Strange how it had taken seven whole days for the world to actually start ending for Rory.

All this time, he had persevered no matter what. He had found people to help, discovered powers he could use to face any challenge thrown before him, worked hard to create a place they could all live, survive, and even prosper in. All for nothing. One, true assault, and now they were all falling and dying.

The smoky air taunted him for daring to breathe, the coruscating light from all the lightning told him to stop looking already, and the noise… the screams, the thunder, the shrieks of death and agony, they all made him want to tear his ears off. Rory wasn’t made for this kind of battle. He’d known that since the beginning. But he had thought he had done enough to help the others be ready for it.

Apparently not.

A nearby scream lanced into his ears. Rory tried to move away from it, tried to shut it out. But then recognition returned with harsh clarity. His name. It was his name being shrieked out.

“Rory!”

Viv. She was calling him. She needed him.

“Rory!”

What was he doing, lying there, dazed and barely alive? What was he doing when there were people hurting, when Viv was screaming out his name like that?

“Rory! Get up.”

Growling, dragging in a lungful of air that refused to settle in his lungs, Rory forced himself upright. The world twisted in his vision, a throbbing ache spasming through his head. He’d been hit hard. He’d been—

Rory felt bile rise from his guts at the realization of what had sent him into the dazed stupor in the first place settled.

“Rory, please,” Viv shouted again. “I need your help. Now.”

A red arc shot past Rory as he tried to see where Viv was. He cowered from the crimson flash. A Thundershell shrieked just behind him. Rory scrambled away on his hands and knees, barely keeping a grip on his staff. That had been too close. Incredible that a monster of that size had gotten so near him.

Rory froze. Enough. Enough of being dazed and useless. He had taken far too long to recover from the shock. What he needed to do was act.

He stood, his legs shaking as though they wanted to give in at any moment. Rory found Viv without trouble when he looked properly. His dazed condition must have been what was making locating her difficult before, for there was more than enough light to see by.

After all, the Thunderclaw Knight had prepared another enormous lightning bolt to hammer down on them all.

“Rory,” Viv shouted one more time.

She was a mess. With her good hand, she was holding her stump with a hard grip to reduce the outflow of blood. Her hair was in a charred disarray and nasty burns covered her shoulder and one of her legs. Rory would have wondered how she still looked ready to fight regardless of her condition, but then he recalled her Sigil of Prime.

Enough. They’d all suffered enough. Doomed or not wasn’t the question. The others were still fighting where they were able, and the least Rory could do was keep making the same effort.

Rory summoned his Harmonic Blizzard again, focusing all its destructive power on the Thunderclaw Knight before him. At the same time, he focused the preservation effect on Viv’s bleeding stump. He didn’t get to see if it worked.

The Thunderclaw Knight hammered down its enormous lighting.

This time, Rory was ready. He had dealt with it before. Back in the substation, he had saved everyone from certain death by using his Sigil of Weaving. He could do so again. His Weaving was much stronger now. It had to work.

The Sigil of Weaving’s lines of white light burst out in a separate storm around him. Rory focused on the gigantic descending column of lightning as his heart pounded hard enough to drum a hole in his chest.

The impact of the Thunderclaw’s attack struck like a meteor. A familiar feeling of impossible weight landed on Rory’s shoulder, as though he was suddenly bearing an upside mountain astride his shoulders. There was no other protection for him. Nothing to stop the light from boring into his eyes and burn out his retinas, nothing preventing the deafening sound from rupturing his eardrums.

But he did have his Harmonic Blizzard. It had spent enough time preserving Viv’s stump, so Rory switched the preservation upon himself , even if it was belated.

The Knight’s incredible attack had compressed Rory’s Weaving back into a desperate sphere around him. It was holding there, but it hadn’t counted for the effect the lightning would have on everything else. In moments, the entire area started shaking and falling apart. Maybe Rory had successfully prevented himself from being burned to ash, but he was about to be blown off his feet.

Except Viv decided to interrupt proceedings. Arc after arc of burning red energy slammed into the monster, ramming into the quick net of lightning it had thrown around itself.

A mere distraction. One of the red arcs shot to Rory’s vicinity, and as Viv arrived next to him, she stabbed her sabre into the ground by his feet so that they both disappeared the next second. Moments later, Rory found himself to the right of the monster.

Viv had arrived just in time. As Rory fought against his disorientation from the surprising teleportation, the ground around the blistering lightning bolt exploded. More shrapnel flew everywhere, Rory’s blizzard the only thing that stopped him and Viv from being perforated.

“Look,” Viv said, pointing with her remaining hand. “We’ve got a guest.”

Rory peered through the murk of his wintry storm to see a green glow coalescing around the Thunderclaw Knight. Then a surprising figure stepped into view.

The Wraith Lord.

He fought with incredible ferocity. His large, green sword clanged against the Knight’s curved blade, deadly viridian energy warring against the electricity flying in every direction. But the only thing really working for him was the element of surprise. His Lifedrain had no real effect on the Knight itself.

“He’s not going to last long,” Rory said, his voice sounding alarmingly broken. He decided to worry about it if they managed to come out of this alive.

Viv squeezed his hand hard with her remaining hand. “But he’s buying us some time. We need to make that count. We need to find a way to put it down for good.”

“How long do you have?”

She looked at him distractedly. “What?”

“Your arm.” Rory swallowed. He looked down at Viv’s injury and felt as though a part of him was dying as he watched. His ice had frozen it solid, but it hadn’t been enough. Blood was still falling from it. “It’s not going to last long like that. We need to patch it up. We need Evelyn.”

“No time. We’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

“You don’t think this is the bigger worry for me?”

“Rory. It just hurts. It was unbearable before, but your ice did the trick. I can handle it for now. We’ll address it once that bastard is broken and buried. For now, we need to make use of the time we got thanks to your Wraith Lord friend.”

A break. A tiny moment of peace since this madness had started when Rory could actually pause and think, apply everything he had learned so far to the problem at hand. What could he do against an unkillable, all-powerful monster that couldn’t be stopped by anything or anyone? There was no Arelland to save them this time, and the sheer power the Knight displayed made Rory doubt even the elf could have taken it on.

No, there was no point in taking that kind of approach for himself. His powers lay elsewhere. Sigils. That was what Rory could do. That was what Rory’s whole schtick revolved around.

What he needed was a Sigil of….

It just hurts.

Unbearable.

“What are you thinking, Rory?” Viv looked at him, eye to eye. He met her gaze, knew the desperation there was a reflection of his own. “Tell me.”

“It’s nuts. We-we’ll have to figure out something el—”

Her hand squeezed his forearm hard. “What is it?”

“Pain,” Rory blurted out. “If I could get a Sigil of Pain, maybe I could Ward it into him.”

“What?”

Haltingly, reluctantly, Rory explained his hairbrained scheme to Viv. Her eyes winded with every word he said. “That thing doesn’t feel pain. If we could change that, think of the advantage we’d have.”

Viv agreed far too readily for his liking. “Do it.”

Rory shook his head, taking a step back. “Viv. You might still need it. Evelyn might be able to reattach it. It’s your own arm for crying out loud!”

She didn’t give credence to his arguments. Instead, she hurried past him, head bent down as she searched the ground for her cut-off forearm. Rory felt his mouth twisting. He hated when she got belligerent and stubborn like that, set on her path with no room for other perspectives.

“Viv!” Rory said.

He tried to stop her, but by the time he reached her, she had straightened. Rory froze. Her sliced-off arm was in her grip. Viv held it out for Rory, ignoring just how grisly the offering was.

“It’s gone, Rory,” she said in the voice that brooked no argument. “The only thing we can do now is make use of it. Let’s go.”

Rory closed his eyes. Lightning flashed off to their right, a sudden cry startling out of his momentary conflict. He turned to see the Wraith Lord get stabbed through his guts by the Knight’s giant curved sword. Just as it had done with the lich, the Knight raised its victim high in the air.

“Now or never, Rory!” Viv shouted.

Rory cursed. He activated his, turning its focus on the bleeding arm, on the moment it had been torn off its body and the sheer agony its separation had caused. The white lines sank into it and soon turned it into a red Sigil with the image of a contorted head, mouth gaping open in what had to be a silent scream.

New Sigil!

You’ve obtained a Sigil of Pain. No pain, no gain. It’s true for both those who suffer it, and those who make others suffer it.

[Cerulean VI] allows intense agony suffering for 320 seconds over 40% of the body.

Stats

Type: Concept

Rarity: Ordinary

Tier: Cerulean VI [0%]

Efficiency: Medium [35%]

Rory had no time to admire his new Sigil. Lightning flashed with all-consuming brilliance, and the Wraith Lord screamed as he started burning and falling apart. Rory growled. So many had fallen today, thanks to that vile monster. So many were dead or devastated in some way.

No more.

“Viv,” Rory said.

She was already on it. Her sabre was digging into the ground, spreading a pool of crimsons energy around their feet. As the Wraith Lord started to fall apart under the assault of the Knight’s lightning, Viv threw as large a crimson slash as she could with one hand. Rory gripped her wounded arm and disappeared.

When he reappeared, he was thrown forward to collide with the brittle ground. He turned quickly, his skin prickling with lightning and his nose clogged with the smell of burning metal. Right before him stood the Thunderclaw Knight. The monster hadn’t noticed him. Viv’s quick thinking had spared him form the Knight’s attention, but with the Wraith now seemingly dead, she was in the line of fire.

Now or never.

Rory rose and reached as high as he could. He slammed the Sigil of Pain against the Thunderclaw’s body. The contact sparked electricity, sizzling Rory’s hand, but all he had needed was that one moment’s touch. Activating his Sigil of Warding, Rory inserted the new Sigil into the Knight’s waist.

At the same time, he pulled out some Mana and pressed it to the spot he had just Woven the Sigil of Pain. The Sigil’s image glowed red, then turned black as it activated.

Rory’s ears cringed as the Knight screamed out. Its shriek was as bad as the thunder that had been going on everywhere, piercing into Rory’s skull as though it wanted to impale his brain.

But he didn’t care. All he saw was the monster lying on the ground, jerking and twisting as though it had been electrified. The Sigil of Pain had immobilized it. Its sword had fallen, and the Wraith Lord was trying to free himself. Of course, it still wasn’t completely down. Lighting flickered over its prone form, and it tried to free itself from the agony’s embrace.

Not on Rory’s watch.

“Now’s our chance,” he shouted despite the way his throat clamped up. “Attack!”

Rory thought Viv would be the only capable of following his lead, but it seemed there were more of them than he had thought. As he struck out with his staff, bolts of ice freezing the monster in place, several different attacks crashed in from elsewhere.

First to strike were the black salvos of Abyssal Inferno from Dez, who had managed to get back to his feet in the distance. The black fireballs struck like lightning bolts, each impact shaking the ground and sending shrapnel flying in all directions.

The Wraith Lord followed in soon after. He was nursing the wound to his guts with one hand, but the other had slashed his sword to throw his magic-suppressing aura at the Knight.

Last but not at least, Viv raised her good arm high much as their adversary had done. As though the monster recognized that it signalled a final bow, it started to struggle more. Thankfully, Rory had used its pain-immobilized moments to wrap most of it in ice. There was no way it was getting back up.

Red light covered the area. Viv had summoned her Omnipresent Sabre again, but a version of it that was at least forty feet tall, its cross-guard flaring a dozen feet on either side.

Then she slammed it down.

The impact with the Thunderclaw Knight caused an explosion to erupt in front of Rory. Viv’s scarlet energy combined with Dez’s black flames to form a volatile mixture, a geyser of black-and-red energy bursting several storeys into the sky. The detonation shook the entire area, the Knight’s scream dying within the inferno.

Rory was thrown off his feet, though there wasn’t much space to go anywhere. His back struck the wall of the palace grounds. As the fires and energy started dying down, a cerulean glow caught his eye. Pain clawed at him, but he had to move.

The last move of the battle was ahead of him.

Rory used his Weaving to cut a path through the chaos of roiling energy before him. The Sigil he received was strange, but the system seemed to know he was busy by the way he shoved it into a pocket and didn’t bother showing him the description. All for the better, for Rory had reached the Thunderclaw’s core.

Even as he watched, tiny chunks of the Knight’s shattered body were trying to stick back against the core. Little lines of electricity were sparking off in all directions.

“Not so fast,” Rory muttered.

Once more, he used his Weaving, this time turning all its focus on the glowing core. All the white lines sank in so fast, the core turned from blue to white in seconds. A moment later, a polished, light blue Sigil lay where it had been. All the lightning snuffed out and all the tiny bits and pieces of the Thunderclaw coming towards the core now fell lifeless to the ground.

Finally. The Thunderclaw Knight was truly dead. They had won.