Val smiled and dipped his head. "I am ready to negotiate. And the prize I offer is, I think you will agree, more precious than even my lifetime servitude." He presented with a flourish the dwarven puzzle box whose contents he had so carefully altered to contain the prize securely fastened in its heart.
Skill check: Stabilization successful! What a dangerous game you play, Val. Just a heartbeat away from oblivion! Do you yearn that badly to return to the primordial soup from which you sprang?
The Overlord blinked and smiled. "That you could carry such a sized object without it hindering your Psiblade techniques in the least. Utterly cloaked. A useful skill indeed." He frowned. "How, boy, did you get a hold of dwarven technology?"
Val bowed. "It is but one of the prizes we discovered. Now let me show you a secret hidden within that I think you'll agree is more than worth every single slave before us." Slowly, almost ceremoniously, Val opened the puzzle box, feeling the diamond hard shell of Elementium he had willed into being from the infused Silbion hours ago crack open like a panel, lifting it open to pluck from its heart the dwarven forged starship core of pure Valorium within, presenting it with a flourish.
The crowd was absolutely speechless, Solena's eyes widening with awe. Great baritone laughter could be heard reverberating through the chamber, the giant's hands clapping together in fierce approval. "A dwarven forged Valorium core. Well done, Valor Hunter! Well done indeed." Bonhomie mirth turned instantly to intent regard. Val felt the force of the overlord's presence howling through the void that cloaked him like never before. A storm of intensity that had most of the assembled crowd of hangers-on visibly gasping or groaning. Even Solena paled and trembled, finally being tended to by the cyborg doctor Val had first met, what seemed like a lifetime ago. Yet no matter how much the wind above howled, Val was safe, hidden in the depths of ice just below the surface fury of the giant's storm.
"You have impressed me, boy. Sufficient that I will let you live. Not as a slave or subjugate, but as a Highlord in your own right. This you earned facing down three of my pawns, surviving where any lesser would have perished. And for the secrets you will reveal to me, I shall grant you the greatest boon of all. The administrator-run fiefdom of your choice!"
The crowd of onlookers, those who had survived the surge unscathed, gazed at the Overlord in shock, as if the non-gifted suddenly realized that their own administrative territories were now up for grabs. Tytus winked, as if sharing a confidence. Val did all he could to remain submerged in darkness, refusing the lure of intimacy strangely offered. "I think, my dear Valor, that any number of administrators in my court will be bending over backwards to please you, knowing that you might make your choice to claim their own demesne at any time."
Solena clapped with delight, shoulder now functional, the doctor finishing his work. "Oh, glorious, glorious, Your Eminence! Our dear Valor now holds all the lickboots in the palm of his hand!" She flashed Val a winning smile. "My sweet boy, how far you have risen, and so quickly! To be loved and feared by our entire court, as you are offered the sweetest of boons! And I, your dear compatriot, shall be happy to assist you in your choice, and assure that all those who wish to stay in your good graces give you appropriate boons to show just how fiercely they value your friendship!"
Her sultry laughter caressed Val as she strutted towards him. "Come, dear Val. Your success is my success. Why, when you think about it, you are practically my disciple, for all that I forged you with fire. And how fiercely does the steel of your virtue shine!" Soft fingertips brushed his cheek. He did not resist her touch as she approached, Solena fully sensing him at last, seemingly captivated by what she saw. Val still refused to meet her gaze, however, denying her even a glimpse of his soul. "You've changed so much," she whispered, voice sultry with awe, clasping his free hand before stepping back with a smile.
"Come, my fierce, brooding warrior of darkness. But reveal the sight of your prize, and the entire court before us is open to you! The richest of fiefdoms, ours to share, if you wish it."
She squeezed his unresisting hand before twirling inside his grip, wrapping his powerful arm around her as if they would embrace in the most sensual of dances, her hands twining about his back as soft lips caressed his ear. "I was not lying when I said I hungered for you, Valor Hunter. Nor the sweet fiery pleasures we could embrace, together! Yet where once it would have been master and servant, now, dear Valor, now we can commune as equals."
Soft ruby lips tasted his cheek. "Come, Valor Hunter. Embrace me. Claim me. Share the secrets that will make us the mightiest coven of Highlords within the Dominion, and I will share with you sweetest rapture, and together we will forge a bloodline fierce and potent, masters of all we survey, favored of the Overlord as we give him the keys to utter supremacy!"
Valor did not hesitate even as his heart roared, Solena gasping with surprise, the hint of fear that turned to a low chuckle quickly swallowed, Val twisting to hold her tightly to him, lips locking upon her own, feeling her heart race as their hot kiss roared through his blood, Solena flowing against him, caressing him as best she could, covered in flexible armor as he was still, Val's one hand holding tight the dwarven puzzle box, the other cupping her rear as she moaned and writhed against him.
And still, he did not meet her gaze, fiercely locked as their lips were. Yet Val could sense from the stormy seas threatening to rupture and roar forth just how badly she hungered for him, to take him and claim him as her own before the court entire.
Gasping, Val broke off their fiery kiss, head bowed, breath hoarse and ragged, as was Solena's.
Her laughter was throaty. "I think, Valor Hunter, that I've been waiting for that kiss for an entire year." Soft fingers brushed his cheek, her voice turning almost tender. "I'm glad I waited. I'm glad you've had a chance to blossom into a being of potency. Worthy of me." She squeezed him tight, lips kissing his ear. "Worthy of my heart."
She spun about then, bowing low before the Overlord, her gently clasping hand caressing Val's own, leading him to do the same.
"Your Eminence, I believe my Val is ready to join our ranks."
Val swallowed, carefully avoiding the Overlord's hungry gaze as he held up his offering. "I would claim Solena, and my proper place. But first, being one who keeps his word, I have a promise of my own to keep." He turned his gaze, locking stares with a terrified Julia, tears of blood leaking even now from one of her eyes.
Her look was one of absolute devastation, even as she began to sob and shake, her desperate need overwhelming her, as it had all the others. "I promised that girl's father that I would see her safely home. A man is nothing without honor, and before I savor the sweet fruits of dominion, I would see this commitment through. With your permission, Your Eminence, I would bring my prizes back home. Accommodations can be made to assure that none recall anything... untoward, and that proper gratitude is extended by those who will one day serve a cause greater than themselves."
Val bowed his head. "Of course, I would be more than happy for Solena to accompany me back through, while we make the necessary calls and arrangements before returning. For I do indeed have prizes discovered in ancient ruins that could reshape an empire." And to the awe of the court entire, he pulled a second Valorium starship core from his personal rift.
The great hall echoed with the Overlord's booming clap as Val made the core disappear with a single flourish, though the puzzle box offering he held out still, the altered Valorium core securely inside once more.
"Well done, boy! You are indeed a treasure trove of bounties! Perhaps there are yet more prizes in store for you upon your return."
He grinned down at Solena. "You play the game well, girl. Your Valor may well find himself the ruler of the largest territory in our history!"
Solena's sultry laughter washed over Val as she squeezed herself tightly to him, kissing his cheek. "My dear Valor is just full of surprises, and I can't wait till we can fully savor the fruits of his conquests... together."
Her kiss
es traveled from cheek to lips, lingering upon his own. Val closed his eyes and smiled as her touch sent shivers through him. She chuckled throatily. "I will make sure he realizes that before him stands the greatest treasure of all." She whispered into Val's ear. "Eternal rapture, my love. I can't wait!"
Clutching his hand possessively, she snapped at the assistants standing at attention over the trembling slaves. "Well, don't just stand there, fools! Ready my mate's chattel for the portal!"
Squeezing Val's hand, she led him forward, and for all that the giant chuckled and saluted Val with his chalice, Val could sense the Overlord's terrible mind seeking to pin his own still, even as they left the grand hall to an adjoining chamber almost as large as the one they had left, massive pipes and support beams overhead making it clear that this was a reinforced ship's hull, no matter that it seemed impossible for such vast rooms to be sailing in a dreadnought larger than comprehension, capable of traveling between stars, thanks to a Valorium core much like the one Val had in his puzzle box still.
Val blinked, taking in a sight chillingly familiar, the cyborg doctor once more before the flashing lights of a massive computer complete with reels, diodes, and vacuum tubes crackling with strange energies. As primitive as it looked, Val was strangely certain the computations per second being processed was beyond what any computer could hope to match on Earth, for all that the monitors displayed naught but black and white text, visual graphics seeming to involve an added magnitude of complexity in this universe.
Yet what struck him with the most wonder was the crackling portal of Elementium and Valorium infused alloy set up in the heart of the chamber, multiple cables running from it to the computer banks the cyborg was currently accessing. Val was somehow able to sense the nuances of the portal's construction in ways he never could back on Earth before he had been reforged, picking up as well the sudden flood of energies catalyzing the portal, now filling with shimmering blue static, somewhat like the static of an old television set.
Val felt Solena's soft hand tightly gripping his own. "Now don't go trying to run through, my Val," she said. "That wondrous act of folly almost killed you when you tried it over a year ago, and how remarkable that you stand before me hale and whole, and save for Tytus himself, as potent a man as I've ever seen." She kissed his cheek. "Perhaps you really are my destiny. And I will not lose you to foolish mischance. You must wait for the portal to fully synergize with our base in Chicago. Then we shall lead the slaves... I mean, your prizes through. Only then will it be time for you and I to depart, whereupon you'll leave your quaint little box with the doctor."
The cyborg solemnly bowed towards Val.
"That's fine," Val said. "My property first, the box in return. Only then will I go to Earth and make a few calls. Julia gets home safely while we embrace all that the future has in store for us."
Solena's soft laughter shivered through Val. When he seized the moment, squeezing her tightly to him once more, kissing her with fierce abandon, his hunger was not feigned. He lost himself in sweet, passionate kisses as the portal fully synergized itself, the sobbing captives carefully led through, one after another.
With a fierce act of will, Val's dwarven armor was ported to his rift, far easier to visualize removing than putting on, Val surrendering to his burning needs at last, putting all thought, all awareness into simply caressing and tasting the willing woman before him, Solena crying out with naked hunger of her own as Val twisted her arm, pinning her against him, suckling her neck as she moaned with pleasure.
Passion so hot, so fierce, that even the Overlord could sense it in the chamber beyond.
"Take me, Val. Take me like a savage beast. Take me now!"
And he did just that, losing himself to fiercest need, biting her neck, inhaling the scent of her golden curls, savoring her voluptuous curves, losing himself to sweetest rapture as she cried and bucked against him, sobbing and shaking as she peaked in his arms over and over, Val ruthlessly refusing surcease as the captives jumped through, one by one, the fierce waves of pleasure and euphoria near drowning Val, and it was all he could do not to collapse when he finally surrendered his seed, so utterly was he drained by their fierce, savage coupling.
And still he held her tightly to him, inhaling the scent of her hair, slamming his mind back into the darkness with thoughts of all the midnight horrors that had been his life as the darkest of soldiers, what now seemed a lifetime ago.
And Solena sensed his immediate retreat, back into shadow.
When she turned around with the desperate need Val knew would be in her eyes, he turned away.
Her voice was strangely vulnerable. "Val. Please face me. Let me look into your eyes. Let me glimpse your heart. I don't want to dominate you. Or control you. If anything, I want to protect you." He could feel her smile upon his back, her hand gently caressing his own. "We are forging an alliance, I think, dearest Val. And I want to keep you safe. For my sake as well as your own. For the sake of the children we might one day have."
She softly kissed his neck. "Who knows? Perhaps fiercest desire will one day turn to love. I would like to savor what love tastes like, to be beside one who I don't have to fear betraying me. Someone with whom I was safe. Wouldn't you like that as well, Val? Val?"
But Valor had already rolled to his feet, dressed in seconds, shadowcloak slipped on in a heartbeat. "Come, Solena. I think the portal is ready for us."
He still would not meet her gaze, staring intently at the portal instead, as if hungry to jump through, but he reached down to stroke her cheek before gently clasping her hand, raising her to her feet. Solena radiated an odd vulnerability in the time it took to dress herself, before sighing and nodding. "Very well, Val. I can only imagine how eager you must be to see your home once more."
And then they were before the gate, the doctor once more bowing low before them. Val took a last look at the massive chamber of exotic chrome alloys and strangely futuristic design, searing it forever in his memory.
"Val, are you ready?" Solena's soft, tentative voice. And this time, Val met her gaze, for a heartbeat entranced by her stunning beauty, wondering what it would have been like if he really could have loved such a wild, deadly girl.
Her features paled, able to read him at last. "No, no!" She screamed, too terrified in that instant to react.
As he had intended.
"Yes." A single word, his Psiblade cleaving through the woman he had made love to just moments before.
His gaze met the doctor's own, the man lurching back in surprise.
"Catch," Val said, tossing him the dwarven puzzle box filled with Elementium infused Silbion he held stable no longer, the Valorium core in its heart forged so that all its energy and potency was channeled not to propel a massive dreadnought through space, but rather inward, the energy to be released many times greater than that of any nuclear bomb ever detonated on Earth.
Val felt the fierce, awful storm of the Overlord's panicked cry roaring through the ether in that instant, fury and desperation unfathomable, promising unspeakable death yet prizes unending if only Val would snap the bomb back into his rift in the instant he had available, and Val made his choice.
He jumped through the gate, his Psiblade slashing the portal behind him as an explosion of unfathomable power and potency roared through the ether, caressing him in a hideous cacophony of light, his final thoughts of Ava's beautiful face, filled with hope for her people, Julia's gaze of horror, having endured unfathomable torment, and his father's proud smile for a soldier willing to die in the coldest reaches of space for countless souls who would never even know his name. Images burning through his mind in that brilliant instant before oblivion claimed him at last, as he always knew it would.
--- End of Book 2 ---
The adventure continues in Endless Online - Oblivion’s Price, coming soon!
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Endless Online: Oblivion's Promise Page 29