Ori ducked under the whistling swing of a mace only to be rewarded by a knee to the face that smashed-in his nose.
Landing heavily, he blinked watery eyes as he stared at the face of his doom, a towering undead knight clad in blacked steel who was raising its mace in preparation for a killing blow. Inexplicably its head exploded under the weight of a war pick, rotten gore spraying out between gaps in its crumbled helm.
He stumbled onto his feet, head down, shield up, one foot after… A swing of a war hammer smashed into Ori’s shield, his body twisting off his feet with the strength of the blow as the shield was ripped from nerveless fingers. Without thinking, Ori rolled just in time to avoid a follow-up blow before finally catching sight of his assailant, yet another undead knight, this time missing an arm. It jabbed the butt of the hammer far faster than Ori could react, the shins of his leg catching the blow, meanwhile, Ori could feel an aura of dread and necrotic energies seeping the life from his limbs.
‘Ori!’ Sera warned, as he felt the cool presence of Beacon of Wisdom wash over him once more, and suddenly, Mana was wrenched from the air as Ori cast Purifying Light from his shaking hand.
The knight was blinded and seemingly dazed, skin from his face singed, flaking off in layers, however beyond the superficial damage, the spell had been far less effective than Ori hoped. Still standing, the monster shook its head to clear itself as Ori stumbled away, unable to regain proper footing in the sucking mud. Blind and now enraged, the undead elite swung wild horizontal swings Ori could barely dodge in the press of individual melee’s happening all around him. Just as Ori ran out of room, Baker once again came to his aid, his war pick blocking a fatal swing, then smashing into the side of the monster once, before reversing his swing to bring the weapon down on top of the abomination's skull.
Before Ori could scream ‘look out!’, a hulking bone knight smashed Baker dozens of feet into the air, his body cartwheeling out of sight. A yellow dome rang like a bell, the newest horror so focused on pounding at it to reach him that it didn’t realise the danger before a liquid inferno bathed it and the shield dome in fire.
Ori squinted against the blinding light, a mix of awe and trepidation gripped him as he feared the collapse of Cordelia’s dome amidst the cacophony of fire, louder than any jet. Once the deafening roar subsided, Ori cautiously opened his eyes to a circle of charred earth and ashes. Behind him stood Cordelia, alongside the newly revived Terresa. For a few surreal moments, the clamour of battle seemed strangely distant, despite their recent clash with Eltitus’s main army and the breach of their infantry line by a relentless tide of enemy champions, clearly bent on one specific mission.
Ori struggled to stand, his footing unstable on the mud-covered ground. A stumble revealed a patch of skin beneath the mud - fingers, a palm, a wrist. He glanced at it, recognising the human remnants, then looked away, too numb to think more about it any further.
He stumbled away, then gathered Mana and cast Lesser Restoration on himself, rightening his nose, fixing his shattered arm and relieving the pain of several bruises, he looked up to see the two B rankers share an unreadable glance before Terresa shot off in loping strides far faster than any human had a right to run. Just as he was about to join her, a hand on his shoulder held him back.
“Hold specialist, they’ve made contact with Eltitus’s honour guard.” Baker said, his presence shocking in its suddenness. Ori turned to look towards where the most concentrated of the fighting took place. He could see Captain Craig's blue flashes of fire, while Lady Jasmine hung back, no doubt casting protective and support magics. Meanwhile, the black steel-clad Grace Knight calmly waded into the melee after brutally beheading an undead elite.
Ori stood and watched, heard and felt the battle waged around him.
Aurora danced over the sky, the stars and the celestial horizon doing little to mask the death and the dying before them. Exhausted and relieved that his part to play in this conflict was coming to an end, a kernel of trepidation grew as he waited for events beyond his control to play out. Here, he desperately wished he had the power to make more of a difference, that he could just smite Eltitus from a distance, ending the threat without all the death and nonsense.
Terresa had joined the fray, her napalm fire was super effective against the bone giants that made up the honour guard. They swung swords that were more blunt slabs of iron in wild cleaving slashes even as their extremities charred or bubbled like hot wax under the coating of magical fire.
‘That fire is terrifying,’ Sera said.
‘Yeah, what affinity is it? Seems to be doing a job on these undead? And is it stronger than the blue fire?’
‘Emberlux, a Greater ranked fire affinity I believe she’s mastered to initial comprehension. As it is, it’s very effective against multiple opponents, but Captain Craig is a prodigy, he’d just risen to Sovereign without Grace, and although his blue fire though of a lesser rank, has been mastered to a much higher level of comprehension. Despite the age and level difference, now that Terresa and Craig are red mages at the same rank, I am unsure who would win in a duel.’ Sera added as Ori watched the battle unfold. He saw as the two red mages breached the elite bone giants, pushing them back before flanking around them to keep the tide of lesser undead at bay.
As the wall of twelve-foot, armoured skeletons briefly parted, Ori caught his first sight of Eltitus.
He sat on an armoured war horse far larger than any horse had a right to be and made even more imposing by layers of armoured steel. Eltitus matched Bartholomew’s measured steps as he calmly dismounted from his steed, a grey, tattered cape wafting gently behind him as a tall, gaunt figure dressed in battered links of mail rested the head of a massive double-headed axe on the ground. Even from a distance of no less than sixty yards, there was a tangible weight to his presence, a gravity that could be felt from dozens of yards away and as his eyes as dark as pitch cast their gaze over all creation, the surrounding desolation appeared as a natural extension of his will. At that moment, Ori was reminded of the Spear King within the Maker's dreamscape. Jagged and gaunt, callous and cruel, willing to use all tools, commit any acts, all in service to its ultimate goal: the subjugation of all and the annihilation of any that resist.
While the battlefield’s many conflicts continued, with fire and light suppressing the tides of lesser and elite undead, the world seemed to hold its breath as the Grace Knight, High Black Mage, met the White Lich. As they moved, Ori caught energies beyond mana, swirls of concentrated Grace drawing from far away into a swirl that centred upon and empowered the knight. With every breath Eltitus took, another energy swirled from the ground in opposition to the energies gathering in his opponent, meanwhile aura’s unfurled, their strengths and ranges strangely muted, as if suppressed by the Astral Sky overhead.
It was at that moment that Eltitus fixed Ori with a stare. Despite the distance and the lack of any words or facial expressions, Ori felt his malevolence and the lethal promise contained within.
In a blur of movements that reminded Ori of the giant he’d had the misfortune to meet in the last trial, the Grace Knight moved. Covering dozens of meters in a step, his great sword swung a horizontal slash that was casually parried. Through Mana sight, swirls of magic were cast seemingly simultaneously, each spell clashing, dispelling, cursing or protecting the other. In a single breath, a dozen physical exchanges had taken place while the swirls of paracausal energies built. Each blow condensed water vapour from the air in concussive shockwaves that echoed their tightly controlled movements amidst the makeshift arena. The ground trembled and mud danced upon the concussive beats of each blow.
Meanwhile, more of the giants melted and burned under Craig and Terresa’s fire, the rest of Eltitus’s host unable to brave the conditions underneath Ori’s aura or the attentions of the few thousand troops remaining. He wanted to ask Cordelia and Baker why they couldn’t join in and help turn the tide, surely three on one would give them better odds. And yet, Ori knew that if he was left alone, even the distance wouldn’t be enough to protect him from a single of Eltitus’s spells.
“Can you tell who’s winning?” Ori asked aloud. Neither Baker nor Cordelia responded, their expressions tight, their gazes locked on the battle ahead. Ori tightened his grip on Seraphine seeking reassurance in its heft.
‘It doesn’t look good, does it?’ Ori asked internally.
Sera’s tone was pensive as she replied. ‘No, it does not. As a mage, Eltitus should be weaker than he appears in a physical conflict, as it is, it seems he can match the Lord of West Arragat in a head to head melee.’
‘And that means what exactly? He’s stronger than you all thought he’d be?’
‘Yes.’ Sera replied.
‘Fuck’sake.’
The battle between Eltitus and Bartholomew intensified as Lady Jasmine provided additional support from a distance. Ori could almost see the multiple layers of silent, deadly conflict and realised why Lort Bartholomew was likely the only Sovereign Rank combatant that could go head to head against the Lich. The competing aspects of Mana as they were aligned into spells before clashing and exhausting themselves, the swirls of corrupted lifeforce and breath vs the never-ending tide of grace, and beneath it all was a spreading sensation that seemed to unfurl itself as the duel progressed, one Ori could barely pick up on and might not have been able to had this duel occurred the day before.
Unlike the other unseen forces, however, this one progressed uncontested.
‘Do you see that?’ Ori asked.
‘Ori, we s-should…should go. I don’t think…’ Sera said hesitantly. The admission hit Ori harder than expected and for a long moment, he found it hard to think let alone form a meaningful reply. While he felt a measure of defeat, it was the sorrow of watching his friend's courage abandon them that was the true source of heartbreak.
‘Are, are you sure?’ Ori asked, torn between wanting to cut his losses and run, versus the consequences of abandoning her mother and sister to their fates. Ultimately, it was the thought of needing to go through with Sera’s ‘plan B’ that edged him closer to abandoning Astoria.
‘I… don’t think we can win, and you, you are special Ori, and shouldn’t die here.’
In the battle before them, things started to change, the cadence of combat shifted, blows came slower, landed heavier, the air seemed to burn with Mana so much that even without Mana sight, a heat haze temporally warped the scene. The sensation of creeping power crystalised into something solid and simultaneously the two sisters gasped.
‘Domain.’ Sera whispered in horror.
“How!?” Cordelia hissed as Baker's expression grew grave.
Metaphysical chains sprung up from the ground snaring everyone within the circumference of the duel. The Grace Knight strained against the bindings just as Lady Jasmine decisively hacked off her left foot before leaping clear of the domain that sprang out from Eltitus in a spherical radius of at least twenty yards.
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Captain Craig and Lady Terresa weren’t so lucky.
With a glance, their flesh withered away into desiccated husks before what was once skin, muscle and bone blew away as grey ash in the wind.
“Get him out of here! Back to Astor. I’ll do what I can to hold him back.” Baker said before turning towards the rest of the army and shouting. “Full retreat!”
Baker strode out beyond the projection of the dome, his measured stride in opposition to the chaotic disengagement of the Astorian troops who were now in a state of total rout.
“Come on!” Ori felt Cordelia’s grip around his chest and knew that even if he wanted to go somewhere else, that was no longer an option.
Looking back with Mana Sight, Ori could see the moment Eltitus approached the Grace Knight, his iron grip crushed around Lord Bartholomew’s throat as a storm of competing magics momentarily clashed before another Sovereign ranker’s body turned to dust.
Terror swallowed Ori’s heart as he realised that not only were their bodies consumed including all the paracausal energies within, but somehow, Eltitus was shredding and feasting on their souls. It was in that creeping sensation from just before things went wrong, he had felt something similar ever since his soul-crafting, that second skin or sense of touch beyond his mundane senses. It was his awareness of his own soul that allowed him to sense it faintly in others, and now as an entire Domain aspected with a soul-like affinity sprung up, a chilling understanding dawned.
Except it was too late, far too late.
The protective shield dome shattered and before Ori knew what was happening, he found himself spinning through the air before landing heavily in the mud.
‘Ori! You must banish yourself from this realm.’
‘Already tried, can’t.’ Ori said, lifting himself. He felt Eltitus's domain settle over him freezing his movements with the same invisible shackles that rose from the ground. A head, he saw a raised axe.
‘No!’ Sera gasped.
Ori acted. Despite being unable to move and with all unaligned Mana within the uncontested domain under Eltitus’ control, latent Mana within his own body and the steady trickle from his Wand still responded to his will. It was enough to cast one last-ditch spell.
Death Ward, technically a spell from the school of necromancy, created an anchor between one's soul and body allowing the target’s soul to remain intact and on the same plane of existence as their corpse for a duration that varied with the amount of Mana channelled into the spell and the casters talent.
Unable to prevent Eltitus from burying his Axe into Cordelia’s chest, Ori could only hope someone was left to revive her if they could survive what was to come.
Unsurprisingly, that modest piece of spellcraft did not go unnoticed by Eltitus. Still unable to move, Ori’s arms wobbled under the physical strain of remaining in the plank position for an eternity.
‘What can we do? Do you think my domain will work?’ Ori growled internally.
A chilling silence settled over their bond, at first Ori feared it was Eltitus’s domain, but then he could sense Sera’s presence, her fear, her despondency, her defeat.
‘Hey, Sera. It’s okay. I… I’m happy to have known you. I’m glad we tried.’
‘Harumph! An apprentice shouldn’t be comforting their master. Ready yourself and wait for my command.’
‘Plan B?’
‘Yes, as you call it, it’s time for plan B.’
“A summons, a mortal at that. And yet…” A slow, cold raspy voise murmured. Ori was lifted effortlessly, a rock-hard grip combined with the intangible shackles binding him, made movement beyond breathing impossible. He was held so that his feet dangled a foot off the ground, his face nose to nose with the architect of this war. Eltitus’s black pupils seemed to swallow reality. He had an aged, unremarkable face with a goatee of long wispy hairs, his voice was oddly cultured, but his eyes were like blow torches cutting into his soul despite their utter blackness. “That they sent you instead of a celestial… what secrets does your soul possess I wonder?”
‘Ori, now!’ Sera shouted. and then reality slowed to a crawl.
Resonance of Battle Harmony linked their minds, however this time, Ori felt a deeper connection; her scattered thoughts and emotions, the intensity of her will, even the precursor to her actions appeared to him as cresting waves of intent. He swam within the emotional tide, Sera’s fear and disappointment churning with pride, love, and a righteous determination that seemed to outshine all other emotions combined. Sera drew upon the artefact's Mana before the familiar pulse of Beacon of Wisdom settled over Ori’s mind.
There was a flicker in Eltitus’s eyes in the distorted runtime of his enhanced perceptions, but before he could take further action, Ori attempted to unfurl his Domain.
‘Ah, it all becomes clearer now.’
There was a moment of confusion after Ori’s awareness had been drawn into another featureless void out of step from reality. Like the time he had soul-bonded Seraphine, here he had no physical presence, no sensory information beyond the knowledge of another presence. This time, it was the newly familiar voice, he could hear his antagonist’s quiet exasperation and the spike of danger that was Eltitus’s Nascent attack pressing into his soul. Intermittently, he felt a pressure trying to break free, like a child's hand attempting to wriggle out of a closed fist. The fear and anxiety over what was to come should have been overwhelming, and yet Ori was momentarily distracted.
It was like when a boy first learns that he has strength and discovers that reserve of power over himself, his environment or another. Through the trials, Ori had often wondered how another, more qualified person from Earth would have faired. Would a special forces soldier trained in combat and survival be in a better position right now? What about an Olympic athlete who had trained all their life to be the physical and mental elite of humanity? Weren’t their strengths greater than his own? Were not the very strongest, fastest, smartest, bravest people from his world more worthy than he was?
While he could not answer those questions now, his understanding of the scale of his strength became startlingly apparent.
‘Like a fly to shit, it seems I've been inexorably drawn to a trap fate designed specifically for me. Knowledge, its seeking is my strength, to know what is, what could be, to learn from the very souls of those I devour.’
For despite all of Eltitus’s experiences, the breadth and scale of his talents, knowledge and countless other characteristics, in this battle of Will’s, only one of the things that made up what a person was, was relevant.
It was because of these factors that for the first time he could truly assess how one of his advantages measured up against someone who had risen far above most. In this context, Ori finally understood how he broke free from Mel’s paralysis and almost escaped. He could finally accept Freya’s wisdom on the nature of Will’s, he could comprehend Crucible’s and the Maker’s assessment of his talents, how Sera's life was valued against the potential of his own, or how even against someone whose power could otherwise turn him to dust with a glance, there was one narrow path to survival.
‘With that knowledge I prepared contingencies against Celestials and Seraphs, against the unlikely interferance of Elven Arch Magi, Immortal’s and even the descent of Divine avatars from higher realms. What I could not conceive of, what no one could, was an aberration of fate, a mortal with a Will that defies all common sense and runs amock over the confines of imagination.’
While Eltitus's presence within this space was significant, it was like comparing a bath to an Olympic-sized swimming pool when compared to his own. The voice grunted under strain as Ori lightly flexed his metaphysical fist, his awareness only now focusing on the cool, calculating dissertation of his adversary.
‘And so fate sought to humble me by using an unknown summons torn from the furthest reaches of providence as the nemisis I could not foresee, before pitting us against each other in precisely the only challenge I could not counter.’
The reality of the situation returned to Ori with a cold bucket of anxieties. Despite his mysterious affinity and an Iron Will that granted him a chance to fight for survival, Ori was still set to pay a cost far too steep. He lingered in this sub-reality, ostensibly to glean more from his foe's ramblings while a not-too-small part of himself came to terms with premeditatively killing another living, human being for the first time. As he procrastinated, Ori noticed the nature of Eltitus’s demeanour change, his voice growing sharper, colder and more menacing.
‘But, what happens next I wonder? Do you really think a domain wielded by a mere whelp can harm me? Do you really believe all of fate's conspiracies enough to end me!?
‘Did you know, even here, I can feel them? Your bonds, I will reach them and before I deal with you, I’ll rip their souls from their shells and make you watch while I devour them.’
A laugh tore into the darkness.
Though tinged with a hint of mania, this was no cackle from a scheming psychopath. While Ori thought the villain's monologue was hilarious, it also delivered a spike of purpose, one his soul sensed as the birth of a newly emerging trait. Through careless words, Eltitus had launched a signal flare over a lake of gasoline, and with it, Ori’s rage turned incandescent.
‘You stupid dickhead.’ Ori laughed and with a flex of will, the void turned white.
Backlash from the collapse of Eltitus’s domain turned the once penetrating eyes cross-eyed and dazed. With battle harmony still active, Ori wasted little time summoning Seraphine before plunging its tip into Eltitus’s left eye with all the force he could muster.
Ori roared as he used all his power to force the wand deeper as he truly came to terms with the insane constitution of a Sovereign rank mage. His left hand wrapped around Eltitus's head in a gesture that might have seemed intimate in another context. He used his new grip to enhance his leverage as brought the wand out of the eye socket and reared back to jab again, he roared with the full weight of his will stabbing the crystal shiv again and again. Meanwhile, light and Mana coalesced into the wand through his domain in preparation for Sera’s final spell. It glowed white, amber subsurface light visible through flesh as the tip broke past the orbital bone and sunk deeper into the Lich’s skull. Any normal mortal would have died at this moment, but on the cusp of immortality and with extensive knowledge of the soul, Ori suspected it would be no trouble for Eltitus to remove the artefact and heal himself despite having a debilitating brain injury.
A spike of emotions flooded Ori through his bond with Sera, there was fear, acceptance, resolve, fury, and also a pride and belief in Ori. One that made him feel just how certain she was of him being able to deal with whatever came next.
And then Lady Seraphine of House Serilian’s soul detonated, and with it, Eltitus’s skull exploded propelling Ori through the air. He landed in a heap, his face covered in milky gore. Due to the explosion and how he landed, he was too winded to spit out fragments of brain and skull. Like before, he could feel the flood of Peritia but this time, instead of his Wand being the prime recipient, most rushed towards a gaping hole where his bond should have been.
Before the shattered fragments of Eltitus’s soul could disperse or return to its phylactery, Ori held it along with all of the Mana escaping Eltitus's corpse with the power contained in the final moments of his domain. His Soulcraft affinity now aspected the nearby battlefield under a shattered sky, as rage and vengeance aspected his mind. He tore at the soul of his enemy just as Eltitus had taunted he would do onto him, he imagined the Maker’s blast furnace vaporising what was left, and while he did not have the affinities to call upon flame within his faltering domain, his flagging awareness was enough to pull in Astral and Celestial light, empowering a Purifying Light far beyond the bounds of the spell.
For several heartbeats, a second sun dawned on the battlefield, vapourising cloud and annihilating the presence of death or corruption in a radius of two miles. Those who were sick or corrupted were now hail, while undead souls enslaved by the Lich’s magic were freed from their profane bonds.
The soul of Eltitus the Ravager, White Lich and scourge of Astoria, sizzled until only particles of memory and lesser essences remained. They floated in the air like tiny stars over a silent grave. Here drifted an entire existence four ranks greater and almost ten thousand times more powerful than a single mortal man, refined into solitary motes of light.
It was only Sera’s lingering belief in him that forced him to unclench trembling fists, and will those soul fragments into himself as, despite the distaste, Ori would not refuse the power. He would need all that he could get for the days to come if he had any chance of accomplishing what he now knew he must.
He could feel his soul change once again as he absorbed them but was unable to examine the phenomenon as the backlash of his collapsing domain forced him into a dreamless sleep.
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Ori woke with a start.
Looming over him were the concerned gazes of Lady Jasmine and Lady Cordelia. He sat up in a gasp, fighting well-meaning protests to lie down and be calm as he scanned his environment.
He turned, around to see woods, less than a thousand men camped in a grassy clearing, and no undead in sight. He should have been relieved, but all he could feel was the hole in his soul.
“Specialist. You're safe. Ori!” Cordelia said as she sought to hold Ori’s scattered attention. “What happened?”
“Baker?” Ori croaked, asking of the man who had saved his life multiple times.
Lady Jasmine shook her head. “After the undead fell, I could only revive Cordelia, I found you several yards from Eltitus’s corpse, I didn’t get to see what happened beyond the light, just how in Seraph’s name did you defeat Eltitus?”
Ori ignored her, as he summoned the shattered remains of Seraphine onto his palm.
“What happened?” Cordelia repeated, this time more softly as Ori’s gaze remained fixed on the broken shards of crystal. He looked at her then, scanning every feature of her face just in case it would aid in fiximg the hole in his soul.
Driven by spite and grief, Ori’s gaze hardened. He refused to allow them the ignorance to whom their salvation was owed. “Get home and save your mother. I need to go save your sisters soul.” He lingered long enough to see her emotions transition from confusion to doubt, then incredulity before finally settling on horror.
And then Ori sighed and left for the final trial.