Hermera
The 7th of Mounichion
The Year 4631 in the Era of Mortals
The revenant was much the same as Arche remembered it. Much like the woman, its body was desiccated, skin pulled taut over bones Arche knew to be incredibly sturdy. Conventional weaponry had practically no effect against it, but he had dented its sternum with a Divine Body-empowered punch. An effect that had healed since their last encounter. Arche hoped he’d be able to reproduce a similar result.
“Just who I wanted to see,” Arche grunted, using his shield to split a dwarven skull in half.
“Come, Alastor, strike them down and bring the tall one to me.”
The revenant let out a gurgling, inhuman cry and surged forward. Arche kicked a dwarf-skeleton back and prepared for the oncoming charge but Basil pushed ahead of him. The Warrior caught the first swing on his shield, the revenants hardened fingers and nails gouging furrows into the metal.
Basil thrust his spear up and out, into the revenant’s head. Had this been a normal undead, it would have been a masterful killing blow, but the sharpened spear tip glanced off the revenant’s hardened skull, drawing a line across the thin skin. The revenant grabbed the edge of Basil’s shield and yanked the young Warrior forward, off balance. At the same time, a dwarf-skeleton grabbed Basil’s leg, tripping him.
“No!” Arche shouted. “Focus the dwarves! I’ve got Basil.”
Arche twirled the Tridory into an overhand grip, pressing the button that transformed it into a trident. He threw it as hard as he could, jumping after it a moment later. The Tridory slammed into the revenant’s torso, forcing it back a step. The incredibly sharp blades of the trident cut into the revenant’s bones, but whatever magic made them strong also prevented them from cracking. The revenant grabbed the shaft of the Tridory and pulled, trying to dislodge it. It looked up in time to see Arche’s fist collide with its skull.
Arche had activated Divine Body just before his jump, using the increased physicality to fly through the enclosed space. As his knuckles collided with the revenant’s brow, it reeled back with a loud crack, louder even than Aima’s manic laughter. The revenant took another step back, then lunged forward again, this time at him. Arche deactivated the skill, trying to conserve his Mana, and summoned the Tridory to him. The extra pull threw the revenant off balance and it stumbled. Arche caught the haft and slung the Tridory to the side, driving the edge of his shield into the revenant’s temple as it went by. The trident dislodged, slicing into bone once again as it came free.
Basil, not to be outdone, used his shield to sever the dwarf’s hand, then kicked it in the face. The guardsman scrambled to his feet, shield raised, spear at the ready against the tide of advancing dwarves. Arche dispatched another dwarf, then checked on the rest of his companions.
Cora had stowed her bow in favor of a xiphos, a leaf-bladed sword, which she spun in large, circular motions to keep the dwarves away. The move would have worked well against living creatures but the dwarves had no concept of self-preservation and did not fear the cut of a blade. As it was, there was not enough force behind each swing to do much damage to the bones and the skeletons advanced steadily. Tess stood on a table nearby, hurling stone goblets and plates at the approaching undead, her small knives useless. Helwan stood next to her, wielding a long, heavy rod that he bashed at the heads of any skeletons that came near.
“Go, protect them!” Arche shouted to Basil.
The young Warrior didn’t hesitate, dropping his spear in favor of a dwarven cudgel. Armed with this new weapon, Basil became a reckoning force. Every bash and swing produced a sickening crunch and a cloud of bone shards.
Arche turned his attention back to the revenant. Aima watched on with interest from her place behind her minions, arms crossed. As Arche squared up, she raised one hand and snapped her fingers. Green light swirled around the revenant, lifting it off the ground momentarily as its bones grew. A few moments before, Arche had stood a hand’s width taller than it, but now it towered over him by half an arm’s length.
“That’s cheating.”
Arche checked his vitals, gauging how much he could commit to the fight.
Health: 750 / 750
100%
Stamina: 539 / 580
93%
Mana: 284 / 360
79%
He was looking good on all fronts, but had no further time for strategy as the revenant charged. It swiped at him with preternatural speed, fingernails the size of letter-openers. Arche ducked the first swipe and caught the second on his shield. Sparks flashed as nails tore into the metal, but Arche wasn’t done. He kicked at the revenant’s kneecap, knocking it off balance, then slammed the shield forward. The revenant teetered back and fell to the ground with a crash. Arche stepped over it and kept running. The revenant was just a distraction, the real threat was the vampire.
Aima’s grin grew feral, showcasing a mouth full of fangs as he approached. It was like the unnaturally sharp teeth of an elf had been kicked into overdrive. Arche led with the spear but found only empty air. One moment she stood in front of him, the next she was to the side, watching his attack sail past harmlessly. Arche’s eyes widened in surprise and he tried to reorient himself but Aima shoved him with a single outstretched hand.
Arche felt his feet leave the ground, then his back crashed into a wall with a clatter of metal on stone. He coughed and wheezed as the air was driven from his lungs. The impact knocked a solid twenty percent off his Health.
He staggered to his feet as the revenant lumbered toward him, crossing the distance between them with uncomfortable speed. Arche switched the spear into bident form and thrust out as the revenant approached, trying to sever one of its limbs in the same way he’d cut the Gourdian Knot. A flash of green energy smacked into the prongs of the bident, knocking it off center. Arche barely raised his shield in time to block a punch thrown by the revenant. The impact threw him back up against the wall and sent vibrations shooting up his arm. The bident, however, hummed in his grip. Green sparks traced up the shaft of the weapon, washed over his hand and up his arm. Two small notifications popped up at the bottom of his vision.
You have discovered a feature of the Tridory.
Necromancy Absorption
Upon contact with necromancy, the Tridory will activate Mode 2: Bident. During this time, it can store necromantic energy, insulating and empowering the wielder through the Phylactic status condition.
You are Phylactic.
Phylactic
-10% Incoming Damage
+15% Effective Strength
+50% Resistance to Necromancy
+50% Resistance to Poison & Venom effects
Phylactic: 4:55
The revenant bore down on him again, long nails threatening to carve him into pieces. Arche lifted his shield but the claw-like nails finally proved too much. The shield rent in two, the top third falling to the ground. The revenant pushed him up against the wall, too close for the Tridory to be useful, so he dropped it and activated Divine Body.
Bloody orange light filled the room. Arche drove his hand into the revenant, piercing through the creature’s skin, and grabbed hold of its hardened rib cage. He twisted his hips and threw the revenant face-first into the wall with as much strength as he could manage. Arche ripped his hand free, still gripping one of the revenant’s hardened ribs. With it, he smashed the head of a nearby dwarf skeleton and ran toward Aima again.
Divine Body gave him strength and speed as he closed the distance. Aima’s smile turned into a snarl and she threw a bolt of spectral green energy. The magic glanced off his breastplate. She flinched away from the light as he got closer. Despite his enhanced physicality, she was still faster than him. She jumped back, feet landing on the wall. Instead of falling to the ground, she stood perpendicular to him, looking up at him with a sneer.
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Arche cursed and deactivated Divine Body. His mana was down to forty percent. Between the vampire and the revenant, he was being worn down. Without Divine Body, he had little chance of defeating either one of them, let alone both. He had to end this quickly or they were going to overwhelm him. He changed direction, charging back toward the rest of his group. With Basil’s aid, they held off the skeletons admirably. All of them bore minor injuries and bruises from where bony fingers gripped and pulled at them, but no one had been seriously wounded yet.
Most of the skeletons lay in pieces on the ground, Basil dutifully smashing any that lumbered too close. Arche jumped onto the table next to Cora, Helwan, and Tess. He quickly inventoried the broken shield and passed his makeshift bone club into his left hand. He summoned the Tridory and used its significant reach to dispatch the skeletons before they could get close enough to strike.
“We need to work together to take them down,” Arche panted. “She’s too fast for me.”
“What do you suggest?” Tess asked, flinging a stone plate into a dwarf’s skull.
“She’s a vampire,” Arche said. “Helwan, I want you to light this whole place up, it might throw her off. Basil, I need you to distract the revenant as much as you can. Your heavy armor should be able to protect you from its attacks, just try to avoid getting hit. Helwan, help him out. Cora, Tess, you’re with me. We’ll take her down.”
Helwan lifted a hand into the air and an orb of light burst forth, its surface too bright to see directly. Aima shrieked as the light touched her, holding up her hands as if to block it out. The undead, unfortunately, were unaffected, but they fell steadily under the combined efforts of Basil and Arche. Cora shot an arrow at Aima, trying to take advantage of the vampire’s distraction, but even in her distracted state, Aima was too quick. She plucked the arrow out of midair with one hand and snapped it, her cry of pain turning to one of anger.
Basil used his shield to crush the last of the dwarven skulls, then let out a mighty war cry as he charged the revenant. Helwan leaped from table to table in pursuit, staying as far away from the ground and the dismantled dwarven skeletons as he possibly could. Arche couldn’t help but admire his team’s tenacity as they fought back. It buoyed him like the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
Tess was his shadow as he ran, staying just behind him to his left. Cora made her stand on the table, using her vantage to shoot arrow after arrow. Arche waited until he was almost within reach of Aima to activate Divine Body, throwing the revenant’s rib bone at her as a distraction. The vampire grabbed the bone out of the air, dropping from the wall down to the floor. She passed one spindly hand over the bone, changing it with a flash of green magic. She brandished it at him, now molded into a kopis.
They clashed together. Arche fought his way forward with a complicated set of lunges and sweeps. Aima dodged most with ease but when she attempted to parry, the force of his attack knocked her off balance and one of Cora’s arrows scratched her cheek. No blood dripped from the wound. The cut resembled torn paper more than torn flesh. Aima touched her cheek with a finger, then screamed her fury and launched a counterattack. Arche took up the Tridory in both hands, using it like a quarterstaff to parry Aima’s fierce slashes.
His Mana fell below fifty and he was forced to deactivate Divine Body. His Health and Stamina were full, but his Mana was barely above ten percent. The sudden decline in his strength and speed turned the tide against him. Aima’s every slash sent shockwaves into his arms, and she attacked relentlessly. It was as much luck as it was skill that he avoided the worst of her strikes, but his luck didn’t hold. She forced him back and he stumbled over the corpse of a dwarf. Aima hooked the blade of the kopis around his hand and neatly disarmed him, knocking the Tridory away. Her other hand closed around Arche’s throat, lifting him into the air.
Her nails cut into his neck, drawing rivulets of blood. She brought him close, victory in her eyes, and dragged her tongue across his neck, smearing the blood between them. Arche shuddered at her touch and tried to pull away, but her grip was iron and he couldn’t move her. At the first drop of blood, Aima’s appearance shifted. Her body engorged, no longer desiccated but instead taking the size and distribution of a healthy, young woman. The most marked change was color. Her skin, deathly pale just a few moments prior, turned a ruddy pink, as though her entire body was blushing from too much time in the sun.
“Your blood is sweet, young one. I have fed on humans, but never one who tasted of ambrosia,” Aima whispered into his ear. “I think I’ll keep you, pet.”
She pulled back, revealing the cut on her cheek had mended itself. Any pithy response was choked by her grip around his throat. Panic flared deep in his chest and, for a moment, he was no longer in the feasting room, but in a large, underground cavern, surrounded by beastmar, staring into the wicked smiles of Eten and Nete as the massive axe came closer and closer to his chest.
Arche blinked and the vision faded, but he was no better off for it. He looked around, desperately hoping someone could help him, but he was alone. Basil and Helwan were busy with the revenant, Cora was too far away and had no clear shot with Arche in Aima’s clutches. Tess was nowhere to be found.
Aima bared her fangs and leaned in. Her tongue slid across the side of his neck, almost gentle. It was a tease; she was sampling the beads of blood as an appetizer. At any moment, she would rip his throat out and there was nothing he could do.
Well, almost nothing.
Arche closed his eyes and expanded his consciousness outwards. Sending it forward in a crashing wave. As soon as it passed the borders of his mind, he felt a crushing expanse stretch out seemingly forever. It was a void, a nether space between the physical world and others that he could scarcely comprehend. Arche did his best to ignore the expanse of infinities and focus on the mind directly in front of him. Aima.
His consciousness washed over the walls of her mind like a tsunami. He struck at her defenses with all the Willpower he could muster. Her mind was strong, her walls made of steel and dark stone, but he could feel her inside, reeling at the contact. Aima froze, her teeth almost scraping Arche’s skin as he assaulted her mind. When his tidal wave failed to find weaknesses, he narrowed it to a geyser, then down further until his consciousness was a super-compressed stream. He picked a seam, a place where Aima’s steel and stone collided, and focused his efforts on blasting a small hole. Aima shuddered, confusion and a hint of fear washing over her face as Arche kept up his assault. The walls started to crack.
“Your mind is strong, pet,” Aima breathed. “But there is still much for you to learn.”
Arche broke through the walls of Aima’s mind, flooding his consciousness inward. As soon as he had, he realized his mistake. He hadn’t broken through at all, she had allowed that portion of her mind to buckle while she laid a trap behind it. A second wall existed behind the perimeter of her mind, forming a small pocket that Arche’s consciousness had flooded into. Before he could escape, she closed the wall behind him, trapping him. He raged, beating at the trap, but the walls held fast.
Aima bared her teeth in a smile once more. Arche was immobilized, too much of his consciousness had been poured into his attack and he was only dimly aware of his physical surroundings. There was pressure, then a sharp pain in his neck as her fangs broke the skin. Then, he was falling.
Aima released him with a shriek. Her attention slipped just enough that he was able to break his mind free from her prison. For a moment, he became one with her. He saw flashes of memories and emotions. Pain, a lot of pain. She had been tortured, drained of blood endlessly, then fed only enough to keep her alive. This was before she became a vampire, back when she was still an elf. Words were spoken in a garbled tongue, then she knelt in a ritual circle. She held a knife to her own throat. Her fury and grief knew no bounds and she directed it at all life. After her transformation, that fury was wrapped in thirst. More than desire it was a need. For blood. For life. Forever.
Behind the fury, something else was buried, so subtle that Arche almost missed it. Nestled behind the burning emotions was a small ball of fear. Fear of attachment, fear of a cage. Fear of being trapped and tortured like that scared woman all those years ago. Fear that nothing had really changed.
The connection severed and Arche snapped fully back into his own senses with a strangled cry. One hand went to his throat, blood pouring between his fingers and coating his hand. Above him, Tess stood behind Aima, one dagger plunged through the vampire’s back, the other into the side of Aima’s face. The vampire shrieked with pain and anger.
Two arrows thudded into Aima’s chest, but she caught the third before it pierced her heart. Her other hand grabbed hold of Tess and threw the Rogue forward. Tess twisted in midair, conducting a three-point landing next to Arche. She produced two more daggers from a bandolier and held them out in front of her in a warding gesture.
Arche felt his feet go cold, then numb. Blood gushed over his hand, painting his armor and the ground around him. His Health hit forty percent and was dropping fast, but he was out of tricks. His psychic attack had burned away most of his remaining Mana. He didn’t have enough to use Divine Body and the effort alone would probably kill him. He could do nothing but watch in pain as his life dwindled away.
Aima reached up to remove the dagger from her face, but Tess had been waiting for an opportunity. While the vampire’s hands were distracted, the Rogue shot forward. She flung one of the daggers, forcing Aima to dodge, then slid, slicing deeply into the vampire’s leg. Aima twisted, snatching at the Rogue but Tess was already out of reach. Before either could take a step toward the other, Basil sailed between them, bouncing off the floor and crashing against a stone table, shattering it into pieces.
The fight with the revenant was apparently not going well.
Just like the last time Arche had fought it, the longer the fight lasted, the stronger the revenant became. Basil’s luck, like Arche’s, had run out. Aima twisted one hand above her head and green energy danced around her body. It swirled in a triple helix before spreading out across the floor of the room. The dwarven skeletons shifted, then moved, lifted by the necromantic light. Bone shards gravitated toward the revenant, adhering to its body like a macabre platemail of death. Then, with dramatic flair, she reached up and plucked the dagger from the side of her face, freeing her jaw.
“This has been amusing, but I tire of these games. Thank you for the blood, pet. You can be certain I will see you again. Alastor, be a darling and clean up this mess for me. There’s a good boy.”
With a shrill laugh and an explosion of black mist, Aima dissolved into a cloud of bats. The swarm winged its way toward the exit, shrieking and clicking. Cora felled two with arrows but they dissolved as soon as they died and the swarm left unimpeded.
In the fading echo, Basil let out a war cry of his own and reengaged with the revenant. He wielded a dwarven mace in one hand and a heavily damaged shield in the other; his breastplate bore deep gouges and he was covered in blood from where the revenant’s clawed fingers had found soft flesh. Still, the young Warrior didn’t give up. He roared his defiance, beating his cudgel against the revenant again and again.
Bone chips flew with each swing but the revenant itself weathered the blows with astounding resilience. Tess jumped off a table and onto a swinging chandelier, pulling herself into a seated position. There, she set to work on dismantling the chain that kept the whole thing aloft. Cora shot arrow after arrow into the revenant, using a dozen different archery maneuvers to limited effect. The vast majority simply skittered off the hard bones, serving only to chip away at the skeletal armor it wore.
Helwan ignored the fight, running instead to Arche’s side. Something soft pressed against Arche’s neck; a fabric, perhaps, but it was hard to tell. He was struggling to stay awake. He couldn’t feel his hands anymore, and every part of him was cold and weary. Despite the danger to his friends, he wanted nothing more than to fall asleep. Was it too much to ask for some sleep? Just five minutes was all he needed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had five minutes of honest rest.
Basil fought the revenant with everything he had, keeping its focus as he swung away. With a furious salvo, he forced it back a single step. Tess severed the last link of the chain and dropped the entire chandelier directly onto the revenant’s head with an explosion of screeching metal, crushing the creature beneath the mess. A heartbeat of silence followed, then the chandelier shifted as the revenant started to claw its way out.
Tess dropped to the ground a moment later. Basil threw his weight down onto the chandelier, doing his best to keep the monster trapped. Tess picked up the bone kopis from where Aima had dropped it and swung for all she was worth at the revenant’s exposed head.
Where other weapons failed to do the trick, the kopis, fashioned from the revenant’s own reinforced bones, neatly decapitated the creature before sticking inside the stone floor. Arche watched the revenant’s head bounce toward him, the withdrawn muscles of its face slackening in death as it rolled into his blood.
It was over. They had won.
Then everything went dark.