Etan Za'Darmondiel.
***
Hours of carnage. Then, silence.
I had never witnessed such a surreal change in all my years. Granted, I was relatively sheltered and was still an infant by my people's standards, but I had witnessed many battles and had taken part in many more. Never, in all those years, had the aftermath been so… peaceful.
The Splint was once a bustling domain of drunken peasants and yelling guards made of mud and brick and frozen manure. The humans were ill-tempered, a result of the harsh winters irregularly coming in from the World Sea to preserve their filth, only for the wet summer air sweeping in from the Nonusian mainland to thaw and spread the mess as far away as the rains would carry them. They were like many humans. Spiteful survivors who knew war and poverty and little else. Now, the Splint was a land of rubble and red snow that carried the echoing send-off of a thousand undead to the refugees in the distance, running from the ki-wreathed living lich until their legs drove themselves into the biting snow. Only for the zombie that to Amun pay them no mind.
He raised the dead as he did before. As he did before, he imbued the first few to fall with a deposit of necrotic energy, then gave them a single order before sitting down in the town square to meditate.
"Clean this shit up."
Having nothing more to do, I found it an ample opportunity to annoy the High Matron and elected to join him, only to be distracted by the strange creatures lumbering up to us.
'First, they were giant. Now they are tiny.' High Matron Etyl signed to me, her crimson eyes locked on the celestial wolves.
While strange indeed, my eyes were locked on the fox, the one described by the head to be similar to itself. The High Matron's eyes soon followed, sizing up the strange flesh of its paw pads before the silken fur of its legs concealed them. Then they moved to the nearly indistinguishable seams of its belly before the creature dropped down to lay flat.
Just as I turned to study the eyes, the beast opened its maw wide to reveal a more or less standard mouth. At least when ignoring the gold-lined adamantine teeth, the holed ridges on the roof of its mouth, and the sheer wall in its throat. But then its not-so-fleshy tongue lifted, coming to a rest against the roof of the mouth to reveal a short staircase leading to an ornate door of onyx and gold. Having no handle, the door slid into the wall through some unseen device, allowing the girls and the head in question to walk or drift into the open.
Seeing our widened eyes, the head drifted over to us while the girls ran through the streets, seemingly to explore the macabre city.
"That creature is Kit." The Head turned to the fox and watched it yawn its mouth closed with us. Then turned back once its eyes lulled to sleep. "He is a Beta-Class Undying-Machine-Animal. Or, Uma."
It took some time, but he eventually brought us to believe that Amun and an associate of his who went by the name of Ed, created a self-propelled magicless machine and somehow merged it with both a lair stone and a shadow fox raised from the dead to make this… thing. A sentient roving village with the likeness of a fox.
Even after the explanation and the changes brought to the splint throughout the ensuing three days there, I could not keep my eyes off of that fox. Not to say it did anything but wander around in search of a new place to rest. Something that happened frequently with the undead and their construction. Why they were rebuilding the city, I could not surmise, but the girls made the most use of it. They ran between frosted forges, cold kitchens, abandoned offices, and dusty workshops alike, working as hard as the undead were to create things I could only imagine until Amun stirred from his meditation, thus continuing the walk.
We traveled at a relatively ambling pace, passing by a few camps and travelers along the way and more often than not, getting into some sort of altercation because the humans could not help but attack giant beasts, celestial or not, to feed their infectious populations. Occasionally, the girls would disembark from the fox to train or hunt, cook, or do whatever it was human children adopted by a fiendish drow did, and almost every time, High Matron Etyl dragged me along to pry whatever information she could from them while Amun's beasts eyed her dangerously.
While she questioned them and received oft unbelievable answers, I inquired with the head about the strange devices Amun created and received mostly cryptic answers in response. An annoyance, but not something I was ill-equipped to solve. I learned Amun was indeed at the fifteenth step of the artificing path, Grandmaster Armorer, but his renown as a Grandmaster Artificer came from the cities he raised into the sky as well as several devices that could use mana to communicate sound and images instantaneously across vast distances. Something that would allow bards to spread glory in ways one could only dream of.
Considering the latter, such renown was well deserved. Everything and everyone deepened on communication. Drow were no different. To do so instantly and without spellcraft or perks while still using mana was beyond advantageous. It was only a shame that he released such bounties indiscriminately, for many were undeserving of such things.
The exchange between the High Matron and the girls was not one-sided, strangely enough. The girls asked her and me many questions of various natures. They asked for training and guidance in stealth and thievery. They inquired about High Matron Etyl's devotion and station; her way of life as an esteemed cleric and of the many different types of followers a deity could have. They asked about elven witchcraft and wizardry, then listened when we described how mages blended the two, and how a Magus blends mage craft with martial techniques. Battle tactics. History. Construction and refinement techniques.
They asked about many things, and strangely, High Matron Etyl of House Za'Darmondiel spared no knowledge. Then again, it only made sense for her to lay it all out to bear, for it was the only way to verify the depth of their claim; and yet leave it unconfirmed.
With such a revelation, our eyes turned back to the amiably wicked elf. Not that there was much to see. He simply plowed forward as he had been doing all along. Doing nothing besides maneuvering, training, and meditating with the dead until we came to the outskirts of Charrlagith and looked upon its sealed gates.
A wall of stone, sconces, braziers, and torches made for a shining beacon in the plains. A rising sun in the night that sought to protect 25,644 citizens from the very primordial death and darkness that'd been plaguing the Mortal Plane for eons. Only a few keeps and castles stood above the height of the parapet, amounting to perhaps a few hundred pairs of pleading eyes to give supportive aid to the 1,700 humans mobilized beyond the gates.
We idly watched Amun skirt the towns from afar, ignoring their scouts until they drew near enough to loosen their bowstrings and lower the pikes. Only to call for reinforcements with their dying screams naught moments later.
As before, Amun spent the long night terrorizing the human forces while his dogs kept any survivors from escaping. He used every monastic skill to his advantage. Leaping up trees to drop ki-imbued heels onto soon-to-be shattered skulls, adding the power of another dead man to his blows before he went on to the next. Eventually, the slaughter began to look comical. Barbarians were kicked into trees, sent tumbling through the air, or bounced against the ground from the force of Amun's blows. Heavy weapons were blocked and deflected with ease, albeit at the cost of loosed skin, torn muscle, and oft-broken bones. The smaller fighters were simply thrown into the larger ones, creating heaping piles of gore across the sleeping fields.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
When it became too much to bear, the soundless call to retreat washed over the fighters, yet the barbarians roared out the name of their war gods. Both became meals for the two wolves, singed and frozen from afar by belched balls of fire and ice before they were amassed in a great pile to be devoured; leaving those trapped in their self-imposed siege without living guards to defend them.
In what was becoming typical fashion, Amun paid them no mind. House after their panic died down, they gathered on the wall to watch him train and meditate among the cadavers of their friends and families for hours. Days as the undead constructed vast domes and boxes of glass and steel around their city. A tenday as roads inlaid with thin pipes were placed between the buildings. A tenday more as the negative energy rose a new army of zombies, who erected a towering eight-legged frame standing amidst those now-verdant domes and boxes to support what I assumed would be fatter and taller buildings higher above.
As time went on, more and more people turned their eyes to the sights growing beyond the wall, amounting to tens of thousands of witnesses to the very event I saw in weeks past; albeit with a slight variation.
From that lone zombie sitting between the walls and that strange construction, shadows poured. The abyssal night froze the fields of pink snow akin to tepid water spilling over the floor of a cooling box, deflecting the baleful souls from the Underworld to cascade towards that lone figure, Amun. The crash resulted in a great blaze of black smoke and ethereal blue-green fire, blasting the trees and sky away to have it replaced with an immense emptiness. A darkness that contained enough malevolence to strip my flesh away entirely, allowing only my senses to remain, grasping in the airless night as I clung desperately to a cold gate of black bone.
My very soul was frozen. Damned to stare helplessly at the estate of flesh and bone and stone and muck sitting beyond that accursed gate. But what a fine abode it was, incomparable in elegance and stature. Much like the black-boned skeleton wreathed in a robe of blue-green fire, staring at me from the threshold. Beckoning me into his Yard.
<<"NO!">> As quickly as the fear came upon me, Death's Fence faded into a field of pink snow. The biting cold returned to my knees and the sting of the wind bit at me soon later. It was one of the few times in my life that I felt fear. True fear, from the most primitive and primal parts of my physiology. A terror so intense that I lost any concept of survival, of life or death, until it was too late. A terror intense enough for High Matron Etyl to cast a restorative spell on me.
After she cast one on herself.
Specifically, it was before, and then after she beat me, and the beating only stopped because of something peculiar. Another burst of ethereal fire, but blue this time around, and higher than the fires we just bore witness to; in the proportions that came only from the opening of the final natural Ki Pond.
<<"That is- How?">>
Another tooth-loosening smack was the reward for my outburst, preceding the hiss of venom. <<"Out with it!">> My dearest mother demanded. Thankfully, my experiences in the Halls were worse than most of her punishments. So long as she refrained from using her whip.
<<"For all monks, the task of the Eighth Step is to form the final natural Ki Pond. To do so, one has to reach a state of enlightenment; or clarity about the nature of life. My enlightenment came after venturing through and meditating within the Astral Plane. But for the fourth Pond to open right after the third cultured Pond, one would have to have already been enlightened.">>
I let the thoughts linger, for I dared not speak my doubts of his enlightenment coming from the Shadow Realm or the Underworld. On the contrary, I dared not voice my certainty of his enlightenment having everything to do with the Telin. For, if Amun was not just chosen, not just empowered, not just guided, but enlightened by Telin as well, that made him more than just the Eternal Creator's Champion. Likewise, it made him more than a mere ascended deity, and if that was true, there was no need to voice my inquiry at all. Not when there was prayer. So, feigning as if I were meditating, I sat in the snow and pleaded with every fiber of my being.
'I... are- what are you, Champion? Nox. Drow. God. Devil. All of those and yet nothing, it seems. So... show me. Show me what you are.'
<<“How?”>>
It came not a second later and was definitively not from him. It came from my mother, approaching Amun with a cold sneer he seemed to not see. <<"Tell me how have you obtained this… enlightenment.">>
<<"Geometry, mostly. The sacred kind.">> He shrugged, releasing glowing motes that drifted around the air between us, inscribing a shape I’d only seen once before and never forgot.
<<"Where did you learn that?">> I demanded and wasn’t punished for it.
<<"A... facility of higher learning.">>
<<"A facility of higher learning taught you arcane glyphs?>> I scoffed in disbelief. Yet his face recoiled in confusion.
<<"Arcane glyphs?">>
<<"You know not even know what that is, yet you form it so perfectly? Nonsense!">> High Matron Etyl sneered, stepping between him and me. <<"Do not lie, Destroyer! What did you learn at this facility?">>
<<"Mostly maths, engineering, and science.">> He shrugged again, uncaring of the High Matron's malice. <<"But also medicine, economics, philosophy, psychology, and virtually everything else. And then I learned how to do everything else.">>
<<"That would take decades- a century, even, of continuous labor.">>
<<"Yes.">>
The amiable nod he gave her must have sent her over the edge, for High Matron Etyl's sneer pulled her in a different direction from Amun's meandering walk. I, however, could only try to discern the meaning behind his words while I brooded about my unanswered question. I assumed it was a result of his magic cores. The head informed me he had spatial and temporal magic in the same core; further proof of his connection to Telin. Such a thing would allow one to study for a lifetime in a day. Albeit at the cost of madness. I could not help but think I was wrong though. Thus, after our period of mediation, I prayed for the second time in my life.
'Show me! Prove to me I am not insane! And… if you can hear my senseless, foolish, and selfish wish as a prayer, help me be free of the pain I cannot be conditioned to endure. Release me from this hell in which I was born. Me, and...'
"Sounds good."
It came not a second later, but undoubtedly from him. However, I had no means of discerning if it was a coincidence or a true response, for I opened my eyes to see him lying atop the edge of the warmed roads his undead constructed, staring at a small pile of dirt. "Hey," he said a few moments later.
Curious, both the High Matron and I approached cautiously, attempting to keep whatever he was doing undisturbed.
"Hello, Queen." He smiled a moment later. "I admire the nests made by your queendom. I make nests of my own, you know. Wanna collaborate?"
"Who are you-"
"I'll give you a new home, of course." Amun cut the Matron off. "And I'll make you smart. Big. Magical. Mechanical, even, so you won't have to worry about the hunger."
"Are those… ants?" I asked shocked as a speck rose from the ground, revealing two fleshy bugs. The ant queen Amun was speaking to, standing next to a young queen.
"Oh, you are most kind. I'll take the greatest care of her." Amun smiled, plucking the insect from the ground with the gentlest care before a burst of deep blue light fell upon us, and when it faded, he was gone.
We raced after him, finding him standing next to a tree with a mass of winged bugs clinging to both each other and the branch. There were so many of them that it looked like a drop of water ready to fall from a stalactite, but the things were black and yellow all over. We watched, utterly bemused as a variation of the same conversation played out, offering a collaboration and bodies that could adapt to different temperatures. Only this time, the mass of bugs buzzed loudly in response before the flash of blue came and both he and the bugs were once again gone.
For a second time, we followed him to a column of hard dirt that stood over a meter high, where he spoke with the bugs inside to receive a termite queen, according to the Head, before the flash of blue light came and he disappeared once again. It was then that I remained to see what happened to the mound, leaving the HIgh Matron to chase after him. It was a fascinatingly bizarre thing I witnessed. The living eyeballs Amun created appeared with a few human undead shadows within moments. The latter used earth manipulation to form a ten-meter-wide mound of dirt and had it float before the bug tower using a small enchanted plate that emitted some type of purple and off-white magic. It was an odd shape, set somewhere between an egg and a pyramid, but with a wide tunnel bored straight through the center and many concentric rings tunneled along the base.
As the device- the Satellite- observed, the termites went about deconstructing their mound and making a new one from the 'mountain' in a dizzying blur. It was almost like time had been accelerated, the way the structure came to life in mere moments. But when all was said and done, the device, the stone, the bugs, and the undead disappeared, leaving just me and the Head, gobbling up the Satellite like a fine meal.
During the return, the Head was kind enough to tell me of Amun repeating the same process at a nearby river, where he convinced a dozen or so beavers to collaborate with him in exchange for mechanical bodies. Then he went on to pocket a wasp queen, a few moths, and several small animals such as badgers, rabbits, and a wolverine before he arrived at his current locale.
A spider's web.