Disaster classes the cal.., p.38
Disaster Classes: The Calamitous Bob Book Five, page 38
The necrarch felt that the tide had turned as well. It crouched. A veil of destructive mana surrounded it, pressure building immediately. The fighters stood aside. Solar sheathed his sword and stood still. Viv recognized the skill from outside, but he needed time. Time, and an opening.
The necrarch’s attack protected it just as it increased in power, but it was inherently a pressure bomb, and the best way to counter it was to create an outlet.
“Bolt.”
Her attack connected with the envelope, barely disturbing its surface before new energy replaced the loss, but that was enough to understand how the outer shell was structured. She sent three Yoinks in three specific points and drained.
It was strange to drain a spell instead of an undead. The mana was just as thick, and yet it felt easier, less personal. The mana in the spell begged to be released. She was merely providing an outlet.
Pillars of destructive mana hissed out, darkening the room once more, yet at the same time the windup to the attack stopped.
The necrarch was not pleased. It roared in ear-shattering outrage, and Viv was once again happy to have included a sonic barrier in her shield. However, that was just the beginning.
The necrarch’s evil, crimson gaze locked on her.
Suddenly, it was much larger.
Suddenly, it was in front of her, punching.
Its claws were right in front of her face. Viv saw her entire life flash in front of her eyes, but a detail stuck out. Solar had completed his attack.
The necrarch threw its entire weight into the jab. Its claws hit the shield and stayed there while the monster itself finished turning. Viv realized why. The blademaster had cut its arm clean off, mid-lunge.
She still fell on her ass.
It was too much for the necrarch. With a last woosh of displaced air and a few parting attacks from her allies, it was gone through the tunnel.
Viv finished collapsing, her gloved hands sliding on the wet stone below. She breathed deeply, amazed to be still alive.
“I’m alive! I’m alive.”
//That did not look like a normal wound.
//Does your skill create lingering wounds?
“Give me a moment, machine, while I contemplate one of the most difficult fights of my long life,” Solar replied. He sat on his knees and meditated.
Sidjin approached Viv and patted her shoulder.
“You did well,” he whispered.
“I am… processing.”
“I believe I understand. I will be here if you need to speak.”
“Squee!”
We won!
Yay!
Just as expected.
“You were amazing during the fight!” Viv said, happy for the distraction. “I was so worried, but you did so well! You fought the nascent necrarch on equal footing!”
Arthur was left unimpressed by her observations. She aimed her thought with the frayed patience reserved for slow children.
Mother.
Of course.
Am dragon.
Arthur stood to her full height. On her hind legs, her head was now slightly higher than Viv’s. Teenager growth spurt, probably.
Those were not tears in Viv’s eyes. Just dust and also condensation. The caves were humid, after all.
“My little baby grew up so fast…”
Mother.
No crying in front of your lessers.
“Sowwy.”
Viv sniffed away her pride but still gave the deserved pats. The others were busy recovering and scanning the battlefield, so they had most likely not used their superior senses to eavesdrop. They were gentlemen, after all.
//Your Grace.
//Good news.
“What is it?”
//We have loot.
Viv watched Irao recover a large orb from the remains of one of the fallen. He wordlessly passed it on to Viv.
Monster cores were strange. She felt spiritual resistance when clutching the perfect spheres, yet her fingers felt nothing. No temperature, no texture, just an absence of physical feeling. This was offset by the incredible power coursing through the metaphysical construct. The core fixed to her dagger only had a fraction of the reserves in there, and it was not even full.
“Wow.”
“You’ll need a staff to carry that thing around,” Sidjin observed.
“This is a group effort,” Viv replied with some regret. “We share the reward.”
“Only one of us is a pure black mana caster, and you are also our employer. Normally, the treasure should be yours. Treasures.”
Irao brought back an early Christmas present: two more cores of similar size. She wasn’t sure, but she thought the price of those would be enough to retire a rich woman in any large city. At least a hundred gold talent per piece, easy. Of course, those would not be sold. She had a nice project in mind that would protect her heavies in battle. Those would be the batteries.
She was juggling them with joy when Solfis spoke.
//Your Grace.
//There is another prize.
Now that the nascent necrarchs were dead, their absence revealed the back of the armory. Little was left of the original weapons save for faded trails of rust along the sheer walls. The chains binding the monsters had disintegrated as well, leaving behind shards of striated black iron. It made the surviving object that much more threatening. Viv approached, watching the grisly weapon with concern.
[Skull Mace:
Artifact. Once used for ritual sacrifice and as a badge of office for the high priest, this potent weapon has been twisted by the death of its creator. Cursed. It is not suitable for use by any naturally-occurring creature of Nyil.]
Before Viv could even think about tricks, a new window opened.
That means you as well for the purpose of defining ‘naturally-occurring.’
Don’t touch it. Even you won’t break it easily.
Viv needed that instruction the same way she needed to be told not jump ass-first into a volcano. If an aberrant could be an object, it would be the abominable assembly of spikes, twisted bone, and cancerous obsidian this apparatus seemed to be made of. Only a B-movie power-hungry antagonist would touch that horror and hope for anything but to be turned into an ulcer. ‘Cursed’ was an understatement.
“What the fuck are we supposed to do with that?” she asked no one in particular.
Solfis stepped up to the thing, grabbed it, then shoved it into a bag.
//We shall sell it to Elunath, of course.
“Errrrr,” Viv replied, a little unsure.
“The ethical decision would be to bring it to a temple of Neriad to be destroyed,” Solar said reproachfully.
//Then let us hope…
//That Elunath will make an ethical decision.
“You think he’ll buy that thing?”
//Undoubtedly.
//If not out of interest, then out of concern.
//He will never trust you with such a dangerous tool.
“I don’t know, giving a cursed artifact to a powerful, overconfident mage sounds like a recipe for disaster.”
//I estimate he will analyze the mace then destroy it himself.
//In the unlikely event where he is corrupted…
//Note this is below 4%.
//Then his fall will lead to the destruction of Helock.
The room fell silent while Solfis stood there, unfazed.
//Tragic.
//A terrible loss.
“I can notify the temple,” Sidjin said. “If he doesn’t destroy it, they will.”
Solar shrugged. “As long as it is destroyed, I care little. Sidjin is correct. Elunath would be a fool to keep it, and he has not reached his level of power by being a fool. Let him have it, if it will help Bob survive.”
“Right,” Viv said, “Let’s have a break, then we’re off.”
After taking a minute to recover, the party was ready. Once again, magically-reinforced bodies and minds came in clutch. Being surrounded by people on the fourth step or above really drove home how much Nyil turned its more determined denizens into super-soldiers. The survivors, in any case. It was not just the ability to cut rock with a sword. Even their mental resilience improved, allowing them to brush off near-death experiences. She wondered how a society with supermen would look in a world like Earth. It probably wouldn’t be too great.
“I think we should finish exploring this floor,” Solar said, “I don’t want things to come at our backs again.”
//The black mana density here is lower.
//Should the necrarch return while we are here, it would not fight at its maximum potential.
//I believe the decision is sound.
“Right.”
Staying in formation again, they explored the study rooms next. It was a large, open space with pillars set at regular intervals and some alcoves dug into the sheer rock with tables and seats. Viv believed the empty space might have housed shelves for scrolls or books. Unfortunately, nothing was left of it. Regular openings on one side showed the night sky, partially cloudy. Whoever had dug them had also woven the consumed stone into an overhang, protecting it from most rain. It was cleverly-designed for comfort despite the spartan appearance of the stone furniture. Perhaps, a long time ago, this place of study might have been covered in pelts and colorful cloth. She would never know. In any case, only Solfis found anything valuable.
//Those inscriptions on the wall show the totality of the ancient glyphs used in their alphabet.
//With a sample that size and by cross-referencing ancient Enorian dialects, I will be able to decipher those texts.
//Eventually.
“This is all fascinating, but we have more pressing issues than archeology,” Viv said.
//I do not need time.
//I have saved all the texts to my database.
//We can move on to the last part of the upper floor complex.
//The garden of fertility.
Viv wondered what would be left of the garden, if anything was left at all. The path leading there wound up to be the secondary, open-air entrance she had spotted from afar. It was bound to have a nice view, at least. She just hoped there wouldn’t be any traps.
The party followed the winding stairs leading there. The higher they went, the more certain Viv grew that there was something left.
The first thing that hit them was the smell. A pungent and acidic wind hit her nose full on, more chemical and unpleasant than truly revolting. Its cloying intensity pushed Viv to place a tissue in front of her nose.
“Hmm, are we being poisoned or something?”
//No airborne toxins detected.
//No mana signature detected.
“So this is a normal smell?”
“Nothing normal about that,” Solar said, “but it won’t kill us.”
“I have experienced many fragrances, from courtesan-made perfumes to charnel pits, but nothing quite like that,” Sidjin added in a subdued voice.
Stinky.
“Right. If we’re going to do it, let’s do it.”
They climbed higher, staying close to the walls. Their silent ascent finished on a landing lit by Nyil’s moon. Solfis went first but he stopped and tilted his head a way Viv did not quite understand. Solar followed and gasped, then Sidjin. Viv hurried to see what the big deal was. She regretted her enthusiasm instantly.
The sacred place around them spread to the edge of the cavern, where the roof dropped suddenly into the abyss below. The weather had cleared a bit, and with silvery light shining freely over the ‘garden of fertility’, its blasphemous nature was revealed in all its gruesome horror. The garden was a forest linked by patches of vegetation, except it was all meat. Quivering planes of pinkish flesh like flayed muscle, still oozing blood with every palpitation, linked trunks of bones, leaves of sinew, fleshy fruits of purple tissue that pulsed lymph over the cartilage bark. The field of gore did not stand idle. It beat from a hundred hearts in a quiet cacophony that sent this gigantic mass of meat shivering and moaning, the exposed tibias and humeri creaking under the strain of their nerve-wracking dance, and in the midst of it all, at the base of the tallest tree, there was a single, perfect eye.
As large as a plate, the organ could have made a painter weep. The curve of its lid, the length of its lashes, the perfect, radiant color of its iris spoke of a stupendous beauty made that much more gruesome by its grisly surrounds. Viv watched the pupil dilate, but she could not tell if it was in surprise, relief, panic, or anger. There was not enough humanity around it to determine anything more than the fact that it had reacted. The ungodly glare settled on Viv.
An instant later, the iris turned a familiar green.
“Oh FUCK no.”
Before Viv could react, Solar screamed and cut. The tree split in two. Phlegm-drenched ichor hit Viv’s boots on its way down. Ropes like intestines, or intestines like rope, shot from the gutted trunk to reunify both parts in a concerto of tortured bones. The eye started to regrow while the shed humor slid from the wound in a viscous mass. Sidjin screamed as well. Fire licked the fetid garden, forcing hisses and spasms, each new wound spitting more liquid until the blaze was smothered. The two men kept attacking the regenerating mass.
//Your Grace.
//Their minds are under attack.
Viv finally perceived it, an insidious strike on her soul. Something crawled and tried to revolt and attract her at the same time. Her soul was strong, however, and her own leadership and mental skills shored up the defenses. She cast a quick analysis on the pulsating mass of flesh.
[Corrupted Garden of the Jovial Pudge:
Fallen, living artifact, twisted by the end of its maker. Extremely dangerous…]
“Wait…” Viv said, “That thing has combat abilities. Guys! Snap out of it!”
“Squeeeee!”
Arthur was less affected, trying to pull back a struggling Sidjin.
“Ok. Enough. Eldritch Wall.”
Viv aimed at the edge of the cavern and cast, tentacles closing all around them. A quick spell blocked the organic dirge of the dying and reborn garden. This left the men sagging against the walls, out of breath.
Viv stood between them and the horror garden, now blocked from sight. She could feel the black and life mana behind settling down.
“Alright, everyone, calm down.”
//They are going to need a moment.
//Their vitals are returning to normal.
//Well done.
“You could have pulled them back,” Viv reproached.
//I apologize, Your Grace.
//I am not equipped to react adequately to unique events.
//I calculated that it was best to leave you the decision on how to proceed.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”
The two poor lads were breathing hard, their eyes staring into empty space with thousand-yard stares. Or nine hundred and fourteen point four meters. Same thing, Viv thought. It seemed that they were recovering. She hoped they were, because eldritch body-horror-induced madness aside, they were still on the necrarch’s territory.
//In any case, well done for resisting the mental attack.
She had, yes. Viv frowned. That didn’t make sense. Sidjin had better mental stats than her, for sure, and she strongly felt that Solar had Soul Sense. Both of them had seen some shit in their days. Hell, Sidjin had lived through it. There was little reason why she would resist better than the others.
“Why did it not work on me?” she asked.
//I suspect it may be due to your Outlander mindset.
“Should it not be the contrary?”
//Your Grace, you do not see the gods as gods.
//Superior and unattainable.
//You once used the term ‘immature overgrown manchildren on a power trip’.
Back in the city of the gods, in the Palace of a Thousand Doors, a man flipped a page in a book without end.
“Now that’s just rude,” he said.
Then, after a moment: “Although not entirely inaccurate.”
//Your lack of faith in the divine nature of the gods means that the dark ones’ horror has a lesser impact on your psyche.
“You guys going to be alright?” Viv asked.
Solar nodded his head slowly, while Sidjin shook his.
“I need a little time. Such abomination. How can you not see it and witness a reflection of your own fallible flesh?”
“Because I don’t need a big monster to remind me that old age is a thing? Besides, it won’t happen to me. I either die or become immortal, remember?”
Viv wiggled her eyebrows under the scowl of her lover, but Sidjin chuckled a moment later and his shoulders grew just a little less hunched.
“Thank you for grounding me.”
He grabbed her hand, then kissed her lightly.
“I wish Wamiri was here,” Solar grumbled.
“Sorry, I don’t do friends with benefits,” Viv deadpanned.
“That’s not—” Solar sputtered. “Wait. You are trying to distract me.”
“Is it working?”
“Please do not mention offering sexual favors to colleagues in front of me, dear,” Sidjin pleaded.
“Alright, that is quite enough. You are all lucky the necrarch didn’t pick this moment to attack.”
Won’t!
I am standing guard.
Vigilant dragon!
“How come you were not afraid?” Viv asked.
Lots of meat.
Not fresh, not tasty.
Blegh.
What is scary?
“Nevermind.”
//I suspect our target may not like this place, Your Grace.
Viv wasn’t sure. Why would the embodiment of undead body horror not like body horror? Speaking of, was that a living artifact? How could that happen?
“It said ‘corrupted garden of the jovial pudge’. Does that mean anything to you?” she asked.
//I have formulated a hypothesis.
//This was an altar to Gomogog.
“Aaaaah. Yeah. Clearly,” Viv said, remembering the specific mix of black and life mana Kazar Tower’s cook had displayed an eternity ago. It was the same blend as what the horrid artifact had shown.
