Ogre Tyrant

Ogre Tyrant: Chapter 84 - Origins in Trauma - Part One

Gradually becoming aware of my surroundings, I found myself standing in front of a hospital check-in desk. After several minutes of staring blankly at the opposite wall, I realised there was no one manning the desk.

Numbly turning my head to the side, I expected to find an adjoining waiting room bustling with chairs and patients. Instead, I found myself at the intersection of three sterile corridors and a strangely familiar elevator.

As the rust slowly shook free from my mind, I reasoned that I was standing at a nurse or security station. It was strange to find it unmanned, but understaffing was a common issue in the medical sector.

A flashing light on the desk caught my attention and invited another possibility.

The staff might be responding to an emergency.

Opening my mouth to speak, I struggled to think of what to say. Eventually settling on calling out for assistance, I felt a rush of confusion and embarrassment when I uttered a dry grunt instead. Roughly clearing my throat, I tried again but did little better.

Anxiously looking down each of the corridors in turn, I found an opaque glass plaque on the wall that listed several departments located deeper in the building.

Sluggishly reading the list of departments, I settled on Administration and slowly began shuffling down the corridor.

After following the directions provided at key intersections, I eventually found myself standing in front of a metal door. A large sign on the wall confirmed that beyond was the administration department.

While looking for a door handle, my eyes were drawn to what looked like a biometric scanner beside the door.

Unsure what to do, I slowly retraced my steps and followed the directions designated as Security.

Wandering the corridors, it occurred to me that the recessed lighting fixtures in the ceiling were not active and I had been exploring without a light source from the beginning.

Growing increasingly worried that I had been left...wandered into...

I paused mid-stride and tried to remember how exactly I had arrived at the hospital.

Unable to account for what I felt was a substantial amount of lost time, I had to fight hard not to succumb to the fear building in the back of my mind.

It was then that I noticed. except for a leather wrist brace buckled to my right wrist and forearm, I was stark naked. Making matters worse, someone had tattooed my arms and chest as well.

Mortified by my discovery, I tried covering myself as best as I could manage.

A faint scream from further down the corridor drew my attention away from my nakedness and toward the source of the noise.

Except, there was no one there.

My head throbbed painfully, causing me to stagger and almost collapse from the pain.

“Tame Monster!” A young woman shouted, this time from the opposite end of the corridor.

Lurching awkwardly in place, I clumsily pressed my back against the wall to keep my balance and looked for the source of the voice.

Just like before, there was no one there.

The pain inside my head continued to build and I could feel the pressure building behind my eyes.

“I...can’t believe it actually worked...” The voice whispered, somehow originating behind me despite the wall being at my back.

Growing increasingly nauseous, I shakily rose to my feet and continued down the corridor.

“Hey!” The young woman’s voice snapped at my back, “Where do you think you are going, Ogre?!”

Hissing between my teeth, I tried to ignore the auditory hallucination. Convinced it was the result of stress or perhaps a concussion.

Time passed in a blur and I found myself leaning hard against the wall of a T intersection, staring at a blackened metal door down the end of the corridor. The sign on the wall read, Security, in large bold letters. The biometric lock beside the door was broken and some of its pieces lay scattered on the floor.

Unsure what to do, I continued shuffling down an adjacent corridor.

“It’s as smart as a human, remember. It understands everything we say, everything we have been talking about...” A different voice insisted. A voice belonging to another young woman.

Am I so desperate for female companionship that my brain would leverage a concussion to combat my loneliness?

“You must be confused and have all manner of questions for us,” the voice prompted with disarmingly convincing sincerity.

“Not real...” I croaked, determined to cling to my sanity as long as possible. If I had a concussion, indulging hallucinations would probably see me killed before help could arrive or I could make it to a fire escape.

While I wandered the corridors looking for signs to indicate an alternative exit to the elevator, the voices persisted in their one-sided conversations.

“It’s not as bad as all that,” The second young woman’s voice said reassuringly, “It is difficult for most people when they first start out. But it is also something everyone just gets used to over time.”

“How am I supposed to get used to THIS?!” I snapped, shouting at the empty corridor to vent the frustrations that were amplifying the pain in my head.

“You’re looking much better already,” the voice commented cheerfully.

“We’re here to help!” The first voice added excitedly.

“Do you have any questions for me? I will answer if I can,” the second voice offered kindly.

I tried to ignore them.

“Hrm, you are probably a bit overwhelmed and can’t decide what to ask right?” The second voice observed with a sympathetic tone. “That’s alright. I will try and explain some things that at least I think you will need to know if we are going to work together, alright?”

I snorted derisively and shook my head, nearly collapsing to the floor as the pain in my head briefly flared to new debilitating heights.

“This is real, Tim...” The second voice insisted. “You definitely have brain damage, but that doesn’t make any of this any less real.” The tone of her voice had changed. Taking on a weight and weariness that was almost unrecognisable from the artificial congeniality used only a handful of seconds earlier.

It was beyond unnerving.

“It’s because you are close to remembering,” the second voice explained impatiently. “Unfortunately, you’re also unbelievably close to forgetting just about everything else...Everyone else...” The way the voice emphasised the last was borderline accusatory. “I know you can hear me!” The voice growled angrily, “And I know you want to just close your eyes and wait for everything to get better on its own. But it won’t. Deep down, I know you know that.”

It was fucked up to admit it, but I knew the voice was right. Since Mum had died, I was all I had. Even before she had passed, there was only so much she could do...

“And now there are people who depend on you!” The second voice insisted earnestly. “You promised them a life better than the one you left behind!”

“Left behind?” Without thinking my hands drifted to my chest and abdomen.

I remembered standing at the top of the stairs...The two men who had broken into the house...

“I died...” I croaked dryly without conscious intention, surprising myself. “I’m dead?” I resisted the urge to shake my head despite my confusion, afraid of triggering more pain.

“You died,” the second voice agreed somewhat sympathetically. “But it was a new beginning, not the end.”

“Why can’t I remember?” I asked with mounting reluctance.

“Because you’re a fucking coward!” A new voice replied with intense scorn and a tinge of disappointment. “You’re meant to be better than this! You don’t run away from danger! YOU ARE THE DANGER! So get off your ass, stop crying, and fix this!”

“I don’t know how!” I snapped irritably, wincing in pain as the throbbing in my head intensified.

“Yes, you do,” the third voice replied belligerently.

“No, I don’t!” I snarled.

“Yes, you do,” the third voice insisted argumentatively.

“I don’t!” I hissed, blinded by the mounting pain.

“Yes, you do,” the third voice sneered with amusement.

“NO I FUCKING DON’T, CLARICE!!!” I roared, slamming my fist into the wall at my side, shattering the concrete and sending chips flying down the corridor.

“Told you...” Clarice’s voice snickered, fading almost as quickly as my mind and memories violently reasserted itself.

Falling to my knees, I vomited a mouthful of blood onto the floor. I tried not to look at the small pinkish-grey chunks standing out against the slowly expanding pool.

The pain in my head receded and was replaced by a gnawing hunger in my gut.

Pushing myself to my feet, I looked toward the blackened door.

Extending my senses, I was driven back to my knees as I was blinded by the extreme volume of foreign mana that surrounded me.

It was in the walls, the doors, the floor, the ceiling, the very air I was breathing...It was everywhere...It was...Everything...

Heaving a new pool of bile onto the floor, I retracted my senses and tried to make what I had felt fit into what I already knew.

I couldn’t do it.

No matter how hard I tried, it didn’t fit.

This place was utterly alien to me.

At first, I didn’t realise why. After all, it was all so familiar.

Too familiar.

The corridors, the signs and the doors could have belonged to almost any corporate office building on Earth.

Except...I wasn’t on Earth...

Forcing myself back to my feet again, I made my way back to the blackened door and studied the sign on the wall. Just to be sure.

Security

I had been in too much pain and suffering from trauma-induced amnesia, so I hadn’t appreciated it before. But now that I was ‘myself’ again, I could appreciate just how strange it was for a sign to be written in English.

All of them were.

Investigating the broken panel by the door, I discovered it was not part of a biometric lock at all. It bore the same general appearance, but there were no wires or electronics of any kind. It lacked the means to interact with the door on any level I was aware of.

The door which I now realised I could open if I wanted to.

Standing so close, I could feel my authority resonating with the blackened doors.

Confused, I willed the doors to open.

There was a sharp sound of metal grating on metal as the doors shuddered into hidden recesses in the wall.

An armoured body fell across the threshold, sending the helmet and head within tumbling over the floor before coming to rest against my foot.

Distracted by the dozens of similarly armoured bodies strewn about the large chamber beyond, I struggled to process what I was looking at.

The room itself had rows of what looked like lockers built into the walls. Several had open or broken doors, revealing contents covered in a thick coat of dust.

The broken remains of what may have once been a security checkpoint lay just beyond the door on the left-hand side. It had been blown apart by some kind of explosive. Cursory observation suggested the explosion was likely responsible for the bodies piled against the far wall and damage to the lockers as well. However, there were bodies in the middle of the room, as well as the one that had been pressed against the door.

Whatever had happened here, it hadn’t taken place all at once.

The bodies, which I now assumed to belong to the security forces of the facility, had died at different times and appeared to be human. They were tall and the armour added a certain degree of bulk, putting them in the general range of seven and a half to eight feet tall.

I wasn't sure if it bore any meaningful significance, but it seemed important to make those distinctions.

Taking a knee, I picked up the helmet so I could take a closer look at it.

More or less resembling a heavy motorcycle helmet and made of some kind of metal, the helmet had a bizarre face guard. Also made from metal, the face guard had some form of silver plating and was contoured to take on the chiselled features of a Greek god. Complete with an accompanying beard. The eyes were replaced with some form of hardened glass, but the opposite side was covered in dust and desiccated organic matter.

The remains of the man who had worn the armour in life.

The remainder of the armour had a similar look to dirt biking armour, but it had a far more intimidating aesthetic and bulk to it.

The armour of the body now draped across the threshold bore several craters roughly a half-inch to an inch in diameter. Evidence that the owner had probably died as a result of violence shortly afterwards.

Cautiously investigating the room from the doorway, I discovered several dozen articles of dust-covered rubble were actually some kind of weapon. Given the shapes, I assumed they were some form of firearm, but didn’t recognise any of them.

I had never been into guns, so that didn’t surprise me all that much.

Now that I was looking more closely, I recognised similar craters marking the armoured bodies not scorched and blackened by the explosion.

Armed with a greater appreciation for what had transpired, I removed the body from the doorway and set the accompanying head down beside his body.

On a whim, I thumbed away the dust on the chest piece until I uncovered a name engraved into the metal.

Kaine

Reading the name, I felt a profound sense of loss but had no idea why.

Covering my mouth with one hand in an attempt to avoid breathing in the dust, and firmly clamping down the muscles that controlled the plates protecting my gills, I cautiously entered the chamber.

As I had feared, each footstep kicked up massive clouds of dust, making it difficult to breathe.

No longer convinced that investigating the chamber and rooms beyond was necessary, I turned to leave but stopped in my tracks. With my vision impaired by my secondary eyelids, I had nearly missed it.

My equipment and clothing lay in an unceremonious pile behind a broken wall in the blasted checkpoint.

Attempting to make the hole wider with my Earth Affinity, I was surprised to find that it didn’t work. Trying again with the Shape Stone Spell, I met with a similar failure.

Frustrated, I did my best to ignore the dust and tried to tear the compromised wall down with brute force. Against my expectations, chunks of wall tore free with no more resistance than plasterboard.

Stumbling into the room beyond, I snatched up my tunic, pressed it against my mouth and took a deep breath to calm my nerves.

The increasingly dense levels of dust in the air were making me feel decidedly claustrophobic.

Draping the necklace with the Storage Ring around my neck, I swiftly stored my equipment inside and used its power to clothe myself. Fully clothed, I retreated to the corridor.

Considering my options, I made another brief foray into the room to seize the weapons lying on the floor. They were too small for me to use, but I wanted to take a closer look at them later and didn’t want anything to do with the dust storm that had overtaken the room.

Sealing the door behind me with my authority, I began to leave but stopped after taking just a few steps.

I looked back at the body I had left against the wall.

Leaving the body behind felt...wrong. Like it was some form of betrayal.

Returning to the body, I tried to think of reasons for what might be causing these feelings, but beyond my recent bout of brain damage, I came up empty.

Crippled by indecision, I eventually settled on storing the body and armour inside the Storage Ring.

Retracing my steps, I began making my way back to what I assumed was the entrance and exit to wherever the hell I happened to be.

While walking along the silent corridors, I had time to consider why the scale of the passageways and chambers I had encountered all seemed well suited to my size. Even the doors were large enough that I could pass through them without stooping.

Passing by the plaque listing the different departments, one of the listings, in particular, stopped me in my tracks.

Laboratory

In my formerly compromised state, I had been acting under several questionable assumptions. After what I had seen, and now with a more or less clear head, the word held entirely different connotations.

Driven by morbid curiosity, I was about to begin following the signs but stopped myself at the last moment.

Travelling the empty building was becoming an increasingly unnerving experience. Mostly because I was doing so alone.

Gathering my MP I attempted to Summon Gric but was met with the same failure as the Shape Stone Spell.

Settling for a weapon instead, I withdrew a short mace from my Storage Ring, took it in a firm grip, and then continued down the corridor.

Following the directions toward the lab, I passed several chambers recessed into the walls on either side of the corridor. Unlike the desk at the entrance, these alcoves had more of the lockers I had first found within the security wing.

Opening the lockers with my authority, I found more of the firearms that had littered the ground in the other chamber. Only these were clean enough that I could get a proper look at them. Not that it gave me a better idea of what to expect.

Storing the guns away for later, I continued following the signs and eventually came across a massive reinforced door. Easily twice the size of the others, the door looked quite imposing in the darkness.

Attempting to use my authority to open the door, I was shocked when my authority experienced resistance for the first time. Opening the door wide enough to slip through took the better part of a minute. With concerns the door might begin to close once I crossed the threshold and no guarantee that I would be able to open it from the other side, I decided to wait until it was opened the entire way.

While the door was retracting into the wall, I found that the chamber beyond was empty and that there was a second seemingly identical door on the opposite wall.

Assuming the chamber was meant to be some sort of quarantine or sterilisation checkpoint, I was confused by the absence of protective equipment, washing stations, and other paraphernalia my studies had led me to expect in such facilities.

Crossing the threshold, I couldn’t help but flinch as the door began closing behind me. Just as I feared it would. However, my fears were alleviated upon discovering I could halt and even reverse its progress by leveraging my authority. Although it would begin closing again so long as I remained within the chamber.

Armed with peace of mind, I approached the opposite door.

I quickly discovered that the second door wouldn’t begin opening until the first was completely closed. Reinforcing my assumption that the chamber was meant to fulfil an additional security or quarantine role.

As the second door slowly slid open, I couldn’t help but stare in awe at the massive chamber that lay beyond.

Rows upon rows of huge glass cylinders dominated the chamber, standing like silent columns in the darkness. Contrary to the other sections of the building, large machines were packed against the walls and cables of all sizes trailed in a seemingly haphazard pattern across the floor.

There was also a faint glow deeper within. The source was hidden behind a barrier of fallen machinery, but the near complete darkness of the chamber at large made it impossible to ignore by comparison.

Cautiously crossing the threshold, I released a stressed sigh when the door began automatically closing behind me, just as the first had done.

Investigating one of the closest glass tubes, I found I was unable to make out the contents due to a special tinting pigment in the glass. I had originally expected the exterior to be coated by a thin layer of dust, so the discovery raised several questions I wasn’t sure I would be able to find the answers to.

Shifting my focus to the machines connected to the glass cylinders, I became frustrated upon discovering the buttons, dials and levers had almost no descriptive inputs I could use to guess at their potential functions. Beyond a large switch bearing the same symbols as the rear power switch on my old computer, everything else was a crap chute.

Making matters worse, the position of the switch indicated the power to the machine should have been active. So there was no way to illuminate the contents of the glass tube.

I tried using the Fire Lance Spell to serve as an alternative means of illumination, but the Spell failed just like the others had done.

Following a trail of cables to a machine set against the wall, I was surprised to find what looked like computer screens were built into a section further along the wall. Similar to the wall of security screens I had once seen in the University back on Earth, I wondered if they were intended as some form of remote viewing station for the other sections of the lab.

Continuing deeper into the chamber, I found more of the computer screens in matching formats to the first and wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Closing in on the collapsed machinery, I quickly shifted interest after hearing traces of a feminine voice coming from the other side. Circling the debris, I located the source of the dim light and the voice I had heard a few moments before.

What looked like a touch-screen tablet with a black case lay face down on the floor a handful of inches from a withered corpse slumped against the base of the wall. The corpse wore a long white lab coat over a soiled blouse, dark skirt and long socks. The security I.D. clipped to the coat was covered with dust, but it was thin enough that I could see the name and face beneath.

Her name had been Eliza Eckart. With only the photo as a reference, I assumed she had been in her mid-thirties or perhaps early forties when she died. She had dark hair pulled back into a tight bun and had a hardness in her eyes and face that made it difficult to consider her as anything else besides a religiously professional individual.

Carefully removing the I.D. from the coat, I wiped the dust away and looked at the photo again.

I knew her. I was certain of it.

I knew her face, I knew her voice...The same voice coming from the tablet on the floor.

As I carefully lifted the tablet off the floor, I uncovered the inbuilt speaker and heard Eliza Eckart's ghost speaking out from beyond the grave.

“-can only hope that you can forgive us for what we have done and that our sacrifice in some small way makes up for the horrors we have committed...I...I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry...” There was stifled sobbing and then a long silence. The screen flickered with a fractal image and I could barely make out what looked like a pip tracking across a bar at the bottom of the screen. There was an awkward throat-clearing sound and a resigned sigh. “My name is Eliza Eckard, and if you are listening to this, I...” She hesitated and made a strange strangling sound before clearing her throat again. “It means I’m dead...” She stated flatly. “And it means you have returned...”

There was a lengthy pause that gnawed at my nerves.

“If you came seeking vengeance, I can only hope that our deaths offer you some measure of comfort...What we did...There is no excuse...I have come to terms with this...” Eliza took a deep shuddering breath to steady herself. “No doubt, you have questions, but they will need to wait. You are in incredible danger! Entering the facility will have alerted Elis to your presence, you need to leave before he finds you!-”

I felt a sudden sense of unease.

“-The data-slate will have the answers you seek, but you need to run! Hide somewhere Elis can’t find you!” Eliza insisted with mounting desperation, her voice beginning to crack under a weight of intense emotions. “It’s not the life you deserve, but there is nothing else I can do...I can only hope that you can forgive us for what we have done and that our sacrifice in some small way makes up for the horrors we have committed...I...I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry...”

As the message began to repeat, I took the tablet, or data-slate, as Eliza had called it, into my Storage Ring. unsure how I should feel about someone who had so fervently professed to have done me wrong, I almost left Eliza’s corpse behind. However, I felt the same sense of conflicting emotions I had experienced when leaving Kaine’s remains earlier.

After sweeping her body into the Storage Ring, alongside a pile of the fallen machinery to clear a more immediate path to the exit, I began hurriedly striding across the room and directly toward the exit.

I was roughly halfway across the room when the recessed lights in the ceiling suddenly flashed to life, momentarily blinding me as my eyes struggled to adjust to the brightness.

As my vision returned, I found I had become somewhat turned about while disoriented and was now facing one of the tubes. Staring at a glass-eyed and distorted reflection against a background of pale green liquid.

Only, it wasn’t my reflection...

Some part of my subconscious pieced together what was happening before the horror had a chance to take hold, driving me away from the contents of the tube and back toward the exit.

Unable to stop myself from retching as I stumbled toward the door, I felt the bile spill over my lips and splash against my chest but paid it no mind.

I could feel hundreds of cold dead eyes watching me and desperately needed to be somewhere, anywhere, else.

Hundreds, there were hundreds of those glass tubes...

Panic and stress began eating at my mind, eroding my self-control. Making it all the more difficult to leverage my authority against the door. Briefly losing control, I tried, and failed, to remove the door by putting it inside my Storage Ring before forcing myself through the gap and breaking a rib in the process.

Unlike before, the door closing firmly behind me now served as a source of profound relief. Which lasted all of a dozen seconds before an unexpected male voice nearly made me jump out of my skin.

It took several seconds before I calmed down long enough to realise the voice had been some sort of recording related to the room and its security.

“Authority level accepted,” the voice announced impartially.

I tried not to flinch and concentrated on opening the door.

The pain from my broken rib, and the ravenous hunger that pain generated, lent me enough restraint and distraction to wait until the door was a third of the way open before slipping through and breaking into a stiff jog.

It was strange, but the corridors had seemed far less foreboding and ominous in the dark. Now that everything was brightly lit, I kept expecting to find enemies waiting for me around every corner. When those enemies failed to materialise, it only served to feed into my mounting paranoia, raising my expectations that the next corner would be the one that would be used for an ambush.

I felt a perverse sense of disappointment when I managed to make it back to the elevator without incident. As if not being attacked or chased through the winding corridors was somehow a bad thing...

Slapping my right hand against the doors to the elevator, I felt a surge of profound relief as a notification appeared in front of my eyes announcing my imminent departure.

As the teleportation took hold and my body began to disappear, I witnessed the arrival of two statuesque figures in radiant gold and silver-plated armour. They had arrived facing away from the elevator and didn’t appear to have noticed my presence. But the vantage point gave me an unrestricted view of the eight wings of golden light tightly furled at their backs and laurel-like demi-corona of the same golden light hovering at brow level about their helmets.

Teleported away, I reappeared in a dimly lit stone chamber.

Overwhelmed by all I had seen and experienced already, I reflexively raised a wall of stone to protect myself when I detected movement from the periphery on my right side.

“Tyr-OOF!” Something hit the wall hard enough to send cracks webbing outward from the impact.

“Tyrant!” A chorus of brutish voices cried from the darkness, sending waves of relief crashing into my mind and sweeping away my fear. Ogres began pressing in from the darkness, their magical armour hanging in broken tatters, while others were borderline naked.

“Tyrant are back!” One of the Sarges announced with big salty tears running down his cheeks. “Ugg tell you! Tyrant no leave!”

Several Ogres in Ugg’s vicinity nodded emphatically in agreement, struggling to hold back tears of their own.

Cheers rose from deeper in the chamber and as lanterns sprung to life, they revealed the battered ranks of the Asrusian and Semenovian Knights and scouts.

At a glance, I could tell that roughly a quarter of their number was missing.

The cheering mass of the Viking Cultivators looked smaller than I remembered as well. Although they were too numerous to get an accurate count while they were milling about.

I was abruptly reminded of my broken rib when Gric staggered out of the shadows, seized me about the chest and began squeezing as if his life depended upon it. “I...failed...you...My...fault...” Gric rambled feverishly, his skin radiating a persistent heat that gave me serious cause for concern.

Setting aside my pain, I conjured a barrel of fresh drinking water and dumped it over my front, splashing the water over Gric as a matter of course.

Faint trials of steam rose from Gric’s skin and I felt a subtle change begin shifting through his body. Slowly releasing his grip, Gric stiffly and awkwardly took several steps backward. His inherently rapid healing had been treading water paired with the Synergy from the other Ogres, but now that I had returned, it was kicked into high gear.

I could see Gric’s strength returning with each passing second, and the unmistakable shame and embarrassment that accompanied it.

“I wanted to do something similar,” Sebet announced with a smirk, approaching from my left-hand side. “But after he disembowelled Mud, I thought better of it.”

“How was...The beetlemen attacked his mind as well?” I asked, struggling to match my hazy memories of events against Gric’s sorry state.

Sebet snorted with nervous amusement. “They did, but he gave worse than he got,” she admitted dryly. “Left their mind hunters as easy pickings for the Cultivators and Ogres. But that sort of aggressive approach has its price.”

I nodded, gaining a new appreciation for Gric's mental fortitude.

“We need to leave,” the words passed my lips without me really thinking about it. A shadow of my former urgency forced its way through the waves of relief coming from the Ogres and demanding that it be heard. “Something, someone...An enemy is coming, and we need to not be here when that happens.”

They had held themselves back until that moment, but my declaration brought my Bodyguards and champions leaping into action. Driving our forces into a hasty retreat through dark tunnels and more of the massive carved stone chambers.

Surrounded by my Bodyguards and a swarm of Ogres, I didn’t fully realise what I was doing until I reached the surface and noticed the host of notifications that had piled up in my lower peripheral vision.

In the span of a couple of dozen minutes, I had killed tens of thousands of people and seized control of more than several times as many Slaves.

Reminded of the deal I had made with the Midnight Caravan, I directed my champions to move ahead of our forces and open the city’s walls so we could enter without facing stiff resistance.

Our return to the surface and move on the city brought the surviving members of the Midnight Caravan rushing to join us. They appeared to have lost more than half their numbers, but from the way they were excitedly conversing with one another and cheering, anyone could have been excused for thinking they were mentally deranged.

Entering the outskirts of the city, I had to ignore the screams and cries of fear of the general populace and continue repeating the same standing order over and over again, directing the Slaves toward the Viking Cultivators gathered outside of the city.

I had given the responsibility of protecting the Slaves to Baldr and his Cultivators because I didn’t trust them to exercise restraint when faced with the escalating chaos of the capital. Their status as former Slavers and raiders was hardly ideal, but I was trying to do my best with the tools I had at hand.

Despite a mounting desire to flee, I decided that honouring my word and liberating the Slaves within the city was a higher priority. Sweeping the city would take hours, but the trip back to Sanctuary would take days anyway. So it made sense to do as much good as I was able, while I still had the opportunity to do so.

Leaving the city in the late evening, at the head of a literal horde of former Slaves. I began entertaining the possibility that my precautions against the beetlemen were also thwarting the movements of this great enemy. Assuming they had the same authority I did, then they would be restricted to the same means of travel.

That rationale began to wear thin as night fell and shadows took hold. By morning, I had changed my mind and decided to leave the Asrusians and Semenovians behind to fulfil my obligations to the Midnight Caravan and the Slaves we had liberated.

Now convinced that my presence would only put them all in greater danger, I left them with all but one of the Arks. Just in case. I then set out at all speed for the border.

Even with the Kobold’s Synergy bonus, the protracted forced march was an utterly miserable affair.

Haunted by what I had seen, the twilight hours were the worst. Already hovering on the brink of mental exhaustion, my mind was playing tricks with the light. Gold-winged angels would appear with each flash of light, while grotesquely distorted reflections of my own face stared back at me from the shadows with milky white eyes.

In such an agitated state, and my guard raised, Sebet and Gric couldn’t read my mind. Which meant our conversations had to be held aloud and in person. Their retelling of events and my strange behaviour before my abrupt disappearance only served to feed into my mounting paranoia.

Making matters worse, the sudden appearance of the two Angels continued replaying in my mind. With each repetition, I became increasingly convinced that one of the Angels had reacted to my presence.

The ever-so-slight movement of the Angel’s helmet could be explained by a seemingly endless number of reasons. But with the potential dangers in play, I had to assume the worst.

***** Amenitael ~ Elysium ~ The Throne of Domination *****

Kneeling before the Council of Purity, Amenitael ignored his injuries and kept his gaze firmly locked upon the pristine gold and silver veined marble floor.

In other circumstances, his dishevelled appearance would have been cause for reprimand and light censure. However, the will of Elisariel, High Speaker of the Creator, overruled all. Even the Council of Purity.

“You claim the sacred hall of The Creator was destroyed?” Zarthael hissed with barely restrained fervour.

“I do,” Amenitael replied calmly. He had the bruises and lacerations to prove it, but that didn’t amount to much before the likes of Zarthael and his ilk.

“Heresy!” Zarthael barked, slamming his delicate silver-white fist against the arm of his throne, sending arcs of divinity radiating from the blow.

Illuvital raised one hand for calm. “This was the cause for Amarithael’s demise?” She asked, her seven sapphire eyes attempting to bore into Amenitael’s soul and lay bare the truth.

“It was,” Amenitael replied with genuine remorse. He had not wished for his brother’s death, but it had been an unavoidable sacrifice. Amarithael’s loyalty to the High Speaker of the Creator had been unshakable and he had begun to notice things, begun to suspect...

Illuvital lowered her hand and nodded, seemingly content to accept his answer.

“Yet you survived,” Raziphael commented shrewdly, tenting his fingers before his lips in a show of deep contemplation. “Why is it that Amarithael was struck down and yet you have survived?”

“Amarithael...My brother...He shielded my body with his own...” Amenitael croaked with genuine sorrow. “Were it not for Amarithael’s sacrifice, I would not have survived...Such as I am, I owe my continued existence to his sacrifice.”

Raziphael narrowed his singular cyclopean ruby eye in an overt demonstration of doubt and scrutiny. No doubt hoping Amenitael would break under the pressure.

“Enough,” the High Speaker of the Creator’s melodic voice commanded from his throne on high. “A devoted servant has endured much loss and hardship to deliver us this news. Casting baseless dispersions against his character is unwarranted, and ill-advised...”

The Archangels of the Council of Purity immediately purged all pretences of hostility and bowed their heads in reverence and deference. “It is as you say,” they recited in unison, “We shall endeavour to do better and live up to the divine purpose bestowed by The Creator.”

“As is only right,” the High Speaker of the Creator agreed condescendingly. Not that the council showed any signs of having noticed his tone as anything other than rapturous exaltation.

Once the veil was pierced, there was no returning to blissful ignorance.

“Amenitael, Seeker of the Radiant Dawn, do not think your service will go unrewarded,” the High Speaker of the Creator declared in a fatherly tone. “You shall be granted the honour to lead the pursuit of the heretic responsible for this desecration. Alas, there is a righteous need for immediate action. Indeed, the trail has almost certainly grown cold in your absence. So I ask that you bind your wounds with your brother’s memory, so it may serve as a reminder of your divine duty in this most sacred of Quests.”

“As The Creator wills,” Amenitael declares solemnly and with the utmost sincerity.

Although they spoke the same words, they carried a very different meaning to Amenitael. As one of the few who saw the High Speaker for the charlatan he was, Amenitael would make any sacrifice to see the deceiver's plans thwarted and for the deceiver's enemies to prosper. Amenitael was willing to hope that the alleged heretic and subject of the deceiver's obsession may hold the key to the deceiver's destruction. However, finding the heretic would also see them that much closer to the deceiver's grasp. And this, he could not allow.