You have died
You have lost…
“Fuck!” Elia woke, startling the bekki kid as she punched the bowl. “FUCK! We almost had him. Almost”
I would not call that almost. I’m no fighter, but he was nowhere close to throwing the towel.
“It’s ‘cause he’s undead,” she said, lapping from the bowl so she could scream at full volume again, “no self-respecting undead likes giving up with an ace up their sleeve. Fucking bullshit metal magic!”
I will have you know, he doesn’t appear to be controlling the iron in his armor. There is a sea of gold beneath and it moves like he wishes, not the iron. It’s only gold he can control, I’d assume.
“And I have to stake my life on an ‘assume’.”
Our life.
That only served to infuriate her further. “Glorious. Fantastic. Guess I should be glad he can’t work with higher grades of steel, or I’d have to fight him naked, with rocks and a stick.”
She stomped the floor next to Pim. The signs lit up shortly. They were still having their argument by the time the duo had clambered from the bowls bowels.
“… hello?” Simon waved his hand in front of Elia’s face. “Are you with us? I asked you something.”
“It’s not a cheese grater," she cried before dumping her head into the water and letting out a scream.
At last she found some catharsis, feeling somewhat better when she emerged. She still needed to squish Quibbles for a few minutes and as she did just that in front of confused eyes, someone else took the initiative.
“Servant Karla, servant Simon, it is good that you have come,” Pim yelled, startling everyone else, “You shall aid us in our endeavor to uproot the evils of Glenrock keep, so says I, Emperor Pim Sai-Ren the third!”
Three pairs of eyes blinked in unified confusion. Simon stared at Pim with something she couldn’t quite put glowing in his eyes.
“What’s in it for us?”
Pim straightened up. At that moment nobody Elia ever knew had shown more proficiency in looking down on people while sitting down than him.
“A fourth of the souls and shards gained from this endeavor each and the blessing of I, Pim Sai-Ren the third, emperor and divine.”
Simon mulled it over, pulling a by all means nervous looking Karla to the side for further discussion. Elia still had no idea why they even believed him to be an emperor in the first place, let alone that he could help them. He was so thin he had difficulty walking on his own.
Simon stepped forward. “We would like a demonstration of your ability first.”
Pim gave an emperor-like nod.
“Unbreaking,” he said and the words echoed with power, a golden glow enveloping the trio before growing muffled like a thin blanket. Elia could liken it to the beetles that increased her magic resistance.
I feel slightly warm and tingly. This is… nice. Pleasant.
“Th-there. When a lethal blow would fell you, the spell shall activate and you shall remain unbroken.” He played it off as something simple. It only took Pim a single three-syllable word, but he failed to conceal a sheen of undead sweat, like he’d run a marathon. “This will suffice. You may leave now.”
The duo shared a look. Simon appeared convinced enough, speaking for the two of them. “You have a deal, little man.”
----------------------------------------
They reached what Elia dubbed ‘phase two’ where the commander discarded his heavy iron shield for his ludicrously heavy conjured golden one much sooner. Maybe it was because they were actually doing well. Maybe it was because he recognized that Karla was a threat he couldn’t ignore when her blood lashed him across the face, cracking his skull. As he turned to her, Elia acted on a hunch and in one fell swoop her cleaver cut through one half of a chain link.
“Hah-HAH! Chain-links, chain-joints. WOOO, FUCK YOU HALL!” she screamed in triumph.
“Arrogant,” he said, hauling the chain in before spinning it around his head. “Conceited. A curse on you, a curse on us all.”
The houndhead flail circled in ever larger spirals outwards, digging up the earth, flinging chunks of stone and statue’s heads every which way. But Elia had seen it before, just once. He made the wrong move. When she leaped over the chain towards him the ball moved past her and, since newton was a bitch, kept its course. He backstepped, was forced to reel in his flail head but wasn’t quite fast enough and lost a thumb.
Her smile turned into a face of shock as his gauntlet exploded and a tub’s worth of liquid gold shot out to envelop her. Elia dodged back just a hair short. Her head was stuck. She tore and pulled and thought for certain it was time to die again but a moment later two hands and a hurricane gust wrenched her free.
She stumbled as Simon twirled her into an upright stand.
“Nice hair´,” he said.
“Thanks.” She mumbled, spitting out a particularly annoying strand before falling stock-still. Commander Hall gave her a sidelong look, her incredibly old, mismatched helmet cratered with dents and cuts in hand.
“Retreat?” he asked. “How unbefitting, of a captain of the Twinpeaks.”
Elia barely heard him. She stared at her helmet with a measure of wild mania. “That was a present. Don’t you dare.”
The gold ocean crunched together and spat out a flat piece of metal.
From that moment on, everything felt sideways. Every sound felt muted, every step like she weighed nothing at all, every strike like she was cutting through butter. Each step she took was a risk, each risk a mistake and every mistake went barely unpunished as for a brief moment the commander was overwhelmed by her sudden ferocity. Simon and Karla joined in quickly after, but they were struggling to back her up as every slam of his flail sent shudders through the earth behind her.
They might have called out to her. Elia didn’t hear them. She went deep, deeper, followed that golden flow even as it tore a pauldron from her shoulder and another nearly caught her by the ankle. The flail searched for her head and Elia parried its chain, skittering across the floor a dozen feet.
She tossed one kitchen knife, fork, and spoon after the other. She was all out of knives and time as Commander Hall bulled towards her like an unstoppable train. He punched and dispelled his shield mid swing, giving his arm a sudden, insane amount of velocity but Elia was already two steps ahead. The swing whooshed over her head and he gained a fresh cut along his hip, armor peeled back like it wasn’t even there.
His golden hand swelled and morphed as he held up his full golden shield, preparing to slam it into the ground. Elia jumped, hiding her head behind her buckler as shrapnel flew past and the shockwave knocked Karla down and Simon away but passed her by harmlessly.
She was already turned around for another approach when he caught her along the shield with a kick. An imperfect parry failed to activate her boon and sent her rolling over the floor but she staggered to a stand within a split second. She didn’t even notice that her shield arm had snapped like a twig.
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“We yet hold,” the Commander said, nearly pasting Karla as her chains diverted his aim in the last moment. She was only sent flying into a tree’s canopy and this time the tree was the one to lose as it’s trunk cracked and splintered. “…beset by beasts, by animals.”
Simon landed a solid hit under his armpit in that moment, sinking his spear in deep enough that the man actually cried out in pain. He hit his body, his real body, but it wasn’t an immediately lethal strike. The distraction lasted just long enough for Elia to rush in and sever his flail from its head completely.
He batted Simon aside with a second chain made of conjured gold and the swashbuckler’s body flickered golden before he was flung away, skittering across the floor. As he turned, he missed Elia with a stomp as she tore his ankle open down to metaphorical bone. Whether he conjured a chain, shield, spear, sword, or dagger, this time he couldn’t land a single solid hit on the annoying little person dancing around his legs.
Eventually, he staggered, and fell. On one knee he could still peer down at her as she ran up for the finishing blow. However, his stature betrayed one last trick. Gold ran up and down his arm before coalescing into the shape of a massive canine jaw.
“Filia, forgive me,” he muttered before sending it crashing down like a meteor.
In one heartbeat, Elia hugged the ground, but saw Karla ram her tower shield into the floor in front of her. In the next, a wave of steaming fluid and searing light exploded around her.
Karla screamed, whether from pain or fear she couldn’t tell. The explosion continued pushing her back, as a hail of stone pelted her shield, metal fraying at the edges.
Eliaaa!
She threw her cleaver, her only cleaver and it spun, was picked up by the torrent of gold and flung away.
“FUCK.” It was that stupid side wind and now she had nothing left. “RYE, BOLT!”
I, I-I’m out! I can’t!
Karla fell to one knee. Elia swore, blank mind feeling unusually uncreative today when her arm fizzed and fell numb.
“Oh, you’ll do it for her, but not for me!?”
Shush, don’t pressure me, I need to concentrate.
“I’m… a… tank…” Karla’s shield was now less of a rectangular tower and more of an oval. A boulder shattered against it, nearly knocking it out of hand. “I’m… a… tank…”
AAAAAH!
In an instant her arm cooled to null and Elia saw her breath grow solid in the air. It was quite a pretty glitter, outshone only by the uncomfortable sight of her purple arm growing dark to near black with frostbite. With a final scream, the bolt manifested, only half as large as normal before shooting into the sky.
Hit him. Please, please, hit him.
The wave of gold shuddered and stopped for a moment. Hall stood dazed, his golden hound’s skull melted pitifully against the ground. Karla fell over but before she did Elia grabbed her mace. She sprinted to the commander, ignored the unhealthy creaking noises in her frostbitten arm and heaved the mace above her head before smashing it over his own.
The world was blindingly rich for a moment, the trees and fields of grass bathed in sunshine. One second passed. Two seconds passed. Halfway through the third, it all returned to gray again. There was no sign of oil or tar seeping up between the cracks. The golden-brown leaves were all shaken from their trees and the grass bent over for a hundred feet on every side.
Elia was on her back, mind reeling to catch up with the last few seconds. They played like a slideshow as she blinked them away, finding time for a clear thought, a thought which was immediately interrupted by a rambling whisper.
“The floodgates are broken. All is lost.”
The mountain of a man was lying on top of her. Gold trickled out from the cracks in his armor and his face looked uncharacteristically human. She might have felt bad for him if she could feel anything at all.
“My light, where has thou gone? Filia…”
Ascender slain
You have gained: Soul x6000
You have gained: Bone shard [Common] x8
You have gained: Bone shard [Uncommon] x6
You have gained: Bone Shard [Rare] x2
It is done. May he rest in peace within our gods.
“Hey.” Elia coughed. “You did have a sixth bolt.”
And look at what it cost us. How are you feeling? Can you stand?
“No.” This was the shortest time in between to attacks of losing herself to the haze. Worrying, but ultimately a worry for tomorrow like so many others. “I think taking some loot will make me feel a lot better.”
Silver circlet
A circlet woven from fine strings of Gathean silver given to Lord Commander Hall upon his banishment from the land of our gods. It still carries a faint smell of lavender. Protects against corrupting influences, poisons and foul smells.
“Neat.”
Is that GENUINE silver? Oh, oh beans, t-this is worth more than my families’ entire fortune.
Elia quirked a very doubtful eyebrow. “Bullshit. It can’t be that much more expensive than copper.”
Yes, considering the only known source besides the vein on Gatheon is deep inside the dark forest. The gods decreed even possessing an ounce of silver without their permission to be punishable by death. So, unless they don’t care about you killing one of their immortal soldiers, you can expect a visit from one of their servants soon. Or a smiting.
“Neat.” She took the circlet and wrapped it around her head.
We might want to lay low for a while after this.
As the notifications flicked up and down her vision she saw the large soul slowly float up from his body and towards her. She grabbed it, held it, turned it here and there. This one was near static compared to the giant’s or the Fane-Eater’s soul, and where his armor lost its luster in life, here the flickering water-flame shone with muted steel and golden colors.
Soul of Lord Commander Hall
Soul of Commander Hall, Lord of the Twinpeaks and Keeper of Glenrock Castle. It was Hall who first combined the schools of conjuration and chivalry, marking the end of the dominance of the magi. In his honor, the alumni of his school wore a rondel of yellow twin peaks even after they dispersed into different orders.
Something else came with it. A small shard of brown ceramic, barely the size of a curled fist floated into her hands.
You have gained: Hall’s minor Grailshard
The moment she touched it there was the feeling of being watched. She made sure there wasn’t a roc perched somewhere nearby before pocketing it. “Any comments on what this is?”
No idea.
“Might as well ask the attendant.” And then go for a bath. She could use a bath or nine and she was feeling generous enough to let Rye order a special massage. That is, if she found a way to teach her how to consciously become unconscious. She did not need to do some hands-on research to know where ‘What we do in the baths, volume 2’ was going.
She tried to wiggle herself out from under Hall, but his corpse was heavy and the gold had hardened again, leaving her with half a ton of armor fused to her body. This was going to be a problem. Lucky for her, Karla and Simon showed up soon after, both looking like they’d just about survived a lethal blow.
“Hi there.” Elia waved with her one free arm.
“That. Was. Awesome! You were all like ’Pow’ and ‘whap’ and ‘dieee’,” Karla said, wiping the blood from her nose. Somehow, she still had energy to talk after nearly dying. “Would you like to join us on our quest? I’d love to have you around. Ooh, unless you’ve sworn your allegiance to someone bad. Are you even sworn to anyone? You don’t look like one to bow, not to–”
Simon butted in, cradling a shattered arm. “How many souls did you get?”
“Six thousand.” Elia shrugged. “Hoped for more, but division is a bitch.”
Simon nodded understandably. “It is, isn’t it?”
Elia wiggled a bit more, but the gold had well and truly fused her to the ground. “Some help, maybe?”
“Sure,” Simon said. That jolly look was back on his face and it persisted even as she pushed his spear through her throat.
“Simon!”Karla shrieked “This was not part of the plan, I didn’t order you to… we could have made an ally today.”
“Apologies mistress, but we really do need those souls.”
“Well, I won’t have them this way. You only think of whatever’s in front of your face. This is not my code.” Her mace and shield clattered to the floor. “Auntie will be hearing of this.”
“Gurgle,” Elia gurgled.
He gave her a sidelong glance and she gleaned back with undisguised fury. “Well, I certainly didn’t plan on risking my life for a measly six thousand souls. As a fellow undead, I’m sure she understands.”
You have died
Your souls were usurped by: Windcaller Simon and Maroon Princess Karla
Slay your usurpers to claim what is yours
You have lost: Soul x34363
You have lost: Bone shard [Common] x14, [Uncommon] x9, [Rare] x2