Published at 12th of December 2023 10:58 pm

Chapter 81 Incarnated

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Even as he ran up the stairs, Todd was sure that something would grab him and drag him back down into the darkness. It was inevitable. This had all just been a game, somehow. Monsters like this would never let him free. They would just torment him, and all he could think about was the mocking creature with the tentacles he’d seen earlier and how easily it could grab him and rip him to pieces just like it had done to everyone else.

That’s not what happened, though. Somehow, some way, thanks to divine providence, he managed to break free into the light of the Sunrise Temple once more. It was a miracle, and almost certainly due to how high the sun still hung in the sky, but he didn’t stop to thank lord Siddrim. Instead, since the altar was still sunk 30 feet into the ground, he ran to the nearest shrine and began to pray as fervently as he ever had in his life.

One miracle wasn’t going to be enough for today. Not if he and every other soul in this town was going to survive come nightfall when the pit began to vomit forth abominations that should never have been created, and certainly shouldn’t be allowed to exist.

At first, those prayers were silent affairs as he tried to hide the fear that made his voice quaver like a coward. Soon enough, those whispers became mumbles, and then after a few minutes, he was shouting and begging to be heard by his divine lord.

“Lord of Light, hear me, even if you never have before nor ever will again. They are coming,” he pleaded. “They have murdered your priests, killed your men at arms, and soon they will rise up to the surface and take the life of every soul in this thriving town that we have sworn to safeguard. You are the only one who can prevent this. You are—”

The shrine to Saint Kellerus, the benighted, that Todd was praying at, was a simple affair. It was a statue of the blind old man gazing out sightlessly into the world from where he sat in the shade near the wall, but something caused the sun to shift, and slowly its rays climbed toward Todd, where he knelt and wept. When they reached him, touching just the heel of his right boot, suddenly he felt a peace that he had never known before as Lord Siddrim personally intervened in his life.

‘Peace, my child, for I am with you,’ the deep voice thrummed through Todd. ‘Show me this dire threat, and we shall see what must be done to stop it.’

Todd wanted to answer. He wanted to explain. He couldn’t, though. Instead, he knelt there transfixed as the Lord of Light began to sift through his memories. The process was slow at first, as he was forced to relive all those terrible moments he’d suffered through in the dark.

The mocking under temple. The martyred priests. The beheaded guards. Room after room after room of godless monstrosities. Moment by moment, those visions sped up as Siddrim looked deeper and deeper into the darkness for a true understanding of what it was he would need to purge.

It was an awful experience for Todd. Even with his devotion and his own gifts of the light, he was experiencing too much of Siddrim’s might at the same time as he was being forced to remember too many awful things, and inevitably, he began to retch. He simply didn’t have a choice.

When he was done, he felt better, then his god spoke to him again. ‘This is a task befitting of a crusade, but we lack time for such an undertaking.’

“What should I… I mean, we do, then?” Todd asked.

'Even at times when an army would be better suited to the task, all I truly need is one righteous man so that I may burn away the dark with heavenly fires,' Siddrim preached, But you are frail, my son. Your soul is poisoned, and you may not survive the experience.'

“I don’t care,” Todd answered calmly as he remembered his terrible sickness and the visions he’d experienced a year ago. “If I am to die, then let it be for this moment and in this cause. We must do everything we can to cauterize this wound before it festers further.”

‘Then walk toward the light, my son, and let it embrace you,’ the Lord of Light commanded him.

Todd did so without hesitation. Even without a weapon and the clear knowledge that this might kill him, he strode toward where the sunbeams streaming through the ceiling’s oculus rested on the floor.

It was after two now, so it was slanted far from where it had been when it had still touched the altar. Instead, it now rested near the feet of the shrine to St Ruthrin the Executioner. Todd smiled at that irony. For the amount of death that was going to follow whatever happened next, there could be no better choice than an executioner.

As Todd stood in the light, breathing deeply to calm himself, he felt a warmth began to creep across his back and around his body as the light suffused him. In his mind, he imagined that it was burning away the darkness within him, but as he watched, his clothing and armor burst into flames and melted off him as ash and slag, leaving him unharmed as the light itself began to harden around him into a full suit of glowing plate mail.

As this happened, he felt himself starting to fade and diminish as he finally understood. He wasn’t to be strengthened by Siddrim but taken over by the god. Todd didn’t struggle or fight as the deity took possession of him, body and soul, and he faded into the background. It was a strange experience, and it was only when that was completed that the giant wings of molten gold sprang from his back.

He doubted that even the strongest could have survived this. Siddrim had taken everything and made it his own. When he was gone again, Todd would be nothing but a husk of the man that he’d once been.

He did not feel angry or cheated, though. He knew that he might be able to slay five of those zombies or perhaps ten. As Lord Siddrim’s avatar, though… Together they would slay every last monster in that accursed hive and purge it with fire before there was nothing left of him, and that was a sacrifice he was willing to accept.

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As Siddrim’s power coalesced within the flawed vessel, it struggled to focus as it slowly took control. Todd was devout. That was beyond question. However, something about him was off. That troubled Siddrim much less than the struggle it took to come to grips with being so much less than he’d been moments ago.

He knew that the rest of his glory still lit the world, guided his flock, and protected the world from the darkness, of course, but the fragment of him that was now bound to the body of this mortal thought of itself as Siddrim as well, and that was always a confusing moment.

Still, it passed, and as soon as it was done, he began to focus on the battle to come. He had not seen a hive with so much death and decay in decades or perhaps a century. Perhaps it had been when his forces had rallied an army and driven north to purge the cursed city of Zackeir’syon from the malignancy that had been growing there for decades and the army of shades it had devoured in all those years of solitude.

Evil collected in lonely, forgotten places. Siddrim knew that better than anyone. What he didn’t understand was how this place had gotten so bad without anyone noticing. He’d seen the taint in the river growing until his followers had struck down Oroza and her wicked flock, and he had rejoiced as her dark influence slowly left all the places that her river touched, and the world began to heal.

But not even in all that time had he noted that Blackwater was any more tainted than the rest of the world. If anything, it had been healing for decades longer as its tainted, stagnant waters slowly dried up, and the foul mud became fertile soil.

In the end, he was forced to agree with the theory of his warrior. This had to be the work of something ancient that had laid dormant for a very long time. If that was the case, though, why would it pick now to strike? What was to be gained by it?

One thing was certain, though. Whatever the evil was down there, it had managed to get its hooks into the priest that had designed and built this temple. It was still holy ground, but Siddrim could feel the cracks. When the battle which lay ahead was done, he would have the place leveled and built again from scratch with more traditional techniques.

For now, it was as good a battlefield as any. Would it be enough, though? Would his enemy be stupid enough to try to face off against a God in his place of power, or would he have to descend into the darkness to face his enemy there?

He’d gone into the depths a hundred times to face other foes, but it wasn’t his preferred strategy. Not only were his powers much more limited in such foul places, but the enemy had likely spent decades to lay any number of terribly lethal traps.

Though any weapon would have a hard enough time trying to penetrate the armor of righteousness that Siddrim was cloaked in, the magics of the dark were an especially bad choice. He reviewed the dim memories of the leviathan that the templars had fought years before and smiled. His aura alone would be enough to burn away anything made in that image.

Brother Graff believed that both of these dungeons bore the same fingerprints, and Siddrim was inclined to agree with the man’s assessment. Perhaps it was the evil below him that had somehow managed to taint the small goddess Oroza after all, he mused. Still - these things could be investigated by his priests once the abominations were dead.

As Siddrim considered all of these things and tried to decide what the correct course of action was, he heard a grinding of stone on stone and knew that his enemy, or at least some messenger on its behalf, was approaching. It used the tainted altar as a sort of lift to raise it slowly back to ground level.

Given that the sun was still out, it was a strange choice, but Siddrim would not complain. It was probably just a feint to close the door before he could go down there and kill every piece of necromantic scum that had been resurrected by his enemy, but he would wait and see.

After all, if need be, he could focus the light until it melted the very stone or rip those giant stones out of the earth and forge his own path into the depths.

As a hunched figure cloaked in black sackcloth began to appear on the dais, Siddrim flared his wings out and summoned a giant broad sword in the form of a semitransparent beam of crepuscular light that was sharp enough to cut through any steel. Then he steeled himself. Whatever was going to happen next, he was ready.

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