Advent of Eternity - Cyll Interlude (Patreon)

They had been two hundred. Now they were two. Fifty died to the hellfire above. Fifty died to traps within the dungeon that they didn’t have time to properly clear. Twenty fell to the monsters within. The remainder succumbed to their wounds.

A bloody dais sat in the center of a small circular room, spines sticking out of it like the maw of some twisted monster. So many had died, all to get to this moment. Thousands of lives on days before, and every last one of his friends today – but one.

Cyll coughed. The wound in his side had stopped bleeding, but not because it had healed. He was just out of blood to give. The world spun around him as he dragged himself toward the altar, broken limbs screaming in pain with every motion.

His teeth were cracked. An eye was missing, and his hair was burnt off. Agony seared through his body, refusing to be ignored.

Cyll ignored it. The altar was in front of him. Years of suffering, all for the slightest chance. The flicker of hope. He drew on the last of the energy in his battered, broken body.

“Just… a little farther,” Cyll rasped.

He was dimly aware of Larissa crawling beside him. She wasn’t in much better shape, but he couldn’t afford to stop and check on her. Pain at her condition, more than any physical agony could ever bring him, coursed through his being.

His world ended today, but it would end so hers didn’t. Stretching, his fingers touched the dais.

The temperature in the room plummeted. Ice raced across the ground, biting at Cyll’s body as the bloody room turned white in instants. And then, there was a being sitting on the throne. It was roughly humanoid, but everything about it was wrong.

While around the size of a full grown man, its face was that of a child. Its hair was sharp and brittle like bone, while its fingertips bent backwards and ended in points.

If Cyll didn’t know better, he would have thought it was god. But he did, and this was no god. It was the End.

“The ritual,” Cyll wheezed. “I initiate the ritual.”

“I had thought it forgotten,” the End said, its voice harsh and whispery. “How fascinating. Mortals still follow the old way.”

“We greet you,” Cyll rasped, not responding to the End. The ritual was very specific. If he misspoke, it would all be for naught. Darkness encroached on his vision, but he forced it back. He could rest soon. “Great one, please take us into your arms.”

“We offer up our Paths and bring a gift,” Larissa said, adding her voice to his own.

Cyll tried to reach for his pouch, but he didn’t have the strength. A smile crossed the End’s face and it extended its warped hand. His pouch fell open and twelve Boons rolled out of it, bouncing across the ground and coming to a stop at the End’s feet.

“One of each god,” Larissa said. “And all the energy we have within our bodies. We give it to you.”

“A kind gift,” the End said. “But there may be only one. There can only ever be one. This is the last ritual. There will not be another.”

Cyll knew that. They all did, coming here. He worked his dry lips open to say the next line.

“Then I offer myself as the catalyst,” Larissa said. Cyll’s blood froze.

“No,” Cyll said. “No! Me! I am the catalyst!”

The End rose from his throne. “Your valor is witnessed, mortal. Pass unto the End.”

A single, twisted finger reached out and touched to Larissa’s head. Cyll’s battered body protested as he groaned trying to move between the two. For an instant, his remaining eye locked with Larissa.

She was smiling. “I love you, Cyll. Live.”

And then she was gone. The trail of blood she’d left behind disappeared as well. It was as if it had never been there. Cyll wanted to scream. He wanted to cry and bang his head against the ground until the world went dark. To cease to exist.

“Are you prepared?” the End asked, turning to Cyll.

His eyes were too dry to cry, but he heaved an empty, wrenching sob. “Yes.”

The End knelt before Cyll and took his face into its hands. His blood chilled and what little strength he had left vanished as the End took his Path. It stripped the magical energy from his body, leaving nothing behind. Every last bit of power he’d gained over the years, gone.

There was only ice. Ice and fury. It built in Cyll’s chest, reaching out through his body and filling his veins.

“You are Forsaken,” the End said. “Beyond the reach of the gods. I failed my path. Do not follow in my steps. Kill them.”

And then the End was gone as well. The altar went with it, leaving Cyll lying alone on the cold stone. His body burbled and popped. Bones snapped back into their place and damaged organs regrew.

In seconds, he was whole once more – but he wasn’t. Cyll laid there, cheek pressed to the icy floor, and cried.