The Ruler of Ruin

Arx Maxima, can you plot me a path through as many Scavs as possible to their leader and wherever their pets are?

Why run around like a blind idiot if Arx Maxima could lead us straight to the Scavs?

“I will guide you,” Arx Maxima once again floated out in front of me to act as a beacon. She seemed pleased I asked her, or maybe that I trusted her, or both? It was hard to tell when tone, blinking lights within the crystal, and the manner her crystal moved in were the totality of my methods to interpret Arx Maxima’s feelings.

Whoosh. The door to the room with the command terminal closed behind Chrys, and I couldn’t help but think that all doors should whoosh, it was such a satisfying sound. Far more entertaining than the thud or normal door, and infinitely more peaceful than the crash of an aged door in an ill-fitting frame. Whoosh. Even making the noise in my mind instilled a serenity in me, as if I’d taken a deep breath and exhaled all my stress away.

“My cloud and your lightning seem like our best method to dealing with Scavs, or are you going to try and take them all on by yourself?” Chrys might as well have asked me if I was a raving idiot, based on her tone. I contemplated answering with I’d handle them all, but we didn’t want to allow for any escapees. They were too difficult to find.

“You’re right, it’s a good combination, but I’ve been wondering. Couldn’t you just shoot a copper spike loaded with copper dust at a target, and I hit that? It seems like it would be more reliable than sneaking up a cloud on them, especially in the environment we’ll be fighting in.” I gestured at the empty hallways, barren of the rocks, crevices, and other difficult to see terrain that had abounded in the cave. While the halls were only illuminated around me, the darkness alone wasn’t enough for anyone to hide in, I didn’t think.

“I would have to throw it myself, so no, that plan won’t work. Unlike your walls, my ability to generate copper has a very limited range, I can’t go beyond my person. That’s why I make clouds and expand them outward. If you are confident in your ability to hit a target without the conductivity enhancement of my cloud, I can shoot fireballs.” Chrys admitted to being a fire-flinger quite nonchalantly. For someone who came from a family of fire users like me, I felt a small surge of jealousy that Chrys could throw fireballs, and I couldn’t.

Then I remembered I could generate black lightning, and I felt better about myself. Who wanted stupid fire, when you could have black lightning? No one, that’s who.

“You can shoot fireballs? And you haven’t bothered using them until now?” I bit my tongue in my attempt to keep my words enunciated enough that Chrys could understand them, despite the incredulity that threatened to reduce me to a pile of laughter. How long would it take for me to stop biting my tongue, and why did dragons have teeth that could shred their own flesh? It was beyond stupid. I briefly considered asking Arx Maxima, but her solution might be worse than the problem.

“Green Flame produces fumes toxic to you sloshy organic waterbags, I assumed you wouldn’t want me to risk harming you.” Chrys said flatly.

“Green Flame?” I repeated what Chrys had said. I’d never seen anything burn naturally with a green flame. Mom used all sorts of colored fires in her crafting, but she had never explained what the differences between each shade were to me. “Uhh, I appreciate you prioritizing my well-being over efficiency.”

The way Arx Maxima bobbed and weaved, waiting impatiently ten feet ahead of me, told me she was annoyed by something. Not waiting, Arx Maxima didn’t suffer from impatience. Maybe she was frustrated that her new envoy had to worry about breathing toxic materials. It did seem like the kind of thing that her previous Envoy’s would have just shrugged off before brutally cutting a planet in half for daring to offend them.

“Two Scavs thirty feet ahead, hiding on either side of the intersection,” Arx Maxima warned me.

I lowered my voice and repeated the warning to Chrys.

“Fireball?” Chrys asked.

“Fireball,” I agreed.

Chrys flicked her hand forward, and a tiny sphere of green flame shot out of her hand, down the hallway, and exploded at the middle of the intersection. The tiny little sphere produced a shocking amount of light as the green flames expanded outward in every direction for twenty feet. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all bathed in the green flame, and the two Scavs caught in the blaze made pained bellows.

I charged into the intersection as the flames vanished. I held my breath, in case the smoke was as harmful as Chrys suggested, and dashed towards the Scav on the right. The fire attack had charred its armor, melted some of the metal, and exposed flesh in places it had burned away the leather parts of their armor. The Scav almost got a strange sword up in time to block my thrust with Delirium of Ruin, but almost wasn’t fast enough.

The tip of my spear pierced right through the Scav’s heart, and then I unleashed a Bedlam Bolt through Delirium of Ruin into the Scav. The helmet exploded like a cold clay pot dropped into boiling water, fragments crashed against the scales of my face but failed to penetrate the dense scales. The rest of my body didn’t have scales, and a few shards of the metal helmet pierced my flesh, but just barely. The mist-scales that covered the rest of my body deflected the majority of the momentum.

The corpse fell to the ground, and I spun to dart to the other Scav.

Chrys had already reduced it to a smoldering pile of ash.

“I thought you were still intending on salvaging some of their technology?” I asked as I walked to the middle of the intersection.

“That was before I realized you could open the doors of the Ancients. Anything these morons have is bound to be a toy compared to the wonders of your Stellarae Enclave. That terminal was so beautiful,” Chrys sighed longingly, in a way that made me a slightly jealous it wasn’t about me. Not that I wanted Chrys to desire me, but it’d be nice if someone was interested in me, the dragon headed dumbass, instead of my magic crystal of awesomeness.

“I told you she was worshipping me,” Arx Maxima broke out her I told-you-so voice, and I didn’t like it.

I cringed internally, a little. For starters, why was I being jealous of a crystal? Second of all, I wasn’t into Chrys that way, even though she was the prettiest rock I’d ever seen. As much as I thought I was holding it together and pretending to not be phased by it, the dragon head was still really screwing with me, and that was just one trauma out of a deluge of recent blows to the foundational forming of my life. I couldn’t keep shoving it all down or I’d explode. Chrys could see, or sense, emotions. She had to be wondering if she was travelling with an insane person.

“Let’s keep moving,” Chrys suggested, and that’s what we did.

We stalked through immensely long hallways and fought Stalking Scavs and their pets everywhere. My least favorite of the creatures they had tamed were the Camouflage Scorpions. They didn’t actually have camouflage, or invisibility, but sort of faded into their surroundings until prey arrived, at which point they’d appear and shoot streams of highly corrosive acid from a small orifice behind their terrifying stinger.

Chrys made it a point to incinerate them immediately, even if it risked exposing me to some of the toxic fumes of her green flame. If I saw them before her I hit them with lightning, not willing to wait. The acid could harm both of us, and it burned so painfully that they became a higher priority target than even the Scavs.

There were none of the OreBiters in the Plate. I surmised that the creatures couldn’t eat the advanced materials that Arx Maxima’s ‘body’ had been constructed of, and were likely raised out in the caverns. In addition to the scorpions, the Scavs had trained flying snakes, giant centipedes, and they had a single monster that was taller than me by almost three feet. The hulking monstrosity had two massive curved mandibles, two huge insectoid eyes, and feet and hands tipped with brutal claws that were both weapon and instrument to dig. Not that it could dig inside the Plate.

I was glad they’d only had one of those. It had somehow forced me to flee. While I had no doubts that Delirium of Ruin would have ended the dumb bug, no matter how big it was, in one blow, instead I kept fleeing every time I met its eyes. Chrys, who didn’t have eyes, slowly burned the creature to death. Its thick exoskeleton seemed exceptionally resistant to flames, and Chrys constantly had to fight on the back foot and keep an eye on me and my influenced behavior. Luckily, the creature didn’t seem to be able to force me to attack Chrys, only to run around like a headless chicken. Embarrassing, hard on the ego, but not nearly as detrimental as it could have been.

It killed itself in the end, when one of its huge claws swiped at Chrys, hit the sparkling lights around her, which shot out like a shower of fireworks and went through the hulking menaces exoskeleton. Chrys called it her reflective retribution, and I wanted a power like that so bad. It killed the big bastard, which was the most difficult fight we faced in our early efforts to mop up the Scavs.

We had been at it for hours when Arx Maxima, who levitated ahead of me plotting our next move, let out a short laugh.

“They are now gathering, Emery. Fifteen Scavs remain, and one last pet.”

Do they know we killed most of their number? Why are they only gathering now?

“They’re gathering in an amphitheater. I believe their leader intends to duel with you, or perhaps to lure you in and ambush you with the few people he has left. I don’t have an audio-feed, only visual.”

“Arx Maxima says they’ve retreated to an amphitheater, and there’s only fifteen of them left, and one large creature.” I relayed it to Chrys, who gave me a hard look and then laughed.

“Look at you. Only fifteen, huh? Way to underestimate your opponents, maybe the dragon head comes with a boost to ego?” Chrys teased me, but I could tell she was also being serious. She’d seen enough of my combat skills to know I was making everything up as I went, beyond my skills with the spear.

If I were an adventurer, no matter how powerful I was, any good party would make sure I knew I was still a greenhorn. I could hear Uncle Remy’s voice in my mind. Power isn’t the only way to win a fight, boy. Cunning, technique and adaptability are all equally viable and knowing when to use which can save everyone around you a headache.

“I’ve got an idea,” I excitedly told Chrys.

“We’re just ignoring the only fifteen thing, then?” Chrys asked again.

“I get it. I’m getting arrogant. I spent the first eighteen years of my life without any power at all and have only had my current powers for a bit before I met you. It’s a change, and yeah, if I get full of myself call me out on it. Right?” I asked earnestly, and Chrys responded with a nod.

“So, my idea. You said your first ability for Eureka lets you make single use copies of abilities, right?”

“Yes,” Chrys reaffirmed.

“How many can you make of one of your abilities?” I grinned, showing all my intense, menacing teeth. Rumors said dragon claws and fangs could cut anything, much like Delirium of Ruin.

“I could make two or three in five minutes, as long as it’s a simple ability like Green Flame or Create Copper. Why?”

“Let’s make five or six of your Copper Cloud before we jump into their den,” I answered with a laugh, and I could feel the black lightning surging through my eyes, through my veins. It wanted, demanded, release, and the whispers of the Ebon Gale clamored for life to devour.