PreCursive

  I crouched, motionless, along the outer rim of the railing that separated the inner walkway of the Core control room as a game of cat and mouse pyed out before my eyes. Just ahead of me, I watched as the tiny Sprite of azure fme and crimson thorn, shaped in the image of a tiny fairy, darted here and there before the enormous sphere of cshing Mana and Ki. Every so often, the construct under the control of my Core Ring would stop and perform a mocking gesture of some kind, directed towards the parasite at the center of the Netherim bunker’s power system.

  The true form of the Dread Wyrm Tatsugan, he who had haunted Kawamara for centuries.

  I was lucky that the small, indistinct form of the Wyrm inside that boiling sphere of energy didn’t seem to be able to fire indiscriminately at my own construct. It might have a near, perhaps even truly endless well of power to draw upon, but it didn’t seem to have the ability to use it efficiently. I noted coldly that the pause between bsts at my Sprite seemed to st at least a second each time it fired the stream of refined, mingled Aether.

  That wasn’t much, admittedly.

  But it would be enough for my purposes.

  Still, not yet. My window of action had yet to come. The monster of Lucretia Mor’s making wasn’t nearly agitated enough for me to strike.

  After all, it had yet to move from the center of the Core as it fired upon the creature vexing it. I couldn’t act before it did. I just didn’t have the means to reach it, there in the center of the captured artificial star of Netherim making. While the residual heat in this chamber wasn’t enough to sear my skin, that seemed to be because of a thin barrier I’d noticed clinging tightly to the surface of the Core. It didn’t seem to be doing much more than containing the heat, though. As part of its taunting, my Sprite had picked up a nearby shard of white steel and tossed it mockingly at the Wyrm. I’d noted that it seemed to pass through the thin bubble, only to start melting immediately once inside. The thin creature in residence had spped the blob of sg away from it with what seemed to be its tail.

  That had immediately told me several things.

  Encouraging things.

  This wasn’t an actual star. If it had been, that metal would have been immediately vaporized, I’m guessing. This was just a ball of superheated, Aetherial psma.

  Hot.

  But not unworkable for my pn.

  Eventually…

  Eventually, an opportunity came.

  As I’d hoped, the taunting of my Sprite began to get to the monster. It felt safe in the center of its home of millennia. I’m guessing nobody had ever made a serious attempt at its life over all of its time. After all, there was both nobody that could get in here, and nobody with the right authorization to do so. Plus, my little Sprite had yet to even try and attack the Wyrm. For the st several minutes, the fairy had done nothing but taunt and enrage it.

  And so…

  It drifted from the center of the star up to the edge of it, growing more distinct as it did so. Now I could make out what seemed to be grey, colorless scales upon a serpentine body. My belief was that the true form of the Dread Wyrm was trying to get a better bead on the Sprite mocking it.

  But that was a mistake.

  I immediately tensed at the sight and activated Might of the Wyrdwood at the highest intensity that I dared, hoping it wouldn’t shatter my veiling.

  Twenty-five percent.

  Luckily…

  It held.

  I dashed forward, stretching out one limb in particur.

  My left, false one shaped from white-rainbow Primordium by the spiritual hands of Orus himself. It plunged into the boiling hot psma of the contained Netherim star, and the leather glove concealing it was vaporized in an instant.

  But more importantly, the arm itself held. All I felt from the residual sense of Aetherial touch from my prosthetic limb was a slight heat.

  It truly was a mythical metal.

  The completely unaware Wyrm didn’t even have the chance to react before my metal hand closed triumphantly around its slim body as tightly as I could.

  And yanked it straight out of its burning home.

  A panicked screech filled the air as the true body of Tatsugan was exposed to it, for the first time in likely millennia. The high-pitched frightened shrieks of the Wyrm as it writhed in my grip almost seemed to quiet the sounds of Travers battle beyond the entrance of the control room, as I got my first look at it.

  The sight of the damned thing was…disgusting. It had the same basic body type of the Wyrmkin that I had encountered upon the shores of Goryuen so often, only…lesser, somehow. The angles of its skull were less defined, for one. Not quite as canine as it was almost rodent-like, and missing all of the wispy white hair of those that shared its same basic body type. It cked the distinct, electric blue hue of the near revenants that it produced, as well as the darkened cobalt of its projection. Instead, the entire length of the squirming, crying abomination was a ste grey. It didn’t even have many scales, now that I looked closer at it. There were rows upon rows of them that looked to have fallen off, leaving only dry, cracked skin behind.

  Actually, the entire look looked…withered, somehow. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought this creature was as undead as the Lich that had brought me to this point. But no. I could feel the pumping of blood behind my hands, signaling life.

  Even the horns of the Wyrm were pathetic, compared to any other kind of Wyrmkin. Small and stubby, they barely looked to have developed at all.

  I almost felt…pity, for the obviously aged, decrepit creature in my grip. Lucretia had created this thing ages and ages ago, only to abandon it in a fiery, dim hell. Not even limitless Aetherial power could truly forestall the march of time, I guess.

  Not even for monsters.

  But none of that changed the fact this thing needed to die if the people of Kawamara were ever wanted to be free of its shadow.

  I lifted my drawn right dagger, and flipped the bde until it was pointed downwards, directly at Tatsugan. The movement seemed to knock the Wyrm out of it’s panic briefly, causing it to look up at me with wide, monstrous amber eyes.

  It opened its rat-like mouth, and from between its cracked, yellowed fangs, I saw a blue-green glow.

  I jerked my head to the side, just in time to dodge a thin spear of mingled Mana and Ki as it nced out from the back of Tatsugan’s throat. Not fast, enough though, and not nearly strong enough to stop me. That was a far cry from the intense beams it had been shooting only moments earlier. I hissed as I felt the ser score the flesh of my left cheek, but mentally shrugged the pain off.

  Just another scar for the collection, I suppose. It would soon be covered in bckened scales, anyway.

  Enough of this.

  I ignited my dagger in the cascading fmes of The Scintilnt Bde, and brought it down on the true, pathetic form of Tatsugan. The squirming mass seized in my palm as my bde easily pierced its thin scales, spasming in my palm as I stole its life. The contractions soon ceased, anyway.

  Tatsugan stilled in my grip, and the life left its yellow eyes.

  The Wyrm…was finally dead. And the instant it left its mortal coil, something happened that I had...somewhat expected. After all, the same thing had happened the st time I had directly sin one of the servants of the banished gods.

  My Racial Talents spun up in a familiar way, drawing in environmental Aether as they prepared to drain something from the corpse of Tatsugan.

  I was stealing a Skill again. I braced myself for the flood of power that was surely about to hit, praying all the while that whatever it was I got from the Dread Wyrm, it wasn't as momentous as Vis Maledicta had turned out to be. I'm not sure I could deal with another transformation that drastic.

  I was...relieved, disappointed, and confused at the same time when what I drew from Tatsugan was the barest trickle of monstrous Aether, already being purified for my use. In moments, I felt something that was...a little minuscule settle into the core of my soul.

  Huh. A bit...odd.

  I didn’t get long to ponder the strangeness of my test stolen Skill or exult in my victory over my second Camity level threat, in the space of a mere six months.

  A monstrously strong hand cmped down on my head from behind, and I felt the sizzle of Mana as some spell was cast on me. I stumbled away from the hand that had grabbed me, slumping to my knees as I felt Tatsugan’s slim body disperse into Miasma in my left hand. A tremendous sense of dizziness was rolling over me, all of a sudden. As my Outer Ring started to slip into unconsciousness, I felt it as my Sprite dissipated and my Core Ring slid home.

  It pointed out something, as awareness fled from the both of us.

  We had forgotten our suspicions about Travers, in the moment of our triumph.

  Light fled from me, and the world descended into darkness.

  …………………………………

  I jerked awake violently. A sharp, bony foot was digging into the flesh of my ribs, almost grinding against me. I couldn’t have stayed asleep if I tried. Nor could I even try and pretend to be asleep, as my Nocturne training tried to insist I do. I’d flinched too obviously at the unkind awakening.

  “Wake up, pretender,” I heard a familiar voice say from above me, ft in tone and devoid of emotion. “It’s time to finish all of this.”

  My eyes flickered open, to find that the tall, desiccated form of Travers was staring down at me with an alien expression on his skeletal face. Despite the fact that I’d killed the Wyrm, and at least partially avenged his people, the Lich didn’t look like he cared at all.

  About much of…anything, really.

  I slowly sat up from where I had been lying discarded on the floor, idly noting that we were still in the Core control room.

  I also noticed that my hands were tied behind my back in some way, likely through some Spell of the Lich's making. Subtle tensing of my muscles told me that there was no way I was going to break those bonds. I don’t think I could snap whatever Travers was holding me with through even the full strength of Vis Maledicta Exactoris combined with Might of the Wyrdwood.

  Oh.

  And he’d apparently bound my feet together too. Lovely.

  All I could do was struggle into a kneeling position, driven there under the cold gaze of the Lich that I’d been outright expecting to betray me at the st moment.

  Good job, Nate. Real on the ball, there.

  I didn’t say anything to Travers, as I defiantly met his fming, undead eyes. His lips curled slightly in response. I…couldn’t discern from what emotion, though.

  It could have been either disgust…

  Or amusement.

  “I’ve…debated with myself, what I was going to do to you, pretender,” Travers said slowly, still meeting my eyes. “I have options, after all.”

  “You could always just let me go to save your daughter,” I said ftly, refusing to be intimidated.

  To my surprise, Travers nodded easily at my words. “Yes…that is one of them,” He acknowledged. “Another is that I could simply kill you, for the temerity of your pretension. Oh, save it,” He said, waving a hand to stop my mouth from opening in protest. Suddenly, some force beyond my control paralyzed my jaw, keeping me from speaking. All I could do was grunt up at the Lich, robbed of even my words. Travers continued his own monologue now that I was too muzzled to interrupt him, tapping his bony jaw in faux thought. “I could also simply force your soul from your body without killing it, leaving your empty husk behind, free for an enterprising Lich to inhabit. With a little effort on my part, I could once again find myself among the living to walk in the Garden beyond this wretched bunker.”

  That didn’t sound good. I reached for Vis Maledicta Exactoris in response to the threat, and to my shock, found that it slipped beyond my fingers. In fact, I couldn’t use any of my Skills or abilities. Nothing would move or activate when I called for it.

  Somehow, Travers had locked me out of my Status. At least…the active part of it. I think I still possessed the passive enhancements of my Virtues.

  As if he could somehow tell what I had just done, the Lich smirked at me with dry, fleshless lips. “I may not be the Admin, pretender, but I still have higher access to the System than you do. Another mark against his desperate gamble. A fifteen-minute lockout may be the extent of my ability, but it shall be enough to decide your fate.”

  He’d…suppressed my Status…

  That…that had dire implications for dealing with…

  To my surprise, Travers rolled his deathless eyes at me. “You’re thinking about Lucretia and her little conspirators, aren’t you? Jumping the gun, aren’t we? You should worry more about the now, instead of the future. Still, I wouldn’t worry about that, pretender. One of the first things the Admin did, during the fall, was strip them of access. Even with what they stole, it could not be restored to them,” He knelt down to eye level with me, resting his forearms upon the exposed bone of his knees, and winked at me. “The System is forever lost to them, not to fear. But back to you.”

  Before I could react, Travers skeletonized fingers shot out to wrap around my throat. I choked as I was dragged up along with the Lich, as he rose to his full height. To my surprise, once the two of us were standing, he shoved me backward until I hit the railing behind me with a ctter.

  “I’ve decided to let you live,” I heard, causing my head to snap up and back to the undead Doctor. I stared at him in sheer incredulity.

  All of this, and he was apparently just going to let me go?!

  Travers outright smirked at me. “But I’ll leave nothing for the vultures to pick over. One moment,” He turned away from me, and with a wave of his hand, the door to his clinic opened up right there in the middle of the Core control room. Under the much calmer green and blue glow of the artificial star, the door slid open and Travers walked through it. I thought about trying to break my bonds again, but before I could, the Lich appeared once more.

  This time, carrying the slumbering form of his own daughter.

  Aveline.

  Travers walked over to where I was standing and tenderly set the little girl clutching her toy down onto the white steel floor. I could see the slight expansion and contraction of her chest as she slept easily, through all the the tension that filled the air.

  Completely ignoring the both of us, now, Travers walked back over to stand in front of the Core with his back turned to the two of us, the bound and the sleeping. He raised his hands, and to my shock, something appeared at his fingertips.

  It looked like some kind of hard-light control interface. I…had been wondering about the ‘control’ part of the control room, since I hadn’t seen anything like that in here with us. But I guess the Netherim had set it up to be as unobtrusive as possible. The red light of the hardened illusion cast an ominous glow back onto Aveline and I, outlining the Lich’s skeletal form.

  Travers rapidly flickered through dozens and dozens of pages, commands, and buttons in the space of seconds. I noticed that he even reached into his coat and withdrew a familiar pstic rectangle, holding it over the interface until an answering beep recognized it. Finally, though, he seemed to reach the end of whatever it was that he was doing. His finger hovered over one st, rge button before he turned to face me once more.

  From the pocket of his Doctor’s coat, I saw Travers retrieve something…oddly familiar.

  A small, toy doll. Naked and female, it seemed to be wrought from pstic with synthetic golden hair, fading with the passage of millennia. He clutched it tightly in his left hand and gazed down at it, almost seeming afraid. But then his gaze drifted up to rest on Aveline, and the fire of his undead eyes seemed to firm.

  Doctor Jonathon Travers nodded at me one st time. “You’ll have plenty of time, the both of you. Though this is goodbye, I left a little gift within the gleam for your eyes only.” He said cryptically. “Live well, Nathan Hart. Live well…Aveline Elise Montbnc-Travers.”

  His right finger stabbed down onto the hard light button of the control panel, while a green fire erupted in his left hand holding the doll. In moments…

  The doll was little more than ash.

  The Lich that had once been Aveline’s Father immediately colpsed into dust, and a wailing kxon filled the air.