Chapter 17
I took a deep breath as I stood outside the door once again. It was a bit difficult to move with all of the armor I’d conjured onto myself; while it protected me pretty well, unfortunately I didn’t know much about making armor, so it ended up being bulky, but nearly weightless plates that covered me from head to toe. It almost felt like being packed in Styrofoam, making my movements a bit clumsier, but the solidity behind it belied the metaphor; I was pretty confident each piece could take a few hits before dispersing.
Instead of just pushing the door open, I kicked it open, and stormed inside, even the immense length of my two-handed sword barely weighing anything in my hands; it moved like an extension of me, the great weight of my weapon and armor somehow offset by my will. It grazed the upper edge of the doorframe, and the stone hissed where the blade cut through. Was that the effect of willpower boosting it? Before me stood a simply-dressed man, wearing a long brown robe cinched with a verdant sash. His hands were clasped behind his back, his body seemingly unarmored. When he spoke, however, his voice held a physical force. He barely whispered, and yet I felt as if I could hear his words resonating in my bones.
“You have slain my companions. Of the Greenwarden’s Disciples, only I remain.” Sorrow touched his features briefly as he spoke. “Before you stands the last, and greatest, of the Greenwarden’s Disciples; I will not be so easily dispatched. Defend yourself.” His last words struck with a physical force, staggering me as he lunged forward, his right hand extended, palm out flat before him, and struck my cuirass. The blow was almost gentle, but I felt it radiate through my entire suit of armor. I could barely react in time to draw away from a second gentle strike, parrying with my sword. He withdrew his arm in a fluid motion, avoiding the blade, and slapped it away lightly with the back of his hand. The blade whipped aside, wrenching my wrists, as if it had been struck by a hammer. His next strike touched my right pauldron, and the sense of vibration in my armor intensified, ripples of sound spreading through it like a still pool of water. I lurched backwards to dodge his strikes, but he was too fast, landing a light flick onto my left bracer with a force that made my arm shiver. I stepped into his next strike, swinging the immense blade far faster than a steel one could’ve, aided by its’ light weight. He dodged backward with a single step that seemed to carry him twice as far as it should’ve, but the lack of weight meant my followup strike was almost instantaneous, stepping into a lunge to cut from shoulder to hip. He finally moved to block my strike, and the blade cut deeply into his forearm.
He merely grimaced as he drew back, looking down at the wound on his arm and the blackened flesh around it, where the flames had burnt into him. I kept up the attack, strike after strike, pressing him back. With an expression of consternation, he spoke softly toward me, though his words struck like a sledgehammer. “Ripple Release.”
The vibrations that had been singing through my armor rose in pitch abruptly, and it felt like I’d been struck all over by my own armor. It slammed inward against me as if every piece was suddenly held in a vise grip.
If it had been steel armor, had held fault lines and weaknesses, or even had the density and weight behind it, it would’ve been an absolutely punishing attack, dealing grievous injury from even so few touches. But it wasn’t steel armor, and that didn’t happen; it was armor crafted from my will, and it wasn’t so easily turned against me.
My follow-up punch caught him right in the jaw, my gauntlet dissolving as it burst into flames, the power stored within it channeled into a flame-wreathed punch. There was only a few foot distance between his back and the wall behind him, so he struck it at full force, head and shoulders cracking the stone with the violence of impact. I pointed the greatsword straight at his chest and lunged, intending to punch through him, but he shifted sideways at the last moment, my strike embedding a foot of blade into the wall. His counterattack struck my elbows, forcing me to relinquish my grip on the blade and retreat a step. His punches came as fast as lightning, showering my bracers and cuirass with repeated strikes, that deadly harmony building within my ribs as I struck back where I could. Every strike was strategically placed, timing with the other ripples to wrack my body in tidal waves of sound, battering my bones every time they met. Every strike was changing the flow a little, and I felt my sense of danger spike as the ripples radiated from both shoulders and hips simultaneously. I felt them coming together in the center of my back, all four about to overlap behind my heart, roaring through the armor with metal-cracking force. His lips began to move, a whisper forming the words that would crack my torso in half.
He didn’t have the chance to. I dispelled the cuirass with a flicker of will, channeling that energy into a full-frontal blast, my hands coming together in front of me to form a funnel, dragging most of the dispelling force into a chaotic ball of flames, blue-hot at the core and rippling outward to a blood red at the edges.
“Ripple Release!” He shouted, and my joints were wracked with small, creaking impacts as the residual harmonics tore into my flesh, the energy enough to dispel the last of my armor. The expression of shock on his face as my armor dissolved gave me just enough of an opening to barely congeal the energy into a fireball, releasing it at nearly the same instant.
The blast carried him backward into the stone, coherent just long enough to embed him into the stone before exploding, blowing out the fire-weakened stones behind him, opening an immense window into the sea of flames that lay beyond. Just to be certain, I glanced at my notifications, and saw his death join the list.
[Talakoth, First Disciple had been slain. EXP gained!]
I looked around the room for a moment, and the absolute destruction even our brief fight had wrought. Long cracks spiderwebbed across the walls, loose and broken flakes of stone littering the floor. The room’s decorations had been utterly destroyed, the ornate carpet and tapestries burning fitfully, drowning the room in a reddish glow. Only the stairs beyond remained; the same as the first tower, a wide, comfortable stairway leading up to another door.
The room beyond the door resembled little more than a monastery bedroom, stone walls covered by threadbare tapestries of simple brown cloth that did little more than keep the cold – or in this case, heat – at bay. A simple bedroll rested in the center of the room atop a circular woven rug. The only ornamentation in the room belonged to the pedestal which stood against the far wall, and the chest that sat before it. I felt an insistent tugging at my waist, and drew the two fragments I carried from my sash. To my surprise, they slipped from my grasp in an instant and tumbled through the air, fitting into carven slots on the surface of the pedestal, filling in the shape of a disk. When I opened the chest in front of it, the third fragment lifted up, and floated into place on the pedestal.
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I reached out and touched the orb of light shining in the center of the chest, and it wavered for a handful of seconds before resolving into an amulet of sunset-colored bronze with a ruby set into the center, the facets of the ruby seeming to shift and glimmer as if a fire burned within.
[Calamitous Ruby (Epic)]: This ruby-set necklace has appeared many times throughout history as a harbinger of great upheaval and calamity. Such disasters often mean death and destruction on a scale untold; however, such is the nature of the universe that from great strife, great power arises. Enchantments: Marked for Greatness, Herald of Strife, Attribute bonus: +10 Presence, +10 Intelligence, +10 Willpower.
Despite the great bonuses it offered, I was hesitant to put the necklace on. ‘Herald of Strife’ didn’t sound like a very friendly title, nor was it very clear what that actually did. ‘Marked for Greatness’ felt the same way, too vague to give me any real understanding of what it meant. While it did sound promising, it made the description sound like a warning; ‘death and destruction on a scale untold’ didn’t sound like something I wanted to be a part of.
As I stood there, thinking about it, I came to a realization. Such is the nature of the universe that from great strife, great power arises. All this world cared about was power. It was absolutely ruthless, unafraid to condemn you to pain or sorrow if it meant that you’d come out the other side stronger. Of the entire area covered by the wildfire, what were the chances that I’d come out right where a man was mourning the woman he thought was dead? Of all the times to arrive at the tower, how had the terrifying hammer-man come to the tower so soon after me, already knowing about the fragments? Or coming on the tail of the party before me so closely that their members could be raised and used against me? There were too many coincidences that didn’t add up, too many improbable outcomes. Even as I thought on this, I felt something; a shudder rippled through the tower, setting it swaying. A moment later, I heard the thunderous sound of splintering wood. The hammer-man.
I took a few moments to gather myself, and threw the necklace on without a further thought. After all, if strife was coming one way or another, I might as well meet it with a thirty point bump to my stats. Another notification caught my eye, however.
[Congratulations! You have completed the last of the Greenwarden’s Towers! Unite the Greenwarden’s Fragments and awaken the Forest’s Guardian.]
[Clear the towers. Progress: 5/5. Rewards based on individual contribution.]
[Summon and defeat the Forest’s Guardian. Rewards based on individual contribution, cumulative with performance in Clearing the Towers.]
Judging by the trembling impacts that radiated up the tower, it seemed likely that the bearer of the last two fragments was on their way… and probably had the same notifications. I didn’t have the time to conjure up my armor again, nor enough flames on hand to make it worthwhile, but I did have enough time to prepare one thing.
By the time the hammer-man arrived in the boss room, I stood in the center of it, flexing my fingers in an almost comically large flaming gauntlet. I had poured everything I could grab into it, including a hefty amount from my wand, dimming the crystal down to a dull ember. I stood before the hole where I’d launched the First Disciple out, the flames framing me with ravenous crimson tendrils.
“Go no further. Give me your fragments and get the Hell out of my tower.” I pitched my voice low, practically growling the words at him. If they had any impact, it was impossible to tell from his featureless full helm or the set of his shoulders beneath the enormous plates of armor. That same hammer hung over his shoulder, one hand almost negligently keeping the haft balanced over his blunt, utilitarian pauldron.
“Step aside. Flee now and you may yet escape me while I slay the Forest’s Guardian. Its’ death is mine, and mine alone.” His voice was low and level, threatening as a brandished blade. Despite the even temper of his words, I could smell burnt flesh, and I could see where thin streamers of smoke spilled out from the joints in his armor, leather and charred flesh an acrid stink in my nostrils. He may seem to be unbothered by it, but the fact that he was choosing to talk instead of just attacking seemed to give away more than he intended.
Calling his bluff, I held out my hand. “Your two fragments. Hand them over and leave. You’ll probably still get pretty good rewards for clearing two of the towers… By yourself, too, wasn’t it?” I shrugged. “Not as good as the rewards I’m going to get… But not bad, not bad. That, or I’ll dig them out of your pockets once I kill you, and you’ll have plenty of time to sit back at your respawn point and think about what you’ve done.” My tone was taunting, teasing. I noticed the shoulders tense up, the pauldrons creaking slightly under the force of flexing muscles.
“Respawn point? Don’t be ridiculous.” The man growled at me. “This isn’t a game. Dead is dead. Everyone you or I have slain… Is gone.” He shifted his grip on the hammer, choking up on the haft somewhat, fingers flexing to get a better grip. “You cannot shift the blame from your own shoulders. To fall in battle is weakness, and the Heartless Stars do not reward weakness with anything so paltry as a second chance. ”
His words struck me, his utter conviction filling me with doubt. Wouldn’t he want me to think I could come back, so that I wouldn’t be as afraid to die? Wouldn’t he know that convincing me that death was final would make me fight even harder? Did he just want me to give my all?
I struggled with the last thought, my mind choking on the words. Or is he telling the truth?