Joe had finally reached the end of what he could do for Margen.
Margen's current health is at 28.3%. Severe underlying systemic damage is preventing any additional healing of this type.
The amazing thing was that at a bit over a quarter of his max health, Margen had about four times what Joe had at full health. Even with currently four thousand plus health, the ancient founder looked like a wreck. The man was clearly still in pain, and a palsy shook his hands. Joe once again noted how health was much more of a state than a score in Illuminaria. In most systems, having just one point of health meant you functioned as well as you did at full health. Here, your health percentage was a much clearer representation of your wellness. Joe, at one thousand health but 95%, was in far better shape than Margen was. Right now, the tainted warrior could take much more damage than the two young guilders combined before being incapacitated, but they could function without any impairments.
As Margen shuffled over to the small pool of water at the lower end of the room to wash off the sweat and gunk, Joe turned back to the crack in the ground. The only way to get Margen out of here was to free DoomHerald. Joe had some ideas on how to do that, but first, he asked Yuk to assess the situation. The swarm had flowed into the crack a few minutes ago, and small scraping sounds had been issuing out of the aperture ever since.
“Ok. We’ve removed much of the grit that would have gotten in the way of pulling it out, but it still really jammed in there. It looks like it got hooked under a tight spot, and Margen lodged it in there good and tight, trying to get it free. After a hundred-plus years, calcification hasn’t helped either. It will be better to shove down and then over instead of trying to rip it up and out.”
“I have an idea I want to try first,” Joe said, going over his plan before mentally asking, “Are you sure you still want to stay incognito? I can feel you geeking out in my head. You sure you don’t want to talk to him?”
“No! no. Margen knows very well about the Locust King. Khimbar is a primordial enemy of man. Even more so, the Glandrion exiles have a direct reason for thinking of the Swarm Lord. You know they fled their homeland because of the rise of the Necromancer, Necronias, right?” After Joe thought back an affirmative murmur, Yuk continued. “Turns out Locust King consumes necromantic energy as easily as he does living things. Necronias found that out when he pushed his armies west and awakened the primeval terror. One of the reasons the fey and heroes of Hornwood were able to hold the horde of the Necromancer from crossing the Baerrok Peaks here in the east was because half of the undead legions were dealing with the Great Devourer behind them.”
As Joe watched the swarm pool up from the rift, he heard his friend’s very empathic telepathic voice add. “So believe us, if anyone is likely to make the connection between us and the Ravenous Swarm, it would be the war-leader who factored that ancient evil into his battle plans against the Necromancer. Someday maybe. Not now. We have too much on our plate for it to be today.”
“Ok. You know best,” Joe conceded, looking toward his companion’s hero again. “He’s coming back.”
Margen looked far better with the layers of putrescence washed away. His skin still had several blackened sores marking it, but at least he no longer resembled a giant rotting zombie. He jogged up to the [Heart Fire], chafing his arms.
“Woof. That was a bracing,” the big man uttered through chattering teeth. “This spell of yours is a real blessing. I haven’t been truly warm in … can't even think how long.”
“Well, I have something that will help that as well,” Joe stated, willing the morphic hide to flow open. “You can put this on.”
“Son, there’s no way I’m going to fit into your gear,” the immense soldier stated, lifting his arms in emphasis.
“It changes shape,” Joe stated, lifting off the fanged hood.
“Of course it does,” the warrior stated, shaking his head. “Well, as a plus side, losing the shaggy pelt and wolf-head does help your overall appearance, kid. I hate to say it, considering all you’ve done for me,” the founder commented, giving Joe a contemplative look, “but do you know you have kind of a sinister look going, Joe? Between the pelt, the claws, that eye, the bugs, and blank assessment, I would have pegged you for a brigand long before I would have guessed you were a healer and guilder from Fort Coral.”
“Huh, hadn’t really thought about it that way,” Joe grunted. Suddenly, the image of the Hellions popped into his head. Margen might be a bit shocked by the deportment of the current group of guilders. As he cracked a grin at that thought, his brain fully processed the founder’s words. “Wait. What was that about my eye?”
“The wolf eye you got there,” the founder stated, pointing at Joe’s right eye, the one he had fixed.
“Yuk? Is there something weird about my eye?”
“Oh yeah. Cool. It’s yellow and the iris fills the whole socket. It looks pretty badass.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“Joe. We see the world through a thousand different eyes. We see all around us at once. You really think we pay attention to little details like the color of your eyes.”
“Grrrr. Fair,” he huffed telepathically before adding out loud, “The eye is new for me. Hold on. I have to go check this out.” Joe headed to the small pool Margen had used to bathe in and found a still puddle. Maneuvering the gauntlet around, he managed to get a good look at his face. Sure enough, his left eye was the same old boring brown it always had been. His right, though, was a striking golden color that looked exactly like a wolf’s eye.
“That’s so weird,” he breathed. “A wight nearly ripped my eye out, and this must be what happened when I fixed it,” Joe explained louder for the warrior to hear, still staring at his reflection. “Huh?”
Pulling his attention away from the strangely compelling-looking eye, Joe turned back to the founder. “So,” he started.”How tough is DoomHerald? I have an idea how to free it, but only if the sword can take it.”
“Dooms? Bah, you couldn’t scratch her. Hells, I was smashing Necronias’ IronBone Juggernauts, and she never took a knick. Nothing personal, but a tenderfoot is not likely gonna have anything that could harm that blade.”
“Perfect. Let’s give this a go.” To Yuk, he thought, “Ready, Bud? Talk me through reaching the tight spot.”
Joe warped his clawed hand. He was able to thin his fingers, palm, and wrist, but his talons kept getting hooked on edges and cracks. Morphing the flesh was easy, but when he began pulling in and shrinking his claws, stabbing pains shot through the thousands of touch receptors in each finger.
“Ow, ow, ow, ow!”
“What’s wrong?”
“You ok, Joe?”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Yeah. No big deal. Just a little painful,” Joe hissed back to them both. “This is why I don’t try to hide my claws. They don’t like to be retracted.”
When he finally had the sharp, hooked nails out of the way, he followed Yuk’s telepathic directions and maneuvered his hand to where it needed to go. He had to bend his bones a bit and widen the space between his fingers, but eventually, he was able to get his palm to the bulge of stone that had the sword’s guard pinned.
“Ok. Got it. Get your guys out of there,” Joe sent to Yuk as he began to channel [Grit Razor] into the rocky protrusion. Joe had worked out that the spell did not require the stone to be hand-held. It simply read:
[Grit Razor]—Uncommon / Sand—Magically crumble stone into a pile of little flinty fragments, which you infuse with destructive mana. The attack is a wide arc of slashing stone splinters within medium range. The level of damage increases the longer the user spends infusing the grit, ranging from minor to major damage. Cost: Moderate Mana.
Joe could feel the stone against his palm breaking down into shards. The effect likely didn’t extend more than an inch from his skin, but it didn’t need to. As soon as he felt the rock had crumbled enough, he set off the spell at the lowest damage he felt he could get away with.
As expected, the ricochetting splinters of stone stung like a son-of-a-bitch. Luckily, Joe’s fingers had major damage resistance. He yanked his battered hand out and danced around a few steps, shaking out the stinging digits.
“Ow, ow, ow, ow!” Joe yelped again, sticking his sore but not actually wounded fingers into the warm flames of the [Heart Fire] just as the spell pulsed its healing wave. Joe really had developed an instinctive awareness of the campfire’s rhythm. He knew it was about to go off as he reached for it. He didn’t actually have to have his hand in the flames either, but it was comforting to do so.
Even as he pulled his soothed hand from the flickering fire, a glowing gauntlet of force had grabbed hold of the large sword’s hilt and was rocking it up and down to snap it free from the calcification that had grown around the blade. With a series of splittery-sounding cracks, DoomHerald broke free.
After over a century of being locked in stone, the mighty sword was lifted into the air.
The weapon was not what Joe expected. He had pictured the massive warrior wielding a huge claymore or Conan-style sword. That was not DoomHerald. The legendary sword was weighted towards the end, with a curved blade. It was similar in size to a Chinese dadao, but its outline was more like the Arabian alfanje. Joe knew a lot of sword names, but none of them quite fit this weapon. The most straightforward description was an oversized, hand-and-a-half scimitar.
Guiding the glowing construct, Joe floated the sword into the trembling hands of the astonished founder. The look on Margen’s face was too complex to be easily understood. It spoke of the reunion of two old, old friends, of wonder at holding something he never thought to have again, of determination and vengeance against the one who left him this way, of hope that maybe there was an end in sight to his unfathomable age of pain and helplessness.
Joe had seen hurt and despair in the hospital more times than he could count. He had seen the joy that came with remission as well. Yet, he had never witnessed an expression that came close to the depth of the one Margen wore. Overwhelmed, Joe felt like someone had just stolen all the air from his lungs, forcing him to turn and look away.
“Well, I’ll be,” the deep voice rumbled in awe. “I feel like a new man. Well, a very old new man, but nevertheless, whole once more. I don't know how to thank you, son.”
Suddenly, Joe found himself enveloped in a vast shaggy bear hug. Margen’s massive squeeze drove the air out of his lungs for real this time. The warrior was at his back with his huge arms wrapped around Joe’s shoulders. The best he could do to reciprocate was squeezing the warrior’s wrists. When the man released him, Joe turned to look up at the hero of Fort Coral and the general of the Necromancer Wars.
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are,” Joe quoted Theodore Roosevelt and his history-buff dad.
“Huh. I like that. So. Now what? What is the plan?”
“Well, that depends. Can we get out of here through where the water comes in?”
“Your familiar might be able to, but I sure as Hells can’t. It's just a crack in the rocks.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Joe sent to Yuk. “If you head out and tell the others, maybe Vexor could locate us.”
“No! We’re not leaving you guys. Way too much chance we won’t be able to find our way back. Our sense of direction is as bad as the bugs that make us up … as bad as yours.”
“What about the critters you left on the others? How close do you have to be to connect to them?”
“Again, no go. They’re dead. Once a creature becomes part of us, it stops being an independent thing. After it's part of us, it’d be like you losing hair or blood. The stuff is no longer alive in any real sense after it's away from your body. While we were close together, we could choose which bugs would contain our consciousness, but as soon as the other insects were separated from us, they croaked.”
“Damn. Hold on. Margen is staring at us … me.” Joe cleared his throat. “Sorry, I was testing something with Yuk. They are a new power for me. I don’t think I could maintain control over them at a really long distance. Hold on, going to try something else.”
“Do what you gotta,” Margen replied with a shrug, turning his attention back to his long-lost sword.
“Oh, and just so you know, we can’t actually be in two extreme range spots at the same time," the living swarm conveyed. "You know what sucks? We were offered that skill a while ago. We just didn't think we needed it. We’ve never really been a team player before. We were always just that guy with unusual powers that Myllo foisted on other guilders. If we had to scout, we just used all of us. [Parasitic Connection] is long range, and so it's always been good enough. Now we’re regretting it. If we had taken [Roving Roaches], we might have been able to send a part of us and keep the rest here. Sorry, Joe.”
“No apologies. How would you know that this would come up?”
“Kenda might have if she really knew what I was.”
“Dude! Really, don’t sweat it.”
“We can’t sweat. And what’s a ‘dude’?”
“It means friend, mate, bud.”
“Dude. Ooh, like that!” Joe heard echoes of ‘dude’ reverberate through their mental connection as his companion rolled the new word around in his mind.
“Yuk. Focus. I’m tired and punchy, too. Either you have to go for help, or we have to try and find the path out and get Margen through it.”
“Dude, that is Margen, the Blademaster. If we find the way out, he will be the one clearing the way for us,” Yuk sent emphatically. “Did we use that right?” they added tentatively.
“Perfectly. But I’m not sure I agree with you. I have seen what is going on inside him, the sickness that has been killing him over and over again. He has got to be in unimaginable pain. I’m not sure we can count on him being the hero of the ages.”
“Pffff. You’ll see. And I’m staying with you two.”
“Fine,” Joe grumbled silently to his collective partner. “Well. It looks like we are walking then,” Joe stated to the founder. “How much of this place do you remember, Margen?”
“I know where a set of stairs are but not where they go. The one time I tried them, I ran into a pack of the Erlking’s deaders. Didn’t have Dooms, and I was about halfway through a rot cycle. It was a bad battle. I knew I’d win, but it was tough to get them all. I worried that if one got away, the Lark might have sent more down here to try and track me down. If they found my cave, I’d be back in his clutches again,” the big man stated, grinding his grip on the sword’s hilt so forcefully Joe could hear the magically-preserved leather creaking.
The warrior sighed before adding ruefully, “Never tried it again. But now that I have Dooms back and you’re with me, I think it’s time we go take a look. What’d ya say?”
“Let’s do it,” Joe agreed.
As he stretched his back, popping out the stiff kinks he had acquired from crouching over Margen for hours, Joe could hear the chorus of fanboy Yuk completely geeking out in his head.