Chapter 154

Ajimal The Great

A Family Reunion

The fact that Ajimal was being summoned at all was beyond him. He was an emperor of the world, one of the few great generals who were carving their place among the leaders of history. Even still, he was summoned, just as all others were. Yet, Ajimal knew the call was not for one such as him. Who was he to answer to the whims of the gods. He was beyond such petty things. He had carved his own future upon the world. He no longer needed the approval of the Gods’ for his perfect body told him he was blessed with a Perfect Body. A final blessing that all but guaranteed he would remain in peak physical form, for all time.

Blessing Bestowed: Perfect Body Perfect Body: You have achieved the maximum bonus that the Gods can bestow upon you, by achieving +50 to all attributes. Your body has reached the state of perfection that the Gods could give you. Any further growth will need to be achieved on your own. Reward: Your attributes and previous achievements are locked. While you can still gain curses from the Gods, no curses will be able to lower your Attributes.

That was why, when he received his first curse, he paid no mind. Even going so far as to scoff at the decree of the gods.

Curse Bestowed: Unappealing. Unappealing: The Gods have seen your actions and found you to be lacking. Your body gives off a sickening smell of rot. This curse cannot be removed until you have achieved the task set out before you.

Still, even with this curse, he paid little heed to the whims of the Gods. Who was he to be led about by the nose like some filthy mongrel. He was a king, a god amongst men. He knew his power; he also knew that the powers that had been granted by the gods in such a way could not be undone. That was when he was filled with yet another curse.

Curse Bestowed: Poison Tongue. Poison Tongue: The Gods have seen your actions and found you to be lacking. Your voice now drips with venom. All who hear your words will hear the serpentine hiss of a liar in every word you speak. This curse cannot be removed until you have achieved the task set out before you, and you truly ask for forgiveness from a proven follower of the Gods.

This caused yet more paranoia to flare in Ajimal’s mind. Yet, he remained quiet. While these curses happened once an hour, every hour, they had not directly impacted his ability to lead his army. For this was nighttime, a time when he and the rest of his should be sleeping.

Yet, it was Aren who seemed to awake first.

Sniff. Sniff.

“Ugh! What is that smell?” Aren asked, as she got up and began instantly looking for spilt wine or soured milk. Yet, the more she looked, the more she was confused. The smell was clearly coming from the bed, but she couldn’t find where the stain was. “Oh, you need to get out so we can change the sheets.”

With that, Ajimal felt fear in his heart. The look of discomfort on Aren’s face was so prolific that it was clear she had a hard time staying in the same sleeping quarters as he did.

“What is it that you smell?” Ajimal asked. At least that is what he intended to ask, but upon hearing the words and harsh syllables that came from his own lips, Aren recoiled in pain.

“What happened to you?” Aren asked.

This was the moment that panic struck, as he realized the curses that he had experienced and dismissed as a mere trivial nature were much more. He was on the verge of telling his beloved wife that he was about to leave, to partake in a mandated request to identify what happened to the High Wood Elven stronghold, when he was hit with his third curse.

Curse Bestowed: Echelon Drop. Echelon Drop: The Gods have seen your actions and found you to be lacking. For the sake of measuring bonuses, all your Attributes, Skills, and Magical Abilities will be reduced by one Echelon when determining your overall capabilities. This curse cannot be removed until you have achieved the task set out before you. You must also truly ask for forgiveness from a proven follower of the Gods. And finally, you must journey to the heart of the now disabled titan labyrinth to have this curse removed.

This was the straw that broke the lightning cloud’s back. This meant that his perfectly achieved seventh echelon attributes that were so close, were now very far away. Worse, one more and his fifth echelon ability, one that he prized himself on, would likely be removed with another similar curse. Not wanting to wait any longer and possibly incur the further ire of the Gods. Ajimal bowed to his wife and said “I must adhere to a summoning from the Gods. I will be back.”

Hearing that, and seeing the pale look on his face, Aren visibly looked equal parts lost and confused. This was so unlike the brave leader that she knew that she wondered if he had imagined the whole thing. She took a step closer to console him but was quickly stopped as her nose seemed to hit an invisible barrier of stench.

Seeing the look of disgust that flowed along the otherwise gorgeous features of the woman he loved, he nodded then quickly departed. Only going so far as to grab his sacred sword from its scabbard that hung on the wall of their room.

With that he began flying in the direction he had originally seen. He knew the direction well, as it was pretty much straight south from his current headquarters. While his forces stretched from ocean to ocean, he often found that remaining in one centralized location helped with the overall coordination of his forces.

With that he fled south, flying as quickly as possible. With this rare moment of being alone he let his mind wonder. First, he thought to curse the Gods that would break their words. But upon closer inspection, it was Ajimal who did not heed the words of the Gods carefully enough. The blessing of Perfect Body didn’t say that he could no longer be cursed. Rather, he was warned that curses could no longer lower his attributes.

Instead, the curses he received affected him on a deeper karmic level. As he flew, he realized that is what each curse was designed for. He had denied the call of the Gods. As such the Gods increasingly cursed him with flaws that would make him a social pariah. Just the look of complete disgust that filled Aren’s face was enough to make him want to seek vengeance against the Gods. But he knew this would not be so easy. Not only was he cursed, but he now had to go through three increasingly difficult tasks to have his curses removed.

The first one, the smell was but the easiest to resolve. That only required investigating the former ancestral home of the High Wood Elves. These second one was even tougher, for how could one prove that someone was a follower of the Gods? Then there was the final task, the one that sent chills down his spine. He needed to travel to the center of the Titan Labyrinth? He remembered some research that his scryers had performed recently. The scryers had put together a comprehensive report on the various Titan Labyrinths around the old continent.

As he flew, Ajimal searched his mind for the reason for the recent report. He remembered it had something to do with one of his generals. Then in a moment of insight he remembered the way Ghane, his last great general had lost a duel before the Gods. Worse, his own men attacked and cheated during the battle, and still lost.

That was the thing, how could his prized general lose a battle, especially if his own troops helped to cheat on his behalf. The whole thing seemed too absurd. Yet, here they were, everyone was focusing on fulfilling the extra conditions laid out by the winner. Lykan Vov’Vita.

That name still sent shivers down his spine. He had lost so much from that one name alone. He lost his sister who went mad and now terrorized the wilderness. He saw, and even attempted to recruit the monster of a man, back before he had the Veteran of Valor, or ‘Vov’ title added by the Gods to his last name.

Click.

Then in that moment, upon making that realization about the title bestowed upon Lykan by the Gods. Ajimal had his answer. He realized finally who it was that would be a proven follower of the Gods. Then if his mind was to be believed, he felt that Lykan would also likely be the one to help with his third condition of traveling to the heart of a dungeon.

The whole thing seemed too perfect to not all be tied together. At least he hoped they were tied together. If not, if the Gods had truly cursed him with three increasingly difficult tasks to perform that had no relationship to one another, then he would have to deal with that, when the time came.

Still, he knew that at the very least he should be able to find Lykan here at the ruins of the High Wood Elves. Lykan had after all been trained at these very ruins when he was a child. In fact, it was this knowledge of the High Wood Elves that first sparked such an interest in the boy. Now to be drawn here, to the place that made him a legend on the Sidherthan Academy was almost too perfect. This was why he was certain he would find Lykan here.

This was also why; he thought the tasks were liked. If his scryers were to be believed, each Titan Labyrinth was built at roughly the same exact distance from each other. While there were a lot of beliefs as to why they were built where they were, the fact that they were separated at the same intervals from each other was easy to notice. Then the fact that his men already marked out a plot of lands within the great forest where one such labyrinth must exist. This of course was in the same general direction that he was now heading. The same direction that his request from the Gods indicated he should go.

No, the more he thought about it, he realized the Gods wanted him here. It wasn’t just to see the ruins, though that was clearly part of it. Instead, it almost felt like the Gods wanted Ajimal to realize something. There was a harsh truth, that he and his men still were missing. Even after the Gods reluctantly accepted their findings as enough to appease the additional taskings provided by Lykan. There was still something that held them back. The scryers and scientists under Ajimal’s employ quickly identified the labyrinths. They also noted how each labyrinth was poisonous to those who were able to wield the magic of the world. There was also the fact that Nulls like his wife consort, Aren, were seemingly immune to the poisons of the labyrinths.

There was more there, but in the end, they had identified the key word that the Gods were looking for. It was likely the same word Lykan had been forcing them to search for when he added the condition that Ajimal and his forces find out the real enemy. He had of course been speaking about the real enemy of the Gods, and of the world itself. An enemy that had supposedly been driven back to extinction by the very Gods themselves. Gods that now demanded his arrival at this historic event.

Why would searching the remains of the High Wood Elven compound be important? Why would he need to be here and be forced to not only speak with someone who he was more than certain was Lykan, given all the clues around his very nature. Also the way he managed to disappear completely, after being directly in the heart of their city was not lost on Ajimal. He was either a true ghost, or he had received some sort of divine protection. With everything going on, Ajimal assumed the latter.

He made his way over the volcanic mountain range. Then was able to easily find the outline of where the old High Wood Elven stronghold once stood. The massive crater stood where once hundreds of ancient trees once stood proudly. There at the center were several women who were flying around the hole. From this distance, their movements reminded Ajimal of human sized flies that buzzed around a dead carcass.

Then true to form, he made out a being that even dead caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end. It was clear that some type of powerful monster died shortly after exiting the hole in the ground.

He was almost upon the hole in the ground, when one of the human sized bugs flying round overhead stood out to Ajimal’s heightened senses. It had been years since he last saw her, but the shape and beauty of his sister was easy to distinguish in the night. Particularly since she was circling around a red headed elemental master.

Ajimal didn’t quite know what was happening, but there was a dragon that lay on the ground nearby, with a giant scorch mark coming from its charred and blackened skin. Looking at the downed creature, and the way Nayali stood protectively in between the monster and the maneuvering elementalist, it was clear that this was about to escalate into something terrible. Worse, Ajimal was stuck between a rock and a hard place as he had to protect his sister, that much was certain. He also didn’t know what this woman’s relationship, if any, was to Lykan.

With those two factors in mind, Ajimal made his move to de-escalate the situation.