Frost knew the spell all too well. Life Link. “The hand. Attack the hand. Stop the drain.”
With Aether Shot on full power, he alternated between it and Projectile. Gilda flung Fire and Ice Globes, a series of Stalactites, Stalagmites, a Flame Column, and Infernal Spears. The emperor cried out; his hand dropped; the beam winked out.
Free of Life Link’s drain, Saba collapsed to one knee, chest heaving. Sigrid healed her. Within moments, Saba was on her feet once more. She joined the fray with a barrage of arrows.
“Three minutes!” Frost called out.
Palms slick with sweat, body weary, he fired again and again. His heart raced as desperation crept in. Without an indication of Hit Points, the panic built. They had decreased the beating Dante took, but Frost felt as if they were not doing enough damage.
The central snake head died.
“My precious! My preciooouuusss.” The emperor’s wail cut through the room. It was both anguish and rage.
“Some kind of attack incoming,” Dante shouted over the tumult of cannon fire and spells. “He’s pulsing.”
Sure enough, a dark glow had eased through KiGyaba’s scaled skin. It beat a steady rhythm that slowly increased. Pulses of this sort were always bad news.
“Stop attacking him,” Frost said. “Sigrid, bring out the guard just a bit. Everyone but Dante get within melee range of the guard and attack it with everything you have. Dante, pop Crossguard and Warden the moment you think he’s gonna cast the new skill.”
Frost led the way behind the chimera guard. He, Gilda, Saba, and Sigrid stood beneath its hulking body. The DPS unleashed ability after ability.
“You’re hurting my son!”
No sooner had the emperor shouted than several blue motes of Tears flew across the distance to strike the guard. Imanok Aura followed. A beam of light in which the group basked. Frost immediately sensed the strength, the increased defense. Power. He felt as if he were invincible.
“DIE!” the emperor roared.
A blast of void energy exploded outward in a circle from the emperor. It swept across the room, a black wave that ate everything it touched. Even with the Imanok Aura buff, Frost felt as if his body had been torn in half. His chest and head burned. Darkness engulfed him. He felt himself fading away.
Frost snatched at his belt and drank several health potions. The sensation dissipated. But he still felt weak. Deadeye was a weight he could barely lift. Two minutes on the timer was a distant thing. In the back of his mind he knew they could not survive another Void Pulse.
“Pulsing again.” Dante’s voice was strained. “I’m fucking dying here!”
Now or never, Frost said to himself as he led the group back to the room’s center. He thought of Mom, Kai, Regi, and Rayne. I can’t lose here. Not now. Not after all we’ve been through. And I can’t let my friends down. “Gilda.” Frost’s voice was hoarse to his own ears. “Gilda.”
“Yes.”
“Protect me the best you can with your Aether Shields and Barrier but run out of the room when there’s thirty seconds remaining. Saba get out of here. Save yourself. Dante, when the timer is up, use whatever you need to escape if you can.”
“The throne room door is locked,” Gilda said. “Not that I was going to leave.”
“Neither was I,” Saba added.
“I promised my parents to help you help me,” Sigrid said.
Frost opened his mouth to demand that they save themselves.
Gilda pressed her forefinger to his lips. “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”
“I told you I’m all about the action, boss.” Dante cackled. “Besides, do you really think I’d let you get all the glory of a sacrifice or a World First. Ha! Imagine that. We dine in hell together.”
Frost smiled weakly. Well, if I’m gonna die for the first time in Void Legion, there’s no better way to go.
He squared his shoulders. “Saba, attack with whatever you can. Gilda, the Shields and Barrier.”
“I got you.” Circular blue and red Aether Shields sparked to life above Gilda’s arms. A cyan Aether Barrier appeared around her and Frost. The Shields shifted to her fists in accordance with her movements.
Frost positioned himself squarely behind the emperor. Gilda, Saba, and Sigrid joined him. His vision cleared a tiny bit. He saw a broad back partially hidden by a mass of swaying, hissing, spitting hydra heads.
He aimed Deadeye. “Everyone… use your Aether Overload skills. Either we burn this bitch down or we die.” With those words, Frost drew on Stand and Deliver.
Deadeye glowed blue and hummed. A list of abilities became available. Korbitanium Projectile. Aether Shot. Aether Bomb. Divergence. Piercer. Staggering Shot. The first two had no recharge time. The others had shorter recharge times. Divergence and Aether Bomb had a fifty percent chance to have their recharge completely eliminated.
Beside him, Saba’s body gave off a faint blue glow. She activated Arrow Battery. Her hands appeared to barely move as arrow after arrow, either empowered with aether or elements, streaked from her bow.
With a squeeze of the trigger from Frost, Deadeye unleashed the hammer drill and buzzsaw whine. Shots spewed forth like fire. Each ability, one after another, until they settled into alternating Aether Shots and Projectiles. Frost’s arms jerked with each recoil.
The cyclic rate was slow at first. Whine. Whomp. Whine. Whomp. It built. A rhythm. Faster and faster and faster until it became a solid sound. The jet engine whine of a PT. A glorious dissonance of destruction. The rapidity eliminated the recharge time for Aether Bomb and Divergence.
The emperor’s body pulsed. The effect increased until the beats were inseparable. Hydra heads hissed, spit, snapped out, and struck.
Gilda was a blur of action around Frost. She was the Gilda from Heroic Castle Dhoom. But this time she danced with an Aether Shield on each arm, knocking aside hydra heads, blocking poisonous spit. From time to time an Ice Pillar rose from the ground to block a striking hydra. She was a beautiful sight, darting around him as she employed the sorcerer’s defensive Overload skill, Song of Ice and Fire.
But poison spit was landing in copious amounts. It coated the floor. Coated Frost. A snake head got past Gilda’s defense, bit into Frost’s shoulder. He cried out but still clung to Deadeye as it fired. Gilda knocked the snake away.
Frost’s vision blurred. He wanted so much to rest. To simply lie down on the ground. Sleep. To lose himself in a never-ending slumber. The slumber of the dead.
“BURN HIMMMM!” Frost’s voice echoed.
He and Deadeye were one. Fire and light spewed from the muzzle in an incessant stream, stretching up to the emperor, a fireworks display streaking through the air. Saba’s arrows were multiple blurs. Even Gilda unleashed spells while using her shields. The attacks exploded in too many places to count. Too rapid to track.
“DI-” The emperor’s voice cut off. He swayed. Every snake was but so much mush. Holes and exposed meat riddled the back of the emperor’s body. Half of his head ceased to exist. Green blood spurted from the necks, from his body. It pooled beneath him. The emperor collapsed.
Even as Frost made to let out an elated yell, he sagged. Gilda and Saba were there to catch him. Sigrid cleansed Frost and healed him with Tears and Blood. She did the same for Gilda and Saba.
“If someone don’t get this big sack of shit off me,” called out Dante’s muffled voice.
The group burst into laughter. Frost, Saba, and Gilda helped lift the emperor’s midsection, while Sigrid had her Servitors drag Dante from beneath the hydra.
Frost let out a whoop. “WE DID IT! FUCK YEAH. WORLD FIRST, BABY! Epic players do epic things.”
“What-what happened to the last chimera guard,” Dante asked, squinting as he peered all around.
“He died when the emperor did,�
� Sigrid said.
The group hugged and laughed.
Trials of Imanok Sanctum
Objective Complete
Cleared Imanok Sanctum
15, 000 experience points
1500 Ignis dominion credits
1500 Khertahka dominion credits
The Void Legion’s First General
Defeated Emperor KiGyaba
15, 000 experience points
1500 Ignis dominion credits
1500 Khertahka dominion credits
Doors opened around the room. The slaves and nobles fled. Behind the throne, an even wider opening gaped. Despite where Frost stood, he saw the thing awaiting them. His mouth hung open.
CHAPTER 39
Frost’s group stood before the machine. Housed within a korbitanium frame made up of six beams was a barrel-shaped glass container large enough to fit a gurash. Inside the container there was a platform two or three feet from the bottom. Translucent aether swirled within the glass, glowing a radiant azure blue.
“You certain it’s a Genesis Engine?” Dante walked around the machine, thoroughly enthralled.
“Yes,” Frost said.
Dante squatted and peered into the thickest swirls of aether. “How does it work? Can we make our own hierkas? Or empower shards with skill effects?”
“I suppose we could,” Gilda answered. “If one of us was a hierkaneer. And if we had the necessary schemas and all the materials.”
“Do you realize how much this is worth?” Dante caressed the glass.
“I wouldn’t touch it, if I were you,” Frost said. “As for worth… the fucking thing is priceless. I heard one’s in Kituan. In the Aetherium, to be exact. Supposedly, it’s how the Coalition supplies some of the Vindicators.”
“Those were nothing but rumors.” Gilda shook her head. “I never saw anything remotely like this when I studied at the Aetherium.”
“Well, now we have one of our own.” Smiling, Saba had a dreamy look on her face.
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say we got our own.” Frost shook his head. “It’s too big for any inventory. And how do we know we can move it? Suppose it’s the purpose for clearing this dungeon? Clear, bring a hierkaneer, craft, and leave.”
“How’s it work?” Dante was still squatting and staring into the glass.
The aether coiled and shifted like a living thing. Frost could feel its power. It called to him.
“A retired Vindicator taught a class on draconid tech at the Aetherium when I was there,” Gilda said. “Genesis Engines tap directly into the Aetherstream that runs deep underground, flowing through all of Mikander like blood. The largest branches of it are even called arteries. The smaller ones are veins. The Aetherstream is one of the reasons people started believing the religions that claim Mikander itself is built around the corpses of three Divines: Sienne, Korbash, and Marang, who fled here during the Divinity War.”
“I always loved that bit of lore.” Frost smiled. “Their love story was deep.”
“And tragic,” Gilda added.
“It got me into roleplaying,” Saba confessed.
“Bah. Nerds,” Dante huffed. “All that matters is that until we get a hierkaneer in here, we won’t know if we should, or can, move it. Which means it’s useless to us for now. Let’s see the loot we actually got. You know, the stuff we can take with us.” He indicated the four golden treasure chests in the room.
Frost strode over to the first chest, the longest of the bunch. He flipped open the lid. A zhua rested in a velvet mold, the staff portion etched with various designs, ending in a polished korbitanium claw. He reached down and picked up the mystic’s hierka.
Benediction
Level: Levels with the owner
Damage: 50 − 75
Force: 5
Special: Channels void energy to cure the Gray Death. Skill activation requires Empowered Ameliorate, Empowered Suppression, and Empowered Rejuvenate.
Shard slots: 3
The Sanctum’s Secret Hierka
Objective Complete
Acquired the zhua, Benediction:
2500 experience points
1500 Ignis dominion credits
The Cure
Objective Complete:
Acquired Benediction
2500 experience points
1500 Ignis dominion credits
He told his friends. And he noted the quest still required the necessary spells.
“The Gray Death?” Saba repeated in disbelief. “As in the plague that wiped out so many? That’s still prevalent in parts of Puria, Lothal, and Nimri? That Gray Death?”
“Unless you know another Gray Death,” Frost said. He recalled his talk with Nebsamu about the plague. “Is it really that widespread?”
“It’s worse than most know.” Saba’s tail swished. “The Coalition’s been keeping news of it from spreading as quietly as they can while the Vindicators search for a cure. But they have their hands full. Not just with the plague, but also with the devastation left after the last voidstorm, and the random draconid appearances.”
“Should we give this to them?” Frost held out Benediction.
“The Coalition?” Dante grimaced. “The people hunting us?”
“Right?” Saba scoffed. “I’m surprised you’re asking that question. We should go find the other spells it needs, or someone who has them that we can trust, and use it ourselves.”
Frost told them all he had learned from Nebsamu and Adesh Hamada about the Black Hand and the Coalition. “Right now, our enemy is the Black Hand. They’re using the Coalition to do their dirt. I’m willing to bet quite a few people within the Coalition don’t know they’re being manipulated.”
“No doubt,” Gilda said. “And because of that, I think we need to discover all the Black Hand’s members before we even consider giving up the zhua. Or informing anyone else. Whomever owns Benediction has a lot of power. Enough to make others do what they want.”
“Alright.” Frost put the zhua in his inventory. “We search for the spells needed. We might get lucky and come across someone in Blue Sky that has them. Also, we find out who we can trust in the Coalition. We also root out these Black Hand members. They killed my mother. They gotta pay.”
“That will take some doing,” Saba said. “You saw how powerful Nomarch Botros is.”
“I don’t care what it takes.” Frost shrugged. “I suppose everyone has the quest for the Black Hand?” Sigrid was the only person who didn’t nod.
Gilda leaned across to Frost and whispered, “Looks like this might be your group for a while, Mister Solo.”
Frost smiled. “A guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.” Gilda giggled.
“Okay, you two, enough of the lovey-dovey stuff,” Dante grumbled. “Y’all can get a room and play with your horns later.” He chuckled. “Loot, man, let’s finish the loot.”
The next chest contained a schema on how to craft more Benedictions. Frost whistled. He tucked it into his inventory.
The next two chests contained four skill effect shards. Two were for marauder skills. Empowered Sentinel Shout increased the defensive and health capability and added an attack power buff. Empowered Reaping Blow increased the health it returned.
“That’s what I’m talking about.” Dante grinned when he received the shards. “Kicking more ass and taking more names.”
The next skill effect shard was for Gilda’s Infernal Spear. Not only would it now be able to home in on a target, but also she could pinpoint two more after the first and it would pierce all three albeit a bit weaker each time.
Lastly, there was one for Saba’s Triple Barrage. It became Quintuple Barrage.
Dante strode over to Frost. “That was like old times. Gives me the it
ch to be in a guild. How would you feel about starting up Soldiers of Chaos again?”
“I don’t know. Honestly haven’t given it a lot of thought.” Frost couldn’t picture reliving the stress and hurt from when SoC broke up. Starting a new guild meant opening those old wounds. He’d poured his soul into their family. He didn’t think he was ready for that. Being in a group this long was bad enough.
“While you think on it, I just wanted to say sorry about what happened before.” Dante sighed heavily. “Things in SoC should’ve never ended like that. A lot of it was my fault. But if you’ll have me again, I’m more than willing to be your main tank or whatever else you need.”
Frost smiled. “Thanks. I’m sorry about how things turned out also. And I’ll keep it in mind.”
“If we’re all done, there looks to be a portal over there.” Saba pointed to a column of yellow light. “Saves us the trouble of running into Sidrie on the way out.”
“What’s that on the other side of it?” Dante asked. “On the wall.”
Markings on the wall glowed a greenish blue. They were in the shape of a door. The group made their way past the portal to the wall. A phrase was written above the door.
Void Gate.
“Never seen one of those before,” Saba said.
Frost’s ring vibrated. He shot a knowing look Gilda’s way. “Gilda and I’ll check it out. The rest of you wait here and keep an eye out in case Setnana and her Battleguards show up.”
“Don’t be too long,” Saba said.
“You should let me come.” Dante rested his axe over his shoulder. “In case there’s some action.”
“We won’t be long,” Frost promised. “And the dungeon is cleared, so the only action will be from Setnana entering the room. It’s better if you’re here in case she does.”
“You’re the boss,” Dante said.
Frost and Gilda approached the etching. He held her hand, took a breath, and they stepped through. Frost’s heart leapt with joy when he saw Pops floating in the air above a map of Mikander.
“You don’t have much time,” Pops said. “Nomarch Botros is close to solving the maze.”
Void Legion Page 39