Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4)

by Luke Chmilenko

  “The ritual first, for one,” I answered, trusting that Halcyon would do as I asked as I leapt back into the circle and rejoined the ritual, contributing every single iota of mana that I could spare.

  Which was to say my entire mana pool, save for a single point that kept me from going over the edge and into mana starvation.

  “And…then…out there next,” I continued, my body trembling as I dropped out of the ritual once again.

  “Wait, Lyr, you can’t be—” I heard Halcyon start to say as I forced myself into a run, his words losing all sense to my mind thanks to the now ravenous hunger that rose up inside me.

  Oh, maybe on second thought, this wasn’t such a good idea, I said to myself belatedly as my sprint took me out of the ritual circle and into the spirit-infested clearing, a part of me barely recognizing Amaranth as I ran by him. But by that point, it was too late for me to change my mind as I found myself running headlong into a veritable wall of corrupted spirits that had moved to attack me. Ah, shit, I hope this ends up working out.

  Steeling my nerve as best as I could against the fear and hunger running through me, I continued my sprint towards the charging ethereal creatures, paying close attention to the distance separating us. I had the slimmest of margins to work with for my desperate idea and couldn’t afford to screw my timing up—which was why I waited until the corrupted spirits were barely more than an arm’s length away from me before I reached for the hunger clawing at my mind and body.

  And activated [Mana Torrent].

  Leaping out of me as if it were a living thing, I felt my vision blur as my hunger leapt to obey my desperate command, reaching out to grab hold of each and every spirit before me. Writhing at the invisible touch, I saw the oncoming swarm abruptly panic as the ability tore a fragment of their essences away from them, sending it flowing straight into me. As it did, I felt a bone-chilling cold unlike anything I’d ever felt before slam into me, the suddenness of its arrival making me feel like I’d been dunked in a pool of ice. But for as shocking as that initial sensation was, it paled in comparison to the sickness that followed on its heels, any hopes that I might have had of being able to withstand what I’d known had been coming dying at that very instant.

  “Ugh,” I grunted in agony as I felt the full weight of the corruption I’d absorbed slam into me, all of the muscles in my body abruptly growing weaker to the point where I found it hard to even stand. But that sudden frailty was far from the only thing that I felt hit me as a near-deafening chorus of nonsensical whispers erupted in my mind, forcing me to reach up and clutch my head. Reeling from under the two combined ailments, it was at that moment that a bright text flashed in the center of my vision, along with a warning chime echoing in my ears.

  You have absorbed [Corruption]!

  Your Corruption Counter has increased to 88%!

  You have been afflicted with [Major Corruption]!

  Due to [Major Corruption] all Attributes have been reduced by 30% and all skills have gained 3 negative levels.

  Your [Hunger] devours [Corruption], restoring 100 points of mana!

  Your Corruption Counter has decreased to 86%.

  Crap, I think I overdid a little, I said to myself through the chaotic haze that now clouded my thoughts as I finished reading the array of notifications that had appeared. My plan had been to try and only absorb a moderate amount of corruption from the spirits, hoping that it didn’t affect me enough so that I would be able to make it back to the group. But in actually doing that, I’d miscalculated just how many spirits there were, catching even more of them in range of my ability than I’d anticipated, the result leaving me in the state I was in now.

  Which while it really sucks, doesn’t mean I’m dead yet, I reminded myself, feeling a faint second wind flow through me as my vision cleared just enough so that I was able to finally focus on the swarm of spirits that had been charging towards me.

  And saw that they were all in the process of running away from me as fast as their metaphysical limbs could take them.

  W-what the? What happened to them? I thought numbly as I took in the surreal sight, watching all of the ethereal creatures that I’d caught within my ability’s effect twist and move to flee out of the clearing as if their lives depended on it. But whatever it was that I had done to terrify them, I quickly noticed didn’t extend outward to all the other spirits that hadn’t been affected, with many of them still rushing forward towards me. That sight was then enough to send a surge of adrenaline shooting through my body, which by extension weakened the corruption’s grip on me enough for my mind to snap back into focus. Shit! There’s no time for that! I need to get back to the ritual before it’s too late!

  Already moving as the thought was forming in my mind, I twisted my weakened body back in the direction of the others, my focus going directly towards the circle behind them. Knowing that I only had seconds left before the other spirits arrived, I desperately worked to summon up the mental focus to cast Blink Step, the countless whispers echoing through my head making it hard to shape the spell. Hard enough that I failed twice in rapid succession before finally managing to cast it on my third attempt, my haze-filled world mercifully turning into a blur as the spell took hold of me and deposited me on my knees just inside the ritual circle.

  “Lyr!” I heard Halcyon shout loudly the second that I arrived, one of my hands planting itself into the dirt to keep me from falling over. “What the hell did you just do?”

  “You said…we needed more mana for the ritual,” I replied to the mage as I leaned heavily onto the arm supporting me while reaching upwards with a corruption-stained hand to the ritual above me. “So…I went and got more mana. A lot more.”

  “What? I don’t understand—” the mage started to reply before his voice abruptly changed. “Wait, you mean the corruption!”

  “That’s…right. Now…let’s just hope it’s enough,” I replied in a shaky voice as I rejoined the ritual for what I hoped would be the final time, pouring all the mana I had into the spell once more.

  This time, however, I had more than just my mana pool to contribute to the spell, the hunger within me rapidly devouring all the corruption that I’d absorbed. The result allowed me to stay a part of the ritual for long after I’d emptied the initial mana I had, continuously adding what my hunger devoured while watching the spell counter continue to climb every few seconds.

  Total Ritual Mana Contributed: 142,349/150,000

  Total Ritual Mana Contributed: 143,992/150,000

  Total Ritual Mana Contributed: 144,379/150,000

  Is it going to be enough? I thought at one point, my corruption having finally faded enough for me to be able to stand and twist back towards Halcyon and the others, only to find both him and Caius standing a few feet away from me. Apparently, at some point that I had missed, they, along with Theia on the opposite end of the circle, had all opted to jump back into the ritual along with me in an attempt to give it the final dregs of power that it needed to activate. That left all of the others on their own to hold the tide of corrupted spirits back, each and every single one of them bearing large dark streaks of corruption across whatever exposed skin or fur that I could see.

  And hold is what they did, even when it cost them their lives.

  Falling first under the relentless onslaught was Cassius, the Eberian refusing to back down from under the ethereal creatures’ assault until he could stand no longer, his body fading into dust before it could even touch the ground. Following second, not far behind his guild leader, was Kilgore, the scout doing all he could to fill the gap his friend had left until his desperate call for help could be answered. Yet despite his best effort to stay standing, he lasted just long enough to see Berwyn arrive, the monk taking his spot as he too fell, dissipating away into nothing. His efforts were not in vain, however, as soon as Berwyn arrived, he thrust his hand out towards the oncoming swarm of spirits, creating a shield of pure force in front of him that temporarily kept them at bay.

/>   Giving us the final few seconds that we needed to finish powering the ritual.

  “It is ready!” I heard Garr shout the second after I saw the counter in my vision finally reach its goal, the entire clearing abruptly flaring with bright emerald light. “Brace yourselves! The ritual triggering may be a little—”

  I never had a chance to hear what else Garr had to say because midway through his sentence I felt a heavy pulse of magic wash over me, the force of which was enough shove me back down onto my knees. That, while uncomfortable, wouldn’t have been too bad to endure had it been the only thing that hit me. Unfortunately, however, it turned out to be only the precursor to an actual wave of magic that erupted outward from the orb high above us, the force of which was enough to pick me up from my prone position and send me tumbling through the air.

  Spinning in a wild panic as I flew, I had a single instant to wonder what had just happened, the fleeting thought all that I was able to muster before I suddenly slammed into something hard.

  Which was promptly followed by the world around me going abruptly dark.

  Chapter 47

  “Ugh.” I grunted as I awoke to the feeling of numbness radiating throughout my body along with a heavy weight pushing down on both my head and my chest. A weight that at first I had no frame of reference for. But as my brain finished rebooting and sent a flood of memories rushing back into me, I started to slowly piece together the last thing I remembered.

  The ritual finished…and then activated, I thought as I tried to move my hand to shove away whatever was covering my face, only to find it pinned by my side, the realization eliciting a wave of short-lived confusion. Then after that, it pulsed out with magic, enough so that…it threw me. I remember flying through the air and hitting something. But what could I have—

  Realization dawned on me mid-thought as I tried to push whatever was on top of me to the side. But as it did, my thoughts were even further interrupted by a thick cloud of sawdust falling on me, removing what little doubt I might have had about what I’d crashed into.

  The shed, I thought through a series of ragged coughs as tried to clear my eyes and lungs of the dust I’d inadvertently showered myself with, once more trying to push at the weight that had settled on top of me. Of all of the empty space in the clearing, I crashed into the only thing still standing in it. Hard enough for it to collapse on top of me from the looks of it, too.

  Shoving hard with my full strength behind me, I finally managed to shift the weight off me, a quick rub of my sawdust-covered eyes revealing that it had indeed been a large fragment of the now-destroyed shed. It was at that point, as I freed myself to be able to sit up that I realized that I wasn’t in any pain and that my hunger was also strangely absent.

  Shit, did I gain a level through all of that mess? I asked myself as my attention was drawn towards a flashing notification in the corner of my vision, which went onto rapidly expand itself as I called it up.

  You have completed a War Objective!

  You have been awarded Glory Points!

  You have gained Leadership Experience!

  You have gained Experience!

  Congratulations! You have reached Level 28!

  Huh, so I did, I replied with a mental grunt as I dismissed the display and turned my attention back towards extricating myself from the debris that was still piled around me. But does that mean that the battle’s over now, too?

  “Hey, how is everyone doing out there?” I called as I continued to pull myself free, not able to see any of the others with the bones of the shed still hanging over me. “Did we win?”

  “In a matter of speaking, yes,” Garr’s voice replied, his tone sounding on the verge of complete exhaustion as he spoke. “And it is a victory that I wish to never again see in my life.”

  “What do you—” I started to ask in response to the gronn’s words as I finally pulled myself free of the debris and stumbled out of the remains of the shed. But as I did, I found my eyes going towards the garden that lined the clearing around us, understanding dawning on me a second later. “Oh, I see. Never mind.”

  Appearing completely black and withered from under the magelight that illuminated the area, the once verdant garden that surrounded us was now a pale shadow of its former self. The blight had wasted no time in beginning its work since the ritual’s end, ravaging all of the plants and crops that I could see. In even the short time that it had to work with so far, I was already able to catch hints of a thick mildew-like odor mixed with rot wafting in on the breeze, signaling the contagion’s deadly work. Staring at it wordlessly for several seconds, the sight made my heart fall as I realized the scope of what we’d just done in destroying such a wondrous piece of nature. I tried to tell myself that it had been because of the war that we’d been forced to do it, to ensure that the orcs wouldn’t be able to use it to sustain their march on us, but no matter how many times I did so, the reasoning felt hollow and weak to me, as if we should have found a different solution to our problems.

  If there even was one at all, I finished silently as I finally turned my attention away from the blighted garden and onto the others, who I now saw were in the process of picking themselves up, everyone having been violently tossed around with the ritual’s activation.

  “Ow, what the hell was that all about?” I heard Constantine grumble loudly from across the clearing, several other grunts of exertion and pain echoing out in sympathy. “Was the ritual supposed to do that when it finished, or did we break it?”

  “It succeeded without complications,” Garr answered back in a shaky voice, a quick glance in its direction showing me the gronn in the process of standing up as he spoke. “What we just experienced was…a known factor to the ritual’s design.”

  “A known factor? What does that even mean?” the rogue growled back. “I have mud in my eyes, my mouth, down my armor, up my armor…or at least what I really hope is mud. Because if it isn’t, I think I’m going to have a big problem.”

  “The ritual was put together as an instrument of brute force and in relatively great haste,” Garr replied in an apologetic tone as we all slowly continued to regroup. “And, unfortunately, because of that there were several factors that we could not account for or test when we designed it. So instead, Senzin and I chose to make it as resilient as possible, ensuring the ritual would work first and foremost, even if there was some…minor slippage in its activation.”

  “You call that minor?” Constantine exclaimed once the gronn had finished speaking, using a hand to indicate all of the mud that covered the majority of his armor, with large streaks going as far up to include his face. “Nothing about that felt minor at all! It was like a giant reached down from the sky and threw me! One second I was standing, then the next thing I knew I was skipping across the ground like a rock over water.”

  “It is minor in the sense that we are still alive,” Halcyon answered, coming to the rescue of the druid. “Had it been anything more, we could have found ourselves thrown to the other side of the garden, or if not that, then just simply crushed to a pulp where we stood.”

  “I see,” Constantine replied in a suddenly more neutral tone as he glanced over towards both the mage and Caius beside him, who were covered similarly with mud and dirt as he was. “Well, if you put it that way, maybe that wasn’t so bad after all, then.”

  “If it consoles you at all as well, it is because of that very slippage that the corrupted spirits were buffeted away after the ritual completed,” Garr added. “If it hadn’t, then I imagine none of us would be standing here now.”

  “Definitely not,” Halcyon agreed as a series of nods went around our group. “But on that note, though, we should probably see if we can turn this standing that we’re doing right now into running as fast as our legs can take us. Because I highly doubt that the orcs missed the ritual activating, and I definitely don’t want to be caught here if all those spirits decide to come back looking for us.”

  “I would second that though
t,” Arcturus replied in a tired voice, the silver-furred gronn bearing large streaks of corruption across his fur. “I have seen enough of this place to last several lifetimes.”

  “I think that we all have,” Garr stated, breathing out a deep sigh as he spoke, his gaze turning towards me. “And the sooner that we can be away from the place, the sooner that I can learn the answer to some rather interesting questions that I find myself burdened with.”

  “Ones that I’ll be more than happy to answer first chance we get,” I assured the man, seeing that all of the other earthspeakers not only shared Garr’s inquisitive look but also stared at me with outright wonder as if I’d done something they’d never thought possible.

  Which for all I know, I might have, I thought as my eye shifted towards the lines of corruption that now covered Constantine and all of the others who had come in contact with the spirits during the battle. Even Amaranth hadn’t managed to escape being afflicted by the dark stains, the cat bearing several dark streaks on his fur where his armor didn’t cover. Because from what I’ve been able to infer so far, they’ve been fighting the orcs a lot longer than we have been, which means they’ve also been dealing with corruption too. So I can only imagine how alluring a cure or immunity to it might look for them.

  With nothing left to say, we all readied ourselves for departure, starting by healing what few injuries remained after the battle, followed by refreshing the compliment of buffs that we all bore. But this time, in addition to the spells that Theia was able to offer us, Garr happened to have one of his own to add, one that he promised would aid our journey through the Hartwyld greatly.

  “It is perhaps one of the most valuable spells that an earthspeaker can call on,” Garr explained as he and a handful of his other companions began to cast a series of spells on themselves, one of whom caused a soothing sensation to fall over each of us. “And when a companion is in close proximity to them, it marks them as a friend of the wild, granting them a safer and eased passage through whatever natural domain they travel through.”