The Ruler of Ruin

“Follow me,” Arx Maxima whispered into my mind once I entered a state of trance. “I will protect your body if need be.”

Maxima drew me into a vault of wealth beyond measure. Gems, ores, artworks of all varieties, strange objects I couldn’t puzzle out the usage of.

“The Stellarae Enclave had the wealth of hundreds of thousands of planets.”

“Planets? So, before the wilds were made?” I asked for clarification.

"Indeed. In the era when the Material Realm was self-contained, the planets were astrological objects caught in the orbit of stars, also known as suns, ensnared by their powerful gravitational pull. These constellations of solar systems collectively constituted galaxies. Within a solitary galaxy, there could be thousands of these solar systems."

With each strange phrase Arx Maxima spoke, images and definitions flowed into my mind. She showed me spiral, elliptical, lenticular, and irregular galaxies.

“What was the Material Realm?” I wondered.

“The Material Realm is one of the states of being that existed prior to the amalgamated reality that is the Gossamyr. The True World Mithras seeks to create is an imitation of the Material Realm of old.”

“And why is this relevant?” I didn’t really follow the reasoning. The faithful of Mithras all talked about the True World, but it wasn’t very well defined. I understood it to be a world free of the mists, but what Arx Maxima talked about involved a lot of words and concepts I wasn’t familiar with.

“My last Emissary was the leader of the Stellarae Enclave, Captain of the Arx Maxima. There were other, lesser envoys as well. These people were sent to intelligent civilizations to offer them a diplomatic route to joining the Enclave. When diplomatic missions failed, they were then tasked to bring them into the fold by force.”

I couldn’t help thinking that Arx Maxima’s Stellarae Enclave sounded a bit like they were bad people, or at the very least a little bit questionable. Was I making a mistake getting involved with her? Had I made a deal with something, somehow, worse than Corvusol?

“This is Aurelian, my last Emissary.”

Something slithered into my mind, the same way words and images had been, from Arx Maxima. One second I was me, and the next……

I was Aurelian.

I stood upon the main bridge of the Arx Maxima, technicians and bridge crew at their stations. Before me lay the visual sensor output on the newest planet we had run across. Intelligent life was a rare thing in the vast cosmos, and this planet had achieved inter-system space travel, constructed space elevators on two planets and four moons, and even initiated construction of a Dyson sphere in their neighboring solar system.

“Give me a summary,” I demanded of Arx Maxima.

“Oxygen rich atmosphere, plentiful natural resources. Traces of Element Astra, minimal psionic powers. No magic. They reached the stars two of their generations ago. Initial groundwork has been laid by the Precursor Program, so we bear similarities to their gods.”

Time desynchronized, and rather than in the moment, a slideshow of events played out. Despite only witnessing the summary version of these images, I somehow gained the full knowledge as if I had lived out life as Aurelian for the span of a week. Diplomatic meetings. Aggressive negotiations. A duel to show off the power of the Stellarae Enclaves conceptual mastery that obliterated all of the elite warriors and military of the Cosmarriens. When they did not succeed to the Stellarae Enclave willingly, Aurelian cut one of their moons in half with his spear.

An hour later they signed the treaties to join the Enclave, their solar system was evacuated to the Arx Maxima, and their worlds were physically assimilated into ever expanding stellar fortress. The empty void was all Arx Maxima left in its wake.

“Are you sure you aren’t evil?” I asked as the memories settled in my mind.

“To achieve the Enclave’s goal of universal oneness those actions were required. That existence is gone. The past shapes our present, but you will determine the future. Apply morality as you wish.” Arx Maxima didn’t argue morality with me, which felt like a letdown. If I understood Aurelian’s memories though, Maxima had many shackles placed upon her in something called programming. If she acknowledged me as her envoy, she couldn’t work against me, which tracked with her disinterest in morality and leaving it to be my problem.

There were ranks of envoys within the Stellarae Enclave, I now knew, thanks to Aurelian’s memories. Delegate, Herald, Legate, Envoy, Emissary, Ambassador, and finally Consul were the ranks used to govern the sect. Aurelian had been an Emissary and had the power to cut moons in half with a single slice of his spear. I couldn’t really understand that. He’d had a beautiful spear, certainly, but how could any weapon cut something millions of times larger than itself?

Sure, I’d seen loggers swipe trees down in one swing of an axe, but that was magic, and trees were only a few times bigger than an axe in comparison. Aurelian had only used normal technique, impossible physical ability, and an incredible weapon to cut a celestial body in half. It seemed nonsensical, but I felt a new aspiration burgeon in my soul. Destroy a moon in one hit. Aurelian had only been an Emissary, and if I started as a Delegate, I had to get promoted four times.

I didn’t know if that’s really the way it worked, but it was a ridiculous goal. It seemed only fitting that such a ludicrous aspiration would be poorly understood, and if I didn’t ask Maxima about it, she couldn’t ruin it by telling me the real details. It’d be a pleasant surprise if I could slice moons in half at the Envoy stage instead.

I understood, the bare minimum, of the aspect and power of being an envoy of Arx Maxima. I conjured the mental image of one of Arx Maxima’s large plates with a strange array projecting a bolstering wave of power at the silhouette of a man. I transcribed it to my arms, and power bubbled through me. I could feel some kind of resonance between the strange strengthening array enkindled in my arms and the citadel enkindled in my heart.

Images danced through my head. A hundred, no, a thousand, different weapons. Most were spears. Spears with spiked ends, leaf bladed, tipped with curved blades, with triangular heads, with barbs, with two sided blades, even spears with blades on both ends. Weapons made of metal, crystal, rock, and energy danced through my mind. It was like Arx Maxima ran me through some kind of affinity test to see what resonated with me. I assumed it was Arx Maxima, but perhaps it was me who ran myself through it.

I assumed this because I felt the first ability of my newly enkindled strength attribute crystalize. Summon: Delerium of Ruin.

“Delerium of Ruin? Again, you sure you aren’t evil, Arx Maxima?”

I opened my eyes to the world and beheld a faint golden barrier around me. Surrounding the barrier were dozens of angry crabs the size of wolves who tried to attack the barrier to get at the naked human inside, aka me.

I held my right hand out, and focused.

“Come to my hand, Delerium of Ruin!” It felt dramatic and ridiculous to say, but Arx Maxima’s lesson and Aurelian’s gifted knowledge both assured me that words bound thoughts and concepts into action. It was what made fear so dangerous. Strong emotions combined with intense thought could react to the mists without words to give focus to them. Once I got the hang of my new abilities I wouldn’t need to use words to focus them, unlike mages.

A spear appeared in my hand. The tip was nearly a foot long double-sided blade with a vicious tapered tip meant for piercing, while the sides of each blade were meant for slashing. Forming almost a hand guard behind the blade were two crescent moons, each bladed. The spear was my height, and ended in another crescent moon blade, almost like a sickle, behind which a golden crystal lazily spun and glimmered. The metal was somewhere between platinum and silver in sheen, and the ornamentation of the spear was purple and gold. It was a beautiful weapon, but something about it, perhaps all the vicious crescent moon blades where other spears I had seen wouldn’t have had any, made it look malicious.

“Once you attack the barrier will fall, and I cannot restore it.” Arx Maxima warned me, while I hefted the spear and got a basic grasp of its weight and balance. It was heavier than any spear I’d ever used, but my physicality had increased dramatically by enkindling two of Arx Maxima’s concepts to myself. What would it feel like when I had four?

“Anything you can tell me about Delerium of Ruin?” I asked while taking trial swings through the air. The blade left glittering, violet sparkles behind wherever it passed through. While pretty, almost fairylike, part of me knew immediately this was a dangerous weapon. Was it cursed?

“It will cut nigh everything. It is made to accommodate you; its form and functions will grow with you. While other Envoy’s have wielded Delerium of Ruin, they did not wield this Delerium of Ruin.”

“I have a magic spear now. Awesome,” I cracked my neck and did one final stretch of my body, and psyched myself up to take on the crabs.

“No. Delerium of Ruin is not magic. You still cannot use magic. It is a psychic weapon, a manifestation of our combined psyches coalesced into physical form through the power of the mist.”

“Kill joy,” I grunted but slightly over-extended my arm. The tip of Delerium of Ruin brushed the barrier holding the crabs back, and then the barrier dispersed into golden motes that slowly vanished as if it had never been. It was like a sad fireworks display.

The crabs were not as lackadaisical as I was, and immediately the front three glowed with a red-purple hue, and I stumbled back a step as a feeling of numbness spread through my mind.

“Mindcrabs. Their psychic blast cause paralysis in weaker creatures, and instant death in the truly weak. I recommend dispatching them quickly. With enough repeated attacks they will over-come your untested defenses.”

I couldn’t tell if Arx Maxima thought I was an idiot or liked to state the obvious. It was beyond clear that these things needed to die, and quickly. I didn’t have time to take a slow approach, so I dashed forward and swung the tip of the spear through the front row of crabs. Arx Maxima had said Delerium of Ruin would cut through almost anything, and with my new found strength surely I could at least kill a bunch of crabs, no matter how dense looking their shells.

I nearly spun in a complete circle, so easily did the blade of Delerium of Ruin pierce the shells of the crabs. Pieces of sliced crab filled the air as I recovered, switched to a thrusting attack, and found even with a forward thrust the spearhead would pierce multiple crabs easily.

“This is amazing!” I wanted to kiss the blade, or Arx Maxima, or maybe Amaranthine again, but there were dozens of crabs to be dispatched. My brain felt a little numb already, as red-glow after red-glow illuminated the crabs’ faces in the tell-tale sign of their psychic barrage against me. Each thrust and step became a little clumsier, and when the last crab leaked its strange blue-purple blood on the cave floor I could barely hold the haft of Delerium of Ruin.

“Wall!” I focused my mind to create a seal on the tunnel from which the crabs had come, then dropped to the ground. My body felt sluggish and uncooperative, and my ankles and legs had picked up a few wounds from the crabs and rocky cavern in the skirmish. No, in the slaughter. I set Delerium of Ruin onto the ground and released a large yawn.

“Wow. The Dustwalkers would love to have me in their party now.”

“You are under the effects of a soporific mental effect. With the entry to this area sealed, please take a moment to rest. When you are refreshed we will determine your next course of action.”

“I’m good, I could fight a dozen more of those…” I mumbled between yawns.

“To exit the cavern, you will need to defeat the Mindcrab Broodmother. You are not yet ready. Rest, and then we will bind your third concept.”