by J. Carrarn
Solus shrugged it off and looked up to find that he had destroyed the spot where the staircase met the floor. That should stop Grav, right? Looking up, he saw no sign of his quarry, only frightened undead that peered down at him from the broken edges of the hole he had created.
A cry came from the front of the building, and he looked through the door. Tirella stood in the door opening, holding Grav up by the neck. He was striking at her arm to little effect as he tried desperately to get free.
Tirella looked over the struggling Grav's head at Solus. With a grin, she shook the Shade a bit. "Perhaps you should go and fetch that mana-core while Drys and I have a little chat with our friend here?"
Still angry and desiring to rip Grav apart, Solus nodded. He motioned for her to get out of the way and stalked out of the building. Drys stood beside the entrance, glaring at him.
"You just had to go and destroy my building, didn't you? Don't we have enough problems?"
Solus looked at the ruins behind him and felt a strong emotion well up. Shame. The walls were cracked, the tower was wobbling precariously, and a dozen fleshy undead were sitting on the windows sills staring down with frightened faces. The whole thing might collapse at any second. Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm down, focusing on the stone below the city.
A soft shudder spread throughout the area as stone pillars rose up beside the building. The pillars stretched and widened, the stone wrapping around the cracked bone walls like a Wyrm-hide robe. As he drew more stone up, Solus closed his eyes, sensing instead of seeing the inside of the building as he rebuilt the floors, wiping the debris into a corner with hands of stone. With his concentration fully on the task at hand, his anger diminished rapidly. When he got to the tower, the stone circled up and around the thin bone construct like tendrils until it stopped swaying precariously. Sensing the different crystalline compounds in the stone, he drew a greenish one to the surface in circular patterns. When he felt that the tower had been properly stabilized and he had fixed the hole in the wall through which Tirella had likely jumped down, he opened his eyes.
The previously ruined bone building was wrapped in a grey stone lattice that wound up around a tower that shone and gleamed with a green surface. Bright green lines ran across it all the way to the top that was patched with stone.
"Show-off…" Tirella said as she gazed up at the tower with a bright smile.
Solus laughed, about to retort with something witty, when he saw Grav. The calm he had just regained all but shattered at the sight of the undead. Taking a step back, he closed his eyes and drew a ball of stone to his hand. Immediately, he began shaping it into a wide array of forms, ranging from buildings and trees to undead he knew. His anger subsided again, but he kept his eyes closed. Turning to where he knew Tirella was standing, he gasped. With his eyes closed, just relying on his stone senses, she was like a beacon of orange light in the gloomy green world of his senses.
Beautiful, he thought. It took a moment to regain clarity of thought, and then he took a deep breath.
"I am going to my tower. We'll meet after you've extracted all the information you need from that… thing," he said.
"Alright," Tirella replied.
He heard her walk into the building. When he was sure she and Drys had gone, taking their prisoner with them, Solus opened his eyes.
Staring at the thoroughly changed building, he found a dozen or more undead staring at him from the windows. Snippets of conversation drifted down, but he ignored them.
He knew that Drys and Tirella would get the information they needed from Grav, so he turned and headed toward his tower. It was time to destroy the sphere that had housed Domain and finally get that damned mana-core.
—
A skeleton with a glowing blue ribcage ran across the wasteland, the enormous white bone forest far behind it. It muttered softly to itself.
"Not yet, not yet. I can stay sane a little longer…"
"Must find it before this weak shell breaks down and the connection is terminated!"
The voice, Domain's voice, shot up in pitch, screaming in insane delight as another rift appeared in the distance.
"Fifteen's the charm, yes it is! One last time? No, this will be it!"
Speeding up, Domain reached the person-sized rift and jumped through without even stopping. The skeleton appeared on the other side of the rift at the edge of a deep trench and just barely managed to stop himself from plummeting down into it. Looking around the enormous mountainous area, Domain saw thousands of specks scrambling about. Two behemoths were locked in battle, viciously lashing out at each other, roaring at each other in rage. They barely resembled undead.
The first one had thousands of black and red tentacles that it used to strike at its opponent. The rest of its body was barely visible between this mass of feelers and pseudopods. The second was a hairy, ichor-covered ball, most of its form a massive maw filled with razor-sharp fangs. Hundreds of small mismatched limbs carried it as it tried to dodge the tentacles. It attacked with a long, prehensile horn-rimmed tongue that moved like a blur, slashing at the center mass of the tentacles with deathly precision.
Far in the distance, another misbegotten and unnameable thing approached, bourne by leathery wings. It resembled a vulture, although it was obvious even from this distance that its flesh was necrotic. Its beak was broken and stained in places but was nevertheless still wickedly sharp. It had dozens of strange, almost rat-like tails that streamed behind it as it dove down toward its targets.
"Kaot Lords! Finally!" Domain raised his boney limbs triumphantly in the air.
"Now, to find one the right size!" he screeched as he hopped about in a circle with mad glee.
The rift was situated halfway up another mountain beside a trench that seemed as if something had cut the mountain in two. On either side, the mountainous landscape continued, and shapes in different sizes were rushing around, some fighting, others fleeing.
"Navigation! Need to be able to come back!" Domain hissed as he looked up. The sky was a reddish-purple with vast swaths of deep blue star clusters and not a single cloud to be seen.
"Barely an atmosphere left. Snapshot taken, location locked." As he spoke, Domain's voice became less crazed, the emotions dissipating, but when he turned, a sudden mad cackle came from him.
"Find a shell, a mighty shell, a shell to bring them all to hell!"
Laughing maniacally, he sprinted along the side of the mountain toward a path that led to the Kaot lords.
Some time later, while hiding inside a small crack in the mountain, Domain watched as the hairy Kaot Lord dragged its badly wounded body toward the other monstrous undead.
The other's tentacles had been ripped from its body, and those that remained were barely able to put up resistance as the victorious Kaot Lord dragged itself atop its tangled and broken form. Its hideous tongue shot out and slammed into its defeated foe.
A grinding, cutting noise followed and continued for a while, and then the tongue shot further inside. It returned within moments, and a weakened but triumphant roar came from the victorious Kaot Lord. The tip of its tongue was wrapped around an angular mana-core.
The surrounding area was bathed in a sickly rust-colored light as a vast mana-field exploded outward from the Kaot Lord. Its mana-field main color was a dirty red, while blood-red patterns glowed horribly on its surface and ugly dark blots of blight were spread unevenly all over it.
As soon as the mana-field appeared, the mana-core began to glow, and Domain rushed forward to get inside the mana-field. Hiding behind the bulk of the slain undead, he reached the side without being detected.
"Strong, but stupid…" he hissed before an intense blue beam of light shot from his eyes. It lit up the mana-field, and as soon as it did, the Kaot Lord howled in anger. It looked around, trying to find its assailant. The blue beam began etching an incredibly dense inscription into the massive mana-field. It worked fast and began increasing in speed.
The Kaot Lord lashed a
bout with its tongue before it thought of searching the corpse of its slain foe. The nimble appendage slithered and rooted around the dead one, eventually finding Domain.
"Too late," Domain cried, his crazed laugh cut short as the skeletal body toppled over. An intense blue aura appeared on the mana-field where a new blue pattern now existed. For a moment, it spread out like wildfire until it reached the halfway point. Then it slowed down until it stopped altogether. The dirty red lines began pulsating where the two colors met, and the Kaot Lord roared in anger and fury.
"Stop resisting," Domain's voice jumped a few octaves.
The pulsating increased in frequency, going faster and faster, and as it continued, the blue glow was forced back.
"No… too strong..." A single blue line moved from the mana-field back into the unmoving skeletal body, and it scrambled up. The blue on the mana-field faded as the red had quickly taken hold again.
Domain, back in his stolen skeletal body, fled as the Kaot Lord roared in anger behind him. Its tongue shot forward but couldn't quite reach the fleeing skeleton. The Kaot Lord moved slowly and unsteadily; its wounds and the attack on its mana-field had weakened it considerably.
When the fleeing skeleton reached a section of the mountain covered in large stones and rubble, it disappeared quickly between the cracks.
One last angry roar followed it.
Domain continued fleeing for a while until he found refuge in a small gully. Loud stomping came from far away; it seemed to be moving off in another direction. The small dark-red stones and the brown sand stopped shaking after a few moments.
"The connection is much too weak for such a potent adversary… I will need to find something smaller, more vulnerable," Domain muttered, sounding aggravated and tired. He struggled back to his feet and moved out of the dark gully and back into the oddly lit landscape.
Hours later, he was hiding behind a boulder, staring at a group of four beings battling each other. All of them were at least thirty feet tall and roughly humanoid. They were massive, but many times smaller than the previous two titans had been.
Three of them had rudimentary wings and short, muscular legs. They fought in a coordinated manner, using their disproportionately long arms to slash at the last one. Every time they did, green lines of crackling energy flashed through the air, projected from the nails, striking the fourth.
The one being attacked had two arms with an extra set of joints, two similar legs, and a torso covered in a thick red shell. It was sturdy and nimble, dodging most of the attacks and easily shrugging off the few that managed to hit. Its shimmering grey eyes began shining until they were so bright it was impossible to look at them.
The other three covered their eyes, and immediately a grey beam shot from the grey-eyed Kaot Lord and exploded the head of one of its opponents.
The remaining two screamed in terror and fled.
The grey-eyed Kaot Lord ignored them, instead turning its attention to its prize. As it ripped and tore at its vanquished foe, Domain approached stealthily until he was hiding close by.
When the grey-eyed undead removed an angular mana-orb from the body, it summoned a bright grey mana-field covered in blood-red lines. Like with the other Kaot lord's mana-field, blots of black blight marred some areas. The blots seemed to absorb the light, draining it away.
A blue beam shot forth from Domain and struck the mana-field. The grey-eyed Kaot Lord's beaklike mouth snapped open and closed, clacking loudly as it wobbled unsteadily. Domain's blue lines created a pattern, and this time within moments, it covered a single section.
"You are mine!" Domain cried.
Like with the first Kaot Lord, the red lines began pulsating, and the blue lines's encroachment slowed down. However, this time, the lines didn't stop, and slowly they covered a second of the five sections. As soon as the entire section was blue, it and the first flashed, and the blue lines began extending into two more sections with increased speed. The grey-eyed Kaot Lord fell to the ground, mewling softly while green lines flashed from its fingers that weakly snapped in the air.
When a single red section remained, the pulses became erratic. From four sides, blue lines jumped into the last red-lined section of the mana-field, and suddenly the red winked out, the lines dissipating. The Kaot Lord's last sounds stopped, and then the entire mana-field blazed in blue for a moment.
A dispassionate voice came from the body.
"Finally! Those pathetic emotions were becoming bothersome. Now, let's clean away these ridiculous patterns."
The original lines that made up the undead's evolutions burned bright, and then three out of the four sections began to fade. After a short while, the entire sections were empty, and the Kaot Lord's body shrunk down, its red shell turning bone-white.
Two sections, however, kept burning for a long time. "Tsk. So, I can't remove the racial evolution anymore? A shame…" The voice sounded annoyed.
A loud roar came from the mountains to the side, and the Kaot Lord that was now Domain staggered to an upright position. He looked at the sound source and saw four tentacled monsters approaching him, hunger evident in their gleaming red eyes.
"Bad timing!"
Domain turned and ran toward the opposite mountain. His movements were uncoordinated at first, but within a hundred yards, they became more fluid.
Loud thudding came from behind as the four tentacled Kaot lords chased after him. As Domain rushed up the mountain, it became apparent that his new body was much faster than the others. Within moments the distance between them had doubled, and the tentacled Kaot Lords ceased their pursuit.
Standing at the top of the mountain, Domain turned around. As he gazed into the distance, seeing another enormous titanic creature crawling up a mountain, his dispassionate voice sighed.
"I can't stay here like this. It's far too dangerous. This body will have to do, for now."
He turned around, his gleaming grey eyes on where he knew the portal back to be. Then he stopped, his vision becoming unfocused for a short moment.
"Dammit! He's back? No! I'm not ready yet!" Anger and fear were evident in Domain's voice as he turned around. Spotting a narrow crack not too far off, he rushed toward it.
Scanning it and finding no Kaots, Domain moved inside. The crevice had a single point of entry, making it a dangerous place to hide in, but he had no other choice. His eyes unfocused again as his mana-field burst into existence. An immensely complex pattern began to appear in one of the enormous sections.
"Need to work fast... faster..." Domain muttered.
—
The walk through Skulltown got Solus thinking, and he kept scanning below his feet, remembering Tendraal's vast undercity. If he created more layers below Skulltown, it would be much easier to defend it from the Kaot lords. It could be a sanctuary for the citizens of Skulltown to flee to if things turned south.
Besides, there were so many caverns under the city already. Perhaps he could connect them to the burgeoning underground town that was already secretly growing there. He stomped across the square toward his tower and suddenly stopped, all thoughts of building an underground city forgotten. There were scratch marks across the stone door and deep indents all over it.
Resuming his pace, he was relieved to find that the thick stone had held. Shoving it out of the way, he saw that nothing had changed inside the tower's base level. He moved up the stairs and became more and more worried. Somehow, the closer he got to both Domain's sphere and the mana-core, the more possible problems popped up in his mind.
There was no movement coming from above, nor light, blue or otherwise.
Solus stepped through the entrance and into his own personal quarters and immediately saw the sphere, still lying dormant on his bed.
Inspecting it, he didn't see any movement and quickly scanned the room. The Wyrm's gaping wide maw had been crushed shut by some powerful force, the crystalline teeth snapped and crumbling, while the tables filled with his collection of old-world objects had toppled o
ver. Artifacts lay scattered everywhere. The mana-core, angular and as large as his head, had rolled against the far-left wall.
Upon seeing it, he felt a weight fall off his shoulders that he hadn't noticed was there, and he quickly rushed toward the core. A sudden flash of blue light made him swirl around. Domain's previously inert sphere was now glowing as brightly as the sun, blue beams flashing through the air in intricate patterns.
"No, you don't!" Solus growled, leaping forward and rushing across the room.
The beams multiplied, the speed with which they moved growing faster and faster. It seemed almost as if they were drawing a pattern, but he didn't see it anywhere. Afraid of what might happen if he waited, he grabbed his hammer and struck the sphere with as much force as he could muster.
A loud boom reverberated throughout the room, and dust blasted away from him and the sphere. Solus was shocked to see that only a small crack had appeared on the previously unmarred and shiny exterior. The beams of light continued speeding up, and Solus struck the sphere again and again. The second and third hit only caused more cracks, but the fourth dented the sphere's entire top inward. Sharp metallic edges protruded, and blue and red lights shone from the center.
The blue lines sputtered on and off, and Solus growled as he struck the center of the dent. With a final crack, the entire sphere split open. Metal and old-world circuitry were flung all across the room as the lights finally died.
Breathing heavily, more from fear than exertion, Solus stared at what had once been Domain. Somehow he had expected the other to tell him to stop, scream for mercy… but nothing had happened. Gazing at the sphere's remains, he finally noticed a thick cable that ran from it, and he groaned.
"Should have just pulled the plug…"
Grabbing it, he pulled it out and tossed the cable far from the sphere. Then he scattered the parts through his room. Staring at the remains of the last piece he placed on a table on the far wall, he frowned. For some reason, he still expected something bad to happen, but he couldn't explain why.
He turned his attention back to the mana-core. It had rolled to the far side of the room, and he snatched it up before taking a last look at the largest piece of Domain.