Chapter 081: Twilight War [part 02]

It was a late morning, and I was going (together with Simea) to our next training session with Leria. We were already preparing ourselves for an inevitable jokes about how late we were. Jokes, obviously, well deserved since we DID spend an awful lot of time.. frolicking.

“So, any ideas on, as you called it, ‘defusing Leria’? Simea decided to talk about painful things. “I don’t think it’s going awfully well.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” I sighed. “I still remember myself being in similar situation to Leria. Being alone for years and years is a mind-killer. You don’t even notice it slowly pushing you more and more into being an bitter, edgy asshole.” Or, even worse, bitter, edgy and kinky asshole. God, I hate my past. Thankfully it’s no longer around. “But it’s not like I can just conjure a boyfriend for her!”

Actually, conjuring a boyfriend for Leria could actually be possible… if Overtyrant had at least A SINGLE servile daemon that was even remotely human in their true form. But since literally every one of them was to some degree weird, it would be at best a kinky thing, And with how Leria reacted to kinky things…

Besides, I refuse to even imagine her hugging some tentacled monstrosity, even with absolute no sex involved. Nope. No way. Not a chance.

“You thought about something weird, didn’t you?” I woke up from my thoughts right at time to see Simea giving me a weird look.

“Yes. No. Maybe?” Great job with that, Avhar. “The problem is that she is getting even more lonely recently, as… well, her sidekicks and big chunk of the Hold treat her with utter worship. Which puts a distance between them. It’s not like you can date someone whom you treat as almost-a-god.”

For a second I wanted to say something alongside of ‘she should just grab one of the khardic priests and have him ‘service her’ or something’ - khardic priesthood had no celibacy vow, at least no mandatory one but it was a welcomed thing. But I suddenly felt an Yhrezerach’ furious gaze on me, which was PROBABLY my imagination. So I decided to shut up.

Then I saw Yhrezerach standing in front of us in the middle of the corridor.

WHAT.

“I just wanted to tell you that it’s going to start in one or two days. The end.” He said, calmly. I felt relief that he didn’t read my mind and wasn’t pissed about it… and then I understood what he just said. “Hopefully, in few days we’ll be past the storm and everything will be clear.”

Wonderful. So, hopefully, in few days we’ll be departing with Simea to a retirement somewhere in the Imperium. I’m fucking done with this shithole of a mountains. And I’m fucking done with people here. I’ll be sending postcards to Firewing, Menara, Ytar, plus I’ll visit Leria and Lena from time to time, but that’s all.

Yhrezerach began turning back, before he suddenly froze and looked towards us again.

“Ah, I almost forgot.” He looked straight at me this time. And then showed me a middle finger, before disappearing.

Ugh.

***

Leria was busy having a rather intense duel with Lena, so we spent a short while watching a heated exchange of blows between them. None of the regular members of the Flame were even close to that level, but some of them watched the fight as well, with a look of amazement on their face.

The duel ended as it had to - with Lena dying. Which would be a deal to public modesty if Kytar, the head of the Flame’s ‘menial’ department, didn’t have a wonderful idea. TO PUT A FUCKING CURTAINS AROUND THE ALTAR. WHY NOBODY GOT THAT IDEA WEEKS AGO?!

“So, you finally got out of bed. And before a noon! I’m positively surprised.” Leria said as we approached her. Then she noticed our faces. “Alllright, what’s going on?”

We told her. In details.

“Shit.” She commented. “And now, of all time? The forces of the War of Symphony are almost here.”

“Really? Why do I know nothing about it?” The only answer was silence. “Leria, I can’t command properly without knowing everything. Do not hide things from me.”

“Wh… it’s not like I knew for long about it myself, just recently…”

“Can the two of you stop talking about that? It’s not important. Not right now.” Simea decided to stop the growing argument. “We have more important things to discuss.”

“Yeah, I’ll just tell the Crow to warn von Osten and that general of his.” Whatever was going to happen, the Imperium should know.” Immediately, since he doesn’t have a magical communication method. The rest… well, I’ve made some plans for the endgame. Being warned a day before it starts is actually more than I expected.”

“But, I should also make sure to do my part in preparing the Hold, right?” Leria quickly figured out the part of my talk that wasn’t said with something as straightforward as words. “That won’t be a problem. Being a cherished religious symbol has its positives.”

Yeah, ‘God told me’ is a well accepted explanation in de facto theocratic communities. When the leader is good person, it works wonders. Otherwise… not so much. Thankfully, being in the process of changing into a bitter old lady surrounded by cats didn’t mean being a bad leader. For now, that is.

“Good.” Part of me wanted to use the already non-routine situation to go full non-routine. To try to address the elephant in the room. The said bitterness. BUT HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO GO FROM WAR STRATEGY TO LOVE TROUBLES?! Actually, screw that, it won’t work. “So, I guess that the training session is terminated. I’ll go strategize.”

“And I’ll go with Leria. I need to talk with you.” Simea suddenly spoke, leaving me temporarily speechless.

Wait, she isn’t going to… oh, whatever. I just hope they aren’t going to gossip on me.

“Right, right. I’ll leave you ladies alone then.”

***

Simea returned to my room much, much later. I could smell wine on her. Despite that, she seemed mostly sober.

I spent few hours issuing orders. Most of people that I could potentially order around where in the Hold. The Crow disappeared, carrying urgent warning to the Imperial Army forces in the area. Then I used the RPG system to relay some ‘suggestions’ to the leadership of the Crimson Blades.

The guild still existed, but it received an almost decisive blow by Vasyr ‘mysteriously disappearing’ during the Vanvyran campaign. I was almost sure it would collapse entirely in the end - for now, however, the chaos of the ongoing war kept it together. Now, the city of Ambryxis was under siege, and a notable part of the Players in the city were various degrees of assholes.

I can’t even imagine what they felt when they heard that Vassyrians unleashed a War of Symphony. There is no logout button here. And even Imperium of Kynevia was going to look VERY thoroughly into their past before letting them go. This fear kept them together.

As I expected, Lybaer was in its leadership. I wasn’t sure about his exact degree of power - returning on a white horse from Vanvyra with proof of the guild founder’s crimes was enough. But he was where I needed him. So I warned him. I also connected Aurora whom I sent on an… errand to the city.

“We had a really, reaaaally long talk with Leria, you know.” Simea said while sitting beside me on bed. “About many things.”

“Oh?” I turned toward her. “Something happened?”

“Kinda. I’ve been working on her for a while, you know.” Really?! “I think she has made some decisions about her life.”

“Oh come on, I’m dying of curiosity here, tell me!” She smiled.

“Well, she decided that all of it really doesn’t matter.” ??? “If she can’t find anyone, she’ll just stop looking. So, essentially, self-imposed celibacy, focus on her adopted daughter and on her duties as a Chosen One.”

“Sounds like a horrible idea. ‘I can’t find anyone so I go celibacy’ work better in fiction than in real world.” I mean, swearing off sex and/or love tends to go about as good as swearing off alcohol or drugs.

“That’s why I consider this a temporary patch. “She smiled wryly. “I plan to use the Crow to contact the khardic church in Vasyrria. Then I’ll have them shower her with guys of her age that confessed to be ok with chicks that are… better equipped than average. Until she caves.”

I chuckled. That was cunning. And evil. While also cunningly evil.

“She didn’t swore the vow to Overtyrant, right?” She nodded in answer. No way she could act against an ‘official’ vow made in his name. “Then it can actually work, huh.”

The whole war was going to end tomorrow. On in few days top. As long as Leria wouldn’t break under pressure in that time, we had a lot of time to work on her.

“What a smart girl you are.” I moved my face closer to her. Much closer. She smiled - with her cheeks red - when she felt my hand on her thigh.” I’ll reward you generously for that.”

After all, who knows when will be the next time will be able to do that?

***

The city of Ambryxis was besieged for weeks now, and big part of it lied in ruins. In front of the walls lied ramparts erected by imperial engineers. Cannons and trebuchets bombarded the city 24/7. The former attempted to break through the walls, while the latter threw explosive bombs throughout the city, causing fires and deaths.

The Imperium was mostly ok with just blockading it. General Hnatiuk has been in the middle of negotiations with the Masked Council, the secretive rulers of the city. Obviously, they wanted to surrender. Equally obviously, most of them that were more … evil were already preparing their own escape from the city.

The gossip that the Imperium was going to give the area to the Vasyrrians helped them in making the decision.

The negotiations were almost ready when - exactly one day after the Yhrezerach’s warning, something unexpected happened. City gates suddenly opened wide and a flood of civilians began running towards the imperial lines.

Somebody would probably panicked and opened fire on them (there could be soldiers hidden among them), if not for two facts. One: the Imperial Army expected trouble. Second: In front of each of the city gate stood a batallion from the 1st. Imperial Division. Dividing the brigade that was delegated to this continent’ campaign was a hard choice, but it ensured that wherever the threat showed up, there would be some strong people to stop them. Their presence also helped calm other soldiers.

Soon after the first of the fleeing people reached imperial positions I’ve got a rough gist of what happened. And so did general Hnatiuk. Within twenty minutes, warmachines, assault troops and the entire brigade from the 1st Imperial Division (together with handpicked members of the Flame and all of us) immediately departed towards the city gates. In hurry.

***

I contacted Lybaer and quickly got my fears confirmed.

While we were weakening the influence of Pentagram in the Hold, Red Mist was strengthening its influence in Ambryxis. The chaos of Freedom offensive and the subsequent decline of the Masked Council’s power helped a lot, but the true nail to the coffin was the Twilight War and the gossips about khardics seizing power.

Red Mist’ cult spread far and wide in absolute secrecy. 99% of those that joined it didn’t know it was Pentagram, of course. But by the time they discovered that, they were too far gone to care. When the right time came, Red Mist launched a well organized coup.

The Woe fell almost immediately. Entire Masked Council was massacred within twenty minutes from the coup starting - together with the Lord. Barracks of the local army were attacked simultaneously and the soldiers were scattered. The same thing happened to the witch hunter headquarters - the testament to the witch hunters’ strength was that almost ⅓ of the Red Mist’ forces attacked them. ⅓ went for the Woe. And from the last remaining ⅓, ⅔ was divided between Adventurer’s Guild and the military barracks.

The only part of the city that held ground was the Adventurer’s Guild. Mostly because of my warnings. Lybaer concentrated his forces in the Guild’s headquarters, and the sheer number of Players inside meant that forces that Red Mist dedicated to taking it down simply weren’t sufficient.

Unfortunately, this meant that there were less adventurers in at least several secondary targets. Like the Adventurer’s Guild outposts near the dungeon entrances - Red Mist’ troops seized them ahead of schedule, quickly fortifying their positions and successfully repelling the attack from Dungeon Lords of all three Dungeons’ of the Ambryxis.

Nobody liked the Pentagram. Nobody.

However, this also meant that there was a significant concentration of armed men that managed to avoid getting taken down immediately. There were Players that survived outside of the headquarters - many were caught by the coup in their bedrooms in various inns and their personal lodgings. The still online Player chat allowed Lybaer and the Crimson Blades’ leadership to quickly assemble communication method that couldn’t be intercepted by the Pentagram’ cultists.

Within ten minutes from the shitstorm erupting, the Adventurer Guild became a focus point of the defenders. Surviving witch hunters, city militia (their headquarters fell as well), adventurers, soldiers and generally everyone with some fight left in them were fighting their way there.

In the meantime imperial forces stormed through the city gates. Unfortunately, a growing number of people running from the city was hindering our progress. It got even harder soon, as daemons of the Pentagram began running amok on the streets.

Then, everything exploded. Not literally, but it was close. The eruption of magic came from the Woe - within a second a pillar of light split the clouds above the city. The power of the city’s protective deity that supported the remaining faithful waned. The defensive magic on the walls collapsed.

I figured out what happened almost immediately. Red Mist almost succeeded in breaching the seal holding whatever abomination was imprisoned beneath the city. Ambryxis managed to barely suppress it by redirecting every ounce of power that was left in his body to the seal.

Whatever was trying to worm its way into Reality, it was powerful. The Reality began malfunctioning even with the seal still in place. The city began shattering as things began being pulled towards the skies. One of the nearest buildings (with local equivalent of a sex shop on the ground floor) was suddenly pulled up.

Or… wait. Pulled up… or pushed up? Was the thing beneath the city uncovering the failing seal by pushing out the things that ‘stood’ on it, bit by bit? If the city as a concept was part of the seal, each hit to it also weakened the seal… shit. At least the parts of the city sent flying were slowly levitating up rather than being thrown away with force, so we had still time to fix things.

***

The pandaemonium on the streets reached an apex when the daemons of the Pentagram began running amok among the streets. People were being slaughtered everywhere. The smartest people around were those that reacted to the madness by hiding in their basements.

Double points for those who had enough money to change their basements into a safehouses just in case. Most of people who had enough money did that.

There were also reports of glitches. Obviously.

One of the imperial units reached the holdout of the sane Ambryxians near the Adventurer’s Guild’ headquarters. In the meantime, me, Leria & Co were on our way towards the center of the madness. The High Temple of Ambryxis, at the very middle of the Woe.

Normally, we would have no chance of reaching it easily. However, the destruction of the city caught even the cultists off guard. It’s not easy to maintain a cohesive defensive line when everything around you goes to hell. What’s worse, the forces of the Red Mist were near the epicentre.

And we had a 1st. Imperial Division’ members as our escort. And the warmachines and assault units covered all the secondary fronts.

***

The Woe was dismantled. Big parts of it levitated in the sky, others seemed entirely gone. The cultists tried to fire at us from the remaining parts of the wall, but the soldiers around us wiped them out quickly. The defensive magic of the Ambryxis disappeared from them, as the deity was too busy trying to buy time against whatever was waking up.

We entered the fortress. Dead bodies everywhere. The Red Mist wasn’t nice when she took the place over. Cultists continuously attempted to stall us, but it couldn’t work. The Red Mist failed to take the place over fast enough, and they failed to began summoning things en masse.

Finally, Red Mist decided to face us openly.

“I admit, I didn’t expect you to show so fast.” She said, standing on the other edge of the audience hall. Alone, interestingly. She cast magic that transferred her words to us clearly, despite her standing far away. “You’ve done your job quite well.”

I signed to the soldiers to stand back. And then, together with Leria, we’ve walked forward, to meet the Red Mist.

“I presume that you will not quietly kneel before us and put your head on a chopping block, will you?” She answered me with a smile.

“Of course not. As you might have seen, I’ve did a lot of things as well. To begin with, I’ve found and caught every relative of the people that found refuge in the Hold. Those were a rather brutal and enjoyable meetings.” Her smile was almost cheerful. Despite the disgusting things she said.

“And we, in the meantime, made sure to have means of taking you down.” Leria said in my stead. And made a singular, minor gesture.

Chosen Ones are powerful by default. And those of Pentagram have the same supernatural sense as the creatures of Pentagram - sneaking upon them was almost impossible. Almost. They can detect everything near them. But… there were beings out there that could achieve just that.

One of the things Leria brought from the Vasyrria was the truth about Overkill. When the Prophetess seized the lands that now formed the heart of the khardic territories, she wasn’t much nicer that average zealous khardic. Sure, it was a march of liberation that saved millions from a tyranny quite similar to Tyranny of Ashkar. But sometimes, sometimes she was just mean.

There was a priest-king that opposed her with zeal, afraid of losing his privileged position and power over other beastmen. After she defeated him, she tore his soul out of his body and imprisoned him (forever) into a certain mask. Every being that put the mask on was possessed and then used to murder more and more evil people around - after killing enough of them, the spirit was going to be allowed to die. There used to be a lot of such masks, but most of them found their conclusion. That one was probably ‘lost’ somewhere until Overtyrant brought it back and had it act around Ambryxis.

The soul imprisoned within the mask picked a lot of skills in the meantime. Or maybe he was just good with eldritch beings? After all the priest-kings of the beastmen worshipped a lot of them. Needless to say, we decided that bringing him into the fold could be useful. Aurora spent a while searching for him, and had him obey by using certain words in ancient language from the original beastmen lands.

The rest was just making sure he was where he was supposed to be.

A sword suddenly erupted from Red Mist’ chest. Someone naturally immune to sneak attacks will obviously be startled when someone suddenly backstabs them. And that’s what happened to Red Mist. It bought us an important few seconds.

While the Overkill unleashed a series of devastating melee strikes (that, unlike the first one, mostly bounced off Red Mist defenses), soldiers leaped forward and cultists emerged from beneath powerful illusion spells. They were immediately supported by a number of powerful daemons.

Firewing unleashed her magic on Red Mist - but Red Mist received enough power in the meantime (together with some additional boons from Malice) that she has managed to held back against Firewing and Overkill in the same time.

By the time that the battle started for real, me and Leria were already gone.

***

Leria would obviously love to add the Malice’ Chosen One to her kill list - it would certainly help the future tales about her. But, we had more important job that only the two of us could do.

We’ve ran through the abandoned corridors of the Woe. Few remaining cultists were cut down by Leria before I even got close to them.

The building kept shaking. Hard to say if the power of the thing beneath continued dismantling it, or if the battle raging inside.

Soon, however, the cultist stopped showing. Instead, Glitches moved in. Futuristic soldiers tried to stop us, firing their equally futuristic guns. Few times, they came wearing a powered armors and spraying bullets like rain.

From the bodies of the cultists scattered around, I deduced that Red Mist was busy pushing towards the High Temple… only for the Glitches to interrupt her and buy us enough time to arrive.

Unfortunately for the Glitches, while they would decimate average combatants and probably fight the 1st. Division elites into stalemate, we were the worst enemies possible for them. We’ve got few levels in badass during weeks of being imprisoned in the Hold. Their rounds bounced from our shields, Leria slashed them apart ignoring their armors, and my Death Magic stopped their hearts.

We were eventually going to run out of magic. But it wasn’t going to happen soon.

Finally, we’ve reached our target. The High Temple of Ambryxis. Looked like a Middle Ages’ cathedral. Or, a rather grim parody. The symbols and art pieces around were ones that would have no place in an actual cathedral.

Ambryxis looked like he had seen better days. His form shrunk. He looked like a kid with black eyes, wearing black and gold robe that was much too large for him. He sat on the altar, accompanied by…

...Black Hand himself. Still the same darkling as always, including the inflated ego. He seemed to chastise Ambryxis for something. AMBRYXIS. THE DEITY. I could scarcely believe the ammount of balls one had to possess to do that.

There was a powerful magical barrier in front of them. Filled with enough of Tyrant’ power to serve as a good defense against the Glitches. They preferred to steer clear of it, enough to leave us alone when we entered the room.

“... wouldn’t be in that situation, if you did YOUR DAMN JOB!” Black Hand almost shouted. “It’s a full scale Pentagram invasion, and… what the hell was sealed beneath the city?! Why haven’t you told me anything about that?!”

“...because you would probably find a way to tinker with it, killing everyone.” I said loudly, bringing us to their attention.

“You… who the fuck are you?” Black Hand seemed to be the one wearing trousers in that relationship.

“Chosen Ones. That are here for your god’s head.” Leria answered him, wiping the glitchy blood from her sword. “Firewing also asked us to get your head. She sends her greetings.”

“Firewing? She’s alive?” Ambryxis said, almost faintly. He must have been really weakened by recent events. In his peak power he would be much bigger, more powerful and with a … more… domineering personality. I found a lot of lore bits about the ‘Brides’ of Ambryxis, and…

Well. Fuck Ambryxis.

“Well, looks like your last defender failed to inform you of his deal with a creature that brought at least one civilization to its demise. And that he tried to groom both Firewing and Sapphire into sacrifices for his own ascension.” Aww, the look Ambryxis gave to Black Hand was the best. “Unfortunately to him, the being in question is in fact a Daemon God that is playing him around, and because of his actions, at least part of it will be freed soon.”

“You did WHAT?!” Ambryxis knew a lot about things happening in city. He simply didn’t care about a lot of them. And there were beings powerful enough to hide their acts from it. Dungeon Lords and the veteran archmages like Black Hand were good examples.

Nobody wants Scary Ancient Things being unearthed. Even beings like Ambryxis which, if certain events played the right way, could become the Scary Ancient Things waiting to be unearthed.

“They are lying, you idiot!” Ambryxis looked like he just connected some dots and wasn’t really sure about anything anymore. The drop in power must have robbed him of both power and intelligence. “Stay on the other side of the barrier. It’s linked directly to the seal. It will take you months to breach it. Feel free to talk as much as you can.”

Bad move, mate.

“Leria, would you kindly do… the thing?” She answered with an almost… murderously happy face.

Then she took down her weird, metallic ‘backpack’.

“What is that thing?” Black Hand got suspicious.

Leria pushed the button at the top of the backpack, which was one more gift from our favourite demigod. A part of it opened. Ambryxis and Black Hand screamed in terror, only for their screams to be cut short when the Yhrezerach, that emerged from the container, snuffed out the barrier and both the archmagician and the half-dead deity.

And then everything exploded.