Dreadgod, p.7
Dreadgod, page 7
Racks carved into the stone stood empty of the weapons they once held, and clockwork machines—designed to be operated by constructs—sat silent. Arms of scripted bronze and steel stretched out from the walls, motionless.
Lindon didn’t summon Ozmanthus this time. It was too time-consuming to do every time, though Eithan’s ancient reflection was a valuable resource. Instead, he consulted the man’s memories.
As Lindon entered, he ran his perception through a dream tablet on the wall. It contained memories he’d viewed before: Ozmanthus creating a network of launcher constructs synced together to protect an entire city, commentating the process.
And then, later, coldly confronting a king that had used that network of launchers to assault a rival instead of to protect himself. The king protested that it had merely been a preemptive military action, and that he had been acting in defense of his people.
Ozmanthus suggested that if he enjoyed preemptive strikes so much, he should appreciate this one, and had erased the man from the neck up.
There was Soulsmithing knowledge Lindon could glean from the creation of those weapons, and he had been diligently doing so. Ozmanthus had also left behind a wealth of sacred arts experience, including a natural sense for madra manipulation unlike anything Lindon had ever seen. Between that and his insight, no wonder he had been called a genius.
But Lindon was having a harder and harder time seeing Ozmanthus and Eithan Arelius as the same person.
He knew they were. Eithan had said so himself, and had proven his identity in the most dramatic fashion possible. Even Ozmanthus’ echo had confirmed it.
It wasn’t that Lindon doubted, but that it was hard to see how time had turned Ozmanthus into Eithan. There was some lesson to be learned from that, even if Lindon wasn’t sure exactly what it was.
In the meantime, he would take every advantage he had.
“What do we have left, Dross?” Lindon asked, when Eithan’s memory had faded.
Dross drifted into existence, choosing to appear so that it looked like he had floated out of the shadows. [Our enemies have centuries if not millennia of experience we don’t, and they have spent that time building up resources. Any of them could crush us, either personally or with a command to their organizations. This is the fragility of advancing so quickly.]
“I understand, so if you could speed this up…”
[We hang under the cloud of doom, and yet we stand up in our futile struggle, never flagging under the weight that will surely crush us.]
Lindon gently grabbed Dross and turned him to look into his large purple eye. “It’s not futile, Dross.”
He could feel the spirit shifting uncomfortably and looking for an argument, but finally Dross’ arms drooped and he sighed. […no, it’s not. But wouldn’t it be more exciting if it were?]
Lindon let Dross drift sullenly into the air and answer his question at last. [There is no substitute for experience…so we’ll steal theirs.]
A grey-and-white copy of a younger Northstrider appeared in midair, projected by Dross. [I have recovered many of my memories from inside his oracle codex, and he left an echo of himself behind in the labyrinth after his exploration. I suspect we’re eighty percent to a combat solution.]
Another echo appeared next to him, this time of Reigan Shen with his chin tilted proudly up. [The trouble with Reigan Shen is that he can change his resources at any time, crafting cruel weapons to tear our souls to pieces…ahem, so we can never have a one-hundred-percent accurate model. But we are close, so close, enough that we can taste success with our outstretched tongues.]
Most Monarchs had never set foot into the labyrinth, but three had. Fortunately, they were the ones Lindon was most concerned about.
The third Monarch appeared, drawing back her bow with a smirk on her face. The young Malice looked like she could be Mercy’s sister.
[Akura Malice. Her powers have grown and evolved since she was the Sage of Eternal Night, and she did not use the full extent of her power while she was inside the labyrinth, suffering as she did from both the degradation of hunger madra and the suppression field. However…]
Dross projected a violet book into midair. […with the knowledge we have of Mercy’s Book of Eternal Night, we can sneak a glimpse into Malice’s dark powers. The Book is an idealized version of her Path, not the one she truly follows, and thus we will be always plagued by uncertainty. But we are close to understanding. With some more observation of her, and perhaps a peek into Mercy’s Book, we will treat Malice like we did Harmony.]
The spirit giggled at the memory, which made Lindon shiver.
“That assumes we can fight her on equal terms,” Lindon pointed out. Which they couldn’t yet do.
[Yeeesssss…if we faced Malice now, she would kill us from miles away. If she were merciful. More likely, she would pull us into shadow and torment us, or twist us into her loyal lapdogs.]
Lindon shivered again and changed the subject. They had other projects than just combat reports on the Monarchs.
“What about advancement for the others?”
[If they were willing to replace their limbs, I would be finished already.] Dross stared pointedly at Lindon’s right arm.
That wasn’t as simple as it sounded, and Dross knew it. Though they had enough hunger madra to now supply anyone they wanted, an arm would have to be compatible with its host spirit. They would also need a spirit Enforcer technique to separate the madra they drained. And without a mind-spirit to filter out stolen thoughts, they would risk losing their identity to the stolen memories.
These were solvable problems, and Lindon had considered looking for the solution. There were still hunger spears stored in the labyrinth, the ones that had once been made for Gold-level soldiers, and there was no reason he couldn’t create higher-level devices made for more advanced stages.
But he needed to work more quickly. He had to bring the others up to the level of being able to fight Dreadgods and Monarchs as soon as possible.
Dross made an irritated hiss as he sensed the direction of Lindon’s thoughts, and began spooling out new projections. [Among the memories of the echoes and some records still stored in the labyrinth, I have options. But I need your authority to explore them, so it is on your decision that our fate rests.]
Lindon looked from a buried elixir that would greatly increase the advancement of anyone on a force Path, perfect for Ziel, to a castle where a black dragon’s Herald Remnant had been frozen in time for hundreds of years.
He pulled up a chair and opened himself to the memories.
“Gratitude, Dross. What’s first?”
3
Lindon strode onto the large stone wedges that made up the platform of the Soulforge. Each wedge was marked with a single symbol so that together they formed a simple script-circle. Starry sky surrounded him in all directions, though Lindon suspected they were points of condensed power rather than actual stars.
From his soulspace, he removed Genesis, his newly crafted Soulsmithing hammer. It was two-headed and small enough to fit in one hand, with one head tinged red and the other blue. Made to bind his powers together and focus them on creation, Genesis was intended to advance his Soulsmithing to the next level.
He had used the hammer only briefly, and he was looking forward to any excuse to wield it now. Though the occasion did dampen his enthusiasm.
“I need a plan, Dross,” Lindon said.
They had discussed this before arriving in the Everwood continent, knowing they were indirectly confronting the Silent King. Dross had begun theorizing countermeasures against the Dreadgod’s possession.
Of course, the situation had become more urgent than either of them had expected.
Dross projected the image of a fist-sized ball, little more than a binding wrapped in dead matter, with a simple trigger and a straightforward effect. It looked something like a purple-and-white striped clamshell, and Lindon grabbed the image in one hand and inspected it.
On the inside, it was more complicated, blending Ruler and Enforcer techniques of a few different aspects at once. But it was still straightforward, effectively boosting the body’s inherent spiritual resistance while attacking the Silent King’s parasitic technique with similar aspects.
“Let me see it work.”
With only a weird laugh, Dross spun it out.
The example he used was the sword-Path Archlady from Everwood with the halo behind her head. Dross placed the clamshell construct in her soulspace, and immediately the madra from the Silent King’s control activated it. Power ran throughout her madra channels, and she shivered until the halo disappeared.
[It will do nothing to resist the Silent King’s focused attention. And it can’t hold him back from stepping on you.]
“It’s better than nothing. Can we do it cheaper?”
Dross had created this recipe by combining elements from several traditional defenses against the Silent King. They would help against remote possession, but no easily crafted construct could stand against a Dreadgod’s direct will.
Finding appropriate dream bindings was easy—Lindon had several in his own void key, and he could theoretically use those from the Path of the White Fox, if he strengthened them himself. But soul Enforcer techniques were rare.
[If we use mind Enforcer techniques or purify and twist some full-body Enforcer techniques, there’s a version that slowly grinds the control away. Like a whetstone grinding away your living bones, one fraction of an inch at a time.]
“First, that’s another one to never say again. Make a note.”
Since Dross had returned with his new, morbid personality, he had used a few expressions that were too disturbing for Lindon to allow. Dross had agreed to seal them away at Lindon’s request, though Lindon suspected he might have agreed only to have a list of what got under Lindon’s skin the most.
[Ah, I see, I see…is it the bone part that disturbs you, or the grinding?]
Lindon shuddered at the last word. “All of it. Now, will the lower-efficiency version of the construct still be effective?”
[In all simulations, it eliminates the parasitic technique. The time required ranges between eighteen seconds and roughly nine minutes.]
“Do we have the required materials on hand?”
[The Silent King threatened six beings besides the two of us. Your three surviving relatives, Yerin, Orthos, and Mercy. If that is all we need, and we are willing to accept a lapse in performance, then we have the materials on hand. Also, this assumes that we do not need protection ourselves.]
“We’ll be safe,” Lindon said.
He was certain he could break the Silent King’s control with his own willpower, but if it came to that, he also had a spiritual Enforcer technique specialized in purifying foreign elements, an arm with stronger hunger madra than the halo technique, and a Sage’s authority that could be used to remove things. Not to mention Dross.
Little Blue would purify any corruption of her spirit before she was even conscious of it, which could have been why the Dreadgod didn’t mention her.
[Safe?] Dross whispered. [We will be in the most danger of all, because the only way he can control us is if we give in voluntarily.]
“One problem at a time. Six constructs. Do they work if they aren’t held in the soulspace?”
[At about twenty percent reduced efficiency.]
“Good enough. Get the materials.” Any solution was better than none.
Dross opened Lindon’s void key and dead matter began floating out. He couldn’t activate Lindon’s key on his own, nor could he use soulfire, but Lindon could allow him to borrow command over both.
Lindon himself was focused on the surface of the altar, even as he felt Forged madra and Remnant parts floating around him.
In an apparent contradiction, weaker souls needed weaker protections against techniques like this, despite being more vulnerable. A defensive construct that was too much for them could cause damage to their channels while purging the foreign energy.
Therefore, he seized the weak materials first. He had started carrying around Jade Remnants with White Fox-compatible madra so that he could make constructs for his family. These would serve as practice for him, and he wouldn’t even need to fuel the Soulforge. Just being made in this place would grant the constructs more authority than they would have otherwise; enough to defeat the Silent King’s will, so long as the Dreadgod was nowhere nearby.
Lindon could have assembled this construct in two seconds using his madra control alone, but he gave it his full attention. A dream Ruler binding and a purified soul Enforcer binding—one that he’d made to simulate the Heart of Twin Stars—went down first, and he fused them together with one strike of Genesis. He used the blue head, channeling pure madra, as this was a purification construct and not a weapon.
The construct formed in moments, infused with power from his will, his madra, and this place. When he bathed it in his own quicksilver soulfire, it ended up pink and pale blue instead of the purple-and-white of Dross’ example, but a quick spiritual scan confirmed that it would work.
He Forged a quick script into it, to preserve the construct and add a few basic protections, then he considered it done.
That would be good enough for one of his parents and would probably be the highest quality construct they had ever used.
He made one more at that level. Kelsa’s had to be a little stronger, and Orthos’ stronger still. When he started working on Mercy’s, he paused.
“What about Ziel?” he asked.
Dross gave a boneless shrug. [The Dreadgod didn’t mention him.]
Was that because the Silent King wasn’t aware of Ziel, or was the Dreadgod playing some game? Maybe this was a mental trick to get Lindon to overlook Ziel…or to get him to focus on Ziel too much, as the one exception.
[Or maybe it’s a nefarious trick to get us to overthink this.]
They didn’t have enough materials for a seventh protective construct. Any bindings good enough for an Archlord were rare, much less soul Enforcer techniques. Lindon began to wish they’d stolen more halos from the mind-controlled people of Everwood; the hostile techniques could be broken down into raw components.
“We’ll find something later,” Lindon said, focusing on Mercy’s construct.
[Yes. Later…let us hope that Ziel is not turned into a prisoner in his own body in the meantime.]
Lindon let that thought pass.
Lindon hammered away at a new clamshell construct, which had taken on a darker purple hue. He kept his tone, and even his thoughts, casual as he spoke.
“And how is your condition, Dross?”
Dross hovered in position, vibrating slightly. [I am greater than I have ever been, and greater than any other mind-construct has ever dared to imagine being. I am the apex of all things.]
“So you’re not feeling…anything?”
[I can never be certain whether I would be more effective with my original identity.] Dross giggled. [But I would not take such a risk as to find out. Who would sell their soul for a chance at power, hmmmmm?]
Lindon had resolved to grow used to the new, dark-minded Dross, but it was difficult. He could work with this Dross, even like him. But he wasn’t quite the same person Lindon had grown attached to in the first place. Lindon missed his friend.
And Dross knew it.
[I am more effective than I have ever been. Perhaps there will be no returning me to who I was, and no need to. Will you throw me away then?]
“I’m not going to throw you away, Dross.”
[Then you had best grow used to me. Think of me as one of your organs. I am just as functional to you as a liver, and I can be just as squishy and sticky.]
“I’ll take your word for it,” Lindon said. He tried to bury his disappointment.
Dross wiggled through the air, enjoying Lindon’s inner conflict as though savoring a song. Lindon shoved the topic aside and returned his entire focus to the creation of the constructs.
Mercy’s was complicated, and Yerin’s more complex still. For hers, he had to modify an Overlord construct that he had purified and artificially raised to Archlord level, which he had planned to use as pure madra equipment for himself.
The residual wills of the two Archlord bindings he was fusing together fought him, trying to take control, each fighting the other to determine the shape of the final construct. He had to master them both, commanding them into shape, and use the blue soulfire burning at the heart of the Soulforge to bind them together instead of his own.
For the first time, the fire inside the altar dimmed a little. He needed to gather some more fuel.
While the constructs for his parents took seconds apiece, and Kelsa’s only a little longer, he found that two hours had passed by the time he left the Soulforge. Each project took longer than the last, but the number of simulations Dross had performed—and the strength of Lindon’s own will—meant there was virtually no chance of out-and-out failure.
Lindon was left with six scripted clamshell constructs in a range of similar colors, each radiating very different levels of spiritual power. He sealed them away in scripted boxes, some of which he had to carve himself with a quick application of Blackflame.
Gathering and making the containers took longer than making the constructs themselves, but when he was done, he had six boxes. Only then did he leave his house on Windfall, looking for his family.
As soon as he stepped out of the door, he found himself in another world.
His cloud fortress floated in a bubble of air surrounded by sunlit ocean. Far above him, waves rippled with light. Shadowed shapes moved with the water.
We haven’t been transported anywhere, Lindon sent to Dross. I would have felt it.
[To your senses, it feels like another world layered over this one. Like skin stretched over flesh.]
This technique felt like a more advanced version of a boundary field; instead of commanding all the aura in an area, it commanded the area itself. Lindon could see how to attack it, but that would mean going against the field’s creator.
