Fallen Gor'achen III

The Aether

Unknown

While the Night Raven sails slowly toward the ledge, I watch from any signs of life or unlife in Gor'achen. Holes in the surface of the rock, where several redoubts, which used to house Mana-cannons, one existed, loom darkly. Even with my superhuman eyesight, I have difficulty seeing into the darkness inside, and the holes lie outside the range of my awareness.

Weaving threads of Od, I extend them to Gor'achen and into the holes. Fissures fill the rock around the holes. The redoubts were destroyed with enough forge to destroy the structural integrity of the stone for more than two yards around each hole. The damage to the rock does not surprise me, but the condition of the surface layer of rock in the holes does surprise me. It looks and feels wrong, almost diseased.

The Power I feel with the holes surprises me more. The Power feels similar to the Umbra, but its sense of reality far exceeds the Umbra. Traces of the Primal Power called the Dark lie within each of the holes. I may be incapable of feeling fear, but touching on the Dark still leaves me uneasy. The traces of Dark do not feel very strong or dense, but I cannot determine their source. If they com from a Primal being, I do not know if I can destroy it.

I have faced two beings born of the Primal Powers. The Frog was nothing; its ties to Chaos had been severed. The Chaos from the tree Demon was not very strong. Compared to the common trash from the Primal Powers, it could not even be considered a gnat, and it would still have destroyed me had it not been sealed by Meili's spells. If a being that can wield the Dark lurks within Gor'achen, can I defeat it?

About a thousand feet from Gor'achen, Night Raven comes to rest. "Master to approach closer the dimensional barrier needs to be disabled or have its shape altered. Altering the shape will weaken the dimensional barriers integrity."

"Stay here. This is close enough for my purposes."

"Yes, Master." The Night Raven comes to a halt in seconds.

The Shadow of the Od exists everywhere within this Metaverse. Sinking my awareness into it, I probe the outer surface of Gor'achen. As I find the place I seek, I step through the Shadow of the Od and appear on a crumbling ledge.

A formation lies embedded and hidden within the stone in front of me. There was a time I needed tool to activate this pattern, but that time lies far in my past. Drawing Trinity from my Core Realm, I Fill the pattern and the a section of the stone turns into a door, which opens into Thrall's old ritual chamber.

As I step through the door, clouds of dust rise around my feet. No one should have been in this chamber for the past ten thousand years. Thrall's mirror once stood in this room, but Vili took it for the Night Raven . He should have been the last being to set foot in this room, assuming he even needed to enter the room to take the mirror. Spreading my awareness though the pocket Realm, I find no signs that anyone of anything has been here in the ten thousand years since my death. There is not even any signs of insects of vermin. This place is dead and empty. All the furnishing made of wood, leather or cloth have crumbled to dust. Rust covers the old practice weapons I once used. However, the sigils on the larder still work, and the ten millennia old food and wines remains in perfect condition. I almost laugh.

Closing the door to the outer surface of Gor'achen, I walk though the abandoned rooms to the sealed exit. It only takes a thought to open it, and I step into the Blood Rose Stable. After closing the seal, I spread my awareness through the stable. Like Thrall's old complex, the stable was built inside a pocket realm. With the exception of the surface city and the rock it was built one, all of Gor'achen is a collection pocket realms.

After searching the stable with my awareness, I already know the circuit stamping machine is gone, but I still head into the bowels of complex. Corroding slag is all that remains of the heavy, metal door, which would have put a bank vault to shame. Touching the slag, I sink my awareness into it. Trace of the Power that was used to destroy it remain. As I touch upon it, disgust well from my Soul, and the Od stirs within me. The Dark, one of Primal Powers, was used to destroy this door.

The old stable is not empty, but of the squatters living in it, no one shows any signs of the Dark in their aura. Of course, if whoever corroded the door were still here, I doubt they would be living like a squatter. Those, who have given themselves to the Primal Powers, may need to hide their Power, but they have no need to live in squalor.

Stepping through the Shadow of the Od, I appear in the entry to the stable. Two Orcs, who were lounging in the shadows, sit up and stare at me in surprise. With ragged pants and boots as their only clothing the tattoos and piercings adorning their upper bodies are on full display. Even with the layers of fat padding their muscles, their bulk falls short of my own, but their brains would have trouble matching up to an ants. They stand up and close in on me belligerently.

"Heyz, youz! What'cher doin in da Bloody Fang Boyz terf!" The language the Orcs use is not any Orc dialect that I recognize, but my Mind perceives the meaning of the word from the surface of their Minds.

Without bothering to respond to the Orcs, I grab one by its skull. Lifting it off the ground, I close my hand and crush the top of its skull.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

As the first Orcs corpse drops to the ground, the second Orc pulls a cleaver-like blade from the sheathe at the small of its back. The weapon would probably be a short sword for an average human, but in the orcs beefy hand, it can only be considered a large knife. "Youz gunna payz fer dat, fugly bitch!"

I drive my Mind into the Orcs. It has nothing that even resembles any form of mental defense, and its resistance crumbles in a fraction of a second. Dragging the knowledge of its language from its Mind I find the words I need. "Fugly bitch? Have you ever looked in a mirror? Even with triple bags hiding that thing you call a face, Zugg wouldn't stick his dick in your asshole."

Based on what passes for thoughts in the Orc's Mind, it cannot even hear my words. Its sentience has already collapsed, and its memories are bleeding out. As I contain the fragmenting and sift through the broken memories, it paints a bleak picture of the Gor'achen of today. The once-proud Citadel has become a warren of gangs fighting over turf. There are common humans and Beastmen, who try to live as best the can, but they are nothing more than prey for the gangs to abuse and steal from. The weak are fodder, and the slightly stronger are the overlords.

The Citadel has an Empress, who could put a stop to it, but she lets it happen. She sits in the background and lets the gangs fight with one another, keeping the population divided and no threat to her rule. The idiot Orc did not understand what the Empress was doing, but from his memories the result is plain to anyone that can reason. It reminds me of the inner cities of Earth under the progressive wing of the Uni-Party. I suppose it is one tactic for a government to retain power, but if the Empress has the real Power needed to become an overlord, who tens of thousands of mostly Beastman gang-bangers fear, why would she bother with a tactic used by the weak, the cowardly, and the hypocritical, who lack real Power?

There is something I am missing here. Did I misunderstand the reason behind the method used by the governments on Earth? They were the pawns of extra-dimensional beings: wannabe Dragons, gods, and perhaps others. Was there a different reason behind the way they controlled the Earth than their just being weak cowards lusting for power?

As more orcs pour out of the doors onto the stable's front courtyard, I do not bother to suppress the irritation that wells outward from my Soul.

"PAIN !"

My voice reverberates throughout the courtyard. The word carries the full meaning of the Name, as I understand it. The depth of my experience with pain fills that single syllable. The sound forces anyone hearing it to experience pain as I understand it. The meaning contained in the word is so real and extreme that I feel the backlash from it myself, but this pain is nothing I have not felt before. Pain is my oldest friend, but the same cannot be said for the Orcs.

"AAAARRRRRRR!"

"ARRGH!"

"Nooooooo!"

The screams and screeches of the Orcs fill the air. Waves of pain, rage, and hate flow outward from the Orcs' Souls, but they do not get any stronger. Wait, one Orc glares at me though clenched teeth. Unlike the other, he stays on his feet, if barely. The rest collapsed to their knees ore fell prone as soon as the pain hit them. The pain of most has overwhelmed their senses and thoughts, but this one Orc is different. He, a scar-covered, skinny for an Orc male, understand I have done this to them. His hate is not random; it is focused on me.

I cannot keep the smile off my face, and an amused chuckle leaks from my mouth."You are different from the rest."

As my soft-spoken words enter the Orcs ears, despite the distance of more than fifty meters between us, he narrows his eyes and seems to carefully appraise me. From the thoughts flitting across the surface of his Mind, he recognizes me as far more powerful than himself, but he is still looking for a way to kill me and survive. Pain is no strange to this Orc. He is in the worst pain he has ever known, but he is not ready to give up like the rest. He is ready to grab the straw that will left him live, let him kill.

For seconds the feel like hours to the Orc, he stares into my eyes. He does not know who or what I am, and for being in so much pain, he weighs his chances in a surprisingly calm manner. Like nearly all Beastmen, Orcs were creates by Nidhoggr. They were designed to be driven by blind rage and bloodlust. An Orc, who can think as calmly and concisely as this one, is a rarity among rarities, but this Orc is also user of both Mana and KI, which might be even more rare.

Pulling a slave collar out of my Core Realm, I hold it up. "Do you know what this is?"

Displaying a grimace, the orc nods.

I toss the slave collar onto the ground in front of the Orc. "Put this on, and you can live. I will help you to grow stronger. You will kill the beings I send you to kill. If you don't want to serve me, you will die with the rest of your gang."

After a few more seconds of staring at me, the Orc picks up the collar and puts it around his own neck. With his choice made, I reach out with tendril of my Mind and easily slip beneath the surface of the Orc's Mind. As I make a few adjustments to his memories, he loses his memories of the way I said 'Pain', and his pain disappears.

As the pain disappears, the Orc straightens his hunched shoulders and fingers the collar on his neck. Forming spears of Trinity, I penetrate the Minds of all the other Orcs in the courtyard, killing them. My collard Orc looks around impassively at the other, now dead, Orcs. "I dun't rules duh Bloody Fang Boyz. White Eye dun rules."

I snort derisively. "I know. White Eye is nothing to me. Go kill him!"

While I monitor the Orc's path through the stable's rubbish-filled halls, an odd thread of Power flares within the Eidos. The thread has aspects of Psi to it, but it has traces of another Power in it. a much stronger and more imposing Power. As I sense that other Power, the Od, which circulates in conjunction with the Trinity within me, stirs, but I do not need the Od to know that the other Power is Primal in origin. With the knowledge I acquired from Nidhoggr's blood, I easily recognize that Power as Order.

The thread of Power passes through the gates of the Blood Rose Stable and connects to something outside, something much more vast than just one thread of Power. A web, or perhaps a network, of Power spreads outward from the entry to the stable's pocket Realm. From the little bit that I can perceive, it appears like one section of a pattern that designed to cover the entirety of the Third Layer of Gor'achen, and the pattern contains sentience.