Chapter 358 - Picking Up the Pieces (Patreon)

The acrid smell of burning corpses filled the air as Zeke knelt next to a dead kobold. He hadn’t known the creature’s name. Nor did he recognize the distinct pattern on her scales or the colorful plumage that marked her as a female. But he vowed to remember her sacrifice.

And his failure.

“How many?” he asked.

He rested a hand on the slain kobold’s chest. Her body was cold. Her spirit was gone. She was just a hunk of meat, now. As he stared ahead, a twisted tangle of emotions sat nestled in his stomach. He knew that every single one of the kobolds who’d answered the call to battle had done so of their own accord. They wanted to be there, fighting by his side. They had gone to their deaths willingly.

While the kobolds had all chosen their own paths, that didn’t take away his responsibility. He was their leader. If he’d told them to stand aside, they would have. But he hadn’t, and as a result, dozens – perhaps even hundreds – had paid the ultimate price.

The battle was won, but the wounds remained.

Silik answered, “One-hundred and forty-two.”

“That’s not acceptable,” Zeke said, his voice flat. He wouldn’t allow his emotions to show. Not when so many eyes were upon him. He’d already been told that over half of the former slaves who’d fought in the battle had died, and even though the kobolds had fared better, at least from a percentage standpoint, their deaths hit him just as hard.

One life – even that of a kobold who was only a step above a monster – meant as much as any other. They were all his people.

And he had failed them.

The evidence was piled before him.

Looking past the mound of scaly bodies, he saw the source of the acrid smell. Or rather, the sources. Multiple bonfires – pyres, really – burned only a few dozen yards away. A few had been reserved for their allies, but most were for the multitude of slain goblins. The vast majority of the people in the Eternal Realm preferred cremation as opposed to burial, largely because of the threat of necromancy. No one wanted to be reanimated by some power-hungry lich, after all.

Zeke had recently learned that, apparently, there was an entire kingdom of sentient undead, but they refrained from necromancy. Part of that choice was surely due to the fact that, if they were to go down that path, the entirety of the living world would come down on them. So long as they stayed away from lichdom, the rest of the world left them alone.

Zeke wondered if that was due to fear, a genuine desire for peace, or because of some external factor of which he was not aware.

Pushing those thoughts from his mind, Zeke focused on the present.

“We will do better, Ak-toh,” said Silik.

“Yes. You will,” Zeke said. He desperately wanted to empower the kobolds – not for his own benefit. Rather, for their own. If they kept going as they were, they would not survive. Not in sufficient numbers to matter. So, the urgency to complete his quest took precedence in his mind.

“Are you sure it’s not for your benefit? An army of kobolds would definitely help out around here,” Eveline pointed out.

Zeke wanted to disagree, but he knew there was some truth to her statement. Without the kobolds and former slaves – or close allies like Jasper and Sasha – the battle would have turned out very differently. Could he have withstood the biting cold without help? Perhaps. But even if he managed it, it would not have been easy.

“It likely would have involved you spending weeks in recovery,” Eveline pointed out.

“I know,” he muttered inwardly.

Over the next half-hour, Zeke and his golems helped gather the dead and send them on their way. The kobolds took it stoically, but then again, they always seemed that way. Maybe they didn’t have the capacity for expression that humans or other similar races possessed.

“Or maybe you just can’t read them,” Eveline pointed out. That was also a possibility. It just drove home the fact that he was dealing with what amounted to an alien species, and he had to be careful not to assign human characteristics to them. Certainly, there might be some common ground, but there was no guarantee that would be the case. For all he knew, he just wasn’t capable of seeing their despair.

In any case, once the dead were seen to, Zeke gathered his closest allies in the Entry Hall of the Crimson Tower. With a hundred bronze statues looming over them, he said, “We need to go to that castle and find whatever gave that elf her power.”

“She might have simply been that strong,” said Jasper.

Zeke shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he stated.

Pudge cleared his throat, the sound coming out like a growl. He’d managed to recover from the worst of his wounds during the battle and its aftermath, but he still should have remained in the Crimson Spring. He was just too stubborn to admit it.

“Wonder where he gets it from,” mused Eveline.

Zeke didn’t respond. Instead, he listened as Pudge spoke up, “There is a powerful item in the castle. I saw it.”

Then, he went on to describe what he’d found before being forced to retreat. To Zeke, it sounded like precisely what they wanted, but Eveline wasn’t satisfied. She said, “The item is the castle itself. I’m certain of it.”

“I can’t very well loot a castle,” Zeke said.

“No, but you have access to a sorceress who can turn it into something much more manageable,” Eveline stated. “Speaking of which, don’t destroy the elf’s body. I meant to say that earlier. And save the bodies of the ice-aligned creatures. Most of the goblins are too impure, but those yetis will probably do nicely.”

“Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I want you to pack that castle full of ice attuned monsters and whatever other treasures we can find – like that ball the pig girl made of the shard wolves – and let that wonderful girl use her powers to…compact it all into one treasure,” Eveline stated.

“Will that even work?” he asked. He didn’t mention that he wasn’t exactly comfortable with defiling the bodies of his enemies. Of course, he didn’t have to mention it for Eveline to be aware of what he was thinking.

“Oh, grow up. They’re gone. We just want their cores,” she said.  “Besides, I’ve seen you eat monster meat. How is this any different?”

Zeke really didn’t have an answer for that. Or rather, he couldn’t put into words why he felt the way he did.

That didn’t matter, either, because Eveline followed that up by saying, “You wanted to save the kobolds, right? Well, this is how you do it. That’s what this quest is all about. You can’t keep going alone. Noone can. You need support.”

“I’ve done well enough so far,” he argued.

“They’re going to come for you,” she stated.

“Who?”

“Everyone. That spark of divinity is like putting a bullseye on your back. Anyone who has even an ounce of power will want to either take it from you or stop you from realizing your potential. They’ll all have armies behind them, too. You need your own if you want to have any hope of survival, much less ascension to the Ethereal Plane.”

That was a good point. In his experience, his power – or at least his potential – invited challenge. And he was not prepared to face the true powers of the Eternal Realm.

“Sasha,” Zeke said aloud, having been convinced. Left to their own devices, the kobolds might progress. But it wouldn’t be quick. Nor would they reach the heights Zeke hoped they could. They needed a boost that even Mikaeana, with all her power, could never provide. Zeke hoped the tower and its Hall of Affinities could provide the leg up they needed to reach their potential.

The boarkin mage looked up from where she’d been hovering behind Pudge. “Yes?” she asked.

He told her what he wanted. For her part, Sasha seemed eager to try. However, some pushback came from an unexpected source. Pudge said, “No. She nearly died last time.”

“Because I wasn’t prepared,” Sasha pointed out. “I can –”

“I said no.”

“And you think you have the authority to tell me what I can and cannot do?” Sasha asked. “After everything we’ve been through, you think you know better than me?”

“Uh…”

“I’m doing it,” Sasha stated, leaving no room for argument. Then, turning to Zeke, she asked, “Do I have time to prepare? I think I know how to contain the worst of the implosion.”

“An hour. Then, we head to the castle,” Zeke said. The others had something to say about that – mostly complaints that they’d just fought a battle – but Zeke shut them down. If they were going to get the most out of the natural treasure, they needed to move quickly.

So it happened that, after Sasha spent an hour rummaging through the cellar, which was accessible only if Zeke gave permission, they were ready to move out. Aside from a contingent of hulking kobold centurions, Silik, Jasper, Sasha, and Pudge came along. The last proved to be a point of contention between Pudge and Sasha, but the former dire bear used her own argument against her.

She had no counter to that.

For his part, Zeke stayed out of it – not least because he knew precisely how much it would undercut Pudge’s position if he took Sasha’s side. Besides, Pudge was probably safest where Zeke could look after him.

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” Eveline asked when they were finally on their way. “Because from where I’m sitting, by your side seems like the most dangerous place in the world. I mean, just a few weeks ago, you planted yourself in the middle of a battle between two beings at the peak of this realm. And that’s not even counting what you did in Hell.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m just saying –”

“I know, okay? Just stop talking for two seconds,” he interrupted. “I’m not in the mood for introspection or self-appraisal.”

Thankfully, Eveline went silent as the group trudged across the battlefield where the remaining kobolds had already begun to gather the bodies of the yetis, ice golems, and a few of the bigger goblins. Zeke and his companions lent their help, and when everything was gathered, he transferred the piles of corpses into his spatial storage.

Soon enough, they’d left the battlefield behind and were trekking across the tundra. It ended up taking about an hour to reach the castle, and in the interim, the party was mostly silent. Jasper hummed softly, protecting them against the cold while drumming his fingers against his thick belt to speed them along.

Eventually, they reached their destination, and Zeke found himself staring in awe at the crystalline castle. To call it impressive would have been an understatement – a sentiment with which everyone else agreed. Even Jasper, who seemed a bit snobbish about architecture and art, said, “This would have been a masterpiece, even in Tesh.”

Zeke and the others only stopped to admire it for a few moments before Pudge led them through the gates. There were a few goblins who’d remained behind, but the little creatures fled at the sight of the invaders.

Once Pudge got his bearings, he led them into the palace itself, where they wound their way through a host of twisting corridors before finally reaching a staircase that led them to the room where Pudge had seen the snowflake treasure.

And sure enough, it was right there, floating above a dais and emitting enough power to send a tingle of fear of Zeke’s spine.

“Not bad,” Eveline remarked. She had been silent through most of the journey, but the sight – or more accurately, the feel – of the treasure had put an end to that. “It might do for our purposes.”

“Might?”

“Hyperbole, Ezekiel,” she said. “It’s strong enough as it is. Probably a B-grade treasure. But I think we can reach higher, don’t you?”

Zeke wasn’t sure. Even from nearly a hundred feet away, the aura of cold surrounding the snowflake was almost unbearably strong. If it grew any more powerful, it would start to get dangerous, even for someone like him.

“Well, that’s kind of the point,” Eveline said. “If it’s not strong enough to kill you, why bother? Besides, it’ll be in your storage until you need it, right? And just think – once you get your quest done, it’ll open up all sorts of delicious possibilities.”

“Like what?” he asked.

“All sorts of things. I once knew an incubus who found a holy attuned natural treasure. Some sort of crown,” she stated. “He would meditate on it for at least an hour or two every day. He started out doing so from a few hundred feet away, but he kept getting closer and closer until, eventually, he could wear it.”

“What happened to him?”

“He descended,” she answered. “By that point, there were grumblings that he wasn’t demonic enough. The other tribes forced him into the pit. That’s the thing about natural treasures. They have the capacity to change us. Take that elf, for instance – there’s every chance that her people started off as normal elves. Then, one of her ancestors stumbled onto this tundra, found a natural treasure – maybe that snowflake over there – and they were changed by it, generation by generation, until they developed a hereditary attunement.”

“Will it change me?”

“Hopefully,” she said. “That’s what it’s all about. At worst, you’ll develop resistances. At best, you might adopt some of that treasure’s characteristics into your own attunement. That’s what we want for the kobolds. They have a tenuous connection to light, but it’s not strong enough to give them real power.”

“I see,” Zeke responded. Then, to Sasha, he asked, “Are you ready?”

She nodded.

With that, Zeke used [Triune Colossus], adopting his unattuned form. Even as he grew, he felt the cold a little less, and when he’d completely changed, he felt comfortable moving closer to the snowflake. So, after taking a deep, rumbling breath, he strode forward, and when he drew within a few feet, he started unloading the bodies the kobolds had gathered. Soon enough, there were almost a dozen hulking yeti corpses, about half as many ice golems, and over a hundred goblin bodies piled around the snowflake.

Then, he took out the globe Sasha’s spell had created from the shard wolves and placed it on the ground. As soon as he pulled it out of his storage, the temperature in the chamber plummeted. Before, it’d been colder than any place on Earth, but after adding the globe to the mix, it became something else entirely.

Shivering despite his skill, Zeke retreated to where the others waited.

Then, he asked, “What now?”

“Shh. I’m working,” Sasha said, her eyes closed. Clearly, she had spent her time laying the groundwork for her spell. Hopefully, it would be safer than the last time.

That’s when Zeke felt the mana stir. Slowly, the intensity of the movement increased until Zeke felt like he was trapped in the middle of a storm. But still, Sasha continued until, at last, an ominous cracking sound filled the air and the snowflake began to absorb all the mana around it.

First went the goblin corpses, disintegrating into motes of icy mana that were soon devoured by the snowflake. It glowed a little brighter after that. Then came the yetis. And the ice golems. And finally, the globe. Zeke felt a slight pull on the mana around him, but it remained mostly placid; Sasha had obviously worked a few safeguards into her spell.

In any case, Zeke watched as the whirlpool consumed everything greedily, but when it was finished, the storm continued unabated. That’s when the castle’s icy walls began to crumble.

“Oh. I thought that might happen,” said Eveline. “You all might want to run, by the way.”