by Oliver Mayes
The surviving priest cheered and Aetherius spun round, warning him not to let his guard down. Too late. Damien’s remaining wraith forced an arm-blade through the priest’s chest, the second blade stabbing again and again. Aetherius decided he was a lost cause, put his hands together and expended the rest of his mana to destroy friend and foe alike.
Only Aetherius and Damien now remained.
36
The Final Battle
Aetherius stood in the middle of his slaughtered raid group and drank another mana potion, glancing around to make sure nothing was coming for him. His wariness was telling: he didn’t know that with the exception of Noigel, all Damien’s forces had been depleted.
Damien’s mind raced. How was he going to replenish his minion count now? All the soul energy from the raid had been soaked up by Bart, leaving Damien with nothing.
Aetherius yelled furiously into the dungeon, the slightest tremor of fear ringing his words.
“Where are you, Damien? You chickenshit!”
He fired off a single bolt of energy, tracing the blue light all the way to the wall where it exploded in a glowing sphere. An interesting use of the aesthetic properties of his spell. It was crude, but he wasn’t leaving himself open by sending the mana wisp away. He whirled, firing off three more in a spiral. It was certainly creative. They illuminated the space around him for a good five seconds in expanding circles before they exploded in the air. This would be a problem.
“What, did you run? Having second thoughts after what happened to Lillian? She was a lot better than you, and she didn’t stand a chance!”
Damien seethed silently. He needed a plan and doubted he’d be able to kill Aetherius with just Noigel to help.
Five more Arcane Bolts were fired, this time in straight lines. One of them burst on the wall next to Damien’s base entrance, illuminating it clearly. Yet another problem. Aetherius had been looking the other way, but if he kept doing this he’d find Damien’s base before too long.
Aetherius would definitely trash his base before he left. A pyrrhic victory, but a victory nevertheless. The first thing to go would be the core of his base, the Soul Well, since he’d put it right—
Damien's eyes widened as the full weight of his stupidity fell onto his shoulders. Hadn’t Bartholomew specifically said there were plenty of souls in his base? The clue was in the goddamn name.
They were in the Soul Well.
He’d been accumulating souls in that thing since day one! There were thirty in there. Taking all of them and using the amulet Bartholomew had created for him, Damien could replenish his entire personal minion count. Oh, Bartholomew, you cryptic Socratic bastard, why couldn’t you have just said so?
He communicated his orders to Noigel, the imp flying overhead toward his base as fast as he could. Damien waited until another set of spiraling bolts collided with the wall before prompting Noigel to drop deftly into the alcove. He Demon Gated and swiftly stepped inside his base.
He ran up to the altar and brought up the information window. In the top right corner sat the red cross that would allow him to destroy the Soul Well: the same option he’d disregarded, back when it had been no more than a shabby pile of rocks.
‘Destroy the Soul Well? Yes/No?’
Damien nodded and there was a piercing crack as the metal sacrificial table snapped in half and toppled over on either side, revealing the stone foundation below. The rocky dome crumbled and the souls within seeped out on all sides, covering the ground around it in a thick silver mist. Ten souls' worth flooded into his hands and the rest of it pooled around his feet.
An Arcane Beam passed an arm’s length from where he stood and burnt itself into the back wall. Apparently, the acoustics were pretty good in here. Aetherius had heard the demolition from the dungeon floor. Just what he needed.
Damien clutched the amulet in his right hand, the surface of the metal turning hot as it activated. He couldn’t use this thing to summon a balanced team. The amulet would only remove the casting time of the first spell he chose. There was only one sensible choice Damien could see.
He pointed at the ground and summoned an imp. This time, the sigil appeared fully formed and the portal came instantly, the imp dropping out soon after. Damien dragged his finger around himself in a circle and sigil after sigil seared into the floor, overlapping each other in a long line as one imp after the next fell out of the portals in perfect synchronization. As he spun, the soul energy on the floor flowed into his free hand in a constant stream.
Soon, he’d hit his full Soul Summon Limit and have twenty-seven imps. They were gathering in front of him when Aetherius lit up the doorway, his silhouette appearing within the frame until the mana wisp jetted forward over his head. The ring of light it provided exposed the horde of imps at Damien’s feet.
“What the f—”
The imps screamed hysterically and launched into the air, swarming in every direction like a flock of manic bats. Damien ran for cover, sprinting to the side and throwing himself behind his Gateway.
Aetherius opened fire. Each imp attempted to dodge and weave through the stream of Arcane Missiles. There were so many of them and the space was so enclosed that Aetherius could hardly fail to hit, but their numbers meant they couldn’t all be repelled.
He’d fired about six bolts before the first imp attached itself to his leg and bit into his calf. Aetherius looked down and flailed his foot, trying to kick it loose, only for another one to wrap itself around his head before clawing at his face. Then the rest of them came flooding in, covering the mage from head to toe in a rippling wave of wailing red rage.
Aetherius screamed and his hands stopped glowing as he tried to rip them off, to no avail. They weren’t good at much, but they certainly liked clinging onto things. Still completely coated in minions, Aetherius turned with difficulty and Blinked out of Damien’s base, the imps collapsing to the ground in his absence.
Damien darted forward and leapt over them through the doorway, wanting to press his advantage. The imps quickly rose and followed, spreading out when they reached the wider space of the dungeon floor.
Aetherius was only a short distance out in front, his back turned, but he was tapping his foot. Damien sent a single imp on the attack, swooping it in to attach itself to the back of Aetherius's head. It arrived there at full pace, claws extended, only to pass straight through the illusion and land on the floor in a squealing heap.
The mana wisp started flying away to the left wall, to where Aetherius must really be. Damien chased after it, looking ahead for Aetherius with his night vision but seeing nothing. The wisp arrived at the empty wall, then promptly turned around and hovered high over Damien’s own head, illuminating him as though he were on stage. Aetherius wasn’t there.
Damien whirled around and picked him out on the opposite side of the dungeon with his night vision. Aetherius had gotten the better of him. He was back at full health, too; apparently he’d stocked up on healing potions as well. And his hands were glowing red.
Damien pointed at the first imp he saw, Demon Gating into the air a fraction of a second before the Arcane Beam ripped through his minion in a severe case of overkill. The mana wisp whizzed after him, the patch of light searching for Damien’s new location. He sent an imp upward to dispose of it before it could track him down, the claws slashing through it with ease.
Aetherius summoned a new wisp and sent it up high above himself, keeping his surroundings well-lit before firing a stream of Arcane Missiles in a wide spread. Damien fled out of their path, scattering his imps to avoid the magic, then crouched at the edge of the wall to direct them properly. He had to end this, fast.
As far as Damien could tell, Aetherius had a near endless supply of potions. Damien had made his last big play already. He wouldn’t get a second chance.
The imps were closing in on either side, but with so many of them the beats of their wings were easy to hear. The mana wisp pulsed, suddenly increasing the range of the light, and
Aetherius began firing again. Damien’s summon limit was already at eighteen; it wouldn’t be long before he had too few imps to make an impact.
He switched tactics. Instead of flying the imps aggressively toward Aetherius, he fanned them out in a wide circle and instructed them to stay at range and focus on dodging. With the extra distance, the imps did a much better job of avoiding the spells than he’d expected. They bobbed and weaved away from missiles in unison like a shoal of fish, although their incessant yelling gave them more in common with geese.
With the imps dodging, Damien would preserve more of his forces while Aetherius would still be using up his mana. When he paused to drink a potion, that was when Damien would send them in.
Noigel landed on his shoulder, causing Damien to start. He hadn’t given Noigel instructions since he Demon Gated into his base, preoccupied first with using the amulet and then dueling Aetherius. It was a good thing Noigel had his own prerogative.
“Master, this isn’t going to work. His bag is—”
Aetherius cast a last pair of Arcane Missiles, both of which were dodged by the imps at the edge of his mana wisp’s circle of light, then crossed his arms and started tapping his foot. This was it. Damien was about to attack with everything he had when Noigel hissed in his ear, disrupting his focus.
“Master, you have eighteen imps left. I won’t have Forbidden Knowledge once you’ve got less than ten. Now would be a very good time to listen.”
Damien just managed to hold back a yell of frustration. Noigel had interrupted his focus at the crucial moment. Now he’d have to wait until Aetherius was out of mana again. More annoyingly still, his enemy was showing no sign of running out of potions, despite his lack of backpack. He wasn’t playing conservatively enough for Damien to suspect there was any end in sight.
Damien pulled his imps back out of the light and eyeballed Noigel. Whatever he wanted to say, it had better be pretty damn important. Noigel ignored his angry glare and pointed at Aetherius’s foot-tapping form.
“Do you see that bag, the one attached to his belt?”
Damien focused and found it. It was no surprise he hadn’t noticed it before. It was barely larger than a closed fist.
“That’s the same type of bag Bartholomew uses,” Noigel said. “It doesn’t contain items; it has a portal inside connecting to another inventory, probably in his home base. He’ll never run out of potions.”
This was much worse than Damien had imagined. Aetherius could chug all day long and never have to worry about running out.
If his wisdom was as low as Damien suspected, without that bag his build would be worthless. It was why the coward wouldn’t fight Toutatis – because the fight had been on a test server and the bag probably wouldn’t function prope—
Wait. That’s it.
It was a long shot, but if Damien could pull it off, victory would be certain. Lillian would not have died in vain.
Aetherius was on the offensive now, moving out into the dungeon with his hands raised and the mana wisp scouting out ahead of him.
Damien stared Noigel dead in the face and thought out very clearly what he wanted him to do. Noigel stared back, then out at Aetherius, then at Damien again.
“Are you sure?”
“Just do it. You’re the only one I trust to get it done. I’ll give you the opening. I’m counting on you.”
Noigel puffed out his chest and saluted, then lifted off into the air to wait for his moment from high above. Damien ordered his imps to maintain distance at the edge of the mana wisp’s light as he moved around the outside, watching Aetherius closely. As long as his presence was concealed he could still try to resolve this the old fashioned way; with a dagger in the back. It would certainly be a simpler task than the one he’d entrusted to Noigel.
He’d almost made it when Aetherius’s hands glowed blue and swept around him, firing off another two swirling bolts of energy to guard against this very tactic. Damien picked out the first imp he could see and Demon Gated.
His feet hit the ground, the sound giving him away. Aetherius’s mana wisp shot toward the noise, thrumming directly over Damien's head and staying there.
Damien had no Demon Gate and was fully illuminated. He ordered all his imps to close in as Aetherius split his hands, launching both straight-firing and circling bolts to attack and defend simultaneously.
The only choice left was to run. It was about as much fun as dodging traffic. Imps dove to block shots that would otherwise kill him, whittling their numbers down further.
It was pandemonium. Imps were exploding all over the dungeon as they flew headlong into the circling bolts, buying Damien valuable seconds of life. The straight fired bolts forced him to keep running forward, the circling bolts that his imps couldn’t reach had to be dodged left and right. Only six imps remained. He threw a glance back at Aetherius and his adversary’s lips immediately curled into a contemptuous sneer.
In that moment of lost focus, Damien failed to dodge a bolt soaring in from the front. There were no imps in range left to intercept it. It smashed into his stomach and blew him off his feet. The knockback of the first carried him back into the second, one of the straight shots that Aetherius had been tracing his movement with. It knocked him to the ground as the next volley arced over his head. They hit hard. It was the weakest spell in the mage arsenal, yet each hit had done over two-hundred damage. Aetherius had upgraded it plenty. Damien was down to a quarter of his health.
Having stopped his target’s movement, Aetherius’s hands cupped and turned from blue to red, preparing to finish Damien with a single, powerful blow.
Behind Aetherius, a single imp had finally managed to get within range. Damien twisted on the floor, pointed, and used Implosion just before the Beam activated. Aetherius was interrupted by the pull of the spell. He skidded across the floor, yelling with surprise and anger as Noigel seized his long-awaited opportunity. He plummeted down from above, landing double-footed on Aetherius’s stomach as he went to work on his waist. The remaining three imps arrived moments later, attaching themselves to Aetherius’s hands and face.
After a few seconds of flailing, he resorted to his tried and tested method of imp removal. Noigel disengaged just before Aetherius Blinked away, the slower three imps falling to the ground. Aetherius turned back the way he’d come and fired a burst of Arcane Bolts in a tight spread, killing all three in one go.
Noigel, the only minion left, was flying back to Damien’s side as fast as his wings could carry him. Damien looked at the damage Aetherius had sustained. He had some scratches on his usually pristine face and the back of his hands but his health points hadn’t taken much of a hit. The mana wisp was still over Damien’s head, allowing Aetherius to see how badly wounded Damien had been by just two of his multitudinous projectiles. It was clear which of them had come out worse.
Aetherius put a hand on his hip and dropped the other one to his side for a new mana potion, his derisive laughter echoing off the walls. Damien stared unflinchingly into his eyes as Aetherius attempted to rub salt into his wounds.
“Is that it? Some imps? I expected more after everything you promised your fanboys! ‘Kill Aetherius or die trying’, was it? I bet you wish—”
He abruptly stopped talking and looked at his hand. It was quite bereft of mana potion. He focused on it and flexed his fingers, achieving nothing. He looked back at Damien just in time to watch Noigel land on his shoulder and drop a small bundle into his open palm. Damien kept his eyes locked on Aetherius’s as he mimicked his stance, holding his empty hand out to one side. A high-grade health potion appeared within. He continued looking at Aetherius as he raised it to his lips and chugged it down. Slowly. Savoring this perfect moment.
Aetherius stared listlessly at the potion, then turned his attention to the bundle Noigel had delivered. He gagged, his eyeballs widening until it seemed they might drop out of his skull. His hands fell to his waist and groped all along his belt. His Bag of Holding wasn’t there. Of course it
wasn’t. Damien had it.
Damien wiped his lips with his sleeve, not breaking eye contact for even a second, and passed his verdict.
“You are so screwed.”
Aetherius goggled at him, his lips flapping without making any sound. Then his face abruptly became a mask of calm. He folded his arms and started to tap his foot. The illusion had never been less convincing.
Noigel leapt off Damien’s shoulder and flew straight through the image, leaving a smeared haze in his wake. The moment Noigel dispelled the copy, Aetherius reappeared running toward the wall, panting heavily and looking over his shoulder. Damien didn’t move.
There was no need. He was running the wrong way.
Aetherius found this out to his cost when he hit the wall, falling over backward and yelling in literal blind panic. The mana wisp abruptly left Damien and traversed the dungeon toward him. Noigel intercepted it and slashed it through, plunging the chamber into total darkness.
Aetherius bellowed in fear and staggered to his feet, fumbling his way along the wall with his hands – still going in the wrong direction.
The outbursts gave way to a series of uncontrolled whines, much like you’d expect to hear from a dog who wants to be let outside. Damien decided it was time to put him out of his misery.
He walked toward him, making sure not to cover the sound of his approach at all. The yelling came back again.
“Don’t–No. No! It’s my bag, give it back! You cheated!”
Damien pulled out his daggers and twirled them around in his hands, whistling a tune that was punctuated by his purposefully loud footsteps. Aetherius cowered against the wall. Totally defenseless.
Damien stood over him, feeling both elated and exhausted. He struck once.