Chapter 079: Taking Hold [part 03]

I was, in fact, a bit surprised by Leria returning. Big part of me expected her to remain in the Vassyria to lead the khardic crusade against the Dragonspine Mountains. Who would expect that it was even a possibility when we first met, huh? But instead, she returned. She walked through the Crows’ teleporter in the evening, surprising even him..

She wore a 3rd grade artifact armor composed of metal breastplate, closed helmet, bracers, leggings, boots, and a chainmail underneath. The breastplate was decorated exquisitely, though curiously mostly with floral symbols (and the plants weren’t even strangling any wrongdoer, what sort of khardic artifact ist hat?). She also carried a shield and a greatsword, both a 4th grade artifacts. Shield was obviously khardic. It was a kite shield, decorated with a a picture of the khardic Prophetess. Beneath her were three humanoid beings, personifications of three First Shards of the Pillars. There was even an Yhrezerach, shown as a human carrying a sword.

She was also accompanied by ten people. Eight khardic knights and two magicians. All of rather high levels. Most of them were beastmen (especially of cat and world morphs, but one of the knights was also a bear morph), but one magicians was a human carrying tribal tattoos of the Shining Accord Confederation. They were around the level of party members of me and Kovacs, essentially doubling the power level of our elites.

In short, the Khardic Church seemed to really like Leria. They really went all-out. They probably had some stronger artifacts, but most of them were explicitly ‘limited’ in use by their makers’ or particularly famous users’ orders. The lower grade artifacts tend to be more … universal and flexible, and since we aren’t 100% sure what we were going to fight…

She left her entourage around the Crow’ quarters and then immediately walked to my quarters. I know about them, because Yhrezerach informed me about what happened. And about the degree of hype that spread throughout every person that saw her. Huh.

“Leria! It’s great to see you.” I’ve met her (together with Simea) in my office. “I must admit, I wasn’t sure if you would return.”

If that was an anime, all sort of background sounds would abruptly stop, with the characters looking at each other dumbfounded. All to highlight the degree of faux pas that just occured. Probably with cricket sounds in the background. Congratz, Avhar, you are an idiot.

“Uhm, that came out wrong.” I sighed.

“A bit.” Leria agreed. “But I understand the intention. It would be a lie if I said that staying in Vasyrria wasn’t tempting. I, however, believe that I’m needed here. After all, Twilight War seems to have its center right around here.”

“I see.” She was still carrying her shield, and I also saw the sword behind her back. “Destroyer Stance, huh?” Leria nodded in answer. “That’s some high speed teaching if I ever saw one.”

“Yes, that was a pretty intensive… time.” She winked towards me. And I understood what she meant.

“Can someone explain to me what you were just talking about?” Simea decided to interject.

“Higher level aura manipulation has stuff called Stances. The name is a bit misleading, since it’s more like a small segments of martial arts dedicated to certain… typically unorthodox fighting methods.” I quickly described.” An example might be Half-Swording Stance that one of the Kovacs’ sidekicks is imitating. The Destroyer one was typically used by NPCs in past games because it was seen as rather overpowered. It’s based on old genre of games that had a lot of … weird ways of fighting included. Destroyer Stance is essentially two-handed weapon and a large shield. It requires masterful degree of aura manipulation to compensate for the length and weight of the sword. And it’s not something you’d use in the narrow corridors.”

“Unless you have an indestructible artifact greatsword that you can bolster with enough aura to slice even the walls apart.” Leria made a wry smile. “Though on my current level, it would have to be a thin wall. But it should be perfect for an open fight on the streets of Ambryxis.”

She had a point. Destroyer Stance was notoriously devastating against (any) number of people of lesser skills on the open area. But it had also a lot of dangerous abilities for fighting a singular enemy. The only real downside of it were extremely fast enemies (and even that was partially negated by various aura techniques connected to the Destroyer Stance). Or, just in case, competent sidekicks. Like eight khardic knights.

Not to mention that it was an overwhelmingly offensive stance. All defensive elements were tailored to keep the user alive while charging masses of enemies and slaughtering them en masse. Hard to find a stance that was more befitting of an Overtyrant’s champion.

“So, how’s the situation? What did I miss?” Leria decided to inquire about the most important thing.

Ugh.

***

Suprisingly, Leria wasn’t angry. If anything, she seemed pretty chill. In her own, khardic ways. Which means that we managed to stop her from immediately charging at the enemy with he sword raised, as while she certainly was a zealous berserker, she was a rational zealous berserker. So she was willing to wait until we were fully prepared and had that one additional boat ready to place her and her entourage in.

Her presence (in her new, glorious looks) bolstered morale even further. We were ready to retake the headquarters. We finished the additional (a bit large) boat a day later… and we decided to not spend even a second more playing around.

The attack began in a rather epic way. When we got closer to the now ruined bridge, Leria (her boat, of course, at the vanguard of our little fleet)... lept. In partial plate armor, and with kiteshield and greatsword. Immediately crossing the ten meter distance between the boat and the bridge.

Fucking overpowered anime characters. High level aura users crossed the boundary between western fantasy and eastern fantasy… quite hard.

The Abyssal’ archers and hexcasters on the bridge died in the span of ten seconds. First wide swing of Leria’s sword (its reach further expanded by aura) decapitated (or sliced apart) five enemies. Then she changed into a living chainsaw and simply continued to massacre everything around. By the time her personal knights reached the shore and deployed to assist her, the enemy defenses were broken.

Enemy obviously panicked and began throwing their reserves at Leria. All according to plan. As small army of eldritch knights and watchers - supported by a handful of pandaemonium knights and seekers, their stronger versions - burst from the southern edge of the cavern, we split. Leria, her knights and almost entirety of the Ardent Flame members (all khardics) together with a number of adventurers came to met the counterattack head on. Syna, Leria’s faithful sidekick, joined her. Me, Lena, Simea, Kovacs party, Firewing and the penitents (together with remaining adventurers) rushed towards the civilian part of the headquarters.

The whole point was to use all our strengths to clear both sides at once. Leaving no room for counterattack. We were powerful, in fact more powerful than the forces enemy showed up. However, mortals had one weakness - their ability to restore mana and regenerate wounds/stamina was limited. It was even more obvious here, with the enemy capable of replenishing its numbers by teleporting in new forces constantly. Our regular forces were stronger than their regulars (up to an eldritch knight-tier). Our elites were stronger than enemy elites (even including dreadnoughts). But this advantage was going to start disappearing immediately after the battle started.

Half of the reasons for alchemy being so widespread was that it allowed to prolong one’s ability to fight. That’s why we had Firewing stuff every single raid participants with as many alchemical potions as possible without causing lasting harm.

The problem was that there were two doors in the northern wall of the cavern. But we knew about that from our earlier attacks, so we prepared for it as well. Kovacs (and ⅓ of the regulars) went through the western door. Remnants of my party (and ⅔ of the regulars, since we lacked the Kovacs’ party numbers) went through the eastern door.

What followed was an intense combat in the narrow corridors against wall of dreadnoughts (actually only two, but that’s how wide the corridor was). Then, after both of them were taken down by a rain of spells and hexes, we’ve split. We quickly secured what I believed to be a tavern (with entire - long expired - storage of alcohols). And mess hall to the left. That’s where we encountered the Kovacs party again, as the mess hall also connected to the other tunnel.

Enemy resistant grew stronger, and waves of the Dead (supported by dreadnoughts and pandaemonium knights) threw themselves at us with reckless abandon. Spells and hexes flew above our heads, ricocheting from (or getting absorbed by) defensive magicks. Infernal wailings of the sirens damaged our sanity, but the existence of the Beacon improved not only my sanity resistance, but also of those nearby. There was no direct negative effect from the wailings, but they were seriously fucking scary.

Finally we’ve pushed the enemy back into the end of the two corridors. Unfortunately, the end of the two corridors was, in fact, a stairwell going both down and up. According to Yhrezerach’ blueprints, they led to the quarters (above us) and the labirynth of craftsman workshops and storage areas beneath us. Everything from candlemakers to smiths. Everything that a thriving little town (even secret ones) needed to be.

“How was your side?” I shouted to Kovacs, as our warriors pushed the enemy back towards the stairwell.

“I think they were brothels on that side. One expensive, and one… rather cheap.” He answered. I gulped. The part with ‘rather cheap brothels’ in khardic area was rather scary. I still remember the slave cages in the agricultural zone. The fact that literally everyone imprisoned was an absolute trash that would have escaped any responsibility for their crimes (both on material plane and in the afterlife) changed… only a bit. “And on yours?”

“Tavern. WIth a large space for alcohol storage. The old Ardent Flame knew how to throw a party.” And as the mess hall was almost directly in front of the drinking space… with brothel being on the other side… any party could easily spread over entire middle level of the civilian space. “So, what part do you take?”

“Quarters.” He answered. It’s craftsmen space for me, then. Shit, the need to spread our forces like that was a pain.

***

We were almost falling apart from fatigue and wounds by the time we’ve found and disabled the Pandaemonium Gate that the enemy used to summon reinforcements. It took us almost thirty minutes OF CONSTANT FUCKING FIGHTING. The earlier attacks were actually beneficial to us - while we lost a lot of manpower, the rest learned to cooperate quite well. Stamina and mana management was an absolute must for an extended combat.

The enemy was the same as earlier. A constant stream of cannonfodder-grade Dead, supported by small number of daemons. Curiously, the enemy daemons were composed almost exclusively of eldritch knights and watchers (and their improved versions). It was a bit weird, in fact. No eviscerators. No terrors. No bringers of discord. No banners. No skinwalkers.

The only explanation I could find was that the enemy had a commanding ‘officer’ (probably an archdaemon), that simply assembled his personal army according to its personal tastes. I knew of some archdaemons and demigods that had entire entourages consisting of battalions of lesser daemons and personal servants that they could throw at enemy. Or lend to useful mortals.

I expected to encounter such being in or around the personal quarters of the Ardent Flame grandmaster. It was the only remaining place for a person of such… ‘magnificence’, at least since we discovered the local church to be conventionally desecrated and the cathedral never fell into the Pentagram’s hands.

We’ve returned to the stairwell, to discover that Kovacs’ group finished the job as well. Though they were even more grim (and equally battered) than us.

“What happened?” I asked him.

“A lot of people were trapped in the quarters when the Hold fell.” He answered. “Some were taken alive by the Pentagram.” Ugh. “So, we go check out how Leria fares?”

I answered him with a nod. Any ounce of strength was of extreme value right now.

***

Actually, it turned out that the strength wasn’t of such importance as I thought. By the time we’ve reached Leria, the battle was already over.

Leria’s little army broke through the labirynth of corridors and halls, decimating the legions of hell (or, to be precise, of the place that gives local hell the creeps). Enemy was driven back or wiped out. The enemy commander rode out to meet Leria in battle - his hideout was, as I expected, the grandmasters’ quarters.

It was an another part of the future legends about Leria. The enemy was rather notorious. A towering knight in black armor, covered in disgusting writings and symbols. His helmet was adorned with a blasphemous parody of a crown made from bones, decorated by several eyeballs.

Kevar the Accursed. One of the few monarchs that used to rule the Imperium that nobody likes to talk about. Becoming an open worshipper of the Pentagram and instigating a reign of terror that made Third Reich look like decent place did that to people. He was finally assassinated by the Crows - after twenty seven failed attempts, as he was favoured by Malice A LOT and got a lot of boons. But his reign of terror was so ‘great’ that his overlord rewarded him with daemonhood.

The way that Crow used to take him down was… squicky, to say the least. But it included a gas bomb that, when exploded, was volatile enough to kill anyone within a kilometer distance, overwhelming even Kevar’s abnormal intuition for an incoming threat. With the civil war against pretty much EVERY NORMAL PERSON IN THE IMPERIUM that he was losing still going on, the mop-up operation against his former supporters was quick, unbelievably bloody and morally satisfying.

His crown was equally sickening. According to the lore it was made from the bones of the High Priest overseeing the Ember’s Grand Temple in the Imperial Capital (traditional place of emperor’s coronation). The eyes? All seven of them belonged to his siblings, each of them giving one for this… decoration. Only one of the nine children of the former emperors managed to escape and could be crowned as next emperor after Kevar died.

After achieving daemonhood, Kevar got… powerful. He could probably equal Leria’s ‘mother’ in terms of pure fighting power. His choice of servants made sense as well - he choose sufficiently humanoid enemies, probably made him feel like that time when he was emperor. Unfortunately, this also meant that he lacked underlings strong enough to help him when the need arose.

According to the onlookers, Leria’s fight with Kevar was ‘epic’. I could imagine that, since half of the area surrounding the grandmaster quarters was pretty much leveled down. With so many walls practically sliced apart it was a miracle that the manmade part of the cavern didn’t collapse on our heads.

There was also another Pandaemonium Gate on that side, that Leria troops shutdown. And despite the absolute degree of trashing the place received, we still managed to find the key to the vault behind the cathedral.

***

We initially wanted to meet Yhrezerach in flesh as the first thing after resting, but Leria suggested cleaning up the sole remaining holdout of our enemies in the Tyrant’s Hold. Namely the foundry and the mines. To make sure that nothing was going to suddenly explode with unholy fury the second we open-up Yhrezerach’s imprisonment.

It made sense. The demigod in the game would change a lot of things, and none of it for the better. It would be the best to clean up potential source of the trouble before we step up the difficulty level.

Surprisingly, the attack on the last remaining area of the Hold was almost underwhelming. The amount of biomass that the Spawns could eat there was limited. Pentagram didn’t seize the area. It was the Zhsomething.

We’ve overwhelmed the enemy forces in the foundry. Then we continued onward, through the bridge, and entered the mines. With all our forces combined, it was a massacre - the enemy was mostly some scattered Devoured that failed to join the main shitstorm when the hold fell. One of the problems with those more inhuman archdaemons and aberrants - especially those portrait in human consciousness as living natural disasters rather than thinking enemies. Sometimes they fail to think about some basic things. Like personal protection. They just destroy.

There was a small portal-like stone formation, of weird, sickly green rock. It was only partially unearthed. A small bit of it, the whole was at best few centimeters wide. But it was enough for a single tentacle of the Zhhh to enter the Hold. It was enough to infect the nearest miners. And to multiply itself into more and more spawns.

A nice lesson on how little one needs to lose everything in the fantasy world.

We killed the enemies skulking around. We had Firewing melt the stone into liquid. Liquid spreading one of the foulest stenches I ever felt, and with some tentacle-like things moving in it. We had Firewing continue burning it until there was nothing left - of course after moving away and putting some air magic barrier between us. What if we turned it gaseous and it was still volatile? We then compressed the air, and had Firewing escort the bubble outside. Where it should disperse in the air, without enough of itself to cause any unfortunate side effects.

***

Freeing the Yhrezerach was a religious event (and major one at that) for majority of the Hold’s inhabitants. Obviously, not everyone was allowed in. It was quite sensible as well. It was an extremely powerful servant daemon of a monotheistic deity. People that weren’t part of their religion (and, preferably, considered it an important thing in their life) were… in danger. Especially with Overtyrant’s servant that also rended sanity of any person around, with the effect amplified by sins (as khardics saw them).

I was allowed as special exception. Though only after I finally decided to end the charade. I went to the nearest inrithian priest I could find, had a looooooooooooong confession and received communion. They are so similar to their real world’ equivalent that it probably doesn’t even matter if they are real or not. And this should, according to this world’ mechanics, provide me with at least some defense against that.

Yhrezerach

Unique

Category: Overtyrant

Type: Demigod

Threat Grade: Black Gold V

A First Pillar of Zealotry, by many seen as Overtyrant’s right hand in the material plane. A being of immense power, even when it’s weakened by his prolonged imprisonment in the confines of Reality.

Wow. Just wow.

Still, Yhrezerach’s true form was absolutely unsettling. A three meter tall ‘fleshy’ pillar with legs, covered in eyes and with two long tentacles. The pillar was a bit thinner around the ‘neck’, making its form vaguely resemble a humanoid one. Vaguely. It was too far from it to qualify as uncanny valley, it was just a vague resemblance.

It also spoke, but I wasn’t khardic enough to withstand it. It was like a thunderous (but a bit… slithering) roar, but everyone beside me seemed to understand it. I sneaked out of the cathedral, since the whole festivities seemed a bit too weird for my taste.

***

The ‘demigod imprisonment’ was purely savoir vivre. It would be an even sadder world if mortals couldn’t defeat even some of the beings skulking around the world. Demigod couldn’t be bound by any mortal mean, but when a trap of sufficient power was used at them, they would consider themselves grounded. Even forever, if they failed to engineer their own freedom.

When trapped, their ability to influence even the areas that used to be personal domains in Real World was limited by the rules of the Great Game - otherwise they would be able to help their rescuers too much. Now that Yhrezerach was free, the amount of khardic ‘holiness’ in the magic in the air tripled almost instantly. I expected small wounds to heal themselves much faster, not to mention that every lesser being of Pentagram would just drop dead on entry.

We could also deploy our own demigod. Of course, it had to be on perfect moment. Massively weakened demigod of Shimmer was one thing. Freedom was a terrible enemy, but in terms of pure firepower… he was beneath average. Yhrezerach? He could level Ambryxis with a single theurgic archspell. The threats of Black Gold (with no relation to oil, weirdly enough) grade required an all-out mobilization of a major country to be put down. Since the Black Gold VI, threat typically required a mobilization of a significant of the Imperium’s military might.

Black Gold V meant that Yhrezerach could just march north, summoning armies of servile daemons of Overtyrant, curbstomping any army sent against him, and gain enough momentum to trample the defences of the Northern Aevaria. Because of that the second that the Northern Aevaria would detect the spike in power and identify the threat as Yhrezerach, they would probably magically nuke everything in the area. Changing entire region of the Ambryxis into forever uninhabitable wasteland was a small price to pay for stopping such a threat.

Probably the reason why he was content having the first Ardent Flame as his army. Sure, their firepower was abysmal in comparison, but they weren’t a nuclear berserk button for the genocidally insane leadership of that misery of a kingdom.

Of course, Yhrezerach wasn’t going to walk around the Hold. There was a reason why overwhelming majority of religion was building temples and churches. He was content remaining within the cathedral. Of course, he wasn’t ‘technically’ there. Invisible, he remained there in spirit. Every shrine, temple, church and cathedral (or holy groves etc.) had such protective spirit. It was one of the reason why during an attack the local holy placed tended to be the best place to hide in. And why they were spared by all but the craziest (or most powerful) beings.

He, of course, still walked around the Hold in his humanoid projection. He no longer really hide that, so when we were making a bit of a conference regarding future moves, he was with us as well. Though he remained in the sideways, standing there with Leria’s kid (and her cat), playing with her with some toys.

I had bad feelings about this, but I couldn’t pinpoint why.

***

In the middle of the night, I was awoken by a knocking on the door. The BEDROOM ones. I expected Crow to play some weird games on me (again), but instead - when I burst through them, pissed off by being waked up - I run into some completely unfamiliar men. A knight in (literary) shining armour was sitting on a couch by the wall. Human, with some completely unremarkable looks. Short brown hair, the face that looked so average I’d probably forgot her soon after. He was accompanied by a cloaked magician (at least, that was my assumption), that looked female. She was sitting right beside him.

“Hi! Fancy meeting you here.” The knight waved towards me, while the both of them stood up. “How about joining us to talk? Feel free to invite your wife, we’d like to meet her as well.”

Holy shit, this is getting surreal. And how do they knock on the door if they were sitting there? Well, it took me enough time to move from the bed for them to just move back, but… why?!

“Uhm… Ok, but who the heck are you?” I tried to appraise them, but… the system showed nothing?! What the…

“We’ll explain in a while.” They just stood there, waiting for me. So, having nothing better to do, I got back and woke Simea. While writing a system message to Firewing and Leria to warn them.

Soon we were all clothed up, and joined the two guests by the table. I also saw a message bar that Leria and Firewing were standing on the other side of the door to my quarters, ready to barge in. I also expected them to bring some soldiers or adventurers with them, but I wasn’t sure how many.

“First things’ first. How the FUCK have you found the Hold?!” I wasn’t going to wait for them to speak, and that was RATHER important. “Despite being secret, it’s the second time someone pulls that on me, so it’s becoming a real security problem.”

“Oh, do not worry. I assure that nobody save for us and the Imperium could find this place like that.” How did he know it was the Imperium?!” Well, the end of your… adventure in the Northern Aevaria made us notice you. So we decide to pay you the visit, as we are aware of what you are trying to achieve here. And we support you wholeheartedly.”

“So now I’m going to ask the even more first thing.” Simea commented with a sarcasm in her voice. “Who are you?”

“Nobody important.” The cloaked magician said, and then chuckled.

“We kinda made that game, that’s all. If it’s actually a game, that is.” The warrior added.

I didn’t see it, but I could feel Simea grabbing her well hidden dagger.

“Are you… Robinson?!” I think I saw something similar in one old anime. But with a lot more combat surrounding the reveal.

“Oh, no no.” The warrior answered quickly. “Are you aware of the so-called ‘Founding Fathers’ of the Demiurge Forge Incorporated?” I nodded, and Simea did so too. The whole company started pretty much in a garage, but showed enough new and innovative ideas (plus hundreds of thousands of pages of lore of their worlds, talk about worldbuilding addiction) that most of later works were based on their early games. Though as far as I remembered, most of the ‘Founding Fathers’ (that included some Mothers, but someone from american internet coined the term and it stayed) retired in the end. Including the initial head of the DFI, that was replaced by his protege. Robinson. ”Well, I was their head. I got a game as a ‘gift’ from my dear almost-like-a-son-to-me Edgar Robinson. So we decided to play it together with my wife. After the ‘problems’ started, I’ve used my rather in-depth knowledge on the world to… become something more than a human. Rather fun thing, actually.”

…

“So, I presume you didn’t know about said… ‘problems’ beforehand?”

“No, but after digging for past weeks I have my own suspicions. That I won’t share until I’ll have confirmation on that. And we should get the confirmation quite soon. The main reason we’ve decided to join you is that quite recently I’ve felt Robinson in the game.” I had no freaking idea what they’ve become and what they meant by ‘feeling’ him, but they had my utmost attention now. “Interestingly, he was somewhere near Ambryxis.

The plot thickens.

“But, let me guess. You can’t just go there, because whatever you are, you are now bound at least a bit by the rules of the Great Game. And you can’t just walk there on your own.” They nodded. “Also, any chance of you telling me whether it’s a game or not? It’s a bit of a hot topic.”

“Unfortunately, no.” Dammit. “I admit that I made most of the lore myself. Including the… uhm… troublesome bits. I had a bad period in my time.” I’m not going to ask. “But, the problem is, at least a notable chunk of it came from my dreams.” What? “I tended to have rather colourful dreams, especially after eating something hard to digest before going asleep. Then I noted what I dreamt of and took some interesting bits. Whether some otherwordly gods were guiding me or was it just a indigestion…” He shrugged. “No idea.”

...Shit. Well, I’ll need to catch Robinson. Then I’ll apply my torture skills to make him talk. That should work. He is the literally only person that can decisively answer the question about whether this is all real or just a game.

The woman poked the man. He looked at her for second, then he made the ‘OF COURSE’ face, and turned back towards me.

“I almost forgot. There is also another reason why we were allowed to meet you.” Hmm? “The Twilight War has just started.”

I wanted to say a loud WHAT but then the ground started shaking like crazy.