-Bhashera-
-Sanctum of Frezia-
Amara
She crept towards Mendax with her knot of dread loosening and letting her tension spill into her squirming guts. She hadn’t even thought of what to say, rejecting the Everloft’s crutch.
Why? Because it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that she looked into the sad eyes of the dejected hound and forced him to obey her. That hadn’t worked for her so far. She couldn’t rely on that.
And maybe also, she thought, because he reminded her of that torn beast on the surface. Dimedrious. The greatsword-wielding wolf who had given her her pointless quest to find his girl down here. Pointless, yes, but the fact remained: he was the only bastard up there that seemed like he had any honor worth his salt.
Maybe that’s why the Everloft wouldn’t take him. It only wanted dirt.
She shook the deprecating thought from her mind and focused on the clenching paws of the Gnoll as she bent down beside his little fire. It was barely even a glimmer in the dark – its embers dying as the wooden twigs beneath it sputtered and broke, and so she reached forward to stoke it up with her flame.
“No,” he snarled at her hand like he was making to bite it off. “You and your fire have done enough.”
She feels her mother watching behind her eyes, and the Everloft’s will offering her the easy way out:
SKILL POINT AVAILABLE: 1
Intimidation Current LVL: NULL LVL 1: Unlocks context sensitive dialogue options. Can attempt intimidation to force a denizen of the Everloft to obey your commands (success depends on CHA skill)
She narrowed her eyes and blinked the option away. She could do this herself. She had to.
“Fire can be good and bad,” she said, watching her embers trickle down her fingers and bring his tiny light back to life. “What matters is how-“
“How it’s used?” he interrupted, still not looking at her. “Don’t give me that shit. You’re a kid. You don’t know the difference between good and evil.”
She hesitated. Then: “Believe me. I’ve seen things that would have done worse things than just kill you, Mendax.”
She was surprised by the confidence with which she rebuked him.
But it didn’t matter to the Gnoll. Not this time. Last time she had the benefit of a more open mind. A hidden desire to feel, even if it was just for a second, that his purpose in life had been worth it. She saw that here, now, he expelled nothing but hate for her with every dejected snort of his mouth.
“That was the Prophesy, you know,” he snarled. “It said that when the Lightbringer came, she would bring righteous ruin with her. Righteous ruin,” he scoffed. “What a fucking joke.”
Now he did look at her, clawing at the burning sands beneath his toes, like he was rearing up to throw it in her face.
“Just try and tell me this: in what world is it righteous that Kimon died to save you? Tell me that, Lightbringer. In what world are you worth the life of one of our own?”
She gulped down her fear. It was the exact question she hadn’t been able to answer as she soaked in the protective pool within this forgotten Sanctum.
“I don’t know.”
Fantastic answer, she rebuked herself.
He spat at his feet, not even trying to push his point. Her ignorance was enough. It was like it sustained him. It was like he was mocking her with his very depression.
“Look, I’m trying,” she said, raising her voice over the flaring flames between them. “At least I’m trying to help! I could just sit back and let you all protect me. Instead, I’m actually fighting with you! I didn’t choose this ‘destiny’ crap!”
As she watched him stare back at her she felt the uselessness of her words. No attribute bonus would do anything if she didn’t even believe the things she was saying.
“It’s a rare thing,” Mendax huffed. “To meet a prophesied hero that does nothing but make excuses for fucking up the world.”
His words cut her again.
Her fists clenched.
‘You know what I think?” he continued, ignoring her growing signs of fury, or simply not noticing them. “I think you ‘adventurer’ Ch’alokk fucked up your world up there – your precious Averix – and then just came down here to screw us up, too. Well, congratulations, Lightbringer Amara. You win.”
He stood up and gestured around him frantically, bellowing at her so that the timid Lokar shifted in the pool, sinking further into the depths.
“Look around you!” he laughed like a madman. “Witness your work! Our world reduced to a kingdom of shit. A world where we have to scuttle around like dung-beetles in the sand.”
She grit her teeth. He was wrong. He had to be wrong. This wasn’t what Mom told her. Mom wouldn’t lie. He was wrong. He was a liar. He was a lying, dying liar!
“Kimon chose to give his life to save me,” she hissed. “He believed in me. He believ-“
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“Don’t you dare!” Kimon roared, cutting through her with a voice that boomed throughout the whole cave. “Don’t you dare say his name.”
She tried to keep herself from screaming back. If she let her emotions out now, she’d expel enough fire to burn him to a crisp. Maybe that’s what she really wanted. Maybe that’s what the evil in her wanted this whole time…
“Oh?” he said, observing her shaking form. “Is the brave little Lightbinger lost for words?”
He pushed her back.
“Don’t,” she said without looking at him. Afraid, now, of herself. “Don’t touch me.”
He laughed in her face.
“Or what?” he growled, pushing her again. “You’ll kill me, too? Then you’ll be left with that sniveling moron over there. Don’t worry – he won’t bite ya unless you tell him to.”
She swallowed her growing fury. She closed her eyes.
And neither one of them saw that the tiny bonfire was now sparking with greater intensity than before. The wood had been cracked apart. There was no material to sustain it. Now, there was only the flame.
Amara, her mother whispered. You must use the skill point.
She tensed up as she felt the sniffing nose of the Gnoll near her.
“I smell fear on you, Ch’alokk,” he grunted. “You’re no leader.”
SKILL POINT AVAILABLE: 1
Allocate to Intimidation?
“In fact, maybe my destiny is to slay you before its too late. Maybe what I’m actually supposed to do is end your miserable life before you fuck up the remainder of our race.”
She felt him draw his axe from his back.
“Don’t,” she heard herself say again. “Don’t do this…”
The time for negotiation is over, Amara, her mother said. You must allocate the point.
“Go on!” the hound barked in her face. “Just try and stop me. Huh? Try and stop me from ending your little reign of terror now.”
“Mendax, s-s-stop!” Lokar yelled somewhere near her, approaching as she tightened her eyes, feeling something bubble, froth and rise in her stomach.
She heard the sound of the frail Gnoll screaming, and opened her eyes to see Mendax had slammed his fist into his Brother’s face.
“Stay…” he said, breathing heavily, eyes wild like he had no idea what he just did. “Stay down. Don’t give me a fucking reason.”
Lokar stared up at his Brother, his bloodied face smeared with shock.
And now, the amped-up Gnoll turned to her.
Allocate the point, now, her mother said again. Allocate the point, and let me speak to him.
Amara barely even registered the thought. She was too preoccupied with Mendax’s claw reaching for her throat.
“It’ll all be over…” he murmured. “If you just die…”
Intimidation: NULL
Allocate Point?
She closed her eyes again as his hairy fingers clenched around her neck, and he started to squeeze.
Intimidation: +1
Unique Dialogue option available: Auriel’s Rebuke
Attempt Intimidation?
She nodded her head slowly as her breath began to escape her, Mendax linking both his hands round her throat while Lokar wailed behind him, beating into his back.
“I’ll end you right here, right now,” Mendax whispered into her face. “You die…and we all go back…go back to the way things were.”
His eyes were glowing with a dark fire, but Amara did not notice. All she felt was the power beneath her heart flowing through her body, till it massed at her head and obliterated any and all thought.
Mom, she whispered in her mind. I-I feel.
It’s okay, her mother replied. Hazy and disconnected. But she still heard it. Let me take over, now.
“You couldn’t lead us,” The dog kept repeating. You couldn’t. You couldn’t. You’re too – WEAK!”
And then, when she opened her eyes, she saw nothing but a veil of crimson covering her. And the voice that escaped from her throat was no longer the voice of a little girl.
YOU THINK I AM WEAK?
Mendax staggered back instantly. Lokar dropped his head to the ground so quickly that he almost knocked himself out in the process.
She could see them. But it was not her body that she felt around her consciousness. Instead, she felt weightless. She was floating. She felt nothing but an inferno consuming her – a soothing burning that comforted her and inspired genuine terror in the face of the once proud Gnoll who was looking at her with very different eyes, now.
Eyes consumed with fear.
ANSWER ME, WELP.
“M-m…” he stammered, unable even to move from his prone position. “I did not mean-“
A wave of power emanated from the ground beneath her, throwing the warrior Gnoll onto his back.
I HAVE COME TO FREE YOUR MONGREL RACE. I HAVE COME, INHABITING A VESSEL THAT HOUSES BUT A FRACTION OF MY POWER, AND YOU DARE TO DOUBT MY STRENGTH?
“No!” the Gnoll wailed, shaking his hands to shield his eyes from the horrific sight he was seeing. Whatever it was, Amara had no idea. But he knew that, right now, he wasn’t looking at her at all.
He was looking at something beyond human.
YOU WILL GUIDE THIS VESSEL TO YOUR PATHETIC STRONGHOLD. YOU WILL GIVE YOUR LIFE FOR HER IF NEED BE.
He nodded relentlessly, his mouth agape, claws scraping into the sands.
She saw his fur start to curl and crisp, and his cry of pain as a flame beyond anything she’d ever been able to conjure seared his skin.
YOU SHALL DO THESE THINGS. OR YOU SHALL KNOW MORE OF PAIN THAN YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW.
And she saw the hair on his back be stripped away and the jaundiced skin beneath split apart. He didn’t try striking back at her. It was like invisible whips, barbed and bloody, were lashing themselves across his back with inhuman speed, flaying him and leaving him a screaming, bleeding mess.
“Yes!” he cried out at the pinnacle of his pain. “I will! I will follow you! I will obey! I’m yours to command. I’m yours. I’m-YOURS!”
And then, it was over.
The veil of fire vanished, and she was back, standing in her own body, with little to no memory at all of what had just transpired. She was looking down at the weeping Mendax, who was bent over, eyes shut tight like a little boy having a nightmare.
She regarded him with confusion. Last thing she recalled, he was shouting at her about how miserable he was. Now, he was doubled over and whispering something that sounded like a prayer over and over.
His body showed no signs of wounds or even a hair out of place. She couldn’t make any sense of it.
“Mendax?”
His eyes shot up. His whole body flew back, and he raised his hands defensively on impulse, only lowering them slowly when he realized that it was Amara that now stood before him, again.
Lokar’s gaze shifted between them both.
“By Ty’Kelloch,” he said. “She is the one. Such power…she is even more glorious than we thought.”
She heard the reverence in his words and was struck by the abject terror consuming Mendax’s face as he nodded, bowing down and not moving a single muscle.
“I…,” she stammered. “Uh…at ease?”
He shakily rose, using his hands to steady his shuddering body, like he was about to break into real, deep sobs of anguish.
This was not the Gnoll that had been here a few minutes ago.
“By your leave, Lightbringer,” he said, trying to draw his gaze away from whatever horrors he clearly saw in her eyes. “The Dominion Lord awaits. Your destiny is finally within your grasp.”
“O-okay,” she muttered. “Uh…carry on?”
He nodded and barked at Lokar, who followed without question, looking back at Amara and bowing with an even more crooked back than she remembered.
Mom? She asked, following them through a only crevice cut into the end of the cave just beside the waterfall.
She heard her mother give a dark chuckle in response.
What did you tell him? She asked. A little impressed. A little perplexed. And – she had to admit it- a little scared herself.
Oh, her mother answered coyly. I just reminded him of his place. Sometimes angry dogs need to be put on a leash.
Amara watched the burly Gnoll from behind, his head shifting to make sure she was still following, and then instantly darting away again.
Fear was in those eyes. Not loyalty.
Mom…she murmured, feeling her stomach tighten once more. What…?
Think not upon it, dear, her mother answered. This time, judging by her tone, a discussion was evidently not welcome. He’s yours, now. That’s all that matters.