The voices outside—the barking orders—had stopped.
The screams? The screams were still there, faint from whatever lay beyond the temple. I don’t know what’s outside this temple, Levan thought, as the feeling of heat rose. But whatever it is, it’s on fire.
In addition to the screams were the sound of splitting stone, shattered windows, and splintered wood.
Far down the temple’s stretch, dark shadows danced on the wall, cast by the fires beyond.
I have to get out of here, he thought.
He took a small leather satchel from one of the dead acolytes and placed the [ Chosen Soul Talisman: Water ] inside.
He took one last look at what was likely a doomed generation of what were supposed to be saviors and friends.
I bet me and that giant spider-crab would have been friends to the end, he thought, taking one last look at the massive crustacean.
Maybe we were.
A small tear, the first one shed since falling into all this chaos, curled at the edge of his eyelid, and he rubbed it away.
On a whim, he walked over, knelt by the crab, and ran his hands along the top of the shell.
He tapped a few times gently, in what he hoped was a mourner’s lament. Where he tapped, a small object the size of his fist emerged. It was dark grey stone, almost black, the same shape as the one around his neck, and the one on the mermaid woman’s.
Another talisman.
His fingers brushed over it, and Levon’s eyes went wide as the talisman shrank from an appropriate size for the crab to the same size as his own.
[ Added to Inventory: Chosen Soul Talisman, (Stone), (Dead) ]
Sorry, friend, Levan tapped with his fingertip on the shell. He was about to go to the others when the voices came, low whispers that carried through the temple against the wishes of those who had spoken them.
He caught the edge of a shadow pass over the wall, and movement behind the pillars at the far end.
They were in the temple with him.
Whoever they were.
[ Elemental— ]
“Yes,” Levan cursed, “Choose an elemental affinity. I get it. I remember!”
He ran through the options in his head.
Fire, Earth, what? Which was—
A thought popped into his head
“What’s Aether?”
[ Codex > Elements > Aether | Aether is the space between spaces, the matter between matter, the time between time. Aether Damage inflicts additional damage of what might have been. Be wary: sometimes those hate what they cannot understand. ]
Levan blinked.
“That…I have no idea what that means,” he half-whispered, half-cursed.
[ Chosen Elemental Affinity: Aether? ]
He acted on instinct.
Surprisingly strong instinct.
Yes, Levan thought, before he could second-guess himself.
A series of codex entries flooded his mind—too many, and he suppressed them to keep his focus on the group of armed and uniformed men making their way into the temple.
[ Notifications Filtered | Danger Nearby ]
“Appreciate it,” Levan mumbled, making his way as quickly and as silently as he could towards the nearest marble column, and watched as the soldiers filtered in.
That’s what they were—he could see that now: Soldiers. It was unmistakable.
Five or six, maybe seven of them. Their armor was light, consisting of a layer of tunics not dissimilar to the robes of the acolytes, beneath metal breastplates or hardened leather cuirasses, with bracers and shinguards of bronze and studded leather, and with curling pauldrons of bronze at the shoulders.
The seven soldiers hurriedly made their way down the long length of the temple, their leader marked out by the cast-metal mask he wore, while the rest of the soldiers wore leather caps or even no helmets at all.
The mask…
Levan felt his stomach go cold as the lead soldier slowed to a stop at the center of the temple.
The thin mask was made of brass or bronze, shaped into a face. The expression the mask bore was the empty-eyed, Greek face of a horrified philosopher, complete with a noble beard and curls, but with empty black eyes, lips, and eyebrows twisted into horror.
“That one,” a voice said from within the mask.
Levan held his breath, forced himself not to move until he knew.
Then he noticed the acolyte on the ground.
Like so many of them, he was roughly his age, in his early twenties, maybe a bit younger. He was barely moving, and the olive skin around his chest was forced into an ashen pale hue from blood loss.
The acolyte coughed as the soldier in the philosopher’s mask approached. He stopped five or six feet short of the wounded man, and Levan had to imagine lying on the floor, looking up into the human eyes beneath the abyssal pits of the mask.
Another ice-cold stomach twist.
“Where are your brothers?” the soldier asked. His voice was oddly low, oddly soft. “Where are your sisters?”
The acolyte’s expression turned to confusion, and he opened his mouth as if to say, “all around you.”
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But he shut it and said nothing.
The soldier in the brass mask leaned closer.
“All dead?” he asked.
The Acolyte nodded once.
“And your ritual complete,” the man in the mask said, a clear edge to his tone.
The acolyte almost smiled, and Levan saw the slight rigidity that overtook the soldier in the mask.
“The things you risk…” the soldier in the philosopher’s mask said, shaking his head. The rest of the soldiers picked and glanced at the other bodies, and Levan took the opportunity to move from one pillar to the next.
“You were no longer useful,” the man in the mask said. “You were discarded by your so-called gods the moment they didn’t need you.”
“We performed our deed,” the acolyte said with grim satisfaction.
The soldier in the philosopher’s mask nodded. “Your life in dedication, your cause victorious. The doom of us all.”
The acolyte nodded at first, then began shaking his head. “No, no, not doom, we—”
“And yet,” the commander interrupted. Almost casually, he leaned forward, a short sword freed from his scabbard, drawing a line across the acolyte’s chest. “They abandon you. After you’ve done so much for them, given so much, could they not protect you? Could they not at least grant you a peaceful death, rather than me? Or someone like me?”
The acolyte cried out in pain as the soldier drew another red line across the priest’s chest.
I gotta get out of here, Levan thought, creeping towards the next pillar.
The trick was the other soldiers, not the soldier monologuing with the mask. The rest of the soldiers were making their way towards the summoning stones and the corpses that graced them with equal parts apprehension and curiosity.
If Levan skirted around to one side of the temple, then switched to the other at the right time, he could make it out undetected through the crumbled wall.
“They don’t care about you,” the masked soldier continued, as Levan took a few trembling, quiet breaths and prepared to move between the pillars.
“They don’t think you exist,” the soldier continued—almost purred, though the mask added a metallic buzz to his words. The soldier sounded strangely empathetic, pleading. “What gods care to protect someone who…doesn’t even exist. You don’t exist to them. You are less than nothing. A fabrication,” he said, gesturing and turning at the bodies. “Not to me. You’re a corpse—but a real one. You were a man, a priest—you lived.”
The acolyte stiffened at the word ‘corpse’.
“You’re insane,” the priest said. “You’re all insane.”
Levan moved, only realizing his long shadow on the temple walls as he made his move.
One of the soldiers twitched.
“Sir,” he said.
“Does he care when you’re tortured?” the man in the mask asked without even turning the soldier’s way. He must have done something Levan couldn’t see, because the dying acolyte cried out once more in pain.
“I don’t think he does,” the masked soldier said. “I think that’s the tragedy—few have the strength to give their lives—few, including you. And to place it in the hand of a demigod…only to have them throw it away. You did not deserve this. You should have been cherished. Celebrated. Acknowledged, at the very least.”
The leader paused, his soldiers’ footsteps hammering on the floor of the temple as they drew closer to the summoning circles.
They split up as they walked, fanning out. Two of them grew close—dangerously close—to the pillar Levan was hiding behind.
There was a quiet sound of resistance, followed by a thump and the quietest of rustles.
Levan fought to hold his stomach.
He could picture the sounds as they happened—the tug of flesh cutting, the thump of something falling, and the rustle of humble robes.
I have to get out of here.
[ Chosen Soul Progression: Choose an Ability Core? ]
Not now, Levan thought in panicked harshness.
The Codex ignored him.
[ Codex Entry: Ability Core | An Ability Core is a collection of features, systems, spells, skills, and abilities associated with an archetype. While most skills and abilities can be learned, and even many systems, the Ability Core serves as a way to provide consistency and guaranteed benefits. ]
His vision filled up, pictogram by pictogram, until he could hardly see. They crowded the temple wall, wrapped around the pillars as if the images themselves bent with the columns. The pictograms were simple—a sword. A shield. A bow, with an arrow knocked. A staff mounted with a glowing crystal.
Stop, stop, stop, Levan willed, hoping he still had enough control over his mind to give the order mentally, rather than shout it like he wanted to.
There were so many, and more still appeared.
A skull, a sickle.
A tree, a whip.
A hammer, a cloak.
Then he realized.
It’s trying to save you, dumbass!
The Codex was limited, somehow. It delivered information with a tutorial-like formality, bound by interpretations of user interface, menus, submenus, and organized information.
It’s not trying to ‘Clippy’ you, Levan realized. This is the only way the thing knows how to communicate. And it’s screaming at you.
[ Filter Ability Cores by Current Recommended Choices? ]
Yes, Levan thought frantically. Yes, please—sorry! Yes! Show me the Ability Cores.
Most of the pictograms disappeared, and the shadow glow of the burning outside the temple resumed its bloodthirsty licking of the temple walls.
Only a few remained.
The bow.
The cloak.
The crystal.
One more, too—the only one wrapped around a column, and it was a far column. He thought it might have been the hammer, but it was hard to see. The other icons had been reorganized after the filtering, moved to the front of his vision, but the Codex had left this Ability Core off in the corner by itself.
Information came with each pictogram as Levan tiptoed around the pillar, praying for quiet, praying his shadow on the wall would blend in with the rest as the soldiers approached the summoning stones.
Which should I pick? I want to live.
The pictogram of the bow glowed briefly.
[ Ability Core: Scout | System(s): Survivalism, Stealth | Primary Skills: Survival, Stealth, Marksmanship |Example Techniques: Dual-Arrow, Fire Arrow | Elemental Affinity Influence: Medium ]
Then the pictogram of the cloak.
[ Ability Core: Predator|System(s): Stealth, Shadowmancy |Primary Skills: Stealth, Blades |
>Example Techniques: Assassinate, Backstab, Cloak of Shadows | Elemental Affinity Influence: Medium ]
“Okay, that one,” Levan thought, paranoid that any moment now his shadow would be spotted.“Anything to get me out of here.”
[ Chosen Elemental Affinity: Aether ]
[ Chosen Ability Core: Predator ]
[ Class: Aetherknife ]
[ Confirm? ]
Levan hesitated.
Predator? That’s the name of the Ability Core?
[ Ability Core: Predator ] the Codex confirmed.
Got it. That’s kind of…huh.
The name shouldn’t matter. It sounded cool, right? Aetherknife sounded cool, too. Definitely. And could he really worry about it now? Evading the soldiers?
Predator.
Not like…not like that kind of predator, anyway—like how a tiger was a predator. Tigers were cool, right? An image popped into his mind: one of a tiger, but with a mustache and Jeffery Dhamer glasses.
You need to worry about surviving! You can worry about being a…a ‘Predator’ later.
“Give me the other options,” he thought to the Codex, cursing his shallow stupidity and priorities.
The pictogram of the cloak began to glow as the soldiers started to speak.
“Seven of them, sir,” one of the soldiers called from behind Levan.
The leader said nothing.
“Fearsome things, Otherlains,” another soldier said. “The…crab thing…well, that’s out of a nightmare.”
“They are all out of nightmare,” the leader said. “In many ways.”
The Codex showed him the other Ability Cores. The next was called “Warlock.”
[ Ability Core: Warlock has been included with a situational filter despite a mismatch. Mismatch Diagnosis: <“Warlock” Ability Core skills> is NOT FIT |
[ Inclusion reasoning:
[ Rule 713: Ability Cores that the Chosen Soul would be likely to choose cannot be excluded from filters without explicit overriding rules. ]
Warlock isn’t as helpful to me as the rest, but it thinks I’ll want to choose it, so it has to present it to me.
Levan risked a glance around the pillar.
The soldiers had split up, each examining the strange bodies on the summoning stones in murmuring clumps, breathing their disgust.
All except the masked leader stood several meters before the raised dais to the summoning stones, glancing up at the cathedral heights.
Levan followed his gaze, and his breath held.
Paintings.
Beautiful ones.
Oil paintings grew from where the pillars ended, like seeds planted on their marble heights. He saw worlds, planets, and moons. He saw forests and deserts, great temples buried under vines and sand. He saw creatures of confusing scale and terrible power. He saw fear, and majesty, and the indiscernible.
It was like Tolkien’s dream of the Sistine Chapel. Tolkien’s dream—if HP Lovecraft had been the one to read him his bedtime story before bed.
[ Ability Core: Warlock | System(s): Demonology, The Severed Flames | Primary Skills: Summoning, Spellcasting, Pyromancy | Example Techniques: Summon Baelgar, Black Flame Blade ]
That’s sick.
Summon Baelgar?
I don’t know what a ‘Baelgar’ is, but it sounds like a nasty mf to have on your side.
And Black Flame Blade?
How could he not choose Warlock?
One of the soldiers kicked the spider-crab’s leg, and the creature slumped, causing the soldiers to cry out and stagger backward.
Levan took the chance.
He dodged to the next pillar, then, after a brief moment of hesitation, went on. Maybe he should have been patient, but despite the high ceiling, regal arches, and space of the temple, the smoke and presence of soldiers both were making him feel claustrophobic, like he had to leave.
He was closing in on the temple doors, and whatever havoc awaited him outside the city.
[ Chosen Elemental Affinity: Aether ]
[ Chosen Ability Core: Warlock ]
[ Class: Warpcaller ]
[ Confirm? ]
Levan was about to confirm when he hesitated.
There was that last pictogram—the hammer and box. He didn’t need to see it, right? He could just…
Levan looked back to find the masked soldier staring at him from within those black pits, completely calm, turned entirely to face him. The soldiers noticed nothing, but the man in the mask had seen him. He was just…staring.
He was caught.
You have to show me that Ability Core in the corner, because you think I’ll likely pick it?
[ Yes ]
Levan decided on two things at once.
Show me the hammer, he thought.
Then he made a break for the temple door.