The Ruler of Ruin

The moment the door to my suites whooshed open Instincts of the Gossamyr blared in my head and red lights flashed in the hallways.

“All hands report to the Command Deck,” Arx Maxima commanded in a booming, urgent voice.

Amaranthine hissed in annoyance, and I couldn’t contain the frustrated growl that I let out, along with sparks of chaos and lightning. I had never in my life wanted anything as much as I wanted this intimacy with Amaranthine, and then this happens?

“We’ll pick up later,” Amaranthine promised me, and the frustration and desire I heard in her voice mirrored the need I felt. It didn’t make turning around and dashing to the elevator any easier, but it let me see that I wasn’t the only one worked up. In the back of my head lay the old voices. The ones that I had grown up with, the ones of inferiority, uselessness, that had suggested Amaranthine only toyed with me out of cruelty. Her obvious frustration at this interruption felt like an immense vindication of the Emery of today over the Emery of the past.

We composed ourselves on the short elevator ride to the Command Deck, and were the first two there.

“Excellent, precisely who I hoped would arrive first. Amaranthine, dear, would you take out the bulk of the on-coming storm?” Arx Maxima asked, the large golden crystal floated over the central command station. The smaller version of Arx Maxima drifted to my shoulder, while Corvusol spun around Amaranthine.

“Provide me with a better view of our enemies,” Amaranthine demanded.

Screens shifted their projections, and an immense swarm of reptiles appeared on multiple screens. Their sleek dark green bodies sped through the inky void as if they were arrows. Their numbers exceeded my ability to even estimate how many there were. If each reptile were a projectile I couldn’t imagine the number of people it would require, or the volleys needed, to create such an incredible wave as what approached Arx Maxima.

“Thank you,” Amaranthine murmured to Arx Maxima and lifted her right hand. Tendrils of black power wisped off her hand, sparks of chaos floated lazily, and the darkness of the void before the swarm transformed into absolute darkness, a maelstrom of the Void, a churning hole of pure black, with strange white eddies at the edges.

“Black Hole,” Corvusol whispered in appreciation as the nexus of darkness pulled in reptile after reptile towards the center. Anything that came near Amaranthine’s darkness couldn’t escape that inexorable draw once they were exposed to it, and panic set in throughout the swarm of creatures as they desperately tried to avoid the deadly anomaly.

Amaranthine watched the screen with a self-satisfied smirk, but the way her eyes never fell away from the ominously named Black Hole told me this wasn’t an easy to control power. Were any of the powers of Corvusol not overly complicated and utterly destructive?

A small, satisfied sigh escaped Amaranthine as she closed the black hole. Hundreds of reptiles still shot towards Arx Maxima, but thousands of their number had been brutally obliterated in a single attack.

“Long range isn’t my specialty,” Amaranthine said with a touch of annoyance as she eyed the survivors. “I can’t generate another Black Hole any closer.”

The elevator opened, and the other members of our party entered the Command Deck. Everyone wore their combat gear, but as each person took in stock of the situation, we all turned our eyes to Remy.

“Why is everybody looking at me?” Remy asked and looked around awkwardly.

“You’re our ranged specialist, so do something good,” I said with a laugh and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Yeah, you’ve got this Remy!” Claire cheered and slapped his other shoulder.

“Make a big boom,” Xian suggested very helpfully.

Remy muttered under his breath and looked to each of the screens.

“Arx Maxima, is there air out there?” Remy asked as he sketched a spell circle in the air with flame.

“No. There is a thin lair of atmosphere immediately surrounding the Plate, but it does not extend more than fifty feet into the void.” The crystal answered.

Remy grimaced at the answer, and the element of his circle shifted to white light rather than fire. Before each of the viewing screens a magical sigil appeared, and I recognized the spell Remy chose. Flame Volley. Only these arrows weren’t made of flame, he had changed the spell to make them out of pure light. The first cast of the spell manifested as three volleys of twenty arrows. The effects were not as impressive as I expected.

The light arrows crashed into the dark scaley hides of reptiles. Less than a third of the arrows pierced the thick hides, while some simply reflected off their scales. It wasn’t a total waste of Remy’s mana, though, as he did manage to kill five and injured ten.

“Bad element choice,” Remy grumbled. “What are they weak too that will work out there?”

“Cold,” Claire said with a laugh.

“Out there, and they’re weak… to cold?” Remy asked doubtfully.

“Claire is correct. While their scales are incredibly durable and capable of reflecting cosmic radiation, cold exposes the brittleness of said scales,” Arx Maxima answered.

“Nice guess, Claire,” I complimented her, but she waved it away.

“I picked up Perceive Weakness as an ability,” Claire boasted.

“Sleet Shards should do it,” Remy said. Then sketched out a new spell circle in the air, only this time the spell circle replicated itself four times, an extra copy above, below, and on each side of the main circle he constructed.

“A quintuple cast? No wonder the Dustwalkers always scraped by,” Amaranthine commented on Remy’s display of arcane mastery.

“Corvusol just finished teaching me,” Remy answered, but I noticed his usually lightning fast spell casting took him slightly longer than it normally would have, but when he finished the effects were amazing.

Five spell sigils approved in the shape of a plus sign outside of the main view screen, and then a veritable wintery hell opened up. Thousands of shards of ice shot into the void towards the last of the lizards. The magic cracked and broke scales, allowing subsequent shards to pierce and kill the strange void gators.

Remy cast one more follow up, normally cast version of the spell, and it mopped up the rest of the weird alligator looking creatures.

“That wasn’t that dangerous, Arx Maxima. Why’d you call us all up here?” I asked.

“This is the work of a Mist Lord. They are generating annoyances to test my defenses. I do not wish to reveal the state of my defenses.” Arx Maxima answered bluntly.

“Shocking to imagine that Rulers of Realms tiny and vast might be curious as to the nature of the new Heart of the Gossamyr. The only surprise is that it hasn’t happened sooner,” Amaranthine said. Her voice held a healthy dose of acidic wit, but I felt she had a point. Arx Maxima had made something of a spectacle of herself and us when she realigned the entirety of the Gossamyr to herself. It did allow her to stop Mithras from denying us victory before we could even react, though, so I couldn’t complain about it.

“That can’t be it. I still feel a vague sense of danger approaching,” I noted.

“Enemies Detected,” Arx Maxima confirmed. The large screens changed their view, zooming in on even further distant threats. It appeared as if a wave of some kind of pink liquid were approaching?

“Looks like you’ve annoyed the Astral Weaver.” Corvusol answered between hysterical laughs.

“What’s an Astral Weaver?” Miyuki demanded, and I could almost feel her hope that it was something she could stab with a sword. Unless she always caressed the hilt of her main sword when she talked? I hadn’t noticed that habit before.

“A potent predator that stalks between the realms of the Gossamyr. It likes to entangle the unwary and devour them slowly, feasting on their fear and confusion. When unwary travelers are scarce it will attack realms and feast until it is either driven off or sated. As a Vesperite rank entity, it rarely is driven off successfully.” Amaranthine answered Miyuki with a frown. Vesperite was the rank above Amaranthine’s own Sapphire, and this wasn’t the Glade of the Evernight Rose, where her power was amplified even more.

The screens images had clarified the situation even more as the wave of liquid approached.

“What the fuck?” I asked in confusion.

The creatures on the screen drifted through the void towards us, and there were millions. Each one had a faint bioluminescent hue of blue, purple, or pink to it. Their colors blended in a horrifying chaotic mix due to the nearly transparent nature of their bodies. Their upper bodies looked like the caps of a mushroom, from which multiple, long shimmering tentacles emerged. Whatever they were called, they were beautiful, strange, and dangerous enough to keep Instincts of the Gossamyr vibrating at the back of my skull.

“Tentacle Abyss Mushrooms?” I asked.

“Void Jellyfish,” Corvusol corrected me. The black crystal didn’t have eyes, but I could feel it eye rolling at me.

“These Void Jellyfish have no connection to the previous creatures,” Chrys murmured. “Why?”

“They were a lure, drawing the children of the Astral Weaver here in an effort to force us to face the Astral Weaver itself,” Xian explained with a certainty I envied. I had no idea how he had come to that conclusion.

“How did you piece that together?” I asked.

“I see the ties that bind,” Xian answered unhelpfully, even as his smile seemed to say your welcome.

“Xian is most likely right. The Void Jellyfish are problematic. They will absorb the energy of any attack directed at them and grow larger from it. Worse, most weaponry cannot harm them. They serve as part of the Astral Weaver’s digestion system, eating everything in sight and in turn being consumed by the Astral Weaver when it reveals itself.” Arx Maxima did not sound worried, despite the seemingly awful situation we found ourselves in.

“What’s the solution?” I asked, hoping to cut through the pontification and needless theorizing. Arx Maxima clearly had a solution to our problems in mind already.

“Two of you possess weapons capable of slaying the Void Jellyfish without triggering their defenses, or worse, their on-death response.”

“Don’t you mean three?” Amaranthine asked, flexing her fingers.

“Rapture of Oblivion necessitates proximity that would trigger their death-response, although there is a 75% chance your Aura of Decay would effect the Void Jellyfish,” Arx Maxima said.

Amaranthine deflated a little at being shot down. I couldn’t imagine she got told she couldn’t do something very often.

“What must we do, crystal?” Xian asked he liberated Viper from the sheath that hung at his side. The giant blade didn’t fit even in the Command Deck, and yet Xian managed the impossible—to not cut, nick, or even touch anything with the ten-foot-long blade while he unsheathed it.

I suspected the other was me, but when Xian turned and slapped my shoulder in camaraderie, I knew it was me.

“Come, my Blood Brother, let us dispatch these annoyances and feast upon their succulent, undulating, tentacles,” Xian said and licked his lips to emphasize his great hunger.

“Can we even fight out there?” I asked Arx Maxima.

“With Citadel Adaption you will be fine. Xian will need additional equipment, but we’re in the heart of Stellarae Enclave.” Arx Maxima pompously proclaimed.

A new-ish looking bamboo hat appeared in front of Xian in a burst of brilliance.

“The Hat of Raedel. It will provide you with life support mask the moment an environment exits your survivability requirements.”

Xian lifted the old bamboo hat off his head, and it vanished into his spatial storage. I got a good look at the split of his long hair, blonde and black, and his face. He was a handsome man, but almost plain. Almost. He quickly slipped the new hat on, and when he did so dozens of paper sigils appeared hanging from strings around his hat. I thought it might block his vision, but he didn’t seem annoyed by their appearance at all.

“Ofuda,” Miyuki identified the paper sigils. When she said it, I supposed they did look a lot like the spell-effects I had seen her use in physical form. Did Xian and Miyuki have a similar origin, or was it the Hat of Raedel and Miyuki that shared an origin?

“A very nice hat, my thanks.” Xian bowed his head to the crystal in appreciation.

“I’m sending you both outside now,” Arx Maxima said. Then the world warped around me.