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Prologue, Part 3


The Loquacious Lord Grimm

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This is the Prologue.

It tells of what came before.

 

 


3


From his viewpoint high atop the Spire, Captain Vlish is able to see the first glimmering star emerge, if only through his periphery. His eyes, like the eyes of the eighteen soldiers under him, are fixed upon the gold-trimmed double doors that are the only entrance to the Imperial Throne Room. From beyond the doors pours the terrible sound of combat: steel against steel, bodies falling to the floor, suits of armor rolling down the stairs, all punctuated by the thud of the occasional spell missing its target.

It has been but a few minutes since the alert came through, and only a moment or two since the Royal Guard's battlemage received the unit's orders: "Hold position under all circumstances. Reinforcements coming." No indication of the enemy's makeup, nothing to explain how a strike force of any size had managed plow through a garrison and ten floors' worth of barred doors and elite soldiers.

But Vlish has no fear, and any doubts in his success, should the forces outside fall, are fleeting. Captain Vlish personally commands the Royal Guard: men and women hand-picked for their training, loyalty, and lethal battle prowess. A raging dragon would be unable to pass them, if dragons were not extinct.

Indeed, the only person in the throne room not to hold claim to ending a full rebellion singlehandedly is their charge. Emperor Hawthorne III sits on the throne beside Vlish, his eyes, too, set upon the door before them. However, the Emperor's eyes are filled with something different than Vlish's unwavering determination. Awe? Fascination? Amusement?

The Emperor is an older man, yes, and has never experienced more than a few laughable attempts on his life, but he is fit and well-trained. Vlish's predecessors saw to that. Emperor Hawthorne, who, like his father and grandfather of the same name before him, has been a ruthless and cunning leader, cutting down all who would oppose his perfect rule, and sending them to Avernum in perpetual exile.

 

Avernum. The thought gives Vlish a small chill. Like all citizens of the Empire, he knows of the caves below ground, where monsters flourish and the lawless run wild. Like all citizens of the Empire, he knows that any variance from strict obedience could land him there. And like all citizens of the Empire... he doesn't like to think about it. Yet tonight, with the ringing crash of another dropped shield sounding in the hall before him, Vlish finds himself suddenly wondering what might happen to him should he not perform to the Emperor's expectations. For the first time since his orders have arrived, Vlish's eyes wander from the doors to the ... unimpressed?... face of his Emperor. He and his staff are guilty of allowing an attack force into the Spire, and worse, possibly into the presence of the Emperor himself. Palace servants have been banished for less.

No, no. He will do his duty, and the Emperor is not a fool.

 

The sound of another few sword strikes leads to the thud from another casualty in armor hitting the floor, followed by silence. The fight was... oddly, shorter than Vlish had expected. Perhaps the reinforcements have arrived?

A few helmets tilt ever so slightly in the rank of soldiers at the doors, betraying quizzical glances and expectation of orders.

There's something odd about the silence. Odd, Vlish realizes, because there is not enough movement going on outside for a full set of reinforcements to be there.

 

"Your Majesty," he says simply, "I think it's time."

 

The Emperor wordlessly nods and maintains his seated position, leaning forward and grasping a pendant around his neck. Anticipation, that's what it is. He's looking forward to what's coming next.

 

THOOM.

 

The sound of something heavy ramming the ornate double doors visibly rattles Vlish, if only for an instant. It is most definitely not what he expected.

 

THOOM.

 

Why would someone be bashing down the...?

 

THOOM.

 

In the quiet, the Royal Guard can hear footsteps in the hall, and the voice of a woman calling out. "Hey, hey, Phil! PHIL!"

 

Thump.

 

The line of soldiers before the doors stands at the ready, waiting for the breach.

 

"I think they open out," the woman continues.

 

"I... they.. oh, gods, I don't believe this," a man says, fairly close to the door.

 

"Well, thanks for letting them know we're here. Sheesh!" another woman says.

 

Is this really happening? Vlish wonders. Someone outside mutters something unintelligible.

 

"Does it matter?" the man rebuffs. "Just buff us already, so we can get this over with."

 

Emperor Hawthorne's impenetrable body language breaks as he looks up to exchange a glance with Vlish. What the hell is this?

 

He is answered with a vibrating groan, as the heavy, gold-ornamented doors to the throne room slowly open. Until twenty minutes ago, they had not been moved in decades, and the Guard had encountered enough trouble getting them closed when the alarm went out. Weapons tense, archers behind the throne pull back their arrows, and Emperor Hawthorne stands. The battlemage prepares a shielding spell.

 

With a rush of wind, the first attacker flies through the open doorway: a juggernaut in mismatched plate mail, clearly moving with the aid of hasting magic. The line of soldiers converges on him at once.

At Vlish's side, the Emperor's pendant emits a blast of light, and a shimmering glow envelops Hawthorne, who readies a burst of flame in his free hand. Behind them, the archers let loose a pair of precision-aimed projectiles that harmlessly glance off of the juggernaut's armor.

A spray of frost pours from the doorway, knocking some of the guardsmen off-balance in time for the fireball that flies over the juggernaut's head and into the melee.

 

In these few first moves, Vlish has already seen enough: they are standard adventuring tactics, and they are easily dealt with. Pulling a potion from his belt, he makes his way around the line towards the door and the undefended spellcasters beyond. The fighter is too concerned with the other soldiers to notice as Vlish as he sweeps around him to the open doorway and promptly receives a boot in the face. He barely gets his shield up in time to block the follow-up sword stroke. Battlemage?

The blows have disoriented him slightly, but he can still see the longbow and the set of robes in the hallway, behind the leather-clad woman with whom he is now engaged. That's... one... two...

Vlish manages to turn the woman's sword against her upper arm, and bashes it with his shield, for good measure. Three... It gives him the brief instant that he needs to turn around and assess the fight behind him.

 

Two of the Royal Guard lie on the floor, their comrades fighting around them. The plate-mailed invader... four... still hasted, holds them off... it's probably an invincibility potion. Invincibility potion! Vlish pries the stopper out of the bottle in his shield hand and is forced to take the nastiness in one gulp as he dodges an amateurish thrust from the woman in leather. He can feel his skin tighten and harden beneath his armor, and he tears past the women into the hallway with confidence.

 

Gods. There's no one else out here.

 

Rushing towards the mages' robes first, briefly stumbled by the leather-clad woman's attempt to trip him, Vlish sees enough of the macabre display of burning bodies strewn through the hall to recognize that all of the fallen wear the armor of the Guard. There is not enough time to think on this before he realizes that the figure holding the longbow is also holding a holy symbol. He turns to face that instead, but a gust of icy wind knocks him off of his feet mid-stride and throws him back through the doorway. A rain of acid flies through the air where he had just stood, striking the priest instead: she screams, hands flying to her face, where some of the spray hit exposed skin.

 

Another boot to the head, this time accidental, brings Vlish back into focus. The leather-clad woman stands practically on top of him, sword sheathed, a shortbow out and aimed over the line of Guardsmen. She is only able to get one arrow off before Vlish seizes her leg and pulls her to the ground. His sword lashes at her, trying to carve its way past her bow and through her simple armor, but every time he draws blood, the wound closes instantly behind it. She is already fast, hasted, magically regenerating, and determined, but more dangerous than that is the contempt in her eyes. This woman had probably been on the wrong end of a political struggle, or had a close family member exiled, and that thirst for revenge is what continues to deflect Vlish's blade.

 

A third gust of frost pushes at them, but this time, Vlish is braced for it, and the invulnerabilty effect allows him to merely shrug the cold off. The potion will last a few more minutes, and simply keeping this force occupied for a few minutes is all he has to do, until the Juggernaut's invulnerability wears off and the reinforcements arrive. The leather-clad woman's swift defenses finally leave a hole open, and Vlish delivers a decisive blow just above the collar of her armor, severing vein and tendon, fracturing bone. She spasms in pain beneath him as he finally stands and leaves her to bleed out.

One down.

Now for the casters.

 

No sooner is Vlish in the hall than a set of ghostly aparritions appear in front of him, summoned from the nether realms to defend the spellcasters. Lovely. Vlish tears into them before the inevitable claws can even manifest: he needs only break through them to keep the invaders busy again.

Behind the hostile shades, the priestess rummages through a backpack on the floor, while the mage defends her: a wand flicking out bolts of flame in one hand, and various other spells from the other. Even through the spirit, Vlish watches as the mage's wand burns out. Ha.

The mage merely tosses it away and... pulls out another from within his robes?

At the same time, the priestess pulls the scroll for which she had been searching from the pack and begins to read.

 

The mage's fireballs continue to barely miss Vlish as he finally disrupts the first of the shades. Despite their low-quality trappings, the invaders clearly have come very well-prepared, and are quite skilled. Wands, scrolls, and potions might be common, but the number and quality that he has already seen cost a very pretty penny. Someone's life savings went into funding this attack.

Vlish disrupts a second shade, but the remaining two move closer to block his path.

And what of the attackers? Surely, a group of four people capable of fighting their way up the Spire would be remarkably famous. The Emperor would have seen to either honoring or exiling them by now.

 

A fireblast from behind disrupts a third shade, and from in front, the mage launches yet another set of acid sprays, again, barely flying over Vlish's head... right back in the direction from which the fireblast came...

Gods, they were never aiming for him.

In a single smooth motion, Vlish disrupts the final shade and spins around to regard the carnage that has come of the throne room. Half of the Royal Guard lies dead at the feet the juggernaut, sliced, broken, and singed in equal measure. The other half fight defensively over the bodies of their commrades. Behind them, the Emperor continues to rain down spells on... the invincible juggernaut, dammit, doesn't he know better than to waste his magic?

And behind him, the blackened goo on the walls can only be what remains of one of the archers. The other lies sprawled on the top steps of the thone platform, steam rising from her body, and beside her lies the body of the battlemage, several arrows clearly protruding from his... oh gods... Vlish had rushed out into the hallway, giving no orders, in order to end things quickly. Instead, the throne room has been recieving orders from...

 

"Keep forward!" the Emperor cries, pelting the clearly unbothered invader with fireballs. "Defend your honor! This dog cannot last forever!"

 

With no missle or casting support, Vlish had been the only one able to get around the invaders, leaving the line of Guardsmen as easy pickings for the enemy casters' spells. Not even the Empire's Best could withstand the seemingly infinite supply of magic coming from the hallway. But... how... could one man... fifteen soldiers? One... no, this doesn't make sense? Why would they all attack him when the obvious threat is beyond? They could easily encircle him and...

 

Even as Vlish watches, some of his Guardsmen stop fighting, completely dazed. What is this? More magic?

While spells exist to counfound large groups, there's no way that anyone but the most accomplised of battlemages could ever develop the willpower to...

 

The juggernaut throws the middlemost of the defenders aside, and begins to move for the Emperor. The Emperor takes the assault almost gleefully, his energy shield pulsing in a strange acidic yellow as it takes blows from the spellcasters in the hall.

 

No.

 

Vlish begins to run up behind him. Spellcasters and invulnerability be damned, no one appraches the Emperor without his consent.

 

And from beside Captian Vlish, a single arrow flies out.

In his periphery, he can see the leather-clad woman on one knee, reaching to pull another arrow from the satchel at her side... how is she even still alive...?

And then all is blindness. A white light bursts forth from the Emperor's chest, like a brilliant sunrise or a thousand moons. The burn of the light forces him to look away, if only for a brief instant...

 

...And when he looks back, the Emperor is gone.

 

And now all is deafness, as a deep rumble of the universe itself roars forth. Some of the guardsmen shake off their magical curse and dive in time to avoid the tearing of the very fabric of reality itself.

Now the light is green, and the blast of wind throws Vlish to the ground on his side. A solid... no, not solid... something... something liquid and green and glowing and not right has ripped through the air in a corner of the room. The silhouette of the juggernaut moves toward it, and then vanishes into it. Vlish thinks he is screaming in terror, but he cannot hear... the roar... the roar is everything, and it makes him hurt. The leather-clad woman... she goes through too, unharmed, and then the mage... such a hurry. Where is the Emperor? Do they flee?

 

And the light grows brighter, and the priestess, hauling along her backpack, steps in front of the glow, and then turns around to look at him.

So pale.

He skin... he hadn't noticed before. She's so pale. So was the leather-clad woman. And the juggernaut. All, so pale. Why didn't he notice that before?

The priestess shakes her head at the carnage and walks into the greenness. It swirls up behind her like a whirlpool or a puddle absorbed into the ground.

 

The roaring continues, though the wind is gone, and Vlish cannot hear. He stands, or tries to stand, and as he does, a single man runs into the room, a balding blur with two swords.

 

The reinforcements. Did they take the Emperor? What was the light?

 

The running man opens his mouth, and might have asked a question, but Vlish cannot hear it over the roar.

 

"I can't hear you!" Vlish tries to say back to him, over the roar. The man repeats his question, gesturing emphatically towards the throne. "There was a light!" Vlish explains. "Do you know what it was?"

 

The man dashes over the bodies of the fallen guards and begins to search around the throne. Vlish follows him, barely able to keep his balance. "I think they were ghosts," he tries to explain, as the man grows ever more upset. Vlish isn't sure what he's looking for. "They had to be ghosts! Why else would they not die? And why else would they be so pale?"

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