EPISODE TWENTY-THREE:
CHAMPION OF RASU
“I shouldn’t be surprised.” Corwin said, taking a step away from Zakarias’ servants, increasing the distance between himself and everyone else in the room. “You practically screamed ‘scumbag shadow-touched traitor’ from the moment we met you.”
Zakarias gave a nonchalant shrug. “Sometimes it’s best to trust your instincts.”
Vash allowed himself to pull forward against the grip of the hulking servant over his shoulder. The servant barely had to put any effort into keeping Vash in place, but the point was to get him to shift his weight, pulling back to keep Vash from moving freely. “You know how I feel about ‘I told you so’.”
“One of your favorite phrases, if I recall.” Corwin said, moving slowly backwards, keeping his back to the rounded wall.
“Not really.” Vash said, slowly flipping the dagger in his off-hand so that the blade pointed behind him. “If I have to say it, then that means things have really gone bad.”
“That’s a fair assessment.” Jabez grunted, getting to his feet, facing the deformed combination of woman and spider that rested her ponderous bulk a mere ten feet from where Jabez stood.
Zakarias smiled, stepping back to stand behind his servants. The placid, massive figures displayed all the menace of a cow chewing her cud, but Vash knew from experience that the two possessed a strength that they had all underestimated.
“If it’s any consolation, you all did much better than I anticipated. I thought that you — “ Zakarias pointed at Corwin “ — wouldn’t make it this far. Hence why I only brought two soulstone matrices.”
The Hollowmound Queen hissed in a strange approximation of amusement. “Two for the stones, one to consume.”
“I suppose it works out well that way, then.” Zakarias mused. “I was going to offer you one of my men, but now that’s unnecessary. Which is good, I hate to waste resources. Do you have a preference, great lady?”
“I will take the little one.” The Queen rasped, licking her cracked lips as she stared down at Jabez. “It will take a few days to tenderize him, leathery thing that he is, but he’s almost saturated in mana. I could feed off him for weeks.”
“Good, that’s settled then.” Zakarias said, clapping his hands together once in excitement. “Shall we proceed?”
Vash tried to shift out of the brute’s grasp, but the man just gripped him harder. “I’m beginning to think we’re not part of this conversation.”
“I hate it when people talk about me like I’m not there.” Corwin said, raising his sword and taking a defensive stance. “It’s really damn rude.”
“Let me deal with the dwarf while you restrain the apprentices.” The Hollowmound Queen said. “The process will take a few hours, and I’d rather not have to chase down my food while I’m working.”
“Enough of this,” Jabez growled. Vash could feel the dwarf pulling on the ambient mana in the room. Blue-white runes and traceries of power illuminated the hammer in Jabez’s hand as he raised it high.
“Oh, I’d forgotten about that thing,” Zakarias said in annoyance.
“” Jabez called, voice taking on the amplified, echoing with the power of the mana coursing through him. Swinging the hammer in a mighty arc, Jabez took a step forward and slammed the head into the ground in front of him. A wave of energy and cracked floor tiles flowed from the hammer strike directly towards the Hollowmound Queen.
Faster than a creature of her bulk should be able to move, the Queen shot a line of webbing to the ceiling and quickly got far enough off the ground that the shock wave passed beneath her. Several bricks crumbled around the edge of the pit and tumbled into the abyss. Stone flaked off the veins of purple crystal on the walls, enough that Vash could see where they all met: an altar-like structure on the far side of the pit.
Glowing purple crystals, heartstones Corwin had called them, clustered around something in the very center of the altar. The larger crystals cradled something within that glinted now and again with a disorienting opal sheen.
Vash thought.
With an awkward the Queen returned to the ground. “That could have hurt me, little morsel. Not. Nice.”
The Queen surged forward, huge scythe-claws unfolding from beneath her torso. She slashed first with the right, then the left, trying to pin Jabez down.
Again, the dwarf moved with surprising speed and agility, dodging the first claw, then rolling forward inside the Queen’s reach. He struck her thorax twice in rapid succession. The Queen shrieked in rage and pain as Jabez’s hammer left two small cracks in her carapace. They oozed the same pale-green blood as the spiders above, but the wounds were not large and more surprising than they were damaging.
Scuttling back, the Queen moved on the offensive again, sidestepping and striking with deadly precision. Vash felt the thrum of Talents being used. Jabez dodged, blocked, and wove his way around the attacks. He looked formidable, but Vash could see how much using his magic hammer had cost him. Jabez’s eyes were sunken and shadowed, and his skin took on a pale, sweaty sheen. The beginning signs of mana overuse.
Vash thought.
Vash stopped pushing against the grip of the servant who held him, immediately launching himself backwards. The force of the servant’s grip even aided Vash in the move. He flung himself back hard into the servant’s chest, simultaneously stabbing backwards with his dagger. The blade bit deep into the bigger man’s thigh.
The servant grunted, the first sound Vash had heard either of them make. So they feel something at least. He pulled upwards on his dagger, intending to open a long slash in the servant’s inner thigh. The blade barely moved, though, like he was stabbing through a layer of gristle and connective tissue, not a large, vulnerable muscle.
Vash finally pulled his blade free and spun away from the clutching hands of his opponent. The servant made a face that Vash could only describe as ‘annoyed discomfort’ and studied his wound. A four-inch gash in the servant’s leg bled weakly. What should have been a torrent of dark red blood was a mere trickle of wine-colored liquid, more watery than normal blood, that seemed to slow on its own as Vash watched.
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The servant looked up at Vash. His expression changed. Annoyance flashed over to anger, and those small eyes changed color to a glowing amber. The man took deep breaths, each exhalation a snort of fury, like a bull. Within moments, Vash could see the man’s robe, which was already tight across his chest and shoulders, begin to stretch and tear. Vash felt a surge of mana, and the man transformed. Robes tore as muscles stretched and expanded. Soon, only rags hung from the man’s grotesquely expanded body. He grew taller, rising to almost eight feet in height, looming over Vash like a furious giant.
Now a towering brute, the creature that was once Zakarias’ servant, tossed aside his shredded robe. Beneath, his body was a patchwork of grafted skin and muscle, scars criss-crossing the brute’s body like the stitches of a novice seamstress.
The brute gave out a roar of fury, letting Vash see his enlarged canines and over-sized jaw. He stalked forward with a menacing directness.
“Don’t kill them, yet,” Zakarias said with a calm detachment from where he stood by the door. “We need them alive for the soulstone process.”
Snarling in annoyance, the brute swiped at Vash, trying to grab him and pull him into a hold of some sort. Vash danced back, moving out of range, but barely.
Vash thought. Immediately, Vash activated , needing the extra speed and agility to stay ahead of the Brute. Reaching into his Core, he found his mana was waning.
The brute’s meaty fist swiped at Vash, who dodged again, but not fast enough or far enough. Fingers the size of sausages brushed his wounded shoulder and sent Vash tumbling with the force of the blow. He rolled with the fall, keeping hold of his weapons and tumbling away from the brute.
held, Vash could vault to his feet, now much closer to Jabez and the Queen. The dwarf and spider remained locked in combat. The Queen had taken several more blows to her thorax, leading to more weeping cracks. One leg was bent at an odd angle, slowing the Queen’s movements, making her unbalanced and awkward. However, Jabez suffered large tears in his mail, with bloody gashes visible beneath.
Across the room, Vash could see Corwin locked in combat with the other servant, who was also changing into a brute. Corwin’s sword lay on the ground a few feet away from him, and he gripped the brute’s wrists as he huffed and expanded. A look of fear and effort was plain on Corwin’s face as he fought desperately to keep the brute from getting inside his guard. Moment by moment, however, Corwin’s arms were being forced back, and the brute moved forward.
In the doorway, Zakarias watched with an amused expression.
Vash thought, glancing at his own opponent, who was now lumbering in his direction.
Vash darted across the room, not bothering to stop to consider what he was doing. He darted between the Hollowmound Queen’s legs, barely avoiding strikes and stabs from the sharp chitin claws. Not stopping, Vash zeroed in on a break in the Queen’s exoskeleton, where two segments of her legs met. As he passed, Vash summoned up . Without the added advantage of , it wasn’t as devastating, but he could land a powerful strike at the vulnerable break in the carapace.
The Queen screeched, Vash’s short sword tore through the joint, spraying thick spider blood through the air. The leg buckled, unable to support the Queen’s weight. She stumbled and lashed out at Vash, but it was too late. Vash continued moving past her toward Corwin.
The brute pursuing Vash tried to change directions as the Queen stumbled into his path, huge abdomen swinging around. He wasn’t fast enough and the turning Queen’s bulging abdomen struck him hard, sending the brute to the ground and sliding back the way he came.
Vash ignored what was happening behind him, focusing instead on getting to Corwin. He slid his dagger up one sleeve to free a hand, then grabbed Corwin’s lost sword as he passed. The blade was twice as long as his own sword, and half again as heavy. Vash felt the twinge of magical potential from the sword for a moment, but it disappeared almost as swiftly as it had come.
“Corwin!” Vash called, bracing the big sword against his shoulder as he charged.
Glancing up, Corwin gave Vash a look of confused alarm, then realization dawned. A deep thrum of mana use came from Corwin and Vash could see his arm muscles ripple and bulge. He dragged the brute around, getting the hulking man in a better position, exposing his back to the trained assassin.
Zakarias realized what was happening a moment after Corwin. “Watch out!”
It was too late. Vash summoned again, pouring as much mana as he could into the Talent. The sword’s tip steadied, and he felt it almost guide itself to a point halfway up the brute’s torso and slightly to the left of the spine. At the moment of impact, Vash released the mana he’d been building into the Talent, and it surged through his muscles into one perfectly timed thrust.
Corwin’s sword slid into the brute’s back with hardly any resistance. Vash put all his weight into the thrust, feeling the steel scrape against bone. The brute’s mouth fell open and his eyes went wide in a moment of complete shock. Corwin rolled away as the tip of his sword erupted out of the brute’s chest. Now a torrent of water-thin, wine-colored blood flowed from the wound. The brute made low moans of pain and shock as he stared down at the two feet of steel sticking out of his chest.
Not wasting a moment, Corwin stepped around the brute and took hold of his sword’s hilt. Vash fell away to the side, gasping from spent mana. Corwin heaved on the bastard blade. His muscles straining, the sword moved slowly upwards. The brute spasmed and shook, bloody froth leaking from his mouth, but he seemed unable to do any more than moan. A low keening sound. With a sudden, wet , Corwin’s sword ripped up through the brute’s shoulder. A long, gory crevice left in its wake, blood sheeting down the brute’s body.
Pivoting on the ball of his foot, Corwin lopped off the brute’s head in one swift stroke. The head fell to the ground, bounced a few times, then rolled into the pit and disappeared.
The second brute let out a wordless howl of rage. Vash looked back to see pain and fury on the man’s face.
Charging, the brute lowered his head like a bull and ran straight for Corwin. His huge legs pumped, building speed as he ran.
Corwin shifted, bringing his sword around to a guard position, watching the brute charge with a ready calm.
“Dammit, not like that!” Zakarias shouted, frustration plain in his voice.
Vash moved to one side, ready as the brute passed. He stabbed with all the strength and precision that could give him at the brute’s knee as he passed. Vash’s short sword darted out and back like a viper. The small blade tore through the joint, and the brute’s leg collapsed, sending him crashing to the ground.
Corwin took the advantage that it gave him, stabbing down where the brute’s head met his neck. There was a sickening crunch. The brute spasmed once, then lay still.
Next to Vash, the brute’s hand relaxed and released the fist-sized opalescent stone that he had been clutching. Vash quickly grabbed it and put it into a pouch.
“Gods, what a mess!” Zakarias snarled from his place in the doorway. “Well, if you want something done right…”
The surge of mana from Zakarias was like he was pulling from a deep pool rather than the shallow pond of ambient mana. The crystal structures around the room flared brightly. Zakarias held out one hand.
Zakarias intoned. Blood and gobbets of flesh flew from the dead bodies of the fallen brutes. When they touched Zakarias’ body, they formed a slick second skin that rippled and bunched in alarming ways.
He called, bones tore themselves from the brutes and wormed their way into the rapidly expanding and growing body that Zakarias was forming for himself.
“That…does not look good,” Corwin said, backing away.
Hissing laughter came from the Hollowmound Queen. She was in terrible shape. The opening that Vash had given Jabez had been enough for the dwarf to inflict serious damage. But now Jabez was kneeling, clutching a puncture wound just above his hip. The Queen dragged herself up, looming over Jabez with an exultant look on her face.
“Oh, great prince!” The Queen hissed. “You must have grand plans indeed. You sent not merely a shaper, but a ”
Gideon's Guide to Adventure that give deeper information to various things in the world. Pretty much everything will be explained in-story, but the interludes will give more expanded information on the lore and how everything works. This would be in addition to the two weekly episodes. Likely a Wednesday or a Friday thing. Let me know in the comments!
