-Emperor Tar’Akannan
Soaring over the squat and intertwining trees, I push my speed to the limits. The trailing balls of black sand are more of a hindrance than anything, the focus of keeping them speeding through the sky next to me greater than it is worth. I dismiss the sand back into my vault before I have even made a mile, ready to be called back to me at a moment’s notice.
A flight of birds scream away from the boughs of tall oak with leaves the color of gold, followed a second later by a horrific crack that splits the air. All the trees of the copse I angle for mingle together, forming a strange painting on the green canvas of the forest, blotchy colors climbing over each other. The sound of snapping limbs cracks through the air once again, this time followed closely behind by the howl of a beast.
I realize only now that I have flown off without Lamplighter’s Charge, only my moonsilver staff in my hand. There is no time to regret the decision. My mind races through my affixes before looking to charge dragonfire into the staff. Disenchanting the Bane Crystal left me with such a glut of Corrosive Affix that I was able to tattoo the magic straight onto my soul, and now that particular symbol glow the brightest of any. I select it, emerald-colored dragonfire glowing as it gathers at the tip of my staff. The charging builds as I race through the sky, vibrating the staff beneath my fingers, but still I find that I can pour on more.
This will be the first time that I have charged my full limit of magic into dragonfire since reaching the second rank, and the difference is incredible. It takes longer, more than a full minute. It would seem that my capacity to charge mana has outpaced my speed at doing so. An image that I have imagined flashes in my mind, the story that Arabella told me about my brother building a sun out of fire as he prepared to smite a monster. My own power seems meager next to that, but it is grand in my eyes.
The staff in my hand thrums with the magic. The fire compresses into a ball the size of a horse’s eye above the head of my staff, but bands of energy escape it, forming great arcs that reach out nearly a foot, shaking and shuddering in the air before returning to the ball of fire. I am almost to the trees when a violent shake rattles up its trunk, sending leaves scattering from the branches to fall back to the floor.
Branches whip at me as I dive right into their midst, uncaring for the lashes they leave on my face and warding hand. An expanse rolls out beneath the tree, the lowest limbs of any in the copse almost forty feet high, the ground decorated with a myriad of different colored leaves that weave a tapestry in their brilliant detritus. For a moment, memories of the forest during the trial flood back to me. The colors here aren’t so very different from the feculent mold that clung to the trees during those days I hunted alone, brighter, and far healthier, but similar in a way.
“Aaaahh!” The cry draws my attention.
I spin, raising my staff to unleash my magic, only to find Jor’Mari locked together with a beast almost twice as big as Satrix had been. It appears like a wolf as well, its fur crazed and the color of mud, but for all its matted fur, huge muscles bulge beneath.
To’Terradon, the Allstone
Jor’Mari wrestles with the beast, his own body huge, eight feet tall if it is a foot, cords of muscles wringing his straining arms as he fights to keep his hold on it. He is in his strength specialist form. An aura of purple light wreaths him, straining and pushing against the presence of pale brown that bleeds off of the huge wolf. Blood spills from Jor’Mari’s shoulder where To’Terradon clamps its massive jaws down, a steady flow of red running down his back and soaking into the robe that pools around his waist. Jor’Mari’s right hand clutches at the beast’s neck, holding its head to him, keeping its jaw open and locked onto his shoulder. His left is busy hammering away at its side with blows strong enough to fell trees.
I have no chance to fire into this melee with my magic.
“Char…Agh.” Jor’Mari spots me, our eyes meeting for a second before he turns his attention back to the monster he wrestles with. It tries to scramble away from him, and then I see why. Spikes protrude from Jor’Mari’s skin, not just the horns that curve on his crown, but spikes of bone sticking out from his shoulders, chest, arms, and stomach, stabbing into the beast as he holds it against himself. Its blood is thick, black ichor.
The beast fights on its own as well, even as it tries to pull away. While the two soul presences wage a war against one another, Jor’Mari pushes a wild terror into the creature, but its own power is far more dangerous. The arm that Jor’Mari uses to trap the beast cracks, the skin turned dry and tan like dried mud. Red flesh stands out in the cracks rivening his arm, weeping a terrible, clear fluid. I have to act.
My own aura flashes out, spreading through the hollow beneath the golden tree. The sound of a thousand brittle leaves snapping as they are pressed into the ground by the wave of crimson almost doubles me over, each cracking leaf feeling like one of my own knuckles popping. I feel the two as well, Jor’Mari’s presence whispering to my own, promising dark deeds and terrible imaginings that make me want to shrink away. To’Terrodon’s is worse somehow, there is nothing intelligible about the beast’s soul, just a feeling of finality and steadiness, the taste of chalk on my tongue.
A ball of black sand appears out of my inventory, spinning through the air to follow the point of my finger. It ripples, becoming a spear as it flies like a sparrow straight toward the heart of To’Terradon. The spear of heavy sand crashes into To’Terradon’s soul presence like a brick wall, scattering into useless grains as it passes the barrier between our two souls, and I feel it leave my control completely. All that comes of my attack is a light dusting of sand over the two struggling combatants.
My mind sticks on that for only a second, but that second is too long. I watch as the two are pushed into the ground by my own power. I have enough control not to press it down upon Jor’Mari, but To’Terradon already outweighed him by an incredible amount before I arrived. I am more than twenty feet away from the two, but even at this distance my presence places a significant weight upon the beast, a weight that the great wolf uses to pivot and drive Jor’Mari into the ground like an expert fighter.
Golden leaves covered in crimson spray up from where Jor’Mari’s back is driven into the detritus, the shin-high accumulation almost burying him as To’Terradon drives him down. Jor’Mari never lets go, his grunts of pain becoming muffled in the leaves burying him.
I am in flight, the familiar weight of my poisoned dagger falling into my hand as I fly forward. I strike like a lightning bolt, whipping the dagger straight toward To’Terradon’s eye. It flicks one monstrous pupil toward me, seeing the attack coming, but Jor’Mari holds its head still and the weight pressing it into the ground only grows as I near. The knife slides smoothly into the flesh of its eye, a sickening pop following the spray of fluid that washes over my hand. Even as it whines, crying out and thrashing, the full force of its aura encircles me.
There is a common understanding when it comes to soul presence, the shorter the range they are, the more powerful. Mine has quite a distance to it, but near its edge the effect is dim, only a slight encumbrance. As soon as my soul presence washed over To’Terradon, it was subject to that force pressing down on it, but as I strike at it, I enter its power.
A wave of tan magic washes over me and I feel as if every part of me begins to crack and crumble at once. I would cry out if there were any wetness left in my throat. There is a creaking inside my skull as I feel the bones in my ear tighten and grind against one another. I step away, but the motion causes my skin to split open and tear. Fire screams from my mouth as I stumble away from the beast in my attempt to flee its power, no thought given to if I might hurt Jor’Mari as he is pinned beneath it.
The wave of orange washes over To’Terradon, clinging to its fur, forcing it to scream against the ground. It is blind to me with its weeping eye, but the tan aura chases me, reaching for me, trying to destroy me. To’Terradon lurches, bobbing an inch into the air for a moment, before collapsing to the ground, the color of its soul receding back.
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I finally stumble away from it, my body already fast at work trying to stitch my wounds back together. My feet wobble beneath me, my wings falling to the ground and propping me up as I breathe. The body of the great wolf shudders and then is thrown aside as Jor’Mari grunts and strains on the ground. The color of his aura still seethes around him, but it quiets somewhat as he spots me, pooling around him into a smooth film.
“Thank you,” he says, fingers scratching into the ground as he pulls himself to his feet. A ripple passes over him as he stands, his body shrinking somewhat, arresting at just over seven feet in height, becoming sleek. My eye tells me that he has changed to be a recovery specialist, like me. At once, the wounds cutting across his body and the deep punctures in his shoulder begin to scab over and heal.
I look at the corpse of To’Terradon and see a litany of spikes protruding from its underside, stabbing up into the beast from below. One must have hit something vital.
“Why didn’t you do that earlier?” I ask, nodding to the creature’s body, its dark blood pooling out and wetting the golden leaves.
“I only have one of those in me,” he says, his eyes never leaving me. “Have to make sure that it counts.”
“Don’t you have a weapon?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he looks around at the hollow beneath the colorful trees. “It will be around here somewhere. The problem with an invisible mace is that it can be difficult to find the damned thing.” His eyes fall on the knife in my hand. “Can I borrow that?”
“Sure.” I flip him the blade, and he snatches it from the air with ease. Already I am feeling steady on my feet, curling my wings in now that I don’t need the support.
“I appreciate that,” Jor’Mari says, saluting with the knife. “I would give you something in return, but I don’t…” he pauses, his eyes landing on something on the ground. He bends, scooping up a tooth as large as his pointer finger. “Here,” he says, tossing the tooth to me, “a souvenir.”
My dumb hands make a fool of me, reaching for and missing the tooth. It bounces off my forearm, and I miss it again. I manage to juggle the damned thing between my grasping hands a few more times before it finally plops to the ground, bouncing on the leaves. I feel my face redden at the display.
“Where are the others?” I ask quickly.
“Right,” Jor’Mari looks pointedly away as I stoop to snatch up the tooth. “Back near the blue tree when I left them. Well, more like greenish-blue. Maybe blueish-green.”
“Jor!” The man’s flippancy makes me want to scream.
“Sorry, this form effects my head a bit, tends to make me take things not too seriously. You must have an awful time living with that.” When he sees my face darkening at the words, seriousness does come to his eyes. “This way,” he says, pointing and setting off.
I follow, sending a pulse of magic behind me, rendering the body of To’Terradon to pink mist before it leaves the range of my aura. Galea delivers a message window to me as I fly behind Jor’Mari’s running body.
You have defeated To’Terradon, the Allstone
THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!
Another level already. It seems that giving myself a proper rest time did in fact help my soul prepare for further reinforcements. That, or the soul cage that I stuffed into my chest is helping. Likely both.
We strive between the trunks of the trees, pillars standing out in a field of slowly changing colors. The field below us changes from gold, to ivory white, then slowly toward a cerulean blue. My staff thrums in my hand as we race on, the power held at capacity for so long threatening to leak away into the air. We pause for a moment at the body of a white wolf, the same one that had attacked from the air, laying cut and discarded at the base of the blue tree. The platform of my ship rests on its side against the trunk of the tree like a discarded discus made of gold.
“Where–” I begin, but Jor’Mari holds up a hand to stop me. He turns his head this way and that, and I catch sight of his pupilless eyes, dark orbs that are the telltale he has shifted forms again to push his perception to the limits. My eyes rove over him, noting the still healing wounds that cover him, the scabbed holes in his shoulder, the blood that clings to him still. He should spend more time healing himself, but I am not about to command that he do so.
His state brings my attention to my own. The simple travelling clothes I had been wearing just before we were attacked are stained with red where my skin was split open just a few minutes before. Another change of clothes ruined. Hopefully soon, I will be able to put an end to this issue.
Jor’Mari turns and sprints further into the hollow, following some sign that I cannot perceive. With a great flap of my wings, I take off after him, managing to catch up to him in short order. I see them now, Jess and Dovik fighting together against another great wolf whose shape is vague and seems to shimmer in the light, its blue fur a stark contrast to the red leaves it fights in the center of.
Janta, Moonwhisperer
Both of my friends’ auras blaze brilliantly, Jess’ cold and metallic soul presence wrapping tight around her. I see Dovik’s for the first time, a cloud of blue lazily following him as he moves, spreading out from him nearly ten feet except where pressed in upon by the white aura of Janta.
There is more about Dovik that I have not seen before. Instead of the fire poker that I am used to him fighting with, now he holds a long rapier in either hand, powerful weapons with incredible auras of their own. I’ll need to inspect them later.
Janta howls in their face as it lunges for Dovik. For a moment I think the man’s arm will vanish into the snapping jaws of the blue wolf, but just as the teeth threaten to sink into his flesh, he vanishes. A spray of blood follows his appearance to the wolf’s side, hardly a second granted to him as it spins and lashes out with a paw. Now that I near, I notice a myriad of cuts marring the beautiful fur of Janta, weeping lines of purple in the blue.
The aura of the wolf pushes sideways toward Jess even as Dovik dances out of its swipe. Without a blade to manipulate, I know Jess’ soul presence to not be all that effective, but she proves that notion wrong immediately. Hers is a short-ranged aura, its effect powerful when possible to use, but given that there are no blades around for her to manipulate she pulls it in toward herself, turning its power to defense. The steel of her soul presence shines as Janta’s aura tries to press into it, but Jess is like a stone sticking from the water, letting the rush break over her.
Her chakram lashes out, leaving a long gash in Janta’s leg as she too steps around it. The great wolf howls in frustration and pain, snapping at her, but Jess brings up her spinning chakram, perfectly colliding the blade with the closing teeth, emitting a ringing sound that penetrates the hollow. In the instant following, it is as if she gains an incredible speed, slipping out of Janta’s lunge and scoring a line across it as she moves. As it turns on her, Dovik ducks back in, jabbing with the points of his sword at the unprotected side of the wolf. They never give it a moment to concentrate. Even as light strobes from its eyes to ignite the leaves, even as the beast blurs for a moment and seems to move in two directions at once, Dovik and Jess do not relent in their dance of bladed death.
“There,” Jor’Mari points to the side of the hollow, his dark eyes focusing on a point of empty air.
I almost miss it, the distraction from the brilliant display of martial dancing too annoying to pay attention to, but then my eye picks something out. A vague shimmer moves across the leaves, not collapsing any of the loose detritus, but shallowly shuffling the fallen matter. I do not wait, pointing the end of my staff toward the vague shimmer and loosing my pent up ball of emerald fire.
The force of the magic leaving my staff almost knocks me off my feet. Instead of the sailing ball of fire, I see a beam of green light appear in the space between me and the shimmer as thick around as the trunk of a birch tree. The beam changes into a bloom of green where the shimmer just was, a roiling inferno climbing up toward the high boughs of the trees overhead, chaotic fire peeling away from me, slipping out into the air. Even as the color fades into the air in cracking motes of light, a black outline in my vision remains of its path.
A cry, too choked on roiling fire to sound like anything natural, emits from the clearing flash of light. Another wolf shudders, its midnight fur melting away, eaten by the corrosive fire, its eyes rendered white and sightless. It stumbles blindly, a coarse hissing sound coming from its throat, searching, but for what I cannot know. In the moment, I truly understand just how terrible my own power can be.
A missile sails through the air. The dagger that I lent to Jor’Mari thunks into the temple of the burning wolf. It shakes a final time, falling to the leaves with a thud, still.
You have defeated Corallian, the Midnight Walker
THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!
Another howl of pain follows a moment later as Dovik, riding on the back of the beast Janta, stabs down with his two swords into the wolf’s neck. It cries out before slumping forward, dead before it even hits the ground.
A moment of silence fall over the hollow as we look at one another.
“Is everyone okay?” I ask.
“I should be asking that of you,” Jess says, looking like she is just about ready to rush over to me while she also tries to keep her guard up. “You are the one that fell off the ship.”
“I can fly though.” I look around, but other than the two dead wolves in the red leaves, I see no others. “Did anyone find Ghostfire?”
“Yes,” Jor’Mari says, drawing all eyes. His own pupilless black ones gaze up at the slight incline between the trees, she the red leaves begin to shift to white. “Though I am starting to wish that I hadn’t.”
I follow his gaze, seeing immediately what he is looking at. Another wolf, this one the largest by far, its fur a sleek white, stands at the apex of the rise. A single horn of ebony bone protrudes from its forehead, the tip thrumming with power. A white aura rolls down the incline like fog as it considers us. Its huge blue eyes seem almost to pierce through me, the intelligence in its gaze stirring my emotions. There is such sadness in its eyes. It inclines its head, closing its eyes for a moment before shaking itself and standing to its full height. Never before have I seen such a magnificent creature
Tar’Alu’Alukeen, Ghostfire
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