
She was from Florida. Big hurricane incoming? Well, she’s lived through it all before. End of the world? Nah, no big deal.
“Where will you go?” I asked.
“Someplace I can vibe, a place where the food is rockin’,” she answered.
“And how do you plan on getting there?” I asked. I guessed flying would be the easiest answer.
“I have one of these, assuming that the worl
d is not still some sort of medieval hellscape,” she said, pulling out a redstone key. She looked straight at Badgelor as she spoke. He shook his head.
“The Dark Overlord corrupted the Fast Travel network. Now, there is an eldritch abomination that hunts the mortals traveling there,” stated Badgelor. Beakatrix seemed to deflate.
“Truly, I did not expect the horrid state to continue for so long,” she grumbled.
“It was working when I was much younger,” stated Badgelor, “but now the whole network is compromised. I thought it was bad then, but only a fool would travel it today, even with a dire, tremendous need. Were you to use that key now, I doubt you’d last an hour. The Walker would easily catch up to you.”
“The Walker?” she gulped.
“The Walker of Siers can smell your soul. It will come hunting for you,” stated Badgelor. Beakatrix didn’t know the name, but she recognized the seriousness in Badgelor’s words.
“I thought the Walker of Siers was a Necromancer,” I whispered to Shart.
“There are fates far worse than death,” stated the demon. “The Walker betrayed the Dark Overlord. No one is quite sure what happened, but, when the Walker of Siers returned, he was so saturated in Shadow magic that the Dark Overlord imprisoned him in the Fast Lanes.”
“What are the Fast Lanes?” I asked. I had a few minutes to spare with Shart, as Badgelor and Beakatrix continued talking about how excellent the Fast Travel system had been. I was a bit jealous.
“Duh, do you not have a Fast Travel Network on Earth, Dum Dum?” replied the demon.
“No,” I said flatly.
“Wow, Earth straight up SUCKS,” replied Shart. “Oh, wait, I think the polite expression is ‘You guys don’t know what you’re missing.’ It’s another dimension that you can access with a portal key at certain locations. The portals allow you to quickly travel all over the world.”