0. Countess Felstrife - Prologue (Patreon)

Note: Okay, folks, we're diving in on Book 2. Let's go!

Prologue

Countess Felstrife walked through the remnants of what had once been a sizable human town. She had heard that the place was now called Burlon, but on her library’s most recent maps – faded, yellow things – Kitling was its name, and on anything older than that it was merely a smudge of rolling plains. When she had first made her pilgrimage, north and west, traveling to the far off desert in search of the secrets it contained, she had passed through this place. In her memory, faded like those maps, she recalled it being filled with tall grasses, rabbits aplenty, and a friendly caravan that had let her rest by their fire. 

Now the ground was filled with bodies, still and silent as she stepped over them at a measured pace. The other generals thought it beneath them to personally enter so small a fortification, but she was a collector, and one who would never overlook a potential opportunity. 

Burlon was large enough for a garrison and even had a champion of Rare, who had valiantly stood against the oncoming host despite it being plain that there was no way he or the place he defended would survive the hour. That man scrambled away from her now, his rear to the ground, fleeing crablike on all fours. She was uninterested and moved past him with barely a glance. He appeared dull in her vision, which meant any Soul abilities he might have were ones she already possessed, and thus of no value to her. 

Only a few cowering shapes were left standing in the city, her Frozen Heart Spell having already killed everyone who lacked a Soul card, the lot of them dying together in one great wave. It was a painless death, and instant, a small repayment to any of the caravan's descendants who might still reside among these folk. It was also far kinder than what the orcs or demons would have done. 

A gurk from behind turned her slowly around, and she saw that one of her lieutenants had separated the champion’s head from his shoulders. 

“You take all the fun out of the hunt,” the well-dressed newcomer complained, muscles straining the fabric of the suit he wore. So saying, he tilted the neck of the severed head toward his mouth like a goblet. 

The military might vampires brought to the Dominion of Death was unquestionable, but to her, they were ever an oddity. Governed by the needs of the flesh, they sexed each other and supped on blood of their victims, making them more akin to the living than the dead in her estimation. 

Still, they had a multitude of uses.

Not that she bothered to tell this one, Stafford by name, such a thing. The living spoke a great deal, as did vampires, but over the centuries, she found that the act had lost its appeal.

Instead, the Countess pointed to a young woman across the way, the lone Soul in the entire town who shimmered ever so slightly to her eyes. 

“Truly?” Stafford called from behind. “There’s something of value in this little pen? Twins twist me, Lymet has too much luck by half.”

Her lieutenants were well aware of what she searched for – one of the primary reasons she agreed to this conquest, in fact – and the four vampires among them often wagered as to what she might find. Yet another useless, living endeavor, like a sickness they had not fully cleansed themselves of. 

Countess Felstrife did not bother to answer, keeping her skeletal finger crooked toward her quarry. In a blink, Stafford was leaning over the human girl, and the terrified thing let out a choked cry of fright at his sudden appearance. Stafford was of high Epic Rarity, only an advancement or two from Mythic, and his speed was unmatched in her forces. 

“Come along, little darling,” he cooed to her. 

The girl would be put in a bone cage at the rear of their army and fed bits of zombie until they returned home. There, the Countess could use an Artifact she herself had designed to transfer the ability to her own Soul card. It was a slow process, particularly for more powerful traits, but time was of no concern to her. The vampires often ended up turning her finds once she was done with them, thinking it gained them a bargaining chip over her. She never played into their games, but they enjoyed making intrigue where there was none. 

A mighty bellow pulled her attention over and up, and if she still breathed, the air would have caught in her hollow chest. The Sun King was here, hanging in the sky, his golden cloak snapping in the high altitude. The man shone like a beacon in her sight, rich with abilities that were foreign to her. As she watched him, she saw a large body sail through the air toward the Legendary king and recognized it instantly as the orc general, Targu’Thal, who gave a second, piercing war cry. Even with his Mythic strength, the orc only reached two thirds of the necessary height, but at the peak of his jump, he swung his Legendary ax. The clouds were rent in twain by the strike, and even on the ground she experienced the blowback a moment later. Her bones felt nothing, but a force pushing her away and her clothing flapping wildly for a moment were enough to deduce the cause. 

Leaning forward, she streaked across the land. She too could Fly – one of the earlier abilities she had acquired – but she would not risk joining the Sun King in the air today. Instead, she kept herself a foot or two above the ground, skimming along to reach her fellow general. As the Countess shot forward, she dismissed her current hand of cards, and with a mental shift, switched to her second Mind Home. From it, she began drawing fresh summons since a handful of Source already floated over her head. The cards were still of Death and Water, but they were focused on removing a single, powerful target instead of enfeebling a group. 

The massive orc slammed into the ground just as the Countess reached the spot she had calculated his trajectory would terminate.

“Do not let him bait you,” she hissed at him. 

Targu’Thal slowly stood from his landing crouch. He did not look her way until he reached his full height, standing head and shoulders above her, a mound of corded, deep green muscle. The shimmer around him indicated that he possessed a number of unique abilities, too, ones she would have eagerly collected if he did not have an army at his back. 

“I attacked because I chose,” the leader of the orc host rumbled. “There was no other reason.”

Countess Felstrife lacked the ability to frown but she felt an inkling of the frustration that would accompany such a gesture. The orcs were not ones for subtlety; they did exactly what they wanted, when they wanted, and felt no remorse at the ramifications of those actions. 

The quality made them the worst sort of allies to have, completely undependable. As she had many times before, she considered if she and her forces might be better off turning about and making the trek back to the desert. And yet… that Legendary human suspended high above represented a tantalizing repository, one she itched to know more about. He seemed unfazed by Targu’Thal's attack, floating peacefully. Was it an Artifact that had protected him, a summoned Relic, or, as she hoped, something within the man himself?

“You march to your destruction,” he boomed from on high. “Bless you. It makes your eradication so much simpler.” 

With the Death Source and Water circling her, the Countess had the perfect hand to get her Ice Spine Wyrm immediately afield, but she hesitated, calculating. For all his bluster, the Sun King had yet to draw any cards. Targu’Thal had a ring of red Chaos Source above his head at least, but the only card she spotted of his was the giant ax he already held. The two alpha summoners stared at each other, neither moving to equip themselves further. They were pumped up poppinjays to her eye, similar to those she had seen puff and strut in her oldest of memories, back when flesh still adorned her bones. The standoff might escalate, but she preferred to exploit such a spark not be the cause of it.

The Sun King hovered there arrogantly another moment and then shot away south, back toward the heart of the human lands. 

“He flees,” Targu’Thal declared, slipping his wicked ax into a hip holster. “He knows he cannot defeat us both.” 

The Countess was unconvinced of that, and for all his size and confidence, she observed the orc general worrying the top of his weapon with a thick thumb. He began walking eastward, to where his army paralleled her own, but did not make it far before a sly voice said. 

“Seems I missed the excitement.”

The newcomer was the male Yveda, and the Countess found him standing off to the side, cards and Source barred for battle. He was a purple-skinned creature, tall and lithe, mostly in the shape of a man. His shorn head made the two horns that grew from his scalp easy to spot and he wore leather clothes the color of pitch black. Despite these details, she could not tell if it was the real demon prince who stood before them or just one of his many copies. For all she knew, his true self could be tucked away safely and comfortably at home, a possibility that made her keenly aware of the continued draw she felt back toward her own perfectly cultivated sanctuary.  

“The was nothing you could have done,” Targu’Thal told the other general. “Even if you stacked yourself one atop the other you would not have reached high enough.”

The demon narrowed his black eyes dangerously. “Oh, I might surprise you, greenling. I have more tricks than you can imagine.”

Beyond the cards Yveda kept close, the Countess could tell the demon spoke true from the shimmer around him. It was not so great as the orc general’s, and certainly not the Sun King’s, but still brighter than most Souls she had come across. 

Targu’Thal snorted and then crouched briefly, using his thick legs to launch himself into another great leap. Yveda looked none too happy at the orc’s departure, even glaring at her as if she was somehow at fault. 

With an ability like his, I could continue my experiments and search the lands for every unique soul that exists. The thought was so tantalizing, she had to stop herself from using her Ice Coffin to try and capture the demon. Like Targu’Thal, the army he led would be a bother to put down, and more than that, the other Yveda he traveled with was rumored to have an ability that was one of the few things that might actually be able to destroy a lich – a possibility she was both drawn to and repulsed by in equal measure. No, she would not anger the demons without great cause.  

He broke eye contact with her first, returning to the high grass that still encircled the town. Alone now, she floated up into the air and then slowly drifted back toward the town, in no great hurry.

At the edge of Burlon, she found that Stafford had been joined by Tremlin. The elderly necromancer was the least of her lieutenants, having neither the longevity of her wights nor the killing power of the vampires. 

"Countess, Countess," he practically brayed at her. The necromancer was loud, a complaint never far from his lips. He had already extended his life unnaturally multiple times, but she had yet to give him the secret to lichdom and had no plans to do so. Perhaps sensing her reticence, he was growing ever more bold of late, a behavior she wished she could remove as easily as those she collected. “The Sun King here, without word? It can only mean one thing: this one’s kin has failed you.” The gaunt man gestured at the vampire with a long sleeve, to which Stafford hissed in reply, showing fangs.

“Watch how you speak of my blood-sister. You are a coward and a fool. A missive from Lustra could not possibly travel as fast as the Sun King does.”

Tremlin was not so high an Epic as Stafford, but he stood his ground. “Mark me, she was too eager for the role, yet you would not hear it. She may have done something to alert him to our presence, to bring his wrath down upon us.”

Stafford threw his head back and laughed. “We are invading the human lands. The wrath of their king was an inevitability.”

“The occurrence, yes,” the necromancer conceded, the veins under his parchment skin bulging. “But the time and place we could dictate if we were wise and did not overplay our ha –”

“Quiet,” she hissed, no longer able to take their bickering. 

Both spoke no further, though she could tell it pained Tremlin. When she grew even more tired of watching him jitter and blow air, she relented.

“What is it?”

“I’ve met with the orc spirit talkers,” he said in a wheezing rush. “The summoned Soul they used to correspond with the Chaos user in Treledyne vanished yesterday. Something is awry, and if we are not wary –”

“You speak of contingencies,” Stafford interrupted. “Look at the force you travel with instead of only your fear and the books you and your enclave obsess over. Even lacking a spy or a group from within to raid their gates, we will demolish Treledyne and every little bump along the way.”

It was obvious to the Countess that the Sun King would require more effort than that, but she felt no need to comment. More interesting by far was a small rabbit that had peeked out of the undergrowth, watching her as it munched on grass. 

Tremlin would have inevitably argued the point if not for a building roar of crunching and gnawing filling the air behind them. The Countess knew what it was before she bothered to check: orcs had swarmed the town, crawling over every part and consuming it. Their biology was yet another thing she wished to explore one day. Orcs were like locusts, able to eat anything and everything, from the bodies of the dead or living, to the timber and brick the people here had built their homes from. In a few hours, Burlon would return to that smudge her older maps showed it to be. 

Such a fate was what awaited all humans in their path, but she, Countess Felstrife, would see to preserving those who were worth the effort of saving.