by Marty Myers
After a while, he did split his attention enough to give the dwarves a tour of his dungeon and introduce Thane Vander Vegan and his brethren with the Captain Cronolith and his crew and talk to them about how they might coordinate each other’s efforts in defending the dungeon. The two groups seemed to be wary but respectful of each other while in Hank’s company. It turned out that Cronolith had a fearsome reputation that was well known among the dark dwarves.
Hank wanted to ask about it but there was too much to do right now. He had placed the pirate crew and their ship’s cavern in the empty unworked space higher up near the bottom of the second floor. He was thinking of expanding the cavern and partially flooding it so that the ship might once more float free. But he wanted to discuss it further with the captain before he made any adjustments. He could see that some repairs were already underway on the ship. Hank offered to send Birch out to acquire whatever goods the captain needed for repairs or for his crew. Since he was already going to be shopping to refit the dark brotherhood with gear since some of their own had not survived their long stay on the seafloor.
Chapter 31
Once Hank had arranged this he returned to solely meditating and managed to replenish much of his reserves as well as smooth out his aura. He could feel that the Darkness had once more entered the altar room some time ago when he had been distracted out on the sea floor and was busy once more with the ritual’s preparation. Hank was almost tempted to go down and try seeing what was being done to his body now but the gruesome memory of the last time he had seen the Darkness directing the peeling his flesh from his bones to cut runes into them convinced him it would be better not to know just what was being done.
After a few more hours spent replenishing himself, he did search out the Black Guards Captain Kravous and take him around introducing him to his new minions. Kravous seemed shaken when he met Captain Cronolith face to face. Cronolith, seemed less than pleased by the Black Guard arriving with Hank. He said, “ I thought the Black Guard were permanently assigned to auxiliary positions only, far away from the front lines and anything of importance.” Kravous said, “ We go where ever the Darkness commands us to. We are currently ordered to guard the altar room in this dungeon from the forces of Light since Hank is new and so lightly defended.” Yngvar picking up on the byplay entered the conversation by saying, “ well no worries about that now that Hank has brought us in. I am sure you and your guards will soon be shipped back to whatever positions you were holding before being sent here.”
“ So when did you become the captain of the Black Guards,” Cronolith asked? Kravous who looked even more uncomfortable before answering, “ when we arrived here Captain Khourick challenged the dungeon Hank and his master Provoas’s handling of our billeting. There was an altercation that the Lord Darkness saw fit to personally intervene in between Hank and Khourick. When the Darkness was done punishing them, Khourick was too damaged inside to take up his duties once more. So the Darkness placed me in command of the guard and issued more instructions about our position here.” “Indeed, sounds like another instance where the Blackguards lack of discipline and understanding of their jobs almost does the Light’s work for them,” Cronolith said frostily, before turning away in obvious dismissal of the flushing guard captain to face.
Cronolith instead turned to the Dwarf. “ Thane Yngvar, I have not had the pleasure of working with your people before since you are hardly to be found upon the seas. But I like what I am seeing so far and your men look sturdy enough. I do know you can’t go wrong garrisoning dwarfs inside of a mountain.” The Thane of the Dwarves agreed by saying, “ you got that right Captain Cronilith. I wasn’t sure just what Hank had in mind for you and your pirate crew when I first seen them arrive. But after Hank was talking to us all earlier about flooding a floor or two and unleashing more of those big man-eating zombie fish he’s made along with the fact that that long bath we all took has got us energized with water essence to the point that it looks like we can fight underwater at almost the same speeds we do in fresh air. Well now I’m thinking the Heroes of the Light had better be awfully good at holding their breath and swimming for their lives before coming down here with your crew and us.”
“ I know I’ll be tempted into singing a merry song while we cut them to pieces. I even heard a good one from your boys over there just a bit ago,” he said while pointing over to a wall. The Dwarf smiled a hearty smile that was soon echoed on Cronolith’s face as they could hear the brothers Blight even now somewhere nearby in the walls singing an old dark sea shanty full of dark deeds and dire predictions.
The conversation was interrupted when Hank felt the aether all around them shudder as the Lord Darkness himself appeared in the chamber they were meeting in. “ Hank,” The Darkness yelled, “ I need you to stop pulling so hard upon your ties to the energies of the Black Altar. I am getting to a crucial stage of the resurrection and I do not need any more fluctuations of the power causing complications to be added into the process.” The Darkness paused as he took in Hanks company. For the first time ever Hank saw he seemed a bit hesitant. “ I now see why you have drawn so much upon my Altar’s energies. Retrieving Cronolith must have been an extremely trying task. Provoas has been bragging about the length and depth of your burgeoning teleportation talent and now I see he was indeed correct in his statements. If we should succeed in our current endeavors I will have much more use for it.” Hank nodded and bowed his head not wanting to say anything to anger the volatile Lord in this moment.
There was another awkward pause. “ No words for me dear father,” Cronolith said. The Darkness paused and then replied, “ Here are my words to you son. You are now not much more than a pale wasted shadow of yourself, if Hank can somehow make use of you while protecting my own efforts to resurrect your brother the Dark Prince then I will count your being found and dredged up to rejoin us even in this sorry state as a good thing. But you likely will never recover all that you once were. I doubt very much that you can even recover enough of it to reclaim your old position within the Dark hierarchy.”
“ You should have abandoned Skarlock and the fleet at the first sign of Manuck’s retribution and saved yourself instead of dying with them. He is most harsh in his punishments, it is one of the few things about him that I respect and that we have in common. If you somehow manage to live long enough you will learn from this lesson.” Cronolithe turned away at hearing his father’s harsh words while everyone else pretended not to bear witness to their reunion.”
“ Now that the family drama has been dealt with,” the Darkness said, “ all of you have until tomorrow to prepare for my next visit when I expect to see even more improvements from you all. The forces of the Light are for once not content to rest upon their laurels. Instead they are closing in on our location and we need to be ready to fight them when they find this place.” And with that, the Darkness turned away from his son and the rest and vanished.
Chapter 32
Hank was shocked to discover who Cronolith was. He had not thought the Darkness even had sons even with the Dark Prince he had thought the Darkness had just adopted him as a kindred being of evil and prime minion and not an actual son. He was also worried by what he had heard and how cold and cruel the Darkness had been to Cronolith. He dismissed Kravous who looked less worried about the scorn Cronolith had shown him now and Yngvar who looked overawed by the Lord Dark’s appearance. “ I will come to talk with both of you further in a while. In the meantime you both know what you’re supposed to be doing so go get to it,” Hank said to them, dismissing them.
“ Cronolith I would like a word with you.” The Captain drew himself up and said, “ what is it you would prefer to use me for now for that you know who I am and where I stand in my father’s eyes.” Hank snorted and shook his head. “ Stop that nonsense Cronolith,” he said. “ Your still the iron hard madman of a captain I met standing in the sunlight with your ship resting upon the holy sands beneath the Sea Lord’s waters endlessly defying it
all to shelter your men from harm. Nothing, in my opinion, has changed from then till now. I was just surprised because I had no idea the Darkness had sired actual sons, and I can’t imagine how that could have happened. I thought he was a completely immaterial spirit up till now. I don’t even what to think about how it might have happened. But now that is all that keeps popping back into my mind. Where is the brain bleach when you really need it huh?” Cronolith look confused but also less distrusting of him so Hank continued on.
“ Anyway, what I want to talk to you about is that the Darkness made it seem like you are pretty badly hurt still. I was hoping you would have time to recover before we faced any serious opposition. Just the same as I am trying to help the dwarfs get ready for whats coming. I want to help you out as much as I can too.” Cronolith said, “ well I appreciate it but there really isn’t much you can do Hank. I will eventually recover some of my former strength but both I and my ship took a tremendous pounding from shielding everyone from all the holiness and light down there for all those years.”
“ My ship has suffered a serious depletion of and bleaching of our aura in the area where we stored the majority of our shared essence.” Hank broke in saying, “ so then, you were one of the prototypes for the dungeon ritual weren’t you?” The pirate captain nodded stiffly. “ Then does that mean that your essence was initially being shared by forcing it into the ships physical structure? I know I do it when I pass through the stone of my dungeon and leave behind some of my essence embedded in the rock.” “ Yes, that is essentially the same with me.” Cronolith said, “ I, of course, do not pass through my ships hull having a physical body, but touching it and willing my essence out through my aura to expand and embed itself in the wooden structure is much the same thing.” “ You dungeons are lucky in that rock generally soaks up more of our essence more readily than most other materials including wood.”
Hank had an idea. Excitedly he said, “ so I might guess that a large portion of you and your ships shared dark essence was contained in your ballast stones, am I right?” “ Yes,” Cronolith said, “ with a sigh, and they were resting almost directly upon those blasted holy sands you found us sunk upon. The first few years their Dark charge within them itself was enough to keep the light at bay, but over the years they were gradually getting weaker and were getting close to being overwhelmed entirely. I estimated that we had only a few more years left before they failed to hold the light at bay, luckily you came and found us before that happened.”
Hank said, “ I have found I can withdraw my essence from some of my dungeon if I wish to carve out more passages. I do so before removing the waste rock and teleporting it away. I also occasionally add it to either my size or sometimes just an item or object I assimilate into myself.” Cronolith nodded and said. “ it is much the same with me and my ship. I have to make repairs and even replace planks too damaged on occasion.” “ Okay, Hank said, “ then if you will trust me, I think we can work together and manage to repair and replenish your ships aura and essence in a short amount of time. Come with me and we will get started,” Hank said.
“ First,” Cronolith said, “ we need to go ahead with the swearing-in service. My father has spoken on this matter and for once I agree with him. I would serve you Hank and if I am bound to you it should make it much easier for us to both do the repairs we are talking about.” Hank could not disagree with that and agreed to take Cronolith into his service. During the ceremony, there was a tremendous exchange of energies and a large rebalancing of essences between them. Hank felt himself take on a portion of the Light essence that was overwhelming Cronolith’s core as well as some of the overflow of water essence that his long underwater entrapment had built up in him and in exchange a portion of Hanks dark and demonic essence traveled back through their bond and helped replenish his newest minions dark essence. Sadly it was not much more than a few drops in the bucket compared to the captains true capacity for dark essence. Still, this transfer was much more drastic than it had been in accepting any other into his service up to this point. Then again, Hank figured Cronolith was probably close to being a demigod at one point being the son of the Darkness himself.
Hank felt the ship also played a large part of the tipping of the scales during the ceremony and found he now knew many things about the ship now including that her name was Justinian and that all the planks she had originally been built of were cut from the same magical intelligent tree which was Cronoliths familiar similar to how Alistar was bound to Hank. Hank sensed the tree was also still alive somewhere in the ship and even growing somehow although it was severely stunted by its long ordeal of laying under the salty sea for all these years.
Hank felt out of sorts having so much more light essence rumbling around in his core. It was not settling in well with his dark and necromantic energies only the of water essence he had gotten earlier was acting as a buffer between the light and darkness from mixing inside him. He could not imagine how Cronolith must have felt for all those years as the Light built up inside him.
After they had both caught their breath Hank teleported them back to the ship and took a closer look at her. She had suffered some serious damage. But the worst of it was where she had rested upon the sea floor. Hank could even see much of the ballast nearly spilling out of the gaps in her hull. Hank teleported up the dark empowered ballast that had come from the dwarfs old transport ship. Hank said, “ I am thinking that you and I can teleport the old ballast right outside the ship and you can withdraw your essence from it. Then we teleport this dark infused ballast back into the hull and you infuse it with your aura. Then you and Justiniann can claim it for your own. Lastly, I teleport out the Light-infused ballast somewhere away from us.”
Cronolith stared at the black basalt ballast before them in shock. He said, “ where did you get this much potent infused dark stone Hank.” Hank said, “ I took it out of the wreck of the dwarfs ship. They were stranded far deeper in the sea than you were where the light never reaches and down there almost everything is steeped about equally in a mix of dark and water essence.” Cronolith said, “ No wonder my father has tried to contest the seas with Manuck. If this much concentrated Darkness is common in some parts of the seas then claiming his domain would add vastly to his own power.” “ Don’t forget that there are also areas where the light and celestial energies exist mixed within the seas,” Hank said.
“ So what do you think? Is this idea of mine feasible?” The Captain nodded. “ I think so, but this is too much Dark essence to just give to me Hank.” Its many times the amount contained within a Dark altar for Dark’s sake.” Hank shrugged back and asked, “ is it too much for you and your ship to absorb?” Cronolith said, “ yes, maybe as we are now. Maybe we could handle half of this all at once.” Okay,” Hank said, “then let’s try adding that and if it works we can maybe add more to it slowly if we need to.” “ Besides its fitting that this ballast helps you out and continues being used by another ship of Dark Ones. It helped keep my dark brotherhood dwarfs intact during their own trials and now we will reuse it here to restore you.”
Hank said, “ are we ready or do we need to do anything else to prepare before we begin.” Cronolith cast several powerful wards, circles, and protections around the cavern and even spoke a word of power on top of them before he was ready. “ Its always best to completely protect yourself,” he said, “ before you attempt any transfer of substantial power into or out of your core.”
Then they teleported the old ballast right out of the ship as Cronolith withdrew his and Justiniann’s mixed essence from the rocks. He left as much of the light essence within the ballast as he could during the transfer. Then Hank and he carefully teleported half the dark infused ballast from the dwarfs shipwreck into the hull. There were a few disturbing groans coming from the ship during this process but it was done swiftly enough and then Cronolith slowly began infusing it with his own aura and essence he had reclaimed from the old ballast. Finally, he and Justiniann carefully
mixed the two together and fully claimed it as their own. Then they integrated the added power pouring it into their original reserves and lastly added it to their own bodies and core.
Hank intently watched certain parts of the ritual which bound man and ship alternately react to the changes they were making and adapting to it. By doing so he got an even better understanding of his own predicament. Then while they were busy claiming the extraordinary power source Hank had given them he focused upon teleporting out the Light-infused ballast and hid it somewhere decently far away from his dungeon. Hank thought the Light-infused ballast stones might even prove themselves as a useful resource for a project he was thinking of dabbling with later if he had the time. By the time he had finished moving them the captain and the ship were both markedly restored by the infusion of so much potent dark essence and while many more physical repairs would be necessary to fully restore the ship it had already made quite a difference.
Hank could even feel his own power grow by having been involved in completing such a difficult working and as a result of having his most powerful follower’s strength restored to such a degree. Hank thought it had taken a couple hours to accomplish but the end result was well worth it.
When at last they finished Cronolith insisted on helping Hank absorb a few of the ballast stones essence into his own dungeon core and then they embedded the rest deep in his walls in case he would need to drawl upon their strength, where they set protections upon them just in case someone should come looking for their power. Hank felt immensely refreshed after all of this and returned a part of himself to his mind space to finish learning and practicing the rest of what the grimoire had to offer him.