Zeke stumbled through the black sands, driven to dizziness by a lack of water and the sweltering heat emanating with the white sun blazing in the sky. It cast the whole desert in monochrome, further disorienting him. But the worst part was the crystals. Each one emitted an incessant and rhythmic base strong enough to turn his insides to water. With each thumping beat, his stomach twisted into knots, protesting their ill treatment.
None of it made sense.
He shouldn’t have been affected by something so mundane as a little heat. And he’d forgotten the last time he needed sustenance like water or food. Both helped keep him in top shape, but they were far from necessary. If they had been, he’d have long since succumbed to dehydration or malnutrition. After all, he’d spent an untold amount of time in the Tempest, the Plains of the Forgotten, and the Maw – all without eating or drinking. The only time he’d let his hunger drive him was in the ruins, where he’d eaten what he’d thought was harpy flesh.
It wasn’t.
Images of what he’d done flashed through his mind, eliciting a wave of guilt. It was a different sort of torture, but it was no less powerful than the physical consequences of his situation. The memory of thousands of bodies laid out before him was enough to send his mind reeling.
And his body followed. He crashed to the ground, hitting the black sand face-first. Then, he just lay there, struggling to conjure a reason to keep going. He didn’t know the route to his destination, so he’d been wandering the desert for days. Maybe weeks. Time didn’t make any sense in Hell, and in his state, he couldn’t even begin to accurately mark its passage.
Yet, time did pass. He could feel it. Minute by minute. Hour by hour. Days and weeks turning into months and years. He knew he’d been in Hell for a long time. Not an eternity, certainly, but at times, it felt that way.
This was one of those times.
Zeke wasn’t sure how long he lay there. The sun didn’t let up, and his hunger and thirst followed that same pattern. The result was that he wasn’t given the rest he so dearly wanted. Instead, he just suffered.
It wasn’t lost on Zeke that, perhaps, that was what Hell was meant to be. Eternal suffering. Maybe there was no end to the desert. No goal. It was possible that descending the Pit to reach the Ethereal Realm was never a viable option. There was every chance that it was just a trap for the overly ambitious, for those trying to climb above their station.
If that was the case, then what was the point of going on? All his striving to keep moving forward, to forge through every obstacle – it was for nothing. And if that was true, then his suffering was pointless.
He might as well just give up. Give in and take the punishment he’d so clearly earned. After all, he was a mass murderer. Wasn’t Hell where people like that went? Wasn’t it what they deserved?
What he deserved.
Eventually, Zeke hit rock bottom. His mind went blank, and he refused to move. The indomitable willpower that had so far driven him forward was gone, and he couldn’t summon the wherewithal to continue going.
As he lay there, his mind wandered back to the days leading up to his entry into Hell. At the time, he’d considered bringing others along. Pudge could have come with him. The same was true of the Inashi. As the only ones who could handle the corruption in the atmosphere, they were the only real options for company.
And yet, Zeke had snuck away, leaving them behind. Even then, he’d known it was too dangerous for anyone else to risk the descent. And he was right, too. There was no way they could have survive the initial stage, much less the trials and tribulations that had come after.
All that bringing them along would have ensured was their doom.
Zeke had known that his conscience couldn’t handle that loss, so he’d left without them. Assuredly, Pudge – at the very least – hated him for that decision, but Zeke could endure his brother’s hatred, so long as it kept Pudge safe.
Zeke also thought about Adara and all the nights they’d spent together. He loved her, after a fashion, but he wasn’t in love with her. Theirs was a coupling based on mutual attraction and opportunity, and it had blossomed into something more than either had intended. Yet, it wasn’t a fairy tale sort of love.
Perhaps that kind of thing didn’t truly exist. Not in real life.
Whatever the case, he missed her, just as he missed everyone else he’d left behind in the tower. As he lay there, Zeke couldn’t help but wonder how things were going back there. By his calculations, years had passed since he’d leaped into the Pit. In that time, the kobolds could have taken huge strides regarding the development of their civilization.
After all, Tucker’s plans to usher them forward were still underway. He’d claimed it would take multiple generations before it all came to fruition, but given the kobolds’ rapid rate of reproduction, that would happen sooner rather than later. There was every chance that when Zeke managed to return to the tower, its civilization would be entirely different.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
In fact, he was counting on it.
Because, while they couldn’t accompany him in his descent, he hoped that they could use the nature of the Crimson Tower as a bridge to enable them to cross over into the Ethereal Realm. That would allow them to bypass the requirements of ascension. They wouldn’t gain the same benefits, he was certain, but they could continue as his support system.
And as Eveline kept reminding him – before she went into quarantine, that is – they could also funnel divine energy his way. Because no god could exist without worshippers, and he had a ready-made population who already revered him. It wouldn’t take much before they took that next step.
He let out an exhausted chuckle – his first movement in what felt like an eternity – as he considered the idea of kobolds erecting monuments and temples in his honor. Perhaps they would take over the Eternal Realm and spread mythologized stories of his deeds.
Or maybe when they reached sapience, they would realize that he was just a man doing his best. Whatever the case, he knew that things would be very different when he finally emerged from the Pit, crossed that level of Hell, and entered the Ethereal Realm.
Even as those thoughts pushed through him, Zeke felt a surge of energy. It didn’t take him long before he recognized the source. His core – that central part of who he was, where Oberon had erected the cage around his store of divine energy – was leaking. Not a lot. Barely a drop had escaped. And yet, when it fell upon his soul and spread through his mind, it banished the morosity that had infected him.
His thirst disappeared. The hunger gnawing at his belly and sapping his strength vanished. And more importantly, he felt his willpower return. Slowly, Zeke picked himself up and looked around. One of the giant, floating crystals hovered over him, the sound of its rhythmic bass like a heartbeat.
It washed over him, and for a moment, he experienced a sudden return of the depression that had affected him so deeply only a moment before. It dissipated a moment later, but the echoes remained to remind him just how close he’d come to succumbing.
And it only took him a moment to decide what to do about it.
If the crystals were responsible, then his response was clear. He summoned his hammer to hand, then threw himself at the thing. It erupted with a sound so deep that it became a physical thing intent on battering him aside. Such was his momentum that he was not deterred, and he slammed his hammer into the glassy surface only a moment later.
It retaliated, sending another wave of sound to assail him.
Yet, now that Zeke had something to fight – and a drop of divine energy flowing through him – he could not be deterred. The second he hit the ground, he dug his feet into the black sand and leaped at the crystal once again. The second blow went off much like the first, though with two key differences. First, the sound echoed even louder and more impactful than before. That nearly overcame Zeke’s defenses, but he managed to regather his wits to such a degree that he saw the second – and far more encouraging – difference.
A crack.
Not a large one, certainly. More like a tiny chip. But it was enough to spur him forward. He hit the crystal again, and a gong spread across the desert. Even the sun seemed to shiver at the sound. But Zeke maintained his footing – both physically and mentally – to continue his assault.
In the end, it took nearly a dozen such blows before the crystal shattered. And when it did, the result was far from the one he had anticipated. A man – ancient and unconscious – tumbled free, hitting the ground in a spray of black sand.
Zeke stood apart, studying the man. Lying amidst pieces of shattered crystal, he was clearly a mighty figure, clad in elaborate blue armor, with muscles upon muscles layering his body. In addition, even unconscious, he clutched a large and intricate silver scepter.
He stirred.
And the wind stirred with him.
Clouds manifested out of nowhere, and rain began to fall a second later. Zeke never even had a chance to process what was happening before he found himself buried beneath a localized deluge characterized by driving rain and hurricane force winds. The tempest he’d survived upon arrival hadn’t been so long ago that he couldn’t guess where it was heading.
After all, even in the space of seconds, water had begun to accumulate, rising to his ankles. It wouldn’t be long before it reached his waist. Would one broken crystal – among thousands – manifest a sea? If it was back on Earth – or in the Mortal or Eternal Realms – Zeke would have called such a thing impossible. Yet, in Hell, there were no laws of physics that couldn’t be broken.
Zeke’s memory of his time in the ocean was fresh enough that he would do just about anything to avoid revisiting it. So, with a target identified – after all, the man was clearly the cause – Zeke ran forward. His feet splashed in the calf-deep water as he launched himself at his foe.
Only to be knocked aside by a gust of wind that hit him like a locomotive.
He tumbled away in a spray of water, coming to rest almost a hundred yards from the still disoriented man.
“You defy me?” he rumbled, his voice a roll of thunder. “I am a Tempest Lord, and this is my domain. You are but a –”
Having recovered, Zeke didn’t hesitate to throw himself back at the man. This time, though, he put everything he had behind the charge. When the inevitable gust of wind hit him, he sliced through it by sheer force of will and momentum. Then, he hit the Tempest Lord with his hammer. The sound of crunching metal was music to Zeke’s ears as the man crashed into the ground.
Zeke didn’t let up, though.
He wouldn’t dare, given what he knew would assuredly follow. The man raised his scepter to fend off Zeke’s attacks, but it was useless. Voromir fell with metronomic precision, smashing through the Tempest Lord’s defenses. Still, the man didn’t surrender. Instead, he fought with every scrap of mettle he could muster, even regaining his feet long enough to send bolts of lightning to assail Zeke’s body.
Fortunately, Zeke was no stranger to all sorts of damage, and he took the hits without slowing his own assault. One hammer blow after another rained down on the Tempest Lord, and after only a few minutes – during which time, the water level had risen to Zeke’s waist – he completed his task.
The Tempest Lord opened his mouth, but Zeke didn’t let him speak before he finally finished him off by crushing his head beneath a sledgehammer-style blow that harnessed every ounce of his available strength. The man died, having never had a real chance to recover from his imprisonment. Zeke hadn’t even given him the opportunity to plead for his life.
Or offer a warning, perhaps.
Because even after the man’s death, the water levels continued to rise. And with a leap of intuition, Zeke decided that the only way to stop it was to slaughter every Tempest Lord imprisoned within the crystals dotting the desert.
With that in mind, he set off, thankful to finally have a goal.