You have critically struck your foe!
ICE FIRE!
You have obliterated 50th level mercenary!
Eric let the screams and groans of battle wash over him, his fiery gold-sapphire blade a light flickering in the shadows and darkness, a glare blazing in a battlefield of fallen bodies and pools of blood.
Some tiny corner of his mind cried at the waste. So much potential for Dominion all around him, before such thoughts were quenched by the fierce, transcendent GLORY of his blade.
“Well done, my son. You have fused the essences that are everything. Evolving them into the higher order concepts that will SET US FREE!”
Aurelia, her glorious smile lightening up Eric’s world, pointed at the final remnants of the desperately retreating orc regimen upon which he had forged his fiery crimson masterpiece.
Hundreds of orcs and men had been transformed to statues of bitter shattered ice, glowing from within as transcendent flame fed upon screaming souls that would never know succor. A score of cannons that couldn’t hope to orient on 600 Quickness in time had been shredded, sinking in a soup of bodies and blood.
Eric’s smile was fierce, savage, triumphant. With far too many teeth. A perfect mirror of his mother’s own.
“How wonderful, Eric! Your necromantic affinities and the screaming souls now bound to ice show us that you have FINALLY bound your third affinity, DOMINION to Ice Fire’s transcendent state. Now we but need to secure your WRATH! And at last the phoenix may emerge from her shell!”
Her mother laughed then, a laugh that shook the valley as lush thick blood-spattered grass grew brittle with bitter cold so severe that all color was consumed before the entire valley exploded in brilliant crimson flame.
Eric closed his eyes and smiled at the warmth of his mother’s delight as distant screams were cut off by the rumbling roar of earthly destruction, shivering as magma caressed his form with warmth, such mundane comforting heat now doing him now harm at all.
She gently gripped his shoulder then, pointing him away from the handful of doomed fools dancing death’s dance before they collapsed in flame, Eric’s eyes now looking toward the smoldering remains of Freetown in the distance, beyond the valley that he and his mother had so utterly destroyed. His brilliant, fiery-gold irises glared with renewed fury as he noted the areas of Freetown that were still completely intact. The financial sector of the goblin quarter, with the full force of any number of goblin shamans and had assassins had assured that quarter, had clearly suffered no damage at all.
“Do you understand what out ultimate destination must be, my child?”
Eric slowly nodded, lips stretching in a feral grin. Wide. Far too wide for a normal sized mouth, yet it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered save embracing the most GLORIOUS of revelations as his mother grew ever stronger. Ever HOTTER! Each step imposing her presence upon the world, the weight of her DOMINION until the ground cracked beneath her silken steps.
“Something’s wrong. Why is my mouth so wide? Why do I have so many fucking teeth? Something’s very, very wrong!”
Saving throw ****** against ASCENDING GOLD! (Wait, seriously. Did you really think there was a chance you’d succeed? - The Dark Queen’s your mother!)
He shook away the irritating fly of a distracting thought, focused only on the latest message to shiver across his interface.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have achieved RANK 10 in Ice Fire Strike! You are the FIRST Contender in the entire sector to EVOLVE a HIGHER ORDER Power!
You have earned the title: Transcendent Contender!
(Accomplishment reduced 1 Tier. An Ascending Gold Walks by your side!)
This is a LEGENDARY Base feat! ALL Potencies and Martial STATS have gone up by 10 points as you yourself begin to evolve! You now enjoy a 30% Boon to all experience accrued and breakthroughs made while channeling Higher Order skills and attacks!
He wanted to howl with fierce delight, GLORYING in his own ascension and his increasing comprehension of what was effectively his Dao. His understanding and mastery of the multiple intertwined higher order concepts that were his essences in their most primal, enlightened form.
Yet before he could seize the revelations shivering through his soul and evolve the glorious pale blue flames roaring forth from his blade, his mother’s gentle caress crushed his shoulder enough to give him pause.
He dutifully gazed up like the adoring son he was at the beautiful vision that was his life, his world.
His mother, finally proud of him.
“You have done well, my darling baby boy,” she soothed with a twinkle in her eyes. “But hold off on that delicious little evolution, my child. For there is a fourth sleeping element of your soul that I fear has been far too lax, with mother’s loving tenderness wiping all needless emotions away.”
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Eric frowned. “What would that be?”
“Why, your Wrath, my darling,” she said as a handful of roaring ten-foot-tall axe-wielding ogres charged him from Freetown’s ruptured front gate while a full score of snarling goblins sniped at him from just behind in what at any other place and time would have been a well orchestrated hit.
Yet now Eric only gazed at his prey with cold contempt, his blazing sword deflecting blaster fire like the Cyber Knights of Nova Wars.
The goblin’s eyes lit up round as saucers. “Our kill perks are worthless! He parries our shots like a Bronze Ascended! Outrageous! Such creatures are forbidden here! Our masters must be warned at once!”
Eric smirked as the goblins used their outraged excuse to flee the battlefield, leaving nothing but a half dozen Ogre berserkers desperate to finish Eric off before he—
Ice Fire!
Ice Fire!
You have effortlessly flanked your prey!
Ice Fire!
You have critically struck 26 foes!
Eric’s expression was serene as he walked past the statues of ice and terror he left behind, a heartbeat before they exploded into blazing chunks of frozen flesh, even the blasters consumed by the frozen flame as he continued to evolve his art.
He gave a satisfied nod as he passed, politely ignoring the handful of wide-eyed townsfolk who for some reason could only shiver and whimper when he walked by them, or run shrieking in terror as if he were death incarnate.
He shrugged, never having quite figured out the quirks of Freetown folk and refusing to worry about it now.
“Why would I be angry now, mom? We finally have something we enjoy doing together!” He wiped the sting out his eyes. “You finally seem... happy with me.”
His mother’s throaty chuckle eased all worry away, as dozens of soot-stained, exhausted looking men, women and children found their terror at the doom walking in their midst fading into a dreaming daze as they stumbled away from Eric’s blade still radiating higher order concepts so intently that the very air ignited and froze before his blade’s passage.
Before acting completely normal once more, as Eric’s increasing mastery over Dominion soothed even the air’s howls of dismay.
“I am absolutely DELIGHTED by all that you have accomplished on this glorious night, our final night, my beloved son.” Her gentle touch soothed the throbbing shoulder that Eric’s gifts had already healed, her feather soft lips blessing him with a kiss to his cheek that made him feel happy and loved.
Then his mother sighed sadly, and Eric’s world was anxiety and uncertainty once more.
“Mom, what’s wrong?” He asked, his sword snaking forth of it’s own accord to cleave through the handful of desperate gnoll assassins choosing that moment to spring an ambush so inconsequential it was like casually slipping past stumbling drunkards an eye-blink before the now utterly empty streets rang with the tinkle of shattered ice and blazing souls once more.
His mother gave him a smile that broke his heart.
“As glorious as our own night might be, my darling Eric, I fear it is not so for everyone. As to what exactly that entails... I believe it best to see for yourself.”
Eric frowned, increasingly worried as he picked up his pace, the anxious twist in his gut after what had been such a serene, dreamlike evolution growing ever worse as his walk became a run and within seconds, and after only a few more encounters with sneering goblins, roaring orcs, and hissing gnolls that always ended in explosions of bitter ice and roaring flame, he was before the ugly temple to corruption and subjugation that was the goblinoid version of a bank.
It was a place he both hated and tolerated. For it had caused someone he cared about great distress... what was her name again? And it was where he had met Caliban, an ally that had proven the key to unlocking a world’s worth of wealth and potential, while sidestepping the petty games of rulers entirely.
“Eric, we’re wasting time.”
He flinched at his mother’s tone, though he didn’t let it affect the miraculous epiphany of burning ice blossoming upon his blade. He frowned at the reinforced steel door before him, before entertaining for just a heartbeat a fantasy of his since he had first started defying the limits of Sylvan kind.
Without allowing his focus on higher order manifestations to waver for a minute, he still embraced the ultimate in wyrm-riding Skydragon fantasies.
“Fragor!” He roared, flashing a fierce smile when the massive tungsten reinforced steel door was torn right off its hinges to cartwheel into the bank, smashing through desks, kiosks, dividing ropes and walls like a bowling ball through match sticks. To say nothing of the half dozen blaster-wielding goblins that had been smashed flat as pancakes, another half dozen screaming from limbs sheered right off, and thirty more of the little fuckers gazing at Eric in wide-eyed disbelief, wasting precious moments. All the time in the world for Eric, now with an absolutely outrageous 615 Quickness, to seize the Vor and TEAR THROUGH ALL HIS FOES!
His blade flashed with Winter’s Doom and Summer’s Bane as the bank chambers exploded in ice and flame, no red able to avoid 370+ Perception and an Interface map blinking with reds that couldn’t hope to hide from Infravision far more acute than it had ever been before.
His mother gave him a raised eyebrow when he appeared before her with a bow. “Our foes are dead, mother. On this floor at least.”
She gazed with a reproving eye at the half-dozen crippled humans who couldn’t have been much older than Eric, huddling on top of their own frozen legs in fear and desperation. They were too terrified to do anything more than whimper, yet their eyes, especially those of the girls clenching each other, desperately pleaded for their lives.
Eric wasn’t blind. He saw the black iron slave collars upon all of their necks.
It only took a moment for them all to snap free with half a dozen startled cries... and Eric hadn’t had to touch a single one.
“Yet I see that the human traitors are still alive, my lastborn son.”
Eric shrugged. “Yes. And each of them is now minus a leg. I’m calling it an exercise in control.”
His mother smirked. “You just have a soft spot for your father’s people.”
Here alone, Eric dared to meet his mother’s gaze. “True.”
His mother held his gaze for an endless agonizing second, trading disdain for a bemused smile. “Very well, Eric. Come. To the vaults. Our destiny awaits.”