Lord Sorcerer: Singularity Online: Book 3 Page 57

  In fact, Lily might not even know about Silma, or about the exact makeup of Aranos’ party. She probably knew more about Phil’s, since both Hector and Martina were at least aware of what Classes the party members were, but Lily would have no reason to know about Saphielle, Rhys, or Silma for that matter. She might even suspect that it was Geltheriel or McBane scouting out the temple.

  Aranos quickly dismissed those thoughts; it was smarter to assume that Lily somehow knew all about the party than to presume she was ignorant. He wasn’t sure how she’d have gotten that knowledge, but he’d always found it safer to act like his enemies were smarter than he was. That way, if they weren’t, he’d be pleasantly surprised, and if they were, the surprise would at least be less unpleasant.

  He caught the others’ attention and used his simple hand signals to let them know that their quarry was up ahead. Silma’s vision had shown Aranos the layout of the room, as well as the fact that Lily, her pet aswang, and a handful of her summons were already present, but he couldn’t communicate all that to the group. The best he could convey was that there was a large space ahead, their target was there, and there were several enemies present. While he had a feeling Geltheriel or maybe Saphielle could have expressed more, even if he’d known more of the sign language, the players wouldn’t have gotten anything but those basics.

  They moved forward carefully and finally entered the room, spreading out as they did in case Lily had a Spell waiting to hit them as they entered. Aranos took in as much of the room as he could in a single glance; the main sanctuary was a rectangular space, about 20’ wide and maybe 40’ long. The ceiling arched high overhead, bathed in the eldritch, green haze of necrotic energy. The passage they exited opened onto an elevated ledge that ran along the periphery of the room, with stairs descending at regular intervals several feet to the floor below.

  The far end of the room was dominated by a raised, semi-circular dais, atop which was a statue of a woman, her features masked in shadow but somehow menacing at the same time. Aranos assumed that was a depiction of Virnal the Darkbringer, the head of the Pantheon of Darkness, although he’d frankly expected the goddess of Evil to look more monstrous than a cowled, shrouded, humanoid woman. Of course, it was possible that she really was far more monstrous than this, and whoever had built this temple had simply chosen a more palatable form to represent her. Two flat, stone slabs also sat atop the dais, and Aranos could dimly make out two figures strapped to those slabs. The floor between the pair looked black in the eerie, green glow and shone wetly; it took Aranos a few moments to realize that the floor was covered in a sheet of blood.

  Two other figures stood in that pool of black fluid, one crouched and misshapen, the other slim and delicate seeming. More shapes crowded against the walls of the room, creatures of different shapes and sizes that stood silently, awaiting the commands of their Summoner.

  “Hello, Aranos,” the slim figure of Lily said brightly from where she stood in the distant pool of blood. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

  “Not long enough, Lily,” Aranos called back flatly. “I was kind of hoping the next time I’d see you would be never. Well, you got me here. What do you want?”

  “What, no small talk? No witty banter?” the woman laughed. “You aren’t going to demand that I release my captives or else? Not going to give me some speech about how evil I am, and that it’s not too late for me to change my ways? I’m honestly a bit disappointed. Aren’t you supposed to be the hero?”

  “Oh, I see,” Aranos chuckled. “You figure you’re the villain in all this, is that it? Are you going to tell me how you’re misunderstood, or how the world would be better if we just listened to you?”

  “Fuck that mess,” Lily snorted. “I’m evil, Aranos. However bad you think I am, trust me, I’m way the fuck worse. I’m doing this for me, nothing else. Besides, I learned my lesson about monologuing the last time we met.”

  “Yeah, but the thing is, you’re not a villain, Lily,” Aranos scoffed. “You’re not important enough for that, which means I’m not a hero. Think of me as – an exterminator. I’m here to get rid of some vermin, nothing more.”

  Aranos couldn’t see the woman’s features clearly at this distance, but he could plainly hear the anger in her voice as she spoke. “You’re calling me some kind of damn pest? That’s rich, asshole! You’ve shit all over everything I’ve done from the moment you stepped out of that damn door from Haerobel! You’ve been a pain in my ass ever since I laid eyes on you, and you think I’m the fucking pest?”

  “We both know how this is going to end, Lily,” Aranos sighed. “What’s the point of talking? If you’re going to fight, let’s fight. If you’re scared, run away. In either case, let’s get this over with. I’ve got more important things to worry about than you.”

  “Oh yeah, your Cleansing Quest,” the woman chuckled, seeming to regain her composure. “I never could get the skinny on that. Something about a chest or vault or something. Nobody really seems to know. What’s that about?”

  “Nothing that concerns you,” Aranos replied, masking his surprise at her apparent knowledge and slowly summoning the mana for a Spell. Despite her claims about monologuing, she was doing a decent job of it – which Aranos assumed was meant to distract him. “So, can we just do this?”

  “The whole Cleansing Quest concept seems dumb to me,” Lily replied. “I mean, why go to all that trouble, when it’s so much easier – and simpler, really – to just embrace the Corruption? You know, like this!” As the woman spoke, her arm raised up and flashed down toward the helpless figure on her right. At the same moment, Aranos’ hand darted up, and a gleaming, prismatic bullet burst from his palm, speeding toward the Summoner. The Piercing Bullet struck a multihued, undulating shield that appeared at the front of the dais, but it slowed for only an instant before punching cleanly through it and slamming into the Summoner’s chest. A second flare of light erupted as the Bullet encountered the woman’s Mana Armor, and while the Bullet didn’t penetrate that second layer of defense, it did knock the woman off-balance enough that her blow didn’t strike true. The dark-bladed knife missed the center of the bound figure’s chest and struck lower, sliding between two ribs and embedding itself in what was probably a lung. The bound figure cried out in a high-pitched voice; that had been Martina.

  At the same moment, hell broke loose. The creatures lining the walls rushed forward with a cacophony of roars, bellows, and screeches that set Aranos’ teeth on edge, while a Spell that had been hanging over them coalesced into being, dropping a miasma of dark mana onto the party. Aranos wasn’t sure what the Spell would do, but he quickly pumped SP into his Illuminating Mists, and his tiny globes flared into brightness. The descending shroud of darkness shuddered and roiled as it encountered his Spell, but the dark and light mana annulled one another, and Lily’s attack couldn’t quite penetrate to reach the party.

  Saphielle moved to one side while Phil took the other, each bracing for the onslaught of onrushing creatures. Silma darted to the top of the stairs, where another group of creatures had appeared and was rushing forward. The wolf slammed headfirst into a lumbering, bear-like creature, tumbling it down the stairs, where it crashed into several of its companions and sent them all hurtling to the floor. Silma’s teeth took on a bright gleam of light mana as she ripped and tore at any creature that crested the stairs, trying to cripple their legs and knock them back down.

  Saphielle was having no trouble dealing with the creatures before her. Her magic-diminishing spear was especially useful against the summoned creatures, and the wounds she inflicted didn’t just shed their blood, they seemed to sap directly at the monsters’ strength. Her shield formed an impenetrable wall that the beasts crashed futilely against, and her spear danced among them in a flicker of prismatic light.

  Phil was struggling a bit more on his side, since the first creature that attacked him was the munjuin, which resisted his Spells and magical damage. McBane appeared out of the shadows beside
him, though, his dual blades carving into the beast’s scales. Phil dismissed the elemental damage on his sword and focused on holding the munjuin’s focus, using his shield to slide aside its claws and thrusting his sword at its open mouth and black, lidless eyes, keeping it occupied while McBane slashed at its sides and back, nimbly avoiding the thrashing sweeps of its tail. Between the two fighters, the munjuin was well in hand.

  Aranos narrowed his eyes in suspicion. This is too easy, he realized grimly as more summons appeared to charge at Saphielle, impaling themselves futilely on her spear. If Lily can summon those creatures from across the room, why couldn’t she make them appear in the middle of us? Why not attack me, or the healers? Even that Spell she had waiting for us wasn’t very powerful, if my weakest Spell is repelling it easily. This feels – wrong.

  Cautiously, Aranos reached out with his Sense Mana Skill and recoiled almost immediately. The room was filled with power, a type of energy he didn’t recognize but that felt eerily similar to the Corruption he’d sensed in the soil of the Blightlands. If anything, though, this energy felt purer, somehow, less diluted and more potent. Setting his jaw, Aranos renewed his probe of the waiting power, trying to get a better sense of it. Suddenly, a small surge of new energy rushed into the room, joining the larger mass; Aranos looked around and saw that Silma had just torn the throat out of the bear-like creature, leaving it to bleed to death at the bottom of the stairs, and with a flash of understanding, the Sorcerer knew what was happening.

  This is what she wants, he realized. She needs us to kill her summons. The death is empowering her ritual. If this keeps up, she’ll win…

  Aranos slammed his mana probe into the mass of darkness still hanging overhead, grabbing the spell-form and almost brutally twisting it, sending the energy inside it racing back toward its caster. As it dissipated, he cast his Flight Spell and rose overhead. When dealing with a Summoner, focusing on its minions was the worst way to battle, since you never knew how many they had. Taking out the Summoner generally also banished whatever they had summoned, and even if it didn’t, at least it stopped the influx of new creatures. As he cleared the battles raging below, he saw Lily’s figure rise up to match his across the room.

  “Yeah, they told me you can fly, too,” she called out, her arm whipping out and unleashing a series of ebon missiles that splashed harmlessly against his hastily raised shield of spirit-enhanced light mana. Aranos didn’t bother replying but responded with four Mana Arrows, one of each element, cloning each arrow into three as they sped from his hand. The twelve darts streaked to impact against the roiling shield that Lily seemed to prefer, the conflicting elements clawing at one another and the shield with equal ferocity. The barrier shuddered briefly and vanished, and Lily’s eyes grew wide for a moment as she saw how easily he’d taken down her shield.

  His view of her was blocked as a pair of winged creatures suddenly appeared before him, swooping toward him with horrible shrieks and cries. He sped up above the creatures, allowing them to pass below, noting idly that the two-headed, black-feathered beasts were apparently called vucubs, according to his Beast Lore. He didn’t bother to spend much energy on them but hit the trailing creature with his Gust of Speed Spell. The blast of wind carried it into the two leading vucubs, causing all three to slam into the nearest wall with a sickening crack. As the creatures fell to the floor, Aranos turned to see that Lily had restored her shield and was summoning a ball of dark, roiling mana, hurling it his way.

  The ebony sphere struck his shield and burst, showering the area below in tendrils of darkness that wrapped around the combatants, both his party and the summons equally. The movements of all the combatants slowed noticeably, at least until a pulse of light of Meridian banished the black tendrils from the party members and freed them from the Spell.

  Aranos ignored all this as best he could, relying on his Battlesense Skill to tell him how the melee below was going. His focus was on Lily. The Summoner was gathering more mana in her hand, and Aranos fired another series of Mana Arrows at her shield. This time, though, he also grabbed the shield with his Mana Vampire Perk, twisting it and trying to turn it back on the woman in an attempt to disrupt her Spell. Instead, a spike of power lashed from the shield down his mental probe, slamming into the barriers of his mind, rebuffing his attempt to twist the spell-form. His Fortitude Skill resisted any sort of stunning or damaging effect that might have had, but the resistance took him by surprise.

  Lily, apparently noticing his startled face, laughed loudly. “What, you thought I didn’t do my homework on you? I remember how you turned my Spell against me last time, and I came ready for you this time, asshole.” The woman flung her hands up, and a dozen tiny darts of crimson energy burst from her palms, zooming erratically at Aranos. Some of the missiles impacted harmlessly on his shield, but most of them buzzed around it and burst on his Armor in a blaze of ruby light. Aranos felt the chaotic pulses of magic trying to tear at his protection, but he clamped down on it with his will, and the ripples of power faded harmlessly away.

  He lashed back with his own attack, firing twin blasts of light and dark mana at the Summoner’s shield. Her barrier flexed and pulsed beneath his attacks for a moment before shattering. As it broke, a wave of mana raced back toward him from it, striking his shield hard. Aranos was convinced that if he hadn’t buttressed the barrier with spirit mana, it would have shattered – somehow, Lily had made her shield retributive, so that breaching it caused its energy to lash back at the attacker, and Aranos was now curious to see if he could do that himself. His protection held, though, and his twin spears of light and dark mana flashed into the Summoner, bypassing the invisible barrier of her Mana Armor and striking her in the chest.

  Lily grunted and gestured, and a haze of shadowy energy wrapped around her, obscuring her form and blocking his attacks. Aranos already had six Composite Bullets screaming toward her, though, and as she hurriedly raised a new shield to block them, he hit it with a Piercing Bullet, driving it through her barrier and striking her in the head. The Bullet didn’t penetrate her second defensive layer, but the impact stunned the woman for a moment, a moment that was just long enough for Aranos to wrap her in a Void Prison. She tumbled from the air and splashed into the pool of blood below, but the gray light surrounding her held for only a moment before it faded; Aranos felt the Summoner trying to disjoin the Spell and didn’t bother to fight her; she was back where he wanted her, anyway.

  “You’re not the only one who can undo Spells now, asshole,” the woman snarled, wiping a splash of blood from her face. “I’ve been taking a crash course in magic this whole time. Turns out Dream Haunting is super useful for finding shit out; people will tell you anything to make their nightmares stop.” She grinned. “Even your friends.”

  Aranos felt a flash of anger rise in him, but he tamped it down. He was certain that his Roar of Freedom would shatter all her defenses and end this contest instantly, but it would also leave him weakened and vulnerable to whatever ambush was waiting once this ended. Instead, he smiled at the woman.

  “Obviously, you didn’t find out enough,” he grinned at her. “If you had, you’d have seen this coming, wouldn’t you?”

  The woman opened her mouth but froze as a shadowy blade erupted from her chest. Geltheriel flashed into view behind Lily, her fist clutched around the blade that had punched through the woman’s armor like paper. As the Shadedancer slowly twisted the sword, her eyes blazing, she hissed in rage. “You erred, Traveler, when you forgot about me. I have not forgotten you, however.” She jerked on the blade, and Lily screamed in pain.

  The Summoner gripped the blade and coughed, spraying red blood into the air. Even as the color drained from her face and blood gushed from her mouth, though, the woman smiled. “Forgot you?” she said weakly, her face lighting up evilly. “I was counting on you, bitch.”

  Aranos’ eyes widened as he felt the power gathered in the room suddenly shudder and still. The energy seemed to pulse briefly, and Aranos fe
lt a heaviness as the energy began collapsing inward, spiraling down – directly into Lily. We screwed up, he realized as he fired a volley of Composite Bullets at the woman, shattering her armor and punching into her head and chest. Her grinned never faded, though, and as the energy kept surging into her, a pulse of power blasted out of her and swept through the room. Her summons collapsed instantly and withered into dust, their energies gathered into the vortex of power that was filling the Summoner. Geltheriel was flung backwards and landed with a cry; her LP took a small hit, but she seemed otherwise unhurt.

  Aranos was also flung backwards, but he halted his flight with an effort of will, his eyes fastened on the shifting form of the woman in front of him. Blackness filled her eyes and spread out into her body in a wave. It ran down her hair, leaving the golden tresses glossy black, and rushed across her flesh. Her skin turned pale and ashen, with tiny spiderwebs of darkness tracing beneath the surface, barely visible. Her fingernails blackened and lengthened into claws, and when she opened her mouth to scream in apparent agony, Aranos saw that her tongue had lengthened and turned ebony in color. Her teeth were longer and jagged, suited for ripping flesh.

  As the power petered out, the woman collapsed to her hands and knees, panting. “Well, that fucking sucked,” she grumbled, wiping a trickle of blood from her chin where she’d bitten her lip. She glanced up at Aranos, her eyes dancing, and smiled. “Totally worth it, though.”

  Aranos didn’t answer but unleashed a volley of Composite Bullets at the newly transformed woman. A shield of ebony force flickered into being before her, no longer shifting and undulating but solid and impenetrable, and his Bullets shattered harmlessly upon it. “Nice try,” she snarled. “My turn, now.”