Amanda struggled to breathe without the machine, every breath she took feeling at the same time painful and terrifyingly cold – it was as though she were breathing in the impersonal chill of death itself. The thought was even more terrifying as judging by the nature of her opponent, there was every chance that she had a magically enhanced hell waiting for her if she were to die right now.
She tried struggling to her feet, fear overriding the pain she felt momentarily as well as the fact she was desperate to avoid another attack, lest it be her last, yet in both regards she was thoroughly disappointed. Something elastic and hard had her restrained and this made her attempts at getting up even more desperate even though no attack ever landed or seemed to be forthcoming, confusing her battered mind greatly.
She was in the dungeon. Was she not? Amanda thought to herself deliriously. Everything that she remembered told her that she was still in the dungeon, still facing that monstrous spell caster, and still desperately failing to do any damage to it. She remembered every blow she had received, whether from the monster’s spells hitting her or from it using its staff to break her bones whenever she got close enough to attack it with her fists.
Most of all, however, she remembered the depths of anger she had felt at seeing her child being killed by that skeleton boss. She had only just been reunited with the child whom that man had taken from her and yet, and yet, now she had lost him again, this time for good. The sheer fury that had once consumed her mind entirely now boiled away at the back of her mind, impotently festering. It was bound to the back of her mind by an ethereal chain, just as her body was seemingly bound.
She could not exactly interpret time in her current state, with the duration of her consciousness seeming to her to be at the same time aeons long and yet all too short – with unconsciousness seemingly claiming her every few moments. Yet she always woke up, even though every time she did she wished internally that she hadn’t – the memories of her boy’s body going limp flooding to the forefront of her mind every time.
“Ms Fitzgerald.” A robotic voice said plainly, its feminine voice piercing through Amanda’s thick mental barriers and pulling her, for the first time in forever, truly back into her own body – allowing her to finally see through her own eyes and hear through her own ears.
As she finally got a look at her surroundings she realised that she was no longer in the dungeon at all. She was lying on her back, strapped to some kind of hospital bed, in a strange-looking corridor that looked almost like a room straight out of a sci-fi movie’s depiction of a spaceship’s interior. Sleek matte grey walls decorated with long strips of powerful white light surrounded her, illuminating the robotic figure standing next to her bed.
Amanda would have thought that after everything she had gone through in the last few weeks, seeing a robot administering drugs into her body would not have been that surprising but she would have been oh so wrong. The robot she was looking at was not ‘robotic’ in its movements, with every move of its metallic arms being smooth and yet precise, perfectly mimicking human movement, even down to the simplest digits in its hands. If the strange AI nurse hadn’t had such an obviously “robot-esque” head, then Amanda might have been fooled into thinking it was a human.
As she took in more and more of the robot’s body, Amanda froze in place, her mind totally stopping for a few minutes as it tried its best to register what it was that was really going on around her. However, everything no longer made any sense to her. She quickly realised she should have probably had this mental breakdown long ago, considering that magic was now a thing and all, but all of that had been nowhere near as absurd to her as the idea of a robot nurse was to her at this moment.
“Ms Fitzgerald, can you hear me?” The robot asked again, its female voice speaking without any accent.
Amanda was brought out of her thoughts and nodded – she tried to speak but found it too difficult and the words that she tried to get out were garbled and incomprehensible. Regardless of this, however, the robot seemed to understand that she could hear it and so it continued speaking.
“You sustained major injuries to your body – most of it has healed by now. However, I am sorry to inform you that your central meridians were badly damaged and all of your prior cultivation has been lost permanently and it is unclear whether or not the damage will mean an impossibility for you to cultivate in the future.”
Amanda barely registered the robot’s words. She was just happy to be alive. For now, all she wanted to know was where her son’s body was.
“Whnasmo Luoaiscmo” She garbled out, the robot healer clearly not understanding her words. So, presumably following some protocol, it began listing bits of information about her case that it was aware of.
“You were found a few hundred metres from the Imperium’s Northern Hemisphere Base back on the former planet formerly known as Earth to you natives.”
“10 [D] grade healing elixir were administered to you in order to prevent you from dying, as per the wishes of Marshall Maximus of the Grand Imperium of Hergalexy.”
“You were questioned about the dungeon, but no conclusive information was gained due to your delirious state.”
“The boy you were found with remains in intensive care.”
The robot’s last words filled Amanda with both terror and joy. Her boy was still alive yet seemed to be in a worse state than even she was in. She wanted more than anything to see him again but not only was she bound to the bed she was lying in; she had no ability to even communicate her desire to do so. For the first time since she escaped her prison cell and killed the other bastard who’d tried to control her life, she felt well and truly trapped and so thoroughly alone and controlled.
The robot’s eyes flashed a vibrant green for a split second, before it said in a hollow voice, “In a few moments, you are to have a visitor. A one, Arthur Goodman. I shall thus inject you with this drug to assist you in recovering your speech capabilities temporarily so as to facilitate proper communication.”
The prick Amanda then felt in her thighs as the drug was injected into her bloodstream was almost an afterthought as she processed yet another bombshell of information. The man whom her former boyfriend had spent hours ranting about, the paternal grandfather of her child, and the person who had died fighting against a world boss according to Lucas himself, he was going to visit her, in person?!
Though she and Albert had dated for almost 3 years, there had never been any indication that she, or any of his numerous “partners”, would ever meet his family. The man had viewed everyone but himself as a means to an end, with his “girlfriends” being nothing more than objects that gave him sexual satisfaction as well as children if they were too stubborn to not get an abortion when Albert asked them to. Eventually, Amanda had grown tired of his treatment, and she’d been forced out of her child’s life and so she hadn’t expected, nor wanted, to meet the bastard or his family ever again but here she was.
It wasn’t like she had any choice in the matter anyhow, she thought bitterly to herself. Her self-pitying thoughts were interrupted when an aura more powerful than any she had felt before suddenly filled the room she was in. This aura made the Grand Lich's aura that she'd felt back in the dungeon seem like a mere gust of wind when compared to the category 4 hurricane that was heading towards her, the raw power of whatever or whoever approached her was enough to make her feel an emotion that could only be expressed in a single word. Doom.
Amanda’s body started shaking involuntarily. She felt like a child staring up at a starving wolf whose gaze was directed right at her. For though the main aspect of the aura was just raw power, Amanda felt distinct emotions in the aura as though they were realised aspects of reality set on destroying her sanity.
She felt the creature’s immense anger as a hellish conflagration that scorched her soul more and more with every second that passed. She felt the creature’s sorrow as a hollowing-out sensation undermining every thought and slowing down her heartbeat to nothing more than a slow crawl. Every emotion was so deep and complex that she came to the terrifying conclusion that whoever it was that exuded this aura had to be a human. A human the likes of which she had yet to encounter before.
Stolen story; please report.
A heavy metallic door to her left creaked open and a man dressed in a traditional 3-piece suit and a young man who couldn’t have been older than 17 suddenly stepped inside – the space around the older man seemingly warping due to the tremendous power emanating from every pore of his pale white skin.
He looked no older than his late 30s on the outside, but something within the man’s eyes told her that he was much older than that – his gaze carrying a sharpness only available to those with decades of life more than her. Instantly, she identified this man as her ex’s father and just as quickly realised what must have happened recently for him to be standing in front of her as he was.
The tension between them that brooded in the silence was strong enough to push back even the man’s overwhelming aura from the forefront of Amanda’s mind. Neither spoke for what felt like hours, until, the grandfather of her child spoke, he spoke in the kind of calm voice that concealed none of the rage that boiled within his heart.
“What were you thinking?” He asked.
Amanda gulped, before replying on instinct, with a tentative, “What?”, her surprise at being able to suddenly speak again momentarily distracted her attention away from the man who stood at the foot of her bed.
“Y…You took a child, my grandson, into a place literally defined by how dangerous it is. Please, tell me, what were you thinking when you did that? Say your reasons clearly so that I may determine whether this was due to stupidity, arrogance, or ignorance.” His once eerily calm voice was now faltering even more and the rage that he felt inside had started to make him emphasise every syllable of each word.
“Every part of this damn world is dangerous now! Dungeon or otherwise.” Amanda outright shouted back defensively, not quite liking the way in which she was being attacked – primarily because she already knew that she had made a mistake and was going to make up for it and hated being called out for it – especially by someone who was effectively a total stranger to her.
The man’s aura completely changed in an instant, with anger now drowning out every other emotion in a torrent of flames.
“The world is dangerous, so why not take a child to get killed in a dungeon where I too might die?! What kind of arrogance is this?! Is your sense of responsibility of care so immature that you didn’t even think twice before potentially leading a child to their death?!” The man asked in a loud, furious, and exasperated voice, the earlier calmness completely vanishing from view.
“I didn’t know that the dungeon’s monsters were going to be as strong as they were OK! Everything was nothing like I’d expected.” Amanda shouted back, her anger at being attacked again and again kept on growing. She knew she had been in the wrong now. She was going to make up for it once Lucas recovered, so why did this man feel the need to shout at her and say such nasty things about her?
Of course she cared about Lucas! He was one of the first things she’d thought about when she’d woken up from her painful disoriented slumber. How dare he suggest she didn’t care about her own son, especially after his own actions had contributed to the boy being in danger in the first place. She couldn’t hold back her words, and she began laying into the man in front of her. Partly out of anger, partly out of guilt.
“Don’t you dare say I don’t care about my own son!”
You have no idea what we went through in that dungeon!”
“While you were off frolicking in the forest, I saved Lucas’ life from a ginormous wolf, and then I saved him from being killed by the dungeon boss!”
Arthur looked visibly shocked by the first statement, then stumbled backwards at the last one. The young man next to him moved to keep him from tripping up.
“I see now. While my boy and I were fighting desperately for our lives, you were off finding a replacement for him because he dared disobey you once! You are just as tyrannical and foolish as Albert said you were!”
Amanda spoke the words with such venom that even she was surprised by them. She didn’t know where the words had come from. She didn’t even believe them. She’d only spoken them in an attempt to hurt the man in retaliation for how hurt she had been by his words. And judging by the man’s paling sombre face, she had succeeded.
A disturbingly large part of her was satisfied upon seeing the man’s pained face, but a smaller, more authentic, part of herself regretted her words instantly. “I… I” She tried apologizing, but as if the drug helping her talk had run out, the words just wouldn’t escape out of her mouth no matter how hard she tried to let them out. Something within her just wouldn’t let her do it – it was as though dark invisible tendrils stitched her lips tightly together.
A long terrible silence swallowed the room until the man spoke. His voice was remarkably resolute despite his shaken facial expression, “I see now that coming to see you was a vain pointlessness. Good day.”
And with that, Arthur Goodman and the young man that accompanied him left the room through the door that they’d come through – Amanda saying nothing in response.
Their interaction had lasted only a few minutes, and yet she knew that she’d made a poor showing of herself. Even though she sincerely felt like she didn’t deserve another’s criticism, she had crossed the line and she knew it. She’d said words that she couldn’t physically or metaphorically take back, and now the future of her son having a semi-regular family life was in jeopardy because of her.
Fuck! She screamed at herself in her own head, before quickly collecting herself and taking a deep breath. What was done was done. She’d make up for all her wrongs later, for now, she had a number of important priorities.
Firstly, getting out of bed. Secondly, finding where Lucas was being kept. And finally, restoring her lost cultivation – something deep within her told her that she would never again be whole or powerful if she didn’t. The mere thought of being weak now sent powerful shivers down her spine. The Lich had taught her the price of weakness. As had the encounter with her child’s grandfather.
She needed to be strong. That was final.
----------------------------------------
Swirling smog sullied the otherwise picture-esque landscape beyond the palace balcony.
Lord Pollox had always admired the beauty of his home world, its flowing azure blue rivers were not only pleasing to the eye but they were even said to have birthed from their depths the very first lifeforms in the long distant past. However, the last few millennia of imperialism and occupation have done much to destroy what beauty had once existed.
Long ago, it was Pollox's ancestors who ruled the stars - unchallengeable and all-powerful. The armies of the Amean Empire had liberated quadrillions of planets from poverty and slavery, all so that Amea, the spiritual capital of the empire, could remain pure and free from the taint of technology and "civilisation".
However, just as Aphosis, the implacable enemy of existence, is said to never appear in the same form twice. Times changed and the empire that had existed for thousands of eras began to fall apart. The weak-hearted and vicious began to grow in number and in prominence. Schemers and fools began to fill positions of power, chasing out the noble and the virtuous. The empire began to lose sight of what it was and its true divine purpose and it began to collapse.
Vultures and turncoats thus had their sacrilegious feast - tearing Pollox's ancestor's empire apart, taking large swathes of the known multi-verse for themselves in the vainest attempt to satisfy their endless greed and self-interest. A glorious empire brought low by the forces of evil both within and without.
"My lord?" A timid male voice spoke from behind him.
"Yes, Geoffrey what is it?."
"N...news from the capital has arrived."
Lord Pollox turned around and looked at the man behind him in the eyes - giving him a harsh glare.
The man gulped before correcting himself, "I meant news has arrived from Hergalexy, my liege."
"What is it?" Lord Pollox scoffed as he turned back around and looked out of the window.
The man placed a sealed letter on the desk and said, "I'm not aware my lord. This servant was told by Master Veo that I was not to open the letter and only to hand it straight to you, my lord."
Pollox nodded, then commanded, "Leave my sight at once. Slave."
The man bowed deeply before almost running out of the office. Pollox only smirked at this happening, before he walked over to his desk and cavalierly sliced the letter open and began to read its contents.
The usual reason that his beloved husband Veo sealed a letter was because it contained... sensitive photographs. So, Pollox was naturally quite excited to see what was held within, however, his excitement was quickly replaced by unquenchable rage. The letter was not a lewd picture of his husband's body, instead, it read:
Dear my beloved husband,
I have some dire news to share.
The conniving Lord of Quasor has informed the Imperial Capital that he has reached the 1st step of the [Saint] realm and this terrible news has been confirmed by my own spies.
To make matters worse, The Grand Emperor has already chosen the man's reward - the opportunity to host the Crown Prince's 10th birthday party.
Rumours are abundant but from what I can confirm, the Lord of Quasor has been trying to break through for the last few years in secret. This was seemingly always the Grand Emperor's plan. It seems that Man found a way around your blockade, my love.
Yours truly,
Veo.
"Damn you Francis!" Pollox roared as he threw the letter to the side. This was not the news he wanted to hear. The opposite of what he wanted to hear in fact.
Lord Pollox took a deep breath in and then a deeper breath out. With his mind cleared of emotion, he knew what had to be done even if he was suspect of those he'd have to work with. However, with the bastard of Quasor now doing his best to buddy up to the emperor, Pollox had no other choice. He'd work with the Epolians and their not-so-secret Abyssal sect backers this one time, even if just for the opportunity to see that bastard's face as his hopes of outshining Pollox were crushed before his very eyes.
The chance to see that haughty fox-like face scrunch up in horror and liberate Amea from the Imperium's rule at the same time sounded like a good enough reason from his point of view. Now all he had to do was get his servants to coordinate with the Epolian brotherhood - what a bother that would be.