Oblivion's Crown

by M. H. Johnson

  Even through his fury, he felt the rush and exhilaration of battle pounding through his soul, feeding upon the endless potential of his fallen foes like a wolf feasting upon its kill.

  The revenants howled, rushing Val at once. He flashed a cold smile as his blood roared, inviting their howls of death, razor-sharp claws smashing against his shield as he dodged and struck, weaving and twisting around his foes as his blade tore through flesh and bone.

  Your armor has been breached! 20 damage and Light Wound suffered!

  Hissing as dark claws slammed into the back of his knee, attempting to hamstring him.

  Finesse check made!

  Val managed to twist his stumble into a coordinated lurch, blade slicing through the back of the ambushing revenant as Val pivoted around it, blasting through its skull with his shimmering sword as he lurched back two steps, shield fully raised, now by Mick’s side as the hoard washed over them.

  “Hold and ward, Jager!” a furious Bill roared as his poleaxe lashed out over Val’s right shoulder, the axehead shimmering just like Val’s dwarven sword as a charging revenant exploded in blood and bone. Reed’s crackling trident speared out to Val’s left, plunging into the side of another shrieking corpse who sizzled and fried before collapsing in a smoking heap, heartbeats later.

  Val was now focused only on keeping his shield upright and ready, countering the furious barrage of undead bodies crashing against him like a hailstorm of horror, only kept from collapsing under the weight of what might be a full score of shrieking, hissing, lurching revenants by dint of considerable skill and Olympic levels of strength and speed.

  Sword and Shield skillcheck made! Barely, Val!

  And still, it was a close thing as the undead struggled to either tear his shield free of his grip or climb right over Val as he carefully struck with tight casting blows or disemboweling thrusts, having no room at all to swing with allies thrusting polearms at his sides.

  “Burn, fuckers!” Eric screamed, streams of fiery arrows bursting through several of the revenants before they stumbled and burst into pillars of flame, Val still having to deal with their blazing corpses as they struggled against him before being consumed to ash, EM Mastery alone keeping him from suffering far more than mild burns, quickly healed as Song of Battle blazed through his blood. But Val understood there was only so much the mages could do with their foes attempting to swamp them, melee attacks and single target spells the only options they had.

  “Ramos! Back us up, fucker!” Bill roared as a revenant soared through the air, springing completely over Val before a stream of Jiu’s icy daggers tore through its body as it shrieked and writhed in their midst before being brought down at last, Jiu’s desperate cry making it clear she had not escaped unscathed before being lost in the simple struggle for survival as the battle wore on.

  Val felt a cold lurch in his gut, Jiu’s pain-filled cry reminding him all too viscerally that he was gambling with real lives here. If he didn’t show at least a few of his cards, these kids could really die.

  “Bill!” Val yelled. “Can you and the twins hold these fuckers off for ten seconds?”

  “You better not be turning chicken, you fucking coward! We need you here and now! This is what you signed up for!”

  “Ten seconds, Bill!”

  A desperate silence as Val slammed his shield against the flood of zombies, punching out with sword hilt and gauntlet and smashing in a revenant’s face, its breath smelling of rot and death, so close they were crowding.

  “Fucking asshole!” Bill hissed, his poleaxe slamming down, tearing through the zombies before Val, Reed and Snipe’s tridents just a heartbeat behind. “You got seconds, fuckhead!”

  Val nodded once, step-sliding back, tasting the fear in the air as the front line fought desperately just to keep from getting overwhelmed.

  “Jager, what the hell are you doing!” Jiu cried as Val took his now inert but still razor-sharp blade and pressed it against his now exposed flesh, his shield momentarily whisked back into his portal dimension, cutting a bit deeper than he intended, the hallway spraying with his blood.

  “Jager!”

  Val shook his head as Crystal gazed in horror, jerking his wrist around, spraying the entire corridor with a thin patina of his own blood. What was almost a perfect circle, even getting the stalactites overhead.

  You have suffered 30 points of damage and a medium wound by your own hand. Well done!

  “Tutella Defendo!” Val roared, the words echoing strangely in the hallway, sensing at the last second how perilous it would be to cast, unless certain desperate measures were taken.

  Greater Ward successfully cast! Critical failure successfully averted! You now understand how to modify your ward on the fly! You have modified your Greater Ward only to counter extraplanar and undead foes! Spells and living corporeal creatures may pass freely. 75 mana spent!

  Before Val’s entire ring of blood blossomed with fiery blue flame.

  “Everyone back up! Get behind the ward! The fuckers can’t cross!”

  Eric’s eyes widened. “What the fuck...”

  “No time!” Val shouted as Bill and the twins were completely overrun.

  Strength check made! Finesse check made at 2 penalty! Your already healing wrist does not hinder you!

  You have suffered two medium wounds and 40 damage from revenant claws!

  With a desperate heave, Val managed to grab both Reed and Snipe, almost throwing them past the Greater Ward blazing behind him, the latched-on revenants tearing into their flesh screaming and bursting into flame as they crossed.

  Mick alone was barely on his feet, covered in wounds.

  “Get the fuck across!” Val screamed.

  The man grimaced, lurching toward the barrier. “Bill!” he shouted, and Val instantly understood.

  "Glacie Pilum!" His words as fast as thought, Val launched a mastered Ice Spear, blasting through the closest revenant’s head as it was a heartbeat from trying to tear through an unconscious and bleeding Bill’s neck.

  Dimensional Rift successfully accessed!

  Summoning his shield in a blink as he roared and slammed into the horde of revenants attempting to tear the armor off and eviscerate the critically wounded teenager, Val not even bothering to finish any off, merely grabbing Bill with once-more empty hands and dashing back to the fiery barrier as revenant claws tried to hamstring him and tear his helmet off from behind.

  Strength check made! Two revenants have perished from abjuration’s flame!

  Flashing a single grim smile as the weight upon his back suddenly lifted, the inhuman shrieks of foes curdling to ash doing little to alleviate the dread lancing through him.

  Jiu was gazing at Val with wide-eyed disbelief. “What the fuck just happened, Jager? What the fuck just happened?”

  “We got ambushed!” Mick shouted. “That wasn’t a handful. That was an army of undead zombies trying to take us down!”

  Val spared a single glance for what were dozens, if not hundreds of furiously shrieking black-clawed revenants hissing and snarling just beyond the ward. Nothing like the slow, lurching zombies Val and his friends had fought, what now seemed a lifetime ago, in that mine hiding so many secrets. No. These creatures were fast and deadly, glaring at the party with eyes glowing with seething hate and inconceivable malice.

  “Shit, Crystal, please… you got to save him!”

  Mick gazed with desperate eyes down at a comatose Bill, covered in blood, helmet removed, his breath coming in bubbly gasps.

  Horrified eyes met Mick’s own. “I, I’m trying. But his lungs are filled with blood! I can’t… I can’t keep his lungs clear and keep his cells from dying of oxygen loss at the same time. It’s too much!”

  “This is bullshit!” Reed hissed, glaring at the shrieking horde snapping vicious teeth just beyond Val’s barrier. “You’ve got to fucking save him!”

  “I’m not a real doctor!” Crystal screamed. “I’m just a girl playing a game! This is real! Oh fuck,
fuck, he stopped breathing! Jager, what are you doing?”

  Strength check made! Finesse check made!

  Wasting no time, Val had quickly cut the makeshift straps securing breastplate to backplate, gazing at the massive bloody wounds covering the young man’s chest and sides.

  Those claws had cut deep, and the wounds they had left had not been pretty.

  Val steadied himself, summoning forth a pair of potions, carefully pouring a purple potion in the gaping wounds on each side of the boy’s chest, the entire party gasping with awe when the blood loss stopped, and the wounds slowly began to close.

  But Val feared it wouldn’t be fast enough.

  Crystal had frozen, too overwhelmed to act.

  So Val grimaced and did what he had to, whispering the words to a spell both effective and with a cost, the recipient forced to feel every iota of pain to be suffered in 3 months of healing, feeling a shiver of awe as his time-based healing spells came into new focus, somehow incorporating the far gentler magics inherent to his newly learned Healing skill.

  Searing Cleanse successfully cast! Season’s Mending successfully cast! Season’s Binding Successfully cast! Potent Magus Perk averts risk of critical failure! Congratulations! You are now an Adept Caster of time-based healing magics! Season’s Mending and Season’s Binding are now 20% more potent, and have 20% reduced cost and risk of critical failure! Blood Reaver skill path has given you additional insights in the use of Searing Cleanse! Adept status achieved!

  Insight gained! You have deduced how to synergize all three of these spells into one potent casting!

  You have learned Season’s Restoration. This Level 45 Time-based healing spell instantly sterilizes all wounds. All physical injuries benefit from an entire season’s worth of perfect healing in a rejuvenation vat over a single hour. Thanks to Healing school prerequisite, both traumatic brain injuries and neurodegeneration can be healed with cognitive facilities fully restored, given sufficient castings!

  Note: the entire body ages 1 season with each casting. Since all cells are fully rejuvenated and telomeres restored, actual effects upon overall life expectancy are undetermined, but all affected children will be 1 season closer to maturity. No aging effects on Synths, Simulacrums, Immortals, or those who walk the Path of Kings.

  The speed of healing can be significantly enhanced (and cellular aging minimized) when used in conjunction with healing potions or regeneration. Magical arts involved include Creation, Manipulation, Transformation, Destruction, and Healing, in addition to the schools of Time, Corpus, and Fire. Cost to cast at your level of skill: 130 Mana. Critical Failure risk: 10% (Penalty cut in half for Adept knowledge of multiple similar spells.) -30% For Potent Magus Perk = 0% under optimal conditions!

  Val frowned. He knew the cost to cast Season’s Restoration would fall considerably as his skill in Time, Corpus, and Healing magics increased. Save for brain injuries, casting the lesser versions made sense for now. But the risk of disaster in the heat of combat was an ugly reality he suspected pure Healing school spells did not have to contend with. If he wanted to safely cast hybrid or time-based recovery magic in battle, he would have to start allocating precious points into mastering those spells.

  Bill’s eyes snapped open, rapidly repairing lungs spitting out blood and bile before he gasped once and screamed as his body crackled with arcane energies, shrieking with pain as his horrific wounds began closing within seconds. For a full minute, they were all wincing at his awful shrieks before he collapsed in an exhausted, sobbing heap; utterly drained, and as free of disease or injury as he had ever been in just a fraction of the time it might otherwise have taken, thanks to the purple potions Val had given him.

  A tightly frowning Val nodded once as Bill’s friends squeezed his hands and whispered words of comfort to their overwhelmed companion, Val now stepping away from the huddled group and back to the ward, glaring at the sea of hissing revenants snarling against the barrier.

  The time for subtlety had passed.

  The ambush had been deliberate, and Val was certain he knew just who to blame.

  But first, to make use of the resources at hand.

  Val locked gazes into the snarling countenance of the closest, largest revenant, peering into the inky depths of its alien orbs, whispering words of dominion.

  Taking his time. Determined to forge a bond no foe could break.

  “Alligo Dicio,” he whispered, smiling coldly when the abomination shrieked, grabbing its head and crumpling to its knees in an all too human gesture.

  Hidden puppetmaster detected! Contest of Wills between Valor Hunter and Puppetmaster!

  Val snarled as he clenched his will around the undead revenant, sensing the hideous mass of malice and hatred at the core of its being, even now struggling to maintain control.

  You have suffered 15 damage and a Minor Psychic Wound! Warning: Shadowmind cannot be used during psychic battles for supremacy! You have successfully embraced your wrath!

  Val hissed as sudden pain lanced his mind, his foe Psychically lashing out, doing all it could to defend its prize. He felt a choking black rage well up within him, imagining his hands wrapping around the shadowy neck and throttling the life out of the creature whose minions had almost butchered half his party.

  He couldn’t erase the terror that had left his team utterly shaken, but he sure as hell could make the bastard at the other end of these revenants paid in blood for what it had done.

  His bleak smile grew as he sensed a far-off scream, his foe’s mind desperately tearing itself free of Val’s grip, leaving dozens of mindless puppets in its wake.

  “Alligo Dicio. Alligo Dicio. Alligo Dicio.” Val said time and time again, taking deep breaths as Song of Battle continued to race through his blood, his mana fully regenerating just seconds after each casting.

  “What the fuck is he doing?” whispered an awed Eric sometime later. Val’s powerful voice, not a shout but a command, echoed through the corridor again and again.

  “Hell if I know,” Jiu said. “Not like anything he does makes sense so far, so why should this?”

  Minutes passed, and Val couldn’t help smiling with a certain sense of satisfaction, for all that he felt the weight of some half-dozen stares upon his backside. It had not been easy, for a shadowy foe had repeatedly sought to slither past his defenses as he took control over its minions. Only fierce resolve and Rank 3 in Mentem arts kept his foe from breaking through. He did not slack in his diligence for a heartbeat, well able to imagine the horror of his mind taken over by another. Then, at last, it was done.

  Congratulations! You are now an Adept caster of Greater Abomination Binding! 76 Revenants are now under your command! Cost to Maintain is 5 mana per second per Revenant, -3 for Tier 3 Necromancy, -3 for Tier 3 Abjuration, -5 for Greater Mana Warping = zero cost per second! You may maintain an unlimited number of Tier 5 Revenants at your level of skill!

  Mick’s worried voice reached Val’s ear. “Hey, Jager. You okay there, buddy?”

  Val nodded, turning back around.

  Eric was gazing at him with unmistakable wonder. “How?”

  Val’s brow furrowed. “How what?”

  “How did you do any of that?”

  Val winked. “Magic.”

  “Yeah we know that, genius!” said an exasperated Jiu. “But what exactly did you cast?”

  Val’s smile grew. “Spells.”

  Crystal looked ready to pull out her hair. “What spells? How? How were you able to heal Bill? How were you able to pacify those things now just staring at us? And how were you able to create a barrier and block those things from killing us all in one awful swoop?”

  Val tapped his helm. “By not messing up the casting. How else?”

  Bill’s eyes widened. “You are totally fucking with us, Jager. Totally fucking with us!”

  Val chuckled. “And I have a promise to keep, don’t I? What was that I had said? Any equipment damaged, it was on me to repair?”

  Bill smirked, ch
uckling softly. “Yeah, asshole, you did. And thanks for saving my skin back there.” His gaze turned serious. “I mean it, Jager. You might be a smartass. You should have kept up your Synergized Ward, and not charged in half-cocked before we realized that half dozen was fronting for a flood that poured out from nowhere. But you didn’t run. You didn’t chicken out, you didn’t yell the P-word.” He offered his hand. Val shook it.

  “You’re still an ass, though. So how the hell did you do what you did?”

  “And how the hell did you make your dwarven shield disappear and reappear right when you needed it?” asked an awed Eric.

  Val smirked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, before handing a stunned Bill a dwarven lorica segmentata that popped into being out of nowhere. “You look half-naked. Put this on.”

  He looked at the disbelieving countenance of Bill, still shaken, slowly lurching to his feet. “And a potion. In case you need it later. It’s a red, it will give you a quick burst of healing if you need it. What you took before was a purple, what I’m giving your friends right now.” Val then proceeded to hand each of his speechless companions a purple potion. “Drink them now. They should give you all at least 2 hours of regeneration. It will help back up our healer’s role.”

  “How?” Eric was shaking his head, gazing at Val with naked awe.

  Val grinned. “Magic.”

  “Totally fucking with us,” Jiu said, flashing Val a bemused smile. “So, how long are those hyper charged and far too deadly zombies gonna stay docile? Should we get to work cutting them down while we can?”

  Val smirked, gazing at the legion of undead staring back at them.

  “Begone!” he roared, and the horde immediately fled down the corridor, racing through the side tunnel they had flooded in from with a cacophony of hisses, ebony claws scratching against the stone as they went.