Amdirlain’s PoV - Culerzic

The presence of the surrounding demons rankled Amdirlain’s nerves, and it wasn’t an act when a Greater Schir tried to cut ahead of them. Her snarl came out with a crush of projected agony in an echo of the vile music within him. Dominion drove the Schir and a hundred demons around them to their knees. “Wait your turn, wretch.”

“Kill him for his arrogance,” hissed Erwarth, but Amdirlain caught her concern beneath the outward facade.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Amdirlain said, and she grabbed the struggling Schir by a twisted horn and threw him towards the gorge. When his feet left the road, she spun in place, and a tail slap broke bones and added momentum to a flight she controlled with Far Hand. The moment he touched the mists above the river, Amdirlain heard the effect of the waters at work, stripping away memories and chewing into the demonic essence.

The wards on the gorge prevented him from teleporting away, and Amdirlain shot Erwarth a glance. “Guess his ability to Teleport wasn’t strong enough to rescue him from the wards.”

“Such a shame indeed,” purred Erwarth.

Listening carefully, Amdirlain caught that the effect was only within the gorge itself; the stygian’s mists hid the additional wards' energies. Tuned to the wards’ nature, Amdirlain focused but couldn’t find the same effect within the town except in isolated locations. Silent notes shared the information Amdirlain had gained through Erwarth’s mental barrier, and she nodded in apparent satisfaction.

Not giving the demons a chance to recover, Amdirlain moved through the crowd and pushed aside those that obstructed her way. The Schir contingent at the toll station looked at the pair of them, and Amdirlain’s rage-twisted expression before they pushed a smaller guard forward to speak. Amdirlain offered a single coin and gestured to Erwarth to make it clear it was to cover both.

A fearful bleat-like noise escaped the Demon’s lips, and he waved them through, making no motion towards the coin. “No charge, no charge.”

“Are you thinking of the agony you wish to share with someone, lover?” murmured Erwarth.

“Why yes,” growled Amdirlain.

Erwarth gave a twisted smile and raked a glance across the guards. “Save your rage for the merchants; perhaps you’ll break their pricing margins.”

Amdirlain didn’t respond but moved through the open gate, leaving Erwarth to follow. As she breached the outer wards, Amdirlain took in their reaction—acknowledging her species and apparent tier—their judgement matched the concealment Amdirlain had set in place.

Their bridge crossing was without incident, with those ahead hurrying to get through the gates.

“Did you cast a Haste spell on them?” joked Erwarth dryly.

“It's my shining personality,” growled Amdirlain as the wards beneath her mocked the memory of Torm’s entrapment.

The fury she’d sung out flared again, and other memories taunted her with familiar and unfamiliar failures. Their energy pulsed through her, and Amdirlain surged forward, setting the demons ahead of them sprinting.

“We should leave,” whispered Erwarth.

“Go then, I’ve things to do,” hissed Amdirlain, and she continued to slither across, focused on memorising the river’s song. She caught an energy flare atop the stacked damned and a new form squeezed into existence, adding to the compression of the near-ceiling high stacks. Those near the top lay curiously flat, and when she got close enough, it was clear weight bands held them down, even as they waved and kicked, trying to get up.

As she approached the town’s gate, the reason for its obstructed view became clear: the naked bodies of thousands of damned formed winding passages beyond the town’s outer walls. Like the exterior walls, they lay in stacks that reached towards the ceiling. Along the first passage, Amdirlain could see the flares of new arrivals. It was a bizarre and twisted fate, with those towards the base squeezed into a pulp that oozed forth tiny larvae, each with a screaming face.

Least Tier quasits sped along the walls' base, each gathering up the scattered maggots into pouches stitched from flayed faces. Those whose pouches had nearly grown full gave the impression that the pouches still lived in that state with their mouths and eyes sealed shut. The maggots within added bulges that contoured in a proxy of agony.

As they worked their way deeper into the town, Amdirlain didn’t find buildings. Each area, be it stores or workshops, existed within the walls of the damned. The variously-sized cul-de-sacs off the main paths found use according to the space they provided. Large loops had become smelters or warehouses, while smaller ones were one or more stores set in free-standing racks.

The casual cruelties Amdirlain witnessed along the pathways spiked her rage in response. On each path they took, Amdirlain focused on listening for mortals. Not wanting to be caught out by new arrivals, she left linked songs, scanning for non-demonic life. Yet hours of exploring the large town didn’t turn up anything beyond the presence of pests and spiders among the stacks of the damned.

A pained screech caught at the rage that had simmered beneath her skin for hours, and Amdirlain saw red. A Quasit she’d seen scrambling for maggots screeched repeatedly and thrashed in vain to free its tail from beneath a Schir’s hoof. Her path took Amdirlain by him as the goat-faced Demon broadcast thoughts of revelling in his pointless sadism. Bending to snatch it up, the Schir rose with the Quasit’s head clasped in one hand and the wings in the other. A millimetre at a time, the Schir steadily pulled, all his attention focused on experiencing the Quasit’s expected death throes.

The noise of the Quasit’s screeches dug into her ear, and Amdirlain lashed out. The blow from above smashed a course through the Schir’s shoulder into his ribs before it crushed his heart and spine.

[Combat Summary:

Schir x1

Total Experience gained: 5,037

Ostimë: +2,518

Ontãlin: +2,518]

The Quasit gasped in relief and looked at Amdirlain in surprise.

“You’d best not screech again,” growled Amdirlain, her writhing tail accenting the harsh command. “Any slave dealers in this place?”

“Mortals can’t stand being down here, especially not near the mine,” replied the Quasit.

“No toys, bored now,” grunted Amdirlain unhappily. “Get out of my sight.”

With that, both the Quasit and the Schir’s allies fled as one.

Though she hadn’t expected to find anything new, a hideous rasping noise beckoned them along a bend in the path. They entered a large area at the cavern’s edge where the walls curved around a deep depression. The height advantage of the pit’s lip allowed her to see an eldritch horror, pinned to the ground with bands of True Song Crystal keeping it in place, despite the sheer malevolence that stained even the Abyss’ miasma.

Its main body was the size of an Olympic stadium, and the bands that crisscrossed it pinned it down, but still allowed claw-covered tentacles the size of lorries to thrash and scrabble ineffectively at the ground. Within each band, the enduring strength of dozens of choirs compressed its form into something discernable while suppressing its abilities. Aeons worth of marks showed where the being had slowly worn away at the stone, but its progress had simply caused the bands to push it deeper into the ground.

Above its thrashing limbs, walkways filled with demons watched its misery as they supped on delicacies of agony and spite. The essence of the thing caused a kaleidoscope of after images as its very nature fought the constraints that bound it here. With even its suppressed strength a keening dissonance, Amdirlain didn’t even try Analysis.

Erwarth moved ahead of Amdirlain and took the busiest passage away from the pit. Despite Erwarth’s hasty departure, Amdirlain followed at a leisurely pace, trying to memorise snippets of the song’s overwhelming complexity. Spurred on by the being’s presence, Erwarth left Amdirlain behind, but ironically, the concealment song made it simple to find her again.

The path Erwarth had chosen eventually joined onto a wide concourse packed with carts piled high with ore. By the time Erwarth turned onto it, Amdirlain was nearly level with her, and their presence forced drivers to swerve along the wall. The damned—at their height—had been so thoroughly squashed they could no longer flail or scratch.

The entry to the mine was a sloped pit a few kilometres away from the eldritch horror. The maze of tunnels beneath the cavern floor made Amdirlain wonder what would happen if it eventually broke into them. Taking advantage of the crowds, Amdirlain deliberately picked a path that took far longer to transverse. Despite the Quasit’s claim, and having seen the imprisoned horror for herself, Amdirlain sent scores of songs through the tunnels’ scanning for Mortal life. None returned with the faintest trace of anything but demons having been within the mines.

Once she found a path that exposed the cavern’s back wall, Amdirlain listened carefully to determine the reach of the wards. When she’d plotted its course, she pulled a funnel of stone into Inventory, and carefully extended a passage from the widest point that stayed within the wards. Though the entry was barely a half metre in height, the interior gave them enough space to turn towards each other. Hunched forward, Amdirlain slithered into the hollow she’d created and reformed in a Succubus body to allow Erwarth enough space to enter.

“Plan?” asked Erwarth once she was completely within the passage.

Rather than immediately explain, Amdirlain released the stone funnel from Inventory to seal the cavern’s end of the passage. Whispered notes hung glowing into the air and formed sheets filled with musical notation. Without prompting, Erwarth took the pages and looked over the song Amdirlain had composed.

“The principal theme is adamantine, but I’m not sure what you’re doing with the undertones throughout this song,” stated Erwarth, and she gave Amdirlain a puzzled look.

“I’ll need you to focus the song as deep into the mines beneath us as you can. The undertones are anchor points for my song to link to,” explained Amdirlain, and she gave a harsh smile. “No slaves here or in the mines. I plan to let the stygian wash this place away and drown these adamantine mines for all time.”

“The river is a dangerous target to even attempt altering,” cautioned Erwarth.

Amdirlain nodded. “Our songs won’t touch the river directly—I’m going to alter the riverbed. The mine’s anchor points will guide me in cutting an alternative course. I’ve got some preparation work to do first. I want linked songs to do most of the heavy lifting of dissolving the stone.”

“Did we even have to come inside?” asked Erwarth softly. “You’ve had me worried a few times with how you behaved.”

“Erwarth, acting training, remember? I’m channelling my pain, and while I don’t know when that pain will ease, I didn’t come here to lash out randomly at demons,” stated Amdirlain. Feeling the anger start to rise, she exhaled sharply and forced herself to stop. “What was that creature?”

The muscles in Erwarth’s jaw bunched as she ground her teeth together, but Amdirlain waited her out.

“I’m not sure. It felt like something from the Far Chaos,” Erwarth replied. “Maybe a foreign God that wasn’t cooperative or thought it could control the realm—hundreds of them ended up imprisoned on the lower planes for various reasons. Well, those that weren’t just slain for intruding. It doesn’t look like the Abyss was copying only Orhêthurin now, does it?”

Amdirlain frowned at Erwarth’s knowing tone. “Is that why you suggested this as a location to investigate? Were you seeking to prove a point? Because to me, it proves that if I make significant alterations, it will get the Abyss’ attention and cause them to be copied.”

“I’d heard tales about something trapped here, but it was the only location for accessing the Stygian River that I knew about on Culerzic,” huffed Erwarth.

“Seal the rock completely. It should be a perfect fit, but I don’t think we want anything getting in while we work,” instructed Amdirlain as she pushed her frustration aside.

Nodding, Erwarth also took on her Succubus form, and quick notes merged the stone Amdirlain had set back in place with the wall. As Erwarth studied the pages properly, Amdirlain worked out the shortest path between the gorge and the mine tunnels. She laid out markers of linked songs to create hydraulic pressure by pulling in a stormwater tunnel of water into a needle-sized hole. Once Amdirlain laid out the first series, she placed another set to erode the stone between each point, lessening the resistance they’d provide once things started.

“After we’ve flooded the mine, I’ll disintegrate a tunnel past the wards and trigger the Sisterhood detection.”

“Have you considered what will happen if Moloch crushes the Sisterhood fortress on Hrz’Styrn?” asked Erwarth.

“He’d get Laodice’s prison, and. . .?”

The lack of concern in Amdirlain’s voice set Erwarth aback. “I thought you wanted to free her?”

“It won’t matter where that prison is once I’ve got the means to free her. It might be interesting to see how a fight between the Concept of War and Moloch goes,” answered Amdirlain.

“Her imprisonment will have weakened her,” warned Erwarth.

A small smile flitted across Amdirlain’s lips. “I shared her name with Moke. Has anyone started praying to her yet?”

Erwarth shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“The Leviathan’s blood stops her from naturally recovering, but prayers should let her regain her normal strength,” suggested Amdirlain, and she grinned at the disbelief she caught from Erwarth. “Maybe ask Aggie to provide an update in a few years.”

“Why so soon?” asked Erwarth. The smirk that her question earned from Amdirlain had Erwarth’s gaze narrowing.

“That question is exactly why you’re frustrated with me,” observed Amdirlain, and she tapped the sheath of papers in Erwarth’s hands.

“I’m frustrated because you don’t listen,” corrected Erwarth, and she pulled the papers away from Amdirlain’s reach.

“No, you’re frustrated because you don’t get my mindset. I will always live like this life is the only one I’ve got, and the opportunities presented now might not come back again. The trick I pulled with Apollo? I expected to die, but I was going to do my best to take him with me,” said Amdirlain. “That circle was eating everything. I didn’t expect to be killed and end up on another Plane, and certainly not in the Maze. I was sure my last act was poisoning the meal he set to make of me.”

“I thought you’d rushed and made a mistake,” admitted Erwarth grimly.

“There was a misjudgement with the Mantle not separating cleanly, but I was only trying to give the Yin energy a head start before he consumed me as well,” replied Amdirlain. “You want to know something? If dying that way meant killing Apollo, I was completely fine with it.”

“Why aren’t you afraid of dying?”

The question provoked bitter laughter from Amdirlain, and pulling a face, she shook her head. “Not afraid? Why would you think I’m not afraid? I will do my utmost to stay alive, but hiding under a rock somewhere isn’t living—that’s simply existing.”

“What if this fails?”

“Would you prefer to leave? I can let you know when I’m finished,” offered Amdirlain, and she held herself back from rolling her eyes at what felt like never ending questions.

“No, I’ll stay and help.”

“How’re the songs?”

Erwarth frowned. “It would be better if I had some time to practise these first.”

“Learn by doing. If they hold, they’ll amplify the forces at work and hasten the mine’s demise, but they’re not essential,” countered Amdirlain. “Just set each as a linked song and maybe key them to the touch of the Stygian’s waters.”

“But that will-”

“Amplify the result of the breakthrough after the breach in the walls has already occurred,” explained Amdirlain. “It will turn a pinprick of water into a geyser of force.”

“You’re still touching the river,” protested Erwarth.

“No, I’m going to carve a path for it with summoned water, laced with an abrasive material to cut through stone like soft butter,” explained Amdirlain. “The first blasts will be to open the entry channel, and I’ll cause the riverbed to buckle into it. After that, even the supernatural water pressure should widen the flow. At each anchor point, we’ll need to set effects to create a vacuum by annihilating the air and stone at each location.”

“What happens if the river’s course doesn’t change? It's not exactly bound by the normal rules of behaviour.”

“If it behaves like I hope it will, it’ll claim a trapped God,” replied Amdirlain. “Couldn’t you hear the hunger in the river’s song? Would you care to wager the being’s presence won’t draw the river to it? The best part is that if it goes pear-shaped and doesn’t work, I don’t care. I don’t care if we destroy this place or not. We’ll still leave here the same way, and Moloch might put it down to a Sisterhood plan misfiring.”

“You either hurt Moloch directly, or he’ll use troops against the Sisterhood and can’t rent them out,” mused Erwarth, disbelief clear in her tone.

“It’s truly such a shame,” quipped Amdirlain. “I’m not looking to control anything that Moloch possesses. I’ll settle for eroding it over aeons until it all collapses.”

“Do you truly have the patience for that?”

“Don’t mistake my drive to take action now for not being able to persist in my plans,” laughed Amdirlain. “Hopefully, I’ll see the results within a few billion years.”

“I don’t understand how you believe you possess such patience,” declared Erwarth.

“Do or do not, there is no try. I’ll keep working at it until everything he possesses now or in the future falls apart,” stated Amdirlain. “Why don’t you set some linked songs in place, and I’ll set up some more routes for the water to flow?”

Amdirlain didn’t wait for Erwarth but started on her next steps and sought to ensure whatever Erwarth did wouldn’t be a crucial component. She continued singing for weeks, far longer than Erwarth expected Amdirlain to continue, and then, without warning, the ground pulsed.

Enchanted waters burst into existence and hundreds of thousands of pressurised needles ripped through the stone. Kilometres of stone from the river to the nearest shaft disintegrated in a cascade of pressure that continued onwards. Diamond dust amid the water scoured through demonic flesh and metal alike, leaving only pulped victims in its wake. Songs that Erwarth had set in place turned narrow tunnels into massive galleries as the stone between adjoining tunnels simply vanished. The vacuum pressure almost collapsed the town above the mines before the riverside gave in a rush of displaced air.

The entire river embankment ended up undercut, but it wasn’t until a ramp of stone lifted from the riverbed that it changed course. Back pressure churned the calm waters into a white froth as it drained away into the mine’s depths. A normal river would have taken weeks to fill the ancient passages, but the Stygian River was itself a Plane.

With the ancient boundary point changed, it simply flexed and expanded, filling the mineshaft in moments, claiming the essence of the demons within. Ignoring the combat summary with the thousands of lower-tier demons, Amdirlain listened to the changes in their surroundings.

Despite the key successes of the plan, there was a noticeable exception. The river’s hunger didn’t cause it to flood up through the town for the imprisoned being. Instead, once the cavity of the mine became filled, the river overflowed the levy and continued on its way.

“Guess I should have taken that bet about the river,” quipped Erwarth.

“It's patient. The thing is still trashing about increasing the pit’s depth. Eventually, it's going to drop itself into the river.”

“Maybe. Shall we get going?”

Amdirlain used Inventory to cut a tunnel through the boundary of the wards. A change to her concealing song had the wards react the moment the pair crossed through. Teleport set them on a dusty, drought-cracked plain, and the pair resumed their Marilith forms before heading away. After a dozen hops to random points to muddy their trail, they finally returned to the Amdirlain’s hidey-hole.

The stacked crystal they’d left behind was gone, but Amdirlain relaxed at what she sensed. Music burst to life in the chamber, and an alert keyed to Isa sped away.

“I noticed the tunnels expanding before the river flowed in,” commented Amdirlain before she resumed her Anar form.

“Since you told me what you had planned, I linked them to your songs being triggered,” admitted Erwarth. “ I’ll do my best to offer tweaks rather than trying to prove my concerns. It seems Isa wanted to know the moment we returned.”

Isa snapped into existence accompanied by a dark-haired woman, and sharp, striking beats resounded about them. Upon arrival, the woman transformed, and a Dragon whose torso alone stretched out longer than a few utes end-to-end appeared.

Her shift in form unleashed a radiance that illuminated the chamber’s interior. The internal light refracting through her scales cast a hypnotic kaleidoscope across the stone. Wings flexed in an arch raised above Isa’s head, and a pointed snout, half again Amdirlain’s height, extended towards her on a serpentine neck longer than the dragon’s torso.

“Fuck, Sarah!” exclaimed Amdirlain. “You’ve grown so much. What have you been eating?”

“Are you saying my arse looks big now I’ve moulted?” growled Sarah, the rolling draconic words chiming in crystalline tones.

“Sorry,” sighed Amdirlain dramatically. “It was big before you moulted.”

“Bitch,” laughed Sarah. The word blended in with a suppressed draconic cough that still caused Amdirlain’s hair to fly about in the gale that erupted. “This place stinks. Girls, give us the room, please. Amdirlain and I need to talk without eavesdroppers.”

Isa and Erwarth promptly vanished, and Sarah gave an unsuppressed sigh of frustration. “Have they been at you to stop? Because seriously, fuck that. Let's make Moloch pay.”

The words unleashed the pain Amdirlain had barely kept restrained, and tears started to flow. Stepping forward, Amdirlain wrapped her arms partly around Sarah’s neck and clung to her as she cried.

“Sorry for keeping you waiting so long. I’ve got your back, Sis.”

The reassurance from Sarah made Amdirlain cry that much harder. The burning grief vented in torrents of sound, and Sarah simply rumbled with a comforting croon that anchored Amdirlain against the storm. Hours later, Amdirlain realised Sarah’s tail had been stroking her back for some time.

“Great, now you’re trying to give me a piece of tail,” snuffled Amdirlain, and she scoured her tears away with her palms.

Blowing a raspberry, Sarah grumbled lightly. “Ain’t giving you nothing; it's only on loan.”

Amdirlain’s sigh of relief felt like it came from the bottom of her feet. Leaning back, she stroked a hand across the side of Sarah’s jawline, marvelling at the polished feel of her scales. “I’m glad you’re here. What do you remember?”

“Where would you like me to start? Opening my eyes to Orhêthurin, the Titan and his forge sitting on a platform hovering over a void, our Oath, Ms griffon-face threatening to end me, or something later?”

“Dragon memories don’t work that way, they’re blood-line related.”

“Blame my creator; obviously, she screwed up in the prototyping,” grumbled Sarah, and she huffed in amusement when Amdirlain snorted. “What stage of grieving are you up to?”

“I keep backsliding into anger.”

A blast of air wafted through the chamber, and Amdirlain caught Sarah’s psionics at work, creating a high-pressure spot to push contaminants away. Amdirlain didn’t question what Sarah was doing but simply waited her out. Once the air smelt clean, a large polished oak table appeared beside Amdirlain, topped with mist-shrouded ice cream containers.

“Triple choc fudge?” asked Amdirlain in a near whisper.

“What else would I bring?”

A globe of white light floated above the table, and Sarah returned to her Human form. The light revealed her black hair and sun-tanned skin. Before Amdirlain could take in the transformation completely, Sarah’s hazel gaze caught Amdirlain’s own. “Gail wants to know if Analysis tells you who set your Planar Lock?”

“High Priest Charilaos. Why?” asked Amdirlain, amused at Sarah’s transformation from the bulky dragon to her willowy figure.

“She remembers Gideon telling her tales while waiting in the Titan’s Forge room. One included something about you presenting, or making, a harp for the coronation of the first Lómë Queen. Gideon’s story said that, among its powers, it possessed the ability to raise the dead. Unlike normal resurrection spells, it could revive them regardless of their wishes.”

An image flashed through Amdirlain’s mind of a plinth with a black crystal lap harp sitting on it that looked like something carved from the night sky; each silvery string gleamed like starlight and caught the viewers’ gaze. The power within the Harp burned like a compressed star; even unplayed, the echoes across its strings caused a hum that reinforced the chamber’s songs.

“I think Orhêthurin was there for the presentation, but I don’t think she made it, or if she did, not alone. The memory felt like multiple choirs were involved. You can’t remember any details on it?”

Sarah laughed. “I wasn’t interested in the Anar or Lómë, they were merely useful imitations of their creator. Let me know if you recover any memories of it. Hopefully it hasn’t become lost somewhere in the Abyss or locked in the Lómë’s royal tower.”

“I’ve used Analysis to get details of individuals that weren’t near me. We could try that approach if I remember the harp’s name,” suggested Amdirlain.

“It has a name? Don’t tell me, Excalibur Junior,” teased Sarah.

“I liked those choose-your-own-adventure novels, thank you very much,” retorted Amdirlain, affecting a snobbish tone. “Yes, it has a name, and a mind of its own.”

“Well, Gail sees it as a key to getting you out.”

“Charilaos would still need to permit me to be summoned or send me a message,” warned Amdirlain.

“Gail thinks she can sweet talk him, but I wasn’t planning to ask nicely,” growled Sarah. “Unlike you, I have nothing further obstructing me from getting onto the Material Plane. Now that I’ve shed that Mantle, I’m just another pesky Dragon.”

“She’s supposed to enjoy her childhood, not worry about me,” muttered Amdirlain. “Who else knows about her interest in the harp?”

“Me, and now you, but likely Ebusuku, since we were talking in the Domain. Gail’s playing it close to her chest,” replied Sarah, and she grinned happily when Amdirlain groaned at the pun.

“Well, let’s keep it that way. No point getting anyone’s hopes up. Do you think Gideon was dropping a hint at her?”

“This could have been years ago. Gideon frequently dropped by and told her stories of Anar and Lómë history to keep her entertained,” explained Sarah, and she offered Amdirlain a steel ice cream scoop.

“I’ve recalled a memory of a giant faceted sphere like a polished gemstone,” stated Amdirlain. Focusing on the tubs, Amdirlain was unsurprised at the residual energies of Chaos Shaping in the containers.

“That’s Gideon's physical form, but he isn’t visible most of the time,” confirmed Sarah. “I remember him recording the formation of the planes before you started crafting Ms griffon-face’s brood.”

“How much of this do you have in Inventory?” asked Amdirlain, waving at the containers to change the topic that threatened to stir more memories.

“A few dozen litres, but does it matter?” asked Sarah, and she started to use her scoop as a spoon. “I can always go make more.”

“You’re double dipping,” noted Amdirlain.

“No, I’m not,” protested Sarah. “The tub is my bowl.”