The crushing agony began to transcend mere pain. The screams all around him had turned to horrific shrieks piercing his eardrums till they bled from agony even as Val choked on the hot fumes of his own burning soul, roasting in the foul flames of the Horror’s fury. Yet Val fought on.
“You have suffered enough, my champion,” whispered a woman’s voice, soft and sibilant, thanks to tendrils where once her lips had been. Sucker-laden ropes of flesh that had once been arms began to caress his shuddering body. “But open your eyes and embrace our master's dark wisdom, and all your agony will be transformed to sweetest bliss. Bliss we will share together for all time, my love.”
His heart pounded with terror transcending even his agony. For that soft, sibilant voice had been none other than Julia.
Transformed into a tentacle-faced horror, just like Elsith had been. And if Val surrendered his fierce resolve for even a heartbeat, that would be his fate as well.
“You are not Julia. You are an illusion, a lie! I will never surrender to you!” Val hissed with all his hate, even as he felt his awareness compressed by such agony that he became nothing more than a hot seething point of sentience drowned out by the choking black agony crushing him, body and soul.
Julia’s sibilant mocking laughter turned to the Keeper’s.
“So be it, fool. You deny my dark blessings and eternal life by my side. Then die, worm. There are other tools that will serve my purpose well enough. Other pawns that dare to walk the Path of Kings. Their pride will doom them, their desperation will break them, their sense of purpose will be consumed by the hungers I inflame within! And your death will be all I need to bring them into my fold!”
The Keeper’s laughter was a mallet pounding into Val’s naked flesh, pulverizing his bones and smashing his organs to bloody pulp even as Val writhed in unspeakable agony, his body and soul pounded so furiously, so thoroughly, no trace of blood or bone remained, the very memory of Val’s being pounded to oblivion.
Keeper has claimed your essence!
You are no more!
21
Save versus Final Oblivion made.
You have embraced your wrath!
And the memory of Val screamed, forced to awareness once more, at that moment little more than a flickering dream in the hideous hell that was the Keeper’s mind.
And even as he screamed, flesh ablaze as his foe sought to burn away all memory of him, Shadow smiled. Remembering who he was.
What he was.
A lone wolf utterly silent as he stalked the prey before him. A dark hunger that would not abate, no matter how the world around him burned.
Song of Battle initiated!
He gloried in the memory of his blade cleaving through the hellscape of writhing flesh, slimy tendrils, and eyes glaring like suns from the hellish skies above.
Alive or dead, it did not matter. He burned with the same hot fury that had propelled him into existence after being swept away as cosmic flux, a single point of awareness warping reality itself for a desperate chance at life, even if he had been no more real than a construct brought to life in a vat of Silbion.
Awareness, and a rage that transcended all obstacles, all pain, was all Val needed. For there was endless power the equivalent of a thousand vats of Silbion right here before him, nestled within the soul of his enemy.
A cup of sweet bloody nectar he greedily fed upon.
Shadow laughed as the screaming Keeper roared at his continued awareness, laughed as his foe’s endless minions whipped and scoured the memory of his flesh even as Val laid waste to nightmare and dream all around him, consuming those phantasms and all their power. Feasting upon his enemy’s growing panic.
Laughing at the bitter, furious irony of it all. Consumed by his foe, only for Val to consume his nemesis in turn. Feeding upon all the Keeper sent his way. The nightmares Illuminous sought to destroy Val with, the tentacle-faced horrors that had once been mages hungry for power, Even twisted replicas of his nemesis, each Elsith-abomination hungry for another chance at Val’s soul.
Val fed upon them all and grew strong.
You’re still here? Remarkable! Contest of skills engaged. The Memory of Valor Wins!
Feeling himself once more. Laughing at the crushing weight of the Keeper’s soul infecting his mind. The pain sending all his nerves screaming. Knowing that it was all illusion. Illusion and energy Val fed upon, growing stronger even as the Keeper roared.
Val opened his eyes and found his aching body upon the field of battle once more. Trembling legs could barely hold him as he wheezed like a dying man.
Gazing into the endless eyes of his enemy blinking at him with furious hate from the other side of the massive crackling gate leading straight to the Wildlands.
A gate Val struggled to hold, even now.
“Impossible!” roared the Keeper, furious appendages ripping apart Val’s screeching death-mech from the other side of the gate. “You cannot best me! You are mine! Body and soul!”
Val locked gazes with the horror before him and smiled.
Clenching his fist.
Feeling his foe’s blood trickling between his hands.
Drinking deep of his enemy’s power.
The Keeper screamed.
Congratulations! You have managed to reclaim your corrupted soul from the Lord of Fallen Wizards and devoured him in turn! An impossible feat, but when has that ever stopped you before? You have fed upon your foe’s taint and grown strong!
Mentem Magic is now Rank 4!
You have learned the forbidden Greater Skill: Soulpierce at Rank 2! In order for this skill to work, your soul must have had contact with your target! Any friend or foe you have formed a Mindlink or Spirit Link to, any partner who falls in love with you, any Horror or Undead you summon, all have links to your soul! Sufficient psychic damage, much like blood splattered upon a psychopath’s hammer, will also leave traces of this brutal connection! Soulpierce Rank modifies your Contest of Wills roll! All magics that feed upon or consume your enemy’s body or soul will pierce all wards and can be force multiplied by the degree to which your roll beats his own. Failure allows your foe to do the same to you!
Find Weakness skill check made! He may be a god, but you know him inside and out! Soulpierce has been modified as you embrace your Wrath! Keeper has failed by 10 points!
You have force multiplied Reaver’s Kiss 10-fold! Spell intensity boosted by Greater Mana Warping! You are draining 150 health and 75 stamina from Illuminous per second!
Val smiled as the Keeper screamed, railing against the gate, massive mouth full of shockingly white teeth whispering dark curses that crashed against Val’s Greater Ward.
Val could hear Julia’s panicked scream, sense his friends fleeing before the horror trying desperately to break through. Yet Val’s wards only glowed a brilliant crimson, growing ever stronger, as if feeding upon the Keeper’s vile curses.
For the Keeper’s dark power was now an echo of his own.
The fallen god’s desperate psychic battering fazed Val no more than endless waves crashing upon a rocky shore as he squeezed his hand harder, feeling his foe’s unholy potency pouring into his body, flooding his soul. It was everything he could do to clamp tight upon the power now imperiling and invigorating him with every beat of his frantically pounding heart.
Save versus oblivion made! You have successfully warped Reaver’s Kiss! Reavers Kiss is now a Level 30 spell and absorbs Psion and Mana as well as Health and Stamina!
Massive rotting fingers twisted and wrenched with renewed frenzy at the gate even as reality itself seemed to shriek under the strain, the portal beginning to warp and twist, and Val had to fight sudden vertigo as his nightmare foe struggled to squeeze his way through.
Julia screamed, failing her save against panic and running as fast as she could, as was every other living soul.
Val spat blood and flashed a tortured smile.
Everything was going according to plan.
Warning! You are in a Co
ntest of Wills for control of gate to Wildlands against Dark Deity. (And you’re losing, Val.) Form 2 point gate to Greengrove Province?
Val smiled as flickering blue light formed behind his friends.
“Val!”
“Do it!” Val screamed in his mind, readying himself for what was to come.
And the gate before Val screeched as it rippled and bucked, the Keeper in all its horrendous potency bursting through at last, the air bucking and howling with the gibbering madness of its laughter as impossibly massive fingers covered in blinking eyes and hungry mouths suddenly burst into being, every single one of them pointing accusingly at Val as his friends fled through the gate.
“Did you think you could best me, mortal? I, the keeper of all ancient knowledge, all forbidden lore? Fool! For your temerity alone, I shall force you to savor all the twisted knowledge of a thousand years pouring into your brain without end! Your screams shall feed my dark children, your agony will be the ink with which I pen fresh tomes of hideous delights to tempt ever more slaves into my fold!"
Dark laughter vibrated oddly through the air, as if Illuminous were somehow occupying 3-D space in ways never intended, warping and folding it to his will.
“Your defenses are nothing against me, now that I am here in the flesh, fool!”
Val flashed a twisted smile even as the massive fingers of suppurating flesh and endless hungry mouths smashed against his Greater Ward.
Your ward has suffered Titanic damage! Your ward has collapsed!
But Val was already running.
Dodge roll made!
As the ground exploded by his feet.
For even if their horrid trial of wills had left his mind immune to his foe’s vile assaults, his body could be crushed to bloody pulp as easily as any other man.
You have accessed Dominion Matrix in the heat of combat! Always a wonderful Idea!
Val smirked, dodging left on instinct alone as the ground crashed and shuddered, howls washing over him like nothing, needing only a moment of focused thought to note that the point values were exactly what he hoped they would be.
Gate to Wildlands still in contest! Cannot selectively discorporealize.
Damn it!
A single jolt of panic.
And then Val understood the key word within that phrase.
Destroy all improvements within Ormur territory? Y/N
You have chosen Yes!
Summoning Circle Destroyed! Mushroom Grove Destroyed! Arcane Tower Destroyed! Alchemical Workshop Destroyed! Croplands Destroyed! Greater Mana Warping Destroyed! Greengrove Gate Destroyed! Wildlands gate (still in contest) Destroyed!
Ormur Province is a Tier 1 province. You Earn 1 Dominion Point for your sacrifice!
And Val flashed a ruthless smile as the howling demi-god behind him shrieked in sudden agony far transcending the five Reaver’s Kiss spells fueling Val with such awful power.
He could sense his enemy’s flesh popping and sizzling as his extradimensional body began decompressing in the comparatively low mana environment, as if Val had just kicked it out of an airlock. Thousands upon thousands of hundred-jointed fingers and inhuman eyes now leaking pus had fallen to the ground, yet still had the wherewithal to turn their focus and glare at him with seething hate as the keeper's appendages squirmed toward him like slugs.
“You will not win, mortal! You will never win! This agony is nothing! I will endure, worm, as I did for endless centuries before this day! I will endure as my tendrils burrow into the hearts and minds of every corrupt wizard that has ever lived!”
Val stopped cold, turning around, facing the titanic horror sizzling and popping as it dragged itself forward on massive ropy limbs covered in howling, gibbering mouths, leaving a trail of rotting slime behind it.
“This is for Elsith, bastard. Now go burn in hell.”
Val smiled, allowing his foe one final glimpse of his mind, before whispering the words that would seal his enemy’s doom.
“No, no no no! Impossible! You cannot best me. You must not best me! It defies destiny. It defies reality. It defies the causal nature of our universe! Reverse your spell, mortal. Reverse your spell and free me now!”
You have cast Meteor Storm for 1 territory point! Boost it to Extinction Event for 3 more points?
You have chosen no. How sad! 1 lonely meteor it is!
“Stop! This contest is futile. A waste of our shared potential! You have proven yourself worthy of the Keeper’s most prized secrets! Do you wish knowledge? I can give you knowledge unending! Do you wish power? Every mortal does! I know your Terran secret. I can give you power sufficient to level tenfold! But abate your doom and embrace my gifts, and together we will forge an empire that will last an eternity! With The Keeper by your side, no foe will stand against you, no obstacle will be beyond your might!”
A bargain has been offered by a Dark Deity! Do you accept? Y/N
Val froze, a shiver of awful temptation coursing through him, sensing no deception in the horrific whispers echoing through his mind.
Power beyond all comprehension could be his. And for him, that knowledge would be free of all taint. Or at least, he would be given a fair opportunity to resist darkest temptation. And resist he would. For a time.
All he had to do was disciple himself to a creature that dreamed of turning this universe into a massive hive-mind of tendril-faced horrors enslaved to the Keeper’s will for all time.
“Checkmate, asshole,” Val said to the now pleading Eldritch horror before jumping through a door that had appeared out of nowhere.
Gate linking Greengrove to Ormur Province forged for 2 points! 7 territory points remaining. Only those aligned to you may cross this barrier.
Finesse check failed!
The ground shook and jolted from the titanic explosion even all the way back at Greengrove Province, Val quickly found out as he collapsed to the ground along with a dozen other wide-eyed mages and their kin, Val’s most recent territory suffering the impact of a meteor hitting with what Val now suspected was sufficient force to level a good portion of Newhaven City all by itself.
And he had dared to launch a thousand, the first time he had cast that spell.
Shivering, saying not a word as his friends silently approached him, Julia giving him a hug even as she shook in his arms. But Val had eyes only for the cloud of dust, miles off, pluming into the air.
You have successfully butchered all surviving residents of Ormur territory! You have earned 1 additional Dominion Point for your Ruthless Sacrifice!
You have defeated The Keeper! A lesser demigod that had once wreaked havoc upon the face of Jordia when it was last saturated with inconceivable levels of magic, many centuries ago! Cut off from Greater Magics and denied gate access, you have permanently destroyed his corporeal form! He will no longer be able to infect the world of Jordia, save in the dreams of his most devoted followers. Experience earned!
Congratulations! You have leveled up!
Congratulations! You are now a Level 7 Overlord!
Chris gazed silently at the massive dust cloud for some moments before turning to Val. “That was some serious mojo, my friend.”
Val, still in a daze, just nodded.
“Break it down for me, buddy. What the hell just happened?”
Yin, wrapped tightly in Dirk’s arms, nodded. “I’d like to know that too, Chris. I just fled the most horrific shit I’ve ever seen, I get the feeling you’ve just unleashed the Jordian equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction, and I’m about to go up two levels.” The beautiful Asian girl gave a rueful shake of her head. “Not that I’m complaining. God no. But I’d really love to know what the hell we just faced. I think I’m going to have nightmares for the rest of my life.”
The look Dirk sent Val’s way mirrored that of the girl in his arms.
“Val, talk to us, baby,” a concerned Julia whispered as Val just gazed off in the distance. “We’re getting worried.”
Val blinked, shook his head, caught sig
ht of all the Christos mages gazing at him, some with fear, others with awe, Alwin’s expression utterly unfathomable.
“It called itself Illuminous. The Keeper,” Val said at last.
Alwin shuddered and paled. “The dark god of forbidden wisdom. Please, my lord. Never seek to truck with it. Never seek its council. The power it promises is riddled with temptation. Far too few mages survive the lessons untainted. And when a mage truly falls under its influence...” He shuddered.
Val turned to the man, who for some reason trembled and stepped back. “I know,” Val said. “You saw what happened to Elsith. We all did. Hell, Alwin, I don’t think Goat-face had any redeemable traits, but I wouldn’t be surprised if his betrayal and absolute butchery of both the Ormur and Christos clans had everything to do with whatever black secrets the Keeper, or maybe the thing that had once been Elsith, whispered into his ears.”
Alwin bowed his head. “You are correct, my lord. Which is why I beg of you, never seek that monster’s council, no matter what he promises.”
Val smirked. “He’s dead, Alwin. Unless you’re so foolish as to invite the memory of his spirit into your dreams, I don’t think any mage ever needs to worry about him again.”
“Impossible!” hissed one of the handful of mages beside Alwin. “The Keeper is a god!”
Alwin glared at the doubting mage. “Apologize and be grateful our master doesn’t strike you down!” His gaze was almost apologetic as he looked Val’s way. “Jordash’s words, though intemperate, were not meant to question your assertions or might. It is simply that, to our knowledge, no mortal magic can truly defeat a divine creature, benign or malevolent. Only abjure or contain it for a time.”
Val just shrugged. “He’s dead. Whether or not you believe it, that’s up to you.”
“Don’t suppose you can give us the details?” Dirk asked, even as he held Yin close. “It might help us wrap our heads around what actually happened.”
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