“To the Grand Elder! We are aware of the threat of the Lady Aerefalle! We thought the ignition of Tenkarrdun and the machinery beneath it might collapse her Wards for a time and render her vulnerable in her place of power on the harbor below!”
The vaguely draconic form of the solid flames that made up the Elemental Lord Z’rzzshszyz sat back in the black-veined crimson stone of the fire-immune Fire Granite throne It sat in. “So, that is she… so close, and yet so far.” It regarded us with burning eyes. “The surge you seek will not occur so easily. It was a result of the aging of the mortal mechanism in place below the surface of this volcano, but those mechanisms have been, if not fully restored, at least rendered stable. The momentary resurgence of the mechanisms will not endure without proper fuel and resources to continue them, but they function well enough for now.”
That… was not a surprise to us. I just kind of closed my eyes and sighed. “To the Grand Elder! And may this one and her friends meet the one who repaired those constructions, in pursuit of the goal of chasing the Tentacled One’s Blight from this place?”
“Hmmm. Yesss, that could prove… interesting,” Z’rzzshszyz mused aloud, a crafty light flaring in Its burning eyes. “Our influence has prevented him from rising, but I can withdraw it…”
The ground rumbled behind us. All of us turned around and faced the source of it.
The first thing to appear was a great big hand, larger than I was tall, which meant bigger than Tim, and even this Elemental Lord. It was made of red-veined volcanic stone, the same as a magma golum.
It thrust out of the volcanic vent furthest from the Elemental Lord, widening it and sending shattered stones flying into the sky under the impetus of venting flames and ash.
Forcing aside the flames and stone, the true Behemoth of Tenkarrdun heaved itself out of the hellish inferno below. Liquid magma dripped crimson and smoking from its mottled hide of constrained lava as its body resettled in its force matrix form, towering an easy seventy feet tall.
“That,” the Mick said firmly, looking up at the colossus of stone and fire, “is a LOT bigger than it used to be.”
Then it tilted its head to look at us, and a squeal of delight broke from it. The voice was deeper, but there was no mistaking the cadence and pitch of it.
“YOU! AGAIN YOU INTERRUPT MY WORK! DO YOU THINK YOU CAN CHASE ME FROM THIS PLACE NOW?!” the voice of Scold thundered through the stones beneath us, bypassing the Sound Bubbles keeping everyone from behind deafened, blowing a hot wind past us. The ground jumped as Scold took a single very long and ponderous step towards us, clearly eager to settle a few scores with us.
Hands creaked on Weapons all around as we stared up at the monolithic golem.
“You fool,” I said quietly into the face of the massively upcharged golem.
Scold took one more step, covering half the distance to us, but halted there, the unusually flexible mouth and eyes betraying uncertainty as he stared at me. “THE TRUTHSPEAKER,” he murmured in only a cavernous bellow, remembering Lethe and staring back at me. “DO YOU THINK YOU CAN BEST ME NOW, MEATBAG?” he demanded, raising a hand and forearm probably massing a hundred tons, clenching fingers longer than I was tall.
“No, but I don’t have to. You’ve defeated yourself, and made yourself a slave, after how many endless centuries spent breaking free of the System.”
He stared at me, frozen in place for a moment of dawning fear. “NO! IT CANNOT BE! YOU, YOU…”
He actually jerked and shuddered as he tried to say it, but could not. He’d heard Truth from my own lips, after all.
“Master Scold,” I said calmly, lifting off the ground on wings of suns between stars, rising easily up to his eye level. “You only have to prove the Truth by turning around and trying to walk out of this volcano.”
Eyes that were basically pits of magma stared at me, somehow conveying a growing existential horror.
“NO! NO!!!” With a bellow that was more like a wail, Scold turned toward the southern slopes and thundered into motion. “NO! NOTHING CAN STOP ME! NOTHING CAN BIND ME! NOTHING, NOTHING…”
His building run from Tenkarrdun got just past the vent and began to slow quickly, making only another five steps before slowly coming to a halt, staring up the slope. He was even reaching out with both hands, stony fingers trembling as he flailed madly up at the distant rim, his voice trailing off into greater despair.
“You were lured here by the System. You have no power to change the programming of the Behemoth, but you have given it the power and skills to repair the mechanisms it is in charge of overseeing. Even had we not chased you here, you would have sought out the greatest ley line of Fire in these islands, fused yourself to the Behemoth to gain its power, and taken up its task.”
“THIS, THIS!…” Scold turned back around, and began to claw at his chest, the largest stone there, which completely defied his fingers scraping across it. “FREE ME FROM THIS! I WILL BE FREE!” he shrieked in a wail that knew all too well the fate of endless years of servitude and obedience to masters absent and uncaring.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“I can free you.”
Scold froze, the burning pools of his eyes turning towards Commander Briggs, standing there on his Disk, the now-Coldphasing Greathammer of Endure held in both hands, Lost Lights shining like cold stars winking in the void. A Warlord’s Voice also cut through the fury of the flames and demanded his attention and instant respect.
“But you willingly Bound yourself to the System, Master Scold. Unless you are Bound to another, you will be compelled to come back here and submit once more.
“Are you willing to be Bound to me, Master Scold? It seems that you must serve… but I, at least, can give you the choice on who to serve: the ones long dead who made the artifice beneath you, or someone alive and willing to at least consider your own wishes?”
The Scold-Behemoth stood there, his molten mouth and eyes actually warping and flowing with the anguished turmoil there.
“TRUTHSPEAKER!” he bellowed out finally, striding towards me, still hovering up in the air on the updraft of Pyric Mana and heated air. “IS THIS TRUE? MUST I SERVE ANOTHER?!” he shouted at me from only thirty feet away, well within reach of me.
“The rote golums of this realm serve the System. Even when you gained thoughts of your own, you were trapped in the same sequence of events over and over, there were merely great periods of time between when you had to respond, if you recollect. When your Snowman perished, you were still compelled to appear to avenge it, and when you wandered, you were still compelled to assemble your superior golums and your artificing pillars. The closer to Tenkarrdun’s power you came, the better your artifice became.
“You were still an NPC, and still bound by the System. The only way to break this link is with a Source’s ability to defy Fate, and their mastery of Oaths. Commander Briggs is such a Source.
“But you are bound as a golum is once again. If you do not serve another, the System will reach out and take you once more, as it did so in bringing you here.
“If you think clearly back on your recent actions, since you left Mount Ingot, you have been compelled to come here. Unless you serve another in the eyes of the System, you will be brought back and compelled to take up the Behemoth’s duties once more.
“This is Truth.”
Thunder echoed in the soul, and the gargantuan golem actually slumped in place, not fighting the words echoing in whatever passed for his spirit.
“I HAVE NEVER BEEN FREE,” he whispered in burning despair that actually could only be sympathized with.
“No, you have not, Master Scold,” I agreed gently. “And if you wish to be free, you cannot be truly free. You must serve. But, at least you have the choice now, unkind as it may be.”
He looked back up at me, then down at Briggs and the others. “I AM TRAPPED WITHIN THIS BEHEMOTH, BOUND TO THE MATRIX I THOUGHT I COMMANDED. I MUST BE CARVED FREE OF IT.”
“So we must destroy the Behemoth, for however short a time, to free you.” Crown went to Coldphasing, and the temperature around me dropped a thousand degrees as it did so, my crimson arm going pale blue. “By any chance, will this destabilize the artifice below, for however short a period of time, Master Scold?”
“YES, THE MATRIX OF THE BEHEMOTH WILL RAPIDLY DIRECT THE GOLUMS AND ELEMENTALS TO REBALANCE THE POWER FLOWS ASSOCIATED WITH ITS DESTRUCTION,” Scold said shortly. “I CAN INTERFERE ONLY SOMEWHAT WITH ITS MANDATES TO DEFEND ITSELF…”
“Mis-aim its spells, nudge its blows as you see fit, Master Scold, and we will endeavor to free you.”
“WHY?” he asked abruptly, looming even closer to me. “WHY WOULD YOU HELP ME, TRUTHSPEAKER?!” he demanded to know, his flaming eyes still wild and angry.
“Two reasons, Master Scold,” I reassured him calmly. “The first is that the destruction of the Behemoth is something that we need to do regardless, it seems, and you can aid us in this matter. The second is that you are no longer an enemy and renegade. You are a slave who seeks to be free, and you are neither the first nor the last we will save from that fate.
“Now, ready yourself, Master Scold. As you fight your battle within the Behemoth, we shall face it without. Let us see how well we fight together, instead of against one another!”
Scold stepped back, molten mouth and eyes settling into a determined line. “I WILL BE FREE OF THE BEHEMOTH! COME, AND SEE HOW I WILL FIGHT FOR MY FREEDOM!”
Kris was going to be very pissed she missed this fight.
“This one requests of the Grand Elder a Judgment. As long as the Behemoth draws on the power of Tenkarrdun, it is unkillable. For this to be a fair battle, it must be severed from the replenishment of the Fires of Tenkarrdun.”
The Elemental Lord behind us was actually standing now, watching all this with the intensity of a sports fan about to see a great show. “GRANTED!” It bowed, waving Its hand dismissively.
The venting fumaroles all around us cut off like a knife.
I flapped my Wings, and shot back a hundred feet as the Assay Magic Resistance went off over the Behemoth. I didn’t double any spells, because I was going to have to watch my Mana and Slots like a hawk here.
It definitely looked like it had ten million Health Qi to get through!
The structure of its resistance to magic became a sparkling network of layered magical flaws to Vatic Sight. It was instantly apparent this wasn’t a true golem, because their structure was almost impervious to magic, save for very specific exemptions. Nor was it designed for military use, as the magical defenses would have been deeper and more intricate, instead being focused on absolute defiance of any attempts to control or subvert its programming and mission.
This was not a thing designed to really do battle, but its size and strength made sure it could do so, regardless.
The Imperil flared over it in a gray echo, and my eyes widened before anyone could charge, even as a shift and hardening of its eyes showed that its natural defensive programming had just activated.
“It went to negative armor! Use slashing on it, and turn off Armor Cleaving!” I called out to the others in mild shock.
They all looked at me in astonishment, and I just nodded.
Elemental Stones were hurriedly swapped out, and I lowered the orange-yellow flaring of the Slashing Vulnerability down over it.
Maybe this wasn’t going to be as horrible as we expected. Negative Armor with a VIII should be nearly x9 damage if going from 100 to -125!
Only two million to get through, then…
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