The Doomed Bastards: Reckoning (story complete)

[wolff96]

Hey, I was right!

I mentioned to a friend that reads this story hour that Varo's little side-trip had to be about finding baneful relics for either a binding or a banishment spell.

Okay, well, it hasn't been confirmed yet, but that sure seems like what Maphistal is worried about...

Still loving it, LB. The characters are wicked this time around -- I love Dar and Varo. Allera is growing on me as well. Shame we had to lose the archmage.

 

[Lazybones]

Hey, I was right!

I mentioned to a friend that reads this story hour that Varo's little side-trip had to be about finding baneful relics for either a binding or a banishment spell.

Okay, well, it hasn't been confirmed yet, but that sure seems like what Maphistal is worried about...

Turns out ol' Skeletor was right to be worried! Of course, he's quite a few CR lower than Orcus.

I'm looking forward to next week's postings, I enjoyed how the upcoming sequence turned out. Expect a few twists... unless you've been following along carefully, in which case you may already have seen what's coming.

* * * * *

Chapter 349

THE WILL OF THE GODS


Dar’s sacrifice had bought only a few seconds, and Maphistal’s mace whipped around like a serpent’s head, coming down toward Varo’s skull.

But those seconds had been all that Varo had needed. White fire erupted between the fingers of his clenched fist as he extended it toward the demon, and this time, the words he spoke shook off the very walls of the chamber.

“IN THE NAME OF THE GODS OF MAN, I COMMAND YOU TO BEGONE!”

Maphistal shrieked as the lines of white light pierced it. The demon’s unholy aura dissipated before those penetrating rays, and as space twisted around it the demon’s form became distorted, enlongating as it was dragged backwards into a tiny opening in the fabric of reality.

And then it was gone, and quiet returned to the chamber.

Dar got up, with Allera’s help, her heal spell restoring his body even as he grimaced and straightened out his damaged arm to let the purging magic flow. “What just happened?”

“He banished the demon back to the Abyss,” Letellia said. The sorceress seemed none the worse for wear, although Alderis still seemed somewhat disoriented behind her.

“I seem to recall you trying something like that the last time we fought that bastard,” Dar said. “It didn’t work quite so well then, and the demon seemed stronger, if anything, this time.”

Varo nodded. He unclenched his hand, and a fine white powder fell from between his fingers, trickling down to the floor. “I drew upon an additional resource this time.”

“What? Remember, no bull, Varo.”

“The Drusians call them the Tears of the Gods. They are potent devices that augment spell power, but do not ask me more about them; assume that anything that is said here echoes in the ears of our adversary.”

“Is it gone for good?” Allera asked.

“I do not believe it will be able to return soon enough for it to make a difference,” Varo said. “But we should not linger long.”

Dar looked back at the spot where Talen had fallen; there was nothing left of him. “What about them?”

Varo shrugged. “Vampires are difficult to destroy. I did not see any sign of their gaseous forms during the battle, but that does not necessarily mean that they were annihilated. In any case, Talen Karedes is no longer a factor in our mission.”

“You knew he would betray us,” Dar said.

“I knew it was a likely possibility. I planned a contingency with Allera, should this happen. I would not touch that, not yet.”

The last sentence was directed at Alderis, who had started walking toward the black portal, haltingly, as if being dragged against his will. “This is why we are here,” the elf said.

“Yes,” Varo said. “Our enemy lies on the far side.”

“So why aren’t more demons pouring out of it?” Dar asked.

“Maybe he’s saving them all on the other side,” Letellia ventured.

“We can only deal with what we can see and understand,” Varo said.

“The demon stepped through it easily enough,” Dar said.

“The Portal of Darkness is a sundering in the barrier between realities,” Varo replied. “It is not like a conventional door.”

“You said we had to force our way through,” Allera said. “That you, Dar, and Alderis were the key.”

“Yes. It will not be easy, and success is by no means certain. The Demon will oppose us with his full strength; he is not yet ready to enter fully into our world, and will not seek a confrontation that is not of his own choosing.”

“What about what Maphistal said?” Letellia prodded. “He said that this was all part of Orcus’s plan.”

“Orcus knows what is in the Codex Thanara, and likely understand it better than any of us. He has tried to use us, and when that has failed, to destroy us. But ultimately, the choice we make here will be ours.” The cleric looked at both Dar and Alderis as he said the last words.

“So we are doing this, then?” Letellia asked. “The five of us, against a demon prince. In his own lair.”

“It is that, or accept the death of our world,” Varo said. “Orcus will grow stronger as we delay, and by the time that the armies of Camar and its allies arrive, it will be too late. We have driven off Orcus’s lieutenant, and inflicted serious damage to his legions. Now is the time to strike.”

“Do we have a chance?” Allera asked quietly.

Varo’s look at her was almost gentle. “Ultimately, all we can have is faith.”

Dar snorted. The fighter removed his helmet, and fixed the full force of his gaze upon Varo. The cleric faced that stare with equanimity. For almost a full minute, the two stood there in silence.

Finally, Dar turned back toward the black barrier. “All right. What do we have to do?”

Varo walked forward. Alderis was already standing at the portal, almost eager, his body trembling. The elf’s hand rose up to his chest, rubbing at it through his robe. Dar looked down at Valor, the steel blazing in his hand. He slid the weapon into its sheath. He looked back at Allera, doubts blazing in his mind. The portal rose up before him like a battlement, a slice of darkness that reflected their lights like a black mirror.

The cleric removed one of his black gloves. “As one,” he said. As the other two took up position next to him, Varo lifted his hand toward the blackness.

“It’s cold,” Dar said, as his palm rested against the surface of the portal. “And solid,” he added, thumping it hard with his flesh. Opposite him, on the other side of Varo, Alderis flinched as his slender hand pressed against the black.

“A toll will be exacted,” Varo said. “The sacrifice must be made, to open the way.”

Letellia and Allera watched as the three men stood there, hands pressed up against the portal.

“Nothing is happening,” Dar muttered.

“Faith,” the cleric said. And then, as if his word had been a trigger, their hands started to sink into the barrier. Dar started, and Alderis paled, but none of them faltered.

“Remember, the fate of our world relies on...”

But Varo’s words faded into black.

 

[Burningspear]

“Remember, the fate of our world relies on...”


and into a black sphere of annihilation they step... ...harfharf...

kick as Varo !!!!! Go Varo...

 

[Neverwinter Knight]

Sphere of Annihilation without the crimson coating...that's what I thought, too. But Lazybones will not be that cruel to his characters, I believe. Also Dar & Co. would have been annihilated at the touch and the story goes

“It’s cold,” Dar said, as his palm rested against the surface of the portal. “And solid,” he added, thumping it hard with his flesh. Opposite him, on the other side of Varo, Alderis flinched as his slender hand pressed against the black.

Still, it would be funny to have a healer and a (fairly) low-level sorceress face off agains Orcus on their own. Or maybe I'm wrong and that's the sacrifice Varo was talking about.


Great twist again with the vampires, Lazybones. Talen was never the smartes one...

 

[Lazybones]

Sphere of Annihilation without the crimson coating...that's what I thought, too. But Lazybones will not be that cruel to his characters, I believe.

Nope, these guys don't get off quite that easy.

* * * * *

Chapter 350

THE ELFLORD’S SACRIFICE


The place felt... old.

Alderis looked around. The vault was not large, and his magical light penetrated easily to each of its corners. Ancient buttresses covered in faint spiderweb cracks rose up to support a ceiling fashioned into a reverse-step pyramid that reached a pinnacle some twenty feet above the floor. An empty stone bier lay in the center of the room, each of its corners fashioned into the shape of a humanoid figure of indistinct identity, crafted in such a way that they seemed to be holding up the slab.

He had no idea of how he had gotten here. One moment he had been pushing through the dense substance of the portal, the next he was here, alone. He turned, and saw behind him a massive block of black stone, set into the wall. Deep-etched runes that seemed to leak a faint, diffuse light sprawled across its surface. By some facility that he could not identify, he knew that this was the exit, but likewise that same sense whispered that it would not allow him passage until he had satisfied whatever condition had brought him to this place.

When he turned back toward the center of the room, he was no longer alone.

“You are an illusion, a simulacrum,” Alderis said, stepping forward. There was a twinge in his chest, where the crystal now continuously reminded him of its presence. It was like an old wound that never fully healed, like an old soldier paying for a moment’s lapse in some long-ago battle.

“As you wish,” Sultheros said. The elf stood beside the bier, which was now covered with an array of familiar items. Alderis’s old friend was clad in the familiar robes of the Conclave, although he had retired from that body more than sixteen years ago. The sight of the robes was another reminder of how much he had lost.

“What is all this?” Alderis asked him, identifying the materials atop the slab.

“Do you not know them?”

“I do. My books, the old ones... these artifacts from my laboratory... ah, the spellweave matrix, where did you secure that? Destroyed in the explosion... gods, we were fools, then.” He let out a little gasp as the crystal pulsed in his chest, and he rubbed it with a hand.

“We were young, and eager, and full of our own power and potential,” Sultheros said. “We were going to redefine how magic was wrought in our world.”

“I remember. It was a long time ago.” And I am not the man I was, he thought.

“None of us are unchanged,” the other elf said, as if he had heard the unspoken comment.

“You are a projection of my own mind,” Alderis said to him. Sultheros merely shrugged, as if to say that the answer did not truly matter. “Why are you here?”

“To guide you. You face a choice.”

“The sacrifice.”

“Yes. It is the reason why you are here.”

“Why? Why me?”

Sultheros made a subtle gesture, indicating Alderis’s heart.

No. Not his heart. It still beat there, within, but Alderis knew that it was not alone, that each beat was echoed in the symbotic shard that was growing within him.

“Must I continue to pay for a moment of foolishness?”

Sultheros’s expression was sad. “You know the answer to that question already, old friend.”

“Yes. Yes, I do.” He turned and looked at the relics of his life, spread across the bier in an ordered fashion, as though he’d laid them out himself. “I do not suppose that these are real, either.”

Sultheros did not respond. After a moment, Alderis looked up at the other elf. “What is required of me?”

“You know the answer to that as well.”

“No. No, I cannot. You ask too much.”

“Then a world dies. I am sorry, Elegion. I cannot undo what has been done.”

There was a long silence. Then, finally, Alderis spoke, his words a soft whisper.

“Do it. Quickly, before I... before I weaken.”

Sultheros’s words were gentle blanket. “I can do nothing, old friend. You must make the choice.”

Alderis’s body shook. When he looked up again, he was alone again. The bier was empty.

The elf turned, and walked toward the door. The runes brightened, as if to welcome him.

Alderis summoned his magic.

 

[Lazybones]

Chapter 351

THE GENERAL’S SACRIFICE


It was dark, and he was alone.

A hiss of steel on leather, as Valor erupted from its scabbard.

Normally, the axiomatic sword’s glow was subtle, not enough to see by. But here, the blue radiance blazed around the steel like the light of a torch, filling the room with an eerie pale light.

Dar sucked in a breath.

The light from his sword revealed two others in the vault with him. Lying on a stone bier in the center of the room was Allera, unconscious or asleep—or worse. And standing behind her, was Marshal Velan Tiros, clad not in the robes of the Tribune, but in the old armor of his legion days, back when he’d won a reputation as Camar’s foremost military commander.

Dar was moving forward toward Allera at once, but Tiros interrupted him. “She lives. She is not truly here, not as you are. You cannot help her now.”

Dar ignored him, bending beside the bier, touching her face, gently shaking her. She felt warm, but did not respond to his touch. “Allera. Allera.”

“What have you done to her?” There was steel in his voice, and Valor seemed to brighten incrementally in response.

“I have done nothing. She is only here as a representation, as am I.”

“You sound like Varo. Speak your piece then, and get it over with.”

“The way out lies there,” Tiros said, pointing. Dar turned, and saw a black stone slab behind where he’d first appeared. Runes glimmered faintly, flaring as the light from his sword spilled across them.

“Then that is where I am going,” Dar said. He started to pull Allera into his arms, but suddenly, with a blink, he was standing and she was back on the bier.

“You cannot take her with you,” Tiros said.

“Shut up, marshal.” He turned and headed for the stone block warding the exit. There was no seam, no handle, no keyhole. He smashed his hand against it; it was solid, the pain shooting up his arm from the impact.

“Orcus resists your efforts to enter his realm,” Tiros said. “Only through sacrifice can you break through.”

“Go to hell,” Dar said, as he continued his search. He started to reach for his club, but realized that none of his other weapons were on his person. Only Valor, which pulsed in his fist.

“The people of Camar... all the world! Rely upon you, Corath Dar. You have a duty...”

Dar rounded on him. “Damn you and your duty! I didn’t ask for this, marshal! I didn’t ask for any of this! Damn you and Varo, and all your gods, and this entire freaking place. I didn’t ask for any of it!”

Tiros did not shrink before his fury. “None of us asked for it, general. But we can only live the life that is given us. Who and what we are comes from how we confront the trials that are inflicted upon us.”

“I will die before I allow any harm to come to her.”

“If Orcus wins, then she and all of the others will suffer. There are some things worse than death.”

“She is just a vision... this is not real...”

“In some ways, this is more real than your reality. You have your sword. If you strike her down here, then the gods will have their due. It will be painless, and Orcus will not have her.”

“I will not...” Dar lifted his fists, one still clutching his sword, up to his forehead. “I will not!”

A voice, distant but familiar, drifted into his mind. He could not tell if the words were from Tiros, or Varo, or himself. He had heard them once before, in a dream.

To confront the demon... the the apostate, the general, and the elflord... must sacrifice that which they hold most dear... and only thus... may the world of man be spared...

Dar screamed. He spun, and with the full force of his strength, he slammed Valor down into the black stone slab blocking the exit. There was a scream of power, and a noise like the breaking of the world, that enfolded him and tore him away into oblivion.

 

[Burningspear]

Dar does not want to play the game, hehe, hmmz...

now for Varo and the rest...

 

[Lazybones]

Dar does not want to play the game, hehe, hmmz...

now for Varo and the rest...

And heeeeere's Varo:

* * * * *

Chapter 352

THE APOSTATE’S SACRIFICE


Varo noted the details of the vault almost absently. He was alone, but that did not really surprise him. There did not appear to be any exits; he glanced back and saw the black portal, recognized it as the exit, but did not bother any more with that.

When he looked back toward the center of the room, he was no longer alone.

“I should have figured it would be you that would be sent to test me.”

Serah looked almost as she had when they’d first met, but she was clad in a simple robe rather than armor. “I am not here to test you, Licinius Varo.”

“No?” He walked forward, his heavy armor clanking slightly. He was still not accustomed to its bulk, even though the blacksteel was barely heavier than the breastplate he used to wear. She waited for him, until they stood together in the center of the room, separated by the stone bier. “So, you are not real?”

“I am real as I need to be.”

“An enigmatic answer.”

She shrugged. “As was the question.”

“I know that I will be asked to sacrifice. But to be honest, I do not know what I have left to give. My life, I suppose, but that I have always expected to be forfeit.”

“Without hope, life has no meaning.”

“One can hope for others.”

“Is there nothing else you have left?”

“What have I not given up? My youth? The satisfaction of a career? The respect of peers and friends? Family?”

“Love?”

“Even if you are just a shade of myself, do not mock me.”

“I am not trying to mock you, Licinius.” She took a step along the edge of the bier, but did not come closer to him. “Do you blame yourself for my death?”

“I would like to believe that you knew what you faced, what we all faced. That you came of your own free will.”

“Ah, free will. That is an interesting one, wouldn’t you say? To what extent are our lives governed by free choice... and to what extent are those choices forced upon us?”

“I do not seek absolution for my own choices, Serah. I made them freely.”

She looked at him with such sadness that for a moment he flinched. “I know, Varo.”

“If you can, tell me what I must sacrifice. I am ready.”

She came around the bier then, close enough so that he could smell her, the fragrance of newly washed hair and skin with a faint hint of flowers. It sent a pang through him, in a way that he’d thought long since burned away.

“Is this difficult?” she asked him.

“Yes. But it does not matter.”

“It does,” she told him, taking his hand in hers. “For what is asked of you is that you give up the very things that have carried you this far.”

“I don’t understand.”

She turned his hand slightly, and touched the symbol that dangled from his wrist. “You carry my focus.”

“It is a powerful weapon.”

“Is that all that it is?”

“Serah.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I know that you are not real, that you are here to challenge me. But still...” He opened his eyes, met her gaze. “I wish that there could have been more. I do. But with a world in the balance, all other desires must fade.”

“No, you do not understand. In such times, those other things are that much more important. Look at Dar and Allera. Do you consider them weak, for their love?”

Varo frowned. “It may make it harder, or even impossible, for them to do what must be done. Talen, and Shay...”

“Do not use them as an excuse, it does not change the basic question.”

“What do you want from me? What I must give, I will.”

She stepped forward again, until they were almost touching. She was several inches shorter than he, and slight against his metal-clad frame, but somehow she seemed to loom over him. Her eyes swallowed his in their brown depths.

“Certainty. Doubt. Those you must give up.”

“But... they are opposites.”

“No. No, they are not, Licinius Varo. You are driven, and you are as hard as a sword. But a sword will break, when struck by a hammer. And sometimes, a sword is not enough.”

“I do not know what to do.”

“That is a start. Remember, that there is truth, and there is Truth.”

He swallowed. He could not turn away, and as he stared into her eyes, understanding came in a gentle wave. He was overwhelmed, and would have fallen to his knees, if she hadn’t taken her in his arms.

“I...” he could not speak. I do not know if I can.

I know.

Darkness enfolded him.

 

[Trahnesi]

“Certainty. Doubt. Those you must give up.”

“But... they are opposites.”

“No. No, they are not, Licinius Varo. You are driven, and you are as hard as a sword. But a sword will break, when struck by a hammer. And sometimes, a sword is not enough.”

“I do not know what to do.”

“That is a start. Remember, that there is truth, and there is Truth.”

I think Varo's is the coolest sacrifice of all. This feels like Sepulchrave's weird metaphysical stuff. Awesome work.

 

[Lazybones]

This feels like Sepulchrave's weird metaphysical stuff. Awesome work.

High praise indeed, thanks!

* * * * *

Chapter 353

A SLICE OF THE ABYSS


“He’s coming around.”

“Varo, can you hear me?”

The priest blinked. It took him a moment to recognize Allera, looking down at him, strands of hair protruding from around the edges of the leather cap she wore. She is still alive...

“Varo. If you can understand me, say something.”

He felt a deep emptiness inside of him, but quickly recovered enough to speak. His throat was tight, and he felt as though he had gone a hundred days without a drink of water. “Where... where are we?” he croaked.

“Where we are is well and truly screwed,” Dar’s voice came from a short distance away.

Varo tried to get up. After a moment’s hesitation, Allera helped him to a seated position, where he could look around at their surroundings.

They were on a platform of pale white, featureless substance, not stone or wood or earth or any other material he could identify. The “sky” above them was a wild medley of chaotic whirls and vague distortions; one moment it looked almost like a solid roof a few dozen feet above their heads, and the next it seemed to go on forever. The platform dropped off at its edges into sheer drops that descended into utter blackness. Noises rose up from those depths, echoes of cries and fearsome shrieks and other noises unidentifiable except to clarify that he did not want to go in that direction.

Looking out along the horizon, he saw that the platform connected to a maze of twisting pathways that extended out as far as he could see. It looked like the maze extended in only one direction, but in that way it branched and forked at least a dozen times. There were no walls, and some of the pathways seemed close enough for a man to leap between them, but something quiet whispered in his mind that such a course would be exceptional hazardous.

“Well. You’re awake.”

Varo blinked and looked up at Dar. “What... what happened?”

Dar lifted his sword. Or rather, what was left of it; Valor now ended a few inches above the crossguard, the blade ending in a jagged tear of metal.

“Your sword...”

“Ruined. The sacrifice I had to make.” He looked at Allera, and Varo felt the meaning there, although his mind was not yet sufficiently unscrambled to make full sense of it. The memory of what he had experienced beyond the gateway was too fresh, and it had torn away all of the assumptions that had brought him here.

“Alderis?”

Dar jerked a thumb, and he saw the elf, lying awake but stunned on the far side of the platform. Letellia was talking to him. Varo could see his body shaking from here.

“What...”

“His magic. All of it, he said. He can’t even manage a freaking magic missile now, not even from his wand. He’s a bit... upset. You knew, didn’t you? You knew that this would happen.”

Varo shook his head, still rather overwhelmed. “No... no, I didn’t...” He glanced at Allera, and for a moment Dar’s expression darkened, and his fist tightened so around what was left of his sword that Varo would have retreated, had he seen it. But when the cleric turned back to the fighter, Dar had regained control, and the rage had retreated back to a cold anger.

“What did you have to give up, priest?”

“I... I don’t know for sure, yet...”

“Yeah, right. So, do you have any ideas, about how we’re going to face Orcus, now that our most powerful weapon is useless, and our strongest wizard is barely able to throw rocks? And if you say, ‘faith’ again, I swear by the gods that I will toss you over that freaking edge right now.”

“I do not think the gods can hear us, in this place,” Varo said. But even as he spoke the words, he felt something twist inside him, and he had to stifle a sob that threatened to overcome him.

“I can still feel my magic,” Allera said. “There’s a... a power that shadows everything here, but I can still heal.”

“That’s good,” Dar said. “Because I think we’re going to need it.”

Varo rose, again with Allera’s help. Dar went over to Alderis and Letellia, and while Varo could not overhear what was said, the elf got up, shuffling forward with the sorceress behind him.

“Let’s get moving,” Dar said. He took the lead, stepping out onto the path that led into the maze. He put the remains of his sword away in his pack, and drew out Beatus Incendia. The holy sword burst into flames, but even though it was not that dissimilar in size from his own weapon, he held it uncomfortably, as though its fires could burn him as well.

Behind the fighter, the others followed, still dazed and tired, but driven forward by some reserve of determination to see their quest through to its end.