Crossover Apotheosis (D&D x Berserk)
- Thread starter Gladiator
- Start date
Blasterbot
Well-known member
[X] There was more I could do to prepare for this. I could focus on bolstering our army, and most of all on Casca's development. I had no doubt she would want to face Femto too.
Garden of Secrets
Gladiator
Well-known member
Chapter 25: Garden of Secrets
"Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But the trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god."
- The Judge
I could feel it. This war was coming to a close. Only two demon lords were left, and then I would face their progenitor. Their architect. The Heart of Darkness, and after that? The Abyss would claim whatever was left, and I would make them choke on it.
That Band of Heroes would be their undoing. I did not need to cast Foresight to see it.
Whether it would take a century, or a dozen of them, did not factor into it. One day the Abyss would be routed, and they would be the ones responsible for it.
"They have their own dreams." I could sense it. They were beginning to develop their own identities. In a way that was distinct from myself. I may never become as I once was. Their lives were becoming their own, and they were robbed of that when they became Arlan Vorlesh. I was their past, but quite a few them did not want that to be their future.
I felt an inkling of pride. That was something I respected. They wanted to make their own destiny. Forge their own path. Who was I to deny them that?
"Doomed to becoming a gestalt." Mortals all, and because of that they will die. When that happens they will seek each other. They will become Arlan Vorlesh, but before that they will live their lives in whatever way they choose. "I wonder if I could save them..."
That freedom, at the very least, was something they could call their own.
"Selfless as always, Arlan." The shadow takes that moment to make himself known. The ghostly apparition wafting through the air, and around my throne room. "Don't even entertain the idea."
"I will try not to." I lean back into my throne, and grab for my pipe. When I cast the cantrip known as Firebolt to light it? The smoke begins to obscure everything around us. "They deserve to be remembered. I won't forget any of them."
That was a miracle even I couldn't bring to fruition.
"Knight Commander!" Regill makes himself known. He barges into the throne room without any hesitation. The same as always when he wanted to discuss anything. The gnome may have been diminutive, but his presence was always intimidating despite that disadvantage. "The soldiers are ready! They are awaiting your instruction!"
I slowly stand up, and walk down towards him. The pipe in my hand, and the smoke encircling us both. The mist engulfs us, and we both disappear.
I walk out of the mist, and the gnome is by my side. Always watching for any would be assassin.
"My crusaders! This war is almost over, but that does not excuse indolence!" Underneath my opulent palace in Arlan's Way my army was ever ready. The mortals who previously served the Kushan Empire saluted their general. For once, they had a ruler who would not betray them. Who would watch over their people.
The angels were emboldened by the presence of the hero who saved Golarion. Many of those monadic deva were once sacrifices to the Wardstones, but had sworn allegiance to my crusade after I had freed them. The Hand of the Inheritor was watching over them all, and I acknowledged his presence with a respectful nod.
"The Kingdom of Midland is our next obstacle, and at their helm is a demon lord who is the worst of them all! The Falcon of Light! Griffith, as his people know him, but Femto for those demons who worship him!" I had to thank Irvine. The information he provided was invaluable. However, I had to worry about him. The ruse he had crafted was not meant to last, and it had been some time since he visited. The only thing that remained was that psychic. The young girl he had brought to my capital.
An extraction may be necessary.
There is silence at that. They had all heard the rumors. How the demon lord had an army of apostles. The most disciplined of any of them serving The Godhand. They were not just murderers or rapists. These apostles were warriors. They were monsters like Nosferatu Zodd. They were many conquerors. Whose spoils were that of civilizations. They took pride in warfare. The sport of it, and the bounty they could reap from it. The glory most of all held an allure that was irresistible.
I understood that feeling.
"I will not lie. This challenge won't be easy to overcome, and many of you will pass into the Higher Planes." The causalities would be unprecedented compared to any war this realm had ever seen. "Into Elysium, and into the embrace of whatever god or goddess you have sworn fealty to. Unless it was Asmodeus! In which case the Nine Hells will become your home instead!"
Iomedae, most of all, would watch over them. Their souls did not belong to the Abyss.
Not anymore.
"Life or death? The only certainty is that victory must be achieved!" There would be sacrifices. "That is why I have made some arrangements!" There always were many.
Too many.
Hanarr had granted my request. The armor which had been a rarity before? It had been mass produced. The Berserker Armor would no longer be exclusive to The White Wolf, and these had the likeness of The Skull Knight. Just as they did before The White Swordsman underwent his metamorphosis. A hundred thousand of them. Enough for all of the mortals in my army, and with all the adjustments I had made before. It would release all their inhibitions, protect them, heal every wound they would receive, and grant them the courage they would need.
The angels did not need it. They were powerful already. This was for the most fragile of my crusaders, and they would be made into an unstoppable vanguard.
The only problem was whether they could endure that pain. Guts had no problem with it, but they were not like him.
"The Berserker Armor, the same worn by my trusted herald, and a burden that is not easy to bear! If you wear it? The whole lot of you would be a match for any apostle! There are some of you that may even make them cower!" They would become juggernauts. A stalwart army of berserkers. "Due to the adjustments I have made? It will not render any of you into a rabid beast, but because of that you will feel everything. Whenever a bone is broken? It will force it back into place. Whenever any muscle is torn? It will knit it back together. There will be no escape from that! The only solace is that it will repair those wounds, and do so flawlessly." Regenerative Sinew would make sure of that. I do not hide anything from them. They had to be prepared.
"It is because of that? I have decided that you will wear this armor everyday! I will expect all of my crusaders to become accustomed to the pain! There is no anesthetic!" I examine them all. A few of them were nervous, but there were others bristling with anticipation. They saw what The White Wolf could do, and they wanted that for themselves.
Just to taste that power.
They would be no demi-gods, but they would be dangerous. A threat to even the most powerful of apostles. It may even ensure their survival. At least in some cases. A few of them would return on the backs of their brothers or sisters.
Their wives and husbands left to grieve. Their children left without a father or mother.
Those crusaders I would honor.
"This armor will become part of you. The only times you can remove it is when you need to bathe, and when you need to relieve yourself by any definition of the word." Whether they needed to visit the latrine, or visit the brothel. Relief in every way. Their duties as husbands and wives could not be neglected. "This will persist for the remainder of this campaign!"
This war desired an outcome.
I would give it one.
"Do you feel him, Sonia?" The psychic had a connection to the azata. They were a family. An unconventional one born out of chance. "What has transpired in that den of monsters?"
"It hurts..." Her face scrunches in concentration. "Irvine, he is in danger!" The blonde had been cautious. When they had arrived? The psychic had thought I was a monster, and held the belief that I would deflower her. Not unlike those nuns that fell victim to my villainy.
That had changed when she saw how I ruled, and I learned exactly what kind of propaganda was being used against my person. Apparently, I was a chromatic dragon. Disguised as a mortal only so that I could ravish all fair maidens in the realm. That I even preferred it when they were ripe, and had just realized their maidenhood.
Casca had enjoyed that revelation immensely. The paladin laughing at my misfortune. Which had abruptly stopped when I revealed my Belt of Discipline.
That slander had to be rewarded. I was no chromatic dragon. I was much worse. I was The Knight Commander!
It was about time they learned what that meant.
Sonia had felt uneasy around the people of the Kushan Empire despite that. These were the people that took both her parents from her. However, she did relax around Aivu. The havoc dragon had a way of comforting children.
"The azata will live." I kneel, and grab her by the shoulders. Sonia is not frightened of me. Not anymore. "I promise."
"Thank you, sire." Sonia smiles. I had reminded her of Griffith. Ethereal in my countenance, and handsome in a way that betrayed my humanity. I drew the attention of everyone when I entered a room. It was hard to believe that I was mortal, but it was an undeniable fact.
Unlike The Falcon of Light?
I was not nearly as ghastly behind that facade.
"The answer is clear, but it is hard to accept..." The paladin had known. I had deciphered it. How one of The Godhand had manifested in this realm? It was not an echo. He had a host. "That bastard! Even your--"
"My son, Knight Commander." The paladin had to do this. "I have to save him."
"I understand, but it will be an endeavor fraught with peril." I am by her side. "I will do it, but the risk will always be present. They could both die, but if I act quickly there is a grand hex I know. It is called Forced Reincarnation. I must release him, and then I can grant that boy another lease on life."
"I want him back, Arlan! I don't want to lose him again!" Casca had already discerned my meaning. The child would be reborn.
That would not be enough.
"That is all I am capable of, Casca. There is nothing else I can do." The demon lord had to die, but at least the boy would have a chance at life somewhere. "I wish there was, but there are things even I am not capable of."
"That is a lie! The Arlan Vorlesh I know can do anything!" The paladin grabs my robes, and I am forced to face her. A whirlwind of emotions on her face. The betrayal. The hatred. The loss. The fear.
The helplessness, most of all. This world had taken everything from her, and she wanted it all back.
"I..." I bite my tongue. "I will do everything in my power."
It was impossible but when did that ever pose a challenge? I would do it.
I would save their son.
"Casca, I will bring him back." I wrap my arms around her. The paladin easing into my embrace. All of my crusaders knew what it meant to be cherished. They were my children. They were everything I had. I would not fail them. "I promise."
I would free that child. I would give him the home he always deserved.
Guts would see him. Casca would welcome him.
I would be there to witness that reunion. I would be the harbinger.
Their deliverer.
"I am coming for you, monster."
The hero.
What I did not expect was to see another familiar face.
"The Knight Commander deserves to be spoiled, I think." Iomedae wraps her arms around Farnese from behind, and the witch is mortified at that. The touch of the goddess was unfamiliar. It was not like Sarenrae. This warmth was gentle. "Farnese de Vandimion, do your duty! Arlan Vorlesh is your master, after all..." The young woman had nothing left to hide, and her body was left bare of any clothing. Her lithe and petite figure on display. Only those bandages that covered her disfigured hands had remained.
My witch.
"I would have expected this from Daerun, but not you Iomedae." This was a surprise. Casca, it had to be. The paladin was a bad influence on my goddess. "Just because I am dying doesn't mean you have to do anything like this--"
Iomedae kisses Farnese at that exact moment. Her tongue wrapping around another one, and leaving my apprentice defenseless. Unprepared for the assault. "I want this too, Arlan. I like this one." It had impressed her. That this witch had the courage to confess her love. When I was already betrothed to a deity. One that could squash her like a gnat.
"Farnese, is this what you want?" Iomedae was one thing, but my apprentice was another thing entirely. "I already have Iomedae, and you would be a concubine at best--" I try to tease her, but I am interrupted before I can continue.
"Arlan, just do it already!"
I had to oblige.
After that, when my grim duty was done? I had learned just how charming Farnese was, and that her voice could put to shame any choir in heaven. Especially when she was screaming the name Arlan Vorlesh.
The witch belonged to me. I had taken everything from her, and that was just the way that she wanted it.
The Knight Commander of the Sixth Crusade.
Her guide, and her lover.
Her everything.
[] The assault has begun. Irvine had procured the blueprint for the sewage system beneath the capital. I would divide our army. The majority would serve as a distraction on the surface, and a group of veterans would navigate the maze underneath the city. Myself included, in that equation. In order to sabotage them from within, and confront the demon lord directly.
[] An aerial assault may be possible. Thanks to the reinforcements we received from Elysium. There were havoc dragons aplenty in Arlan's Way, and I would bring Aivu. Many of us would mount the beasts, and bring them into battle. Whilst the apostles were busy dealing with my army of berserkers? The angels would introduce them to their holy fire from above.
"Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But the trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god."
- The Judge
I could feel it. This war was coming to a close. Only two demon lords were left, and then I would face their progenitor. Their architect. The Heart of Darkness, and after that? The Abyss would claim whatever was left, and I would make them choke on it.
That Band of Heroes would be their undoing. I did not need to cast Foresight to see it.
Whether it would take a century, or a dozen of them, did not factor into it. One day the Abyss would be routed, and they would be the ones responsible for it.
"They have their own dreams." I could sense it. They were beginning to develop their own identities. In a way that was distinct from myself. I may never become as I once was. Their lives were becoming their own, and they were robbed of that when they became Arlan Vorlesh. I was their past, but quite a few them did not want that to be their future.
I felt an inkling of pride. That was something I respected. They wanted to make their own destiny. Forge their own path. Who was I to deny them that?
"Doomed to becoming a gestalt." Mortals all, and because of that they will die. When that happens they will seek each other. They will become Arlan Vorlesh, but before that they will live their lives in whatever way they choose. "I wonder if I could save them..."
That freedom, at the very least, was something they could call their own.
"Selfless as always, Arlan." The shadow takes that moment to make himself known. The ghostly apparition wafting through the air, and around my throne room. "Don't even entertain the idea."
"I will try not to." I lean back into my throne, and grab for my pipe. When I cast the cantrip known as Firebolt to light it? The smoke begins to obscure everything around us. "They deserve to be remembered. I won't forget any of them."
That was a miracle even I couldn't bring to fruition.
"Knight Commander!" Regill makes himself known. He barges into the throne room without any hesitation. The same as always when he wanted to discuss anything. The gnome may have been diminutive, but his presence was always intimidating despite that disadvantage. "The soldiers are ready! They are awaiting your instruction!"
I slowly stand up, and walk down towards him. The pipe in my hand, and the smoke encircling us both. The mist engulfs us, and we both disappear.
I walk out of the mist, and the gnome is by my side. Always watching for any would be assassin.
"My crusaders! This war is almost over, but that does not excuse indolence!" Underneath my opulent palace in Arlan's Way my army was ever ready. The mortals who previously served the Kushan Empire saluted their general. For once, they had a ruler who would not betray them. Who would watch over their people.
The angels were emboldened by the presence of the hero who saved Golarion. Many of those monadic deva were once sacrifices to the Wardstones, but had sworn allegiance to my crusade after I had freed them. The Hand of the Inheritor was watching over them all, and I acknowledged his presence with a respectful nod.
"The Kingdom of Midland is our next obstacle, and at their helm is a demon lord who is the worst of them all! The Falcon of Light! Griffith, as his people know him, but Femto for those demons who worship him!" I had to thank Irvine. The information he provided was invaluable. However, I had to worry about him. The ruse he had crafted was not meant to last, and it had been some time since he visited. The only thing that remained was that psychic. The young girl he had brought to my capital.
An extraction may be necessary.
There is silence at that. They had all heard the rumors. How the demon lord had an army of apostles. The most disciplined of any of them serving The Godhand. They were not just murderers or rapists. These apostles were warriors. They were monsters like Nosferatu Zodd. They were many conquerors. Whose spoils were that of civilizations. They took pride in warfare. The sport of it, and the bounty they could reap from it. The glory most of all held an allure that was irresistible.
I understood that feeling.
"I will not lie. This challenge won't be easy to overcome, and many of you will pass into the Higher Planes." The causalities would be unprecedented compared to any war this realm had ever seen. "Into Elysium, and into the embrace of whatever god or goddess you have sworn fealty to. Unless it was Asmodeus! In which case the Nine Hells will become your home instead!"
Iomedae, most of all, would watch over them. Their souls did not belong to the Abyss.
Not anymore.
"Life or death? The only certainty is that victory must be achieved!" There would be sacrifices. "That is why I have made some arrangements!" There always were many.
Too many.
Hanarr had granted my request. The armor which had been a rarity before? It had been mass produced. The Berserker Armor would no longer be exclusive to The White Wolf, and these had the likeness of The Skull Knight. Just as they did before The White Swordsman underwent his metamorphosis. A hundred thousand of them. Enough for all of the mortals in my army, and with all the adjustments I had made before. It would release all their inhibitions, protect them, heal every wound they would receive, and grant them the courage they would need.
The angels did not need it. They were powerful already. This was for the most fragile of my crusaders, and they would be made into an unstoppable vanguard.
The only problem was whether they could endure that pain. Guts had no problem with it, but they were not like him.
"The Berserker Armor, the same worn by my trusted herald, and a burden that is not easy to bear! If you wear it? The whole lot of you would be a match for any apostle! There are some of you that may even make them cower!" They would become juggernauts. A stalwart army of berserkers. "Due to the adjustments I have made? It will not render any of you into a rabid beast, but because of that you will feel everything. Whenever a bone is broken? It will force it back into place. Whenever any muscle is torn? It will knit it back together. There will be no escape from that! The only solace is that it will repair those wounds, and do so flawlessly." Regenerative Sinew would make sure of that. I do not hide anything from them. They had to be prepared.
"It is because of that? I have decided that you will wear this armor everyday! I will expect all of my crusaders to become accustomed to the pain! There is no anesthetic!" I examine them all. A few of them were nervous, but there were others bristling with anticipation. They saw what The White Wolf could do, and they wanted that for themselves.
Just to taste that power.
They would be no demi-gods, but they would be dangerous. A threat to even the most powerful of apostles. It may even ensure their survival. At least in some cases. A few of them would return on the backs of their brothers or sisters.
Their wives and husbands left to grieve. Their children left without a father or mother.
Those crusaders I would honor.
"This armor will become part of you. The only times you can remove it is when you need to bathe, and when you need to relieve yourself by any definition of the word." Whether they needed to visit the latrine, or visit the brothel. Relief in every way. Their duties as husbands and wives could not be neglected. "This will persist for the remainder of this campaign!"
This war desired an outcome.
I would give it one.
<<X>>
"Do you feel him, Sonia?" The psychic had a connection to the azata. They were a family. An unconventional one born out of chance. "What has transpired in that den of monsters?"
"It hurts..." Her face scrunches in concentration. "Irvine, he is in danger!" The blonde had been cautious. When they had arrived? The psychic had thought I was a monster, and held the belief that I would deflower her. Not unlike those nuns that fell victim to my villainy.
That had changed when she saw how I ruled, and I learned exactly what kind of propaganda was being used against my person. Apparently, I was a chromatic dragon. Disguised as a mortal only so that I could ravish all fair maidens in the realm. That I even preferred it when they were ripe, and had just realized their maidenhood.
Casca had enjoyed that revelation immensely. The paladin laughing at my misfortune. Which had abruptly stopped when I revealed my Belt of Discipline.
That slander had to be rewarded. I was no chromatic dragon. I was much worse. I was The Knight Commander!
It was about time they learned what that meant.
Sonia had felt uneasy around the people of the Kushan Empire despite that. These were the people that took both her parents from her. However, she did relax around Aivu. The havoc dragon had a way of comforting children.
"The azata will live." I kneel, and grab her by the shoulders. Sonia is not frightened of me. Not anymore. "I promise."
"Thank you, sire." Sonia smiles. I had reminded her of Griffith. Ethereal in my countenance, and handsome in a way that betrayed my humanity. I drew the attention of everyone when I entered a room. It was hard to believe that I was mortal, but it was an undeniable fact.
Unlike The Falcon of Light?
I was not nearly as ghastly behind that facade.
<<X>>
When I approached the paladin? I could feel it. Casca had wanted an answer. A hand reaching for her lower abdomen. Near where her womb would have been. That child. What had become of him?
"The answer is clear, but it is hard to accept..." The paladin had known. I had deciphered it. How one of The Godhand had manifested in this realm? It was not an echo. He had a host. "That bastard! Even your--"
"My son, Knight Commander." The paladin had to do this. "I have to save him."
"I understand, but it will be an endeavor fraught with peril." I am by her side. "I will do it, but the risk will always be present. They could both die, but if I act quickly there is a grand hex I know. It is called Forced Reincarnation. I must release him, and then I can grant that boy another lease on life."
"I want him back, Arlan! I don't want to lose him again!" Casca had already discerned my meaning. The child would be reborn.
That would not be enough.
"That is all I am capable of, Casca. There is nothing else I can do." The demon lord had to die, but at least the boy would have a chance at life somewhere. "I wish there was, but there are things even I am not capable of."
"That is a lie! The Arlan Vorlesh I know can do anything!" The paladin grabs my robes, and I am forced to face her. A whirlwind of emotions on her face. The betrayal. The hatred. The loss. The fear.
The helplessness, most of all. This world had taken everything from her, and she wanted it all back.
"I..." I bite my tongue. "I will do everything in my power."
It was impossible but when did that ever pose a challenge? I would do it.
I would save their son.
"Casca, I will bring him back." I wrap my arms around her. The paladin easing into my embrace. All of my crusaders knew what it meant to be cherished. They were my children. They were everything I had. I would not fail them. "I promise."
I would free that child. I would give him the home he always deserved.
Guts would see him. Casca would welcome him.
I would be there to witness that reunion. I would be the harbinger.
Their deliverer.
"I am coming for you, monster."
The hero.
<<X>>
When I had entered my royal chambers? They were occupied as always. My goddess was waiting for her champion. Iomedae was there in barely anything at all. Just the lingerie she had received from her paladin. That I had expected.
What I did not expect was to see another familiar face.
"The Knight Commander deserves to be spoiled, I think." Iomedae wraps her arms around Farnese from behind, and the witch is mortified at that. The touch of the goddess was unfamiliar. It was not like Sarenrae. This warmth was gentle. "Farnese de Vandimion, do your duty! Arlan Vorlesh is your master, after all..." The young woman had nothing left to hide, and her body was left bare of any clothing. Her lithe and petite figure on display. Only those bandages that covered her disfigured hands had remained.
My witch.
"I would have expected this from Daerun, but not you Iomedae." This was a surprise. Casca, it had to be. The paladin was a bad influence on my goddess. "Just because I am dying doesn't mean you have to do anything like this--"
Iomedae kisses Farnese at that exact moment. Her tongue wrapping around another one, and leaving my apprentice defenseless. Unprepared for the assault. "I want this too, Arlan. I like this one." It had impressed her. That this witch had the courage to confess her love. When I was already betrothed to a deity. One that could squash her like a gnat.
"Farnese, is this what you want?" Iomedae was one thing, but my apprentice was another thing entirely. "I already have Iomedae, and you would be a concubine at best--" I try to tease her, but I am interrupted before I can continue.
"Arlan, just do it already!"
I had to oblige.
After that, when my grim duty was done? I had learned just how charming Farnese was, and that her voice could put to shame any choir in heaven. Especially when she was screaming the name Arlan Vorlesh.
The witch belonged to me. I had taken everything from her, and that was just the way that she wanted it.
The Knight Commander of the Sixth Crusade.
Her guide, and her lover.
Her everything.
[] The assault has begun. Irvine had procured the blueprint for the sewage system beneath the capital. I would divide our army. The majority would serve as a distraction on the surface, and a group of veterans would navigate the maze underneath the city. Myself included, in that equation. In order to sabotage them from within, and confront the demon lord directly.
[] An aerial assault may be possible. Thanks to the reinforcements we received from Elysium. There were havoc dragons aplenty in Arlan's Way, and I would bring Aivu. Many of us would mount the beasts, and bring them into battle. Whilst the apostles were busy dealing with my army of berserkers? The angels would introduce them to their holy fire from above.
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Blasterbot
Well-known member
[X] An aerial assault may be possible. Thanks to the reinforcements we received from Elysium. There were havoc dragons aplenty in Arlan's Way, and I would bring Aivu. Many of us would mount the beasts, and bring them into battle. Whilst the apostles were busy dealing with my army of berserkers? The angels would introduce them to their holy fire from above.
[X] An aerial assault may be possible. Thanks to the reinforcements we received from Elysium. There were havoc dragons aplenty in Arlan's Way, and I would bring Aivu. Many of us would mount the beasts, and bring them into battle. Whilst the apostles were busy dealing with my army of berserkers? The angels would introduce them to their holy fire from above
Blasterbot
Well-known member
I like this one the most.Question for all readers.
What looks best for our esteemed Knight Commander?
I Promise
Gladiator
Well-known member
Chapter 26: I Promise
"What are you willing to sacrifice? This would certainly solve your problem, but you would be barred from the Abyss. There is more than just war in your heart. That wolf? His paladin? Those children you have claimed as your own? What of their plight? I can see it. What you are, Arlan. The son of Areelu Vorlesh. More so than your brother ever was."
- Ao
The grimoire had everything I needed.
The risk would be great, and with my soul as it was, the chances of me ever being able to perform this spell again were negligible at best. I never attempted it before, but I knew everything there was to know about it. What it was capable of in the hands of any mortal like myself.
The power was unmatched. However, the price was something I had to consider. If I had to cast this? What would I even use it for?
I had everything I needed already. I would not ever need it again.
"Save yourself, Arlan." The wraith had whispered in my ear.
"No, I don't think I will." I smile. I found what I was looking for. This way I could save their child. He would not be at the mercy of chance. Just as he would be if I made use of Forced Reincarnation. That grand hex would not be enough. Casca had been correct in her assessment.
I do not break any promise. Arlan Vorlesh is true.
The Knight Commander protects.
"They can save their son themselves! He is not your responsibility!" The shadow was beside himself to say the least. This was the perfect chance! I could use it to repair my soul. I could be free of this curse. The rest of my life could be with my Iomedae. Farnese, my protege, by our side. The Higher Planes would become our home. The angels our brothers and sisters.
I had found peace, but that would not save anyone. I had to exacerbate my problems. Capitalize on them in every way.
Peace was dreadfully boring, and a warmonger at idle is most dangerous. Especially to those he cherishes. I knew exactly where I had to go. The place that would become my home would be the Abyss. That paradise for monsters.
Goodbye, my Iomedae. Farnese, you will always be my witch. I leave to you my people. Arlan's Way will belong to the both of you. It will belong to my crusaders!
I had made my decision already. There was no point in changing it.
"This will be my stage. The theater my own."
Forever, and always.
Guts felt as if something had gone awry. His divine senses had an inkling of something in the horizon. A change, a monumental one, and even those who oversaw the balance were concerned.
The Axiomite Godmind driven into a frenzy. The coin was about to land on the edge, and due to the contract brokered by The Godclaw? There was no way they could interfere without jeopardizing everything they worked for. They could, but if they broke the contract? The damage...
They had to compromise. They had to observe.
Powerless, as they were.
"What the hell is this itch?" Of course, Guts barely understood what the feeling meant. As far as demi-gods were concerned? The White Wolf was in his infancy. There was room for growth. He had slain two demon lords, but there was more to come.
Griffith.
Just the thought of that betrayer would have driven him mad before, but now his rage has been refined. He could control it, and he no longer felt anything but contempt for the hawk. When before he hesitated? He had felt something. A desperate wish to see if anything had been true. If their friendship had moved that bastard. If his heart trembled in any shame for what he had done.
There was nothing instead.
When Griffith had returned from the Abyss? The Falcon of Light, dispassionate as he was, had looked at them both as nothing more than a hindrance. Another bug to be squashed. Their tragedy a joke! The Band of the Hawk meant nothing...
No, not in the face of Griffith's dream. His ambition. That which was his now. The Kingdom of Midland, or was it Falconia?
It did not matter. Guts would destroy it. He would see it fall.
Then, only after Guts had destroyed everything, that land in ruin, would he relieve Griffith of his heart. The White Wolf would tear it from his chest, and feast on it! The life would leave the pretender, and the wolf would be free.
The wind would be his!
Casca turned in her sleep beside him. The young woman had been a source of joy. Of happiness. The one thing that brought ease to his tortured soul. When all else had been taken from him.
His family would be avenged. The Band of the Hawk would live again in this crusade. Through this glorious tribute.
Another demon lord for their altar.
The grief had almost been too much. Aimlessly the havoc dragon wandered the multiverse. In search of any purpose. A way to live without Arlan Vorlesh. It had become an impossible task, but there were always distractions. A way to forget. There were always monsters, and they had become her prey! Soon a century would pass, and then another one after that. The havoc dragon would become a myth. A legend just like her Knight Commander.
The Higher Planes could always rely on her for aid. The Lower Planes feared her in every way.
The hollowness did not dissipate despite that. That hole in her heart, the bleeding had stopped, but it was still there. It had endured. There was no salve for it.
Then a miracle happened.
Aivu should have known that I lived somewhere. There was a swelling of pride. Her father. Her Knight Commander. The terror of the Abyss. The adversary they feared above all others.
The havoc dragon had found it. The purpose she had lost. When her father would leave for the Abyss? Aivu would follow him.
All those facets? Those aspects? The avatars of the champion known only as Arlan Vorlesh? They would know of her friendship.
The Abyss would be routed.
His friend.
The bleaching should have taken him. Death should have claimed him. The gnome spurned his destiny! He broke free of it because he had promised. Just as it was for Arlan Vorlesh? That was something sacred to the gnome! The authority of his general overshadowed any curse. Any blight. No matter how severe it was!
"Arlan Vorlesh, my Hellknight. My masterpiece." There is not a day that goes by where he is not thankful for that meeting. If it was anyone else he would have called it fate. However, this was Arlan Vorlesh. The breaker of it. "My magnum opus, and realized at last!"
The Knight Commander, through conquest, had orchestrated everything. Their meeting in particular. There were those that feared him. The gnome was brutal. Uncompromising in every way. The essence of what it meant to be a Hellknight, and because of that? There was no other that could teach Arlan Vorlesh. The Knight Commander required the ideal, and he was most exceptional of all.
He caressed the havoc dragon. Those scales were pristine. One of many in their army, and he surveyed the troops around him. They had mounted their own beasts. A few of them at least. There were many but not enough to accommodate their whole army. The rest of his soldiers had no choice but to face the demons on foot. Regill would unleash hell from above, and watch over them.
"To war, my crusaders! My Hellknights!"
The Kingdom of Midland would fall. Glory awaited them all.
"Do not disappoint The Knight Commander! He expects results from all of you!" The gnome lifts his hammer into the air, and spurs the soldiers into action. The crusaders cheer as one in response. "If you dare to fail? I will lash you all myself!"
This would be revenge. These people, once slaves to these monsters, had now known what it meant to be free. All thanks to The Knight Commander. Their lord and their liege. Their liberator.
They had their pride. Their lives. Their families. Their people. A land to call their own.
Soon they would have everything else.
"Yes, sir!"
The harbinger of change.
There was hope when before there was nothing. How futile it had been. A thousand years he had fought, and a thousand years he had experienced nothing but failure. He was just a nuisance.
He had never prayed before. Not to any deity, but there was faith. A belief he did not have before, and it was because of this, that he prayed.
"Arlan Vorlesh, my friend. I will wage war." The prayer would be for The Knight Commander. The person who changed everything. "I will fight again!"
The Kingdom of Midland was ahead of them. The crusaders were hungry for the blood of these monsters. They were not afraid anymore. They were warriors all. Berserkers in the service of vengeance itself.
They prepare every weapon. They set their sights on the capital.
They roar.
"Charge forward, into the depths of the Abyss!"
The Sword of Actuation hums with power, and the plane is torn asunder by it.
The Skull Knight had been reinvigorated.
His heart became a blazing inferno!
This place that Griffith had built from the ashes of the Kingdom of Midland. He wonders if it was all worth it. Those sacrifices he had made to make it this far. The people he had betrayed. The Band of the Hawk? He had replaced them, but it was not the same.
That child, he assaulted him again, these emotions were weakening him. They were beginning to make him doubt. He grips Radiance as tightly as he can. This blade would serve him. It would serve the child. Griffith knew that much. He had done everything he could to prepare for his rival.
Arlan Vorlesh.
The hero that had reminded him so much of himself. Despite that, Arlan Vorlesh was mortal. He had rejected godhood, and in that moment The Falcon of Light began to wonder. What if he had done the same? What if he had not been weak?
"No, I made the right choice." It had to be. It was worth it. He had achieved everything. His dream? It had come to fruition.
"Not by your hand, Griffith. It was the will of The Godhand." That voice? It was always their will. He had every intention of betraying them. His rule had to last, and for that to happen? The Godhand had to fall.
Nosferatu Zodd was in the shadows. He could feel it. That death of his. The day had come. This would be the end. That clarity made him regain his pride. He could not beat Griffith, but he knew the truth.
Femto had been a pawn in their game.
"That dream was never your own, Griffith. It belonged to The Godhand." The chimera has no fear. Not anymore.
"..." The demon lord listened. He could have slain the apostle for his insolence, but he did not. The influence of the child was undeniable now. "What would my dream have been without them?"
The hawk had to wonder. What ambition? Everything was a part of their design. Their plan. He may have been made into one of them, but none of it was him. It was The Heart of Darkness. They were all pawns!
"What have I done?" The hawk falls to the floor. The humanity he had thrown away flooding back into him.
The truth had become clear. When he became a demon lord. It didn't move his heart before, because his transformation took everything mortal from him.
The child had broken that. This was how it vexed him.
"Disgusting." Zodd couldn't believe he swore fealty to this coward. "Stand up, and fight! Face your death with dignity, Griffith!"
Femto rises, and he looks towards the horizon. Charlotte Beatrix Marie Rhody Wyndham was behind him, or whatever was left of her corpse. When the young woman had witnessed the truth? The princess had taken her own life. Her savior was a monster.
"Guts, I--" Femto shakes his head. "I will not die like this! I have my dream!" He had to fight for it.
Forever a pawn in this game. What a wretched thing. No dream to call his own.
Only the dreams of monsters.
"My brothers and sisters, these demons have turned against their own people!" He thrusts his sword towards the firmament. The heavens answered his call. A thousand angels, the best he had to offer for this crusade, and his friend. The Knight Commander who had saved him. When all hope had been lost. "Be their salvation when all is lost!"
The angel conjures up a Storm of Justice, and holy light rains down. Countless demons are brought to heel. They are burned to ashes in the chaos. There would be hope. These angels were no apostles! They were no demons! They were servants of the divine, and they would protect these mortals from whatever was lurking in the shadows!
The Heart of Darkness would not prevail this day. This victory would belong to the righteous.
The heroes of this realm!
"Shepherd them all, my angels!"
They would save these people.
The azata would die as he lived. A servant of life, and a guardian of Elysium. The civilians behind him took comfort in knowing they were safe, but they could see it. All of the wounds. The ranger was bleeding. The torture had commenced earlier, but he did not speak once. Not even as they interrogated him. His honor had remained intact. Those secrets would all die with him.
A dozen arrows fly through the air, and each one pierces something vital. The wounds do not heal. A demon falls to the ground. An arrow having pierced through his forehead.
Locus and Rakshas were among the apostles. They were here for the traitor. The Band of the Falcon had sworn allegiance to Femto, and they would not allow this transgression to go unpunished. The betrayer had to pay.
Irvine laughs at them.
"If you feel courageous? Come and claim my life for yourself!" They would die with him. The azata would make sure of it. "I will show you what it means to be a ranger!"
I should have saved him. I should have kept my promise. I should have done more. Sonia, I wonder if she would ever look past this failure of mine.
I will not break another oath.
I land with the grace of a feline, and unsheathe my bastard sword. Frostbite was ready for anything. The apostles in my way are frozen solid by the blade, and those who survive the frost? Are assaulted by electricity. I cast Chain Lightning, and a dozen of them burst open. Their blood paints everyone and everything around us crimson.
"I am Arlan Vorlesh! The Knight Commander of the Sixth Crusade!" I stab the bastard sword into another apostle, and twist the blade until I am certain the wound is fatal. "I will deliver you all to the Abyss! Prepare yourselves!"
I cast Vampiric Touch, and grab one of the demons. The life drains from it, and then I hurl the corpse at another apostle. I speak another incantation, and hurl a Banshee Blast at another group of monsters. They die.
They will all die!
I begin to cackle. I give into everything. The rage. The madness. There was only war in my heart, and a desire for victory! The spoils of war would belong to Arlan Vorlesh!
They would always belong to me. They had to be mine. If not? Then why do any of this? What was even the point of it all?
I could not live without war. I could not live in peace.
I was alive on the battlefield.
"Everything just as it should be." I repeat. It had become a mantra. This was my ascension.
An apotheosis to call my own.
"Does it always have to be this way, Arlan?" The whisper of Caelum Vorlesh. If only I could hear it. It goes on deaf ears. I laugh, and I laugh. The world does not laugh with me. I tear another apostle apart with my bare hands. The creature desperately tries to escape, even as I remove every limb, but I do not let it.
They are afraid of whatever I had become. I was a mortal, and because of that, I could be worse than any of them.
The truth becomes clear. The haze begins to fade. The nobles that had gathered at the castle are more afraid of the mortal who would invade their capital. When they witness me, drenched as I am in the entrails of my victims, they run away as if I was an infernal devil.
When all I did was serve as a reminder. That no monster would live.
I would make sure of it. That was my promise.
My pledge.
"There is nothing more I could ask for." Nosferatu Zodd stands in my way. The chimera does not transform. There has been a change. I recognize it. There was no apostle standing in my way. I saw a warrior.
"It would be my honor to die by your hand, Arlan Vorlesh." This was not the welp that had been cowed by Femto. It was something else entirely. This was Nosferatu Zodd. The myth.
"..." I felt a weariness I had not before. Then I reach for Frostbite. I did not need my magic. This was a duel. I would show him that much respect. "I have come for Griffith."
"Guts has already challenged him." The White Wolf made it here before I did. My crusader did not know. "I can't let you interfere. This is their battle."
"I made a promise." There is something dangerous in my tone. Primeval. "I will not break it."
"I know." The chimera does not budge. Instead he reaches for a great sword. "That is what you are." He smirks, and it is one filled with rapturous admiration. How he dreamed of this.
Our blades clash against each other. The castle feels it. The capital begins to shake after that, and in that throne room they waited.
This war would be the last for Nosferatu Zodd.
I wonder if he ever found peace. I recoil at the thought of it. What a horrid thing.
If only for his sake?
I hope he found a war to call his own.
Guts felt nothing as he slew them. This was a chore. The power of a deity, and it belonged to him. It made a triviality of enemies that had been fierce.
"It has been a while." The White Swordsman looks around, and notices the corpse. The princess of all people. A knife had been plunged directly into her heart. When he examines it? He realizes what happened. "The truth is hard to believe."
"It is, Guts." The hawk was waiting. "In fact, I had expected Arlan Vorlesh to arrive before you did."
"I had to take care of this myself." Guts smirks. "I asked for a favor, and I think he is going to be late." The smile becomes crooked. "This was never what you wanted. It was what they wanted."
"It is what I wanted." Griffith fights against it. The doubt. "I chose all of this."
"No, you threw away everything for a dream that didn't even exist." The wolf chuckles at that. "What I went through? What you did to Casca? This all worth it for a dream someone else gave you?" He stops at that. "I want an answer."
"Does it make any difference? I made my choice--"
The wolf doesn't let the demon lord continue. His fist collides against the ward. That protection he could never overcome before. The divinity of The Heart of Darkness? It breaks like glass.
The Falcon of Light is hurled back. That blow had loosened one of his teeth. The hawk proceeds to spit it out.
"What about you, Guts? You're not human anymore." Griffith isn't fazed by it. He knew what the wolf had become. "What did you have to sacrifice for this? Who exactly?"
"I'm not like you, Griffith! This was my sacrifice! This power? This immortality? I didn't want any of it!" The White Wolf reaches for Dragon Slayer. The great sword would drink the blood of a demon lord. "I threw away my humanity for Arlan Vorlesh."
The debt he owed? The promise had to be reciprocated.
More than anything else? The Band of the Hawk had to be avenged. This was the culmination of everything The White Swordsman worked for. The revenge he had dreamed of. Now within his grasp. After so many years.
His fury had become tranquil. When before it was wild. Guts knew what he had to do. This obligation to all of his brothers and sisters had to be fulfilled. This was just another demon lord in his way.
Another body to build into the foundation of this crusade. At the temple that would honor them all. Judeau. Pippin. Gaston. Those mercenaries he called family.
Heck, even that bastard Corkus.
Griffith reaches for Radiance. The blade which had ensured my victory centuries ago. There was an ethereal quintessence dwelling within it. It carried the same miracle I had brought to this land. This would be a challenge.
Femto would not die just like that. His dream could be salvaged. This vision he had for it all? It had come to pass, and he would not let it go.
It was all he had left.
Unlikely as it was.
When she falls from the alcove, and directly into the throne room? Her wolf was already about to pounce. Guts growling like a regal beast, and that enormous hunk of metal clashing against the most radiant blade she had ever seen. The brilliance of it overwhelmed her.
The White Wolf was not the only one who had come for revenge. It was owed to her, but this was delicate. If they were not careful their child could die.
No, not revenge. What they desired above all else was justice. I had taught them that. Their hatred found a guide. Their Knight Commander was ever present. I had become part of them.
Dawnbreaker by her side. The blade I had commissioned for her, and which I customized to my exact specifications.
"I will end it!" The bastard sword is unsheathed. Whether the hawk would relinquish her child or not? This reunion had to happen. Casca would meet her child. "This tragedy!"
The person that had tormented them both. Their friend. Their leader. The one they trusted above all others. Who had saved them, and summarily condemned them.
There was no place to hide. The hawk would answer for his crimes.
Griffith doesn't notice it. Not until the paladin had already approached him. The bastard sword is swung, and it stops for only a fraction of second as it collides against a ward, before it lacerates his face. The hawk turned his piercing gaze towards her. When before that look would have broken her? Casca instead felt contempt. This person, who they had sacrificed everything for, and who had betrayed them both?
What a miserable existence.
Femto had been wounded by a mortal of all things. That vaunted beauty of his tarnished by one of his own. What composure he had went with it. The demon lord had sacrificed it all for nothing. These mortals were a threat. The sacrifice had changed nothing!
These crusaders had come bearing death.
This dream of his was in shambles. The princess had died. The Kingdom of Midland, which he had claimed by conquest, and had made into his Falconia? It had been for naught. It was over.
"This is my dream! These are my people!" The throne room had made an exit. It had been replaced, and the demon lord had driven them directly into the Abyss. This was his realm. The sanctuary for his dream. Where nothing might trample on it. "I will rebuild my broken empire! I will see it prosper!"
This plane had a name. It had represented the hawk.
"Welcome to my domain, Somnium."
This would be their grave.
The Heart of Darkness did not claim him. That soul of his belonged to war.
The same as my own.
"Of course." I had to be late. There was nothing. Just the corpse of the princess. I take a moment to examine the area. Where had they gone? I make my way towards the young woman.
I cast Speak With Dead, and the corpse levitates into the air.
"What has happened, Charlotte?" I demand of her. "Where is the demon lord? Where is your betrothed?"
"There was an intruder. The White Swordsman had come to claim the life of my love." That was a problem. The conflict had most likely escalated. "The hawk that had deceived us? He has become desperate."
They were in the Abyss.
There were no more questions I needed to ask. I dismiss the spell, and the cadaver collapses to the ground. I did feel pity. The young woman was an innocent in all of this. I could cast Raise Dead, and bring her back...
No, I could feel it, the young woman did not want to return. I would not force her.
"A problem, but there is always a way to remedy those." I cast the spell Dimension Door, and make some adjustments to it. The residual ether lingering in the throne room resonates in response to it. "The solution will present itself."
The doorway is synced. I enter the portal, and when I exit it? I am in the Abyss.
This realm was pristine. There was nothing to it. Ivory, but it was empty. A void. Whose expanse was boundless. No celestial bodies. No constellations. No nebulae. No galaxies. It was as hollow as the person who claimed it. Quiet most of all.
A place to rest. This realm of silence.
In the distance I saw them. The battle was not over. I drew Frostbite again, and made my way towards them.
I had a way to save them. I would not waste this opportunity. I could hear her. My Radiance. The blade I had called my own. It was in anguish. It did not want this but it had no choice. The child was worthy.
I had to free her.
"The Plucking has come, Griffith!" I would strip him bare. I would take everything from him. I would watch my crusader enact his glorious retribution.
Then I would save their son.
This victory would be complete. I would accept nothing else. They deserve a second chance. A life of peace. A reality where their demons would taste defeat at last. They would have it all.
"What about you, Arlan? What about your life?" The wraith had to watch as I threw it away. Once more, just like when I had cast myself into The Worldwound for the sake of Golarion, and now for these people.
"They are my life, Caelum!" There is no hesitation. I belonged to my crusaders. "There is no purpose but this one! There is no path except for what I have chosen!" This canvas for my portrait! The world to be carved by my hands! Arlan Vorlesh would decide!
I would grant them this miracle. Whilst I still had the power.
I cast Walk Through Space, and appear in front of them. "They did not lie! I can see the resemblance!" Frostbite buckles against Radiance. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Griffith! I have come to pluck your feathers!"
"Why did you have to ruin everything?" Femto grimaces at that. That composure he was known for was gone. "What made you decide to crush my dream?"
"It was just a whim of mine! A fleeting fancy that drove this!" I had to be condescending. This creature deserved every violation. "Why not, Griffith? It has been a joyous occasion!"
There was no demon lord I despised more.
"I stole all of it, Griffith! Guts belongs to me! Casca is mine now! This crusade has even given me a crown! I have succeeded in every way that you have failed!" Frostbite begins to crack. It couldn't hope to match Radiance, but I only required a distraction.
I cast Polar Midnight, and amplify it with Conduit Surge, before imbuing the bastard sword with the spell. Frostbite reverberates with power, and everything it touches ceases to exist. Their future obliterated completely. It was not like Dragon Slayer. It did not destroy anything in the past. It fixated on what would happen, and when there was no future? There could be nothing else for anything in the present.
Radiance endured despite that. It did not need any future. The blade would simply create another one.
Griffith, on the other hand, had no such defense. At least not as he was. When the magic envelops him he undergoes a transformation in order to survive. Femto remained. His burgundy armor which was a part of his body, and which pulsated like it was alive. That helmet which had been forged in the likeness of a falcon, and of course those wings he sacrificed everything for. He had thought they were a way to freedom. When their promise was that of slavery. The demon lord in all of his grotesque magnificence.
Almost all of him.
Griffith had lost one of his arms, and the wound was not healing. Frostbite was not as lucky. The bastard sword had disintegrated.
I make use of the spell known as Slay Living, and a black flame engulfs both of my hands. Anything I touched would burn. I throw a punch, and my fist meets Radiance. Griffith may have lost one arm, but he still had another one!
The problem was that I wasn't the only one he had to fight.
Guts takes advantage of that momentary distraction. Dragon Slayer carving through history, and that is when it crashes against the demon lord. The hawk is sent hurdling away. That living armor he wore saved his life, but it had been scorched by the flames.
Griffith doesn't have any respite from that. Casca was on him. The paladin had cast the spell Holy Sword, and her bastard sword had begun to glow. However, the young woman knew that would not be enough. She makes use of Smite Evil on top of that. Casca plunges her bastard sword into his chest. The armor, buckling under the strain, and having already been weakened by Dragon Slayer, is pierced through. The blade did not stab into his heart, but it did manage to perforate one of his lungs.
Griffith could not help but cry out in agony. Dawnbreaker was made to fell monsters, and he was most certainly one. The demon lord uses the pommel of Radiance, and slams it against the young woman. The paladin is launched backwards by the force of the blow, and her ribs are broken. Along with her sternum.
I catch her before she can hit the ground, and quickly cast Heal. I repair all the damage that was done to her. Then I reach out with one of my hands, and cast Harm. The demon lord regurgitates bile. Whatever had amounted to his kidneys and liver had ruptured.
Radiance ignites. The demon lord ignores all of his grievous wounds, and in a wide arc he swings the blade at us. A beam of holy light erupts from it. Guts tries to stop it by hurling Dragon Slayer at it. The great sword intercepts the blast. Before being flung back by the force of it. Grunbeld was no match for it.
The White Wolf undergoes his metamorphosis. In his place stood a dire wolf, and he was steadfast. Ready to protect everything he held dear. The howl could be heard not just in this realm, but also in every other one. The gale blew everything away, but when it collided against the laser? It was at a stalemate, but the standstill would not last, and the dire wolf would die.
I had to fix that.
I cast Heroic Invocation, and focus all of that power on Guts. When before the dire wolf barely held his own against the blast? Instead Griffith struggled against the wind which had been bolstered by my spell. I cast Umbral Strike, and amplify it with Conduit Surge. It joins the tempest. Which had become a whirlwind of frigid necrosis.
Guts could not best this alone, but he would never be alone! I had seen to that!
The magic crashes against the holy light of Radiance, and Griffith is engulfed by it. The demon lord is drawn into the cyclone. Before being thrown through this realm of Somnium, and surpassing even the boundlessness of it! This power could not be contained by any kind of universe!
Griffith screams in anguish. The hawk is assailed by temperatures which had dropped below absolute zero, and the negative energy clawed at his life. The wind tore everything else away from him. The status of a demon lord he had sacrificed everything for?
Stolen by it.
At last everything had been torn from the betrayer, and what stood in front of us was mortal. This was no demon lord. No, it was a broken enemy. Radiance falls, and clangs against the ground. The blade was free at last.
Griffith collapses. He couldn't ignore his wounds anymore. This regal and refined general, this ruler, that had the countenance of a deity, brought low to his knees!
"I lost." Griffith admits at last. Whatever pretense was gone. The doubt he felt had been proven true. This was not his dream at all, and he had betrayed everyone and everything for nothing! It was a lie! They had tricked him. "Do it, Guts."
There was no redemption. He didn't even feel remorse. The Heart of Darkness had been immaculate in this rearing. Whether it was his bloodline, or his environment, it was crafted to make him into this. Who else could he have become? He realized all of this by some measure, and that is why he desired a revolution of sorts. It was not about securing anything! It was about revenge!
"I can't believe it." It was profound what I felt. This disgust. I had cast Detect Thoughts, and even as the hawk fell he blamed everyone else. "They played a part in this. No doubt about that, but there was always a choice." I grabbed the stump, where his arm had been severed, and squeezed. Griffith grimaces in pain. "The problem was that you chose poorly!"
I cast Foresight and show him everything. The world as it could have been. If he had rejected The Godhand. In that reality I see a person much like myself. Who would overcome everything. The harbinger of miracles. The Band of the Hawk triumphant.
The Godhand brought to death. Griffith dying despite that, but as a hero instead of a villain.
"I had it all. I was born for a purpose I had not chosen. The same exact choice had been given to me, but where you succumbed to everything within and without? I rebelled against both!" Perhaps it was too much to ask. Who could do such a thing? Surely, there are few mortals who can choose this. When everything is set against them. Their pedigree. Their parents. Their reality.
Nature and nurture.
They defined most people, but the fact there were exceptions like myself, meant the possibility was manifest. Any outliers exist for a reason. It is never impossible.
Which meant some responsibility belonged to Griffith. Whether he acknowledged it or not.
"Get out of the way, Arlan." Guts had retrieved Dragon Slayer, and he was prepared to put an end to this. The dire wolf was gone. The transformation had been dismissed.
Casca blocks his path. The young woman had a look of desperation about her.
"What are you doing?"
"It is not over, Guts! Our son is alive!"
Guts stops at that.
"What are you talking about, Casca?" Guts looks back at Griffith, or rather what was left of him. "What has this got to do with--"
"Griffith had need of a host! Any kind of vessel that was able to contain his essence!" I had to explain quickly, before everything went wrong. I did not need any distractions. "Your child is that host! I can separate them! I can save your son!"
Guts had some difficulty processing that information. The White Wolf had frozen, and had done his best impression of a marble statue.
"Be patient, his execution will have to be postponed for a few seconds." I clap my hands together, and this realm begins to disappear. Somnium vanishes, and we are back in the throne room. I reach for Radiance, and the blade levitates. Before gracefully floating back into my hand.
I would have need of her.
"I would have you hear my plea, Mystra!" I shout, and the plane trembles. This universe had felt it. The power I was about to conjure forth. This sacrifice. The ley lines around us are filled to the brim with magic. The Weave pouring into them. This was a spell that this world was not prepared for! "I ask of you a blessing! I pray that I receive an answer!"
The words I speak have power. The realm can scarcely handle this, and the magic escapes into every other one. The Weave begins to envelop the wheel. The Mother of Mystery embracing it, and from her succor I feel it.
"I, Arlan Vorlesh, make a wish." I had cast it. The spell had been aptly named Wish. Self-explanatory, as it was. This incantation could fulfill any desire. There was no restriction, and with it the impossible became a certainty. This miracle? It was the most powerful spell in the repertoire of anyone who ever practiced the arcane. "I want to save a life!"
Griffith clutches at his heart, and his soul is torn from his host. The Heart of Darkness would not let go of it that easily, and it is drawn back in. Only for there to be an explosion! The Weave felt slighted and fought back! It purges the influence of the Abyss.
The child had made his entrance. Their progeny took after Guts. The boy looked just like him when he was mortal, but there was definitely something of Casca. The hair, for starters. That had to be her. The child was absent of any clothing, and born again.
Casca doesn't say anything. Instead she rushes towards the boy, and embraces him. The boy doesn't know what to do. He looks confused by the gesture. Slowly, he attempts to do the same. There is some sort of curiosity. That of an infant. How much of his life had been stolen? "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
This miracle the last I had to give.
The rebound had hit. There was a price. I knew intuitively that I could never cast this spell again. I had thought as much, and I could not use it to save myself. I was destined for the Abyss. Instead of loss? I felt contentment. I watched this reunion, and I knew the choice I made had been the correct one.
"I hope that Gale Waterdeep will be as wise as you, Arlan Vorlesh." I could hear a whisper. I knew not from where.
It had to be The Mistress of Magic. The One True Spell.
I hear a croak. No, it had to be a caw. A truly pitiful one, and that is when I find the hawk. Griffith had become one. The bird had a missing wing. Part of his beak was broken. I could end his misery myself, but I turned towards my crusader.
Guts nods his head. Recognizing what this meant.
The White Wolf walks over to the animal, looks down at it, he frowns in distaste, lifts up one of his boots, and then crushes the bird beneath his heel. There is a sickening crunch. Griffith dies not as a mortal or a immortal, but as a beast.
The Godhand stood as one, and then...
The Heart of Darkness.
[] It is time to celebrate. The battle is almost won. In Arlan's Way a festival is held. I cherish these moments with my crusaders, because I know that soon I would leave. I realize that Guts and Casca do not have a surname. I decide to give them one. A house to call their own.
[] The Skull Knight is waiting. King Gaiseric wishes to speak. I had no doubt that it was about Void. The last of The Godhand. Their rivalry had lasted for a millennium. The demon lord was within his grasp. The grudge could be satisfied at last. Where it all began...
"What are you willing to sacrifice? This would certainly solve your problem, but you would be barred from the Abyss. There is more than just war in your heart. That wolf? His paladin? Those children you have claimed as your own? What of their plight? I can see it. What you are, Arlan. The son of Areelu Vorlesh. More so than your brother ever was."
- Ao
The grimoire had everything I needed.
The risk would be great, and with my soul as it was, the chances of me ever being able to perform this spell again were negligible at best. I never attempted it before, but I knew everything there was to know about it. What it was capable of in the hands of any mortal like myself.
The power was unmatched. However, the price was something I had to consider. If I had to cast this? What would I even use it for?
I had everything I needed already. I would not ever need it again.
"Save yourself, Arlan." The wraith had whispered in my ear.
"No, I don't think I will." I smile. I found what I was looking for. This way I could save their child. He would not be at the mercy of chance. Just as he would be if I made use of Forced Reincarnation. That grand hex would not be enough. Casca had been correct in her assessment.
I do not break any promise. Arlan Vorlesh is true.
The Knight Commander protects.
"They can save their son themselves! He is not your responsibility!" The shadow was beside himself to say the least. This was the perfect chance! I could use it to repair my soul. I could be free of this curse. The rest of my life could be with my Iomedae. Farnese, my protege, by our side. The Higher Planes would become our home. The angels our brothers and sisters.
I had found peace, but that would not save anyone. I had to exacerbate my problems. Capitalize on them in every way.
Peace was dreadfully boring, and a warmonger at idle is most dangerous. Especially to those he cherishes. I knew exactly where I had to go. The place that would become my home would be the Abyss. That paradise for monsters.
Goodbye, my Iomedae. Farnese, you will always be my witch. I leave to you my people. Arlan's Way will belong to the both of you. It will belong to my crusaders!
I had made my decision already. There was no point in changing it.
"This will be my stage. The theater my own."
Forever, and always.
<<X>>
Guts felt as if something had gone awry. His divine senses had an inkling of something in the horizon. A change, a monumental one, and even those who oversaw the balance were concerned.
The Axiomite Godmind driven into a frenzy. The coin was about to land on the edge, and due to the contract brokered by The Godclaw? There was no way they could interfere without jeopardizing everything they worked for. They could, but if they broke the contract? The damage...
They had to compromise. They had to observe.
Powerless, as they were.
"What the hell is this itch?" Of course, Guts barely understood what the feeling meant. As far as demi-gods were concerned? The White Wolf was in his infancy. There was room for growth. He had slain two demon lords, but there was more to come.
Griffith.
Just the thought of that betrayer would have driven him mad before, but now his rage has been refined. He could control it, and he no longer felt anything but contempt for the hawk. When before he hesitated? He had felt something. A desperate wish to see if anything had been true. If their friendship had moved that bastard. If his heart trembled in any shame for what he had done.
There was nothing instead.
When Griffith had returned from the Abyss? The Falcon of Light, dispassionate as he was, had looked at them both as nothing more than a hindrance. Another bug to be squashed. Their tragedy a joke! The Band of the Hawk meant nothing...
No, not in the face of Griffith's dream. His ambition. That which was his now. The Kingdom of Midland, or was it Falconia?
It did not matter. Guts would destroy it. He would see it fall.
Then, only after Guts had destroyed everything, that land in ruin, would he relieve Griffith of his heart. The White Wolf would tear it from his chest, and feast on it! The life would leave the pretender, and the wolf would be free.
The wind would be his!
Casca turned in her sleep beside him. The young woman had been a source of joy. Of happiness. The one thing that brought ease to his tortured soul. When all else had been taken from him.
His family would be avenged. The Band of the Hawk would live again in this crusade. Through this glorious tribute.
Another demon lord for their altar.
<<X>>
"Are you ready, Aivu?" I take the reigns. The havoc dragon was salivating at the prospect of war. How long had it been since her father fought beside her like this? The beast had desired it above all else. Just one more chance. When I was lost to her?
The grief had almost been too much. Aimlessly the havoc dragon wandered the multiverse. In search of any purpose. A way to live without Arlan Vorlesh. It had become an impossible task, but there were always distractions. A way to forget. There were always monsters, and they had become her prey! Soon a century would pass, and then another one after that. The havoc dragon would become a myth. A legend just like her Knight Commander.
The Higher Planes could always rely on her for aid. The Lower Planes feared her in every way.
The hollowness did not dissipate despite that. That hole in her heart, the bleeding had stopped, but it was still there. It had endured. There was no salve for it.
Then a miracle happened.
Aivu should have known that I lived somewhere. There was a swelling of pride. Her father. Her Knight Commander. The terror of the Abyss. The adversary they feared above all others.
The havoc dragon had found it. The purpose she had lost. When her father would leave for the Abyss? Aivu would follow him.
All those facets? Those aspects? The avatars of the champion known only as Arlan Vorlesh? They would know of her friendship.
The Abyss would be routed.
<<X>>
Regill could feel it. This was just the beginning! The Abyss? It waited for the gnome. He would wage war in every plane. In every universe nestled within that realm. He had served Asmodeus dutifully, but it was never quite the same. The Prince of Darkness was nothing. He was not his Knight Commander! His commanding officer! His leader!
His friend.
The bleaching should have taken him. Death should have claimed him. The gnome spurned his destiny! He broke free of it because he had promised. Just as it was for Arlan Vorlesh? That was something sacred to the gnome! The authority of his general overshadowed any curse. Any blight. No matter how severe it was!
"Arlan Vorlesh, my Hellknight. My masterpiece." There is not a day that goes by where he is not thankful for that meeting. If it was anyone else he would have called it fate. However, this was Arlan Vorlesh. The breaker of it. "My magnum opus, and realized at last!"
The Knight Commander, through conquest, had orchestrated everything. Their meeting in particular. There were those that feared him. The gnome was brutal. Uncompromising in every way. The essence of what it meant to be a Hellknight, and because of that? There was no other that could teach Arlan Vorlesh. The Knight Commander required the ideal, and he was most exceptional of all.
He caressed the havoc dragon. Those scales were pristine. One of many in their army, and he surveyed the troops around him. They had mounted their own beasts. A few of them at least. There were many but not enough to accommodate their whole army. The rest of his soldiers had no choice but to face the demons on foot. Regill would unleash hell from above, and watch over them.
"To war, my crusaders! My Hellknights!"
The Kingdom of Midland would fall. Glory awaited them all.
"Do not disappoint The Knight Commander! He expects results from all of you!" The gnome lifts his hammer into the air, and spurs the soldiers into action. The crusaders cheer as one in response. "If you dare to fail? I will lash you all myself!"
This would be revenge. These people, once slaves to these monsters, had now known what it meant to be free. All thanks to The Knight Commander. Their lord and their liege. Their liberator.
They had their pride. Their lives. Their families. Their people. A land to call their own.
Soon they would have everything else.
"Yes, sir!"
<<X>>
The Skull Knight rode on his horse. The one that had been gifted to him. The crusaders around him wore the same armor he did centuries ago. It brought back memories. Ones that he wished that he could forget. This nightmare? He never thought there was way he could actually end it, but then he met the champion. The herald.
The harbinger of change.
There was hope when before there was nothing. How futile it had been. A thousand years he had fought, and a thousand years he had experienced nothing but failure. He was just a nuisance.
He had never prayed before. Not to any deity, but there was faith. A belief he did not have before, and it was because of this, that he prayed.
"Arlan Vorlesh, my friend. I will wage war." The prayer would be for The Knight Commander. The person who changed everything. "I will fight again!"
The Kingdom of Midland was ahead of them. The crusaders were hungry for the blood of these monsters. They were not afraid anymore. They were warriors all. Berserkers in the service of vengeance itself.
They prepare every weapon. They set their sights on the capital.
They roar.
"Charge forward, into the depths of the Abyss!"
The Sword of Actuation hums with power, and the plane is torn asunder by it.
The Skull Knight had been reinvigorated.
His heart became a blazing inferno!
<<X>>
Falconia.This place that Griffith had built from the ashes of the Kingdom of Midland. He wonders if it was all worth it. Those sacrifices he had made to make it this far. The people he had betrayed. The Band of the Hawk? He had replaced them, but it was not the same.
That child, he assaulted him again, these emotions were weakening him. They were beginning to make him doubt. He grips Radiance as tightly as he can. This blade would serve him. It would serve the child. Griffith knew that much. He had done everything he could to prepare for his rival.
Arlan Vorlesh.
The hero that had reminded him so much of himself. Despite that, Arlan Vorlesh was mortal. He had rejected godhood, and in that moment The Falcon of Light began to wonder. What if he had done the same? What if he had not been weak?
"No, I made the right choice." It had to be. It was worth it. He had achieved everything. His dream? It had come to fruition.
"Not by your hand, Griffith. It was the will of The Godhand." That voice? It was always their will. He had every intention of betraying them. His rule had to last, and for that to happen? The Godhand had to fall.
Nosferatu Zodd was in the shadows. He could feel it. That death of his. The day had come. This would be the end. That clarity made him regain his pride. He could not beat Griffith, but he knew the truth.
Femto had been a pawn in their game.
"That dream was never your own, Griffith. It belonged to The Godhand." The chimera has no fear. Not anymore.
"..." The demon lord listened. He could have slain the apostle for his insolence, but he did not. The influence of the child was undeniable now. "What would my dream have been without them?"
The hawk had to wonder. What ambition? Everything was a part of their design. Their plan. He may have been made into one of them, but none of it was him. It was The Heart of Darkness. They were all pawns!
"What have I done?" The hawk falls to the floor. The humanity he had thrown away flooding back into him.
The truth had become clear. When he became a demon lord. It didn't move his heart before, because his transformation took everything mortal from him.
The child had broken that. This was how it vexed him.
"Disgusting." Zodd couldn't believe he swore fealty to this coward. "Stand up, and fight! Face your death with dignity, Griffith!"
Femto rises, and he looks towards the horizon. Charlotte Beatrix Marie Rhody Wyndham was behind him, or whatever was left of her corpse. When the young woman had witnessed the truth? The princess had taken her own life. Her savior was a monster.
"Guts, I--" Femto shakes his head. "I will not die like this! I have my dream!" He had to fight for it.
Forever a pawn in this game. What a wretched thing. No dream to call his own.
Only the dreams of monsters.
<<X>>
The Hand of the Inheritor flew over the city. The apostles had been let loose. These demons were devouring the citizens. Their chains broken as everything that restrained them disappeared.
"My brothers and sisters, these demons have turned against their own people!" He thrusts his sword towards the firmament. The heavens answered his call. A thousand angels, the best he had to offer for this crusade, and his friend. The Knight Commander who had saved him. When all hope had been lost. "Be their salvation when all is lost!"
The angel conjures up a Storm of Justice, and holy light rains down. Countless demons are brought to heel. They are burned to ashes in the chaos. There would be hope. These angels were no apostles! They were no demons! They were servants of the divine, and they would protect these mortals from whatever was lurking in the shadows!
The Heart of Darkness would not prevail this day. This victory would belong to the righteous.
The heroes of this realm!
"Shepherd them all, my angels!"
They would save these people.
<<X>>
"Goodbye, Sonia!" The azata lets loose another arrow. Irvine was surrounded by too many of them, but he had to protect all of these people. These mortals? They were not at fault for what the demon lord had done. "Desna, prepare a hearth for me! When I come home at last!"
The azata would die as he lived. A servant of life, and a guardian of Elysium. The civilians behind him took comfort in knowing they were safe, but they could see it. All of the wounds. The ranger was bleeding. The torture had commenced earlier, but he did not speak once. Not even as they interrogated him. His honor had remained intact. Those secrets would all die with him.
A dozen arrows fly through the air, and each one pierces something vital. The wounds do not heal. A demon falls to the ground. An arrow having pierced through his forehead.
Locus and Rakshas were among the apostles. They were here for the traitor. The Band of the Falcon had sworn allegiance to Femto, and they would not allow this transgression to go unpunished. The betrayer had to pay.
Irvine laughs at them.
"If you feel courageous? Come and claim my life for yourself!" They would die with him. The azata would make sure of it. "I will show you what it means to be a ranger!"
I should have saved him. I should have kept my promise. I should have done more. Sonia, I wonder if she would ever look past this failure of mine.
I will not break another oath.
<<X>>
The havoc dragons encircle the capital. I survey the anarchy below, and that is when I leap from Aivu. This was not something I could just watch. I had to join the fray!
I land with the grace of a feline, and unsheathe my bastard sword. Frostbite was ready for anything. The apostles in my way are frozen solid by the blade, and those who survive the frost? Are assaulted by electricity. I cast Chain Lightning, and a dozen of them burst open. Their blood paints everyone and everything around us crimson.
"I am Arlan Vorlesh! The Knight Commander of the Sixth Crusade!" I stab the bastard sword into another apostle, and twist the blade until I am certain the wound is fatal. "I will deliver you all to the Abyss! Prepare yourselves!"
I cast Vampiric Touch, and grab one of the demons. The life drains from it, and then I hurl the corpse at another apostle. I speak another incantation, and hurl a Banshee Blast at another group of monsters. They die.
They will all die!
I begin to cackle. I give into everything. The rage. The madness. There was only war in my heart, and a desire for victory! The spoils of war would belong to Arlan Vorlesh!
They would always belong to me. They had to be mine. If not? Then why do any of this? What was even the point of it all?
I could not live without war. I could not live in peace.
I was alive on the battlefield.
"Everything just as it should be." I repeat. It had become a mantra. This was my ascension.
An apotheosis to call my own.
"Does it always have to be this way, Arlan?" The whisper of Caelum Vorlesh. If only I could hear it. It goes on deaf ears. I laugh, and I laugh. The world does not laugh with me. I tear another apostle apart with my bare hands. The creature desperately tries to escape, even as I remove every limb, but I do not let it.
They are afraid of whatever I had become. I was a mortal, and because of that, I could be worse than any of them.
The truth becomes clear. The haze begins to fade. The nobles that had gathered at the castle are more afraid of the mortal who would invade their capital. When they witness me, drenched as I am in the entrails of my victims, they run away as if I was an infernal devil.
When all I did was serve as a reminder. That no monster would live.
I would make sure of it. That was my promise.
My pledge.
"There is nothing more I could ask for." Nosferatu Zodd stands in my way. The chimera does not transform. There has been a change. I recognize it. There was no apostle standing in my way. I saw a warrior.
"It would be my honor to die by your hand, Arlan Vorlesh." This was not the welp that had been cowed by Femto. It was something else entirely. This was Nosferatu Zodd. The myth.
"..." I felt a weariness I had not before. Then I reach for Frostbite. I did not need my magic. This was a duel. I would show him that much respect. "I have come for Griffith."
"Guts has already challenged him." The White Wolf made it here before I did. My crusader did not know. "I can't let you interfere. This is their battle."
"I made a promise." There is something dangerous in my tone. Primeval. "I will not break it."
"I know." The chimera does not budge. Instead he reaches for a great sword. "That is what you are." He smirks, and it is one filled with rapturous admiration. How he dreamed of this.
Our blades clash against each other. The castle feels it. The capital begins to shake after that, and in that throne room they waited.
This war would be the last for Nosferatu Zodd.
I wonder if he ever found peace. I recoil at the thought of it. What a horrid thing.
If only for his sake?
I hope he found a war to call his own.
<<X>>
The White Wolf had forced his way in. The apostles were not even a hindrance. Nor any kind of obstacle. They died, and they died. They screamed, but it did not move his heart.
Guts felt nothing as he slew them. This was a chore. The power of a deity, and it belonged to him. It made a triviality of enemies that had been fierce.
"It has been a while." The White Swordsman looks around, and notices the corpse. The princess of all people. A knife had been plunged directly into her heart. When he examines it? He realizes what happened. "The truth is hard to believe."
"It is, Guts." The hawk was waiting. "In fact, I had expected Arlan Vorlesh to arrive before you did."
"I had to take care of this myself." Guts smirks. "I asked for a favor, and I think he is going to be late." The smile becomes crooked. "This was never what you wanted. It was what they wanted."
"It is what I wanted." Griffith fights against it. The doubt. "I chose all of this."
"No, you threw away everything for a dream that didn't even exist." The wolf chuckles at that. "What I went through? What you did to Casca? This all worth it for a dream someone else gave you?" He stops at that. "I want an answer."
"Does it make any difference? I made my choice--"
The wolf doesn't let the demon lord continue. His fist collides against the ward. That protection he could never overcome before. The divinity of The Heart of Darkness? It breaks like glass.
The Falcon of Light is hurled back. That blow had loosened one of his teeth. The hawk proceeds to spit it out.
"What about you, Guts? You're not human anymore." Griffith isn't fazed by it. He knew what the wolf had become. "What did you have to sacrifice for this? Who exactly?"
"I'm not like you, Griffith! This was my sacrifice! This power? This immortality? I didn't want any of it!" The White Wolf reaches for Dragon Slayer. The great sword would drink the blood of a demon lord. "I threw away my humanity for Arlan Vorlesh."
The debt he owed? The promise had to be reciprocated.
More than anything else? The Band of the Hawk had to be avenged. This was the culmination of everything The White Swordsman worked for. The revenge he had dreamed of. Now within his grasp. After so many years.
His fury had become tranquil. When before it was wild. Guts knew what he had to do. This obligation to all of his brothers and sisters had to be fulfilled. This was just another demon lord in his way.
Another body to build into the foundation of this crusade. At the temple that would honor them all. Judeau. Pippin. Gaston. Those mercenaries he called family.
Heck, even that bastard Corkus.
Griffith reaches for Radiance. The blade which had ensured my victory centuries ago. There was an ethereal quintessence dwelling within it. It carried the same miracle I had brought to this land. This would be a challenge.
Femto would not die just like that. His dream could be salvaged. This vision he had for it all? It had come to pass, and he would not let it go.
It was all he had left.
<<X>>
Casca had to hurry. That child had to be saved. Her child above all others. The love of a mother overpowering everything else. There had to be a way. Griffith had to die. Her son had to live. There had to exist a world where both of those things could come to pass.
Unlikely as it was.
When she falls from the alcove, and directly into the throne room? Her wolf was already about to pounce. Guts growling like a regal beast, and that enormous hunk of metal clashing against the most radiant blade she had ever seen. The brilliance of it overwhelmed her.
The White Wolf was not the only one who had come for revenge. It was owed to her, but this was delicate. If they were not careful their child could die.
No, not revenge. What they desired above all else was justice. I had taught them that. Their hatred found a guide. Their Knight Commander was ever present. I had become part of them.
Dawnbreaker by her side. The blade I had commissioned for her, and which I customized to my exact specifications.
"I will end it!" The bastard sword is unsheathed. Whether the hawk would relinquish her child or not? This reunion had to happen. Casca would meet her child. "This tragedy!"
The person that had tormented them both. Their friend. Their leader. The one they trusted above all others. Who had saved them, and summarily condemned them.
There was no place to hide. The hawk would answer for his crimes.
Griffith doesn't notice it. Not until the paladin had already approached him. The bastard sword is swung, and it stops for only a fraction of second as it collides against a ward, before it lacerates his face. The hawk turned his piercing gaze towards her. When before that look would have broken her? Casca instead felt contempt. This person, who they had sacrificed everything for, and who had betrayed them both?
What a miserable existence.
Femto had been wounded by a mortal of all things. That vaunted beauty of his tarnished by one of his own. What composure he had went with it. The demon lord had sacrificed it all for nothing. These mortals were a threat. The sacrifice had changed nothing!
These crusaders had come bearing death.
This dream of his was in shambles. The princess had died. The Kingdom of Midland, which he had claimed by conquest, and had made into his Falconia? It had been for naught. It was over.
"This is my dream! These are my people!" The throne room had made an exit. It had been replaced, and the demon lord had driven them directly into the Abyss. This was his realm. The sanctuary for his dream. Where nothing might trample on it. "I will rebuild my broken empire! I will see it prosper!"
This plane had a name. It had represented the hawk.
"Welcome to my domain, Somnium."
This would be their grave.
<<X>>
I enter the throne room. The chimera had proven to be a distraction but in the end he died. He did not transform. Not once. The warrior died as he lived. Not beholden to anyone but himself.
The Heart of Darkness did not claim him. That soul of his belonged to war.
The same as my own.
"Of course." I had to be late. There was nothing. Just the corpse of the princess. I take a moment to examine the area. Where had they gone? I make my way towards the young woman.
I cast Speak With Dead, and the corpse levitates into the air.
"What has happened, Charlotte?" I demand of her. "Where is the demon lord? Where is your betrothed?"
"There was an intruder. The White Swordsman had come to claim the life of my love." That was a problem. The conflict had most likely escalated. "The hawk that had deceived us? He has become desperate."
They were in the Abyss.
There were no more questions I needed to ask. I dismiss the spell, and the cadaver collapses to the ground. I did feel pity. The young woman was an innocent in all of this. I could cast Raise Dead, and bring her back...
No, I could feel it, the young woman did not want to return. I would not force her.
"A problem, but there is always a way to remedy those." I cast the spell Dimension Door, and make some adjustments to it. The residual ether lingering in the throne room resonates in response to it. "The solution will present itself."
The doorway is synced. I enter the portal, and when I exit it? I am in the Abyss.
This realm was pristine. There was nothing to it. Ivory, but it was empty. A void. Whose expanse was boundless. No celestial bodies. No constellations. No nebulae. No galaxies. It was as hollow as the person who claimed it. Quiet most of all.
A place to rest. This realm of silence.
In the distance I saw them. The battle was not over. I drew Frostbite again, and made my way towards them.
I had a way to save them. I would not waste this opportunity. I could hear her. My Radiance. The blade I had called my own. It was in anguish. It did not want this but it had no choice. The child was worthy.
I had to free her.
"The Plucking has come, Griffith!" I would strip him bare. I would take everything from him. I would watch my crusader enact his glorious retribution.
Then I would save their son.
This victory would be complete. I would accept nothing else. They deserve a second chance. A life of peace. A reality where their demons would taste defeat at last. They would have it all.
"What about you, Arlan? What about your life?" The wraith had to watch as I threw it away. Once more, just like when I had cast myself into The Worldwound for the sake of Golarion, and now for these people.
"They are my life, Caelum!" There is no hesitation. I belonged to my crusaders. "There is no purpose but this one! There is no path except for what I have chosen!" This canvas for my portrait! The world to be carved by my hands! Arlan Vorlesh would decide!
I would grant them this miracle. Whilst I still had the power.
I cast Walk Through Space, and appear in front of them. "They did not lie! I can see the resemblance!" Frostbite buckles against Radiance. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Griffith! I have come to pluck your feathers!"
"Why did you have to ruin everything?" Femto grimaces at that. That composure he was known for was gone. "What made you decide to crush my dream?"
"It was just a whim of mine! A fleeting fancy that drove this!" I had to be condescending. This creature deserved every violation. "Why not, Griffith? It has been a joyous occasion!"
There was no demon lord I despised more.
"I stole all of it, Griffith! Guts belongs to me! Casca is mine now! This crusade has even given me a crown! I have succeeded in every way that you have failed!" Frostbite begins to crack. It couldn't hope to match Radiance, but I only required a distraction.
I cast Polar Midnight, and amplify it with Conduit Surge, before imbuing the bastard sword with the spell. Frostbite reverberates with power, and everything it touches ceases to exist. Their future obliterated completely. It was not like Dragon Slayer. It did not destroy anything in the past. It fixated on what would happen, and when there was no future? There could be nothing else for anything in the present.
Radiance endured despite that. It did not need any future. The blade would simply create another one.
Griffith, on the other hand, had no such defense. At least not as he was. When the magic envelops him he undergoes a transformation in order to survive. Femto remained. His burgundy armor which was a part of his body, and which pulsated like it was alive. That helmet which had been forged in the likeness of a falcon, and of course those wings he sacrificed everything for. He had thought they were a way to freedom. When their promise was that of slavery. The demon lord in all of his grotesque magnificence.
Almost all of him.
Griffith had lost one of his arms, and the wound was not healing. Frostbite was not as lucky. The bastard sword had disintegrated.
I make use of the spell known as Slay Living, and a black flame engulfs both of my hands. Anything I touched would burn. I throw a punch, and my fist meets Radiance. Griffith may have lost one arm, but he still had another one!
The problem was that I wasn't the only one he had to fight.
Guts takes advantage of that momentary distraction. Dragon Slayer carving through history, and that is when it crashes against the demon lord. The hawk is sent hurdling away. That living armor he wore saved his life, but it had been scorched by the flames.
Griffith doesn't have any respite from that. Casca was on him. The paladin had cast the spell Holy Sword, and her bastard sword had begun to glow. However, the young woman knew that would not be enough. She makes use of Smite Evil on top of that. Casca plunges her bastard sword into his chest. The armor, buckling under the strain, and having already been weakened by Dragon Slayer, is pierced through. The blade did not stab into his heart, but it did manage to perforate one of his lungs.
Griffith could not help but cry out in agony. Dawnbreaker was made to fell monsters, and he was most certainly one. The demon lord uses the pommel of Radiance, and slams it against the young woman. The paladin is launched backwards by the force of the blow, and her ribs are broken. Along with her sternum.
I catch her before she can hit the ground, and quickly cast Heal. I repair all the damage that was done to her. Then I reach out with one of my hands, and cast Harm. The demon lord regurgitates bile. Whatever had amounted to his kidneys and liver had ruptured.
Radiance ignites. The demon lord ignores all of his grievous wounds, and in a wide arc he swings the blade at us. A beam of holy light erupts from it. Guts tries to stop it by hurling Dragon Slayer at it. The great sword intercepts the blast. Before being flung back by the force of it. Grunbeld was no match for it.
The White Wolf undergoes his metamorphosis. In his place stood a dire wolf, and he was steadfast. Ready to protect everything he held dear. The howl could be heard not just in this realm, but also in every other one. The gale blew everything away, but when it collided against the laser? It was at a stalemate, but the standstill would not last, and the dire wolf would die.
I had to fix that.
I cast Heroic Invocation, and focus all of that power on Guts. When before the dire wolf barely held his own against the blast? Instead Griffith struggled against the wind which had been bolstered by my spell. I cast Umbral Strike, and amplify it with Conduit Surge. It joins the tempest. Which had become a whirlwind of frigid necrosis.
Guts could not best this alone, but he would never be alone! I had seen to that!
The magic crashes against the holy light of Radiance, and Griffith is engulfed by it. The demon lord is drawn into the cyclone. Before being thrown through this realm of Somnium, and surpassing even the boundlessness of it! This power could not be contained by any kind of universe!
Griffith screams in anguish. The hawk is assailed by temperatures which had dropped below absolute zero, and the negative energy clawed at his life. The wind tore everything else away from him. The status of a demon lord he had sacrificed everything for?
Stolen by it.
At last everything had been torn from the betrayer, and what stood in front of us was mortal. This was no demon lord. No, it was a broken enemy. Radiance falls, and clangs against the ground. The blade was free at last.
Griffith collapses. He couldn't ignore his wounds anymore. This regal and refined general, this ruler, that had the countenance of a deity, brought low to his knees!
"I lost." Griffith admits at last. Whatever pretense was gone. The doubt he felt had been proven true. This was not his dream at all, and he had betrayed everyone and everything for nothing! It was a lie! They had tricked him. "Do it, Guts."
There was no redemption. He didn't even feel remorse. The Heart of Darkness had been immaculate in this rearing. Whether it was his bloodline, or his environment, it was crafted to make him into this. Who else could he have become? He realized all of this by some measure, and that is why he desired a revolution of sorts. It was not about securing anything! It was about revenge!
"I can't believe it." It was profound what I felt. This disgust. I had cast Detect Thoughts, and even as the hawk fell he blamed everyone else. "They played a part in this. No doubt about that, but there was always a choice." I grabbed the stump, where his arm had been severed, and squeezed. Griffith grimaces in pain. "The problem was that you chose poorly!"
I cast Foresight and show him everything. The world as it could have been. If he had rejected The Godhand. In that reality I see a person much like myself. Who would overcome everything. The harbinger of miracles. The Band of the Hawk triumphant.
The Godhand brought to death. Griffith dying despite that, but as a hero instead of a villain.
"I had it all. I was born for a purpose I had not chosen. The same exact choice had been given to me, but where you succumbed to everything within and without? I rebelled against both!" Perhaps it was too much to ask. Who could do such a thing? Surely, there are few mortals who can choose this. When everything is set against them. Their pedigree. Their parents. Their reality.
Nature and nurture.
They defined most people, but the fact there were exceptions like myself, meant the possibility was manifest. Any outliers exist for a reason. It is never impossible.
Which meant some responsibility belonged to Griffith. Whether he acknowledged it or not.
"Get out of the way, Arlan." Guts had retrieved Dragon Slayer, and he was prepared to put an end to this. The dire wolf was gone. The transformation had been dismissed.
Casca blocks his path. The young woman had a look of desperation about her.
"What are you doing?"
"It is not over, Guts! Our son is alive!"
Guts stops at that.
"What are you talking about, Casca?" Guts looks back at Griffith, or rather what was left of him. "What has this got to do with--"
"Griffith had need of a host! Any kind of vessel that was able to contain his essence!" I had to explain quickly, before everything went wrong. I did not need any distractions. "Your child is that host! I can separate them! I can save your son!"
Guts had some difficulty processing that information. The White Wolf had frozen, and had done his best impression of a marble statue.
"Be patient, his execution will have to be postponed for a few seconds." I clap my hands together, and this realm begins to disappear. Somnium vanishes, and we are back in the throne room. I reach for Radiance, and the blade levitates. Before gracefully floating back into my hand.
I would have need of her.
"I would have you hear my plea, Mystra!" I shout, and the plane trembles. This universe had felt it. The power I was about to conjure forth. This sacrifice. The ley lines around us are filled to the brim with magic. The Weave pouring into them. This was a spell that this world was not prepared for! "I ask of you a blessing! I pray that I receive an answer!"
The words I speak have power. The realm can scarcely handle this, and the magic escapes into every other one. The Weave begins to envelop the wheel. The Mother of Mystery embracing it, and from her succor I feel it.
"I, Arlan Vorlesh, make a wish." I had cast it. The spell had been aptly named Wish. Self-explanatory, as it was. This incantation could fulfill any desire. There was no restriction, and with it the impossible became a certainty. This miracle? It was the most powerful spell in the repertoire of anyone who ever practiced the arcane. "I want to save a life!"
Griffith clutches at his heart, and his soul is torn from his host. The Heart of Darkness would not let go of it that easily, and it is drawn back in. Only for there to be an explosion! The Weave felt slighted and fought back! It purges the influence of the Abyss.
The child had made his entrance. Their progeny took after Guts. The boy looked just like him when he was mortal, but there was definitely something of Casca. The hair, for starters. That had to be her. The child was absent of any clothing, and born again.
Casca doesn't say anything. Instead she rushes towards the boy, and embraces him. The boy doesn't know what to do. He looks confused by the gesture. Slowly, he attempts to do the same. There is some sort of curiosity. That of an infant. How much of his life had been stolen? "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
This miracle the last I had to give.
The rebound had hit. There was a price. I knew intuitively that I could never cast this spell again. I had thought as much, and I could not use it to save myself. I was destined for the Abyss. Instead of loss? I felt contentment. I watched this reunion, and I knew the choice I made had been the correct one.
"I hope that Gale Waterdeep will be as wise as you, Arlan Vorlesh." I could hear a whisper. I knew not from where.
It had to be The Mistress of Magic. The One True Spell.
I hear a croak. No, it had to be a caw. A truly pitiful one, and that is when I find the hawk. Griffith had become one. The bird had a missing wing. Part of his beak was broken. I could end his misery myself, but I turned towards my crusader.
Guts nods his head. Recognizing what this meant.
The White Wolf walks over to the animal, looks down at it, he frowns in distaste, lifts up one of his boots, and then crushes the bird beneath his heel. There is a sickening crunch. Griffith dies not as a mortal or a immortal, but as a beast.
The Godhand stood as one, and then...
The Heart of Darkness.
[] It is time to celebrate. The battle is almost won. In Arlan's Way a festival is held. I cherish these moments with my crusaders, because I know that soon I would leave. I realize that Guts and Casca do not have a surname. I decide to give them one. A house to call their own.
[] The Skull Knight is waiting. King Gaiseric wishes to speak. I had no doubt that it was about Void. The last of The Godhand. Their rivalry had lasted for a millennium. The demon lord was within his grasp. The grudge could be satisfied at last. Where it all began...
Last edited:
Blasterbot
Well-known member
[X] It is time to celebrate. The battle is almost won. In Arlan's Way a festival is held. I cherish these moments with my crusaders, because I know that soon I would leave. I realize that Guts and Casca do not have a surname. I decide to give them one. A house to call their own.
A Taste of Victory
Gladiator
Well-known member
Chapter 27: A Taste of Victory
"The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time."
- Mark Twain
Another stitching around my soul had unraveled with the death of that hawk, but I had grown accustomed to it. The curse did not compare to the damage I had done to myself. It was the unthinkable. I had cast the most powerful spell in all of existence, and now I would never be able to cast it again.
That expense, and the duress of it all, had made it seem pleasant by comparison. I should have collapsed. I should have screamed. I should have been as a babe. Instead I just endured it all. If only for the sake of my crusaders? I had to be invincible.
Unbreakable.
I lie in my bed, and by my side, there was that witch. My witch. Farnese de Vandimion. The young woman who I poured all of my knowledge of witchcraft into. Her beauty was indescribable, and her maimed hands did not detract from it. If anything I found it to be her most attractive feature. The sacrifice she had made? Her penance for the sake of those she had burned?
I had a type.
Arueshaelae was a monster. Just like my witch. They both came to that realization on their own, and made a promise. That they would make amends for what they had done. That they would prevail against themselves. That they would change.
In another way Farnese de Vandimion was a distorted reflection of Ember. The mutilation was almost identical, and her power was not unlike that of an oracle. Despite the fact she was most assuredly a witch. A hybrid of both, and burdened by an unruly patron.
If the war came to an end here? I could live with her, and that goddess of mine. An unconventional relationship if any I heard of. I had not known The Inheritor to have dalliances.
Casca had awoken desire in the goddess.
Iomedae wanted The Knight Commander. Iomedae wanted all of him. Including that which I treasured. My affection had become her own. As far as Iomedae was concerned? The student was an extension of the teacher.
When I pull my witch close? It is not only my arms that wrap around her. I feel the presence of a Light of Valor, and the warmth envelops us.
When I capture her lips in a kiss? I forget it all, but there was a voice that was never silent. Calling for war even as I lost myself in another. That heart of mine entrapped by obsession.
The memory never fades.
When my brothers and sisters were in pain. When they died in agony. I was not the only experiment. I like to think that Band of Heroes are what remain of them. When I had tried to save them, I had pleaded desperately, and I failed.
I had lost... but I had lived.
That I despised more than anything else! It is not enough to live! I want to win. I want my victory to be overwhelming. I want it to be complete. I don't want to defeat anyone. I want to destroy them. I want to take everything. I want their heart.
Perhaps I had not lost? What if my family had a chance? A life to call their own? What would I be like?
No, I could not stop. Void was an obstacle. The Heart of Darkness had to be slain. The Abyss needed to answer for everything.
This war would never end.
Peace was my enemy! Peace that had nurtured cruelty! Peace that had made apathy a virtue! Which had promised mediocrity! Peace that had snatched away frenzy from mortals! That had made them demure! Where was their love? Where was their hatred? Where was their thirst? Where was their hunger? Their camaraderie? Their adventure? Their journey? Their story?
There was nothing in peace! It was in war that I saw life!
The life which I had lived! That life which I could call my own! This life I had forged!
"Are you alright, Arlan?" The tears had been black. An ichor that had the color of tar. Peace had hurt most of all. There was no silence in it. It was in war that I found an escape. It was in conquest that I felt purpose. It was in victory that I lived.
Anywhere else, and I would be a corpse.
"It's nothing. The curse will do whatever it wants." If only that had been true. "I have to prepare." This was not an appointment I could miss. "I can't exactly be late for this."
The occasion called for punctuality.
"I can't believe it myself, master." The young woman got out of the bed. As naked as the day she was born, and she reached for a pair of lace undergarments she had thrown to the floor; when she had crawled underneath my blankets just the night before. "I never thought it would happen."
A wedding.
It had drawn in many guests, because the bride and groom were famous in Arlan's Way, and I had been called in to serve as a priest of all things. I would be the one sanctifying it.
It was a peculiar choice, because I had never done this before, but I would try.
"If anything goes wrong? I will never hear the end of it."
Assiduous Gaze held a power not unlike True Seeing. I could discern everything a person was, and what they were capable of. Their character most of all was laid bare. It did not allow me to discern any future like Foresight did, but it grant me the ability to see through any disguise. Not even a spell like Invisibility could obscure it, and even actual transformations through the use of Polymorph were not enough to conceal any truth.
The horror I saw on their faces when they realized just exactly who I was? It was delectable. The most delicious meal I had to enjoy. It did not last but I relished it regardless.
The only one I had known who could hide from it was a deity, and thankfully The Starsong was an ally. Desna had no equal when it came to illusions.
The festival had gone on for a month. The celebration of our victory against the Kingdom of Midland had emboldened everyone. My crusaders did not waste a second of their leave. Serpico was not as pleased by this. Having to deal with drunkards on a daily basis was grating, and to say nothing of the mess they left behind in the brothels they always visited.
Soon there would be many children wandering the alleyways of Arlan's Way, and I had no doubt Isidro would recruit many of those hellions. The guild had need of aspiring thieves. Those firebrands, reckless as they were, would find the life of a rogue most accommodating.
Serpico had to always be careful. Annoying as they might have been? They were just brats. Besides that, every city needed a Thieves Guild. It almost felt natural.
"A pack of miscreants doing whatever they want? Those tieflings may have been your crusaders, but they were criminals all the same. Woljif was no exception." Caelum Vorlesh always had something to complain about. The ghostly apparition did not have any patience. "Don't treat Isidro as a replacement for them."
"I know but they are my criminals, Caelum." Did I see those tieflings in these renegades? "They are my people."
"That compassion does not fit one such as yourself. Be harsher on them, or they will take advantage of your mercy." The shadow disappears at that. There was no way that the necromancer would be present for this. Any place of worship was anathema to the specter.
I approach the church, my witch by my side, and I adjust my robes. When I pass through the archway? I find that the guests were mostly crusaders. Iomedae was already at the altar. The deity would grant them a boon.
As for myself I had something else in store for these soldiers.
"I am not late. That must mean they are." When I take my place by The Inheritor? The goddess turns her gaze towards her herald. The love of her life. I feel her grace. The power wrapping around my being like a veil, and Farnese de Vandimion can't help but be flustered when the deity grabs her by the waist. Which was followed by a chaste peck on her cheek.
Only for Iomedae herself to practically leap from her boots when I slap her on the behind. The spank was loud, and left behind an echo in the cloister.
"This isn't our bedroom! Save for that later!" This wedding wasn't for any of us. It was for them.
If anyone else had done that? Iomedae would have roasted them alive, but I was not anyone else. I was The Knight Commander, and her beloved herald.
"I will make you pay for that, Arlan." The deity still had her pride, but her grin betrayed the fact that she enjoyed it. The way I treated her like any other.
"That is what I am betting on!" The Higher Planes had granted her wisdom, and with it creativity. The Inheritor knew of every way to exact her revenge. "Do your absolute worst!"
I was already going to die. There was no way I was wasting any opportunity to enjoy this. I had a way out.
Ao be praised for it all.
"Why not name him after Arlan Vorlesh?" The Skull Knight had become a confidant. "The Knight Commander is the only reason why he escaped the clutches of The Godhand." The problem was that he always rode on his horse. They were inside of a tavern, and the beast of burden was tracking in mud. Where did King Gaiseric's aversion for walking come from? I never figured that one out, and I was afraid to ask. Whenever I tried to inquire about The Skull Knight, and his mysterious past, he would be cryptic.
"Absolutely not! He already has an ego!" The groom was loyal but he had his misgivings. The Knight Commander had brought about the miracle, and it had led to an insufferable vanity. "If I name my son after him? I will never hear the end of it!"
Oh, my crusader had been spot on about that one. The White Wolf had been happy when I offered to adopt the both of them, but also incredibly annoyed by how much I was the type to spoil.
"I like that idea." The bride decided to chime in. Casca was already in her gown, but that did not stop her from grabbing a tankard of ale. Their child, curious as he was, tried to take a sip. He couldn't reach it, and pouted. If only he could stretch his arms. The vice grip of his guardian locking him in place. "What do you think of the name?" The young woman had to ask the most important person of all.
"Aye!" The child of moonlight made an ecstatic noise. Arlan Vorlesh, second of his name, was learning at an alarming rate. "I want that one!" The hawk had bequeathed a gift. Unintended as it was.
The White Swordsman groaned at that. There was no point in arguing with everyone.
"Alright, but nobody tell him until after he bites it!" The White Wolf quickly changed tactics. Arlan Vorlesh, first of his name, would have to die. Which was kind of redundant. I was already going to die, Guts.
I beat you to it.
"My lord, I can retrieve them if need be--" I make a noise that sounds like the death wail of a harpy, and when my gaze meets that unfortunate soul, I reflexively cast Baleful Polymorph. The soldier is transformed into a dog. A golden retriever to be more precise.
"No, we will wait. I can do this." Only a few more minutes. I have to believe. "My crusaders, if I do not believe in them, what does that make of Arlan Vorlesh? The Knight Commander who would doubt?"
I did not doubt. I was a beacon of hope. A symbol of what mortality could achieve. The ideal specimen to lead this crusade.
I would not be beaten by tardiness.
"It is not permanent." The deity tends to the victim of my outrage. "The spell will fade eventually." Iomedae talks to the beast, and does whatever she can to ease his burden. The dog can only whimper pathetically.
"I can cast Dispel Magic, and maybe that can--"
"Don't try it, Farnese."
The Inheritor had no doubt my transmutation would endure. If anything it might make it worse. I did not hear any of them. All of my focus was on the entrance.
Any second. Any minute, except maybe not this one or the next one, but it had to be one of them. No way it would be another hour. If it was I would have to invent a number for the amount of lashes I would inflict. I feel my hand, almost as if it has a will not of my own, and it is drawn towards the mighty Belt of Discipline.
"Knight Commander! I am here for my wedding!" Casca slurs. The young woman was inebriated. Guts was carrying her in his arms, and behind The White Wolf I could see the wraith. The Skull Knight rode in on his horse, and I felt relief.
They were all here. The ceremony had begun.
"The groom seeing his bride before the proceedings are complete?" They were breaking every tradition already. "Misfortune may befall this marriage, Guts." I tease the wolf.
"I already have plenty of misfortune, Arlan. This won't change anything." Guts could only hope. I knew what kind of life he led, and this was just asking for trouble. "Get on with it. This thing barely fits, and it makes me itch in all the wrong places."
The tuxedo was one of mine, and I had let him borrow it. What was that about an itch? Why would a demi-god be irritated by something benign like wool? I had seen him break out of the event horizon of a supermassive black hole. That is like The Lady of Pain stubbing her toe on a flight of stairs.
It just doesn't happen.
I ignore the feeling of dread. It was probably nothing. What was the worst that could happen? "Oh well, may we all live in interesting times!" I shouldn't have said that. I really shouldn't have said that.
"My liege!" A crusader, who was half-eaten, and missing part of his brain stumbled into the church. "There are zombies everywhere!"
I had forgotten a certain malefactor. I thought that by extinguishing his avatar? I had dissuaded any more attempts on the life or rather unlife of one Caelum Vorlesh.
Vecna had finally arrived.
"ภ๏Շ ยภɭเкє ץ๏ย? เ ภєשєг ๒гєคк ค קг๏๓เรє."
Arlan's Way was under siege. The Maimed God would have his way.
One way or another.
[] My priority has to be on the safety of my citizens. I focus on evacuating them before anything else.
[] Vecna was the problem. If I destroy him? Then the dead would follow him into the grave. Hopefully, at any rate.
[] This is a wedding. I am not going to let something like this be a distraction. I begin my priestly duties. This marriage would come to pass. I would sanctify this matrimony.
[] Radiance had begun to gleam in response to these undead. I listen to the voice within the blade, and I call it towards the church. It rushes to my side. The weapon radiating a holy light.
"The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time."
- Mark Twain
Another stitching around my soul had unraveled with the death of that hawk, but I had grown accustomed to it. The curse did not compare to the damage I had done to myself. It was the unthinkable. I had cast the most powerful spell in all of existence, and now I would never be able to cast it again.
That expense, and the duress of it all, had made it seem pleasant by comparison. I should have collapsed. I should have screamed. I should have been as a babe. Instead I just endured it all. If only for the sake of my crusaders? I had to be invincible.
Unbreakable.
I lie in my bed, and by my side, there was that witch. My witch. Farnese de Vandimion. The young woman who I poured all of my knowledge of witchcraft into. Her beauty was indescribable, and her maimed hands did not detract from it. If anything I found it to be her most attractive feature. The sacrifice she had made? Her penance for the sake of those she had burned?
I had a type.
Arueshaelae was a monster. Just like my witch. They both came to that realization on their own, and made a promise. That they would make amends for what they had done. That they would prevail against themselves. That they would change.
In another way Farnese de Vandimion was a distorted reflection of Ember. The mutilation was almost identical, and her power was not unlike that of an oracle. Despite the fact she was most assuredly a witch. A hybrid of both, and burdened by an unruly patron.
If the war came to an end here? I could live with her, and that goddess of mine. An unconventional relationship if any I heard of. I had not known The Inheritor to have dalliances.
Casca had awoken desire in the goddess.
Iomedae wanted The Knight Commander. Iomedae wanted all of him. Including that which I treasured. My affection had become her own. As far as Iomedae was concerned? The student was an extension of the teacher.
When I pull my witch close? It is not only my arms that wrap around her. I feel the presence of a Light of Valor, and the warmth envelops us.
When I capture her lips in a kiss? I forget it all, but there was a voice that was never silent. Calling for war even as I lost myself in another. That heart of mine entrapped by obsession.
The memory never fades.
When my brothers and sisters were in pain. When they died in agony. I was not the only experiment. I like to think that Band of Heroes are what remain of them. When I had tried to save them, I had pleaded desperately, and I failed.
I had lost... but I had lived.
That I despised more than anything else! It is not enough to live! I want to win. I want my victory to be overwhelming. I want it to be complete. I don't want to defeat anyone. I want to destroy them. I want to take everything. I want their heart.
Perhaps I had not lost? What if my family had a chance? A life to call their own? What would I be like?
No, I could not stop. Void was an obstacle. The Heart of Darkness had to be slain. The Abyss needed to answer for everything.
This war would never end.
Peace was my enemy! Peace that had nurtured cruelty! Peace that had made apathy a virtue! Which had promised mediocrity! Peace that had snatched away frenzy from mortals! That had made them demure! Where was their love? Where was their hatred? Where was their thirst? Where was their hunger? Their camaraderie? Their adventure? Their journey? Their story?
There was nothing in peace! It was in war that I saw life!
The life which I had lived! That life which I could call my own! This life I had forged!
"Are you alright, Arlan?" The tears had been black. An ichor that had the color of tar. Peace had hurt most of all. There was no silence in it. It was in war that I found an escape. It was in conquest that I felt purpose. It was in victory that I lived.
Anywhere else, and I would be a corpse.
"It's nothing. The curse will do whatever it wants." If only that had been true. "I have to prepare." This was not an appointment I could miss. "I can't exactly be late for this."
The occasion called for punctuality.
"I can't believe it myself, master." The young woman got out of the bed. As naked as the day she was born, and she reached for a pair of lace undergarments she had thrown to the floor; when she had crawled underneath my blankets just the night before. "I never thought it would happen."
A wedding.
It had drawn in many guests, because the bride and groom were famous in Arlan's Way, and I had been called in to serve as a priest of all things. I would be the one sanctifying it.
It was a peculiar choice, because I had never done this before, but I would try.
"If anything goes wrong? I will never hear the end of it."
<<X>>
Arlan's Way had become a bustling metropolis. Many of the people in the Kingdom of Midland flocked to it when their nation fell. Many of them were apostles, but I had dispatched of them. They thought they could hide amongst these mortals.
Assiduous Gaze held a power not unlike True Seeing. I could discern everything a person was, and what they were capable of. Their character most of all was laid bare. It did not allow me to discern any future like Foresight did, but it grant me the ability to see through any disguise. Not even a spell like Invisibility could obscure it, and even actual transformations through the use of Polymorph were not enough to conceal any truth.
The horror I saw on their faces when they realized just exactly who I was? It was delectable. The most delicious meal I had to enjoy. It did not last but I relished it regardless.
The only one I had known who could hide from it was a deity, and thankfully The Starsong was an ally. Desna had no equal when it came to illusions.
The festival had gone on for a month. The celebration of our victory against the Kingdom of Midland had emboldened everyone. My crusaders did not waste a second of their leave. Serpico was not as pleased by this. Having to deal with drunkards on a daily basis was grating, and to say nothing of the mess they left behind in the brothels they always visited.
Soon there would be many children wandering the alleyways of Arlan's Way, and I had no doubt Isidro would recruit many of those hellions. The guild had need of aspiring thieves. Those firebrands, reckless as they were, would find the life of a rogue most accommodating.
Serpico had to always be careful. Annoying as they might have been? They were just brats. Besides that, every city needed a Thieves Guild. It almost felt natural.
"A pack of miscreants doing whatever they want? Those tieflings may have been your crusaders, but they were criminals all the same. Woljif was no exception." Caelum Vorlesh always had something to complain about. The ghostly apparition did not have any patience. "Don't treat Isidro as a replacement for them."
"I know but they are my criminals, Caelum." Did I see those tieflings in these renegades? "They are my people."
"That compassion does not fit one such as yourself. Be harsher on them, or they will take advantage of your mercy." The shadow disappears at that. There was no way that the necromancer would be present for this. Any place of worship was anathema to the specter.
I approach the church, my witch by my side, and I adjust my robes. When I pass through the archway? I find that the guests were mostly crusaders. Iomedae was already at the altar. The deity would grant them a boon.
As for myself I had something else in store for these soldiers.
"I am not late. That must mean they are." When I take my place by The Inheritor? The goddess turns her gaze towards her herald. The love of her life. I feel her grace. The power wrapping around my being like a veil, and Farnese de Vandimion can't help but be flustered when the deity grabs her by the waist. Which was followed by a chaste peck on her cheek.
Only for Iomedae herself to practically leap from her boots when I slap her on the behind. The spank was loud, and left behind an echo in the cloister.
"This isn't our bedroom! Save for that later!" This wedding wasn't for any of us. It was for them.
If anyone else had done that? Iomedae would have roasted them alive, but I was not anyone else. I was The Knight Commander, and her beloved herald.
"I will make you pay for that, Arlan." The deity still had her pride, but her grin betrayed the fact that she enjoyed it. The way I treated her like any other.
"That is what I am betting on!" The Higher Planes had granted her wisdom, and with it creativity. The Inheritor knew of every way to exact her revenge. "Do your absolute worst!"
I was already going to die. There was no way I was wasting any opportunity to enjoy this. I had a way out.
Ao be praised for it all.
<<X>>
Guts Vorlesh, now with a surname, had never imagined this. A world where he could have Casca Vorlesh, now with a surname, and not just have her, but have a family. That boy. What would they even name him? They hadn't decided on one, but it had to be appropriate.
"Why not name him after Arlan Vorlesh?" The Skull Knight had become a confidant. "The Knight Commander is the only reason why he escaped the clutches of The Godhand." The problem was that he always rode on his horse. They were inside of a tavern, and the beast of burden was tracking in mud. Where did King Gaiseric's aversion for walking come from? I never figured that one out, and I was afraid to ask. Whenever I tried to inquire about The Skull Knight, and his mysterious past, he would be cryptic.
"Absolutely not! He already has an ego!" The groom was loyal but he had his misgivings. The Knight Commander had brought about the miracle, and it had led to an insufferable vanity. "If I name my son after him? I will never hear the end of it!"
Oh, my crusader had been spot on about that one. The White Wolf had been happy when I offered to adopt the both of them, but also incredibly annoyed by how much I was the type to spoil.
"I like that idea." The bride decided to chime in. Casca was already in her gown, but that did not stop her from grabbing a tankard of ale. Their child, curious as he was, tried to take a sip. He couldn't reach it, and pouted. If only he could stretch his arms. The vice grip of his guardian locking him in place. "What do you think of the name?" The young woman had to ask the most important person of all.
"Aye!" The child of moonlight made an ecstatic noise. Arlan Vorlesh, second of his name, was learning at an alarming rate. "I want that one!" The hawk had bequeathed a gift. Unintended as it was.
The White Swordsman groaned at that. There was no point in arguing with everyone.
"Alright, but nobody tell him until after he bites it!" The White Wolf quickly changed tactics. Arlan Vorlesh, first of his name, would have to die. Which was kind of redundant. I was already going to die, Guts.
I beat you to it.
<<X>>
"I have heard of a groom leaving his bride at the altar, and I have heard of a bride leaving her groom at the altar..." I grind all of my teeth into dust. "I have never heard of a priest being left at the altar!" I had been waiting an hour, and my patience was wearing thin.
"My lord, I can retrieve them if need be--" I make a noise that sounds like the death wail of a harpy, and when my gaze meets that unfortunate soul, I reflexively cast Baleful Polymorph. The soldier is transformed into a dog. A golden retriever to be more precise.
"No, we will wait. I can do this." Only a few more minutes. I have to believe. "My crusaders, if I do not believe in them, what does that make of Arlan Vorlesh? The Knight Commander who would doubt?"
I did not doubt. I was a beacon of hope. A symbol of what mortality could achieve. The ideal specimen to lead this crusade.
I would not be beaten by tardiness.
"It is not permanent." The deity tends to the victim of my outrage. "The spell will fade eventually." Iomedae talks to the beast, and does whatever she can to ease his burden. The dog can only whimper pathetically.
"I can cast Dispel Magic, and maybe that can--"
"Don't try it, Farnese."
The Inheritor had no doubt my transmutation would endure. If anything it might make it worse. I did not hear any of them. All of my focus was on the entrance.
Any second. Any minute, except maybe not this one or the next one, but it had to be one of them. No way it would be another hour. If it was I would have to invent a number for the amount of lashes I would inflict. I feel my hand, almost as if it has a will not of my own, and it is drawn towards the mighty Belt of Discipline.
"Knight Commander! I am here for my wedding!" Casca slurs. The young woman was inebriated. Guts was carrying her in his arms, and behind The White Wolf I could see the wraith. The Skull Knight rode in on his horse, and I felt relief.
They were all here. The ceremony had begun.
"The groom seeing his bride before the proceedings are complete?" They were breaking every tradition already. "Misfortune may befall this marriage, Guts." I tease the wolf.
"I already have plenty of misfortune, Arlan. This won't change anything." Guts could only hope. I knew what kind of life he led, and this was just asking for trouble. "Get on with it. This thing barely fits, and it makes me itch in all the wrong places."
The tuxedo was one of mine, and I had let him borrow it. What was that about an itch? Why would a demi-god be irritated by something benign like wool? I had seen him break out of the event horizon of a supermassive black hole. That is like The Lady of Pain stubbing her toe on a flight of stairs.
It just doesn't happen.
I ignore the feeling of dread. It was probably nothing. What was the worst that could happen? "Oh well, may we all live in interesting times!" I shouldn't have said that. I really shouldn't have said that.
"My liege!" A crusader, who was half-eaten, and missing part of his brain stumbled into the church. "There are zombies everywhere!"
I had forgotten a certain malefactor. I thought that by extinguishing his avatar? I had dissuaded any more attempts on the life or rather unlife of one Caelum Vorlesh.
Vecna had finally arrived.
"ภ๏Շ ยภɭเкє ץ๏ย? เ ภєשєг ๒гєคк ค קг๏๓เรє."
Arlan's Way was under siege. The Maimed God would have his way.
One way or another.
[] My priority has to be on the safety of my citizens. I focus on evacuating them before anything else.
[] Vecna was the problem. If I destroy him? Then the dead would follow him into the grave. Hopefully, at any rate.
[] This is a wedding. I am not going to let something like this be a distraction. I begin my priestly duties. This marriage would come to pass. I would sanctify this matrimony.
[] Radiance had begun to gleam in response to these undead. I listen to the voice within the blade, and I call it towards the church. It rushes to my side. The weapon radiating a holy light.
Last edited:
Blasterbot
Well-known member
[X] Radiance had begun to gleam in response to these undead. I listen to the voice within the blade, and I call it towards the church. It rushes to my side. The weapon radiating a holy light.
Lord of the Rotted Tower
Gladiator
Well-known member
Chapter 28: Lord of the Rotted Tower
"I am The Reaper, and death is my shadow."
- Darrow O'Lykos
The sensation penetrated everything. This feeling as pervasive as the taste of any ambrosia. Caelum Vorlesh gingerly cradled the corpse of the crow. The bird was a present from Areelu Vorlesh. The person who had given him the gift of life.
The witch who he called mamă. The Betrayer of Humanity, or rather who the witch would one day be.
The necromancer did everything that he could. He always fed the bird. He would never dare cage it. That freedom the crow had may have been an insult to anyone else, but for Caelum Vorlesh it was sacred. There would be no prison for this creature. Who he had held close to his heart.
Caelum Vorlesh had even went out of his way to learn Speak With Animals. The spell gave him the ability to converse with the warm-blooded vertebrae. The necromancer wanted to know everything. He wanted to learn from it, and what the creature would share always piqued his interest.
There was a problem. The necromancer was diligent, and always tended to every ailment the crow had, whether it was a broken wing, or a pathogen it had contracted. Caelum Vorlesh had used his magic to heal the creature.
What the necromancer could not do was best the greatest adversary of all. Death itself. Which had come with age, and the bird had perished at last. He did not know of anything. There was no spell he was capable of that could rectify this problem.
It was with that realization that Caelum Vorlesh felt loss. That loss did not leave him. It stayed with the necromancer forever. It would accumulate with every death that he had witnessed.
Areelu Vorlesh could only do so much to comfort her child. The witch did not want to meddle in the affairs of the divine. It would draw the attention of unwanted guests. The witch would try anything else, but it was never enough for Caelum Vorlesh. The embrace of his mamă did not ease his torment. This affliction which continued to steal away all that he cherished. This thing called death. Which he despised above all others.
The necromancer, delved deeply into the arcane, and he became powerful. Caelum Vorlesh freed them all of this curse, but it was never enough. No, not just to bring back those he cared for. He wandered the world. He saw every corner of Golarion, and wherever he went death followed. Wherever he went that hatred would stir.
How dare this thing destroy the lives of these people! How dare it impose itself to bring tragedy to the innocent! How dare it, how dare it, how dare it! It had become his focus. The necromancer would eradicate this death. This dragon which spurned him at every turn. It would be by his hand that death would die. It would be by his hand that the people would be freed.
The necromancer only needed a teacher, and that is when he heard it. The Serpent calling him, and it drew him towards the person who would become his master. The Undying King. The greatest of all necromancers. The power he gained made him an enemy of Pharasma. The Lady of Graves would not forgive him. No, he had trespassed into her realm. Death was her domain.
Caelum Vorlesh knew who it was when he burned at the stake. When he watched those fools dance on his grave. Pharasma had orchestrated it all, and when he met her at last? The necromancer did what he always would. He challenged death, but this would be unlike anything he faced before.
He had lost.
The Abyss had become his home, and the demons his jailers. Their torture was agonizing. It drove him insane. Areelu Vorlesh, his mamă, would not stand for it.
The witch who was once mortal, had cast aside her humanity, and became just as these monsters. In order to save her child, and not just save him but grant his wish. Caelum Vorlesh desired the power to challenge these petulant despots.
Their rules would bind her child no more! Areelu Vorlesh would protect her treasure! Perhaps her love was perverse. Poisoned by the Abyss. What was once pure had become corrupt. The love of a mother turned towards something unseemly. The witch would destroy the world to save her son! The Worldwound was born, and from it came war!
In that war I was born.
The second son. The unwanted result of an experiment gone awry. I had seen everyone like myself die to her cruelty. Those who I would have called brother or sister, but in this crusade, I had found it: the family I had lost. The purpose I had sought. The desire I could call my own.
I became Arlan Vorlesh. I became The Knight Commander.
I could have destroyed the shadow. I could have had my revenge. I could have watched as Areelu Vorlesh lost the person she loved above all others again. Instead I had spared the specter. The shadow had become one of mine. A crusader. A soldier in my war, and in a way I was satisfied.
A childhood like I had dreamed of would never be possible, but I did not need one. If only I had these people by my side. I was a mad man. I was broken beyond repair, and I would not have it any other way! This was everything that I was, and to take it away? It would mean that Arlan Vorlesh was no more! That I was nothing!
I am my tragedy! I am my torment! I am my madness!
I am war! I am conflict! I am all of my problems!
Peace was my enemy.
If any would dare to steal that from Arlan Vorlesh? I would show them.
Everything that I entailed. The destroyer of the Abyss.
The Challenger of the Gods.
"K-Knight Commander..." I held the soldier in my arms. This champion? The Berserker Armor had failed him, but he endured despite that. He fought to protect these people. His people. Those he called brother and sister. "Did I do the right thing, my lord?" The blood on his hands. When he had fought for that tyrant. It could not be washed away.
There was no pride. Not in the service of Ganishka. Only shame. Only unending nightmares for every sin.
"My crusader." I brush his hair aside. Which had been matted by blood. The damage was severe. Whatever curse had been inflicted on him rendered his wounds dire. The armor would not save him. "I could not be prouder."
There was something soothing about my voice. I was father and mother both to these soldiers. When the crusader hears it at last? That is when death claims him. The campaign was over for him. His war had come to an end, and he could find it at last. Whatever he had been searching for? The dream that had escaped him? It was now within his grasp.
My war had just begun. Radiance glimmers. The blade had a purpose, and I raise it. The holy light it had expelled banished the darkness. The monsters approaching the church spontaneously combusting in the presence of it. There were more than just the walking dead. There were many leeches. Creatures of the night. Those vampires had burst into flame. All except for the ascendant vampires. Who just barely survived this resplendence, but even they felt as if their power was draining from them.
There was no humor. All traces of mirth had fled with the arrival of this dark god. This destroyer of worlds.
The Whispered One.
Vecna had ascended eons ago, and in this visage? The Arch-Lich resembled a weathered skeleton. There was no meat. Only bone. Empty eye-sockets which held oblivion and glimpsed every machiavellian appetite, a crystal monocle, opulent robes which had been embroidered with the countenance of a great serpent, an ornate gauntlet on one hand, and a grimoire made out of a cadaver in another. Whose corpse did that belong to? I had no idea. The face on the grimoire had been petrified, frozen by whatever spell created the book, and the expression it had was one of loathing. Whoever this person had been in the past? They held a grudge against Vecna. The binding was made out of a portion of their vertebral column, and there were stitches which held their epidermis together. It served as the cover for this tome.
One of many victims. Over the millennia I had no doubt that The Undying King had collected the souls of thousands. If not more than that. This craving he had was never satisfied. It only grew as he devoured these aimless wanderers.
At the center of it all, I had seen it from the entrance of the church, and he was waiting atop a tower. Which had risen from the earth itself, and it left my city in ruins. The Chained God was waiting.
I would not disappoint him.
I did not hesitate. Not even for a nanosecond. When I jump from the church the world trembles all the way down to the core. Radiance brilliantly glittering with a grace even a solar would be hard pressed to match. The envy of every celestial. I reach the summit of it, and the necromancer was already prepared.
Five minutes.
That is all I had. Against a monster like this I had to be everything I once was, and this holy light carried the same miracle I brought to this realm. I could feel it. The promise I had made.
This poultice for my heart.
Vecna had already cast it. Siphon Time. All of that magic directed at the mortal who had humiliated him. I slow to a crawl only for a fraction of a second, before the blade in my hand shimmers in response to it. It casts Dispel Magic, Greater. The spell had failed against this flare of transcendent power, and I am set free before I lose my life.
Radiance, when properly wielded by someone of worth, becomes a Holy Avenger, and the bane of all things paranormal. Whoever held it in their possession? They would be protected from any magic. It drastically increases their resistance to The Weave. Whether the spell was infernal or celestial? It made no difference.
That was not all.
The touch of this blade? The holy light it generated? When it came into contact with anyone or anything who was wicked by any measure of the word? That is when it was able to penetrate anything. There would be no protection. Not even the spell aptly named Invulnerability could provide any kind of defense. The only way of surviving it was by avoiding Radiance, and never allowing it to graze you.
Vecna flinches. He could feel it, and he knew exactly what would await him if he allowed that to transpire.
"I told you before, Vecna! The foundation will be built on your corpse!" This dominion would have him as the bedrock. An imperium unlike any other before it, and which would conquer the galaxy.
The Undying King felt revulsion. When he witnessed it. A war that would consume everything. All worlds beholden to it. All races enslaved by it. A corpse, decrepit and debased, intertwined with machinery, and crimson eyes.
Those same crimson eyes that gazed into him. That pierced his soul. Arlan Vorlesh...
What would become of him? Vecna only knew that what he saw would mean the end of all things.
I did not care for his vision. I only cared about my crusade. I only cared for my children. This family I had found at last. Whatever else may come to pass? I would face it.
Just as I always did, and always would.
"This is the day that death will die."
The dragon will perish, and by mine own effort.
Not that of any other.
The Inheritor stood in front of them. The people of Arlan's Way. A part of her wanted to join her beloved, but these serfs needed her protection. The citizens of Arlan's Way had flocked to the church. In order to escape the monsters pouring out from that spire. The Light of Valor, her sword, named after one of her titles, had returned to her. The blade had failed to act as the ward it was meant to be.
This had to be the work of The Serpent. The voice which had enticed that necromancer eons ago. That had promised divinity, and which it had granted. It was not the work of The Watcher. Ao had no part in it.
Nor was it the work of The Starstone in Absalom.
Vecna had become a deity by entering into the service of this unknown interloper. Whatever this creature was? Iomedae was no match for it. It was not something anyone had a chance of overcoming.
Rovagug would have been less of a hassle. The Destroyer could at least be challenged by The Godclaw. If they were to collect on the debt owed to them from a few favors they had granted in the past.
Not unlike The Lady of Pain or The Hidden One? The Serpent was an exception to that. The power it held was insurmountable. No alliance between any gods or goddesses had what was necessary to face it. The whole lot would have been subject to obliteration.
Thankfully, just like with the aforementioned, the way it influenced all of the planes was subtle. It was not overt. It dealt in manipulation. Any direct interference was usually only through intermediaries like Vecna. Who did not even have a fraction of that power...
At least not anymore.
The Serpent was disappointed when The King of Worms had failed to destroy Sigil, and now the necromancer was only as powerful as any other deity.
The problem was that he still had the love of The Serpent. If not the favor of it.
"Everything I sacrificed for this power, and I cannot even save anyone!" The cosmic bureaucracy was already something that left her with a migraine, but to know her sacrifice was in vain was worse. It all felt vacuous, and when her gaze fell upon the tower? Her love only grew. Arlan Vorlesh, the person she admired more than anyone else, and who had stolen her heart.
That idolatry became worship. It became a prayer. An immortal who have done anything for a mortal. Iomedae whispered, and on her lips was the name I had given myself.
"Save all of us, Arlan. Save us, my lord." It had become an incantation. Almost like a spell. "My beloved. My emperor."
Farnese de Vandimion felt that same exaltation. Armageddon had arrived today, but there was no fear. No, within the chest of that young woman, her heart could feel it. It was a reassurance coming from somewhere. No, everywhere. Her master permeating everything. It was as if he was ever present.
It was indistinguishable from Sarenrae. The Everlight which had cursed her, and in turn blessed her. How could a mortal do this? Arlan Vorlesh was not any deity. He was just The Knight Commander, and despite that, it was unmistakable.
The people had started to believe. The truth had become malleable. This reality was not as infallible or inflexible as many claimed it to be. The truth was mutable. The past, present, and future never certain. If anything they were another product of perception, and if perception could be changed?
What would happen to this universe? What would happen to not just this one, but all of those realms adjacent to it? The truth would become a lie. The illusion a reality. The dream would be made manifest, and all that would entail.
Arlan Vorlesh did not need to be a god or a goddess to be thought of as one, and that would be transformative. In contrast to what many believed? The multiverse was not a constant. It was not a cycle.
"It is a vision..." It is an idea. The problem with any concept was that it was not bullet-proof. They were subject to revision. There is no truth. Only that we define as certain, and what happens when consensus overturns anything concrete? "A story."
The tyranny of the many over the few. That would be the worst of it normally. This wasn't that kind of reality. The world here was permeable.
The witch realizes all of that, and all of the implications. Her studies had provided insight into how the world worked, and this epiphany drew her concern. What would become of her master? If this were to continue unabated?
Farnese de Vandimion turned her gaze towards her lover. Iomedae held no concern. Only supplication. Whatever pride she had was worthless next to her love. Which had turned into obsession. The same as her own, but where the deity found herself in jubilation?
The noble made a prayer to The Everlight.
"I have seen it, Sarenrae. What this is doing to him." The witch felt her heart break, and she knew what awaited her precious Arlan Vorlesh. "I know I don't deserve any clemency, but please save Arlan Vorlesh. Please save my beloved. He did nothing to earn a war like this."
This war would never end. Those words would come to haunt her. Just as they haunted...
No, this is my life! This is what I have chosen!
I am sorry, Farnese. This is what I am. It is not my blood. Nor does it have to do with how exactly I was raised. This choice I made, and it is one I made alone. I would be there for my crusaders, but I would see the end by myself. I would be alone in my victory.
Ȁ̴̩ ̵̱̥͘c̶̻̳̀o̵̠̕͝r̸͕̎p̸̫̭͊͘s̵̯̿ẻ̷̖̘ ̶̲̙͐ỏ̴̤͒n̶̗͚̄͛ ̷͔̩̃a̶̧̞͆ ̵͇̐t̸̝̑h̵͉́ṛ̵̯͗ơ̴̙̅n̵̜̫͘͠ë̷͎.̵̝͍̽
"Despair, and you give yourself to the shadows. Believe, truly believe in him, and you shall walk in his light no matter how dark the path you tread." Iomedae grasped her shoulder tightly. As if to reassure her, and erase any misguided fear.
Instead the words were like a curse. This was the grievous miracle.
Not the merciful one.
Including the flames of Grunbeld.
"An annoyance, Guts." I answer, and I use this opportunity to prepare something. "An uninvited guest I intend to bury." I cast Lay To Rest with the intent of ending this quickly, but the deity does not succumb to it.
"ՇђคՇ ฬ๏ภ'Շ ฬ๏гк, คภคՇђє๓ค!"
The grand hex was useless against a god. This was no avatar. I would have to take care. I had Radiance, but I was weakened after the defeat of Griffith. In turn, I had to weaken the necromancer before I attempted anything else and that is why I cast Dire Prophecy.
Probability is eschewed against Vecna, and whatever fortune he had is reversed in the worst way possible. An asteroid the size of Casmaron pierces the atmosphere of the planet. It was aimed directly at The King of Worms. I would deal with the collateral damage by opening a portal with the spell Dimension Door at the peak of this tower. Then transport it back into outer space before it could crash against the surface of this earth. If it did the planet would have exploded. The velocity at which the asteroid was traveling, combined with how substantial it was, would mean the death of this world.
A bit excessive against anything other than the divine, but practically a requirement just to mildly inconvenience them. Vecna turns his gaze towards the asteroid, and while I can't see it because he has no lips, I could definitely tell that he was grinning.
That did not bode well.
I cast Foresight, but it is too late. Vecna had already evoked Ravenous Void, and the black hole devours the asteroid. There is nothing of it to salvage. I just wasted a grand hex. It does not stop at that.
"I will take care of it!" The White Wolf steps in. He already encountered something like this before.
"It's not like that!" This wasn't the same as with Conrad. This was none other than Vecna. "This spell--"
I am too late.
Guts reaches for it, and when he grasps hold of it? His hand is devoured by it. This was not just a black hole. This thing ate anything immaterial. It ate any idea. The most abstract concepts. The White Wolf does not scream, but his face does contort into a grimace of pain. The White Swordsman falls, and I catch him before he tumbles against the tower. Guts grits, and presses Dragon Slayer against the stump where his hand had been. The flames cauterize the wound, and with that history is altered.
As if it was never eaten.
"How useful. If only it worked against this bastard..." This would be a problem. I had to think, or at the very least attempt another one of my miracles.
"Who the hell is this guy?" Guts had to be perplexed. This was an encounter with an actual deity. The only other one he knew was Iomedae, and he never had the pleasure of sparring with her. This experience was not the same as just murdering any demon lord.
"He is a necromancer. The most powerful one of all." I turn to glare at the malevolent entity. I had an idea. "Vecna has to die. However, for that to happen, I need your help Guts." It would require assistance. A person I could rely on.
"Whatever you want, Arlan. I will do it." There was no hesitation. Guts had put all of his trust into Arlan Vorlesh.
The Knight Commander. His father.
"I need to prepare a spell. The problem is that it will take a second." That might have not have sounded like much, but in a fight between people like ourselves? The winner was determined in time-frames as sparse as a nanosecond, and I mean that in the most literal way imaginable. Just being one or two nanoseconds shy of your opponent could mean defeat. In order for any respite as bountiful as a whole second to be possible? It would require a distraction. It would be like an eon, and in that eon? Vecna would take every advantage. "I need you to distract him. For all of one second, Guts."
"Only a second, Arlan? I thought this was going to be hard." Guts had to be cocky about it, but I had hoped that this wouldn't result in his untimely death.
I would not watch him die. I would destroy everything before I let that happen. I would not lose another son.
When had I start thinking of him like that? It did not matter. It was the truth. Fenrir may have been his flesh and blood, but I was his soul. The father that he chose. The brother that he would die beside.
"Go forth, my crusader! Show Vecna why they call you The White Wolf!" I enter a meditative trance, and commune with Radiance. Whilst Foresight had been useless in stopping Vecna? It had another use. I look into the blade, and I see it.
The reason why any solar would be nary a match for the sword? It already was one. An exceptional one no less. I had cast aside The Light of Heaven in the name of my mortality, but Radiance had held onto it; in case any situation called for the power of the divine. The Holy Avenger had the grace of a celestial.
I would make use of it.
Caelum Vorlesh was disturbed. Vecna had focused all that he was on his brother. The necromancer was certain that he was the target. Why had that changed? What had his mentor seen in Arlan Vorlesh?
Vecna was afraid of it. Whatever would come to pass if he failed. The firstborn of Areelu Vorlesh? He was at a loss, but that was always the case when it involved family. An inkling of some theory began to be entertained.
The Undying King came here to dispose of competition. What if his brother had been the one in that vision? What if Arlan Vorlesh was that trailblazing usurper? No, his brother was mortal. Arlan Vorlesh even took pride in it.
I could not disagree, but as always in these situations? All things were permeable. Including someone like myself. I was just a mortal, Caelum. I have a limit. I just wish I had seen it before everything went wrong.
That I could have retained some semblance of myself when I left, but it does not matter. It had already happened. I lost myself again. When I came back I was not Arlan Vorlesh, and I am still not Arlan Vorlesh.
On this throne I am barely alive. Only clinging to existence out of desperation. This clarity could not last, and I would go back into that delirium. I had told them all. That I was no deity, but I had sought to prove that wrong at every turn.
What a fool I was.
Had I learned too late? What the price of arrogance would be? What hubris had done to all mortals? I was the same. I thought I could handle it, but I did not heed my own advice.
If only you had all been by my side. The Seventh Crusade. The Great Crusade. It would have been different. I needed all of you, but I was alone. In that place I had become unrecognizable.
"I will find it." That piece of myself that had been lost. "I will wait, Caelum Vorlesh. I will wait for you, my brother."
I will become whole again, and when I return?
I would fix all of it. I would save all of my sons.
I would even save you, Magnus.
By violence, and by determination? By growth, and by merit? By ascension? By apotheosis? The White Swordsman had retrieved that which was lost, and it was all thanks to that person. The White Wolf knew what it meant to be whole, and he reveled in that glorious sensation. The wolf had been denied it all. A life of freedom. A legion to call his own. A family to welcome him home.
The Knight Commander. Arlan Vorlesh.
Who was he exactly to him? A brother? A father? An idol? That witch had granted him everything. When hope had been lost? When defeat had been a certainty? When all he knew was guilt?
I made him feel alive. I had given him whatever he needed. I was always willing to do it. Guts just had to ask. After all, what more proof did I need? The wolf was mine. He was my progeny. My child.
My son.
"A fortress is built with blood and toil. Only by blood and toil may it be taken." The words come naturally to him. Guts did not know where they came from. Only that they were his, and they would always be his. The fortress that was Arlan's Way would endure forever. It would stand triumphant in the face of this force of nature.
Vecna would die.
"A few words of wisdom?" Grunbeld murmurs from within Dragon Slayer. "I did not expect that from you of all people, Guts."
"I got plenty of surprises. Stick around, and you might experience the best of them." The White Wolf glares at his enemy. This deity that would dare intrude on the dream. Their dream. This world that was worth living.
Guts had no doubt. Not anymore. There was peace when before there was war. The wolf had found his pack, and a mate he could love. He discovered a son he never knew he had. Who had once been lost to him. He had his revenge. No, he had his justice. The universe did not seem that unfair.
If anything it was wonderful.
"Just don't die, Guts." Dragon Slayer chimes in. It had been sometime since it spoke. It was growing weary. A retirement would be in order, and Grunbeld did not know the meaning of the word. The gilded dragon was perfect.
"I won't." The White Wolf pounces on his prey. Vecna isn't prepared for it when the wolf grabs him by the neck, the air enveloping his bones, and then launching him into orbit. The necromancer had to admit that this demi-god had almost all of the power of his mighty forebearer. When the dark god comes to a stop? He wasn't anywhere near their galaxy. Let alone that earth they resided on. Instead he was between galaxies. In the blackest night.
Shar held dominion here.
"ђ๏קเภﻮ ՇђคՇ Շђє ɭค๔ץ ๏Ŧ ɭ๏รร ฬเɭɭ קєг๓เՇ คภץ คเ๔?"
"No, I just thought it would be comfortable. It would make for a decent grave." Guts does not stop. When Vecna goes out of his way to cast Ravenous Void? This wolf is prepared, and makes use of the affinity which had been afforded to him by birthright.
The wind becomes an impenetrable armor. When the black hole collides against it? It is flung back at the necromancer. Guts had realized that he couldn't destroy this spell.
Therefore the next best thing was to simply redirect it.
Vecna had only a moment to be surprised before it almost engulfs him, but he had quickly intoned the spell Teleport, and reappears behind the wolf. When that tenebrous orb comes into contact with a distant galaxy instead? The spiral fades away as if being wiped clean from a canvas. What was left behind was blank. An ivory blemish. An unnatural and stark white hole.
Thankfully, that galaxy was already a husk. It was devoid of any life. A swarm of locusts had eaten it all. They were searching for more resources. Another banquet to feast on, and this drew their attention. That earth which was practically teeming with so much life. They began to salivate at the prospect...
Vecna casts Flay For Purpose, and targets the wolf. "ฬђ๏รє ﻮгคשє ฬเɭɭ เՇ ๒є єאคςՇɭץ? รยгєɭץ ภ๏Շ ๓ץ ๏ฬภ." There was nothing but condescension when he speaks. The necromancer had no microcosm of respect for The White Swordsman.
Guts had only an instant of recognition before he realized that the magic ignored his impenetrable armor. The spell repurposes everything, and attempts to enslave him. His frame contorting as he is flayed alive, rebuilt from the raw materials, and his consciousness is driven into a fog by a curse of servitude.
The White Wolf does not break even as he dies, and acts before it can be complete. He takes Dragon Slayer, ignites that ethereal blaze, and impales himself on the great sword. Grunbeld had become precise, and so had Guts. They could choose whatever event they wanted from the past to be erased, and in that moment they choose all of this.
The spell is dispersed. The wound is undone. The curse never enacted.
The White Swordsman does not fall, but he was beginning to realize the gravity of this situation. Vecna was unlike any other foe he had faced before. Which meant he had to brace himself for anything.
"I am going to make you work for it." Guts felt that spark of divinity within his soul evolve. The White Wolf begins a metamorphosis, but what he became was no dire wolf. This was a lycanthrope. His fur was like snow, and his claws could lacerate any demon lord. There was a snout protruding from his face, but he had become anthropomorphic. He did not forgo his mortality entirely because of this, and instead he had reached a kind of synthesis. Guts was not just The White Wolf. He was The White Swordsman, and everything that implied.
The Lord of Wolves.
The wind would always belong to him. Guts calls to it, and in the vastness of outer space, where there should have been no air? There is a Storm of Vengeance. The spell had come to him, and he turned it towards The Undying King.
"ฬђคՇ เร ՇђคՇ?" Vecna had been at a loss. This was not what he expected.
A conflagration of things. The winds transpose everything in their way, bolts of lightning ricochet between clouds, hail begins to form into meteorites, and acidic rain burns at everything. They churn, and transform into a tornado. The tempest becoming a monsoon, and it tears through any vacant oblivion.
The King of Worms does not take any risks, and evokes Prismatic Wall in order to serve as a ward against it. There were seven layers it would have to penetrate. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. There was no way it could break through the defense of each and every one.
When the cyclone collides against the barrier? It does not even take a fraction of a second for it to break through all of them at once. The Maimed God had underestimated it, and would pay the price. When he is drawn into the gale?
Vecna only knew of torture.
It had been a millennium, but it had happened. Vecna knew of suffering, and it was at the hands of someone who wasn't even entirely of the divine. Instead they were a product of sacrilege. A child born of a mortal and a immortal.
The Undying King is hurled through a hundred galaxies, and each one of them was a victim of that swarm. Only their galaxy had been able to escape their notice. Their insatiable hunger.
Guts does not relent. The White Wolf dives into the vortex. Dragon Slayer cleaving through every record of the past. The great sword pierces into Vecna.
"єภ๏ยﻮђ!" The Undying King had already been humiliated before! He would not tolerate repetition! Vecna casts Time Stop, and the entirety of the universe is frozen. The Lord of Wolves is rendered harmless. "เ๓קย๔єภςє รยςђ คร Շђเร ๔єรєгשєร קยภเรђ๓єภՇ..." He evokes Blade of Disaster, directs it at The White Wolf, and the planar rift bisects him at the waist.
Dragon Slayer was a problem. Vecna decides to remedy that.
The Undying King pulls the great sword out of his chest, and with a flick of his wrist he hurls it away. The great sword twirls through the primordial darkness, and crashes against the boundary between this plane and the next. There was no way Dragon Slayer would be able to return without any assistance.
Guts only manages to break out of the temporal debility at that exact moment. The White Wolf regurgitates all of his viscera, but he had endured worse. It truly was an agony that he knew all of his life.
What was one more day?
Guts grabs his adversary by the head, and he opens his maw. There is a Psychic Scream, and the necromancer is assailed by everything he could unleash. The White Wolf had every memory to share. All of his nightmares.
Vecna was appalled by all of it, but manages to escape. He clutches at his head, and attempts to make sense of what he had witnessed. This disorientation was unreal. It was worse than anything he ever experienced before.
"เ ς๏๓๓єภ๔ Շђץ єŦŦ๏гՇ, ๒ยՇ เՇ เร Ŧ๏г ภคยﻮђՇ." Vecna regains his composure. This horrid ache would persist, but he had patience. The Undying King grabs the werewolf, and casts Finger of Death. The negative energy was hungry for the life of this creature.
That certainty of his was a mistake. What attention he had was focused entirely on The White Swordsman. This confidence of his would be his undoing.
It had been a second, and that was all that I needed.
"Unhand my son, Vecna!" I grab the monster. This abomination that had dared lay his hands on what was mine. The negative energy is dispersed. When the necromancer turns his gaze to face this interloper?
The vision had been fulfilled! The rival had been found! It was no dream!
It was an omen of what was to come...
"I made a promise, and I aim to keep it!"
Gone was Arlan Vorlesh. What stood in front of him was the anathema. A giant wearing the most dazzling gold-plated armor he had ever seen. Adorned with the effigy of an eagle, and bejeweled with rubies that were the color of scarlet. A halo of luminous and ardent grace had become my crown. The visage of Arlan Vorlesh? It had been sculptured to resemble that of the patriarch of House Vorlesh. The King of Aquilonia. My eyes were now a lustrous cerulean. When before they were a radiant crimson. The blade in my hand? The sword that had become the envy of every celestial in the Higher Planes? It was most certainly my Radiance, but it had undergone a transfiguration itself. The guard had become an eagle, and it was engraved with the crest of The Inheritor.
I could hear her prayer.
My Iomedae was always watching over her herald. Her champion. H̵̩̄ė̶̡̇ȓ̷͈̹͌ ̴͉́ë̷̦́m̵̧̳̿̍ṕ̶͓̀e̵̘͙̓̿ŕ̶̟ͅȍ̷̰r̵̘̊͘.
"เ ђคשє Ŧ๏ยภ๔ เՇ!" The usurper had been revealed. Vecna casts Absolute Death. Throughout all of existence? Negative energy erupted from every seam within this plane. The most powerful spell of all in his arsenal. The greatest achievement any necromancer could dream of. This magic would mean the destruction of all living things. All life would be extinguished.
This universe would die, and so it does.
All flora and fauna deteriorate. All mortals and immortals alike collapse to the ground unceremoniously. There would be no funeral for any of them. All planets that had any kind of life on them in our galaxy ceased to be. The sun was next. It died, and so did everything like it. Those constellations glimmering and glittering before blinking out of existence. In the primordial darkness of this universe I had to watch it all, and I felt an inordinate measure of pity for Vecna.
The Undying King had no idea what I was about to do.
Vecna turned his gaze back towards the anathema, and I began to laugh.
"ֆȶօք ɨȶ!" Why was I laughing at him? It was a mystery he could not decipher, and why did I live when everyone and everything else die?
"No, I will not." That is when I intone Rekindle. The spell is unleashed. The universe is reborn. The sun is reignited. All constellations return to their fixed position in the tapestry. All those lives salvaged from the wreckage that the necromancer left behind. Those worlds which had gone quiet? They were in an uproar, and there would be celebration. They had cheated death today. I had bested the dragon for them. "I will never stop."
I cast Wrath of the Righteous, and all of the monsters in Arlan's Way begin to die. The walking dead are laid to rest. As for the vampires? They are no exception to this, and even those who have achieved ascension comically evaporate. My citizens would know that they have my protection.
These people that I loved.
This was the grievous miracle. The only miracle I had to give.
"เ๓ק๏รรเ๒ɭє!" How could it be? How could a mortal have this kind of power? "ฬђคՇ คгє ץ๏ย?"
Only a minute left. I couldn't waste it.
When my fist slams against his head? His skull is splintered. It does not stop. This plane began to tremble, every galaxy shivering in abject horror when the force of my blow evokes a Reality Break, and my adversary is forced through the universe. He is blown past the boundary between the planes, and it breaks like glass. Vecna plunges into The Phlogiston. The ether between the crystal spheres, and sinks into one plane in particular.
That would be enough to wound any deity, but not destroy them completely. I had to capitalize on it before he recovered. I had to be wary of The Serpent as well. There was no telling when it would interfere.
I chase after the cadaver. This corpse in waiting.
When I intone Sun Form? I become the second sun, and tackle the necromancer before he can reorient himself. We found ourselves in the Astral Plane. The realm of the githyanki. They could do nothing but observe. The spectacle must have been entertaining for whomever was aware of this conflict.
I pay them no heed, and commence my duty. My mission would be accomplished. It is this judgement. This death sentence.
The culmination of everything I would ever be.
"I told you, Vecna! I am your executioner!" I grasp hold of his cervical vertebrae, and they begin to crack. The dark god can only squirm in my unbreakable grip. "I am Arlan Vorlesh! I am the one who slays the dragon!"
I intone Eye of the Sun, and I become ethereal. I am the journey in that instance, and there is a whisper, a quiet voice in the distance which could only be heard by those who believed in Arlan Vorlesh. The words become clear:
"ŋơ!" Vecna begs for mercy, but it will not come. He prays to The Serpent, but this failure was to be his last. "ᏁᎧ!"
"The Knight Commander protects." I repeat it like a mantra. Vecna disappearing in the throes of my grace. This death would be no escape for him. There would be no afterlife. That soul of his had become nothing more than ashes in my embrace. Purified by a promise I had made. "No world shall be beyond my rule; no enemy shall be beyond my wrath."
This blight torn from all of the planes in existence. There would be no realm that would know of this abomination. There would be no more innocents who would be subject to his repulsive delights.
I had made sure of it.
"They are all waiting for us."
The end. I could feel it.
I would return to the Abyss, and I would begin my campaign. I had no idea what would happen, but I felt uncertainty. In that moment as I reached apotheosis when I faced Vecna? The consequences of my actions became transparent.
There would be a war.
There was another crusade. I would lead it, and I would be alone. I would be surrounded by people who did not understand who I was or what I was. They were not my family. They were a bunch of zealots I saved, but I had found a few of them I could call family.
Just like all of these people, and some of them were familiar faces.
I wonder if it had anything to do with Ao. What was the grand design? It was hard to make sense of it.
"I will do my best."
That was all I could do. After all?
I was just a mortal.
[] Void would make a move. The Light of Valor could no longer protect Arlan's Way. The Serpent made sure of that. There wasn't much of a choice. I had to face the demon lord before he discovered this.
[] King Gaiseric might be able to provide some insight, but it might also be a waste of time. The Skull Knight was always cryptic about it all, and I could not afford any distractions.
"I am The Reaper, and death is my shadow."
- Darrow O'Lykos
The sensation penetrated everything. This feeling as pervasive as the taste of any ambrosia. Caelum Vorlesh gingerly cradled the corpse of the crow. The bird was a present from Areelu Vorlesh. The person who had given him the gift of life.
The witch who he called mamă. The Betrayer of Humanity, or rather who the witch would one day be.
The necromancer did everything that he could. He always fed the bird. He would never dare cage it. That freedom the crow had may have been an insult to anyone else, but for Caelum Vorlesh it was sacred. There would be no prison for this creature. Who he had held close to his heart.
Caelum Vorlesh had even went out of his way to learn Speak With Animals. The spell gave him the ability to converse with the warm-blooded vertebrae. The necromancer wanted to know everything. He wanted to learn from it, and what the creature would share always piqued his interest.
There was a problem. The necromancer was diligent, and always tended to every ailment the crow had, whether it was a broken wing, or a pathogen it had contracted. Caelum Vorlesh had used his magic to heal the creature.
What the necromancer could not do was best the greatest adversary of all. Death itself. Which had come with age, and the bird had perished at last. He did not know of anything. There was no spell he was capable of that could rectify this problem.
It was with that realization that Caelum Vorlesh felt loss. That loss did not leave him. It stayed with the necromancer forever. It would accumulate with every death that he had witnessed.
Areelu Vorlesh could only do so much to comfort her child. The witch did not want to meddle in the affairs of the divine. It would draw the attention of unwanted guests. The witch would try anything else, but it was never enough for Caelum Vorlesh. The embrace of his mamă did not ease his torment. This affliction which continued to steal away all that he cherished. This thing called death. Which he despised above all others.
The necromancer, delved deeply into the arcane, and he became powerful. Caelum Vorlesh freed them all of this curse, but it was never enough. No, not just to bring back those he cared for. He wandered the world. He saw every corner of Golarion, and wherever he went death followed. Wherever he went that hatred would stir.
How dare this thing destroy the lives of these people! How dare it impose itself to bring tragedy to the innocent! How dare it, how dare it, how dare it! It had become his focus. The necromancer would eradicate this death. This dragon which spurned him at every turn. It would be by his hand that death would die. It would be by his hand that the people would be freed.
The necromancer only needed a teacher, and that is when he heard it. The Serpent calling him, and it drew him towards the person who would become his master. The Undying King. The greatest of all necromancers. The power he gained made him an enemy of Pharasma. The Lady of Graves would not forgive him. No, he had trespassed into her realm. Death was her domain.
Caelum Vorlesh knew who it was when he burned at the stake. When he watched those fools dance on his grave. Pharasma had orchestrated it all, and when he met her at last? The necromancer did what he always would. He challenged death, but this would be unlike anything he faced before.
He had lost.
The Abyss had become his home, and the demons his jailers. Their torture was agonizing. It drove him insane. Areelu Vorlesh, his mamă, would not stand for it.
The witch who was once mortal, had cast aside her humanity, and became just as these monsters. In order to save her child, and not just save him but grant his wish. Caelum Vorlesh desired the power to challenge these petulant despots.
Their rules would bind her child no more! Areelu Vorlesh would protect her treasure! Perhaps her love was perverse. Poisoned by the Abyss. What was once pure had become corrupt. The love of a mother turned towards something unseemly. The witch would destroy the world to save her son! The Worldwound was born, and from it came war!
In that war I was born.
The second son. The unwanted result of an experiment gone awry. I had seen everyone like myself die to her cruelty. Those who I would have called brother or sister, but in this crusade, I had found it: the family I had lost. The purpose I had sought. The desire I could call my own.
I became Arlan Vorlesh. I became The Knight Commander.
I could have destroyed the shadow. I could have had my revenge. I could have watched as Areelu Vorlesh lost the person she loved above all others again. Instead I had spared the specter. The shadow had become one of mine. A crusader. A soldier in my war, and in a way I was satisfied.
A childhood like I had dreamed of would never be possible, but I did not need one. If only I had these people by my side. I was a mad man. I was broken beyond repair, and I would not have it any other way! This was everything that I was, and to take it away? It would mean that Arlan Vorlesh was no more! That I was nothing!
I am my tragedy! I am my torment! I am my madness!
I am war! I am conflict! I am all of my problems!
Peace was my enemy.
If any would dare to steal that from Arlan Vorlesh? I would show them.
Everything that I entailed. The destroyer of the Abyss.
The Challenger of the Gods.
<<X>>
"K-Knight Commander..." I held the soldier in my arms. This champion? The Berserker Armor had failed him, but he endured despite that. He fought to protect these people. His people. Those he called brother and sister. "Did I do the right thing, my lord?" The blood on his hands. When he had fought for that tyrant. It could not be washed away.
There was no pride. Not in the service of Ganishka. Only shame. Only unending nightmares for every sin.
"My crusader." I brush his hair aside. Which had been matted by blood. The damage was severe. Whatever curse had been inflicted on him rendered his wounds dire. The armor would not save him. "I could not be prouder."
There was something soothing about my voice. I was father and mother both to these soldiers. When the crusader hears it at last? That is when death claims him. The campaign was over for him. His war had come to an end, and he could find it at last. Whatever he had been searching for? The dream that had escaped him? It was now within his grasp.
My war had just begun. Radiance glimmers. The blade had a purpose, and I raise it. The holy light it had expelled banished the darkness. The monsters approaching the church spontaneously combusting in the presence of it. There were more than just the walking dead. There were many leeches. Creatures of the night. Those vampires had burst into flame. All except for the ascendant vampires. Who just barely survived this resplendence, but even they felt as if their power was draining from them.
There was no humor. All traces of mirth had fled with the arrival of this dark god. This destroyer of worlds.
The Whispered One.
Vecna had ascended eons ago, and in this visage? The Arch-Lich resembled a weathered skeleton. There was no meat. Only bone. Empty eye-sockets which held oblivion and glimpsed every machiavellian appetite, a crystal monocle, opulent robes which had been embroidered with the countenance of a great serpent, an ornate gauntlet on one hand, and a grimoire made out of a cadaver in another. Whose corpse did that belong to? I had no idea. The face on the grimoire had been petrified, frozen by whatever spell created the book, and the expression it had was one of loathing. Whoever this person had been in the past? They held a grudge against Vecna. The binding was made out of a portion of their vertebral column, and there were stitches which held their epidermis together. It served as the cover for this tome.
One of many victims. Over the millennia I had no doubt that The Undying King had collected the souls of thousands. If not more than that. This craving he had was never satisfied. It only grew as he devoured these aimless wanderers.
At the center of it all, I had seen it from the entrance of the church, and he was waiting atop a tower. Which had risen from the earth itself, and it left my city in ruins. The Chained God was waiting.
I would not disappoint him.
I did not hesitate. Not even for a nanosecond. When I jump from the church the world trembles all the way down to the core. Radiance brilliantly glittering with a grace even a solar would be hard pressed to match. The envy of every celestial. I reach the summit of it, and the necromancer was already prepared.
Five minutes.
That is all I had. Against a monster like this I had to be everything I once was, and this holy light carried the same miracle I brought to this realm. I could feel it. The promise I had made.
This poultice for my heart.
Vecna had already cast it. Siphon Time. All of that magic directed at the mortal who had humiliated him. I slow to a crawl only for a fraction of a second, before the blade in my hand shimmers in response to it. It casts Dispel Magic, Greater. The spell had failed against this flare of transcendent power, and I am set free before I lose my life.
Radiance, when properly wielded by someone of worth, becomes a Holy Avenger, and the bane of all things paranormal. Whoever held it in their possession? They would be protected from any magic. It drastically increases their resistance to The Weave. Whether the spell was infernal or celestial? It made no difference.
That was not all.
The touch of this blade? The holy light it generated? When it came into contact with anyone or anything who was wicked by any measure of the word? That is when it was able to penetrate anything. There would be no protection. Not even the spell aptly named Invulnerability could provide any kind of defense. The only way of surviving it was by avoiding Radiance, and never allowing it to graze you.
Vecna flinches. He could feel it, and he knew exactly what would await him if he allowed that to transpire.
"I told you before, Vecna! The foundation will be built on your corpse!" This dominion would have him as the bedrock. An imperium unlike any other before it, and which would conquer the galaxy.
The Undying King felt revulsion. When he witnessed it. A war that would consume everything. All worlds beholden to it. All races enslaved by it. A corpse, decrepit and debased, intertwined with machinery, and crimson eyes.
Those same crimson eyes that gazed into him. That pierced his soul. Arlan Vorlesh...
What would become of him? Vecna only knew that what he saw would mean the end of all things.
I did not care for his vision. I only cared about my crusade. I only cared for my children. This family I had found at last. Whatever else may come to pass? I would face it.
Just as I always did, and always would.
"This is the day that death will die."
The dragon will perish, and by mine own effort.
Not that of any other.
<<X>>
The Inheritor stood in front of them. The people of Arlan's Way. A part of her wanted to join her beloved, but these serfs needed her protection. The citizens of Arlan's Way had flocked to the church. In order to escape the monsters pouring out from that spire. The Light of Valor, her sword, named after one of her titles, had returned to her. The blade had failed to act as the ward it was meant to be.
This had to be the work of The Serpent. The voice which had enticed that necromancer eons ago. That had promised divinity, and which it had granted. It was not the work of The Watcher. Ao had no part in it.
Nor was it the work of The Starstone in Absalom.
Vecna had become a deity by entering into the service of this unknown interloper. Whatever this creature was? Iomedae was no match for it. It was not something anyone had a chance of overcoming.
Rovagug would have been less of a hassle. The Destroyer could at least be challenged by The Godclaw. If they were to collect on the debt owed to them from a few favors they had granted in the past.
Not unlike The Lady of Pain or The Hidden One? The Serpent was an exception to that. The power it held was insurmountable. No alliance between any gods or goddesses had what was necessary to face it. The whole lot would have been subject to obliteration.
Thankfully, just like with the aforementioned, the way it influenced all of the planes was subtle. It was not overt. It dealt in manipulation. Any direct interference was usually only through intermediaries like Vecna. Who did not even have a fraction of that power...
At least not anymore.
The Serpent was disappointed when The King of Worms had failed to destroy Sigil, and now the necromancer was only as powerful as any other deity.
The problem was that he still had the love of The Serpent. If not the favor of it.
"Everything I sacrificed for this power, and I cannot even save anyone!" The cosmic bureaucracy was already something that left her with a migraine, but to know her sacrifice was in vain was worse. It all felt vacuous, and when her gaze fell upon the tower? Her love only grew. Arlan Vorlesh, the person she admired more than anyone else, and who had stolen her heart.
That idolatry became worship. It became a prayer. An immortal who have done anything for a mortal. Iomedae whispered, and on her lips was the name I had given myself.
"Save all of us, Arlan. Save us, my lord." It had become an incantation. Almost like a spell. "My beloved. My emperor."
Farnese de Vandimion felt that same exaltation. Armageddon had arrived today, but there was no fear. No, within the chest of that young woman, her heart could feel it. It was a reassurance coming from somewhere. No, everywhere. Her master permeating everything. It was as if he was ever present.
It was indistinguishable from Sarenrae. The Everlight which had cursed her, and in turn blessed her. How could a mortal do this? Arlan Vorlesh was not any deity. He was just The Knight Commander, and despite that, it was unmistakable.
The people had started to believe. The truth had become malleable. This reality was not as infallible or inflexible as many claimed it to be. The truth was mutable. The past, present, and future never certain. If anything they were another product of perception, and if perception could be changed?
What would happen to this universe? What would happen to not just this one, but all of those realms adjacent to it? The truth would become a lie. The illusion a reality. The dream would be made manifest, and all that would entail.
Arlan Vorlesh did not need to be a god or a goddess to be thought of as one, and that would be transformative. In contrast to what many believed? The multiverse was not a constant. It was not a cycle.
"It is a vision..." It is an idea. The problem with any concept was that it was not bullet-proof. They were subject to revision. There is no truth. Only that we define as certain, and what happens when consensus overturns anything concrete? "A story."
The tyranny of the many over the few. That would be the worst of it normally. This wasn't that kind of reality. The world here was permeable.
The witch realizes all of that, and all of the implications. Her studies had provided insight into how the world worked, and this epiphany drew her concern. What would become of her master? If this were to continue unabated?
Farnese de Vandimion turned her gaze towards her lover. Iomedae held no concern. Only supplication. Whatever pride she had was worthless next to her love. Which had turned into obsession. The same as her own, but where the deity found herself in jubilation?
The noble made a prayer to The Everlight.
"I have seen it, Sarenrae. What this is doing to him." The witch felt her heart break, and she knew what awaited her precious Arlan Vorlesh. "I know I don't deserve any clemency, but please save Arlan Vorlesh. Please save my beloved. He did nothing to earn a war like this."
This war would never end. Those words would come to haunt her. Just as they haunted...
No, this is my life! This is what I have chosen!
I am sorry, Farnese. This is what I am. It is not my blood. Nor does it have to do with how exactly I was raised. This choice I made, and it is one I made alone. I would be there for my crusaders, but I would see the end by myself. I would be alone in my victory.
Ȁ̴̩ ̵̱̥͘c̶̻̳̀o̵̠̕͝r̸͕̎p̸̫̭͊͘s̵̯̿ẻ̷̖̘ ̶̲̙͐ỏ̴̤͒n̶̗͚̄͛ ̷͔̩̃a̶̧̞͆ ̵͇̐t̸̝̑h̵͉́ṛ̵̯͗ơ̴̙̅n̵̜̫͘͠ë̷͎.̵̝͍̽
"Despair, and you give yourself to the shadows. Believe, truly believe in him, and you shall walk in his light no matter how dark the path you tread." Iomedae grasped her shoulder tightly. As if to reassure her, and erase any misguided fear.
Instead the words were like a curse. This was the grievous miracle.
Not the merciful one.
<<X>>
"A friend, Arlan?" The White Wolf takes up Dragon Slayer, and swings the great sword down onto the head of The Undying King. Only for the necromancer to block his strike with his gauntlet. Vecna does not even budge. Whatever magic it had neutralized anything that disrupted the fabric of reality.
Including the flames of Grunbeld.
"An annoyance, Guts." I answer, and I use this opportunity to prepare something. "An uninvited guest I intend to bury." I cast Lay To Rest with the intent of ending this quickly, but the deity does not succumb to it.
"ՇђคՇ ฬ๏ภ'Շ ฬ๏гк, คภคՇђє๓ค!"
The grand hex was useless against a god. This was no avatar. I would have to take care. I had Radiance, but I was weakened after the defeat of Griffith. In turn, I had to weaken the necromancer before I attempted anything else and that is why I cast Dire Prophecy.
Probability is eschewed against Vecna, and whatever fortune he had is reversed in the worst way possible. An asteroid the size of Casmaron pierces the atmosphere of the planet. It was aimed directly at The King of Worms. I would deal with the collateral damage by opening a portal with the spell Dimension Door at the peak of this tower. Then transport it back into outer space before it could crash against the surface of this earth. If it did the planet would have exploded. The velocity at which the asteroid was traveling, combined with how substantial it was, would mean the death of this world.
A bit excessive against anything other than the divine, but practically a requirement just to mildly inconvenience them. Vecna turns his gaze towards the asteroid, and while I can't see it because he has no lips, I could definitely tell that he was grinning.
That did not bode well.
I cast Foresight, but it is too late. Vecna had already evoked Ravenous Void, and the black hole devours the asteroid. There is nothing of it to salvage. I just wasted a grand hex. It does not stop at that.
"I will take care of it!" The White Wolf steps in. He already encountered something like this before.
"It's not like that!" This wasn't the same as with Conrad. This was none other than Vecna. "This spell--"
I am too late.
Guts reaches for it, and when he grasps hold of it? His hand is devoured by it. This was not just a black hole. This thing ate anything immaterial. It ate any idea. The most abstract concepts. The White Wolf does not scream, but his face does contort into a grimace of pain. The White Swordsman falls, and I catch him before he tumbles against the tower. Guts grits, and presses Dragon Slayer against the stump where his hand had been. The flames cauterize the wound, and with that history is altered.
As if it was never eaten.
"How useful. If only it worked against this bastard..." This would be a problem. I had to think, or at the very least attempt another one of my miracles.
"Who the hell is this guy?" Guts had to be perplexed. This was an encounter with an actual deity. The only other one he knew was Iomedae, and he never had the pleasure of sparring with her. This experience was not the same as just murdering any demon lord.
"He is a necromancer. The most powerful one of all." I turn to glare at the malevolent entity. I had an idea. "Vecna has to die. However, for that to happen, I need your help Guts." It would require assistance. A person I could rely on.
"Whatever you want, Arlan. I will do it." There was no hesitation. Guts had put all of his trust into Arlan Vorlesh.
The Knight Commander. His father.
"I need to prepare a spell. The problem is that it will take a second." That might have not have sounded like much, but in a fight between people like ourselves? The winner was determined in time-frames as sparse as a nanosecond, and I mean that in the most literal way imaginable. Just being one or two nanoseconds shy of your opponent could mean defeat. In order for any respite as bountiful as a whole second to be possible? It would require a distraction. It would be like an eon, and in that eon? Vecna would take every advantage. "I need you to distract him. For all of one second, Guts."
"Only a second, Arlan? I thought this was going to be hard." Guts had to be cocky about it, but I had hoped that this wouldn't result in his untimely death.
I would not watch him die. I would destroy everything before I let that happen. I would not lose another son.
When had I start thinking of him like that? It did not matter. It was the truth. Fenrir may have been his flesh and blood, but I was his soul. The father that he chose. The brother that he would die beside.
"Go forth, my crusader! Show Vecna why they call you The White Wolf!" I enter a meditative trance, and commune with Radiance. Whilst Foresight had been useless in stopping Vecna? It had another use. I look into the blade, and I see it.
The reason why any solar would be nary a match for the sword? It already was one. An exceptional one no less. I had cast aside The Light of Heaven in the name of my mortality, but Radiance had held onto it; in case any situation called for the power of the divine. The Holy Avenger had the grace of a celestial.
I would make use of it.
<<X>>
Caelum Vorlesh was disturbed. Vecna had focused all that he was on his brother. The necromancer was certain that he was the target. Why had that changed? What had his mentor seen in Arlan Vorlesh?
Vecna was afraid of it. Whatever would come to pass if he failed. The firstborn of Areelu Vorlesh? He was at a loss, but that was always the case when it involved family. An inkling of some theory began to be entertained.
The Undying King came here to dispose of competition. What if his brother had been the one in that vision? What if Arlan Vorlesh was that trailblazing usurper? No, his brother was mortal. Arlan Vorlesh even took pride in it.
I could not disagree, but as always in these situations? All things were permeable. Including someone like myself. I was just a mortal, Caelum. I have a limit. I just wish I had seen it before everything went wrong.
That I could have retained some semblance of myself when I left, but it does not matter. It had already happened. I lost myself again. When I came back I was not Arlan Vorlesh, and I am still not Arlan Vorlesh.
On this throne I am barely alive. Only clinging to existence out of desperation. This clarity could not last, and I would go back into that delirium. I had told them all. That I was no deity, but I had sought to prove that wrong at every turn.
What a fool I was.
Had I learned too late? What the price of arrogance would be? What hubris had done to all mortals? I was the same. I thought I could handle it, but I did not heed my own advice.
If only you had all been by my side. The Seventh Crusade. The Great Crusade. It would have been different. I needed all of you, but I was alone. In that place I had become unrecognizable.
"I will find it." That piece of myself that had been lost. "I will wait, Caelum Vorlesh. I will wait for you, my brother."
I will become whole again, and when I return?
I would fix all of it. I would save all of my sons.
I would even save you, Magnus.
<<X>>
Guts was the man who had everything.
By violence, and by determination? By growth, and by merit? By ascension? By apotheosis? The White Swordsman had retrieved that which was lost, and it was all thanks to that person. The White Wolf knew what it meant to be whole, and he reveled in that glorious sensation. The wolf had been denied it all. A life of freedom. A legion to call his own. A family to welcome him home.
The Knight Commander. Arlan Vorlesh.
Who was he exactly to him? A brother? A father? An idol? That witch had granted him everything. When hope had been lost? When defeat had been a certainty? When all he knew was guilt?
I made him feel alive. I had given him whatever he needed. I was always willing to do it. Guts just had to ask. After all, what more proof did I need? The wolf was mine. He was my progeny. My child.
My son.
"A fortress is built with blood and toil. Only by blood and toil may it be taken." The words come naturally to him. Guts did not know where they came from. Only that they were his, and they would always be his. The fortress that was Arlan's Way would endure forever. It would stand triumphant in the face of this force of nature.
Vecna would die.
"A few words of wisdom?" Grunbeld murmurs from within Dragon Slayer. "I did not expect that from you of all people, Guts."
"I got plenty of surprises. Stick around, and you might experience the best of them." The White Wolf glares at his enemy. This deity that would dare intrude on the dream. Their dream. This world that was worth living.
Guts had no doubt. Not anymore. There was peace when before there was war. The wolf had found his pack, and a mate he could love. He discovered a son he never knew he had. Who had once been lost to him. He had his revenge. No, he had his justice. The universe did not seem that unfair.
If anything it was wonderful.
"Just don't die, Guts." Dragon Slayer chimes in. It had been sometime since it spoke. It was growing weary. A retirement would be in order, and Grunbeld did not know the meaning of the word. The gilded dragon was perfect.
"I won't." The White Wolf pounces on his prey. Vecna isn't prepared for it when the wolf grabs him by the neck, the air enveloping his bones, and then launching him into orbit. The necromancer had to admit that this demi-god had almost all of the power of his mighty forebearer. When the dark god comes to a stop? He wasn't anywhere near their galaxy. Let alone that earth they resided on. Instead he was between galaxies. In the blackest night.
Shar held dominion here.
"ђ๏קเภﻮ ՇђคՇ Շђє ɭค๔ץ ๏Ŧ ɭ๏รร ฬเɭɭ קєг๓เՇ คภץ คเ๔?"
"No, I just thought it would be comfortable. It would make for a decent grave." Guts does not stop. When Vecna goes out of his way to cast Ravenous Void? This wolf is prepared, and makes use of the affinity which had been afforded to him by birthright.
The wind becomes an impenetrable armor. When the black hole collides against it? It is flung back at the necromancer. Guts had realized that he couldn't destroy this spell.
Therefore the next best thing was to simply redirect it.
Vecna had only a moment to be surprised before it almost engulfs him, but he had quickly intoned the spell Teleport, and reappears behind the wolf. When that tenebrous orb comes into contact with a distant galaxy instead? The spiral fades away as if being wiped clean from a canvas. What was left behind was blank. An ivory blemish. An unnatural and stark white hole.
Thankfully, that galaxy was already a husk. It was devoid of any life. A swarm of locusts had eaten it all. They were searching for more resources. Another banquet to feast on, and this drew their attention. That earth which was practically teeming with so much life. They began to salivate at the prospect...
Vecna casts Flay For Purpose, and targets the wolf. "ฬђ๏รє ﻮгคשє ฬเɭɭ เՇ ๒є єאคςՇɭץ? รยгєɭץ ภ๏Շ ๓ץ ๏ฬภ." There was nothing but condescension when he speaks. The necromancer had no microcosm of respect for The White Swordsman.
Guts had only an instant of recognition before he realized that the magic ignored his impenetrable armor. The spell repurposes everything, and attempts to enslave him. His frame contorting as he is flayed alive, rebuilt from the raw materials, and his consciousness is driven into a fog by a curse of servitude.
The White Wolf does not break even as he dies, and acts before it can be complete. He takes Dragon Slayer, ignites that ethereal blaze, and impales himself on the great sword. Grunbeld had become precise, and so had Guts. They could choose whatever event they wanted from the past to be erased, and in that moment they choose all of this.
The spell is dispersed. The wound is undone. The curse never enacted.
The White Swordsman does not fall, but he was beginning to realize the gravity of this situation. Vecna was unlike any other foe he had faced before. Which meant he had to brace himself for anything.
"I am going to make you work for it." Guts felt that spark of divinity within his soul evolve. The White Wolf begins a metamorphosis, but what he became was no dire wolf. This was a lycanthrope. His fur was like snow, and his claws could lacerate any demon lord. There was a snout protruding from his face, but he had become anthropomorphic. He did not forgo his mortality entirely because of this, and instead he had reached a kind of synthesis. Guts was not just The White Wolf. He was The White Swordsman, and everything that implied.
The Lord of Wolves.
The wind would always belong to him. Guts calls to it, and in the vastness of outer space, where there should have been no air? There is a Storm of Vengeance. The spell had come to him, and he turned it towards The Undying King.
"ฬђคՇ เร ՇђคՇ?" Vecna had been at a loss. This was not what he expected.
A conflagration of things. The winds transpose everything in their way, bolts of lightning ricochet between clouds, hail begins to form into meteorites, and acidic rain burns at everything. They churn, and transform into a tornado. The tempest becoming a monsoon, and it tears through any vacant oblivion.
The King of Worms does not take any risks, and evokes Prismatic Wall in order to serve as a ward against it. There were seven layers it would have to penetrate. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. There was no way it could break through the defense of each and every one.
When the cyclone collides against the barrier? It does not even take a fraction of a second for it to break through all of them at once. The Maimed God had underestimated it, and would pay the price. When he is drawn into the gale?
Vecna only knew of torture.
It had been a millennium, but it had happened. Vecna knew of suffering, and it was at the hands of someone who wasn't even entirely of the divine. Instead they were a product of sacrilege. A child born of a mortal and a immortal.
The Undying King is hurled through a hundred galaxies, and each one of them was a victim of that swarm. Only their galaxy had been able to escape their notice. Their insatiable hunger.
Guts does not relent. The White Wolf dives into the vortex. Dragon Slayer cleaving through every record of the past. The great sword pierces into Vecna.
"єภ๏ยﻮђ!" The Undying King had already been humiliated before! He would not tolerate repetition! Vecna casts Time Stop, and the entirety of the universe is frozen. The Lord of Wolves is rendered harmless. "เ๓קย๔єภςє รยςђ คร Շђเร ๔єรєгשєร קยภเรђ๓єภՇ..." He evokes Blade of Disaster, directs it at The White Wolf, and the planar rift bisects him at the waist.
Dragon Slayer was a problem. Vecna decides to remedy that.
The Undying King pulls the great sword out of his chest, and with a flick of his wrist he hurls it away. The great sword twirls through the primordial darkness, and crashes against the boundary between this plane and the next. There was no way Dragon Slayer would be able to return without any assistance.
Guts only manages to break out of the temporal debility at that exact moment. The White Wolf regurgitates all of his viscera, but he had endured worse. It truly was an agony that he knew all of his life.
What was one more day?
Guts grabs his adversary by the head, and he opens his maw. There is a Psychic Scream, and the necromancer is assailed by everything he could unleash. The White Wolf had every memory to share. All of his nightmares.
Vecna was appalled by all of it, but manages to escape. He clutches at his head, and attempts to make sense of what he had witnessed. This disorientation was unreal. It was worse than anything he ever experienced before.
"เ ς๏๓๓єภ๔ Շђץ єŦŦ๏гՇ, ๒ยՇ เՇ เร Ŧ๏г ภคยﻮђՇ." Vecna regains his composure. This horrid ache would persist, but he had patience. The Undying King grabs the werewolf, and casts Finger of Death. The negative energy was hungry for the life of this creature.
That certainty of his was a mistake. What attention he had was focused entirely on The White Swordsman. This confidence of his would be his undoing.
It had been a second, and that was all that I needed.
"Unhand my son, Vecna!" I grab the monster. This abomination that had dared lay his hands on what was mine. The negative energy is dispersed. When the necromancer turns his gaze to face this interloper?
The vision had been fulfilled! The rival had been found! It was no dream!
It was an omen of what was to come...
"I made a promise, and I aim to keep it!"
Gone was Arlan Vorlesh. What stood in front of him was the anathema. A giant wearing the most dazzling gold-plated armor he had ever seen. Adorned with the effigy of an eagle, and bejeweled with rubies that were the color of scarlet. A halo of luminous and ardent grace had become my crown. The visage of Arlan Vorlesh? It had been sculptured to resemble that of the patriarch of House Vorlesh. The King of Aquilonia. My eyes were now a lustrous cerulean. When before they were a radiant crimson. The blade in my hand? The sword that had become the envy of every celestial in the Higher Planes? It was most certainly my Radiance, but it had undergone a transfiguration itself. The guard had become an eagle, and it was engraved with the crest of The Inheritor.
I could hear her prayer.
My Iomedae was always watching over her herald. Her champion. H̵̩̄ė̶̡̇ȓ̷͈̹͌ ̴͉́ë̷̦́m̵̧̳̿̍ṕ̶͓̀e̵̘͙̓̿ŕ̶̟ͅȍ̷̰r̵̘̊͘.
"เ ђคשє Ŧ๏ยภ๔ เՇ!" The usurper had been revealed. Vecna casts Absolute Death. Throughout all of existence? Negative energy erupted from every seam within this plane. The most powerful spell of all in his arsenal. The greatest achievement any necromancer could dream of. This magic would mean the destruction of all living things. All life would be extinguished.
This universe would die, and so it does.
All flora and fauna deteriorate. All mortals and immortals alike collapse to the ground unceremoniously. There would be no funeral for any of them. All planets that had any kind of life on them in our galaxy ceased to be. The sun was next. It died, and so did everything like it. Those constellations glimmering and glittering before blinking out of existence. In the primordial darkness of this universe I had to watch it all, and I felt an inordinate measure of pity for Vecna.
The Undying King had no idea what I was about to do.
Vecna turned his gaze back towards the anathema, and I began to laugh.
"ֆȶօք ɨȶ!" Why was I laughing at him? It was a mystery he could not decipher, and why did I live when everyone and everything else die?
"No, I will not." That is when I intone Rekindle. The spell is unleashed. The universe is reborn. The sun is reignited. All constellations return to their fixed position in the tapestry. All those lives salvaged from the wreckage that the necromancer left behind. Those worlds which had gone quiet? They were in an uproar, and there would be celebration. They had cheated death today. I had bested the dragon for them. "I will never stop."
I cast Wrath of the Righteous, and all of the monsters in Arlan's Way begin to die. The walking dead are laid to rest. As for the vampires? They are no exception to this, and even those who have achieved ascension comically evaporate. My citizens would know that they have my protection.
These people that I loved.
This was the grievous miracle. The only miracle I had to give.
"เ๓ק๏รรเ๒ɭє!" How could it be? How could a mortal have this kind of power? "ฬђคՇ คгє ץ๏ย?"
Only a minute left. I couldn't waste it.
When my fist slams against his head? His skull is splintered. It does not stop. This plane began to tremble, every galaxy shivering in abject horror when the force of my blow evokes a Reality Break, and my adversary is forced through the universe. He is blown past the boundary between the planes, and it breaks like glass. Vecna plunges into The Phlogiston. The ether between the crystal spheres, and sinks into one plane in particular.
That would be enough to wound any deity, but not destroy them completely. I had to capitalize on it before he recovered. I had to be wary of The Serpent as well. There was no telling when it would interfere.
I chase after the cadaver. This corpse in waiting.
When I intone Sun Form? I become the second sun, and tackle the necromancer before he can reorient himself. We found ourselves in the Astral Plane. The realm of the githyanki. They could do nothing but observe. The spectacle must have been entertaining for whomever was aware of this conflict.
I pay them no heed, and commence my duty. My mission would be accomplished. It is this judgement. This death sentence.
The culmination of everything I would ever be.
"I told you, Vecna! I am your executioner!" I grasp hold of his cervical vertebrae, and they begin to crack. The dark god can only squirm in my unbreakable grip. "I am Arlan Vorlesh! I am the one who slays the dragon!"
I intone Eye of the Sun, and I become ethereal. I am the journey in that instance, and there is a whisper, a quiet voice in the distance which could only be heard by those who believed in Arlan Vorlesh. The words become clear:
𝕷𝖊𝖙 𝕿𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖊 𝕭𝖊 𝕷𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙
"ŋơ!" Vecna begs for mercy, but it will not come. He prays to The Serpent, but this failure was to be his last. "ᏁᎧ!"
"The Knight Commander protects." I repeat it like a mantra. Vecna disappearing in the throes of my grace. This death would be no escape for him. There would be no afterlife. That soul of his had become nothing more than ashes in my embrace. Purified by a promise I had made. "No world shall be beyond my rule; no enemy shall be beyond my wrath."
This blight torn from all of the planes in existence. There would be no realm that would know of this abomination. There would be no more innocents who would be subject to his repulsive delights.
I had made sure of it.
<<X>>
"You will always be my son, Guts." I carry him in my arms. The White Wolf had been impressive, but he was exhausted. Guts did not disappoint, and I had relinquished that grace. I could not hold onto it at any rate. The way that I had been warped by The Heart of Darkness? The Idea of Evil, or whatever he wants to call himself? I was not what I once was. If I was maybe I could have, but who knew.
"They are all waiting for us."
The end. I could feel it.
I would return to the Abyss, and I would begin my campaign. I had no idea what would happen, but I felt uncertainty. In that moment as I reached apotheosis when I faced Vecna? The consequences of my actions became transparent.
There would be a war.
There was another crusade. I would lead it, and I would be alone. I would be surrounded by people who did not understand who I was or what I was. They were not my family. They were a bunch of zealots I saved, but I had found a few of them I could call family.
Just like all of these people, and some of them were familiar faces.
I wonder if it had anything to do with Ao. What was the grand design? It was hard to make sense of it.
"I will do my best."
That was all I could do. After all?
I was just a mortal.
[] Void would make a move. The Light of Valor could no longer protect Arlan's Way. The Serpent made sure of that. There wasn't much of a choice. I had to face the demon lord before he discovered this.
[] King Gaiseric might be able to provide some insight, but it might also be a waste of time. The Skull Knight was always cryptic about it all, and I could not afford any distractions.
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