Elsewhere

Duke gave everyone a bit of extra time to get the infiltrators handled before moving into position high above the approaching horde. If not for Sam, this would be an entirely different fight and a different problem. I would not have even thought that undead would or even could infiltrate the refugees. I need to do better. Duke paused in his self-recriminations. Wait, I’m not alone. I shouldn’t need to do everything myself, be responsible for everything to get done and done right. I have friends and teams of people. We all need to do better.

While he waited for enough time to go by for people to get in place, he watched the horde moving below him. He was concealed within their own black cloud and was using his DUNGEON SENSE to see what was happening below. He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like the horde was moving slower than previously. Could it be the lack of the refugees to reach for that is slowing them down? No matter. It’s just about time for me to get in position.

He was able to see that the leadership of the horde had concentrated itself in the center again, behind a grey glowing shield of some sort. He IDENTIFIED all the leaders and was surprised to see that there were none of the three undead generals he was expecting among them. They were all powerful versions of their types but none of the generals were present. Is this horde a distraction of some sort? Are they somewhere else waiting to swoop in after the horde does as much damage as possible? The questions burned in Duke’s mind until he determined it was time to begin. He was adamant about this course of action.

Duke moved above the cloud of darkness masking the horde, nearly a kilometer in the air. Using his Jewel of Whispers, he let Baslin know that it was time to get everyone into the Inn. Once he was certain the message had been delivered, he took another full minute to prepare himself. He gathered LIGHTNING around himself, charging the very air around him. Sparks of electricity danced along his arms, forming Jacobs’ ladders arcing up his overgrown hair. The LIGHTNING danced around him, and he could almost feel it alive like it had a presence all its own.

The energy of his LIGHTNING coalesced around him, pulling every bit of energy from the world around him as possible as well as nearly his own entire Mana Pool. He could feel his Mana Channels straining as he poured more and more of his Mana into them, preparing to unleash the largest bolt of LIGHTNING he had ever conceived.

As Duke focused his will and power to unleash a into a single, tremendous blast, a bolt of energy lanced down from the heavens adding more power to his LIGHTNING. The pain of his strained Mana Channels heightened, and Duke screamed in the ecstasy of pain as the expanding cloud of energy vaporized the roiling black cloud beneath him.

The intelligent undead leading the horde, looked upwards to see a single man crucified in the sky, arms outstretched, back arched and head thrown back to scream at the heavens. They immediately stopped moving to reinforce their protective barriers, pouring all their Mana into the barrier charms they had been given. A few launched attacks at the figure above but none penetrated the sparking LIGHTNING field around Duke.

Duke took all the energy from the heavens into himself and combined it with his own. The pressure mounted until he could take no more. His eyes bleeding, he threw his entire body downwards, unleashing everything at once in a single terrible blast. Fully 500,000 of his Mana was OVERCHANNELED through his LIGHTNING Ability and an unknowable amount of additional divine infusion exploded from his entire body, connecting with the ground in a bolt as wide as a city bus. The bolt struck the undead leaders’ shield with the force of a comet striking the planet. The shield, the charms that created it, and the undead cowering behind it were all instantly vaporized.

The world turned stark white, burning out Duke’s eyes even through his closed lids, leaving only an afterimage burned into his optic nerves. Strangely, his DUNGEON SENSE remained intact, allowing him to see the shockwave from below an instant before it hit him.

Duke TELEPORTED away as fast as his enhanced reflexes could manage but was still slammed upwards before the Ability could kick in. He appeared back in the area of the Inn, struggling to stabilize himself in the air with his FLIGHT Ability. Pain washed over his heavily burnt body as he became aware of the heat of the shockwave that had hit him and how it had scorched every nerve across his skin. He focused on stabilizing himself, hoping for healing. He managed to get his tumbling under control and his REGENERATION finished repairing his eyes. When he opened them, he was greeted by the sight of a massive fireball rising in the sky kilometers away. As he watched, the fireball continued to rise, forming a mushroom cloud. Duke gaped; his mind frozen in terror of what he had wrought. He gazed down to make sure everyone was in the Inn and could see a lone figure standing in the middle of the clearing. It was Baslin, encased in some sort of glowing energy field. He changed his direction to intercept the Archmage, flying towards the ground. He did not get far.

The shockwave caught up with them all. Duke was slammed into the unyielding roof of the Inn. He felt bones break, skin that had only just begun to REGENERATE shred, and tendons tear as he deflected, tumbling uncontrollably up the pitch of the roof and over it, finally landing some distance into the forest amongst shattered trees. Tree limbs, branches, leaves, and even some sections of tree trunks rained down all around him. A quick check showed Duke that he was down to 25% of his Health total. His REGENERATION was working, but everything hurt, and the skin that hadn’t been torn off by the Inn’s roof still felt burnt. Worst of all, his Mana Channels felt strained beyond their limits, making even the thought of using magic painful.

Duke lay there seeing debris falling from the sky, some still burning, other pieces heavily charred. “Oh fuck. This is going to me bad.”

“No, it was great! It was the single greatest bolt of lightning I have ever witnessed from a mortal. I loved it. Let’s do it again!” Duke rolled over to see Orgath standing on the remains of a tree trunk beaming down at him.

“Let’s?” Duke asked, beginning to get his bearings.

“Did you think that was all your doing?” Orgath responded, glowing with elation.

“So, you admit to it. You admit to interfering?” Another voice joined the conversation. This one belonged to a figure cloaked in a death shroud.

“Oh, calm yourself, Ghastul. All I did was allow the mortal to channel a small boon. It was mostly him. And really, you are one to talk. All those undead spontaneously reforming wasn’t your doing? Don’t act all offended and blameless.”

Ghastul speared Orgath with an angry glare. “I used my agents for this! They are sworn to me. It is my Divine Right!”

“Well, Duke here is one of my Favored. I was well within my Divine Rights to grant him a boon. And if it just happened to help destroy your toys, such is the nature of the Storm. The Storm crashes down upon all.”

Duke could not see Ghastul’s face but could easily read the quivering rage in his body language as he continued to speak. Duke, for his part, stayed still and quiet. “It took me over a century to set this plan in motion and you shattered it just like that. I will not forget this. I will not forget your interference…and I will not forget your agent’s role in this!” Ghastul faded into the shadows as an icy chill suffused the area, slowly fading away.

“Well, Duke. That was fun. Sorry about putting a target on your back like that but you have to admit that was spectacular.” Orgath smiled and waved. “Time to go. Good luck, Duke. Know that the Storm favors you.”

Duke stared at the spot, stunned. Was that the god of undeath or death or whatever it is called in this word and am I now on his shit-list? Fuck!

“Duke, you and I have a problem.” Yet another being appeared. It was a very motherly-looking, plump woman with a hint of green in otherwise blonde hair framing her brown face. She stood nearly four meters tall. “I am Gaiatia. And I’m sure you can make the leap as to where my domain lies.”

Duke found his voice. “Nature would be my first guess.”

“Very good. Now I had been looking favorably on you as you are working with two of my favorite druids and even restored them at great personal expense. But now, you have left this beautiful forest with a massive crater in it and much of it is burning. That displeases me. Greatly.” Her demeanor shifted to that of a mother scolding an unruly child.

“I really am sorry about that. I had no intention of destroying the forest, just the undead that were destroying everything in their path.”

“I do believe you and the undead were most certainly causing problems. So, here is what I offer you. Restore my forest to health and I will set aside this transgression. Leave it to burn, and you shall face my wrath.” She reached over and tilted his head up by lifting his chin. “You do not want my wrath, do you Duke?”

“No. I’d rather not face your wrath.” Duke replied, transfixed by her eyes as they shifted color from blue to green and back. Her touch felt like the bark of a tree.

“Good answer. Now get to work.” She stepped into the largest tree still standing in the area and was gone.

Duke waited a few seconds for another god to pop out of the woodwork. When nothing happened, he crossed his fingers and quietly said. “I hope this works.” Duke activated RESTORE with 100,000 Mana. The pain from his Mana Channels was excruciating but he knew he would just have to fight through it. He had not done anything on this scale with this particular Ability outside of the Inn and was not sure how effective it would be. The Master-ranked Ability activated and the area around him rapidly reformed. Trees reformed where only shattered and twisted stumps had stood moments before. It took a full five minutes for the Ability to finish its work but the entire area around Duke had been RESTORED.

He took to the air, shakily rising kilometers up to survey the situation and was shocked by what he saw. Using his FLIGHT Ability only hurt his Mana Channels a little, more like a discomforting itch than any real pain. The area around the Inn was fully restored in a circle several kilometers wide. That was remarkable, but the destruction he saw beyond was truly something to behold. It was a burning wasteland of shattered forest and torn ground. A deep crater showed where the blast had impacted the forest floor and everything there was just gone, still raining down as ash.

“It looks like a fucking nuke went off here.” Duke marveled at the sheer destructive might he had unleashed, apparently with the aid of a local god. I know I said I was going to wipe out the undead army, but this is absolutely nothing like I had expected. This is…this is frightening. If I didn’t TELEPORT away in time, I doubt even I could have survived the blast. Anyone who was outside the Inn would have been killed for sure. Outside the Inn – Baslin! An overwhelming flash of panic engulfed Duke’s mind and he immediately TELEPORTED to where the Archmage had been standing outside the Inn when the blast went off. Again, there was pain, but it was manageable.

Duke arrived in front of the Inn to see Baslin looking at him seriously. “Duke, that was a magical blast the likes of which even I have never seen before and you look like shit. Except your clothes – those look like new.”

“Thank God you’re OK. How did you tank that blast?” Duke asked relieved and incredulous.

“Tank? Another idiom, I suppose. How did I survive? Quite simply, I used my Archmage’s Shield of Absolution. It is a rather short-lived spell, but nothing short of the direct, unrestrained attack of a god is going to get through that shield. That said, my shield nearly collapsed. What was that Ability?”

Duke allowed his relief to push him to a more casual manner. “Oh that? That was just a bit of LIGHTNING. Nothing much.”

Baslin fixed him with a disapproving glare. “Duke…”

“OK, so it was half a million Mana channeled through my LIGHTNING Ability with an additional divine boost by Orgath.”

“Divine boost? You mean to tell me that Orgath, the God of Storms himself aided you directly?”

“Yes.” Duke responded simply.

Baslin shook his head. “When the gods involve themselves in the affairs of men, all suffer.”

“So, if three gods are involved, that would be worse then, right?” Duke offered up with a sheepish grin.

“Three! Who are the other two?” Baslin asked, his voice heavy with dread.

“Well, it may be four in total now that I think of it. Vithshrek already hates me for some reason, but Ghastul was behind the undead army and Gaiathia is a bit pissed about the state of her forest here.” Duke stopped himself. “Oh, shit, right. I have to get going. I have to set the forest to rights.”

Baslin pointedly looked around himself at the pristine forest around them. “Looks good to me. What is the issue?”

Duke grabbed Baslin and launched the pair of them up into the air to give the Archmage a better look at the situation. He only winced slightly as he showed the Archmage the burning forest. The crisp demarcation between the perfect circle of restored forest and the utter destruction surrounding it was jarring.

Baslin gasped at the sudden action but stopped when he saw the destruction surrounding the area. “By the Seven. That is destruction beyond the mind’s conception. Put me back down. I must speak with the others.”

Duke dropped Baslin in front of the remarkably untouched Inn. “How did the Inn remain unscathed when everything else was blasted to splinters in the area?”

“I am not entirely certain, Duke, but I expect it has something to do with the Inn’s extra-dimensional properties. I’m not sure anything can affect its physical properties externally. That’s why no matter how much you blasted away, you never damaged the dungeon’s walls while we were inside.”

Duke shrugged. “Makes as much sense as everything else. I’ve got a job to do, so bring everyone else up to speed while I get to this.” He did not wait for a response, putting his all into RESTORING the surrounding forest as best he was able. It took him the entire rest of the day, but he completed the task, even RESTORING the trampled forest all the way back towards where the undead army had entered it. When he finished, he could feel the searing pain of his Mana Channels being overtaxed in every motion, even every breath hurt. Still, he had fought on to finish the task.

Finally, Duke returned to the Inn, firing off a CLEANSE to remove all the dust, ash, and grime he had accumulated. He was thoroughly exhausted, having run through his entire Mana pool over and over, fighting the pain as his Mana Channels threatened to shatter. He slumped to the ground against the wall of the Inn, too exhausted to continue, not even realizing that his eyes were closing.

A rush of soothing coolness flowed throughout his body as a hand rested on his forehead. He barely heard the voice that came with the sensation. “Easy, child. You have done as I asked and more. I am well pleased. Sleep and be renewed like the Spring.” Duke fully faded from consciousness.