Chapter 235. The Ascendant Lich (Patreon)

Void Seeker Karanos

“Oh, will you stop?” Mordika whispers, rolling her eyes.

“I’m not doing anything,” I reply, matching her lowered voice. It’s all a sham–whether it’s by reading lips, listening on the wind, or simply relying on enhanced hearing, lowered voices won’t keep anyone out of a conversation in the faction–or at least not the ones who matter. “You’re the one who’s been slowly scootching your chair over to me.”

Her throne is somewhat similar to mine, a seat made of tiered, ebony wings–a dark raven perching beside a radiant phoenix. It becomes her black, almost violet hair and aquiline features.

The darkness surges like a warning around her–reach too close, and it’ll annihilate everything. Dark affinity is dangerous like that, penetrating armor with relative ease. Against it, the surest bulwark is ascendant energy. The natural riposte is empowering Dark with ascendant energy to level the playing field.

In the end, unless the defender’s ascendant energy is denser and more potent, the Dark will win.

When I reach for her arm, the mordacious darkness finds no purchase, raining false kisses on my skin–unable to bite. Mordika stiffens at my touch.

“You once said I’d never catch up,” she murmurs. “How long ago it was.”

“You never believed me.”

“I never accepted it,” she retorts. “There’s a difference.” Throughout our conversation, her eyes fail to leave the massive projection of the citadel’s interior. The projection is only possible because of a vast network of arrays built into the citadel itself and empowered by the energy of the faction’s elites.

“You’re curious about him,” I say.

“He raised an ascendant as his lich. How is that even possible?” She waits for me to respond, but I let her stew in her curiosity. The people here assumed Maria was nothing more than a necromancer’s minion, the un-chosen tagalong of Karanos. But the woman’s opening moves have caused more than a few heads to turn.

“Your face is like ice,” she says, protesting my lack of visible reaction. “Regardless of how she came to be, it’s no wonder Sephir initially thought to give her a water dummy of her own.”

I incline my head toward the projection. “This is a pageant of proteges. Maria is no protege of mine–she belongs, body and soul, to Ascendant Dunai. It’s only fair that she competes on his behalf, rather than independently.”

Suddenly Kuin gasps, his fingers clenching his crystal armrests. He embraces a “keep your enemies closer” kind of philosophy, parking his throne next to mine. “Who killed Alan?”

Mordika shakes her head. “Are you deaf?”

“What?”

“Haven’t you been following our conversation at all?” she asks. It’s not like we haven’t been discussing Maria’s opening moves after she unexpectedly pulled off an early-game assassination.

Kuin exhales sharply. “I’ve been slightly...preoccupied.” He gives me a withering look. “Your protege just stole and depleted half the catering for tonight.”

Like that was Ian’s fault–shame on Kuin for leaving a stocked refrigerator in the citadel.

“Even if Ian didn’t get to it, a stray blast of elementalism would’ve destroyed the fridge,” I argue.

“It was obviously reinforced! It should even be able to withstand ascendant energy empowered Dark affinity.”

I turn to Mordika. “Are you listening to this?”

“Kuin,” she says, massaging the bridge of her nose. “Just how much time do you have on your hands to be spending it on making armored refrigerators?”

“I’m not going to answer that.”

“Back to the problem at hand,” I say. “It’s too bad Abyssinia is in the middle of nowhere–no regular cities even after hours of planar travel. Unless you’re me, of course.”

He glares at me.

I continue speaking as though oblivious. “Where are you going to acquire food? Perhaps you’ll need to ask those in attendance to contribute, like you’re hosting a potluck?”

His expression darkens, his knuckles white as he grips his throne. “Karanos...”

“I’m sure people would be willing to contribute,” I continue, letting an uncharacteristic expression of sincere concern fall over my features. Why? Because Kuin is hilarious to annoy.

The darkness wreathing Mordika’s throne flares up, extending between me and Kuin like a barrier. “Enough. You’re much more likable when you’re proper, Void Seeker. And Kuin...Karanos is not worth getting annoyed over–you’re just letting him win.”

Kuin readjusts his position on his violet crystal throne with a frown, his diminutive form giving him the air of a pouting child. “Since I obviously missed it, please enlighten me as to how your protege’s puppet killed Alan.” As he speaks, Alan is already racing back to the citadel, the shadowy haze of a stalker cloaking his body.

“Just watch,” Mordika says dismissively. “You’ll get your answer if you pay attention this time.”

After killing Alan and collecting his water orb, Maria darts like a ghost through the halls. From the projection, it soon becomes obvious that she intentionally avoids directions that lead to other ascendants, her ability to see arrows of fate guiding her steps.

Sensing the approach of an arrow descending from the upper floor, she slows her advance, pressing her hand against the wall. A careful blaze of energy etches sigils on the wooden wall. With her other hand, she reaches for her azure halo and deactivates it, her eyes glowing brilliant cyan as the pretense of mortality fades, taking with it the impulse to breathe.

Suddenly Maria’s hunter crashes through the ceiling, splitting the floor with legs empowered with ascendant energy and coated in darkness. Rather than turning incorporeal and slipping through the floor–a more defensive strategy for Dark practitioners–the man’s practice is hyper offensive and focused on annihilation.

It’s a poor match up for Maria. Being a lich gives her resistances to the physical elements like earth and water, but offers no resistance to Dark. She also hasn’t had experience squaring off against Dark practitioners in Eternity.

Meanwhile, Alan meets Ian several rooms away. The earth elementalist barrels recklessly into a nasty whip made of sharp teeth, shrugging off the attack by enforcing himself with his Mountain affinity. Meanwhile, his ascendant energy prevents Ian from simply controlling his body with his practice and crushing his heart from afar. Alan responds to Ian’s whip with an attack of his own–spears of earth from below.

Ian has one key advantage–Alan can’t afford to destroy the water orb by accident, else he won’t be able to tap back into the game as a player, shedding his stalker designation.

“Maria is giving Marcus a run for his money,” Mordika observes, keeping most of her attention on the lich. Marcus isn’t her protege–Mordika doesn’t currently have one–but she’s given the man advice before and has a good sense of his abilities. “She’s slippery and has good control over the ascendant energy in her legs. Difficult to catch.”

“Her offense is useless,” Kuin says, ever the downer.

“Clearly not, if she killed Alan,” Mordika snorts.

Ian quickly catches on to Alan’s need to keep the water orb intact, stretching its Death energy container around his body like a shield. But as Ian puppets himself to avoid the thrusts of multiple earthen spikes, weaving his whip through the room like a viper, Alan darts forward faster than Ian’s perception can follow and lands a punch on his head, knocking it into the point of a jutting spike.

Ian disappears, his ring dropping onto the ground along with the whip. Alan pockets both–he’ll return them at the end of the exercise, but leaving the loot for Ian to collect upon resurrection is idiotic. Alan touches the water orb with his ascendant energy and the shadowy layer around him sloughs off, marking his “resurrection.”

“In the end, he’s still nothing but a novice,” Kuin says lightly, a smile playing on his lips at Alan’s victory.

“Perhaps,” I reply. “But I think he’ll surprise you.”

When Ian respawns a moment later, he isn’t wreathed in the shadows of a stalker.

“Wait,” Kuin mutters. “He died. What?”

Mordika laughs. “But Maria still lives–barely. The water orb is still in her possession, and so Ian lives on.”

Kuin groans. “How is that fair? If he dies, his construct should die with him.”

“Constructs normally do, but not liches,” a new voice interrupts–Krath Mandur. Just the person I was hoping would take notice...and the prime reason I advised Ian not to take Maria to the faction. Krath directs his seat of intricate bones and inset soul gems into our midst. “Are you really going to argue fairness, Kuin? You’re one of the ones who made the rules. Liches are uncommon and unethical–” Krath sneers, his lip curling in distaste “–but they’re extensions of a Death practitioner’s power.”

Ian respawns in the party room at the same time as another ascendant protege, Viktoria Quinn–Alan’s companion. They nod to one another and set off toward the citadel, disappearing through the gaping hole at the room’s center where a fountain once stood.

But while Viktoria takes her time getting back into the fold, Ian races like his life depends on it, careening forward like a missile.

“Seems like nerves are finally getting to him, for him to be so brash in his advance,” Kuin remarks.

Mordika and I share a knowing look, while Krath remains silent, watching the newest protege with reluctant interest.

Ian is unimpeded as he returns to the citadel, no longer needing to worry about defending a globe of water. Expression cold, he flings himself down the corridor. Without his void storage, he doesn’t have access to his soul gems, bones, or the whip, but he seems unconcerned as he approaches the ceiling at full speed.

Rather than braining himself on the reinforced material of the citadel, he headbutts the ceiling at full force, ascendant energy coalescing at the space between his eyes...and the ceiling buckles.

I can’t help a small grin from making its way onto my face as Ian’s flight continues and he crashes through yet another wall, this time using an empowered elbow strike, proving that the first success wasn’t a fluke.

He arrives just in time–interposing himself between Maria and Marcus, catching the Dark practitioner by surprise. After all, Ian wasn’t a stalker, but he didn’t have a water globe to steal.

Ian’s distraction was all Maria needed to unleash the offensive strategy she’d been preparing from the beginning. An array–etched by flame and activated by ascendant energy–activates over the entire hallway. Suddenly Marcus freezes as though caught in a web, unable to move.

It won’t last long–Marcus can break himself out of her influence–but Ian flies into his back and thrusts his hand into the man’s chest, crushing his heart. It reminds me of when Ian took me by surprise and scrambled my brain, not even needing to contact my skin to deal a killing blow.

Marcus disappears, leaving Ian no material with which to build constructs or generate soul gems, but Ian doesn’t seem troubled. As the blood and gore evaporates from his arm, he tackles Maria, pulling her into an embrace. Then, he grabs her hand and holds it high, celebrating her victory. Ian might have dealt the killing blow, but Maria held on for over thirty seconds against her opponent. Had Maria remained alone, Marcus would have won–but Maria wasn’t alone. She had a peak Death practitioner on her side.

Krath regards the display with disapproval, but refrains from commenting–for now.

“A dual affinity practitioner who can use ascendant energy,” Kuin says. “I echo Mordika’s question from earlier...how is she a lich?”

“Luck, or misfortune,” I reply. “Depends on your perspective.”

“How did she die?” Krath suddenly asks, his eyes still locked on Ian and Maria as they flee down a different corridor.

“Do you think he killed her?”

Krath’s eyebrows furrow. “I thought so originally, but...no.”

I cross my arms across my chest. “I killed her. She helped kill Ari–is it so surprising that we got off to a rocky start?”

My comment kills the conversation; we follow the antics of the competing proteges with muted interest. I haven’t attended the faction’s congregation for a few years, so it’s somewhat interesting to see how the proteges have improved, and I make something of a game determining who the new (relative to me, at least) proteges belong to.

Mordika swipes her hand through the flames of my chair, nudging my arm. “Keep your eyes on your boy.”

Sure enough, Ian and Maria are clearly up to some kind of shenanigans. Maria has inscribed an array on the floor and walls, while Ian hovers in the air at the periphery, motionless.

A stalker protege approaches them–a Remorse practitioner who I don’t recognize, so she must be fairly new. When the woman gets close enough, she begins an initial probing assault on both of them. They shrug it off successfully, blue ascendant energy ensconcing their heads.

Ian and Maria don’t give the Remorse practitioner time to continue her attack–they retreat through another corridor. The woman gives chase, stepping confidently through the room they’d spelled with inscriptions. Blue energy flares around the woman, who appears to think that the energy–and her rapid speed–will make her invincible.

That confidence fades when she freezes, almost tripping on her own legs. In a flash Maria comes back and knocks the woman unconscious with an empowered blow to her solar plexus.

The woman is a shade without an orb to defend, so she probably thinks a fast and reckless strategy with a high death rate is a potential path to victory. Unfortunately for her...Ian and Maria aren’t looking just to defend their burgeoning orb of water, but find a vitality battery.

Ian chuckles as he reenters the room with Maria. I can’t see vitality, but I can imagine Dunai leeching the unconscious woman of her life force, her skin growing pale by the second. A soul gem pops into existence over his palm.

Krath drums his fingers on a skull adorning his chair. “They’re two ascendants in one. It really is rather unfair.”

“Krath,” I begin. “Have you been following the news about Ari’s demise and Dunai?” I don’t think he has–Krath rather loathes politics and committee business.

Kuin sighs. “Of course he hasn’t.”

“No,” Krath confirms.

“How old do you think Ian is?”

He considers for a moment. “Two hundred?”

“Try again.”

“One hundred?”

“Again.”

Krath narrows his eyes. “Seventy five?”

“Try thirty,” Kuin says, his voice dour.

“Twenty six,” I reply. “Dunai is only twenty six...after combining his time on his home world and Eternity together. So, Krath–what do you think?”

He doesn’t verbally reply, but the hungry look in his eye as he stares at Dunai is answer enough.

[ thanks for reading!!! oh karanos... ]