Published at 3rd of October 2023 12:00 pm

Chapter 2.41 In Which the Dark Lord Puts His Foot Down

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With my uncannily glowing familiar leading the way, I slid down the ladder to the landing below and threw myself down the stairs, which was not just a turn of phrase; I descended in a long jumps that as often as not resulted in ungainly crashes at the next landing down, followed by a pink flash of Heal so I could do it again.

A distant part of my brain was aware that Lady Gray was no longer a high priority and hadn’t been for a while, and that I had seized on this in desperation to feel like I was in control of something, but…what of it? The truth was there was very little I could immediately do about the disaster unfolding out there. But this? This I could finally put an end to. In my blank Wisdom fugue I even recognized it as the strategically correct action right now. She was a problem left unsolved for far too long, and the solution had just been handed to me. It was well past time.

The stairs terminated in the foyer area that stood between the mess hall and the doors to the courtyard; as soon as I hit the ground there I heard voices from behind me, where noncombatants had fled indoors to huddle. Right where any invaders would first burst in, if they made it past the outer defenses. Someone shouted a question at me, indistinct under all the noise.

“Get back to your rooms, shut the doors and barricade them!” I shouted, already yanking the main door open.

Taking a second to shove it closed behind me gave me a brief opportunity to appreciate my terrible success. The space inside the fortress’s open gates was strewn with bodies, and apparently none belonged to my people; I got a brief impression of fur-coated forms with odd limbs and tails and animal heads, solidified as two more tried to dash inside and were immediately shot down as the only escape route from the fire brought them in front of a line of crossbows behind a line of swords, all in the hands of very angry bandits.

That was as much spectating as I could manage before Biribo, darting ahead to the gates, yelled at me. “This way, boss!”

“What did you do?!” Aster shouted as I dashed past. I didn’t have time to explain, charging out into the inferno.

Even as I emerged from the shelter of the walls, another cat person came running at me. He threw aside the spear he was holding, waving both hands at me and yelling something completely muffled by the noise of fire and khora howling now that we were directly in it. Those hands had digits tipped in very long claws.

Immolate, Windburst! I turned him into a comet shooting back into the rest of the fire.

Under the glow of orange flames, I had momentarily lost sight of Biribo; in looking around for him I beheld other cat tribesmen hunkered down against the base of the walls from the outside, getting as far from the flames as they could without risking the gates. Even as I watched, one of them dropped as someone on the ramparts leaned over with a crossbow and shot straight down.

Then Biribo came dashing back to me, bobbing in front of my face for a second before zooming off down the road. Fixing my eyes on his tiny figure, I followed at a careless run. Black and limned by a silver glow, he was only somewhat distinct against the surrounding flames; I knew if I took my gaze off him I’d lose him again.

He led me straight down the road, the familiar path turned into a surreal nightmare of open space beneath an overarching vault of burning, wailing khora. Even the ground was more dangerous; the big red vine-like growths were untouched, but the khora roots that had buckled through the ancient paving were now venting orange flickers and gouts of steam through cracks in their shells. Even as I pounded through the obstacle course, a huge column of that same tubular structure toppled with a tremendous crash behind me, already charred almost to oblivion by the burning of the khora around which it had been wrapped. And still, I understood why the familiar led me this way; this all but had to be where Lady Gray had taken refuge. There might be other sheltered spots out there in the forest, but to get to them she’d have to pass through the roaring chaos. Even here the heat was overwhelming and the air felt thin.

The flame showed no sign of subsiding. It had already been much longer than the effects of Immolate usually lasted; with no frame of reference I had no way of knowing how long this would go on. Once it was over I would have to turn immediately to cleanup and damage control. More importantly, when it was over my target’s potential cover would become a lot more hospitable again, and chasing her down would become that much harder. That could not happen. This pest and her bullshit were coming to an end tonight.

Biribo’s shrill cry was barely audible amid all the noise; if it contained actual words, I couldn’t distinguish them. But his glow dived forward and began swooping in circles around one person-sized area of space, and that was all I needed.

Windburst!

It sent Biribo hurtling away, unfortunately; that was what I got for casting spells on pure, adrenaline-fueled instinct. But it also hit the intended target, and I got the distinct pleasure of seeing a fallen length of burning vine the size of a tree trunk shatter as Gray was smashed bodily through it. She flickered into view on the surface of the road, losing her grip on her artifact dagger.

I tried an Immolate, but she was still wearing that artifact that made her un-targetable by spells. Slimeshot didn’t work for the same reason, and the Sparkspray I fired as I closed in was thwarted by just how far I’d blown her; the sparks dissipated before they got there. Meanwhile, she scrambled to her feet, turning and running, and to my great annoyance immediately found and picked up her dagger, vanishing from sight again.

But it had been enough time for Biribo to return to the fray; he swooped in and began another set of tight circles, this time darting abruptly up and down at the same time. Probably dodging swipes of the dagger as Gray tried to get rid of him. This time I concentrated on closing the distance, having learned the lesson of using Windburst under these circumstances.

Before I could reach them, the glowing familiar vanished off the path, following our target as she fled desperately into the burning khora. It was another second before I got there and was able to see the opening into what had been some kind of game trail; much tighter quarters, hotter and more angrily licked by the surrounding flames, but big enough for a person to pass through, especially now that the underbrush had been incinerated.

I could still see Biribo circling rapidly, and had an idea.

Slimeshot!

Well, look at that, I found a loophole. I might not be able to target Lady Gray with spells, but if she was invisible and yet I knew exactly where she was, I could sure as hell target that little slice of “empty” space with a spell.

The direct impact sent her flying forward, once again bursting through a barrier of burning debris where another of those huge vines had landed in a now-dried and crumbling bush. I could just barely see a patch of relative dimness beyond; I’d just shot her into an open clearing of some kind, but the collapsing rubbish immediately tumbled inward to re-block the path.

Windburst! I turned the barrier into a spray of burning charcoal shards, charging through the gap before it could close again. Not a moment too soon, either; I could hear something cracking at an ominous volume audible even through all the surrounding noise.

But this was the end of the line. This was a patch of clear area in the shelter between three huge khora growths—one of those dome-like structures that looked like brain coral the size of a house, and two enormous trunks of what I (incorrectly, Kasser had informed me) called antler khora. There were only two ways into the lopsided depression between them, the still-collapsing trail now behind me and another that was completely obstructed by a fallen length of red vine thicker than a car and actively on fire.

Biribo was still marking my target in a tight orbit, but even as I closed in he was sent spinning away with a shrill cry as she finally landed a hit. I fired a Sparkspray into the space he’d been marking, realizing my error a second later: surrounded as we were by fire on all sides, I couldn’t even tell whether I’d landed a hit as any lingering sparks on an invisible body were completely indistinguishable from the rest of the flames.

But there was only one exit from this trap, and I was standing in front of it. Bracing my feet, I began firing Sparksprays steadily in every direction; if she wanted out, she was going to have to face me.

From behind me there came another loud crackle, as well as the beginning of a long rumbling crash as more burning lengths of vine that had been suspended in the branches above began to fall.

I knew what it would mean, but I didn’t have a choice; I kept flinging Sparksprays, but in essence at random as I risked diverting my attention to look up and make sure I wasn’t about to be crushed. Sure enough, I had to take two judicious steps forward to be safe, and sure enough, she recognized my one moment of inattention and capitalized on it.

Or tried to.

I only knew the direction from which Lady Gray tried to close in on me because, snarling furiously, Junko shot right past my leg, barely making it through the gap before the rubble crashed down, and clamped her jaws down on an invisible leg. The huge dog savagely shook her head, worrying her quarry and likely yanking Gray right off her feet.

A second later Junko let out a shrill yelp and a crimson wound appeared in her side.

I saw white.

“SLIMESHOT! Heal!”

The impact hurled the invisible woman away, and the second spell instantly remedied the damage done to Junko. Biribo returned to the fray again, diving down to mark my quarry, but this time I barely needed him. That dagger apparently didn’t fool the dog’s nose; Junko went right for her again, once more getting her jaws around a limb and jerking viciously back and forth.

This time, the woman popped back into view with a strangled scream, revealing that Junko had bitten down on her right arm, causing the dagger to drop from her fingers.

Behind me came another huge crash, and I dodged forward, half-spinning to look. This time it was due to a massive horizontal sweep of an artifact greatsword, pulverizing the burning wreckage that had fallen across the game trail behind us. It took two more swipes to clear the way properly, but then Aster stepped into the clearing, taking in the entire scene at a glance and then turning to me for direction.

“Perfect timing,” I said. Loudly, but I was still more audible than I’d expected; was it getting quieter? “Block the opening. Junko, release her. Fetch that.”

The dog dropped Lady Gray’s mangled arm, instead grabbing the dagger’s handle in her jaws and trotting over to me. She dropped the priceless artifact into the dirt at my feet.

“Good girl.” I stroked her head once before closing in on my fallen enemy.

It was definitely quieter, now. As I watched, I could see the flames beginning to visibly diminish. Not at the same rate all around; the huge dome was still venting gouts of fire through the cracks in its shell but the branched khora had dimmed noticeably, now only steaming and emitting a faint intermittent glow through the apertures where their burned-away fronds belonged.

And there she lay. Crumpled, soot-covered, her clothes ragged and her body visibly wounded even aside from the fresh lacerations where the arm she was now cradling against her chest had just been mauled. I could see stained bandages through rents in her sleeves and one wrapping around her upper torso, visible through the open neck of her coat, a reminder of her recent humbling at the hands of my standoffish dark elf ally.

This was just…pitiful. There was going to be no grand, dramatic final duel with this…creature. Just an old woman, exhausted, hungry, and wounded, now cornered and at the mercy of two powerful Blessed and a huge dog. The fearsome crime lord who had reigned uncontested over the Gutters was long since starved and withered away. I could almost find it in me to feel sorry for this bedraggled remnant, had I been able to forget for one second that she had murdered five orphans just to piss me off.

The flames subsided further. The branching khora had gone inert, and in fact were visibly regenerating their fronds overhead. Across from them, the dome was steaming with no more glow. Quiet was descending, the khora no longer screaming in pain and the sound of falling vines occurring intermittently in the near distance. The air wasn’t much cooler, but there was little enough active flame now that the noise was faint and not nearby.

Gray coughed, then managed a bloodstained grin up at me. “Well, well. So you finally—”

No, she did not get to make a final speech.

Summon Healing Slime, Tame Beast.

I conjured the slime in my own hands, and silenced her last words by hurling it directly into her face.

Now it was time for the real retribution.

I had given a lot of thought to exactly how this particular piece of shit was going to die. In the end, I’d decided the worst thing I could think of was both something I myself had experienced, and something she herself had inflicted on me. I could envision nothing more excruciating than drowning, repeatedly, and being unable to lose consciousness due to constant healing magic. Regrettably, I didn’t have a shit-filled river handy to dunk her in—but I could correct the inefficiency of my own desperate, repeated casts of Heal by exchanging them for a single, steady source of that same spell.

Under my mental direction, the healing slime went right to work. Slipping straight into her mouth, oozing aggressively through her fingers as she tried to claw it away—it turned out their could adjust their viscosity on the fly, making themselves as hard to grasp as water. She bit down to stifle the flow, but the remaining slime just began sliding into her nose.

Gray had the presence of mind to pinch her nostrils shut with her one good hand. I let her; it was too late. Enough had gotten in.

I wasn’t sure what would happen to a healing slime in a person’s stomach, and I didn’t plan to find out tonight. It slid instead into her lungs. She managed to hold out the grip on her nose for a few more seconds before the convulsions overtook her as she began to drown in slime. In her flailing, she opened up her nose and mouth, and the remainder of the slime slithered in, rejoining its main body and filling her lungs to capacity, blocking off any access to air.

And then, blazing with powerful healing magic, refused to let her die.

“You really thought you were something, huh,” I said, sneering down at her in utter contempt as she thrashed, her whole body heaving, clawing at her face and throat with both hands, even the one too injured to form a grip. “Big bad boss of the Gutters, feared by all. Figured you were the only real person in a big board of game pieces, isn’t that right? Fuck all these little people, they’re just here to be moved around however you needed.”

I watched her face with cold satisfaction at the sheer suffering. I hadn’t even noticed the point at which my Wisdom perk had relaxed its hold on me, but I was definitely not in a space of emotionless analysis now. Whatever part of me remained that should have been horrified at the cruelty I was inflicting was just too tired and starved to rear its head anymore. Gray heaved and thrashed, instinctive convulsions taking over as her oxygen-starved brain kept trying to give up, while the unbroken flow of healing magic wouldn’t let her consciousness flicker out. I couldn’t even tell how aware she was of what I was saying, not that I let it stop me talking.

“Well, we learned, didn’t we?” I hissed, stepping forward so I could loom over her. She kicked my legs—apparently by accident in her mindless flailing. Already she was too weak for it to make an impact. “You know what, I’ll give you credit. You far outlived your allotted role in life. Be proud of clinging to existence for a few more miserable weeks after your fate was finished. You were put on this world for one purpose: to be just the first stone in the path for me to step on in my own rise. And you dared, you presumed to think you had a chance against me? That you had any significance at all?”

Her eyes were rolling up, but she still couldn’t pass out. The wet, hoarse noises emerging from her throat didn’t diminish, even as her struggles did. I knew too well the weakness of Heal and any spell derived from it: you couldn’t heal natural processes that way. Fatigue would win in the end. Her beleaguered limbs faltered, struggles fading as the muscles wore themselves out and even the magic refused to offer them any relief.

“Who the fuck do you think you are? You think you can just come here, kick these people around for your own convenience? Who cares about your sad backstory or what pressures you’re under? You don’t get to decide anybody’s fate. You have no fucking right to dispense death and punishment just because you happen to be the asshole with the big enough stick on a given day. You were always going to get what was coming to you. Just like every other asshole.”

I seized the slime with my will and pulled; it immediately relinquished its hold, sliding up and out of her body in one long, wet gloop.

Gray tried to draw in air, managing the first half-second of an aborted gasp before my foot descended on her throat. Something in her neck audibly crunched.

Twitching faintly, eyes wide and wild, she still summoned the will to reach up with her good arm, trying to claw at my leg. All that was left of her strength amounted to an impotent pat on my boot.

I leaned forward, resting an elbow on my knee and bringing my face as low as I could, so I could sneer down into the fading light in her eyes.

“You. Are. Not. Special.”

Lady Gray died a broken ruin of a woman, on her back in the dirt, with my boot on her neck. I held it there until all motion had ceased, until her vacant eyes were staring up at the regenerated khora fronds above, and then for half a minute longer. I was past taking chances with this one.

The corpse barely shifted when I finally removed my boot.

After the carnage of just moments ago, the quiet was terrifying and oppressive. I raised my head to look upward at the sky, visible between swaying khora fronds once again. There was usually a veritable cacophony of clicks, hoots, and other alien animal noises, but all were silent now. Whatever had survived the blaze was hunkered down in hiding. Some underbrush and hanging vines still smoldered, but the most prominent sound now was the omnipresent whisper of wind through fronds as they swayed above us.

I might have been imagining it, but I thought those fronds looked longer and more robust than I was used to seeing. It would make sense; Immolate was, after all, a healing spell. Just a cruelly traumatic one.

I lowered my head and drew in a breath, letting it out slowly. The air tasted of ash and smoke. Aster was looking at me, and for a moment I expected her to be appalled by what she’d just seen, but she simply nodded at me once. Yeah, she’d seen the aftermath of Gray’s cruelty too. Sometimes, with some people, there was no such thing as too far.

Aster took two steps forward, bent, and closed her hand around the hilt of the dagger. Instantly she vanished from sight. I watched in a kind of dissociated curiosity as footprints appeared in the dirt moving toward me, stopping just nearby. Then Gray’s body shifted as it was awkwardly tugged, and the dagger’s sheath was pulled free of her belt. It, too, vanished the second it was picked up. A moment later, Aster reappeared, the sheathed blade in her hands right where she’d just joined the two pieces together.

“Yeah,” she mused, holding the artifact out to me, “you were right. This is gonna be handy.”

“Damn right,” I agreed, taking it from her. I just tucked the dagger into my own belt, carefully clipping the sheath on with its provided hook. “The other one will be even better.”

“We may as well see what else she’s got,” Biribo suggested.

“Ugh.” Aster curled her lip. “Somehow the idea of rifling through this old bitch’s pockets is…not appealing.”

“Has to be done, though,” I agreed with a sigh. “Let’s get it over with.”

Junko sneezed.

The mystery artifact was a ring, concealed beneath her heavy gloves. I slipped it onto my finger, where it immediately adjusted to fit me perfectly. Just like that, I was spellproof and able to vanish at will. And all I’d had to do to earn it was burn down the entire fucking island.

Gray didn’t have much else, a testament to how she’d been roughing it in the forest for the last several weeks. Some unused bandages and jerky, a surprisingly well-filled coin purse that reminded me of Minifrit’s recent comment about how a certain kind of people would always carry money, even in situations where it obviously wouldn’t help them. She also had two half-filled vials of healing potion, apparently separated out that way because she was down to rationing them. I debated, but took them, too. Sure, I could heal anything immediately, and make healing slimes for my followers for when I couldn’t be near them, but surely a use could be found. There was no sense in leaving expensive alchemy to rot in the forest.

We turned to go, me dragging Gray’s corpse by a grip on her ankle. That was far from the most efficient way to haul a body through the underbrush, but fuck it. I had plenty of energy left and was bound and determined to handle her body as disrespectfully as possible. We only got just outside the clearing and back onto the game trail before the next surprise appeared.

A cat person lay facedown on the path, shortbow and arrows scattered nearby, with a single arrow sticking out of his back. The most remarkable arrow I’d ever seen. Dropping Gray, I bent to grasp and yank it out.

The whole thing was silvery white and gleamed under the moonlight as if highly polished. Rather than being separate pieces of shaft, head, and fletching like a normal arrow, it was all one clearly wrought piece of the same peculiar material—metallic to the touch, light as aluminum but gleaming like polished platinum—with gracefully sculpted, rigid fins like a missile rather than feathers. About halfway along its length, the shaft separated into two parts, which reconnected in the front in a single thickened point, with intricate traceries between them, apparently just for decoration. The entire thing was twisted in a spiral, making it resemble a helix that ended in a drill bit on one end, except excessively beautiful. I knew the twisting was to make it spin rapidly in the air when fired, which would stabilize its flight for accuracy’s sake. That was the only practical thing about it; the rest of the design was ridiculous. No one would make an arrow like this if they intended to actually shoot it at anything.

“Well, well,” I said softly, lowering the bloody arrow to hang at my side. I turned in a complete circle, but of course there was no sign of anyone else nearby. I raised my voice anyway. “I appreciate the help. If you’d care to come out and introduce yourself, I would be glad to reward you appropriately.”

The forest remained silent.

“We’re probably still not gonna see ‘em for a while, boss,” Biribo said, buzzing up next to my ear. He had long since ceased glowing, the Wisdom perk having apparently exhausted itself once I finished off my enemy. “Remember they were trying to set themselves up to approach you from a strong position by dealing with the catfolk and Lady Gray for us. Well, their plan with the catfolk actually caused us problems, and now you’ve finished Gray off yourself. And just made what might be the greatest single demonstration of personal power anybody’s seen on this world since Hara’s Sin. They’ll make a proper introduction when they feel confident enough to negotiate from a solid position. Or when they get too desperate to wait.”

I drew in a deep breath, closing my eyes. Fucking Viryan bullshit, I did not have time for this. Why did I have to babysit this elf’s precious little feelings on top of everything else? If they ever finally deigned to speak with me like a real person, the first thing I was gonna tell them was that their goddess was an ass and all of her advice was bad.

Of course, I repressed all of that. The exhaustion and lingering fury I was feeling wasn’t at them, after all. And realistically, I had better get used to Viryan bullshit. I was going to have to deal with it soon enough, and not always from a position of being able to order people around. After tonight’s work, it was very likely that Shylverrael would find and take an interest in me directly.

Recalling that the mystery dark elf apparently cared enough about leaving these arrows lying around to break into our vault and retrieve one, I dropped the thing back on top of the catfolk hunter.

“Well,” I said aloud, “the offer stands. Let’s get home, everybody. We have a lot of work to do.”

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