Eric felt cold pin-pricks of dread racing up and down his spine, ears ringing with awful silence as he gazed at the too still form of his sister, lying sedately upon a the most plush and luxurious fairy tale bed any princess could want. He swallowed the painful lump in his throat, eyes darting to the collection of mother of pearl and jade unicorn figurines she had once taken such joy in collecting, as well as her childhood collection of plushies that she never had the heart to toss. Eric took a deep, shuddering breath, taking in her room and its countless childhood treasures somehow perfectly preserved from their original homes in California and upstate New York. All of it carefully placed and arranged to give his sister a sanctuary she could relax and decompress in, when not overwhelmed with the twin pressures of a tyrannical mother, determined to forge them both in her own pristine image no matter how desperate their screams, and serving as the puppet head of a kingdom surrounded on all sides by enemies who would do everything to see them all in chains or dead.
Eric blinked away the bitter sting in his eyes, trembling fingers gently stroking her cheek.
“I’m sorry, Elonia. Sorry it took me so long to get back. Sorry you ever felt the need to push yourself so hard, so fast, just to survive.” He swallowed the painful awful lump in his throat. “Most of all, I’m sorry that I ever left you alone that night I just had to hunting damn rats… and everything that has happened since.”
“A foolish choice that cost your sister everything. You do know that, right, my son?”
Eric froze, guts roiling with twisted tendrils of dread, guilt, and shame as he forced himself to turn around and look into the cool gaze of his mother.
She shook her head with an odd mixture of pity and contempt. “If you had never been so foolish as to ignore my counsel, if you hadn’t been so stubborn as to think you could possibly choose any path save the one that I would have forged for you… your sister would never have had her greatest gifts torn free by that cursed pustule of a pod.” A graceful fingertip as hard and sharp as a mithril blade caressed his cheek.
Eric swallowed his scream as blood spurted from the wound.
Of course he knew better than to say a word.
“You do know that, don’t you, my son?”
For long seconds Eric just stared at his serene-faced mother in horrified dismay.
A thousand furious protests filled his heart.
He had saved Elonia’s life! He had walked through fire to rescue her, dared the darkest of arts to forge an army able to carve a kingdom from the orcs intent on destroying her, then ended up surrendering that very army for the troops she so desperately needed. And THIS was what their mother chose to focus on?
She had never forgiven him. Her serene motherly smile had been a lie the entire time. He was just a tool to be used until it was time to discard him, and no more.
It was a horrifying realization that cut almost as deeply as seeing his sister in a coma.
“You bitch,” he hissed, surprised by his own words. “You fucking used me from the start.”
Aurelia dipped her head, bleak smile denying nothing. “I did, you monstrous little hellspawn. You damn well better believe I did. AND HOW YOU’VE PROFITED FROM IT ALL!”
In the blink of an eye, she had effortlessly raised him by his jaw, holding him upright and dangling as she peered so coolly into his own hot gaze.
“Now I have just one question for you, foolish boy who cost us an empire...”
“I SAVED YOUR EMPIRE, YOU UNGRATEFUL BITCH!”
In the blink of an eye he was wheezing for breath, slammed through half a dozen walls every bit as hard as Greed had thrown him, yet with only a couple ribs broken.
He wheezed a bloody chuckle as he picked himself up off the ground, plucking free fragments of masonry and a single steel pipe that had actually managed to prick his flesh, a feat that very little mortal tier weaponry could now do, outside of heavy artillery.
“Ah yes, Mother Dearest at her best. How could I ever fucking forget? Good thing I regenerate now, isn’t it? No need for concealer and discrete doctor’s visits while Elonia gets drunk and high off her ass to deal with our mother being a FUCKING PSYCHOTIC BI—”
You have been critically struck by: Your Mother! (Who of course knows all your weaknesses!)
You’re (temporarily) stunned and unable to breathe!
Aurelia was gazing down at a wheezing Eric gasping for air as his esophagus regenerated from being torn out at a shockingly fast rate, all things considered. She glared down at him like he was a particularly pustulent bug, before shaking her head and putting on her too bright smile once more.
“Eric, dearest, we have things to discuss, and they do not include your potty mouth. Are we clear?”
Saving throw made!
Blood Mastery is now Rank 31!
Unified Restoration is now Rank 14!
Nothing beats mortal peril at the hands of a Silver-tier monster to inspire monstrous growth! Even as she disciplines you, she teaches you valuable life lessons.
All hail the Winter Queen!
Aurelia patiently waited for Eric to finish healing from a shredded esophagus, which happened shockingly quickly, showing just how far he had come between Power Healing and Level 31 Blood Mastery assuring that all his bodily fluids stayed right where they belonged, shredded arteries be damned.
He refused to flinch when she gazed down at him with a mother’s concern, stroking his cheek and tutting as she pulled out a baby wipe and cleaned his face. “There, there, you’re making a mess of everything, darling, as usual. Now, if we’re through with our little tantrum, perhaps we could focus on what matters?”
Eric silently glared at his mother for long moments. “I don’t even know why you’re bothering, Mother. I already absorbed all my blood.” He flashed a bitter smile. “Just one of the perks of the profession most likely to defeat the goblin’s one-way debt traps to hell, that you HAPPILY SIGNED A TREATY BANNING, YOU BACKSTABBING WHO—”
Quickness check failed!
You have suffered a stunning blow!
Eric gazed down in horrified dismay to see himself hurtling through the air outside the palace before being abruptly jostled, his mother’s spear-hand strike having torn right through his stomach, her words caressing his ear with a mother’s concern as he choked back a scream of agony… that only increased as she pulled her hand free and handed him a potion not even he was strong enough to resist drinking, the burning agony muting to a dull throb within seconds.
His mother looked almost… apologetic. Which Eric thought extremely odd, considering the burn-all-bridges night of blood and tears scene that he was pretty sure this particular family script called for.
And the smile she flashed him, so full of heartfelt regret, filled him with blinding fury. Just knowing how fake it was.
She had just jammed her fucking Silver-tier hand through is stomach!
What a bitch.
“I know you don’t realize it now, Eric, but it’s important that we say the things coiled in our spleen. To dispel our demons of bitterness and disappointment, so we may move forward with light hearts and clear minds for the grand change that will soon be upon us all!” She sighed sympathetically, shaking her head. “I know that my words are difficult to hear. And yes, it’s true, you have done much to atone. As much as your pathetic broken collection of hybrid skills allow.”
She gently kissed his brow, and Eric didn’t say a word to interrupt, as her left hand was firmly clamped over both his nose and his mouth.
“I’m actually very proud of you, my beloved little abomination. Because it was indeed your glorious madness, your absolutely unorthodox approach to System advancement and all it entails that did allow us to seize victory from the jaws of defeat, here on Terra. And it is that truth, recalling so well the look in your eyes when you led the charge with sixteen thousand revenants to slaughter those cannon-wielding abominations and feast upon their porcine flesh that my heart thawed. And for all that I will never forget THE HORRIFIC ACT OF STUPIDITY THAT COST ME EVERYTHING!” She screamed into his writhing form as he futilely struggled to breath. “The look in your face, your stoic resolve to face torment beyond anything you had ever suffered at my hand, for the sake of sixty thousand children, for the sake of my own lost great granddaughter, REDEEMED you of so many crimes that would have sent any servant or family retainer, no matter how beloved, screaming in MULTIPLE PAIN COLLARS until the sun dimmed in the heavens.”
She kissed his brow and at last removed her hand, gazing gently down at him as he gasped and wheezed for air.
“Do you understand what I’m saying, Eric?”
He whimpered inaudibly.
His mother sighed.
“What I’m saying is… I love you. For all of your horrific flaws, foolish acts, and UNFORGIVABLE IDIOCY THAT COULD COST ME MY OWN ASCENSION, YOU OBSCENE LITTLE FOOL! I still choose to forgive you.”
She hugged him close as he continued to wheeze for air. “Because in the end, you’re stillmy adorable little baby boy. My foolish puppy of a son who will of course chew up mother’s priceless hyacinths and shit on my favorite carpets. Because at the end of the day, you’re my loyal, loving little hound, and you did the best that you could.”
Her eyes were filled with a mother’s sympathy and endless compassion. “Do you understand what I’m saying you silly little boy? I love and cherish you, despite my fury. Because I know that you’ve always put your sister first. Our family first! You’ve always done the best that you could.”
Her eyes twinkled with warmth and humor, as if sharing a treasured secret between them. “And Eric, I can’t tell you how glorious it was to meet your lastborn!” Her warm chuckle washed over a still dizzy Eric, mind reeling with his mother’s words far more than the abuse he had gotten used to years ago, and could now heal within seconds.
She playfully pinched his cheek, squirting them both with blood that made her snort. “She truly is a treasure! And that Crimson Lightning. Heaven’s grace, Eric! What was the multiplier on that master-tier incantation? A hundredfold what a skilled hundredth level sage could hope to unleash? An attack that fierce would obliterate any Bronze it hit dead on, and force a Silver to at least take your child seriously for the half-second it would take to kill her, and your little baby girl is only 72nd level. Which is ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE in any nineteen year old, let alone your offspring who is effectively less than two days old.”
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She gave him a curious look. “And bunny ears as Legendary-tier harnessers of arcana? Quite clever, my dear boy. Or do you have a fetish for bunny girls in the end? I hear that’s quite common in the otaku of your generation.” She nodded thoughtfully. “I’m sending Caliban a message right now. Within a month’s time, you’ll have all the bunny girls you could possibly want, and all of them quite fertile and more than a bit hungry for powerful mates. So if you could make me a batch of granddaughters as gifted as Lillian, the Sylvan faction might actually have a chance of surviving what’s to come in the decades ahead, Eric. Even if you’re now forced to do it the old-fashioned way, free of borderline forbidden paths that the System must really feel indebted to you to even allow... along with a fresh contingent of elves. All that’s assuming that you and my daughter’s sworn soldiers survive the trials to come, of course.”
Eric’s mind was racing, his gut screaming with the need for him the holler and vent his own fury, but he wasn’t a complete fool. He knew how things worked in his family. If his mother was feeling like everything had been aired out and they were all friends again, then that damn well was the end of it. So instead, he said the only thing he could.
“Mom, can you please tell me what the fuck you’re going on about?”
And suddenly he was slammed into the ground, his mother furiously peering into his eyes, searching for secrets he couldn’t fathom, until she said words that froze him were he lay.
“Tell me, Eric, what epiphanies did your pain lead you to?”
He gazed at her, mouth open in horrified dismay, though no words came out.
His mother’s eyes grew wild with desperation. “Don’t tell me you failed to understand the truths suddenly before you. Don’t tell me you failed to SEE!”
“Mother, I...”
Her furious hand clamped over his mouth as her gaze pierced his own, seeming to bore into his soul. “Jut how hot do your fires burn, Eric?”
In an instant he froze, glaring at her with such furious disgust. “Did you know, Mother? Was everything I suffered deliberate? DID YOU KNOW HOW I WOULD EVOLVE MY GIFTS?”
She repeated her words with a snarl. “How hot do your fires burn?”’
In answer, he clenched the fist her wrist held so casually, and allowed the fires of his fury to kindle with the transcendent essence of flame.
And much to his furious satisfaction, his mother, the queen of winter’s bitter chill, snapped her hand away from his wrist so fast that not even he could hope to follow it, and for long moments they were both captivated by the sight of flame that burned in ways so alien to the mundane shadow-puppetry that so many sacrificed their lives to mastering.
His mother gave him a slow, measured nod. “Good. Put that out and come on, Eric. Let’s get back to your sister’s room, and I’ll repeat the question you really should be able to recall with 27.83 in Scholarship.”
Eric scowled. “How exactly can you… never mind,” he said, quickly extinguishing flame that he really shouldn’t be so foolish as to summon in the outer world at all, no matter how much he savored the glorious manifestation of arts that truly were perilous to summon even underground without complete control and mastery over his environment.
The following minutes passed in a daze, the noise from the party below just as animated and cheerful as before. No doubt the elves were wise enough not to interfere with royal spats, and both Paladins and Eric’s friends were at least smart enough to leave certain things alone, assuming they thought that anything was amiss at all.
Then, like being trapped in a nightmare, he was right before his sister’s comatose form once more.
He choked out a sob tearing right through his core. Because despite knowing that his mother’s wild accusations were complete bullshit, never did he regret the tragedies that had led to his sister’s current condition more than he did at that very moment, hating that pod for stealing what it had no right to, for all that Eric had paid it back in spades, tearing every last iota of essence from it that he could.
And as much as he wanted to rail against his mother’s callous vilification of him, one undeniable claim rang true within his soul. He might have saved her life, earning noble clemency of a sort, but if he hadn’t ever left the bosom of their nest, their underground shelter in the first place, he would never have been forced to place his sister in that tainted pod in a desperate attempt to save her life, and that corrupt abomination would never have been able to steel a future queen’s most precious essence.
He felt a grip strong as steel clasp his shoulder as he sobbed like the child he so recently was, halfway expecting her to use her monstrous strength to rip him in half just as easily as he had once shredded a handful of mercenaries who had shot his poor Bunbun. But all she did was clasp him with a mother’s tender regard.
“I know how much you love her, Eric. How much you bitterly regret, just as I do, the twists in fate and fortune that led to your sister’s desperate botched ascension, now hanging on to her life by only the slimmest of threads.”
Eric froze with renewed horror, realizing that things were worse than even he had feared.
“Eric?”
He choked back his tears, clenching his jaw so tightly against his own desperate fury. Though whether he hated himself or the goblins more at that moment, he really couldn’t say.
“Eric!”
Her words jolted him to furious resolve once more.
“I will end those little fuckers. End them to the last demonic pustule that ever dared to invade our world!”
He sensed his mother’s nod. “Of course you will, darling. Of that, at least, I never had a doubt. But that’s not the question you should be asking, my lastborn son.”
Eric swallowed, lips stretching in a bitter smile. “Alright, Mother. What question should I be asking?”
“How far would you go to save her?”
Eric shuddered, eyes widening, suddenly dreadfully certain that he knew exactly where this conversation was going.
His heart was pounding like that of a man walking the final mile. Yet his eyes could see nothing beyond his sister’s dying features.
So like his daughter’s own.
“Whatever I have to.”
His mother took a shuddering breath. “Are you sure?”
Eric closed his eyes, preparing himself for what he knew was to come. Because his mother was the Queen of Winter, and he was the last autumn’s lingering harvest come home once more on the very night of the Solstice. OF COURSE he knew how this would play out.
In an eye-blink, his soul-bound armaments and equipment were gone.
There was nothing between his mother’s limbs and his naked flesh, save ivory skin.
He forced himself to say the word, knowing all too well the power of sympathetic magics…
and sacrifice.
He could feel his voice ringing like a gong through the entire palace, as the world grew still.
“Do it.”
The silence lingered for long moments as he closed his eyes, waiting for the blow that would tear free his heart… splattering his life blood, some fucking potent lifeblood he was damn sure, upon his twin sister’s dying form.
A sacrifice given freely.
The most powerful kind there was.
Yet much to his stunned surprise, he felt nothing but the softest of butterfly kisses upon his cheek, gazing upon his mother’s smile, so gentle and heartfelt that he couldn’t blink back the tears in his eyes.
How long had it been since she had ever looked at him this way?
Yet she did not strike.
NO. She turned away, sighing as she gazed out the palatial floor to ceiling windows in his sister’s bedroom.
“Greed Asmodious planned this intricately and well, for a novice.” She cracked a bemused smile, even as a set of perfectly pressed clothes and pristine armaments of mithril… his armaments, abruptly manifested before him.
“Even when he dared to charge my granddaughter, so eager to tear out her soul and heart, betting that I was not here in the flesh, he had contingencies in play through his entire twisted alliance, on the off chance that I did not guard this entire realm in reveries of dream and madness as I happily allowed all our enemies to assume since the day the hull of this world first cracked and the blossom of Terra’s ascension under the light of the System finally began.”
Eric swallowed, eyes widening at the sight of clothes and armaments he recognized so well, his monstrous Quickness and Finesse allowing him to fully attire himself in regalia and armaments in just seconds, strapping on his mithril blade and securing his open-face helm last of all.
Eric swallowed. “What do I need to do?” he asked as drunken laughter, banter, and sounds of passion filtered inside even Elonia’s room from the reverie below that had clearly spilled into any number of palatial guests suites, as had no doubt been expected from the start, the palace now effectively serving as barracks, living quarters, dining hall, and headquarters for their entire faction. As well as being the personal residences of the royal clan.
His clan.
His mother gave him a satisfied smile. “Your boon companions, originally left as offerings that instead you somehow forged into adventuring companions, have each been granted a boon worthy of their services to you.”
Eric shivered at those words said so matter-of-factly, as his mother spoke on. “They will soon be slipping into waking dream, safe in their borrowed quarters, lost in the arms of any number of lovelies eager to mingle bloodlines, and will be of absolutely no aid to you in the battle to come.”
Eric froze at those words, turning to his mother once more.
“Mother, I still don’t understand what…”
That’s when Eric heard it, the distant boom of what could only be heavy artillery, echoed a second later by far closer screams of those who had been struck.
His eyes widened with horror as he gazed out Elonia’s window, flicked open with the barest hint of his anxious strength as he beheld the distant flash of fire from distant cannons as the festivity ground to a halt and the night erupted with fire, smoke, and the screams of the wounded.
“Mother! What’s going on!?”
BLOOD TIER SYNDICATE VOIDS ALL FORMER CONTRACTS AND TREATIES!
VENDETTA HAS BEEN DECLARED AGAINST THE SYLVAN ALLIANCE!
- SYSTEM ALERT!! -
THIS IS A WAR OF GENOCIDE!
NO QUARTER WILL BE GIVEN TO COMBATANTS OR NONCOMBATANTS!
BLACK TUSK FACTION HAS DECLARED WAR ON THE SYLVAN ALLIANCE!
RED FANG CLAN HAS DECLARED WAR ON THE SYLVAN ALLIANCE!
ALL 27 ORC FACTIONS WITHIN TERRA HAVE NOW FORMALLY DECLARED WAR ON THE SYLVAN ALLIANCE!
ALL 7 OGRE FACTIONS WITHIN TERRA HAVE NOW DECLARED WAR ON THE SYLVAN ALLIANCE!
ALL 15 GNOLL FACTIONS LOCATED ON TERRA HAVE NOW DECLARED WAR ON THE SYLVAN ALLIANCE!
----- SYSTEM ALERT! ------
SYSTEM-WIDE WAR HAS BEEN DECLARED AGAINST THE EMPIRE OF THE WINTER QUEEN BY MULTIPLE GOBLIN, ORC, OGRE, AND GNOLL FACTIONS WITHIN THE LOCAL CLUSTER!
BLOODTEAR UNIFIED ALLIANCE MOTTO – “ALL ELVES MUST DIE!”
System message has been sent to all Contenders within Sylvan faction.
And suddenly a grainy video of a hideously maimed Greed could be seen glaring the way of an invisible camera as he wheezed bubbling breath’s of air, Eric disgusted to see his body covered with open soars leaking black puss as Greed floated within a vat of bubbling green liquid in a hellish chamber filled with similar vats and the never ending screams of countless patients or victims.
“Did you really think you’d be permitted to raid our starship foundry, destroy our core operations, transform our facility and rob us of over a million tons of Soul-steel without paying for it, Aurelia?”
Greed gave an awful, guttural chuckle. “And that was but the least of your offenses. For you dared the greatest crime of all! Hindering our great lord and master’s ascension to Gold by three goddamned levels, you rotten WHORE!”
Greed’s pustulent, boil-covered flesh glared into the unseen camera lens. “We’ve declared war on your entire faction, Aurelia. Not just here on Earth, but throughout the entire goddamned System!”
His gurgling chuckles washed over a suddenly silent, horrified collection of party goers as the celebrations were abruptly cut to a halt, even the bombardment stopped to no doubt assure maximum impact of Greed’s words as he spoke on, clawing at the air with one hideously mangled arm covered in smoldering blisters that clearly hadn’t healed an iota, for all that Lillian’s Blood Lightning had been well over an hour ago.
“You will pay for what you’ve done, Aurelia Silver! Pay with every last scrap of your empire as we call in every marker, every favor and debt to wash the cosmos in stinking elven blood! The blood of your people, Aurelia! Hell! We’ll even pay our hard-won gold to amass a star fleet armada the likes of which you can’t even conceive of, you landbound bitch!”
Greed began to cackle then, hideous and low, but Eric, heart pounding with adrenaline, terror, and furious exultation, leaped from the window and began racing for where he had seen the artillery fire with supernatural winds now at his back, his mothers silent words ringing through his soul as he did so.
Beware the foes warded in waking dream.