Oblivion's Crown

by M. H. Johnson

  You have successfully cast Greater Abomination Binding for the first time! Contest of skills: Binding+Willpower vs. L40 Horror: Tie!

  A trembling Val bit his lip, the sharp pain bringing him instant focus as he felt his psyche come perilously close to being shredded by the storm of madness serving as a proxy for this horror’s willpower. Val knew he had to hold, no matter how exhausted he felt, even as howling winds of hideous sensation and unspeakable despair flooded his soul.

  Contest of skills continued: Tie! Double Mana cost of 120 paid! You are beginning to feel drained, Val, and your Ward is at 30%. Perhaps your story ends here?

  Val groaned, crashing to his knees as blood pounded through his skull, feeling its warm trickle stream from his nose, gasping with sudden fear and desperation as he heard Julia scream. “You will obey, bastard!” Val roared, eyes glaring with bitter hate as the creature howled.

  Crashing to its metallic knees, head lowered, the steel titan at last surrendered to Val's will.

  Contest of wills: Success! You have mastered Mecha-Horror! Cost to maintain hold is 8-6 = 2 mana per second. Note! You are in a high mana area, thanks to Greater Mana Warping infecting these lands. Zero cost to maintaining all horrors, abominations, and summonings!

  Val allowed himself only a moment to savor fierce exultation, panicked eyes gazing Julia’s way, Chris at that moment tackled by zombies that had already brought Dirk to the ground, his beau’s desperate eyes catching his own as Alwin desperately whispered words of disjunction even as an exhausted Yin screamed and lashed out with sputtering fire before collapsing.

  “Crush all the zombies between the gate and the wards!” Val screamed, a single mental flash making his orders clear beyond words, the creature roaring and shambling to smash and stomp flat the swarm of zombies now pouring out of the gate, even as Val raced to aid the cluster now overwhelming his friends.

  Hot fury burning through him as dwarven blade and shield materialized in his hands.

  You have embraced your wrath! Potency increased 60%!

  Howling his hate as time seemed to stretch and slow before him, seeing every wrinkle and crease in the ancient uniform upon the Zombie even now chomping down on a roaring Dirk—

  —collapsing flat and lifeless, the edge of Val’s dwarven blade glowing blue and vibrating at unthinkable speeds as he poured his Psions into it, cleaving through rotting flesh and bone as easily as a knife through butter. The briefest of seconds spent yanking Dirk back on his feet before dashing off for the panicked, high pitched cry just ahead.

  Claws were coming for Val’s face, the howls of a half-dozen undead hungry for his flesh. The screams of Yin just feet away.

  Val’s blade danced through the air. Hands guided by fury and memory lashing out in tight arcing blows as his shield slammed foes off balance before his blade cleaved them in two, their eyes gazing wide in undead horror as ancient guts ruptured anew, severed spines collapsing his foes like snipped marionette strings as Val lost himself in a dark bloody haze, hot blade cleaving through limbs and skulls with furious abandon, reveling in the flood of power singing through his veins as he embraced his class to the fullest, howling like a wolf when his blade exploded through a final shambling skull and he burst through the surge between him and the woman he loved.

  Turning to a panicked scream as he saw Julia slammed to the ground by a flood of Zombies.

  Nothing compared to her own.

  You have been struck by Banshee Wail! Save versus death made! You have suffered 200 points of damage! Stamina drained 100 points! Psion drained 100 points! You have suffered a Greater Wound in the form of ruptured eardrums and complete loss of balance!

  60 Health healed & balance restored with Death’s Kiss & Song of Battle!

  Val lurched, his ears suddenly ringing as he forced himself back to his feet, the flood of power pouring into him from all the foes he had slain soothing the horrific agony of what had almost felt like his psyche being torn free of his body.

  He gazed down at an exhausted and bloody Julia in awe, before his eyes snapped to an unconscious and heavily bleeding Yin.

  Yin!

  Instantly summoning and forcing a red healing potion through his Spirit Link into his dying friend, even as his hot gaze darted around, seeing a pair of zombies loping on all fours, vicious fangs a heartbeat from ripping out Yin’s throat—

  —horrifically warped foes sent flying back in splashes of brains and gore as Val’s blade sliced through the closest abomination in a heartbeat, his powerful armored fist then striking the second with enough force and fury to shatter its skull before he snatched up a comatose Yin in both arms.

  “Yin!” Locking gazes with an exhausted, bloody Dirk before kissing Yin’s brow and casting the gentlest spell he knew, learned by his Goddess’s side.

  “Lenis Sanatio,” Val whispered, relieved to see his friend’s breathing steady as red and purple potions alongside a goddess’s gentle balm mended his friend. He gazed at Dirk with an apologetic nod before casting what he knew he must, Yin suddenly crying out as her wounds sizzled and hissed, necrotic infections quickly burned away.

  You have successfully cast Searing Cleanse! You have successfully cast Minor Healing! 10 Mana spent!

  “Why didn’t you run, you idiot. I told you to run!” Dirk sobbed, holding Yin close, who was only at that moment coming to with an exhausted smile.

  “Did we win?”

  “Yes you silly git, we did. Don’t ever do that to me again!” Dirk sobbed, nodding gratefully and wincing only once when Val cast the same pair of healing spells on him, and Chris a moment later, eyes always on the gate, Val relieved beyond words to see his giant Death-mecha rending and pounding flat the disorganized stream of zombies still flooding in.

  “My man Val, always there in a pinch,” a coughing Chris said, wincing only slightly, and waving his hands when Val offered a healing potion. “No man, I’m healing pretty quick, and we’re running low.” He shook his head in shame. “Damn. Lost orientation for just one second when the stream turned into a flood out of nowhere, and then I thought I was a fucking goner, and there you were, berserking like I could only dream of, cutting those fuckers down left and right.”

  Val winced, gazing into Julia’s haunted eyes, as if only in that moment realizing how close they had come to death, how a single series of mistakes and a dash of overconfidence was all it would have taken to kill them. “We stretched ourselves too thin, trying to guard the damn pentagram. We almost lost everyone!”

  “But we didn’t,” Val soothed, even as Alwin gave a triumphant cry, the pentagram’s brilliant crimson light fading to the color of dried blood, the man quickly freeing the three sobbing children, wounded and maimed, that seemed to be all that was left of the once powerful and deadly Ormur clan.

  Alwin turned to Val and his friends, bowing solemnly and low. “I know how easy it would have been for you all to flee when they swarmed… but you didn’t. Putting your lives in gravest danger for my own. For the last surviving members of a dying clan whose secrets and bloodlines would otherwise be lost to us forever. For those acts, I am forever in your debt.”

  Val smiled at his friends. “Your damn right they’re heroes. Guild Ottalaus is the best guild there is.”

  Dirk chuckled ruefully at that.

  “Are the kids okay?” Yin softly whispered in Dirk’s arms.

  He smiled through his tears. “Yeah, babe, they’re great.”

  “Good,” she said, collapsing completely in Dirk’s embrace.

  “Yin!”

  “She’s just sleeping, sir. You can tell through the link,” Chris soothed, Dirk taking a shuddering breath, giving his friend a relieved nod.

  Val turned to Julia. “Your shout probably saved our lives. Thank you.”

  Her lips twisted in a rueful smile. “Bullshit. You saved our lives. I should have shouted sooner. I just… I just didn’t want to risk catching Yin or any of you in the cone, and maybe killing you. Of course, when I finally do shout, r
ealizing I have no choice—it’s either that or be zombie food—I catch you point-blank. As always.”

  Val quirked a grin. “You certainly caught my heart point-blank,” he teased, “and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  She chuckled softly and Val was so relieved just to find her vibrant and alive, safe in his arms, her gold-green eyes twinkling with mischievous fire. “The things I would do to you, if we weren’t surrounded by friends and covered in zombie gore,” she whispered into his ear.

  “There is that,” he smirked, gazing down at their gore-spattered countenances before squeezing her hand and turning to the gate. “And that.”

  Alwin paled, the three surviving children huddling behind their savior. “My lord… the gate is growing!”

  And then Val saw it, shuddering with what he feared might indeed be genuine horror as a flood of hideously long rotting fingers covered in slime burst forth, jointed so many times they seemed almost tendrils, whipping though the air by the gate before wrapping themselves about the edges, as if to tear the gate open further.

  As dozens of massive eyes glowing brilliant crimson with swirling pupils seemed to form out of the ether before the gate, as if bulging from unspeakable directions into Jordia’s far simpler three-dimensional realm.

  They were suddenly surrounded by awful gurgling laughter that seemed to come from everywhere at once. “Soon these lands too shall belong to Illuminous. It is only a matter of time.” Awful howling could be heard from the realm beyond. Val hissed. The wildlands, he was sure of it.

  As if summoned by his thoughts alone, a dozen of those awful eye focused on Val at once. “Ah… the piece moves forward, my own pawn knocked aside. How amusing. How delightful! Perhaps you will prove worthy of the knowledge I possess.”

  Val trembled, fists tightly clenched with rage, stepping away from Julia to behold the horror taunting them from the pulsating gate. “You! This is your doing. All of it!”

  Mocking laughter washed over them. “And a delightful game it has been. Kentric’s Dauda toy possessed so many delicious secrets. So much knowledge squirreled away. Hidden. As is the nature of your kind, Shadow King. But I am Illuminous! The Keeper! Master of all secrets. In the end, nothing can hide from me."

  The air seemed to darken and pulsate. The beast roared. “Nothing! And soon I shall possess your secrets too, Valor Dauda Hunter!”

  “The hell you will,” Val snarled, even as a squirming mass of thick black fingers burst forth from the gate. They were inconceivably massive, Val's guts twisting as impossibly long fingers snapped forward like ropes, joints crunching and twisting, crimson eyes bulging from the rotting flesh as they latched like serpents onto his suddenly howling mecha, struggling as fiercely as any dinosaur in a predator’s grip, countless millions of years ago. To no avail. The Keeper’s mocking laughter washed over them as it effortlessly yanked Val's abomination through the gate, chilling Val to the quick.

  Then Val gazed into his friends’ horrified countenances and smiled as the solution became crystal clear.

  He turned to a terrified-looking Alwin.

  “Alwin, collect yourself! Steady the children, don’t let them bolt! I must talk to them.”

  Ignoring the horrific sounds of tortured flesh and steel being gnawed upon by horrors inconceivable, Val crouched to his knees, earning only whimpers from the 3 surviving children presently huddled together, nursing their grievous wounds.

  Only to look up in awe as Val gently sprinkled a healing potion upon their injuries before whispering words of gentlest healing, his gaze both compassionate and serene, no matter the still inflamed scars marring his flesh.

  “Would you children like to help me get rid of that horrid monster?” Two of the sobbing children frantically nodded, the third only whispering what Val sensed was his mother’s name.

  Val gazed with tenderest sympathy into their eyes. “If you swear yourselves to me, to relinquish all claim to these lands, I will use your words to protect your ancient homeland, and to find you a new home. A home where you are safe, happy, and loved. All you have to do is wish for it, and take my hand.”

  The two trembling girls immediately grabbed his hand, crying. “We’ll be good, we swear! Please don’t leave us, we’ll fly under your flag!” Val smiled at those words, gazing at the slightly older boy, his unreadable gaze locking with Val’s own. “I know what you’re doing,” he said. “You want to take father’s lands.”

  Val nodded solemnly. "I do."

  The trembling boy swallowed, tear-filled eyes gazing at the horror even now ripping space and time. “Can you truly get rid of that?”

  “I sure as hell am going to try.”

  The kid flashed a rueful smile. “And even if you fail… will me and my cousins still be cared for? Will you still make sure we’re treated without cruelty? Maybe even find someone who might, well, care about us?”

  Val bowed his head. “I swear it.”

  Smiling through his tears, the boy placed his slender palm within Val’s own. “I… I surrender my father’s lands to you. I trust that you will protect me and mine in turn. I guess… I guess now I am your man and you are my liege. Thank you.”

  Ormur territory has been surrendered! Do you wish to purchase this lesser territory for 1 territory point?

  You have chosen Yes! You have earned 8 territory points for a total of 9, and 1 Dominion Point! You are 2 Dominion Points away from Level 7 Overlord! Ormur Province is a Tier 3 territory possessing 1 Tier 3 Arcane Tower, 1 Tier 3 Summoning Ring, 1 Tier 2 Alchemical Workshop, and 1 Tier 2 Fungal Grove! Your territory possesses 57 surviving serfs and servants presently in hiding, all other former residents have been slaughtered or are already sworn to your service!

  Territory enjoys benefits of Greater Mana Warping! Mana recovery is at triple normal rate and spell potency is doubled! Dominion technology is impaired and all arcane research occurs 50% faster with double standard risks of critical failures!

  You and all those sworn to you now have affinity to these lands! Haunting Luminescence is free of all adverse effects! 30% decreased critical failure risk with all spell casting!

  Ormur territory possesses one Tier 2 Gate connected to Wildlands. Tier 2 gate is currently contested by Keeper. Do you wish to challenge?

  Val flashed a cold smile, snarling into the score of brilliantly blinking eyes some 30 yards away. “Hell yeah,” he whispered, before being crushed by a madness so horrific that all he saw was blackness as mocking laughter washed over his soul.

  “The Keeper holds all secrets, fool. Including your own!”

  20

  Contest of wills engaged! Valor Hunter vs Keeper: Keeper wins!

  Contest of wills engaged! Valor Hunter vs Keeper: Valor Hunter wins!

  Contest of wills engaged! Valor Hunter vs Keeper: Keeper Wins!

  And suddenly Val was no longer in that battle-strewn field before the gate, the stench of blood and death transformed. He could feel nothing but crushing pressure all around. He could smell nothing save the sickening alien stench of the abomination suddenly all around him. And he could see nothing save brilliant crimson, mirroring the agony searing through his soul, his very mind crushed and flayed by the horror tearing through his psyche, hungry for all the secrets he kept locked within.

  Screaming as he desperately fought to resist, the barest tendril of his psyche locked upon the gate, near the entirety of his focus simply on saving his mind.

  And his foe only squeezed harder, delighting in Val’s silent screams.

  And suddenly he could hear it. Mocking, terrible laughter from all directions as well as the shrieks and screams of ecstasy and agony as countless wizards throughout time surrendered themselves to the horror Val now faced, gifted with dark blessings that filled them with unholy power even as it warped them into eldritch mirrors of the being they eventually called master, no matter how wise or potent they had once thought themselves. Fingers grew serpentine and twisted, jaded eyes and bemused smiles transformed to quivering t
endrils of flesh and need, desperate for scraps of tainted lore shuddering through their souls as they surrendered themselves completely to the monster blazing through their minds.

  And all their ecstasy and horror, their choking despair and unspeakable hunger was now thrust upon Val’s soul as the Keeper sought to consume Val, poisoning him with endless power even as he would warp Val into his puppet. A horrific fate Val fought against, even as the hideous weight of an alien soul ground his awareness to oblivion.

  You have been poisoned by Eldritch Knowledge! The Keeper has claimed a portion of your soul!

  Dark, horrific whispers flayed Val’s mind.

  “Surrender, worm. You are nothing before my might. Nothing before my power! Embrace the dark gifts I would give you. Savor them, and be mine forever more!”

  Val screamed even as he drowned in the hideous flood of arcane knowledge choking his psyche, a thousand ancient warped wizards screaming their lore within his mind, flaying his soul with the horror and agony that had consumed them, the dark bliss that tormented them even as their souls were forged into vile instruments of power with but one master to serve.

  A master that would claim Val as his latest disciple, his final slave.

  A tool the Horror would use for itself as it strove to claim all of Jordia as the ultimate prize. A prize he would infect with the most horrific of warpings, forging a realm of endless nightmares and twisted dreams that would send every soul screaming into oblivion as they were reforged by his necrotic wisdom into mindflayers without end.

  An army reveling in its own horror as it flooded countless worlds through dark rifts the Keeper alone could form. And one day, an entire universe of twisted minds enslaved to his will, eventually transformed to become but an echo of his own.

  Everyone. Everywhere. Forged into tendril-faced horrors that were but echoes of Illuminous as he alone rode a billion billion souls as his puppets.

  For all time.

  “You cannot resist me, worm. For your story has already been told. Already been foreseen! Your capitulation, your surrender to the sweet, sweet bliss of darkest lore that I offer is as inevitable as the agony you feel for the final seconds that you dare to resist my will!”