Krimsun coated herself in flames while Katherine brandished her blade.
“You’re brave, I’ll give you that,” The Inferno said as he unsheathed his red-hot sword, “But all I have to do is keep you at bay for a little while longer. The Forgotten should signal another boost in speed any moment now,”
He smiled triumphantly as he listened for a moment.
CRACKLE!
His smug grin changed to an expression of confusion, and then anger.
“What is this!?”
Unable to hold the portals open any longer, I fell to the ground, coughing up some blood.
It became obvious that many of the sounds of battle had died down as well, and my actions became clear to our enemy as he looked out the window to see that his monster had slowed down dramatically and was beginning to turn to stone.
“The other doors…” he said as he looked at me in fury.
“I figured that, hack!” I coughed up a bit more blood as Katherine tried to help me to my feet, “That if you had killed the king, we could get you to monologue a bit. So, I kept those portals open. Most of the city and several other parts of Regemendax heard everything,”
The temperature in the room increased dramatically.
“You wretched vermin!” he shouted, “I shall not have my redemption foiled by a lower lifeform! This Kingdom shall fall! And I shall have my rest! That monster isn’t finished yet! So long as I have the scepter, I can pay back my blood debt!”
“You don’t have an ounce of remorse for what you did!” I shouted as I supported myself on Katherine’s leg, “You only want out of your curse; how does covering up one genocide and committing another makeup for anything!”
“You, insolent rodent!” he shouted as the room began to catch on fire, “A short-lived creature like you could never possibly understand such things! Do not speak to me as if we are equal! Blood shall be repaid in blood!”
Reggie quickly grabbed the king and ushered him out of the room as Katherine and Krimsun moved forward.
“Yet you burned my family to cinders without a thought! I watched as piles of my kinsmen were torched by you! It doesn’t matter if it is the Perditans, the Mendaxi, or Nequese. This isn’t about justice or redemption; it is about your own selfishness and cowardice!”
I shook rapidly as I stood on my own, “We both survived when we had no right to. I wanted revenge on you and your apprentices. I can’t express how happy I was to learn you were just as rotten as I believed, but revenge won’t bring anyone back. But stopping you will save countless lives today!”
“What a lovely speech,” The Inferno said, “But why should an immortal listen to the words of vermin? There is nothing left, but for me to kill as many people who heard me as possible. Know that you only ensured their deaths to be more painful!”
Katherine rushed in as Krimsun bolstered her defenses with elemental magic. She went in for a slash to the shoulder but The Inferno parried with his own blade.
Reggie returned and started firing his crossbow while Krimsun tried to abate the flames.
I was too spent to get directly involved, so I threw in a couple of portals to help get Katherine a couple of blows in, and block a couple more before I was completely tapped out.
However, I think my words had more of an effect than my spells. The Inferno was clearly off his game. Gone was his calm demeanour and calculated approach. He was furious, furious that his plan was crumbling before him, that thousands of years of work had begun to be undone.
All thanks to a puny rat.
“Enough!” The Inferno flared his power and burst through the ceiling into the sky.
Krimsun looked to Katherine, “Ready?”
“No,” she replied, “But do it anyway,”
Krimsun nodded as she whipped up a whirlwind, carrying the two of them up to continue the fight.
Reggie grabbed me, “Come on, let’s get to the roof,” he said as we made our pursuit.
We made it to the roof to see the horrible spectacle that had consumed the city. The Forgotten had gotten closer to the castle, slowed, but still approaching. The battle below had largely stopped, Glenda was attending to the many wounded as our battered allies tried to get everyone further from the monster. Meanwhile, the sky was lit up by the blazing battle in the sky.
The Inferno zipped around the sky, deflecting Katherine’s strikes while retaliating with concentrated blasts of pure heat.
“Get back to the ground so I can fight you properly, coward!” Katherine shouted as she avoided looking down.
Krimsun kept the two of them aloft with her winds all while manipulating the flames to protect Katherine.
However, it looked like she was up to something else. She was pushing the fire back up into the air, where it began to form a large cloud. As it grew, an odd smell began to develop, and finally, a crackling sound.
“Now!” Krimsun yelled as she pushed Katherine towards The Inferno while calling down lightning into Katherine’s blade. The massive energy channeled into the sword as she bore down on the villain, causing an explosion of energy as he tried to block the strike.
Katherine flew back and landed on a nearby building while The Inferno collided with the side of a tower, a massive gash in his chest that was festering with wriggling flesh that seemed to be sewing itself together.
In the explosion, The Inferno had let go of the scepter. It was mid-air when Krimsun tried to rush for it, but not fast enough.
“NO!” The Inferno yelled as he focused an immense amount of energy into a burst of flame around the scepter. The ball of flame expanded around it until it had encompassed even where he was recovering. His flesh burned off and regenerated constantly as he caused the destruction.
“Mak, can you grab it with your portal?” Reggie asked.
“No,” I lamented, “It is too far, and there isn’t anything for it to latch onto. I’m too spent to move it with gravity,”
“Not gravity nor wind could move it now,” Krimsun said, “Those flames are so hot they are causing a magical distortion,”
“Can you disperse the flames?” Katherine asked.
“No,” she replied solemnly, “But I can endure them long enough to grab the scepter,”
“And get out safely?” Katherine said firmly.
Krimsun smiled, “You have all done so well, and grown so much. I’m sorry I was only your captain for such a short time,”
“No!” I shouted, “We can figure this out without you losing your life,”
CRACK!
The Forgotten continued to inch forward in spite of being partially petrified. Krimsun paused for a moment as she looked at it.
“Not lost,” she said, “Given,”
She then cloaked herself in flames one last time before diving in to the sphere of fire. She moved at a blinding speed, but I could see her skin quickly burn up as she approached the scepter. By the time she grabbed it and turned around, her hair was completely gone and her body was beginning to char. She flew back to us as The Inferno screamed in rage as he pursued.
Krimsun, burned to the point of being completely unrecognizable, landed near us and handed over the scepter.
She looked as if she wanted to say something, but as her jaw lowered, it fell off and crumbled into ash. The rest of her body shortly followed suit.
My entire body was shaking violently, but with The Inferno barreling towards us and The Forgotten just as close; we couldn’t delay. The Scepter of the First King, now free from The Inferno’s influence, teleported to wherever the king had hidden himself. We needed to keep him safe long enough to deliver the message.
Katherine raised her shield in front of us we braced for The Inferno’s assault when the king’s voice boomed throughout the kingdom.
“Citizens of Regemendax, it is with great woe that I must reveal to you that the monster, The Obelisk, is a creation of our once beloved Guildmaster Vincent! The true name of this creature is The Forgotten, for it was made from the violence lost from history. The violence committed against the Perditans by our ancestors the Mendaxi! Guildmaster Vincent, once known as General Acheron, was one of the perpetrators of this genocide and cover-up. However, it was done with the approval and full knowledge of The Royal Family. While none alive today participated in this evil; it is a part of our history, and we should acknowledge it. Nothing can undo the harm done, but we can work toward a better future by learning from the past,”
As he spoke The Forgotten began to fully turn to stone, and fall forward. The Inferno flew up to it and tried to keep it up, but it continued to fall. While immortal, his reserves of magic were finite, The Inferno was weakened from the battle and the weight of The Forgotten was too much.
Ironically, the angle at which he pushed The Forgotten was such that he did manage to direct it away from hitting the castle dead-on. The top of the monster, with The Inferno in front of it, ended up in the water. The body of the creature slowly followed as it displaced the loose silt beneath. Eventually sinking somewhere around 200 meters. Still leaving a third of it above ground.
We stood for a few minutes over Krimsun’s remains as this unfolded.
“Do you think that’s the end of him?” Reggie asked, breaking the silence.
“If that curse worked, then he’s still alive,” I replied, “Though I don’t think he’ll be getting out of there any time soon,”
I pulled a bag out of my portal and we carefully placed our captain inside. There were many on the ground below that began to cheer at the sight of the defeated monster. But that wasn’t on our minds. Walking over to the edge of the roof, we each took a seat, and grieved for a while.
ns 15.158.61.41da2
