RE: Monarch

The scent of blood and mildew hung heavy in the air. I held a small spark of violet flame in my hand, keeping it covered, trying to manage the light, so it only illuminated our immediate surroundings. My heart had been racing just minutes ago on our approach to the crypt, but now that we were inside, it was slow, and steady. I wore my anger like a wreath, allowing the umbra to erode and degrade any emotions that were no longer useful. Thoth was my enemy. My greatest foe. There was no need for moralizing, for consideration. The only thing I had to consider was the lives of those who followed me.

Rows of mummified bodies lined the long wide halls, their outlines barely visible in the gloom, a grim reminder of how easy it would be for my friends to join them. A grim reminder that I had no final resting place. If I failed here, the black beast’s point would be made, and I would be forced to relive that hopeless battle over, and over, and over again.

Vogrin returned with a hiss and a shimmer. I couldn’t make out his expression, but he sounded disturbed. “Nothing on this floor either.”

“Nothing?” I whispered back. We’d been making her way downwards for hours. According to Morthus, this place should have been teeming with corrupted monsters.

“There are signs of some sort of disturbance, large sections of broken rock and footprints, but nothing living,” Vogrin said.

I didn’t like that.

“Maybe she already left?” Maya called from behind us in a low voice.

It was possible. There was no way of knowing how much time we actually spent in the trials. But the dull ringing in my ears had grown from the smallest whisper into something I was confident was there. No, Thoth was here. The air around Vogrin shimmered, and he faded into the surroundings, departing once more.

An hour passed. The scent of blood grew so thick it was like breathing iron, mixed with something rancid, something wrong.

The question was answered when Vogrin reappeared. He didn’t speak, instead waving us towards a connected room. It had the look of a grand hall, complete with carpet and an overturned sculpture in the center.

“An odd addition to a crypt,” I said.

“Not necessarily,” Bell corrected. “There’s an altar there, and see this half-circle?” She pointed to a section of floor next to the altar, marked with half-circle bands of dark stones. “There would have been pillows here once, for the devout to pray.”

“This is a temple?” Jorra suddenly removed his hand from the altar.

“Was, perhaps, in simpler times.” Bell’s look of awe faded somewhat.

“Fascinating,” Vogrin said in a voice that implied the opposite, “but what I meant to direct you to is over there.”

I held my hand higher and nearly jumped. There was a collective gasp behind me. Two massive beings, humanoid and massive, laid in a heap behind us. They’d been butchered and were covered in burns and cuts. I drew my sword, and leaned down to inspect them further. They were massive, like the giants of old, wearing simple tabards. But red angry looking corruption covered their hands, making it look as if they’d been flayed, large black talons extending from their fingertips.

“Just like the mercenaries.” Maya’s hand glowed green as she bent down to analyze the bodies. “I am not familiar with ogre physiology, but I would hazard a guess based on what I’m seeing that their organs are all wrong too. They are not in the right place, and there are… Extras?” Maya turned her head to me. “Why would Thoth corrupt them only to kill them?”

“I don’t think she corrupted them. More than likely, these were corrupted by the leyline itself.” But that left the question of why she killed them. If Infaris was right, and Thoth needed to save her strength for what she had planned, wouldn’t it be more effective to simply avoid them, and let them out into the sanctum proper?

Thoth struck me as many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. She had a reason. Always.

The further we descended, the more bodies we found. The initial kills were clean, executed with brutal efficiency. But the more we found, the sloppier they seemed. A scaled red dragon laid decapitated, one of its heads cut clean off, the other hacked at until it bled out from its neck.

She’s getting tired. My blood ran hot, anticipation slowly replacing my fear. What if this was it? The ideal moment. What if I could live out the rest of my life and prepare for Ragnarök without this twisted psychopath biting at my heels? It was so unlikely, so hard to picture. A small feeling of elation crept into my chest beneath the simmering bloodlust, so rare and foreign I almost didn’t recognize it:

Hope.

The ringing in my ears grew into a roaring crescendo. We were close. So very close now.

“Found the leyline.” Vogrin hissed in my ear. The fear in his voice was gone. He was looking at the same signs I was, and drawing the same conclusions. “She’s at the leyline. Through here.”

We followed him through a gaping hole in the bottom floor, torn open by claws or something similar, the chiseled stone giving away to granite and dirt, a rickety ladder the only way down.

“Do you hear that?” Bell asked.

I cocked my head and listened. It was hard to hear anything, passed the ringing, but there was some sort of sound. High-pitched. “Maybe a corrupted monster? Something Thoth missed?”

Bell looked doubtful. “Maybe. I don’t know of anything that sounds like that.”

There was an ancient, stone bridge that crossed a chasm. Deep below, I saw it. An unending stream of orange mana. It looked like a braided river, threads of orange occasionally interspersed with strands of crimson and blue. It was undulating and hypnotic.

The corruption is already taking hold. It’s supposed to be blue. Pure blue.

Maya pulled me back from the edge. “You are taking years off my life, Ni’lend.”

“Sorry,” I said.

We crossed the arch carefully until we reached the other side, avoiding the tattered remains of a small colony of amethyst drakes. The high-pitched noise I’d heard earlier came into focus. It wasn’t an animal, or a corrupted denizen of the sanctum. It was a person.

And she was screaming.

/////

I found Vogrin at the base of an open chamber, watching beyond. He was leering, face twisted in dark amusement. He held a finger up for my silence, then pointed.

His gleeful voice resonated in my mind. “Your prey is at our mercy, master.”

The room was a massive grotto, the span of a small city district, if not more. The cavernous ceiling was supported by hundreds of dark pillars, thicker around than the trees of the Sarunai Islands. A dozen deep reservoirs filled with undulating mana led to a single shrine at the center of the room, where the mana pulled upward. Thoth was too far away to make out in any detail, but her slight form was recognizable even from this distance. A dozen thin, wispy figures circled the platform.

I called the air, forming it into an inaudible whisper to Vogrin. “There are guards.”

The demon chuckled in my mind. “Watch.”

Thoth pulled herself back onto her knees, faltering, arm swinging behind her to keep herself from falling backward. Then she plunged her hands into the center. A grunt, echoed up to us, followed by a moan, and then a scream.

I nearly moved forwards on instinct, intent on stopping her, but Vogrin caught my arm.

“Watch.” He insisted, pointing to the circling guard. The mana pulsed, the light growing brighter at the shrine itself and then the individual reservoirs. I noticed it immediately. There were two fewer guards. For that matter, the guards themselves were thin, almost exactly—

Like Thoth herself.

“They’re constructs,” I realized.

“More importantly, she is weakening.”

“What’s she doing to the leyline?” I asked.

“Something nefarious to be certain. What does it matter? It’s the prime leyline. Even a mage of her caliber would need weeks to make a dent. And in a few more repetitions, she will be practically defenseless.”

The screaming stopped, as Thoth collapsed backwards, cradling her hands to her chest. It was surely a trick of the mind, but I could have sworn I heard a sob. A smile spread wide across my lips, unbidden, and the umbra surged within me.

There was no need to wait. No need for a war. I could take her now, and find a way to end Ragnarök in peace.

We moved up slowly, using the pillars as cover. The others fanned out to the sides and I took up the center. There was a point where I thought she might stop, where her screams became too pain-ridden and laborious for any one person to handle. It took her a while, to go back to it. A reservoir of raw mana ran beside me, its color lighter than before, closer to yellow than orange, the wafting scent of ozone mingled with lilac burning my nose.

”Discendente.”

Sera’s knife, sinking deep into my gut.

My sister’s flesh bubbled as I ran across the snow-frozen grass.

My father, struck down like a dog, gurgling on the floor.

Dead eyes.

Fire burning, fuzing everything together.

Laughter

Thoth laughed.

SHE KNEW US AND SHE LAUGHED.

I could feel it. The way my broken sword would plunge into her neck, severing veins, tendons. How she would fall backward, choking on her own blood. The realization that after thousands of years and unlimited power, she had died to me, the one she held in such contempt. The delight, the wonderful, singing delight as the light left her eyes and she plunged darker, darker, and darker still, until there was nothing, and the lynchpin was sundered, and—

Someone touched my shoulder. I reached behind me blindly, grabbing someone’s arm and slamming them up against the pillar, my knife to their neck.

Maya grappled against me, holding my wrist, staring straight into my eyes, lips tight together to avoid making a sound. The screaming started again, as Thoth plunged her arms back into the mana. Her voice was raw and hoarse. Pathetic.

Maya held a single finger to her eye, then pointed at the reservoir beside us. Finding myself again, my body still vibrating with rage, I held the dagger down at my side and followed her finger.

The mana had raised in color again, from yellow to a sickly green.

It doesn’t matter.

Thoth was here. She was weak. I might never get this opportunity again.

“Kill her.” Vogrin urged.

Maya gripped my arm, pointing again. The darkness hounded me, demanding vengeance, demanding blood. I heard Morthus’s voice, resonating in the back of my head.

The only way to save yourself from the darkness is to ask questions.

Why?

Why was the quality of the leyline improving?

It wasn’t coincidental. Couldn’t possibly be.

Why was Thoth removing the corruption?

A million thoughts went through my mind, hundreds of pieces colliding, fitting together, rearranging. The hint that Infaris had given me, though I hadn’t recognized it as such at the time. Slowly, a working theory began to form in my mind. There were plenty of holes, but it was enough to start.

I gave Maya a single nod, then stepped out into the open around the side of the pillar. Thoth had collapsed into a heap, moaning quietly. Her hands were crimson, the skin, and muscle around her arms decimated, showing clear sections of bone.

“Cairn,” Thoth hissed, holding out her ruined hands for me to see. “This is not a good time.”

Every neuron, every nerve in my body shuddered at the sound of her voice.

“On the contrary,” I said. “Now seems like the perfect time.”

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