Chapter 074: Cutting Corners

Hlla had time to lead us all the way to the ‘weird’ cave, regardless of the battle at hand. Not like I really cared. She was a Chosen of Shadow. Mentally unstable, absolutely unpredictable and prone to leaving and returning at random, even to those that were their adjutants. They were used to that at this point.

The cave entrance was pretty bland. The lack of general awesomness or at least giant banners with GET OUT or COOKIES INSIDE painted by worryingly red paint was a bit saddening.

The actual inhabitants of this fantasy world were, seemingly, a bit too smart to indulge in my aesthetic sense over their chance of survival. Shame on them.

Hlla just gave us one last wave - with a smug smile on her face - and then we entered. Without her. The entrance and some early rooms were empty, save for a few magical traps here and there. Nothing that could have seriously damaged us, not at this point. Some local hunters, maybe. Though they seemed to be a bit higher-leveled here than in more civilized regions.

We went in deeper… and then in the most cliche situation ever, an earthquake came. Or at least, something akin to it. A tremor. The ceiling collapsed, closing the corridor in front of us. But even at first glance, it looked unnatural.

Then we all looked back in unison, and saw another collapse happening behind us.

Sigh. Cliche. Then it got worse by a secret passage opening in the wall.

“So, something wants to have us visit it.” Leria commented.

“And we’re just going to go in? Like that?” Simea didn’t look very amazed by this. “You know that there can be, like, every single damn thing?”

“And what other idea do you have?” This time, it was Leria again. “You want to dig your way out?!”

“We wouldn’t end up in this situation, if we hadn’t…” Simea decided to go all out.

Ok, so, situation tended to be pretty grim with more than a single one of us in the same place for a longer while. Recently people tended to be… a bit… combustible. Growing problems that I couldn’t address due to being failure a of a leader (whose damn idea it was to make a person with ailing social skills to lead us?! And why are Leria’s even worse than mine?!), and the general feeling of incoming end of the world…

But suddenly arguing like this in a combat situation?! That was new. We recently got a new shipment of actual fear of death due to Glitches overriding the resurrection system and I thought that it would improve the situation at least a bit, but it looks like it was the opposite.

“We can’t do a thing about us being trapped right now. It’s nobody’s fault. Can we focus on the problem in hand? Please?” They seemed to have decided for an unspoken armistice.

Why couldn’t we get a psychologist from Earth as one of the Ardent Flame Player members?! Why?!

“Let’s get in. Leria in vanguard.” At least they decided to listen to me. Good enough.

***

The ancient stone stairs led upward… but slowly. At best one step every three-four meters. The walls were weird. Less carved, more… melted. And only then decorated with some long-withered carvings.

After a few minutes there was a crossroad. A path diverged, perpendicularly to the main road. I could see a big, iron-bound gate maybe five metres from the crossroad. On it, carvings. Hmm.

“Vaera, do you know anything of mountain elves so far west?” He looked at me with surprise.

“No, why do you ask?”

“That’s a mureakai burial site.” Sigh, they know nothing, do they? “You carve a tunnel behind a steep edge of a cliff in some mountainous area, then put ‘deeper’ burial sites on the opposite side of the tunnel. Like this.” I pointed towards the gate. “Inside, a single person of great renown, together with his often vast entourage of servants, slaves, courtiers, family members and guardians is buried.” Less of a nightmare fuel than our past experience could indicate. “Their tombs could ‘gather’ new bodies for years after the actual guy was buried.”

“And what does it have to do with mountain elves?” Vaera decided to ask.

“It’s mountain elf custom.” He made a shocked face. “Before dragonbrides took over. When you still had an actual civilization. You know, kings, queens, rising to power by poison or dagger rather than… ugh.” I made a mistake about asking him about the way the dragonbrides are chosen. Now I’ll have to live with that terrible knowledge. “Also, books.” He kept making a shocked face. What the heck?! “Wait… YOU DIDN’T KNOW?!”

“We… we’ll have a talk in private later on.” Oops. I didn’t know the Dragonbrides themselves - or at least lower ranked ones - weren’t in to that particular secret. They tended to be pictured as monolithic dragon-worshipping cult.

“Well, whatever’s the case, we aren’t opening the tombs if they are sealed.” I continued. “All the bodies inside are enchanted to raise up to defend their lord, even in death. And the lords themselves tend to be tough assholes.” There is no actual reason for us to make a mess here. We are not graverobbers - Overtyrant doesn’t like it. Even when different religion made the graves.

The seals were still strong on the gate. The lord - whoever he really was, the carvings on the gate were almost gone at this point and I’d need to spend a longer while working on it to decipher anything - was sleeping soundly. In an artificial and almost-Ascendent afterlife. In a fake surface dimension in the Dark, surrounded by his family and servants. Without corporal bodies to get tired of stimuli.

No reason to break that. It will break on its own if we fail and Twilight War happens. Why make it happen faster?

“Let’s continue.” I said. And hope that it isn’t some mighty expansive muraekai burial site, like 1000 Steps from the past DFI game. I thought. “Though, before that…”

Then we left some shiny baubles in a corner, and loudly exclaimed our apology for not doing this earlier, as we didn’t know it was a cemetery. The muraekai burial was older than the Imperium, but rules were rules. There was obviously a melines ruling the place, and we didn’t want to anger it.

***

Frankly, it couldn’t be so big. The place wasn’t an anomaly. It’s area was limited. The reality was pretty much as stable as Earth. Sure, they were several dozens of lords laid to rest. Some more important than others. If there was some really important one, he is probably well hidden.

Important. Or nasty. The end boss of 1000 Steps, the Witch-Queen, was buried alone in her tomb. Alone… and alive. Mostly because the people that survived her reign were too scared to kill her. And hated her too much to just kill her.

Such a being would long ago find a way to break their sealed tomb entrances. And we would notice its influence.

Seriously? I got overly talkative in my head merely because of how PEACEFUL the place was. No opponents. Just silence. Very old silence. I could hear the not-very-peaceful chatters occasionally reigniting.

No matter how I think about it, this place is weird. Well, not the place itself - it’s just a simple burial ground, one of many that avoided desecration by being well hidden, well protected and in a place where civilization packed itself and went on an extended holiday. But the absolute lack of resistance.

Why did Hlla even have us come here?! Why are we wasting time?!

Suddenly everybody disappeared. It was like that ‘disappearance’ back then, when we entered the graveyard in the Hold. When that fallen angel snatched and divided us, trying to eliminate the toughest among us.

But it wasn’t the case here.

I didn’t feel any magic. They just… disappeared. For no reason at all.

Seeing supernatural things happen in a fantasy world is no big deal. Seeing supernatural things that can’t be explained by magic happen in a fantasy world? Yeah, shit. I’m honestly scared.

Did we run into a Glitch?!

“No, you didn’t.” I turned my head towards the source of the voice. Then I sighed loudly.

“To what do I owe this rare PLEASURE, Deviation?” I answered, in a most unwelcoming tone I could muster.

No hallucination. No illusion. And not another Revelation. Just herself, standing there like nothing was weird with that. I could feel her presence, but it was… weak. A tough Archdaemon. The low Mithril maybe? Contradicted half of what I knew about lore, still. But the face was perfectly the same as always.

“To Gods being forced to keep cutting corners.” She wore some absolutely fabulous black dress with some jewelry… and leather trekking boots. She’s going to stay for a while, isn’t she? “It’s an interesting novelty to oppose an enemy whose movements you cannot predict hundreds of years prior. Whose actions you can’t predict before he even makes the decision.”

“So, something screwed up and you’re fixing it.” Still a moderate level of a screw-up. I’m going to start pissing my pants if Overtyrant or Inri start fixing things personally.

Still, does her being here mean it’s still a game? This doesn’t truly fit the lore. She shouldn’t be allowed to visit the place, unless she used an Avatar form but they generally equalled the mightiest of demigods. And it was ultra-rare.

I moved forward. I might as well search for an exit. I could hear her following me.

“Something screws up all the time.” She said, ignoring my departure. “And we’ll still need to resort to a nuclear option if you fail in what we are busy preparing you to.” Wonderful? “Dark Ones were a problem because they infected everything with their madness and if we tried to alter them directly, we might get corrupted. If we alter Glitches directly, we risk the ‘glitched’ part spreading, influencing the rest of the Reality. We really don’t want either to happen.”

Not very omnipotent, huh?

“Omnipotent.” She said after a sigh, obviously reading my thoughts. “But to erase Glitches we need to change them into something native to this world and force them to obey our rules. And that would require significant modification on a basic level. The world wouldn’t really be the same, and each potential rewrite benefits some of us. Nobody’s feeling like accepting somebody else benefitting from such a thing, so we’re stuck. Avoiding the issue altogether is the whole point of leading your group. Even the nuclear option is better than the alternative.”

It’s hard to be omnipotent… when there are several hundred beings like you. And they keep reversing everything you do. It was the reason for all the rules of the Great Game making at least a basic frame to keep it all in reins.

“Wonderful.” Can’t she just leave me alone?! “Why are you even here?” She knows what I mean. It’s BEYOND impossible. It’s breaking the rules. Showing up to a mortal like that?!

“Rules are a bit… flexible in certain places.” You don’t say?! “The furrows of this province are an example. Rules of the Great Game work a bit quirky since Hammer and Demiurge cornered Hephaestus during the Dawn War. In the center of the province.”

Interesting. But more for those writing books about said period than me.

“What the hell’s going on in the province?” She answered me with silence. “I know you Black Pantheon people are evil, but even you don’t just mass murder people like that.” It’s much better to build a heavily dysfunctional state whose perpetual dysfunction will simply have citizens rely on you more and shower you with affection.

“And who do you think could be responsible for that?” She finally answered. “The same old evil. And before you ask, Bonehead has nothing to do with that because he doesn’t care. Like always.”

The ‘same old evil’ was awfully evasive. She could mean the Pentagram. The other Aberrants. The Old Gods. Heck, even ‘fallible and idiotic nature of mortals’ could be an answer. I’ll just ignore it. It’s Hlla’s war, not mine.

I should try to learn why exactly she came here.

“Good luck with that.” I heard from behind my back. Ugh.

“No ordering me around?” I decided to go this way.

“Anaentalya is a patron of femdom, not me.” NO, JUST… BUT… UGH. Fuck innuendoes. Wait… is that how Yhrezerach felt when I compared or almost compared everything to sex?! I need to apologize when I return. “Oh come on, let me have fun from time to time. I might have to shed pretty much every part of myself to operate on the mortal level of thoughts, but I still enjoy myself immensely. I find stalking you a nice pastime.”

“Can you find yourself another pastime?” This is getting ridiculous. “Or just, you know, go fuck yourself with a chainsaw?”

“Great idea! I’ll pencil that in for Thursday.” Ugh. “Well, there is obviously an underlying reason for me being here. To begin with, would you kindly join me again as my Chosen One properly?”

“Wrong game. And no, I won’t.” Don’t make me beg you to get off my back, you’ll just be turned on by that.

“I’m a literal personification of sex. I’m getting turned on by everything, including getting turned on.” ... “I’m just controlling it. If I teach you, will you reconsider?”

“This is not typical for you to beg.” It’s surprisingly enjoy… no, hell, stop it. “And no. Listen, I’m just totally, totally not interested. If you want, you can just take all the sexual weirdness from me. I won’t miss it at all.”

“A lost case, hmm?” YOU DON’T SAY?! “Well, it’s important to be able to lose with dignity. I officially relinquish the claim on your soul.” What?! “Feel free to pick whatever religion or philosophy you’ll like to follow. You’ll stay my Chosen One officially, though.”

WHAT?!

“You… are allowing a non-believer that you don’t have a claim on as your Chosen One?!” I mean, imagine the level of theological confusion if your God made a worshipper of one of his opponents into a Chosen One. What if he attacked your servants? What if Chosen One of your God started laying waste to his own temples?!

A theological suicide. Not very nice.

“Why not?” Wh… “You prefer to stay in shadows. If anyone surfaces, it will be Leria. You’ll just be a footnote in future historical books about St. Leria the Punisher.” Is this… is she talking about the future as she saw it? “Well, yeah. One of the endings. We looked through few billions of them already. The point is, this is no real problem for me. Unless you start talking about it to people. And you won’t talk… right?”

She suddenly whispered the last word into my ear, closing the distance in a blink of an eye. My self-control was already a bit improved after all the weird shit we kept running into, so I didn’t scream nor jump.

I still stopped and we had a short moment of eye-to-eye contact.

So, she wanted to make sure I won’t do anything like that, right?

“Sure. Not a word to anyone but closest friends.” She kept looking at me. “Not a word to anyone but Simea?” She nodded.

“I can settle with that.” She sighed. “Telling you to lie to Simea would be helpful, but we all know you won’t settle for that and I can’t force you to unless as long as you have close attention of Overtyrant and Inri. So let’s settle for that."

Overtyrant AND Inri?!

What is this random wave of useless expositions?!

“Well, don’t worry. We’ll reach the target soon.” She smiled to me and waved. The floor behind me suddenly collapsed.

OH FOR FUCK’S SAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!!

***

I’ve landed in some vaguely familiar and definitely ancient ruins. It took me a second to figure it out.

Tzikimi ruins. Right beneath the western border of the Northern Aevaria… and beneath the never discovered mureakai burial site. I smell Gods’ hands in how perfectly hidden this place was for who knows how long.

“Well, yeah.” Deviation suddenly appeared right beside me. “We’ve hidden it for a reason. There is a lot of terrible things out there. Conjured by magic, Gods, and your own hubris. The actual truth behind the fate of the Tzikimi is a good example.”

“You mean… YOU, Gods of BLACK PANTHEON of all people… have decided that it’s too much for your worshippers? Despite your ‘might makes right’ and ‘might beyond all’ approach?” She nodded. “ Well, shit. What next?”

We were in a large, dust covered hall. There were a door in front of us… and a door behind us. Both large, and ornate.

And both broken open by something.

“Do you know why exactly this world is so similar to yours?” Deviation suddenly asked. Startling me a bit.

“Well… no?” One of the mysteries that was never explained. DFI even used an almost Earth-like map in early games.

“And you’ll still not know that, hah.” … “Well, I could totally tell you. It’s an interesting thing. And more connected to your world than you think.” Does that mean that it’s a gam… “Well, not in a way that you think. Probably.” … Sigh. “ Well, I’m not going to flood with an overwhelming amount of trivia, especially when it could be used to ascend into daemonhood or something.”

“Wait, is that even an optio…” She interrupted me. Or maybe she just ignored my interruption.

“Well, there is a thing sealed here. Long, long time ago. Almost before the time started, actually.” What “As I said, no expansive lore dumps. Even if I think they’re SUPER HOT.” WHAT “You know what sort of creature it is. Sometimes daemons just keep growing…”

“Daemon God.” I answered, almost speechless. ”You talk about a Daemon God.”

Which was essentially an equivalent of a God’s Avatar created by a being (Ascended Human or a daemon) ascending from daemonhood into godhood while being materialized in Real World. Equal to toughest beings possible of existing in the world of Matter without crushing it under their weight. With rare cases of daemons outgrowing even the archdaemon status and hints of beings with more… unique genesis.

Extremely rare. Exactly two confirmed in history. The first one made a major mistake of trying to storm the Holy City of Aktaab, local equivalent of Jerusalem. Inri took that personally and actually went down as an Avatar. It was a like a localized Dawn War, but then Maneater (lovely naming sense, really) was slain and unmade to the smallest bit. The second, was… more complicated.

“Well, yeah. Former one.” What? “He called himself… well, it would be something like ‘Vortex’ in a modern language. He survived hiding and doing mean things to people and civilizations. Our ability to influence the Reality was weak back then. So he continued doing murderous deals and so on.”

“Tzikimi.” I simply said. She nodded.

“Yes. They thought he would help them ascend… instead of facing the Xyls. He didn’t. He even broke into their afterlife, and then he kinda murderfucked their entire ‘pantheon’. Of glorified deities not holding a candle to our demigods, but still.”

Sounds like a very nice person.

“Well, he overstepped it that time. His continuous existence was deemed a threat. Enough to warrant Gods cooperating.” Actual theurgies were Achilles’ heels for the Daemon Gods. Every theurgies. Quite similar to Glitches, honestly. I even suspected them for a while to be Daemon God-related, but that weakness was only of the Daemon Gods themselves. Not their servants. So all Glitches would have to be Daemon Gods. “We tore him into pieces. Unfortunately, we had to keep Pentagram from helping him, and Malice negotiated his survival. As broken and well warded pieces. But a survival nonetheless.”

The world would be a much better place if it didn’t have bad guys messing up everything, wouldn’t it? Malice is probably screaming like a little child each time the Gods (typically through their mortal servants) take one of his beloved nightmarish abominations apart. Might explain why the whole ‘sealing not killing’ is a thing.

“Now, there is a problem. And trust me when I’m saying I’m spending a lot of my Great Game standing to be able to tell you that directly.” Alright. “We don’t want this being free. Not even a single part of it. The one here is safely guarded. But one from the seventeen pieces of the Vortex was uncovered already.”

“Somewhere near Ambryxis… or by somebody from Ambryxis. Am I right?” She nodded.

“Black Hand was kind enough to encounter one piece.” Then I understood.

This weird ‘ritual’ that he was planning to use by sacrificing Firewing… he couldn’t…

“Well, archmagicians aren’t exactly free from making retarded decisions.” Deviation continued. “Vortex is, of course, using him. We are so much against Vortex raising again that both Pantheons, Inri and Overtyrant plus half a dozen lesser religions all agreed on ensuring that certain random factors helped Firewing succeed in surviving the battle with Black Hand. Firewing’s sudden burst of vengefulness and succesful murder of her… replacement managed to stop another attempt, so Vortex’s temporarily secured. Killing Black Hand, if you could do that, would be nice.”

Right, we don’t want him to try again. Especially when the Twilight War ends and Gods' will stop acting so openly and actively.

“Yes. Now, that you got your mission, we can proceed to the real reason we’re here.” What is it now? “Since we are trying to avoid making unnecessary moves, as they are pretty costly, I decided to lead you to it myself. Cutting corners all the way, but since you can’t level up your theurgies enough, and you still need something like that to succeed…”

“Can’t you speak openly once? Just… once?!”

She smiled. “You’ll see for yourself. Now, follow me.”

***

She led me through a twisted maze of corridors for a while. Only dust and some shriveled corpses of unknown species (could even be humans, too shriveled to find out without autopsy). Finally, we reached the destination.

It was a large room that could have been a temple once. There was an ever-twisting darkness at the other end of it. Fragment of Vortex, I presume. The appraisal didn’t work.

Between him and us lied a selection of items. Swords. Staffs. Axes. But also shields, anvils and some other things.

What?

Oh shit.

“Artefacts.” Deviation informed me. “Placing them in the world before they were made cost a lot, but with the nature of the Dark it was possible. But now they remain here, ensuring that the shard Vortex cannot hope to take a step from their current position.” She pointed towards a rather humble wooden staff, looking a bit unfinished, standing upwards in the middle of the artefact array. “Take it.”

What?

Beacon of Light

According to a legend, there was a small sliver of the Cross that was separated early on, and then multiplied by an ambitious archmagician to create a powerful staff. He failed to finish it, but even the unfinished staff resisted any sort of corruption and remains a powerful sacred artifact.

Rarity: Artifact VII

Material: Sanctified Cedar Wood

Quality: Average

Condition: N/A

Enchantment: Inri’s Magic Fortification VII, Indestructible X, Sanity Resistance V, Morale Raise III, Purifying IV.

Special: Holy Artifact, Relic.

Inrithian theurgies casted through this staff are 50% stronger AND cost 50% less mana to cast!

Spells and hexes cast through this staff are 50% stronger!

Oh.