A Legacy of Blades - An Epic Tower Fantasy

The ground quaked beneath their feet, and the trio moved quickly away from the tree line. Anilith felt the wind at her back, urging her onward, beckoning her to move with haste. She'd been so caught up with understanding the newfound sensations of the earth that she hadn't listened to the wind as had become her norm. For the first time, she felt the presence of both, and each resonated with unique familiarity inside of her.

Trying to experience both at once was akin to trying to divide her consciousness, each requiring her full attention. Holding on to both was beyond her. At best, trying caused her to lose her grip on both; at worst, trying caused a headache so intense, it threatened to knock her unconscious.

She didn't need more of a warning than that to give up on the experience, especially with an unknown beast bearing down on their position, but she couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. Even if she hadn't considered trying to split her awareness like that before, it seemed strange to her that she could Blade Weave, an extension of her awareness itself, with relative ease while listening to the Wind, yet struggled to combine the disparate senses of earth and sky. It stood to reason focusing on the rhythm of the earth wouldn't bar her from Blade Weaving, so what was different about the other two?

Blade Weaving felt like more than an expansion of her awareness, unlike the other sensations, but shouldn't that make it harder to combine with either? That hadn't proven to be true with the Wind, but Anilith pushed the question aside, taking comfort in the grace of the Wind and the balming nature of its presence. It had become a near-constant companion over the past months, adventuring with her new friends, and was a comforting reminder of her life before the Tower.

In the presence of the Wind, she felt her Master watching over her, even as she knew it to be impossible.

"Eyes up, kid! Where's your head at? You're lookin' dazed, or somethin'." Orion's shout pulled her from her reflections, causing her to take stock of her surroundings.

Her companions were spread out, each taking up a position on her flank. Orion had dropped into his strange stealth, but she could see his amber eyes staring at her with a barely veiled expression of worry. Razhik, in a display she had yet to witness, seemed to banish the light from his presence, cloaking the area in unnatural shadow, even in the brightness of day. She hadn't thought anything of the way he flitted from shadow to shadow beneath the boughs of the Forest, but couldn't deny that he still had hidden depths to his power. Then again, he hadn't been challenged in their time together until earlier that day.

"I'm with you," Anilith replied, "I just had a bout of inspiration, and it backfired. Bad time to try something new!"

"You can say that again! I don't know what's comin' for us, but from the sound of it, it's bigger than anythin' we've yet seen. Get your head in the game!"

It couldn't have been more than a dozen seconds, but in the tension of battle, each second dragged indolently. The tempo of the quaking remained consistent, and the trees near the mountain's foothills began to shiver and shake, alerting them to the passage of their unseen foe.

Orion turned back, drawing a bead on the apparent source of the commotion. Razhik, his form moving deceptively, especially factoring in his snake-like movements, seemed to drift about his position, never fully appearing to exist in any one place.

A large leg, the color of desert sand, broke from the cover of the trees. For the impact they each felt, the leg wasn't overly large, nor was the body that followed in the wake of the trees parted by the creature's forearms, but it spoke to the weight of the beast. Standing half again as tall as Orion, there could be no doubt that the creature was large, but the tremors made it seem a giant of legend was descending upon them. Each step shook the earth, betraying the mass, the solidity of this beast, and Anilith shivered at the power those arms must contain.

As the creature's eyes locked on their party, Orion released his arrow. It flew true, a direct heart-strike, but failed to penetrate more than skin deep, proving little but an annoyance ignored by the creature. The smallest drops of green ichor leaked from the wound.

In that moment, Anilith knew this would be a battle of attrition, and she could only hope this thing didn't have friends. "Couldn't have opened with a stronger shot?"

"Kid, some of us like to gauge our strength. May not be the last of these we ever face, good to know a beast's capabilities before you throw everythin' you have at it. This ain't like one of them stories where the warrior finds endless strength from within, in the real world, attacks take power. Use too much too soon, and you might find yourself unable to finish the job!"

"Yeah, sure, but did you really learn much from that?"

"Sure did! Gonna take more than that to hurt something so ugly, an' its skin's too thick for your insults." Orion reached into a pocket, the descending cadence of footsteps continuing all the while. "Don't worry, though, I got a plan for this one!"

Anilith turned away, focusing again on the beast. For all its power, it was slow. "Doubt I can take a hit from that thing, but it'll have to catch me first!"

"Don't do anythin' stupid, kid! Distraction's the name of the game. Don't think you're takin' this thing out alone, make openings for me an' Razh!"

The girl tread upon the shaking earth, feeling the breath of the Wind as she faced down a beast that loomed nearly twice her size, whose fist alone dwarfed her torso. A sense of déjà vu overcame her, her mind flashing back to her encounter with the Aligo, despite the difference in size between the creatures. She'd grown since that near-fatal day, in ways that the naked eye couldn't measure.

Back then, she'd hardly known the feeling of Blade Weaving, hadn't felt the breath of the Wind, nor the touch of the Earth. She'd gone into that fight prepared to die for her people, unaware of the breadth of her ignorance. It was her against the wrath of the Moors, without any of the tools she'd cultivated since.

That day, she wasn't alone. That day, she wielded a level of control the child she'd left behind could never have imagined, having only touched upon what was possible.

The beast looked down on the approaching girl, a wicked smile showing its teeth. Its pace never faltered, nor did it increase. The creature unrelentingly continued, each foot falling with the weight of doom. A glimmer in its eyes betrayed thoughts of the day's meal, walking right into its waiting mouth. A foolish girl, to think herself a match to one bearing the strength of the earth.

Without looking back, she called out, "Bring a pox of arrows upon its limbs, land as many as you can!"

An arrow dripping green embedded itself in the creature's wrist, ignored in its gluttonous march. "Already on it, kid! Just stay on your toes!" More quietly, the Wanderer added, "and stay alive."

Like steady rain, arrows pelted the beast. Not every arrow found its mark, the feat more difficult without aiming at center mass, but already Anilith could feel her Blade Weaving responding to the arrowheads embedded in the beast, creating a map of its steady motions.

She smiled with the Wind at her back, feeling light on her feet as if the summer breeze itself walked with her in lockstep.

A blurred shadow flanked the creature, the last impression she felt before the trance of Blade Weaving overcame her senses, enhanced by the voice of the Wind.

Orion continued peppering the beast with arrows, having doctored them up just for the occasion. With each shot, he shifted location. Even a small change in positioning helped to keep enemies from seeing through his stealth, provided he had a distraction. It wasn't much of a stealth skill, he'd have to admit, more a trick, convincing them that he was just part of the scenery. It wouldn't do a lick of good if something were actually looking for him, not once he'd already attacked. Still, it served him well in moments like that.

As he continued his careful assault, tsking at every missed shot, he muttered to himself

"Damn, if that girl ain't reckless. Light on her feet an' quick as a whip, but I'll be damned if that ain't some kinda ogre."

He watched Razh flank the beast, unnoticed in its fervor. It had been a while since he'd seen his friend use his less natural talents, normally content to make do with the inherent gifts of his kin, and Orion couldn't say they weren't terrifying enough as it stood. Venoms of the caliber they secreted were hard to come by, and their effects were disturbing, even years after he'd first seen them.

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"I don't recall the last time someone reported an ogre-kin. That's concernin' enough in its own right, but first thing we find here? Shit, this is gonna be one for the record books."

Orion coated another arrow with Razhik's venom. He couldn't speak to how it actually worked, but the results were undeniable. This beast was strong, but sooner or later it would start to feel the building effects. Orion had learned the hard way the drawbacks of excessive force, so he reserved such methods until he'd confirmed his standard means ineffective.

As he moved, each arrow compounding the venom in the beast's system until it started to show symptoms, he observed his latest charge. Nobody had really put her in his charge, but he had a bad habit of taking people under his proverbial wing. More often than not, it led to pain and disappointment, but Orion yet held a spark of hope that this time would be different.

The girl moved with a grace that he'd rarely seen, even among the elites of Spokane. Sure, her ignorance worked against her, but that was something that could be trained. Instincts couldn't be faked, and whatever this girl's skill was, it screamed of innate instinct. He'd noticed the way her body seemed to take over, often leaving her in a state of semi-exhausted confusion afterwards.

"I don't think you even know the toll that skill takes on your body, kid, but you'll be a force to be reckoned with if you keep growin' like this. Even as he watched, she left line after bloody line on the beast's skin, always reacting a hair too fast for the lumbering creature.

Several times, Razh had moved in to deliver a toxic payload before shadow-shifting away. Their combined efforts were starting to wear down the creature's natural endurance, and the anger in its eyes told him that it knew. It knew that it couldn't win if things kept going this way, and it changed its methods in an instant.

Gone were the lumbering swings, as the beast shifted to a more defensive stance. It took blow after blow, minimizing the damage they inflicted, even as the venom coursed through its blood.

Suddenly, it stomped viciously, unleashing a shockwave that knocked Anilith prone and open to retaliation. As the monster's fist came down, looking to flatten the girl, Orion's heart caught in his throat.

"Kid, get out of the way!"

Anilith couldn't move in time; the speed she had embodied seemed to have fled, and the crushing weight of the fist descended with the weight of inevitability.

Lying prone on the ground, Anilith felt the moment she lost her grip on the Wind, as the speed she was so accustomed to deserted her. Her awareness returned to her own body, no longer seeing the world through the touch of the Wind, its voice muted by the steady rhythm that thrummed beneath her.

Through her Blade Weaving, she watched the beast's arrow tip riddled mallet of an appendage coming to claim her life. So many times, she'd heard tales of a person's life flashing before their eyes when they faced the end, of regrets and those they left behind come to haunt them in those final moments.

How anyone could make such a claim seemed fanciful to Anilith, for anyone who truly experienced such an event did not come out the other side of it whole, and the word of a survivor meant less for their survival. Memory, fickle as it is, served as far from a perfect imprint, and the moments following such a traumatic incident could very well be muddled up with the incident itself.

Regardless, Anilith felt none of these things. She did not feel regret. She did not see the family she stood to lose. She did not even feel rage in the face of an unavoidable fate. She knew that the Wind had abandoned her, been driven away in the wake of the shockwave the creature had unleashed upon her, and that she could not escape without its aid.

Despite all of that, she felt nothing but calm acceptance, and in that acceptance, she found strength. In that acceptance, she was reminded of a near-constant in her years before the Tower: Temperance. There, in the memory of his presence, she felt an echo of the steady rhythm of the earth, that relentless march that would topple empires given the time, but the echo was threaded with something more, something passionate and alive that the ground beneath her lacked.

It was a simple memory, not even quite a memory so much as a pattern impressed upon her ephemeral self by a relationship forged through constant trials. The pattern resonated with the ground beneath her prone body, showing her exactly where she fit into the rhythm, and in that moment, she felt a terrible strength.

The very ground beneath her back held her, not merely supporting her as it had her whole life, but something much more tangible. As she rose to a knee, held firm by the earth, she brought her blades up, crossing them before her with an ineffable slowness, even as she felt the fist's inexorable approach. As her blades met the creature's fist, her arms held firm against its power, a power that had felt so unapproachable. Her entire body felt imbued with a sturdiness that struck her all at once as both novel, and thrilling.

The creature's own power forced her blades through its meat like scissors sharpened to a razor's edge. Its momentum worked against the beast, and the severed fist flew off, landing somewhere behind her, the truncated wrist striking the ground before her, blanketing her in a cloud of dust.

Shock and disbelief warred for control in the eyes of the beast.

Not one to waste an opportunity, Anilith utilized her newfound strength, dancing with the grace of a Blade Weaver and severing vital tendons in the creature's legs until it collapsed, unable to bear its own weight.

The green ichor the beast secreted from its wounds seeped out, both paler and thinner than before, leaving sizzling welts in its wake. Whatever Orion was doing, it was working. Despite the power she felt coursing through her body, emboldened by the earth, she held no doubt that her defense had been aided, in no small part, by the efforts of her friends.

She hadn't even seen Razhik's contributions, her trance having overridden her awareness for the heart of the battle, but didn't doubt his involvement for a second.

Almost as suddenly as it had appeared, the beast lay dead at her feet, and her strength retreated into the earth, leaving a feeling of enervation in its shadow.

Orion approached, breaking stealth. "I don't even want to know what that was, but damned good job, kid. I felt sure that ogre-kin would snap your little blades like toothpicks, but apparently you're made of stronger stuff than I knew."

"Let's just say an old friend helped me see a path forward."

Razhik, the day slowly returning around him, joined them. "I'd like to meet this friend if they're able to pull out such vigor from someone as tiny as you. Just imagine what they'd do for me! This friend, is it a girl? Boy? No, of course it's a boy! Why didn't you tell us you had a mate?"

Anilith's cheeks flushed at Razhik's question, yet she didn't bristle at the accusation. "Our relationship is…was? Unique." She shot her new friend a withering look. "We weren't mates, or anything of the sort. He's…important to me, and his absence is forcing me to grow in ways I never knew I needed to. I won't be the same if I see him again, but even now, surprisingly, he helps me find hidden strength within myself."

A sadness hid in Orion's gaze as she talked about Temperance. "I hope you get the chance to show him how you've grown, get to see his joy at seeing you safe." The Wanderer looked past his friends, lost somewhere they couldn't follow.

"Come on, guys," Anilith said, "Let's go see what all this trouble was about in the first place."

They harvested what they could from the ogre-kin in silence before heading towards the anomaly Anilith had beheld.

After descending a spiral staircase built into a large, dried-up well, the trio found themselves in a room bearing another set of murals. In the center stood a podium bearing a velvet cloth, and on that cloth sat three polished rings: one silver, one gold, and one somewhere in between, arranged in ascending sizes. Each looked to fit a different party member perfectly, even Razhik's, and as they moved to take them, a message appeared in that same flowing script.

Orion just looked at Anilith, waiting for her to explain what it said. Razhik had eyes only for his treasure.

"You find yourselves rewarded for finding this secret and vanquishing its guardian. Beware, not all secrets should be uncovered, and to do so invites terrible danger, but take solace in knowing that you have conquered this challenge."

Anilith paused, taking a breath as the script continued to appear, this time on the podium itself. "You each have earned a ring of focus. Discover its purpose, and you will find your path enlightened."

"Well, at least we have a name for them, not that that tells us what the things do."

"Is the Tower always this cryptic?"

"Well, it's not known for giving away answers, but I've never heard of anyone encountering messages like this, although even if they had, I'm sure most would have missed them. Only a strange man would pry so deeply into a message no one can read."

Anilith nodded, uncertainty plaguing her despite his assurance. She looked at the walls as she thought. The left wall showed a group of larger-than-life people standing magnanimously before a crowd. The center mural showed the same grandiose figures, but the crowd had dwindled to a handful of people bowing in apparent reverence. The third mural was a mystery, entirely destroyed, deep furrows marring the stone and cutting the images into unrecognizable fragments.

"Well, unless we're plannin' on staying here, we'd best move on with our lives before somethin' comes along and traps us in here. Only one way out, after all!"

As the trio emerged from the darkness, eyes adjusting quickly to the brightness of day, they searched for a landmark to identify the spot. An eerily curved tree near the edge of the wood caught Orion's eye, and he moved to mark it with an arrow, pointing towards the well.

Confident that they had a passing chance at finding the hidden room, if the occasion called for it, they set off together into the forest in the foothills, eager to see what the hidden Dungeon had in store.