Oblivion's Crown Read online

  “Intruder!” the thing roared, voice a low-pitched roar, as if the blood of lions also flowed through his veins.

  The mages standing witness or guarding the captured Christos coven raised their wands high, all of them unquestionably human, despite the fey cast to more than a few sets of eyes.

  And Shadow smiled. For though the mages involved in a horrific Rite of Sacrifice were protected by a ward Val’s blade couldn’t hope to pierce, the others were not.

  Time to force his enemy’s hand.

  Critical hit! Dwarven blade cleaves through weak points with no resistance!

  Critical hit! Dwarven blade cleaves through naked limb with no resistance!

  Critical hit! Dwarven blade pierces skull with minimal resistance!

  Shadowmind holds!

  Cries of anger and agonized pleas became shrieks of surprise and agony as the captives grew strangely quiet, captive mothers holding their trembling children tightly to them as their furious enemies collapsed in screams and blood, wand-holding hands rupturing free of spurting wrists, furious snarling faces turning to the captives and roaring for their deaths soon blinking in surprise as their skullcaps went toppling end over end in sprays of blood.

  “Kill the captives! They must have summoned a Dreadlich!” one furiously snarling mage demanded, pointing his wand at a shrieking child buried in her mother’s arms before the angry mage blinked in sudden wonder as his forehead was punched through by a shimmering blade of dwarven alloy only one gasping child saw before it faded into mist and gloom once more, the mage collapsing in death with the gentlest expression one could imagine, eyes slowly closing in a shower of blood as his brethren fell to death’s caress all around him.

  Infernal Eye pierces Shadowmind! Greater Ward broken! All the better to kill you, Val.

  And Val, shadow no longer, stumbled into sight before the howling Highmage who was pointing a wand crackling with energies Val knew would be his doom.

  “Dauda have dared to attack! Bring me his head, I will claim his soul!” roared the goat-faced horror.

  Val wasted no time as hot magic filled the corners cold shadow had left behind, embracing hot sweet fury at last as he slammed to the ground, feeling the wave of necrotic death roar over his head, the very stone wall behind him crumbling as if aged a billion years in a heartbeat.

  Psi-sense let him know the lay of the land instantly. Of the original guarding mages, all had fallen to his dwarven blade. But with the Greater Ward lowered, he had no less than fifteen fresh monsters gunning for his soul.

  Rank 10 PRM + Rank 4 EM Mastery VS Eldritch Wand: Failure! You have failed to parry Eternity’s Grip! This Paradimensional Artifact is beyond your ability to counter!

  Quickness skillcheck: Success! Live to fight another day, Val. (Or a few heartbeats, at least.)

  Boosted Synergized Ward successfully cast! 50 Mana spent! You have absorbed 440 damage from multiple arcane attacks! Divided nature precludes Burst Damage penetration! You are drained an additional 100 Mana countering the deadly barrage!

  In those deadly moments of dodging and weaving a storm of crackling lightning, searing fire, and volatile acid, Val appreciated how perilous and madcap his gamble had been.

  And having to focus so much of his divided concentration just to sense the horrific pulse of entropy that could age him to dust in an instant meant he couldn’t even counterattack, his incredible Mana reserves steadily dwindling as his arcane shields were forced to endure barrage after barrage. And quick reflexes alone saved him from the greatest threat of all.

  He didn’t have a hope of shifting aside the extra-dimensional attacks emanating from that vile artifact. At least Val now knew who his true nemesis was, utterly certain this goat-mage must be Malice himself, the leader of the Ormur clan. Comparing his wand to Alwin’s was like comparing the force of a child's blow to a freight train.

  Quickness Check made! Oh look, the tip of your dwarven boot has disintegrated! Good thing your battlefrenzy lets you ignore the nonexistent tips of your toes!

  Val grimaced, knowing he had no choice but to abandon the desperately pleading families, dodging and weaving as he fled the chamber, escaping death by inches as arcane storms pelted him from behind.

  Triumphant baying could be heard behind him.

  “The Dauda fool runs! Get him, my children. Bring me his heart, bring me his head!”

  And for all that his heart quailed, knowing he wouldn’t be able to save the captives, his bleak smile grew as he darted out of sight of Malice’s Infernal Eye and the eldritch light radiating from that room, a full dozen mages chasing in hot pursuit.

  And even as the tower depths rang with the pleading cries and dying screams of innocent captives, bitter shadow took its due. The darkness embraced the dying gurgle of mages kicking away their final quiet moments as children shrieked in the distance.

  Shadowy arms slipping around a frightened mage’s neck in a modified Hadaka Jime, Val abruptly arched his back, snapping his body around, straining his arms with a furious wrench the instant his foe’s neck was under maximum torque, feeling more than hearing the crack of a broken spine, allowing his foe to savor his final moments suffocating to death in a crumpled heap on the stony ground.

  Reinforced cloth armaments impervious even to dwarven blades had once more proved utterly worthless against a trained martial artist who felt no qualms about striking and killing his foes from shadows unseen.

  Hunting party has become the hunted! Experience earned!

  Val wasted no time once the last of his foes was dealt with, dashing for the sacrificial chamber at a mad sprint, before realizing he was being a fool.

  The corridor rang with yet another child’s screams.

  Perception check made! Arcane trap ahead!

  Insight gained! Just because your foe spotted you before doesn’t mean he instantly will again. This way he can be sure you won't interfere, even if his henchmen die just as quickly as you!

  Val hissed, sensing the deadly magics simmering just ahead, all but tasting the weave of dark magics forming a deadly barrier just ahead that would transform any would-be adventurer into a pile of dust and bones.

  Val felt an icy chill race up and down his spine.

  This monster didn’t even care about his own men. All he wanted was to finish his ceremony, no matter the cost.

  So there was no way around the barrier, and no way safely through it.

  Then Val smiled.

  Really, how different was a spell from an artifact?

  He glared at the dark enchantment, wondering just how far he could push his gifts.

  Find Weakness skillcheck: Critical Success! Congratulations! You can now spot the weak points in wards and sigil-traps just as well as you can artifacts. If anything, it should be easier! Never mind that your ability to warp your skills so readily defies all logic in and of itself! Your ability to rupture this ward has increased by 90%.

  Val’s smile was chill as the void, whispering words from which there could be no turning back.

  “Lacero Attero!”

  And the world was filled for just an instant with all the promise and peril of the void itself.

  Save versus Oblivion made!

  Congratulations! Valorious Disjunction has been modified to rupture sigils, traps, Greater and Lesser Wards, as well as artifacts! Greater Valorious Disjunction is a 50th level spell!

  Mana Manipulation is now Rank 2!

  Greater Valorious Disjunction cost to cast at your level of skill is 108 mana! Overlord bonuses negate critical failure risks anyone not walking the Path of Kings would face for twisting the laws of magic to suit their whims. Carry on!

  Val gazed at the scene of horror before him as the trap exploded in a flash of deadly magic quickly fading away.

  Over half a dozen Ormur bodies, many missing limbs or heads, lay in pools of their own blood. Malice, their Highmage, spared not a glance for his fallen men, his dagger raised high above a shrieking child held by the last two henchmen Va
l saw.

  And to his eternal shame, it was a different child from the one he had failed to rescue, endless moments ago. Looking at the crackling, hungry gate, sensing the unspeakable horror struggling to break through, a sickened Val knew just where the sacrificial bodies had gone.

  Time seemed to slow as he forced boiling wrath to iciest intensity, as empty as the void between stars, peering with a sniper’s intensity at the impossibly complex matrix of wards woven through goat-face's vestments, protecting against every conceivable arcane attack, utterly impervious to penetration.

  Val desperately tried to spot any frayed threads or weaknesses.

  There were none.

  Only enchantments warding even against metal, so no weapon could mark his body, with a neck so thick and goatlike that Val had no hope of snapping it.

  The girl screamed.

  The monstrous abomination brayed. “One more soul and the prince is among us, forever more!”

  Val exploded into action, suddenly knowing exactly what he had to do.

  Time seemed to slow and blur as Val charged forward on naked feet, all his armor and armaments save for his Shadowcloak instantly transported to his dimensional rift, his bare feet adroitly slipping past pools of coagulated blood as he raced for his target.

  Twenty feet away as the dagger began its descent, deliberately slow so the victim could savor her final moments of horror.

  Malice cackled as his blade plunged through the girl’s eye.

  Val was ten feet away as Malice tore eyeball free of socket, the girl screeching as the horrific beast devoured her flesh, raising his wicked knife once more to finish the job.

  Val roared in his mind, flashing to a perfect spring day years ago, playing football with his friends, blitzing poor Alex who was so competent with a sword but couldn’t throw for shit so hard his friend crashed to the ground with a groan, the ball he couldn’t decide who to pass to sent flying, and Val genuinely afraid he had busted his buddy’s back.

  Now he felt only furious exultation as he body-slammed the sadistic goat-beast so hard he was knocked off his hooves, Val slowing down not a bit as he roared, legs kicking with pent-up fury and power, propelling the monster and his impossible-to-pierce warded robes that were, sadly for the goat, not friction-proof, to their final destination.

  Impact, motherfucker!

  The wild-eyed goat man brayed as he was sent crashing through the interdimensional portal, Val hurtling one of Blackenthorp’s hideously potent gifts a second later, a heartbeat before shattering a stunned henchman’s nose with his fist and snatching up the screeching child now free of the obsidian slab, the pair crashing to the ground on the far side of the portal.

  A final hideous bray impossible miles away before the room erupted in a brilliant flash of light.

  Then absolute darkness.

  The gate was no more.

  And Val was blind as a bat.

  Congratulations! You have closed a Greater Rift!

  Hidden Questline: Peril of the White Tower Complete! Thanks to your efforts, this ancient storehouse of arcane knowledge will not be damned to the pits of purgatory in return for hideous power granted to Malice alone, happy to sacrifice all his pawns along with everyone else in Greengrove Province in his mad pursuit of power.

  Experience earned. Congratulations! You have leveled up!

  Vitality check: Failure! You and everyone else in the bowels of the keep are suffering long-term blindness from radiation flash! Good thing Malice linked his soul as the anchorpoint to the gate. Had that flash lasted longer than an instant, you and all your new friends would be dead! At least their ward protected them that much. The Christos hostages may have been blinded, but the two remaining henchmen facing the gate are writhing in their death throes even now!

  Val felt a cold jolt of fear, and not just for the perpetual whiteness his vision had become. He was nothing short of amazed to find the girl trembling in his arms. He could sense her burns, her shock, her horrific pain, but somehow even without the ward, she was alive.

  “Mommy!”

  Val blinked. Only then realizing, perhaps, why she lived still, and why he was hurting so badly.

  He had been so desperate to save her he had forged a Spirit Link, claiming the fatal level of radiation damage she had suffered as his own. That which he had not absorbed, his 10hp/sec regeneration due to PRM, greater regeneration potion, and Song of Battle was now healing for both of them.

  “Monica!”

  Val shivered, wondering just how twisted serendipity could be.

  “Daddy! Help me! Daddy! Daddy!”

  “I got her, Alwin. That goat bastard is dead. Very, very dead.”

  Alwin’s relief was so great Val stumbled to one knee as if it were his own.

  Relief kindling to anger as he approached the pair of dying mages his Psi-Sense spotted.

  “Swear yourselves to my service, body and soul, forever more, and you may live. If you fail to do so, I will devour your souls here and now.”

  A desperate whisper, a dying plea. All Val needed to sense as golden magics his Magesight could still see bound both men to him for eternity. And he took no small amount of vindictive pleasure in their screams even as Season’s Mending kept them alive, Val only now realizing that, like a fool, he had managed to go through almost the entirety of his potions, with only one litre of Silbion to his name not already relegated to his dwindling explosives to make more.

  But he wasn’t going to make this child go through the agony of Season’s Mending. He could never be that cruel.

  Instead he chugged down one of his three remaining reds, glorying in the sweet rush of healing it brought him, his eyes tingling so madly it was agony, chuckling with sweet relief when he could see, holding the bucking girl crying with pain even as her brutally gouged socket regenerated the eye within, wondering just how powerful his so-called basic healing potions really were.

  “I will serve you til the final days, my king. I will fight by your side until Phoebe herself covers this world in ice and snow,” Alwin fervently declared, stunning Val with the fierce sense of gratitude and loyalty pouring through their link.

  Val smirked. “And to think, you wanted to shishkebab me, just days ago. See how useful Terran wildcards daring the throne are? Anyway, I see about thirty survivors left, and I’m more sorry than I can say that I couldn’t do better. Everyone save me and your daughter are suffering mild radiation burns and blindness. I could try Season’s Mending, but I’m honestly not sure if it’s my own abilities and odd body chemistry that lets me heal so fast. But if it works? It's like a full three months’ perfect rest and recuperation inside a Dominion regen spa. I think. It's the only way I can explain the ability to regrow lost limbs with this spell.”

  “Odd body chemistry, my king?”

  He nodded, Alwin somehow sensing his gesture, and Val couldn’t help but feel a certain sense of wonder at how similar psionic and arcane forms of telepathy truly were. Two sides to the same coin, perhaps, he himself making frequent use of more than one skill that somehow synergized both of those gifts. “There’s a good chance I’m just a Silbion-based Homunculus who spawned himself from quantum flux with the memories of some sad kid who died on Earth trying to rescue his crush. Come to think of it, I think maybe I’ve popped back more than once. Close thing, though. Damn close thing. Anyway, not sure if you want to give your own magics a shot, first. I’m running really low on healing potions. And according to the voice in my head, that was the last of them. The Ormur are officially no longer a threat to our tower. Quest completed!”

  Val could all but taste the awkward pause. “Voices in your head? Homunculus? Never mind, my king, I will take your word for it. And yes, I quite agree. Please let us use our own healing magics first! May we enter?”

  “Please,” Val thought back, and it was all he could do not to slump over as post-battle shakes coursed through him, giddy laughter erupting when he thought about how insane this evening had been, dozens of sobbing Chr
istos kin singing his praise or begging for his mercy as he tried to explain what had happened, laughing almost hysterically as he found himself sunk in a pool of his enemy’s blood, too exhausted to move, no matter what the stats on the character sheet in his mind’s eye said.

  Pull yourself together, fool! Val scolded himself. He was slumped over in a killing field with dozens of civilians who had just endured watching their kin get sacrificed to some horror. Most were now blind, lost to unspeakable thoughts, several approaching the edges of the wards penning them in.

  “Stop!” Val snapped, hating the cost, but knowing what he must do. “You’re penned in by magics you dare not cross. Enough have died this day! My name is Valor Hunter. Alwin and your kinsmen walk under my banner. Open your minds to me and I will form spirit links. And perhaps I can heal your sight. But whatever you do, don’t move!”

  And several purple healing potions later, they were staring at him with perfectly functioning eyes once more, still bound by wards and terror.

  Grimacing, Val shook his battle-weariness away, the Christos clanswomen either gazing at him with desperate hope, or flinching back from the sight of him.

  Val’s scarred lips curled in a self-mocking grin. That was right, he looked a horror. But having played the dark vigilante hero with 16 Charisma and radiating Jordian vitality, he could understand the mixed reactions.

  “It’s all right,” he soothed. “We’re going to get you out of here. But let me examine those wards and see just how risky it is to move you.”

  Arcane Perception skillcheck: Success! Most of the bloodwards binding the sacrifices to the pentagram have been ruptured with the deaths of Malice and most of his clan, too foolish to realize they were doomed, no matter what happened! However, several dark sigils remain.

  Val scowled. His Magesight had revealed the faint shimmering resonances of dark enchantments still in play. His Arcane Perception, more like a magnifying glass than binoculars, let him see the most intricate details, but it was his newly enhanced Find Weakness skill that let him sense the flaws.