They returned to the landing after dragging the defeated draugr’s body up ten 180-degree rotations and placing it on the outer side of the steps. As Josh had explained, they would likely have to run up and down a few times if their plan worked. But Sen pointed out that the body might get in the way. He didn’t want them to trip over it and “profane the ritual.”
Once at the bottom, they saw, as before, that the melee draugr stood in front of the archers. And, again, the undead moved to intercept them. The draugr had learned from past events. Instead of walking, they started running very, very fast. The immense strength of their undead bodies gave them incredible acceleration, which they seemed eager to use.
Fortunately for Josh and Sen, upon showing their faces, they had already started running to the planned ambush point where they had killed the first draugr in the last battle. Or, as Sen had learned to call it, they pulled the melee warriors. The ambush point was two complete rotations up the stairs. Sen was their rear guard, but even with fully enhanced legs, he sensed he was becoming overtaken approximately two-thirds of the way up!
But... things were a little different for Sen this time as well.
After ten stairs, he turned, placing his feet in a wide stance to intercept the first draugr. Sen ducked under one arrow that had been fired from below and skidded along the smooth and rounded marble sidewall of the stairway to become a threat. They were also showered by the shattered shards of a second arrow that had hit farther down and not stayed intact. While partially crouched, he raised his short sword and straightened up, waiting for his target to round the corner.
Fully vertical, Sen adopted the high-held Roof Stance to attempt a decapitation. However, his interface had another recommendation. A flashing yellow up-swinging line indicated for him to draw his blade from right to left out of the Fool’s Stance, starting in a low position and building momentum.
Fool Stance projection estimates a forty-seven percent increased likelihood to disable pursuing draugr over Roof Stance.
It added no additional explanation.
Sen blinked at being vetoed. But after eons of trusting his Combi, he quickly adopted the recommended stance and swung his shoulders and hips to affect the strike. The first attacker rounded the corner, sword drawn, chest and head leaning forward. Sen’s Essence-enhanced strike sliced it through the left shoulder and chin, finishing by cleaving its head free on a diagonal. The top portion of its skull followed the course of Sen’s sword, smearing the sidewall with black blood and the putrescent foulness from the draugr’s split skull. The now dead-dead draugr’s body continued with its momentum and crashed into the wall behind Sen before it fell to the floor.
Redirecting his enhancement to his legs, Sen cleared the still-falling body in a single leap and continued to the planned ambush point. He already sensed through their Bond that Joshua was waiting as planned. Running up the steps, Sen smiled as the next pursuing draugr momentarily slowed down to get over the fallen body but followed Josh’s draugr-cognition theory of aggro by continuing up.
* * * * *
With his enhanced hearing, Josh heard Sen confront the draugr and hightail it out of there. He could also tell the archers had continued to advance their position as their arrows kept skidding along the rounded walls behind Sen. Things only picked up speed from there.
In less than a blink, Sen flew past Josh and nodded. ~Incoming! Your turn.~
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
The sounds of dry, undead feet scrabbling up the stairs as the first draugr cleared the last bend in the stairway came to Josh’s enhanced ears. As the tip of its sword came into sight, Josh brought his club down in an honest attempt to smash its helm straight through its navel. Josh’s enhanced strength ended the draugr’s final existence. However, despite dispatching the draugr, physics wasn’t on vacation. Its body continued moving forward under the power of its rapid momentum. Josh was bowled over as it slammed into him and knocked them both to the ground where they slid to a stop, the broken body of the undead resting atop Josh’s prone form. Putrid fluids from the creature’s shattered head dribbled fetidly into his face, hair, and eyes.
The stairway went silent. Footfalls from the remaining two draugr archers were the only sounds Josh’s enhanced ears could hear as he struggled to push the rotted husk off of himself. Sen had flashed back down the turns in the stairway and offered him a hand.
Despite the stinking undead sap that had soaked into him, Josh couldn’t keep the smile out of his voice as he rose to his feet. “I love it when a plan comes together!”
* * * * *
A subdued pop and suddenly cascades of alternating hues of azure light filled the dark of the quiet cavern. Refracted light from the end of the visible spectrum and beyond danced over the polished surfaces of uncountable crystals studding the rock surfaces of the large space whose roof arched overhead several hundred meters. While almost everything was blue-tinted due to the source of the light being that wavelength, several dozen crystals in the cave defied the illuminating light and gave off their own golden-orange glow.
Three pairs of red eyes on three very different heads snapped open as the sleeping legend snapped to attention. A double pair of lion’s claws instinctively flexed from their sheaths and the pike-tipped horns of a goat bristled as the glowing ember of a fiery death formed in the back of the tail-mounted dragon head’s throat–
But that was as far as even the chimera’s unfailing aggression moved it. Then the single body and all three of its heads froze in place like a child caught sneaking into the pantry for a before-dinner snack. “Immortal…” all three heads mumbled submissively in ancient Greek as they nodded once and then lay back down. The Lion’s head closed its eyes and seemed to go back to sleep. The dragon’s head-tail coiled around its folded feet protectively. Clearly the leader, the central-back mounted goat head stood tall on its neck with eyes wide open at what the intruder was going to do.
Obviously, the chimera’s Aural sight had seen through the Clone’s fractalized EM shielding to the kernel of Zenyak’s Ka. A power source that would seem immeasurable to it. The power differential required that the chimera back down and serve his superiority. Still, the Clone nodded back in respect once as well. Cavern of Gaia’s Earth Crystals or not… He had just translocated unannounced directly into her bedroom.
“Is that your preferred side of the cavern to sleep and eat in?” The goat head nodded once in confirmation, its rectangular pupils never leaving the Clone’s eyes.
“Apologies for this… But I do have Gaia’s permission, and I can't have you eating the surprise.”
The Clone waved a hand, creating a transparent barrier of blue-white energy sealed off the back three-quarters of the cavern, leaving the remaining 25 percent adjacent to the barred door open for his purposes.
The goat bleated in annoyance at the partitioning. The Clone rolled its eyes at its mental transmission. “... Well, I did apologize before I did it…” The Clone pointed, indicating the chimera’s section of the cavern. “... And what are you really complaining about? You have the largest portion, don’t you?”
The goat head bleated again, but certainly less strenuously. Likely realized there was nothing it could do to stop the Clone and had only voiced its rights for possible reassertion at a later time. The Clone nodded with a tight smile to the chimera and then got back to his business, pulling the genocidal harvester’s cores from the dark hole that appeared before him and leading to the small dimensional pocket they were stored in.
He replaced the Immortal core. The reincarnation wouldn’t be needed for Zenyak’s and the Clone’s purposes. But he held up his physical iteration mortal core to eye level and studied it for a moment. It had been modified in a not-uninteresting way. Clearly designed to allow transference of mortal Essence directly to his Immortal core for immediate use without the usual necessary requirements of purifying the mortal Essence for an Immortal Ka core. The modifications would allow access for immediate use of mortal Essence and presumably large amounts of power– assuming the user had access to vast oceans of mortal Essence– which, of course, the soul harvester did. But it would ultimately result in the corruption of an Immortals core and loss of their Transcended state from pollution damage from mortal impurities that cultivation required hundreds of thousands of Ka Nexus rotations to remove. A quick and dirty tool for power-hungry idiots with no forethought of the consequences of their choices… The Clone dismissed the modifications from his thoughts.
It was also linked to the mostly filled Essence collection array in a disturbingly permanent way. The Clone could dissect it off… but that would alter the spirit still trapped inside the core and foil his entire purpose here. That will not do… Brundox’s memories and motivations must remain intact to meet my needs…
A lock using mortal Essence would prevent access to the energy reserves in the array and still preserve the spirit within it. Without contaminating it with Immortal Ka …Which could complicate things. The Clone quickly applied it.
Only one thing remained—a suitable vessel … The minuscule skittering of insectile legs over the polished stones of the cavern brought a wolfish smile to his free-flowing fractalized features…