Grand Game 428: The Third Option (Patreon)

My eyes wide, I stared at Ceruvax. “Is that true?”

He nodded reluctantly.

My head whipped in Adriel’s direction. “Could that work?”

She bit her lip. “I’m not sure…”

It was not the straight-up ‘no’ I’d been expecting. “Explain.”

Adriel inhaled. “There is no escaping the Houses,” she said. “You know that, or have you forgotten what it means to be an anointed scion?”

I hadn’t. The trait’s description was unequivocal and left me in no doubt that I was irrevocably bound to House Wolf, even after death. There was still something I did not understand, though. “But the possessed aren’t players anymore,” I protested. “Surely that means—”

“Means what?” Adriel asked with a sardonic lift of her lips. “That the Game has relieved them of their obligations?” She shook her head. “It has not. They are all still bound to their Houses.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “As am I.”

“So, you think the Circle will work?” I prompted when she didn’t go on.

She shrugged. “I can’t say. There has never been a case like this in my memory.” She glanced at Ceruvax. “Unless you know differently?”

The former envoy shook his head. “I don’t. But I think it should work because, as you say, they still are House-bound.”

I stared at him. “Then, you’re not certain if this works either?”

He shook his head. “I’m not.”

I threw up my hands. “Was your uncertainty the reason for your earlier reluctance?”

“No…”

I said nothing, waiting for him to go on.

“It’s the risk that concerns me,” he admitted finally. “You are the last Wolf scion. If you die…”

I winced. “I know, but I can’t stop doing the things I need to because of the consequences of failure. That way leads to—”

“—defeat,” Ceruvax said. “I understand. Still, I can't help but be unhappy about the risk to the House.”

Nodding, I rose to my feet and began pacing while I pondered his suggestion. “What happens if I lose?” I asked suddenly.

Wolf and lich exchanged glances. “Well, you’d be dead, of course,” Adriel said dryly.

I rolled my eyes. “I know that. But I was talking about the victor. What would happen to him or her? Would they absorb my essence? But how could they, when they’re not scions anymore?”

The pair shrugged in unison.

“I see. You don’t know.” I resumed pacing, but only a few moments later, I spun to face the two again. “Assuming this works, would it work against any possessed, even those not formerly of House Wolf?”

Once again, the pair exchanged glances. “It will not,” Ceruvax said softly.

“Hmm. And how many of the possessed originate from House Wolf.”

Adriel pursed her lips. “I can’t be sure, but a few dozen at least.”

“Right, a few dozen,” I muttered. Not a lot. That meant Ceruvax’s option wasn’t really a solution, not for dealing with the possessed as a whole. “What about the other nine hundred odd?” I wondered aloud.

“You could still face them in the Circle,” Adriel answered. “Their spirits might not be able to join with yours.” She glanced at the Skull. “But they can still be held in that for… future scions.”

I nodded slowly. While I myself was focused on restoring Wolf, House Wolf was not the only House. Bringing about the Primes’ return would also require resurrecting the other bloodlines.

I will have to start thinking broader, I realized.

“So, to summarize,” I said, “we have two options. One, rehome the possessed in flesh golems, or two, collect their spirits in the Skull of Souls.”

“Option two only applies if we can get the possessed to enter the Ritual Circle willingly,” Ceruvax added.

“Nor does going through with the first option negate the second,” Adriel pointed out. “You could rehome the possessed now and use the Circle later.”

I rubbed my chin. “True,” I conceded.

“There is also a third option,” Ceruvax said quietly.

Adriel laughed. “Really? You’ve dreamt up yet another option? You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, old wolf?”

Pointedly ignoring the lich, Ceruvax stared at me steadfastly.

“Go on,” I said. “Tell me.”

He leaned forward. “If neither the first nor the second option appeals to you, you could always turn them into werewolves.”

✵ ✵ ✵

I gaped at Ceruvax. “Werewolves…?” Is he being serious? “How would that work?” I demanded.

“By using your were’s bite,” he replied.

I wasn’t convinced. I’d read the trait’s description a dozen times already, but just in case, I called it up again.

Were’s bite: this trait awakens the strains of lycanthropy in your blood. It gives your bite a 10% chance of granting another player the werewolf trait. Depending on the strength of the bitten player’s blood and the Marks they bear, this probability will increase to a maximum of 20% or decrease to 0%.

Were’s bite is not a combat ability and cannot transform an unwilling subject. In the event that the bitten player accepts your bite but fails to acquire the werewolf trait, their body will be fatally overrun with lycanthropy.

I hadn’t been mistaken, I saw. “The trait’s description specifically mentions players,” I told the old wolf. “Why would you think it could work on the possessed?”

“Ordinarily, the Game’s explanation would be correct,” he said, “but in this case, it’s not.”

I stared at him for a second longer, then sank back to the ground. “Go on, explain.”

“I am more than passingly familiar with werewolves,” Ceruvax said with a self-deprecating smile, “and I know without doubt it’s the wolf blood running in a player’s veins that allows them to manifest the lycanthropy trait.” He held my gaze. “Usually, a non-player’s blood is not nearly strong enough to allow them to become a werewolf. If it were, he or she would be a player.”

Adriel’s eyes narrowed. “And as we know, the possessed are far from ordinary. They are all housed in the bodies of former players, meaning their blood should be potent enough.”

Ceruvax nodded. “Exactly.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “But you said they would need wolf blood specifically. What happens if they have none?”

“I hardly think we’ll have any such cases,” Ceruvax replied.

Before I could ask what he meant, Adriel added, “No House ever managed to keep its bloodline pure. Today’s players likely have the blood of at least a dozen Houses running in their veins. It is only after a scion’s blood is awakened that her other bloodlines are subsumed.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “And none of the players whose bodies the possessed inhabit have had their blood awakened.” I paused, digesting that. “This could work.”

“I think so,” Adriel said.

“What if they die after being bitten?” I asked.

Adriel shrugged. “That will matter little. In fact, in this case, the possessed’s nature will prove advantageous. Unlike with a player, there is no limit to how many times a possessed can be reborn. Assuming the bite fails to take, Farren or I can spirit jump the possessed back into their body once the lycanthropy virus has run its course, and you can try again.”

I exhaled slowly. “It really does sound feasible.”

Ceruvax and Adriel both nodded. “It does.”

“The only question now is which approach you will choose,” Ceruvax said quietly.

It was my turn to shrug. “Why choose at all? Why not go with all three?”

✵ ✵ ✵

It didn’t take long to finalize our plans.

We had a long trip ahead of us, though—the archlich’s court was half the dungeon away—and Adriel had only just arrived. Her spirit might be housed within a ‘flesh golem,’ but she was far from tireless. There was another more immediate problem, too.

“What’s wrong?” Ceruvax asked, catching me staring at the valley’s rim.

“I just realized, I never asked—” I pointed to the sheer cliffs in the distance. “—will you be able to scale that?”

The old wolf glanced from me to the rockface. “Why would I need to do that?”

“There’s a plateau up there,” Adriel replied, already familiar with my highway. “It’s free of dungeon denizens, and our intrepid scion here has been using it to navigate Draven’s Reach.”

Ceruvax grunted, studying the cliff through narrowed eyes. “I should manage the climb in my half-form.” Before I could ask what he meant by that, the former envoy changed before my eyes.

His eyes turned yellow, his teeth grew into fangs, and his ears elongated. Then his entire head turned lupine. A second later, coarse black fur spurted from his skin, and claws extended from his hands.

Fascinated, I watched on.

Anriq had grown bigger during his own transformation, but after waiting another handful of futile seconds for that to happen, I realized Ceruvax’s change had come to an end.

“Your half-form?” I guessed.

Ceruvax flexed his clawed hands. “Yes,” he replied, the words emerging as half-snarl, half-growl. “Will this form do?”

“I expect so,” I murmured and glanced questioningly at Adriel.

She snorted. “I don’t need any fancy shape-changing spells. I’ll manage well enough with magic.”

Not questioning her further, I led the way. “Then, let’s go. We’ll rest up top when we get there.”

✵ ✵ ✵

It took us two days to reach the valley sheltering the archlich’s court. While that was longer than I liked, the time was well-spent with both Ceruvax and Adriel using the opportunity to educate me on as many aspects of House history and Game lore as they could.

In particular, I quizzed the pair on what it meant to be a Power and the paths to ascendancy.

As both Ceruvax and Adriel had mentioned previously, there were two paths to power in the Game: the first was by means of player levels, and the second was through deepening my Wolf and Power Marks.

Neither path was mutually exclusive.

And thus far, I’d been treading both. In fact, according to Ceruvax and Adriel, many ancients in the past had done so too. But to become a Prime, I would need to follow only one path to its eventual end.

The pair had a lot to say on the subject, and after absorbing their words, I painstakingly summarized the information in two drawings.

According to Ceruvax, the first path was the one more often favored by the scions of old—and the new Powers, too, unsurprisingly. It was the slower route to power, yes, but it was also an infinitely less risky one.

The second path required me to repeatedly pit myself against other Powers, which, of course, could quickly turn disastrous—especially for me, a hated scion. Each time I came into contact with a new Power, I risked my secrets being revealed.

But as I already knew, there were Powers, and there were…

… stygian Powers.

For most players, hunting such creatures would be an exercise in foolishness, but for me, the nether and its denizens offered intriguing possibilities.

Still, I made no decisions. Ascending was only a secondary consideration at this stage. Before I could truly bend all my efforts to advancing as a Power, there were a host of other tasks I had to complete.

And first on the list was dealing with the possessed.