The Dark Lord of Crafting

The vast, dark hall beneath the mountain had begun to fill with light. There weren’t enough torches in Mount Doom to illuminate it fully, the pens occupied a space larger than several football stadiums, but I was still dropping them down the center as we went. Esmelda, Gastard, and I also had Shadowbane torches tied to our waists. The weaker mobs couldn’t get close enough to attack us, but that didn’t mean we were safe.

Gastard’s sword flashed with white flame as he sidestepped a charging troll, opening a wide wound along its flank. It roared its anger, its fist crashing into the floor where he had been standing a moment before, and took an arrow to the eye from Esmelda.

I raised my shield in time to block another arrow as it lanced out of the darkness of the next pen. It wouldn’t have hurt me, but Esmelda’s armor wasn’t as powerful as mine, and I’d stepped in front of her to intercept the missile.

“Who gave them bows?” I complained.

We were up against every variety of mob I’d ever faced, all at once. So far, it had been the hollows that proved the most dangerous. They were smarter than the bestial mobs, capable of strategy, and though I’d never seen them use ranged weapons before, apparently, they had them.

The troll went down a moment later. A small host of zombies stood between us and the line of hollows firing bows.

“At least they make things interesting,” Esmelda said, pulling back her string and firing into the crowd of monsters.

“You were worried about being bored?” That was not the attitude I expected from her. She was willing to fight, but it wasn’t as if she relished the violence.

“Not me,” she sighed, “Gastard is having the time of his life.”

Our Knight of the Realm launched into the horde, cutting a path through the zombies to reach the skeletal mobs. It would have been faster for me to go around swinging the buster sword to deal with massed enemies, but part of the reason we were down here was to give Esmelda and Gastard as many level-ups as possible, so they needed to be the ones doing most of the killing.

More flashes followed, and the hollows surrounded him, but I didn’t want to leave Esmelda’s side to help. A varghest lunged within the circle of our light, and I drove Caliburn into its skull while she continued to fire arrow after arrow. I’d given her a supply of enchanted ammunition, and she was using it to set the zombies on fire.

They didn’t appear to enjoy the treatment.

Watching Gastard fight was a little terrifying. He’d always been skilled, but his class was making him superhuman. His attributes weren’t as high as mine, but I wouldn’t have wanted to duel him. Though I’d offered him a shield, he wasn’t using one, and he didn’t suffer for the lack. He liked to be able to alternate his grip from one to two-handed as he flowed through different stances, altering his style of swordsmanship from moment to moment.

Still, the hollows were scary in their own right. He had to cut them apart to put them down, and they were better fighters than most soldiers I’d seen.

A sparkling red potion appeared in my hand, and I lobbed it over the zombies into the melee. It exploded on contact, a crimson flash of positive energy. Two of the hollows collapsed, whatever darkness that animated them banished in an instant. Gastard didn’t even pause.

You could add the splash effect to a potion by brewing it with gunpowder. Thanks to Fladnag, I had a healthy supply of the deflagrant ingredient, and it was even better than grenades. The Potion of Harming was no good, it hurt people and healed monsters, at least monsters that came from Bedlam. Healing, however, harmed them, and had the added benefit of doing its normal job for any humans who happened to be in the splash radius.

A few minutes later, we had finished cleaning out the pen.

We worked section by section, slaughtering mobs. In my first days on Plana, even a single zombie had presented a deadly threat, and now they were nothing but fodder. A part of me regretted killing all these mobs. Having had demons on my team for so long, I’d gotten used to thinking of the monsters as a resource. There was something deeply satisfying about having trolls do your dirty work. But I couldn’t control them like Bojack had.

The wyverns were an exception, sort of. I’d been feeding all the monsters in the aery long enough for them to be under the influence of my Tamer skill. I was confident I could ride them, but they were still dangerous. We couldn’t use them as freely as we had when they were under the direct control of a demon. Still, it made me wonder if we couldn’t keep a couple of mobs for my personal use.

Zombies were out. I didn’t want them even if they could be tamed. Hollows were too smart, they didn’t count as beasts, and the skill hadn’t worked on trolls. Voidmen were odd, less aggressive than other mobs, but they wouldn’t eat out of my hand, and I had no idea how intelligent they were. That left the varghests.

We’d been killing them as we went, but near the end of the hall, there was a cage with one inside that stood out from the rest of his species. Still a wolf-horse, but his fur was white, and he was noticeably larger than the others had been.

“What are you doing?” Gastard demanded as I tossed a hunk of troll meat through the bars of the cage.

“I want to see if I can tame him,” I said. The varghest had growled as we approached, but he wasn’t leaping at the bars, and he tore into the meat as soon as it was within his reach.

Gastard grunted in disapproval. “It is a creature of the shadow. A blight on this world. It should be slain.”

“But isn’t he kind of cute?” I said as the monster swallowed a hunk of troll. “They’re basically dogs, right?”

“Even if it can be tamed,” Esmelda said, “it would burn away in daylight. What would be the point of keeping it alive?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Noivern’s gone. I could use a new mount. Maybe I could cover him in a tarp or something.”

“We can get you a dog,” Esmelda said. “Stop trying to befriend monsters.”

After a lengthy debate, I was outvoted. The varghest died, and we continued clearing the pens. There was only a single vorokai to be found, but along with the one we had killed during the battle in the throne room, I had plenty of eyes to use for Invisibility potions.

The hall grew quieter as the day went on, and eventually, it was silent. We stood in the last pen, surrounded by fallen mobs, and Esmelda was reading her screens.

“My Woodcraft can’t advance anymore, pending an assessment,” she said. “I’m almost at level thirty.”

Gastard was lower level, he’d invested a significant portion of his experience into his favored weapon. It was a more limited form of enchantment, but his sword was already more formidable than anything I could have crafted for him. It had taken me a lot longer to reach the point where the System would assign an entity rank, but I had been spending my experience as I went along, and dying had reset my progress. Having an army of monsters to slay at hand hadn’t hurt their progress either.

“Have you gotten any notifications about your other skills?”

“No notifications, but Architect has gone up as well,” Esmelda said, switching tabs, “It happened while I was having a conversation with Zareth about Henterfell and King Egald.”

“What was the note for Architect?”

“This skill allows you to organize resources efficiently in order to design unique structures.” She read aloud. “I wonder if the goddess had something in mind other than buildings.”

The System’s parameters couldn’t always be interpreted straightforwardly. The word “architect” suggested physical structures, but maybe the skill applied to societal structures as well. Esmelda’s class was all about being a ruler, not a crafter.

“I have been exchanging oaths with members of the garrison,” Gastard said, cleaning his blade. “Oathsworn has advanced, and it presented me with a new penalty.”

He wasn’t looking at me, but there was no reason for him to bring this up if he wasn’t open to talking about Kevin. Without a stronger curse, we couldn’t risk letting him out of his cell. I didn’t want Gastard to think I was overeager to work with the former Dark Lord, or that Bedlam’s taint was influencing my decisions, but I needed his knowledge.

“What is it?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

“Paralysis,” Gastard sheathed paused as he examined his blade, and then sheathed it. “Its function is unlike that of the Curse of Weakening. You should read it for yourself.”

He summoned his screens.

<<<>>>

Achievement: Font of Law (2)

Your actions have brought you closer to the heart of Harmony. New Oath Curse unlocked.

Curse of Paralysis

Those who attempt to violate their oaths will be forced to pause in their wrongdoing. While under the effects of this curse, an entity will be unable to move, granting them the opportunity to reflect on the nature of their choices. The duration of their paralysis will be calculated according to their rank relative to that of the Knight of the Realm to whom they are bound. Repeated offenses will result in increased penalties. A cooldown period of one day applies to the triggering of this penalty.

Only one curse can be applied to any given oath.

<<<>>>

I’d never seen Kevin’s status screens, but I knew that he had at least passed the assessment stage even if he wasn’t higher than an E-ranked entity. Gastard was weaker than him, so the curse would have a reduced effect, but it was still exactly the sort of condition I’d been hoping for.

A Curse of Weakness didn’t stop you from breaking your oath, it started a countdown toward total incapacitation. This version was both more and less effective as a preventative than what had been inflicted on me.

Bojack had ordered me to not even plan to attack him. Because Weakening was an ongoing effect, that was a solid impediment, but I still could have stabbed him on a whim if I knew where the oathblade was and destroyed it before the curse took me out of commission.

“It sounds like it would stop him from pushing me off a cliff,” I said. “But only until he snapped out of it and tried again.”

“He cannot be trusted,” Gastard tapped off his screen. “No curse could ever make him an ally, or cause him to be worthy of forgiveness.”

“I’m with you there,” I said, “but Kevin is still a resource. And if we have a way to use him, we need to use him.”

Esmelda surveyed the damage we had done, the mounds of fallen zombies, the smoking ruin of an Voidman. Her gaze traveled over my new armor, the spikes and spines, settling on the tips of my claws poking out of the ends of my gauntlets.

“Since killing Berith, have you felt any change?” She was keeping her voice level, but I could tell she was holding back. She was more afraid of me losing myself than of any mob or demon.

“I think the atreanum protects me,” I said, “but my pick is half broken, and there are a lot more demons. The place in Bedlam where I mined it before is tapped out, though, and I wouldn’t go back there even if it wasn’t.” We couldn’t afford for me to be trapped in a time sink again, or expect the goddess to get me out if I was.

“I will take the cost,” Gastard said. “It is no more than my duty to this realm.”

That wasn’t a solution, it was sacrificing one of my friends to save me. Gastard could kill a few more demons without turning, but from what Kevin had told me about the history of heroes on Plana, it would end with him becoming something worse than what they were. If we were going to purify the world, we couldn’t bank on the three of us holding out against Bedlam’s taint until the job was done.

“I can use his portal,” I said, “see what’s on the other side. He might have more atreanum there, or maps to help me find it. If I go alone, you two can keep the mountain safe.”

“You can’t go alone,” her voice was on the edge of panic, “not again.”

“He has to have a base over there,” I said. “I don’t need to go beyond it. I can just see what’s there, and come back and talk it over with both of you.”

Gastard ran a hand over his armor, there were cracks in his chestplate from the hollows. “I agree that you should not risk yourself in the realm of shadow. But we cannot ignore the windfall that may lie beyond the gate. I could accompany you to be sure you do not act rashly.”

“If anyone goes with him, it would be me,” Esmelda spoke quickly, and then frowned, realizing a moment too late that by saying she was accompanying me she was accepting that I would go at all.

“Very well,” Gastard said, “a brief sojourn for the both of you and then we discuss this again.”

***

Kevin’s portal occupied a cathedral of its own. Light poured in from windows in the ceiling, it was likely the first time the chamber had been properly lit since its construction. The clouds had cleared over Mount Doom, and the sun had claimed its peaks. A circle of obsidian, identical to the portal I had crossed through once before.

“How do you wake it?” Esmelda asked, standing beside me on the dais.

“A few drops,” I drew Caliburn across the meat of my palm. It was so sharp that it required no pressure at all, and I barely felt the cut. Blood welled up, and I let it fall onto the obsidian. Esmelda breathed out a small note of surprise as the air split open in front of us.

Purple or something my mind was telling me was purple; an eye opening into chaos. Fuzzy pandemonium, a mad whirl of alien energies, eerily silent.

“It smells like death,” Esmelda took a step back. She was right, a heady scent of decay flowed out of the portal.

“You don’t have to come with me,” I said, “I’ll come right back.”

“No,” Esmelda took my hand. “I need to see the other side.”

My storage ring was full, and so was my pack. Kevin had to have built himself a base in Bedlam, it would have been crazy not to, but it couldn’t hurt to be prepared.

“Maybe I step through first by myself, and then dip back when I know it's okay so we can explore it together.”

“The goddess sees us.” Esmelda didn’t let go of my hand. “I don’t know what waits beyond, but I won’t have you leave me again.”

We walked through together.