The Long Road to Karn (Realm of Arkon, Book 5)

by Akella, G.

  Ruination.

  Sword: one-handed. Great Sword.

  Bound item.

  Durability: 16,788/20,000.

  Epic scalable.

  No minimum level.

  Damage: 1601-1921.

  +230 to strength,

  +115 to vigor,

  +230 to constitution,

  +5.25% to critical hit chance with a physical attack.

  +115% to damage dealt to Great Essences.

  +0.023% chance to paralyze a Great Essence for 23 seconds.

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  Weight: 10 lbs.

  Well, damn! I shook my head. Five priceless vials for what appeared to be a minuscule chance—around one in five thousand—to paralyze a godly foe. The weapon's scalability meant the chance to proc, as well as the duration of paralysis, would grow as I leveled, except here was the rub... I had no intention of picking fights with gods. Except maybe for that douchebag Vill, who, at his level 780, would probably just take a power nap for those twenty three seconds anyway. Oh well, what's done is done. Though I did have one last vial left—maybe the bonus would somehow stack? Producing the last vial with Shaartakh's saliva, I tried applying it to the sword. Bupkis! The system immediately told me to take a hike, though not in so many words. "Fine, fine, don't get all worked up," I groused to nobody in particular, putting the vial away and taking out the truesilver case instead. Altus did say it was best not to touch whatever was hidden inside, but I wondered if anyone in my shoes would actually heed his words? It was with those thoughts that I opened the case and produced from it a ring the color of midnight...

  The ring didn't look extraordinary in any apparent way. Crafted of coal-black metal, it held a big oval emerald in a frame shaped like seven large petals. I never cared much for jewelry in my past life—perhaps because I never really had the money to splurge. But even beyond that, I never saw jewelry as a necessity. Ninety nine percent of what people in my home world called diamonds was actually processed diamond dust, and I wasn't the kind of sucker to shell out hard-earned money for that crap. Real gems, in my humble opinion, began with the weight of one carat. Now, the emerald set in the ring I presently held in my hand was roughly one and a quarter inches long, and without a single visible flaw. Dazzling from the center of the brilliant gem was a single crimson spark... But enough waxing poetic! I focused my vision on the ring, and my jaw dropped to the floor.

  Splendor of Primordial Chaos.

  Accessory; ring.

  Durability: 25,000/25,000.

  Artifact, scalable.

  No minimum level.

  +460 to intellect.

  +230 to spirit.

  +460 to constitution.

  +690 to damage (Chaos).

  +4.60% to critical hit chance with a physical or magic attack.

  +4.60% to critical heal chance.

  10% chance to fall into inventory upon death.

  Weight: .015 lbs.

  An artifact! Hart Almighty! So the rumors that artifacts could be equipped weren't drivel! But why oh why didn't it grant a strength bonus?! I shook my head despondently, but reprimanded myself at once. You don't look a gift horse in the mouth, and especially not when you've been gifted a purebred Arabian stallion or, better yet, a mythical Pegasus. Six hundred ninety to base damage was pretty epic, and considering that in all my time with the company I hadn't even heard of resistance against Chaos, it was epic squared! And that was in addition to the significant boost to constitution and a decent chance to hit critically... The more I thought about it, the more my mood improved. The only thing I still didn't quite understand was all the hullabaloo about this ring—what was so special about it other than a boost to damage? Why would Altus admonish me not to touch it? As if waiting for me to pose these mental questions, the system log spewed forth lines of text.

  You've accessed the quest: Repulsing Primordial Chaos.

  Quest type: epic, unique.

  Destroy the ring, Splendor of Primordial Chaos.

  Reward: 50% boost to overall levels. Does not apply to Great Essences.

  You've accessed the quest: Gift of the Gods.

  Quest type: epic, unique.

  Hand over the ring, Splendor of Primordial Chaos, to any NPC in the Realm of Arkon.

  Reward: experience, variable.

  Ah, now it all makes sense, I snorted, reaching for my flask and taking a few swigs. Were Erisjat to destroy the ring, his level 480 would instantly jump to 720, which was already in the divine being range. And I shuddered to imagine what Ahriman might offer me for it. Only I'd be a fool to let any of Arkon's power players know that I was in possession of a ring with a ten percent chance to drop from my corpse, lest they succumb to temptation... But then, what was I to do with this thing? Lock it away in the clan treasury until better days, or destroy it when I leveled to around 500? With a smirk, I reached for another flask—the one with stronger contents than water. I had to think... The realization dawned on me almost immediately. Nobody in the whole world had seen this ring, and, thanks to the Nameless' blood, not even gods should be able to detect the equipped item on me! So, I could wear the ring while being on the lookout for a way to destroy it. The latter, I suspected, would be far from simple. I wasn't enamored with the prospect of reprising the role of Frodo and his perilous quest to the ass crack of the world... Then again, while Frodo was driven purely by civic duty, I had plenty of skin in this game, so if it came to that, I'd be ready. I smirked again as I put the flask away, flipping a mental bird to a certain Oxford University professor, and slipped the ring onto the fourth finger of my right hand. I felt droplets on my face, sprayed by a gust of wind that came out of nowhere. My head began to spin as hazy images flooded my mind...

  ***

  The nasty drizzle had persisted since early morning. The stareh struggled on the slushy road, severely impairing the speed of the entire squad. The water disgorged by the clouds bubbled in roadside puddles, coating the drooping tree branches with misty dust. Oh, how Jaelitte loathed this weather! The young woman wrapped her cloak tighter around her chest, and gave a longing look at her surroundings. Kohareggan Gorge... At this rate the road to Iskhart would take five-six hours, at least! Damnation! She should have hearkened to Master Haalet's instruction to "Learn the spells of speedy transportation, young miss!" But had she listened? Of course not! Fire had seemed so much more tantalizing, the prospect of mastering Primordial Chaos too seductive to ignore. Idiot! She could have been in her quarters already, soaking in her tub, the road dust cleansed from her skin, watching the inclement weather outside the window with a tranquil smile. Oh, if only... The young woman glanced at the dispassionate face of Ruad Haas riding next to her, and sighed. Why had she even listened to that towheaded chicken Sietha? Why had she agreed to accept this stupid mission to Rualt, may that wretched place be damned by the gods? Yllial and his son Kargat had shown themselves to be your typical narcissistic jerks. And yet, she had to admit that the Lord's son was rather easy on the eyes. Jaelitte recalled the way he looked at her, and shivered. No, not now... She had to hold out just a little longer, a paltry nineteen years... The young demoness had seen her mother, Lilit, only once—on her fifteenth birthday. On that day, the copper-haired demoness, whose charms proved irresistible for even Alcmehn's Overlord, sized up her daughter with a sardonic look, then smiled and shared that to master the Power of Primordial Chaos, the girl simply needed to preserve her chastity to her fiftieth winter. Finding no outlet over that period of time, the demoness' Power would permeate through to her very essence... But that was easier said than done. For a pure-blooded succubus, abstinence was akin to a lower one constantly staring at a royal feast while subsisting on nothing but stale bread. And yet, her lust for power trumped lust for flesh! She was Jaelitte dar Rakata—offspring of the union between Ahriman, the Overlord of Alcmehn, and Lilit, one of the Netherworld's seven rulers! She would hold out for as long as sh
e had to, and then... Then she would recall every single lascivious glance cast her way, and would come to collect. On every... single... account! For most of those fools relations with an elder succubus would be deadly, and the rest... The rest would become her puppets till the end of their days. Though her father would surely disapprove... Hart! She would need to justify this trip to her father! It didn't matter that she'd gone to Rualt purely on a whim—above all else, she was the Princess of Alcmehn, and she couldn't bear to besmirch her father's honor. The girl swore in exasperation, and immediately caught Ruad Haas' heavy reproachful gaze. Oh, this one should talk! You didn't become a Throne Attendant by being proper—and that was especially true in his case. She locked her eyes with his defiantly, but quickly averted them under the elder demon's mocking gaze. Biting her lower lip in frustration, she returned to her ruminations.

  The truth was that the mission that had brought her from Iskhart to Rualt had nothing to do with Kargat, the eldest son of Lord Yllial, charming though he undoubtedly was. Rather, she had just needed to escape for a fortnight, having been feeling smothered lately—by her father's constant care, Master Haalet's incessant lecturing, the daily training sessions that would leave her utterly exhausted... With two getare centuries, a dozen bodyguards led by Gelat, Sajtore's right-hand man, and the Throne Attendant himself, what could possibly pose a risk to the princess? After a bit of deliberation, her father had agreed that the girl could use a break, so, upon instructing her to... Oh, no use thinking about that now—better to plan for their impending conversation upon her return. Gods, but I truly am an idiot! Jaelitte's thoughts circled back to her own blunder. On the other hand, how could she have known that the portal to the city could only be built by those in whose veins flowed the blood of the Lord of Balliose? Truly, anyone could have made that mistake. They still had plenty of time to rectify it, and portal creation was nowhere near as complex as Enhanced Fire Wall—she would learn it quickly enough. And besides, her journey hadn't been entirely unsuccessful: her patterned satin outfit had enthralled a dozen grown men to literally stalk her for half a day throughout the capital's bazaar, and the cloak sewn from frost spider's web were well worth it. If I wear my hair in that fancy braid father likes, and slip into a high-necked black dress, he probably won't even ask for a report... The demoness smiled to herself, and took a look around.

  The rain had ended, and the sun was finally peeking out from behind the clouds, its warm rays scintillating playfully off wet shrubbery and puddles of rainwater, yet still failing to lift Jaelitte's spirits. And why would they? What awaited her back home? Her golden cage of a palace, her lessons and... solitude. She'd never had any friends—who could she be friends with, being the daughter of Alcmehn's Overlord? Lower demons? The children of father's dignitaries? Nonsense! She'd known from early childhood the way men would look at her after her fifteenth winter—there wouldn't be any room for friendship. And of all the women in her life, there had never been any she really could talk to. It wasn't that she had avoided company—on the contrary, an Overlord's daughter must be capable of interacting with all of her father's subjects, but that was duty, not friendship. Her relationships with her teachers were likewise problematic, especially in the beginning. She had treated them all with utter contempt, believing it was they who had to adapt to her, and not vice versa, until her father's patience had run out and old Master Haalet was summoned to Iskhart. The gray-haired demon—formerly the commander of the first punisher legion and one of the few living veterans of the war against the light gods—had once been her own father's mentor, and that was perhaps how he'd managed to establish such good rapport with a sniveling eight-year-old girl so quickly. Oh, mother... Jaelitte sighed, throwing back her hood. Her mother's appearance had turned everything upside down. "You will be like me, daughter. Just arm yourself with some patience, and you will tame your essence." Those parting words had etched into her fifteen-year-old heart, and she knew right then she would do anything to become like this copper-haired beauty the sight of whom flustered even the Throne Attendants, who would turn pale and cast down their eyes. Only nineteen more years...

  "Alarm! Right side!" Ruad Haas' yelp struck her ears.

  A black blob smashed into the transparent membrane of her power shield, accompanied by roaring thunder and, a moment later, the sickening sounds of her bodyguards' bones breaking and heads bursting—these bits registered starkly in Jaelitte's mind as she flew head first over her lifeless saurian mount.

  "Fall in! Arjoise! Rift at their feet! Shields up!" The Throne Attendant kept roaring somewhere nearby.

  What? Who would dare?! the thought flashed through her mind. Miraculously, the princess was back on her feet. And how did the attackers slip by the myriad detection spells our squad has been employing relentlessly to scan the road and its surroundings?!

  Before long, all that was happening began to feel like a bad dream. As the punishers scrambled to recover their ranks, they were beset by a swarm of undead warriors and four gigantic figures that seemed to come out of nowhere. When Jaelitte finally saw who the attackers were, she realized why it was that no one had sounded the alarm. Shiekata, R'harg, Teiran and Nerghall—the four companions of that towheaded asshole Vill! And where was the man himself? Suddenly she felt as if a mountain fell on her shoulders. Her legs became jelly, her breath caught in her chest, and her head felt as if someone had impaled her with a burning spoke. A mental attack... Identifying the source at once, the young woman turned her head slowly and gazed upon her attackers. There were ten figures in all, clad in gray robes, standing fifty yards or so off the road. The disavowed! And each one a master of mental magic to the third or even fourth degree. They were the ones responsible for the death of her bodyguards! Jaelitte set her jaw, isolating the pain to the edges of her consciousness while simultaneously weaving a decoy shield behind her own, beset by the coordinated attack. The detail of punishers assigned to guard her had proved to be of little use besides decorative, but then they were just a bunch of lower ones... "They were my father's men!" she hissed, removing her shield. No longer sensing any resistance, the hostile magic pushed forward, taking the decoy and falling into phantom consciousness, a clever trap. The enraged demoness' counterattack came not a moment later.

  "Princess! Run!" roared Ruad Haas without turning around. Having shifted into his true form, the elder demon took a heavy step toward the three giant figures bearing down on him.

  Gelat's cloak flickered to her right like a bat's wings as the man rushed to intercept Shiekata who was advancing on them. Fifty yards to the left, disarrayed ranks of attacking horsemen were falling into the rift conjured up by the punisher mages, having lost control of their undead steeds. Barely ten heartbeats had passed since the start of the battle...

  "Too late," she scowled, watching with satisfaction as the figures began lowering their bulks to the grassy ground.

  The mark that had been placed on her at the very start of the battle made escaping the battlefield impossible—not that escape was ever an option for Jaelitte dar Rakata when her father's sworn troops were being slaughtered like lambs. No, that just wasn't her style! Unsheathing both her swords with a swoosh, the girl raised them overhead, then brought them down in an abrupt motion. Obeying her command, a dozen ten-foot-tall lava elementals began to crawl out of the smoking rift in the ground, then rush the regrouping undead warriors. There wasn't anything else she could do for the punishers. Jaelitte clenched her teeth as the magic siphoned her power, then took a quick look around. Fifty yards to her left, the old legate was exacting a high price for his life amid billows of dust and flashes of flame and darkness. A Throne Attendant to her father meant more than just privilege and duty, but also the ability to win immortal glory even in an uneven battle such as this. Fortune still favored Ruad Haas, as the old soldier was still standing against the attacks of three companions of the Cursed God, the fury in his war cries blended with pure, ineffable ecstasy. Oh, how wrong she had been to complain to her father that
her bodyguards were worthless. They had performed their duty admirably when it counted—ten had perished, taking on the brunt of the first mental attack, then Gelat had kept the Gray Weaver occupied for the several moments needed to summon the elementals. Jaelitte grinned, her blades held at arm's length, and took a step toward the advancing Shiekata. How does this freak get down with males? the demoness couldn't help but wonder, looking over her foe. With a twenty-five-foot-long arachnid body, a female torso, enormous pincers and the wizened face of an old crone, the beast's appearance was so abhorrent that the young woman couldn't hold back a grimace of disgust.

  "On your knees, and be still," hissed the spider, boring Ahriman's daughter with unblinking eyes that were purely black, without any whites. Then, tossing aside the corpse of her last bodyguard, severed in half by a pincer a moments prior, the monster moved toward the young woman as her limbs, coated with black chitin, clinked like armor.