If he hadn’t been in his spiritual form, Tilly was sure his heart would have seized up from terror. The weight of the figure's attention surrounded him blanketing his mind in numbness and then began to squeeze, overwhelming his soul with instinctual fear. Tilly’s flight stuttered to a stop as a silent scream tried to escape through his gritted ghostly teeth. The figure was still obscure, but as Tilly stared in growing dread, its eyes began to shine with a dark intensity.
Tilly couldn't tell if it was moving or not, but its indistinct features began to sharpen as the sounds of battle grew closer. Then the small part of Tilly that was still cognizant of his surroundings realized that he was involuntarily floating back toward the battlefield and the cloud roiling above it. The compulsion was as undeniable as gravity, and Tilly felt himself falling toward his doom. All the while, those eyes grew like twin stars of darkness, filling his vision... becoming his new reality.
Then a clarion call rang out from the wall, one so high and pure that it cut through the white noise of dominance that had fuzzed Tilly’s mind and robbed him of all agency. Both his attention and thankfully, the figure's, shifted to the wall, whose gates exploded open in a surprise countercharge.
The gates reaped hundreds of enemy lives as they went from impenetrable to unstoppable in an instant, mowing down or flinging away anything in their path. Tilly couldn't help but flinch at the thunderous clang the three-story metal doors made as they slammed to a stop against the walls that barely held them on giant swinging hinges.
Behind them, a stream of combatants took the field charging through the recently made space and taking full advantage of the shock of their enemies to cut through their decimated front ranks and deep into the heart of the Strigoi offensive. Leading the charge was a wide variety of ghostly warriors, ranging from pale-looking humanoids to barely visible specters.
Simultaneously, the ranged attacks raining down from the wall suddenly multiplied, bursting forth with embedded magics. Fire, wind, and even spectral blades tore through the press of bodies just beyond the charging Whyte counteroffensive, softening their opponents further and removing the possibility of a rally.
With the weight of the figure's presence gone, Tilly could suddenly think again and his fight or flight instinct redoubled. He had never been more sure of his need to flee a fight in his life. He poured everything he had into getting away from the battlefield, burning through whatever added spiritual agency the white flames had given him. There was no way he would survive that thing's attention if it bothered to look back at him.
In those moments it held his gaze, it had owned him, heart and soul. The loss of all of his control with just a glance from this new enemy filled him with a certainty of his own inferiority. Against something like that, he was well and truly over his head. It hadn’t been like last time with the red-eyed figure… there had been no struggle, just a silent, terrifying end to his will. Struck by a sudden thought, he desperately checked Corruption’s Influence on his HUD.
Corruption’s Influence: 38%
It had barely been boosted by the other creatures' will…
He released a silent sigh of relief as he tore through the air as fast as he could following the face of the mountain range. Tilly wondered if the figure had even used an Ability or if the gap in their power levels was so overwhelming that someone with Tilly’s low Wisdom was virtually helpless before him.
He risked another glance back, making sure to focus only on the wall and the conflict raging before it.
The Defenders had cut a huge wedge into the attacking army, killing thousands as they completely demolished the front ranks of the Horde. But the Whyte offensive had slowed significantly as it approached the area covered by the chaotic dark cloud. Its influence rolled forward, pressing against the ghostly blue barrier attempting to hold it back. Under the returning corrosive influence, the effectiveness of the attacks from the wall halved.
His view was slowly blocked by the curve of the mountain range and he turned forward hoping to still accomplish his goal before it was too late. Before him stretched the river, snaking off through the flat plains and just up ahead were the powerful falls that fed it, thundering through a break in the mountains a couple of hundred feet up.
At this point, the white flames that had covered Tilly’s body had diminished to only a few patches and his speed decreased incrementally as he approached the falls, ascending to its top. He angled his flight to meet the barrier where it hovered above the water and slowed to a stop, floating before it.
In his spirit form, the magic of the incredibly large spell was fascinating to see up close. He took a moment to marvel at what looked to be a tightly woven net of runes, exceedingly intricate and barely discernable even with his heightened sensitivity to mana in its base forms. The lines of arcane text slowly crawled through the pattern, causing a shimmering shifting in the ghostly blue lace of enchantment.
He reached out and touched the barrier, and found it as strong as steel against his spiritual hand. A little jolt traveled through his arm at the contact, and the faint song of the Flower became more audible for a moment.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He watched a faint ripple run through the magic in all directions, shooting off out of sight. Nothing else happened that he could see, so he decided to stick with his plan and slowly sunk into the deluge of water pouring out into the plain. His wince of hesitation relaxed into a smile as he entered the water and found that it passed through him with no resistance. In fact, as he fully entered its flow, the last pieces of flames burning on his form strengthened and grew, covering his shoulders and arms like a mantle. While the water was just water, hidden in its flow was something of significant spiritual weight that seemed to revitalize him spiritually.
The song had grown even clearer in the center of the water’s outpouring, and Tilly suspected that the roar of the water would have been deafening in his physical form, but the way he was now, it was relegated to playing in the background. Surrounded by water and the growing sweetness of the song, he stretched out his hand a second time. His vision was obscured by the flow of the river, but as he reached forward, his hand was still arrested by the impenetrable barrier.
‘Even underwater?’ He thought to himself in disappointment. He was about to pull his hand away when he felt a ripple roll through the barrier and sink into his spiritual form, mirroring what had happened when he first touched the barrier but in reverse.
‘Come little brother, we do not have much time.’
Then the resistance before him was gone, and he hesitantly flowed forward, finding the way suddenly clear. As soon as he passed, he felt the barrier close in behind him, and it may have been his imagination, but the movement seemed sluggish and stuttering, like turning on the lights in an old building.
As he moved past the barrier, he felt the weight of another kind of attention close in around him. It felt distinctly fluid and wild and Tilly suddenly got the impression that he was somewhere he did not belong.
Following instinct more than anything, he shot up out of the waters, feeling the weight of that unwelcome attention lift as soon as he removed himself from its domain. There, past the mouth of the falls, he found a curving path cut through the mountains by the river. Without hesitating, he shot forward, following its curves and taking full advantage of his partially restored spiritual flames to streak forward as fast as his form would take him.
The river narrowed and broke off as he progressed, dividing up into hundreds of different tributaries from which it received its water. After cutting around several bends, Tilly emerged through the mountain range, gaining a view of the valley he had seen, what felt like ages ago. He left behind the river which cut back through the range at an angle and floated forward, suddenly hesitant.
The song rang out here, just as clearly as it had the first time he had visited this valley, and even with the terrifying pressures and obligations he now carried on his shoulders, he felt the weight of their urgency lighten slightly. He flew over the trees, skimming their tops excitedly, now that he had finally made it back.
He cleared the top of the tree line in minutes and the sight of his objective hit him like a physical blow. The Flower and the rising crescendo of its song were heady and overwhelming, however, when juxtaposed with his recent burst with the leader of the Strigoi army, Tilly couldn't help but compare the two for a second. The Prime Dirge’s power had dominated him, crushing all resistance before he even had time to realize what was happening.
In contrast, the Flower and its song did nothing to snuff out his will. It was more than a force of nature, its power undeniable as it flooded the valley. Yet it demanded nothing of its spectators, offering its gift freely. The Flower’s beauty was continually being poured out, made even more alluring by the fact that it was… vulnerable.
Tilly longed to approach it, feeling deeply attracted to its physical presence, but at the same time, felt a fiercely protective instinct rise up in him as he realized that the sole objective of the chaotic energy that suffused the Prime Dirge was to twist this power into something completely different.
At some point without realizing it, he found himself on the same hilltop he had visited the first time, lost in the layers and nuances of the Flower’s song. Revelations about reality itself seemed to be playfully hidden within its melodies and time took on a strange dreamlike quality in its presence.
Then the sound of a deep sigh drew Tilly’s attention to his right and pulled him back into the present. Looking over he found Thunder Descends leaning on his hammer and taking the same sight wistfully.
“When I united the tribes of my peoples, I was insatiable in my appetite for more. I wanted the greatest treasures of this Plane for myself… I was arrogant and my pride spelled my doom. But my desires for great treasure lived on, and part of me continued in this form. I was looking for something I could not name, but knew I had to find.” He slowly pulled his gaze away from the flower and met Tilly's eyes.
“My new people found this place long ago, and to our wonder, we discovered that proximity to this Facet allowed us to act out memories of our predecessors many times before they faded. It has been the treasure of our culture for a thousand years, and each of us swore to protect it once we joined the city and learned of its presence.” His smile fell as the solemnity of their situation sank in, even here at the heart of the hidden valley.
“Now the time of our stewardship comes to an end. I heard the charge of my brothers and sisters and their courage calls to me. It is now time for me to break the pride of another arrogant heart.” He declared, straightening and looking back west, where the city lay on the other side of the mountains.
“Wait, how do I obtain the patronage of the Flower? How do I even get back here in my real body?” Tilly all but shouted as he realized this was going to be another abrupt end to a conversation with the huge Whyte.
Thunder Descends rolled his shoulders as he looked off into the distance, his frown turning fierce as he considered his opponent.
“I believe one of your party has something that will grant you a boon from Old Man River. Take it to him, and he will help you to reach this place. As for the rest of your quest…” He trailed off, turning back toward Tilly and pausing before continuing hesitantly, “I can’t say I know. But there is a seed in your party, and that is a good start.” He finished, cracking a smile as if that was everything Tilly needed to know. Then he hefted his hammer, and the sight of its sigil-inscribed head made Tilly’s ghostly jaw ache.
“Now, I will send you back to save you some time. I do not think your presence has gone unnoticed, and the blood drinker has come to contest your claim. You must hurry.” He stated, his eyes narrowing in concentration as the head of his hammer began to thrum.
“Wait, I need more information! ... And what are you doing with your hammer?”