“Time to die.”
[Daemon Autarch] Melpomene cinched tight the strap of her raven skull helmet and grinned into the room’s looking glass. She lifted her darksteel flamberge, [Audacity], from its pedestal in her dressing room and casually spun it through a dazzling combination. An amateur might think the movements were deadly and graceful, but any expert would recognize her forms as nothing more than impractical showboating.
Once she was done with her slashing and jump-kicking — accidentally cutting more than a few of her hanging garments in the process — she sheathed her blade and approached her firearms case. From within, she removed her pair of gold-plated handcannons, [Subtlety] and [Discretion]. She loaded, cocked, uncocked, twirled, holstered, unholstered, re-twirled, aimed, mock-fired, re-re-twirled, and finally re-holstered the dazzling and deadly works of art.
She then re-unholstered them and did it all over again, this time making little ‘Pew Pew!’ sounds with her mouth.
She tucked knives into the faux-leather boots beneath her greaves, strapped pouches of ammunition to her belt, and loaded poisoned needles into the spring-loaded compartments of her gauntlets.
Her personal preparations for her final battle complete, she turned again to the looking glass. She took one final look at her immaculate ensemble of weapons and raven-stylized darksteel armor… and frowned.
A knock came banging from the door. “Autarch Melpomene!” her right-hand Daemon called. “They’ve fallen for plan D! The bulk of the Solarian infantry has been lured through the gates and into the killbox. They are falling by the hundreds, but their [Hero] is still nowhere to be found!”
“Come in, Eurymedon,” the autarch replied. “I require your counsel.”
The door slid open to reveal a blue-skinned willowy figure, two meters tall, with six arms, four legs, and a dozen eyes ringing their cylindrical torso. The advisor spoke again with one of the thin, lipless mouths that crisscrossed their form. “What counsel do you seek, my [Liege]? If it concerns the [Hero], I find it most likely he and his [Tactician] have fallen for contingency six and are currently sneaking through the fake sewers of the palace, en route to the ritual chamber.”
Melpomene made a face beneath her beaked helmet. “Really? They fell for that contingency? The one we planned as a joke?” She shook her head in exasperation. “Daemons don’t even shit! We had to import the sewage! A sewer system in a Daemonic palace screams, ‘Hey, I’m a trap! Enter, and meet your demise!’ Are you sure that’s where they are?”
“I too found it hard to believe, but they tripped one of my alarms. I also maintain perfect awareness of the entire palace except for the ritual chamber and a small pocket of space protected against scrying. The pocket is traveling through the sewers at a Human’s walking pace, and it is also of sufficient size to cloak our missing duo. Shall I flood the tunnels with lava as per the plan?”
The raven-armored [Liege] thought for a moment then shook her head. “No. It’s impossible for them to be stupid enough to fall for such a simple trap. It’s more likely that the [Hero] isn’t in the sewers, and that the anti-scrying field is nothing more than a red herring meant to fool us into believing we’ve found him. If the real [Hero] were in the sewers, he and his party would use a different scrying shield that doesn’t leave such an obvious footprint. The fact that whoever is traveling through the sewers fell for an obvious trap, tripped your alarm, and is practically broadcasting their location leads me to believe that they are just a decoy.”
Eurymedon’s form jiggled with enlightenment, literally vibrating as their metaphorical world was shaken. “My [Liege]! You are a genius! How could I have been so thoroughly deceived? They wish us to believe them to be idiots so that they may strike from elsewhere, catching us unawares! Still, would it not be best to flood the tunnels? Even if whoever is down there is simply a distraction, wouldn’t it be best to eliminate them?”
“The Tactics of Thanatos, Eurymedon! Chapter one, truth eight! How did we just lure the Solarians into a killbox? Have you learned nothing?”
The advisor recoiled as if struck, but quickly collected themself. “‘War is deception,’” they quoted. “’To control your enemy, you need only control their perception.’” They hung their head in shame. “I am a [Daemon of Eyes], yet I could not see such a simple truth! They want us to flood the sewer tunnels, but why?”
Melpomene did naught but raise an eyebrow, as if curious why her advisor hadn’t already figured out the answer. Sure, they couldn’t see her raised eyebrow through her helmet, but that was besides the point.
It took only a few seconds, but Eurymedon again widened all twelve of their eyes in realization. “The caldera!” they exclaimed. “If we flood the sewers with lava, the caldera will drain!” The advisor turned dramatically to point in the direction of the volcano, but due to their radial symmetry, the dramatic effect was diminished.
The advisor’s eyes all began shimmering violet as their six arms twisted in strange, tutting motions. With a flash of purple light, a holographic map of the area sprang into existence. It spun slowly between the two, displaying both the terrain and the battle in real time. Within the sewers, there was a moving ball of blinding light that did obscure whatever lay within… but it was also a moving ball of blinding light.
True to Eurymedon’s report, the Solarian infantry were being slaughtered en masse, having been lured into a false inner bailey and separated from their ranged support. A few units of those overpowered [Tier IV] [Solar Cannons] were still bombarding the outer walls from afar while a pair of [Tier V] [Luminous Titans] were being kited by Melpomene’s own [Tier IV] [Wyvern Riders].
There were also six units of [Tier III] [Solar Knights] sitting around doing nothing but guarding their army’s [Tier V] [Omnimancer], but for some reason the [Omnimancer] was kept too far away from the action to actually cast any spells. Letting the [Solar Knights] do nothing was understandable since grounded melee cavalry were pretty trash in a siege, but Melpomene couldn’t understand why they would waste an [Omnimancer] like that.
At only a glance, Melpomene could discern that her troops were winning the siege battle, but that wasn’t her main concern. The battle would be meaningless if she couldn’t protect the ritual chamber.
“The palace was built into the side of the volcano, and the ritual chamber is tucked away deep within the palace’s depths,” Eurymedon said, pointing to the chamber in question, a room surrounded by rock and lava near the heart of the volcano, connected to the palace only by a single hallway. “Normally, that chamber is the hardest to reach, but if we flood the sewers by draining the caldera…”
“Then all that will stand between the [Hero] and the ritual chamber will be a single wall of enchanted stone,” Melpomene finished. “They aren’t skulking through the sewers. They’re hiding in the volcano, waiting for us to fall for their counter-trap and drain the lava. If they have a way to bypass the soul barrier, they could breach the chamber wall and stop the ritual within minutes, too quick for us to react. They’ll win without needing to fight.”
Melpomene shook her head. “I’m no genius,” she muttered. “I’ve fallen for the [Hero]’s ploys at every step. He brought useless cavalry to a siege to make me believe him an idiot. He sacrificed his infantry to increase my hubris and lower my guard. He sent a decoy into the sewers so that I would spring a trap not on him, but on myself.”
Melpomene rested a hand on one of Eurymedon’s many shoulders and looked her advisor in one of their eyes. “I’ve already lost, old friend. I lost before the battle even began. I thought we were fighting a war, but no, we were simply acting in a play. The [Hero] fed me my lines at every turn, and I gobbled them up every time.
“Chapter one, truth eight, Eurymedon. ‘War is deception. To control your enemy, you need only control their perception,’ and he’s been controlling me from the beginning.”
Tears welled up in the eyes of her Daemonic friend. “But my [Liege]!” they protested. “Since we know this is a trap, can’t we avoid it? If this is a play, let us change the lines! If we don’t flood the sewers, the [Hero]’s ingenious trap will fail!”
Melpomene laughed bitterly, tears forming in her own eyes. “Doubtless the [Hero] has already anticipated our revelation. If we don’t spring this trap, some other plan of his we can’t fathom will come to fruition, and we’ll die without knowing what killed us.”
Eurymedon sank to all four of their knees and began crying in earnest, a ghostly chorus of lament escaping their myriad mouths. Only one of their mouths managed to form words as the rest wailed in remorse. “Is it really so hopeless?”
“Hopeless, my friend?” Melpomene removed her raven skull helmet, revealing a defiant smirk beneath her tear-reddened eyes. She looked almost Human, because that was the form she’d chosen — sharp jaw, blue-grey eyes, and short black hair. If not for her sapphire blue skin, it would be impossible to tell she was a Daemon.
“Chapter seven, final remark six!” she yelled, summoning the last of her bravado. “’Any wise coward can avoid an ambush, and any brave fool can fall to their opponent’s schemes... But to walk knowingly into a trap only to emerge victorious? There’s nothing more badass!’”
Eurymedon’s cries slowly diminished into sniffles. “You believe we can win?”
“I am Melpomene! I am the fifty-fourth [Daemon Autarch] of the [Despoiled Legion]! Every one of my predecessors have failed to revive our god, and I may very well join their ranks, but if I am fated to die, then I’ll die defying fate to the bitter end!”
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
She again donned her helmet and looked at herself in the mirror. Staring at the grim, black-clad figure, she finally figured out what bothered her with the look.
“My [Liege], I have failed as your advisor. You called me in to disperse counsel, and yet I have only received! Forgive me, my [Liege].”
“Do not fret, Eurymedon. All these years, you have been invaluable to me. I could not be where I am today without you, and I’ll need you for the rest of my life, no matter how brief that life may be. Even now, as I prepare for the end, I still require your guidance.” She pointed to her own figure in the mirror.“This new armor is too edgy! This next battle may be my last, and I refuse to die looking like an angsty octogenarian!”
“But aren’t you an octogenarian?”
“I am, but not an angsty one!”
Eurymedon nodded, which due to their anatomy consisted of them squishing their central column up and down. “Then I know just what to do!” They extended one of their arms, stretching it like a glob of slime, and grabbed a light crystal from the wall. With three of their six arms, they began grinding the crystal into dust over Melpomene’s head while the other three arms cast a modified version of the [Tier III] spell [Amalgamate].
Usually, the spell was used offensively to meld together an enemy’s equipment, flesh, and organs into a uniform primordial soup, but with the modified version, Eurymedon was able to incorporate the crystal dust into Melpomene’s armor. Within one minute, the [Daemon Autarch]’s armor began to glitter with colored lights. Blue, purple, pink, and white all shimmered against a backdrop of the deepest black.
The change was only aesthetic, but suddenly Melpomene was no longer a raven-skulled harbinger of death, but a herald of the night sky.
“Eurymedon, this might be even edgier than before… but I love it.” She pumped both fists into the air. “I’m angsty and I’m proud!”
Eurymedon trembled at their [Liege]’s praise. “No matter how this final battle turns out, it has been an honor to serve you.”
“It has been an honor to lead. In two minutes, flood the sewers,” Melpomene commanded. “I’ll await their ambush alone in the ritual chamber, before the shards of our deathless god.”
“Please, allow me to join you!”
“No, Eurymedon. We may be winning the battle of troops for now, but if I fall, our people’s souls will become untethered. They will need a new leader. They will need a [Liege].” She paused, letting the weight of her words sink in. “They will need you.”
All of Eurymedon’s myriad lips quivered, causing their torso to ripple like water. They obviously wanted to protest, but knew the autarch’s words to be true. “May you find victory, my [Liege].”
Melpomene smirked. “Failing that, a legendary end!”
----------------------------------------
Arthur Kingsblood III — [Tier V] [Champion of Sol], general of the the [Solarian Courts]’ expeditionary defense force, lauded [Hero], and veteran of a hundred adventures — was wading through imported sewage. Every nook and cranny of his golden armor below the waist was filled with the pungent filth.
“I don’t know, Arthur,” his companion said, a [Tier IV] [Tactician] named Brandon. “I still say this smells of a trap.”
“No, this smells of shit. If you don’t have anything useful to say, just be quiet.”
“But think about it, Arthur! Don’t you think this is all a bit too convenient? We anonymously received a tip about an unguarded entrance to the sewers, and the sewers just so happen to lead straight to the ritual we need to disrupt?”
“I said shut up, Brandon!” Arthur shook his head and turned to face the worrywart. Brandon looked so similar to Arthur, they could have been brothers — same strong jaw, same blue eyes, same flowing blond hair, same impressive height — but in terms of demeanor, the two couldn’t be further apart. “I’m the [Hero], and you’re just my companion. What I say goes.”
“I know, I know, but have you considered that—“
“Sol damnit! This is why I hate you [Tacticians]! Always ‘consider this’ or ‘think of that.’ If we didn’t have to wade through shit, I would have left you to command the army and brought Morgan instead.”
“Wait, that’s why?” Brandon asked. Arthur winced, knowing he shouldn’t have let that slip.
Brandon continued, letting more than a little anger seep into his words. “You had Morgan, a [Tier V] [Omnimancer] with zero tactical experience lead your army while I, a [Tier IV] [Tactician], join you in the final battle, all because you didn’t want Morgan to wade through shit?”
“Of course not!” Arthur lied. What Brandon said was completely true, but Arthur couldn’t let him know that. Brandon wasn’t as Nice™ as Arthur, so he wouldn’t understand. The [Tactician] always chose what was ‘optimal’ over what chivalry demanded. Sure, Morgan also leaned toward the optimal choices, but she didn’t know what was best for her. As a Nice Guy™, Arthur needed to protect the lady at all costs!
“What I said earlier is true,” Arthur went on. “Her offensive magics could be of great aid to the troops.” Brandon didn’t have to know that Morgan was being kept safely away from the action, but what Arthur claimed was still technically true. “Besides, you worry too much! We are on the side of Sol! These demons don’t even have a god to back them, so how could they possibly win? Stop thinking so hard. This war was won before it began.”
“I don’t understand how you can still be so confident, considering how many times that confidence has gotten you in trouble.”
“Thank you, Brandon,” Arthur said, purposefully misinterpreting his companion’s exasperated words as a compliment. “I’m sure one day, when you’re as brave, heroic, and handsome as I, then you can be confident too.”
“Ugh, never mind,” Brandon huffed. “You’re brain’s as stagnant as this sewage.”
Arthur walked on, graciously willing to let the insult pass — for now — but he noticed that Brandon had stopped moving. He turned to face the disobedient [Tactician]. “If you’re too tired to go on, just—“
“Shut up!” Brandon yelled, and Arthur was so shocked by the meek man’s direct outburst that he complied. Brandon pointed his hand at the sewage in fear. “The sewage is stagnant!”
“Yeah? So?”
“The sewage is waist high and stagnant! It’s not going anywhere! This isn’t a real sewer…” He slowly looked up to his [Liege]. “I don’t think Daemons even shit…”
“Why would they build a fake sewer? You worry too…” Arthur let his words trail off as he heard a thunderous rumbling coming from behind him. He saw Brandon’s face go pale as his eyes locked onto something behind Arthur, and the whole tunnel began to glow red.
Arthur turned around just in time for a wall of lava to slam into his face.
----------------------------------------
Melpomene stood alone in the ritual chamber, ready to die.
In the room’s center was a raised dias atop which spun the seven slowly fusing [Shards of Aolyn the Deathless]. The azure shards glowed with power, casting the room in an ethereal blue light balanced out by the floor’s pulsing runic veins of volcanic radiance.
It was only a matter of time before her people’s god was revived. Either that, or the [Hero] would kill her and stop the ritual, again leaving her people all alone to fend for themselves, a nation without a god.
She didn’t want to admit it, but if precedent was anything to go by, Melpomene already knew which option was more likely. Facing the very real possibility of death, she laughed — not because she thought she might win, but because she knew she would die.
Something within her snapped.
She drew [Audacity] from its sheathe and slashed the air above her, a futile strike against the heavens themselves. “Gods are [Cringe]!” she screamed. “You’ve rigged the game from the beginning, you holy coward!
“Sol, the god of the sun, light, and justice? Ha! You know what we call assholes like you down here? You’re nothing but a bully! You’re the biggest kid on the playground, throwing tantrums to get everything you want!”
BANG BANG!
She fired two shots into the ceiling, cracking the stone. “Will killing me make you feel like a man, light-for-brains? Will striking me down like you did every one of my predecessors get that ‘holier-than-thou’ cock of yours hard?”
She reloaded [Discretion] and [Subtlety]. “Autarch Thanatos I, first Autarch of the [Despoiled Legion], killed by a bolt of lightning a moment before decapitating Champion Gregory II. I call bullshit!”
BANG BANG!
“Autarch Styx IV! Fifteenth Autarch of the [Despoiled Legion], drowned at sea by a freak typhoon, the night before she would have annihilated the Solarian forces with a masterful ambush. Bullshit!”
BANG BANG!
“Autarch Erebus VII, thirty-first Autarch of the [Despoiled Legion], victory stolen from his hands because an entire fucking army of [Solar Dragons] and [Seraphim] appeared out of thin air! Bullshit!”
BANG BANG!
“BULLSHIT!”
BANG BANG!
“BULLSHITBULLSHITBULLSHITBULLSHIT! AHHHH—!”
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG—!
Melpomene kept screaming and firing shots into the air until half her ammunition was gone. For all her rage, the only result was smoke and a cracked ceiling, but no response. Breathing heavily, the smell and taste of gunpowder everywhere, she unclipped and threw away her empty pouches of ammunition, replacing them with her pair of reserves.
“Ultimate power is [Cringe], too,” she chortled. “Imagine being a big old godly piss-boy and spending all your time picking on mortals. Don’t you have anything better to do? Doesn’t it get boring, winning all the time without having to try? If you ask me, it’s better to lose giving it your all!”
Melpomene shook her head. “I feel sorry for your champion. It must be miserable, having every victory guaranteed because of sky-daddy. Even if he wins without your intervention, would it even count? He knows you’re always there, looming over his shoulder, ready to come in and make all his effort mean nothing. He can’t even take a risk, because taking a chance and losing just means you’ll come in and force him to win. What’s victory without a chance of failure? Having no real achievements of his own, what does that do to a person?
“I don’t know how he does it,” she went on, talking to the empty room. Whether or not Sol even heard her words, she didn’t give a damn. “A tactical genius like him is wasted on you. He’s outsmarted me at every turn, faking incompetence so that I’ll fall for his traps. Too bad all his plans are useless, since you decided from the beginning he’d win no matter what.
“But I’ll tell you this, Sol! Even though I can’t win, I sure as hell ain’t going out like a chump!”
Melpomene had long ago realized that to go out swinging was the best a [Daemon Autarch] could hope for, but that was no excuse to give up. To make sure her end would be as epic as possible, she’d spent the last few decades raising her Evil™ army of Evil™ and collecting the seven [Shards of Aolyn the Deathless]. More importantly, she also spent that time rehearsing her Evil™ monologues and designing the five phases of her final battle. Phase four would have to be altered now that the caldera was drained of lava, but that was besides the point.
She felt more than a little guilty knowing she was leaving Eurymedon behind to lead the [Despoiled Legion] without her, but she was confident they would be an admirable autarch. They would lead their faction to unprecedented glory, Melpomene was sure, but once a few decades passed and Eurymedon came to the same realization as Melpomene — that is, if they hadn’t already realized the accursed truth — then they too would craft an epic finale.
The two would reunite in the afterlife. No one knew what the afterlife was for their godless people, but whatever it was, Melpomene was sure she and Eurymedon would fuck shit up!
It was in that moment — imagining herself and her best friend of decades conquering the wild unknowns of death — that something began to shift within Melpomene’s heart. She’d long known that victory was impossible, yet she desired it still. Now, however, faced with the end, she learned she didn’t fear death — that she never had, in fact. She still desired the revival of her people’s god above all else, but now there was a second desire she craved with near-equal passion.
An epic death. One final all-out struggle.
“I’m going to die the way I lived!” she shouted. “Like a badass!”
She prepared herself for phase one of her final battle, expecting the [Hero] to burst in through the wall, but instead, she heard footsteps approaching from the hall.
She could only smile ruefully. “I’ve underestimated the [Hero] yet again,” she said to herself. “Trying to predict him is like trying to grasp infinity. Even without Sol, I never had a chance to win, did I?” She chuckled at her own lack of foresight.
She might have been fated to lose from the beginning, but she wouldn’t go out quietly.
Finally, it was her time. She would die in glory, or die trying.
…Or live trying, she supposed.