Oblivion's Crown Read online

  Val grimaced, quickly explaining the situation. “Assuming there is such a thing. Right now is the perfect time to strike our enemies when they least expect it, hitting fast and hard. If we could take the veli close to the Ormur base of operations then summon steeds for the last leg of the journey, that would protect the veli and let us make good time.”

  Alwin nodded. “Actually it’s a fine idea, my lord. I’m just not used to such direct requests for instruction.” He gazed at Val thoughtfully. “It is not a simple spell, however. Do you have any experience with necromantic conjurations?”

  Val grinned. “Only in my dreams.” His smile grew at Alwin’s strange expression. “My understanding, my sense of things is that Conjuration is used to summon interdimensional rifts and horrors from beyond our universe, while Necromancy specializes in manipulating the bodies and spirits of men and creatures native to this plane of existence. Best of all, the schools stack when summoning things native to Jordia."

  Alwin’s eyes widened. He bowed his head. “Your dreams do you credit, Valor. That is indeed the case. Once a beast is summoned, it is far easier to hold them in our plane if they are native to this reality. Beasts from other realities can be much harder to destroy, but are also much harder to stabilize, quickly snapping back to their own plane of existence when a mage runs out of the mana needed to maintain their connection.” He glared at the surviving Ormur mages. “Unless, of course, one has an open rift nearby which makes it infinitely easier to maintain those summonings, even permanently. Magics which the Ormur are masters of.” His scowl turned to a dark smile. “Magics which will soon be ours.” He blinked, collecting himself. “That is, if you approve, my lord.”

  Val nodded. “Learn everything you can, Alwin. Most especially how to safely and quickly close rifts like the ones they favor.”

  “Of course, my lord.” He flashed an approving smile. “Your dreams have taught you well. Let’s see if your devoted servant can do the same.”

  And shortly thereafter, Alwin was instructing a Spirit-Linked Valor, Julia, Yin, and Dirk the basics of summoning magic mounts. Val felt a shivery sense of awe as the quiet lessons and repeated castings helped it all come together for him even as his friends, a bit overwhelmed but aided greatly by their linking, began to pick up a rudimentary understanding of Warding, Necromancy, and Conjuration.

  But Val could feel no love for the creations Alwin summoned forth. Even Julia and Yin hissed in disgust as the soft loamy soil erupted in bones bursting forth like rotten teeth squeezed free of oozing gums, slime and maggots swarming upon the pale white bones quickly blossoming with unnatural growths and foul-smelling tissue as the summoned mount grew into being before them.

  Their eyes watered at the stench, more than a few holding their noses until at last ancient leathery skin and sparse hair covered the horse entire, trapping most of the smell within.

  “And that, my lord, is how you summon a steed using our ancient arts,” Alwin said with a certain amount of satisfaction, grunting for just a moment as he glared at the undead steed, its limbs stiffening to attention, its nicker the sound of dry rasping parchment. “It will carry you without complaint at a steady canter for days without end, and will never need food, water, or rest. Truly, it is a masterwork of convenience. And if you have sufficient skill in the requisite arts, it is as easy to maintain as your average fallen legionnaire.”

  “Fallen like angels?” gasped a surprised Yin.

  “I think he means zombies,” Julia said.

  Yin smiled, her gaze almost apologetic. “Um, yeah. Your horse is pretty awesome, Alwin. God knows we need some alternatives to velis giving out with the smallest spell, but I think I’d prefer to stick with the old fashioned kind of horse.” She crinkled her nose. “You know, eats hay, loves apples, every girl’s best friend, is alive...”

  Julia furrowed her brow, gazing at Val with increasing concern as he closed his eyes, breathing deep, reaching for the glimmer of something he had tasted just beyond what Alwin had cast.

  Insight check made! And since you’re actually taking the time to think through this spell, critical failure check mitigated!

  His eyes lit up when it all clicked together. “Kalla a Hest!” he whispered, feeling a shiver of wonder course through him as cords of eldritch potency synergized with the essence of all the horses that had raced across the plains of Jordia over thousands of years.

  Similar yet different from Alwin’s spell, his did not seek to imprint a horse’s memory upon a vessel made of rotting flesh. Thankfully, the mage had patiently cast his spell near a dozen times, and Val thought he finally understood how to weave the silvery filaments entwined within the memory of flesh and bone into a web of beauty and complexity. He was determined to create something similar in function, if entirely different in form, from Alwin’s shambling mound of maggots and bone.

  Val clenched his fist as a complex fabric of interwoven arcane energies swirled into a pool of fog under the brilliant rays of the warm morning sun. Yin gasped in awe as the mist coalesced into darkest shadow before forming a steed of perfect midnight hue.

  Congratulations! You have learned the spell Summon Spirit Mount! This Level 30 Creo / Necromancy spell will summon a loyal, tireless steed far faster than any living horse! Cost to cast at your level of skill is 21 mana. Cost to maintain is 6 mana per second: -3 for Tier 3 Conjuration, -3 for Tier 3 Necromancy = 0 mana per second! Hidden synergisms detected! Warding Tier 3 assures complete loyalty! Mentem Tier 3 allows for full cognizance! Your summoning has achieved sentience with a personality mirroring her maker! Greater Oathbinding synergism! You can summon an unlimited number of spirit steeds to do your bidding!

  The beautiful beast nickered, gazing at Val with intelligent eyes that flashed like rubies struck by shafts of golden light from the welcoming sun high above. Measuring roughly 16 hands at the withers, it was a majestic-looking beast with a proud neck and powerfully built flanks.

  Chris whistled. “That is something else!”

  Yin squealed. “That looks awesome, Val! And her saddle is already cinched and padded. Wow, is that a knight’s saddle? She looks just like the horses I rode at summer camp! Only, well, bigger and shinier and smarter-looking. Best of all, she looks completely alive! Is she alive? I swear, Val, she’s smiling at me with those eyes. I totally wouldn’t mind riding her.” She winced apologetically at Alwin. “Umm… sorry for not liking your horse as much. It’s just that it’s kind of...”

  “Dead and smells like a corpse rotting in the sun?” Chris smiled.

  Yin chuckled. “Yeah. That.”

  But Alwin was paying no mind, gazing at Val with open-mouthed awe. “I thought… when you were going to brave summoning a steed, having only seen it cast a handful of times, that I would have reason to be impressed. It takes days for the best of us to get a new casting right, even if you have mastered the requisite forms,” he whispered. “But this! To sense the nature of the very souls of horses and compel them to travel beside you, near perfectly mirroring their fleshy form, I have no words to explain how rare and precious your Arcane Insight must be. How did you do it?”

  Val shrugged. “I have a 17 Insight. It seems to be specialized for magic and survival. God knows I never had a knack for finance or physics like my dad tinkering around with his inventions.”

  Alwin was gazing at him strangely, though Chris gave an agreeable nod. “I know exactly what you mean, buddy. My overall Insight is decent, nothing spectacular, but obviously our sheets aren’t showing us everything. Because put me in front of anything having to do with Dominion tech or manipulating electromana waves in all sorts of interesting paradimensional ways, and I just get it, man. You know what I mean?”

  Val chuckled softly, taking in his friend’s unique magic deflecting-armor, even as their friends gazed at the pair of them with bemused smiles. “I think I do, Chris. Different as we are, I think we do.”

  Yin frowned. “But Val already has a ridiculously high Insight, just at baseline. So wha
t does that make his magical insight?”

  Julia smirked, taking in the magnificent Arcane Academy pulled from the bedrock of legend and dream, patting Val’s very alive looking spirit mount who nickered with bemused intelligence, before peering at the massive craters still marring the land. “Just look around you, Yin. Just look around you.”

  19

  Val breathed deeply of the crisp autumn breeze alive with the scents of forest and field, the fragrant perfume of countless dazzling wildflowers heavy in the air. His smile was that of the wolf as the dappled sunlight through the forest canopy overhead caressed his form, his friends just behind, all of them amazed to find their summoned mounts capable of such a smooth gait and at such speeds that there was really no point in bothering with the veli at all.

  Especially after Alwin had explained just how secluded the Ormur estate truly was, and that such was the rule, not the exception. Most clans preferred carving out their own little fiefdoms far from Dominion-forged roads or the prying eyes of inquisitors or Highlords of any stripe, more than capable with magic, serfs, and monthly forays to trade towns to make due for themselves.

  “My lord, we approach Ormur lands,” Alwin softly said from the back of his spirit mount, nickering softly in the afternoon light.

  Val nodded, still feeling a certain amount of wonder at the half dozen mounts connected to him by arcane cords that allowed him to feel their sense of contentment in being alive once more; the simple joy they felt, racing together as a herd, just as they had endless centuries ago. They even took quiet bites of undergrowth and foliage when their riders had stopped to rest, a bemused Yin noting that their droppings smelled very much like those of any flesh and blood horse she had ever ridden in camp, years ago.

  Val’s silent wonder, his joy in losing himself in the moment, savoring riding through lands as visceral and awe-inspiring as any state park back on Earth, transformed to resolute purpose once more. He snapped back into focus, exchanging glances with all his friends, sensing through their shared link an awe and love for this wild land that mirrored his own. Perhaps the real reason why so many enjoyed RPGs. It gave people the chance to lose themselves within imaginary lands untamed by suburban sprawl, the added bonus of leveling up while accruing wealth and power just icing on the cake.

  He frowned, peering through the trees ahead. It was time for him to lose himself in truth.

  “Stay here. I’ll scout ahead, make sure it’s safe.” And before anyone could do more than murmur half-hearted protests, the rustling branches making up the thick forest canopy overhead blocked the golden shafts of life dappling the forest floor, and only the memory of Val’s warning glance remained.

  “Damn that’s eerie,” Chris whispered, and Val could all but sense commiserating nods from his friends as he made his way deeper into the forest, as much the rustling branches as the path winding ever deeper in the gloom, before it opened into a wide clearing filled with crops blowing in the wind and the screams of dying women and children drowned out by the awful hum emitted by the crackling gate before what must have been the Ormur compound.

  Val felt a curious thrill coursing through his blood, a tingling across his flesh, instantly understanding what it meant, and how much trouble they were all in.

  Ormur Territory had been tainted by the effects of a Greater Mana Warping.

  Arcane arts would be more powerful than ever, electromana dependent technology would be short out the moment such entered these lands, and Horrors like the hideous twenty-foot tall amalgamation of chrome, steel, and twisted flesh even now forcing its way through the pulsating gate would be able to live on the background mana radiation indefinitely. The massive frame of steel and black flesh pulsated oddly, as if it breathed. Inky tendrils of flesh bulging between chrome and steel plates were whipping about madly. Twin eyes blazing with green light glared down at screaming captives covered in blood, spiked to a pentagram before the crackling gate.

  The horror howled before opening a massive maw showing shiny teeth of steel, bending down on creaking joints of metal to sniff the desperately screaming woman begging for mercy before it, so frantic with terror she had managed to tear her bleeding wrists free of the spike that had pinned her.

  But it was too late. The creature snapped down, biting her in half, the woman’s eyes widening in unspeakable agony as she shuddered and collapsed, eyes rolling in the back of her head as her entrails spooled about the ground before the horror bent down once more and devoured her with a second gulp, chomping effortlessly on flesh, bone, dirt and stone, having torn out a miniature crater with his massive maw.

  Perception check made! Willpower save made!

  There was nothing he could do but choke back horror and force himself to focus, one with the strange mists, racing forward as the now sentient battle-mech gazed at the remaining sacrifices pinned to that pentagram, feeling his arcane reserves surging like never before.

  “Glacie Pilum Perforo!” Val roared, realizing only as the flood of pykrete spears tore through the air for the horror now just 30 yards before him how things shimmered and wavered, the effects of Haunting Luminescence in full effect.

  2 of 12 Ice Spears hit! You have inflicted 20 damage and no significant wounds!

  The pair of ice spears would have torn completely through a charging knight with Val’s current bonuses, yet they simply bounced off the thick reinforced plates.

  The horror roared, brilliant orbs flashing Val’s way.

  Shadowmind holds!

  Only to howl in frustration, seeing nothing but mist and shadow before a massive claw of twisted steel tore another captive free of the steel spikes binding him, the poor man sobbing and shrieking as blood spurted from wrists and ankles before the creature devoured him in a pair of savage gulps.

  Think, fool! Remember all the lessons she taught you! Val shook his head, not even the icy comfort of shadow keeping him from feeling the fool. Taking a steadying breath, allowing the shadows to boil away with his rage, he embraced the fierce, throbbing cords of power the mana warping had brought forth. Using it for his own ends.

  This is your first time manipulating magics in lands infected by Greater Mana Warping! Save versus critical spell failure made! You have successfully cast Greater Ward for 75 mana!

  “Tutella Defendo!” Val roared after slicing a shallow cut on the back of his hand, drops of his own blood splashing upon the ground immediately blazing to life as a massive dome a dozen paces wide came into being.

  An awful shriek of twisted steel echoed strangely through the air, the horror snapping around towards a now visible Val, ignoring the remaining sacrifices before charging towards him, the ground shaking with the pounding of massive feet of scaly flesh and chrome.

  Val braced himself as the monstrosity slammed itself against the shimmering dome, and Val grunted with the effort of holding off countless tons of flesh and steel with his mind alone.

  Greater Horror attempts to break through Greater Ward! Contest of Skills… Greater Ward holds!

  Smiling even as he shuddered with rage, his enemy’s blows no worse than the countless slaps his harsh mentor had given her flawed student when he had dared to learn these forbidden arts at her feet, what might have been countless centuries or just a single dream ago.

  Val shuddered with the energies roaring through him, his fierce grin turning to a twisted snarl as his rage crystalized in a single word of primal fury. “Repudio!” Val roared, seeking with every ounce of his power to send the creature before him back to the hell from which it sprung.

  Greater Abjuration cast! Mech-Horror resists disjunction!

  Val’s eyes widened as the monstrosity seemed to shimmer before snapping back into place fully, pounding the dome Val sheltered within with renewed intensity, even as hideous laughter washed over the field entire.

  Greater Ward has suffered 10% integrity damage! Greater Ward holds. (For now!)

  Val fought back a shudder, even as he caught sight of a horror to put the chrome reptilian monstr
osity before him to shame.

  Floating just feet above the ground upon a mass of writhing tentacles was the naked countenance of what had once been a woman, perhaps beautiful, though her ivory white flesh was marred by the inky black ropes of flesh writhing where her hands and legs had once been. Her once serene features had been cruelly distorted. Once brilliant eyes had been replaced by orbs the color of midnight, her full lips now warped into a maw of countless wormlike filaments writhing madly even as she spoke in a soft clear voice Val realized, to his horror, that he recognized.

  Even as his mind screamed at the wrongness before him, his clever left hand gently caressed the centralmost button within a dwarven cube he could only hope was inured to the mana effects of a Greater Mana Warping.

  “Dear Valor Hunter. The Dauda who dares the throne.” Melodious laughter washed over the scene of horror even as she floated closer, tendril-laden mouth stretching into a hideous rictus of a grin. “Truly, child, the one who came before me bitterly regrets not taking your advice and fleeing Kentric’s presence the minute you offered Dominicus Territory to my master.”

  Val’s eyes widened. “Elsith. You’re his agent. Gods, what did he do to you?”

  She laughed shrilly. “Gods? There are no gods here, Valor! Only my master, Illuminous, The Keeper!”

  Only then did Val catch sight of what her still luxurious ebony hair had hid, pulsating orbs of brain matter glowing a soft purple as they inflated and rested, tissues pulsating with twisted energies he couldn’t begin to fathom.

  She gazed fondly at the twisted titan even now attempting to crack Val’s ward. “And soon, dear child, your master as well.”

  Horror, pity, and bubbling rage boiled within Val.

  “What did Kentric do to you, Elsith?” Even as he whispered the words, he turned his focus to the possessed battle-mech slamming his barrier so furiously, sensing at last what he had missed before.