Asheron's Fall: The Power of Ten, Book Six

Rather hilariously acting as an informal escort to the undead ambassador, we headed for Candeth Keep. The arrogant revenant seemed to think it was only appropriate, but whatever.

When it went up, Candeth Keep was the most modernized and easy-to-defend fortress on Dereth. There was an effective dry moat completely around the place, too steep to climb, with mana-reinforced stone that couldn’t be dug through by the multiple Summons that had soon popped up with all the active mana flowing in the area.

It was big, sizable, and had once held master craftsmen eager to be the first to gain the fruits of the ores, hides, and treasures that had soon started flowing in from the miners and adventurers happy to find someone willing to take their treasures and convert loot drops into something they could spend.

The Mick’s eyes were definitely a little wistful as we walked in the open gates, looking about at the changes that had been made.

The guards there were Simulacrums, clad in the blue-gray and purple of Martine’s colors. Other Sims were hard at work on the walls, either standing watch or actively repainting or maintain the construction, energetically removing carvings and ornamentation of Dericostan style and design that had adorned the buildings and walls here.

The undead had not been very careful with the place, casually abusing the Isparian, Lugian, and Aun-designed buildings, so there was obviously a lot of work to do. Likewise, Martine had definitely managed to gather up some artisans interested in restoring the work of their peers and comrades from back then.

“Greetings, fellow humans!” the Sim on guard duty greeted us with something approaching cheer in his voice. “Welcome to Candeth Keep! Is there anything I can help you with?”

The Mick had the most experience here out of the lead elements, and replied easily, “Guardsman, I’m Lord Mick, Warden of the Royal Scouts of Freehold. Got an envoy from the Wind who needs quarters an’ an introduction t’ the big man, when he has time.” He chucked a thumb at the cleaned-up and aloof blue-skinned revenant walking with us. “No hard feelings, I been told, but a person of Martine’s status has earned an ambassador, it seems.”

“I will inform Lord Martine immediately, fellow human Lord Mick!”

“Also inform him that the Royal Family of Freehold has arrived, an’ he may want t’ receive them appropriately. Has he managed t’ put up a Court yet, guardsman?”

“My lord has been more concerned with getting the civilian quarters and buildings up first, and has not moved his Court to the Keep as yet, fellow human Lord Mick,” the guard answered calmly. “I will inform him of the arrival of the Strathelar family as well,” he bowed. “All are welcome to enter. An escort will come shortly.”

The internal area of the Keep was immense, big enough for a small city, plenty of areas available for the forces with us to pitch tents, although some of the barracks buildings were being restored for just this purpose, as well as apartment buildings of various sorts. The craftsmen who’d come were sleeping in their own work buildings, as was traditional.

---

The Mick was happy enough to play tour guide with our people, taking us around and pointing out all the changes, while runners came to deal. The Markspace had his memories of the place in the Visual Files for this, so we could definitely see the before and after.

Perhaps the big thing missing was the great tree that had once grown here. A product of Aun magic, it had held the elite traders, a gift accessible only by people who had donated greatly to the town and its people.

The undead had hewed the thing down and made a throne out of it for the commander of the Keep after they chased out or slaughtered everyone left within. That throne had itself been burned down to dust and ash in turn, and a new sapling planted in the circle by an Aun Shaman.

The second thing was the Deathstone pit. It wasn’t the biggest we’d seen in terms of numbers, but… it had been LOUD.

Soooo many of those spirits screaming out in anger and pain at being killed like that were Paramounts, once the most powerful of their peoples alive! The wailing and screaming was clearly audible a hundred feet away, over twice as loud as any other Deathstone Pit I’d seen, and even the simulacra gave the place a wary berth.

“Hush, now.”

His voice was soft but firm as he strode forward, vivus streaming off Bunita, and amazingly, the crying of the spirits dimmed sharply, shadows at the edge of the eye seeming to round on him.

“Aye, ye know me, an’ doubtless I knew a lot o’ ye. Me apologies it took me so long t’ get here, but I be here now, an’ it be time t’ set ye free. Lass, a requiem, if you will.”

I was a bit surprised to be called on for that, but from the moment the first sad note of The Final Call of the Valiant, an old, widely-known, and deeply moving Roulean song often played at military funerals in the heartlands of Ispar, hit the Sublime Chords, the wails of the spirits stopped… and then slowly, they began to sing hauntingly along with me in sepulchral echoes of memory and the Hope that was threaded throughout every note.

The vivus was streaming from the Mick’s Claymore as if in a stiff wind as it approached the Deathstone Pit. There he paused on the edge as the Lost Light, every mote trailing a thread of misty vivus, Burned like a fiery rainbow about Bunita.

He was singing softly too, and so were the Knights who rapidly gathered. Even the Simulacra came from their tasks, singing softly along to the old song as he stood there for a long moment in the face of the spirits’ pain.

Bunita lowered her point, and the first motes hit a jagged blue crystal jutting out of six impaled faces, half of them not Isparian. The mistfires ignited as if touched to an oil-filled candle. Azure crystals resonating with energies of death and the psychic pain of chained spirits Burned like torches, and the skulls beneath them like oil-soaked wood.

The Mick didn’t actually move. The motes of Lost Light, empowered by Heartsong and Spirits, zipped away from Bunita as if they were alive, the spirals of motes raining down in a rapidly growing circle in the pit.

With unerring accuracy, the motes of the Lost Light found every crystal, every screaming bone, every sputtering and hissing font of sputtering arcane energy, and set them en vivus. Fiery rainbow points of light splashed into and across everything, and the vivic mists ignited and swallowed everything.

The ghostly singing grew fainter, yet clearer, and those watching from without could see ghostly faces swirling in the shadows of the vivus, smiling for a long, last moment before vanishing. The silence grew even as our own voices rose in the final stanzas, sending them off in style and in grace, their pain over with, their cares put to rest.

We had returned to Candeth Keep, and their job was done. We would avenge them!

The crowd parted as a pale, dark-haired man with glowing purple eyes and wearing a blue-gray robe with a freshly designed, non-skull-like white mask drifted forward to watch this show. Not by accident, he ended up right next to King Borelean, as well as the King’s daughter and mother. If he sent me a very curious gaze at all of this, he was also singing along in a raspy tenor with everyone else, caught up in the moment and ceremony of it all.

When the last faint echo of the song fell silent, and the air was at sad, quiet peace, Candeth Martine turned to the three Royals and said simply, “Let us talk.”

------

If that was the high point of the tour, everyone slowly breaking up, it was not the end of it.

There was a lot of painting and brick-laying going on, along with removal of buildings blasted apart, craters being filled in the ground, along with combat scarring on the walls.

“I have the impression some pretty nasty magic got thrown around here,” I commented, looking around at the destruction.

“One o’ the bigwigs in the Gellids set himself up in here, aye, like he were a conquering hero or somewhat thing,” the Mick sniffed as we walked up the ramp to the ramparts of the place and looked north. Briggs and Kris were getting their men settled in or resupplied, while the Royal Family had been led off to one of the Aun-style huts where Candeth was speaking with them.

“Not exactly the right environment for lording it over something, but seems typical of them,” Rogar huffed, looking out over everything with us. “Martine didn’t bother to wipe the nearby spawns,” he pointed out, everyone’s eyes fixed on the literally dozens of Summons points visible across the dry moat from us.

“Aye, though he’s cleaned up the moat. Probably didn’t want rats digging out stuff down low,” the Mick confirmed with a nod. “The ones on the landscape, them’s the reason why people is here, in the end. That be a whole lot of Karma waiting for us on exposed, open ground, an’ they be all sorts, not coming t’ one another’s rescue were they all the same type…” He caught me shaking my head. “Aye, lass?”

“Scorch marks under every Summons point, if a little wind-burned. Standard practice for your terrritory: kill the Summons off until they pop up a virtual army for you.” I swept my hand over the entire view. “This entire area was probably a solid undead spawn for at least a good mile from the walls, and Martine had to go out and clear every single one of them to reset their spawns. It probably didn’t take that long overall, but likely he had to kill them twice; once when he first came here and they surged in to fight him, and then again when they respawned later.”

“Ah, so likely a very busy man for a time there, and that’s why there’s still so much damage. If all those spawns kept sending undead into here, over and over again…,” Hundig pointed out for all of us.

“Indeed, an’ exactly why you spent so much effort plotting spawn points in the Linvaks,” the Mick reaffirmed. “Damn armies o’ Summons makin’ the bastards feel braver than they actually are, because they can command doomed spirits to fight fer ‘em.” He spit eloquently over the ramparts in front of us, and we all glanced back in the direction of the Deathstone Pit.

“Will people really come here just to kill powerful creatures? Without the legendary loot drops?” Selena had to ask.

I just looked at the Mick, who shrugged. “The Direlands have the greatest an’ most varied amount of mineral wealth in all of Dereth, an’ the biggest and most powerful creatures. Ye don’t make paramount by hiding back an’ being a fragile flower with yer nose stuck in a Dungeon grinding away all the time, an’ that’s especially true with the new Matrix Classes giving us hope o’ greater things.

“Ye’ll try Dungeons until ye can get through them, and then there’s going to be next to no benefit on the Matrix side in them at all,” I confirmed the Mick’s words. “This is actually ideal terrain for Matrix-feeding combat. Highly variable foes fought with different means and tactics, threats and opponents from all directions, randomized and absolutely not under your control.

“You’d Level up out here faster than, say, Baishi, at least on the Matrix side. Both places have something to teach you, in different ways.”

“The lack o’ loot is a turn-off, sure enough. But if ye’re a Support Mage an’ ye want to hit Nine in the Healing Magic so ye can Cast those V’s the Lady Magos has, where ye going? Baishi or here?” the Mick pointed out grandly, his dark eyes studying the range of undead, tumerok, lugians, wisps, golums, gromnies, massive crimson reedsharks, towering Malus Shreth, and other creatures visible ambling around their spawn points, clearly waiting for something to get within proc range, earn their attention, and start a fight.

“We definitely wouldn’t be bored!” Milee piped up cheerfully, also studying the variety of opponents there. “Also, Lord Mick, are we going to the Halls of Lost Light with Warlord Kris and the others?”

“My answer be: are ye?” he fobbed right back, giving her a steady gaze. “If ye go, mind, it ain’t t’ see the sights. Kris an’ the Magos be going t’ get a Lived-Line ta it so they can reach it on demand, an’ t’ find out the secrets o’ the Lost Light the Order left behind.

“If ye’re going, it’s because you want t’ be weighed an’ found if ye can wield the Lost Light. No more, no less. No need t’ go there otherwise.”

“It IS rather isolated, by all reports,” Selena pointed out carefully. “Although we don’t know if it was in a more relevant position in the ancient past, or they were simply testing applicants...”

“Given how hard it was to perma-die to the spawns, likely a test,” I inclined my head at her. “Which didn’t help when the shades and undead came to finally kill them all.”

The Hall was about ten miles due northwest of here, in the circle of hills that were spaced around the blast crater that was the Obsidian Plains at the heart of the Direlands. There was no real path there among the badland mesas and canyons, other than running in the general direction and trying to find a way up into the hills when you got closer.

What changes the Fall had made on the Halls nobody knew, but we were going to find out soon.

“How’s Her Highness planning t’ get through the doors? Did she find someone with a set o’ keys?” the Mick asked me.

“The King and Queen Mother actually both had sets in their personal armories, gathering dust,” I confirmed for him. “If not, I’m pretty sure I could have gotten us through. There’s Matrix magic that is excellent at getting through or around locks and doors.”

“Oh, really?” His leading smile was unrestrained. “Might be having t’ learn some o’ that.”

“Plenty of Matrix magic to foil those things, too,” I added with a slight smile.

“Which only makes it more fun!”