234: Surprising Developments (Patreon)

Dahlia Zellner:

“Well, that didn’t work, either,” Barton said, wiping at the blood covering the lower half of his face. The backlash from their latest disaster had given him the mother of all nosebleeds. And, judging from the way his eyes weren’t focusing in the same direction, also some kind of brain damage.

Dahlia bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood of her own, which took some work at her Constitution level. Things weren’t looking good and she was running out of ideas.

When banishment didn’t work, they tried to sever the link between the pillar and the thousand-plus people trapped inside. Barton used his System-hacking Skills, and the backlash knocked him on his ass. The link wasn’t only a Grade above his, it turned out to be of Mythic Quality. Messing with it guaranteed painful consequences.

They kept trying, because the monster was slowly but steadily increasing in power. Barton had tracked the Combat Log and had realized its damage output was growing by five percent per minute, At that rate, Roland’s Vital Energy – the main reason nobody had died yet – would run out in ten minutes or so, and they would start to lose people.

Josh floated the idea of killing the poor bastards inside the pillar to deprive the monster of its healing source. Somebody had to say it, and Dahlia was secretly thankful their favorite Dork Elf had been the one to do it, because she was about to.

Setting the moral aspect aside, though, Barton and Dahlia had workshopped the idea and decided the risks outweighed the benefits. The Dullahan – or whatever had created or brought it here – wouldn’t have left an Achilles heel like that without some kind of countermeasure.

After a variation of Fiat Lux damaged the Dullahan severely but didn’t keep it from healing back to full, they turned to containment as an option.

After cooking up a Plan C, a quick conference using the new Chat Interface that Roland had gained when he made level 20 got everyone on the same page. Dahlia, Desolation and Barton set down a powerful imprisonment circle. An incomplete one; as soon as the Dullahan was in it, Barton would finish closing it, activating it and trapping the monster inside. A secondary effect would start draining its Health and Mana.

It was a stopgap, something to give Roland time to escape whatever the monster had done to him, or to let Bartoid come up with some brilliant idea, because Dahlia’s Plan C (or was it D?) involved summoning something powerful enough to give the Dullahan pause. Problem was, she didn’t know if she’d be able to control it afterwards. All the options she felt capable of bringing in weren’t known for playing well with others.

The melee fighters retreated steadily, luring the Dullahan into the circle, and the monster obliged, moving at the steady pace favored by most of the monsters he had incorporated into his form.

“Got you!” Barton shouted as soon as the big bad had set both feet inside the circle. With a broad gesture, he ‘drew’ the last bit needed to close it, activating their quickie-cast ritual formation.

A coruscating half-sphere appeared around the World Boss. For a couple of seconds, Dahlia thought it had worked. Then the creature took a step and touched the energy barrier with the palm of one of its hands.

The whole thing shattered like a crystal vase hit by a wrecking ball.

That little stunt got Barton the nosebleed and lazy eye.

Dahlia began going through her options for Plan D.

Elsewhere:

This isn’t working, Roland thought as he ran for his life.

He wasn’t running very fast, because he couldn’t put his full weight on his left ankle. Maybe trying to kick a two-thousand-pound behemoth hadn’t been a good idea.

All in all, though, he had given a good accounting of himself. He’d kept his distance and used the naginata’s reach to punish the lumbering monster. The only good news so far was that there were some rules to this nightmarish realm. The Dullahan’s power seemed to be at the low end of F-Grade, giving Roland a (small) fighting chance.

He’d landed some good hits, but the big bastard was much harder to dismember than Jasper, who had the proportions of a tall human. This one had the mass of a prize bull and its bones were harder than ironwood. The naginata just couldn’t chop through them. And the bleeding cuts Roland had inflicted were closing up fast.

After half a minute of futile fighting, Roland decided that retrograde movement was in order. In other words, he retreated as quickly as his bum ankle allowed. The monster seemed to find running beneath its dignity, so it gave chase at a walking pace.

 Fighting wasn’t the answer. He needed to figure out how his super-powers were being suppressed and get them back.

What was this place? Answering that question was the most likely key to this mess. Was it a mental projection, a pocket dimensional realm, or something else?

Everything felt very real, from the pain every time he took a step to the ragged breathing, the sweating, the fatigue that he hadn’t really felt since his Constitution got into past the thirties. The sounds and the smells of the forests were all present.

A Realm, then. With rules. Let’s see how far I can bend them.

He kept moving, hearing the heavy footsteps behind him get slightly closer as he concentrated on his Arts, Skills and Techniques, trying to activate one of them, any of them.

All his Death-related abilities hit a wall; whenever he visualized them, there wasn’t even a tingle, as if he’d never known them. His Speed-based Skills, ditto. Spirit – there was a little twinge of something, and a feeling similar to what happened when he used Reaper’s Dash and temporarily entered the Death Realm.

Active abilities weren’t working. He tried sensory ones. Reaper’s Insight failed, but there was a moment when he felt it almost going off. Predator’s Sagacity produced a similar near-success. They gave him glimpse into the ‘code’ of the Realm and some crucial information.

To begin with, all his ‘Reaper’-tagged abilities were on lockdown.

This Realm is designed to restrict my Reaper nature. My Class. My Pattern. My freaking Bloodline.

Somebody had done their homework and produced a counter to his abilities. How had they managed to learn so much? Trixie had told him there was a TV show about his adventures. It supposedly didn’t reveal a lot of System info, but he bet there were Skills that could get around those limitations.

Raven had warned him that the Dullahan was there for him. It or its handlers had come prepared.

But they don’t know everything. Time to surprise them.

As if reading his thoughts, the Dullahan picked up the pace.

His Life Affinity hadn’t developed any Skills yet. Would it be too much to ask to come up with some healing Skill? He focused on it as he kept running – well, more like jogging.

Creating a Skill while literally on the run was possible, just very difficult. Roland went into his Pattern, looking for the spots where Life had been incorporated into his energy network. Doing it while moving through a dark forest turned out to be a mistake.

He spotted something – a tiny energy node in his third-eye Dantian he hadn’t noticed before – while missing a low-hanging branch that smacked him right on the forehead. He ended up on his ass, his inner vision vanishing in a flash of pain.

Got to move. Got to –

A massive hand closed on his forearm like a metal clamp. Radius and ulna were squeezed together, then crushed. It was the sort of thing that in a different place would have improved his Pain Resistance.

 Nothing got improved there.

Roland was lifted by the broken arm and slammed into a tree. Ribs broke. The back of his head felt like it’d been filled with broken glass.

One of his eyes wasn’t working right. He opened the good one and found himself way too close to two of the Dullahan’s faces, looking impassively at him.

It wants me to be afraid. Maybe needs me to be afraid.

The Dullahan ended lives, but thrived on terror. It wouldn’t kill Roland quickly. It wanted him to fall into despair first.

Bastard shoulda read the Evil Overlord List, Roland thought before the Dullahan drove Jasper’s favorite knife into his guts.

The pain was bad. But not bad enough to keep him from turning his senses inward again. It was going to be a race between the Dullahan deciding it was time to put him out of his misery or him figuring out something.

He concentrated on the node. It was small, and it resonated with his Life Affinity. What was it? One possibility occurred to him, something right in his character sheet:

Bloodlines: 1/?? (Bringer of Death Bloodline)

Was the node related to the ?? in the Bloodline entry?

On the outside, there was a wet, tearing sound, and he couldn’t feel his left arm anymore.

Did that bastard tear my arm off? Oh well, it’ll grow back.

Ascendant Architect!

The node wasn’t a Core or part of his Pattern, but he used the tools his newest Celestial Awareness Technique had provided him. They worked. Celestial Awareness wasn’t tied to his Reaper persona. Even better, it wasn’t the kind of ability that people could identify from a TV screen.

He probed the node, sent a tendril of energy into it, wishing it to awaken as he forced himself to ignore what was happening to his body.

Something woke up inside of him. Something ancient.

*

Three beings of light descended on the First Temple.

The circular structure had been erected by a people who had yet to discover agriculture, pottery, or any of the arts most would deem as essential to have a civilization. An alliance of hunter-gatherers had built it over generations, set up stone pillars, a place of meeting. A place of worship.

The object of their veneration sat on a stone throne. He hadn’t asked to be worshipped. He hadn’t even directed them to raise the t-shaped megaliths or shown them how to do so. They had shown incredible inventiveness and determination. That was but one of the reasons he loved them so.

He looked like the folk that tended to him, but they knew he saw something else. For one, he hadn’t changed over generations. And he had fathered strange children who were abnormally tall and strong, children who had grown to become mighty hunters and shamans. Giants, they were called.

The disguised entity on the throne sensed the trio’s arrival before they breached the atmosphere, before the light of their arrival left glowing streaks on their way, similar to those left by errant meteorite. A few decades ago, he had redirected one such rock, one big enough to have exterminated the humans he had come to love. Perhaps that minor flex of his Will had been enough to attract the attention of his peers.

The people of the proto-city that would one day be known as Göbekli Tepe finally spotted the glowing entities as they gently descended.

The messengers had tried to assume forms the humans would find less intimidating. Tried and failed. Their shapes were vaguely humanoid, but their auras were blindingly bright, and their shapes extended into dimensions that the human eye couldn’t perceive or comprehend. The result gave their bodies bizarre depths and fractal patterns that shifted as they moved.

Most people fled. Five of his progeny made a stand around the throne, tall and mighty. He felt a mix of pride and sorrow for them. They were brave and strong, but their might would not save them.

But perhaps a plea for mercy would.

“ADJUDICATOR,” the leader of the three spoke in a voice like the rumble of thunder, like continental plates grinding together and the vibrations around the event horizon of a black hole. His five would-be defenders fell to their knees, clutching their heads or trying to cover their ears.

“I am he,” the man on the throne said softly. “Please mind your voice. You will hurt the children.”

<YOU ABANDONED YOUR DUTIES,> the leader went on, respectful enough to switch to a wavelength that would not damage humans.

“I grew tired of passing judgment. I needed a change.”

<YOU ARE NEEDED, ADJUDICATOR.>

“Am I?” As he spoke, he activated long-dormant senses and peered into the infinite permutations of spacetime. “Ah. Yes. Interesting.”

He sighed. His time on this world would end earlier than he wished, at least on this timeline. He glanced at a million others where he remained undiscovered and ushered a golden age once his children grew strong enough to reshape the world. His other selves would enjoy those times, but not him.

“Very well. Let us leave.”

<YOU HAVE SPREAD FRAGMENTS OF YOUR SUBSTANCE AMONG THESE PRIMITIVE LIFE FORMS. RETRIEVE THEM.>

“No,” he said simply, and the fractal beings recoiled as if slapped. “They will remain. They will be diluted but will awaken when needed. And they will be needed.”

<THE ENTITY KNOWN AS THE SYSTEM HAS CLAIMED-WILL-CLAIM-IS CLAIMING THIS WORLD. YOUR CHILDREN WILL FALL UNDER ITS PURVIEW.>

“Yes. But it does not matter. They will be needed. I JUDGE it to be necessary.”

<JUDGEMENT HAS BEEN PASSED,> all three messengers said, acquiescing without protest.

He was the Adjudicator, after all.

“Father,” the best of his progeny said, her eyes bright with tears. “I can feel that you are leaving us.”

“It is time. Live well. Abuse not your power, or you will be Judged by those greater than I.”

With those words, he stood from the throne, consigning it to dust. No one else would claim it. His body shed its mask of humanity, becoming a thing of angles and wheels within wheels that moved in impossible directions, parts appearing or disappearing seemingly at random.

The four entities rose toward the sky and disappeared.

*

A dormant Bloodline has been awakened.

Bloodline detected – Ultra-Terrestrial Origin. Outside System Parameters.

Converting...

Nephilim Bloodline has been awakened!

Roland opened his eyes. Both of them were working again.

The Dullahan was crumpled against the remains of several trees. It wasn’t dead, just hurting a lot, although it was beginning to recover. Roland was standing on a smoking crater. He was glowing.

“Surprise,” he told the monster.