A Legacy of Blades - An Epic Tower Fantasy

Eyes closed, Anilith felt the world expand around her as her mind returned to the confines of the Tower. The air closed in thick around her as the scent of burning, a putrid thing, enveloped her olfactory senses. The air felt heavy in her mind, as if it were weighed down by the presence of intangibly massive things.

"—guess they found some kind of barricade, and they're settin' up a garrison to wait for us before they try and break through. It's about time they proved their worth. We've more than pulled our weight around here. Can only hope we did enough damage the other day that the enemy ain't prepared for our little gambit."

"I mean, that's just what he said. Gods only know if he withheld a little something, but cross that river later, I suppose."

"I hope the kid wakes up sometime soon. Been too long already. Runnin' out of preparations to make at this point. Sooner than later, we're gonna have to move out, and we could really use her talents if we have to step in."

Anilith's eyelids fluttered, struggling to fight against the stupor of unconsciousness. "Don't. Have. To wait. Long." Every word was a battle, but she managed a croaking response. Next to the monumental challenge of waking up, speaking wasn't much of a hurdle, even if the result was barely audible.

Orion panned his gaze over to Anilith's prone form, her eyes still half-lidded. She lay propped up on a bundle of rags Orion must have procured from his cloak of many pockets, and the fire he'd made nearby was the most pitiful she could remember in months. The man must have noticed where her eyes lingered, and she felt a sharp stab as he jabbed her shoulder with a calloused finger.

"Yeah, yeah. It's a sad fire, alright, but turns out things get a touch less convenient when your walking storage shed is incapacitated. Can't exactly keep a full fire in my cloak, now, can I?"

Her mouth was dry, and she wondered in passing how long she had been out. Words weren't coming freely; her attempts stuck in her parched throat, but Orion proffered up a waterskin for her.

"You've been out a while now, kid. About a day, wouldn't you say, Razh?"

Razhik's sinuous form moved smoothly in the dim light, and his voice, more sibilant than she was accustomed, hissed from behind clenched teeth. "Yes, she has slumbered this past sun, lost as she slept beside us."

Her voice a little more lubricated, Anilith squeaked out, "What's up with him?"

"Oh, that damnable chieftain kept callin' him great serpent and the like, and it's really gone to his head. Been talkin' all snakelike all day now," Orion explained.

Razhik snaked his head in closer, the firelight dancing mischievously in his eyes. "You two are no fun! Can't just let me be Lord Serpent for a little bit?" He let out a forceful snort. "I guess it wasn't really that much fun, anyway. Plus, I'm far superior to some lowly snake."

Anilith raised a heavy hand, reaching for his snout. Razhik obliged and moved in closer still, letting her hand rest on his scales. "Sure you are, Lord Razhik. Never met a less snakelike serpent, it makes you far more trustworthy. Never trust something without hands, that's what I say."

Razhik pulled away as if burned, and Anilith's appendage fell to the ground. "Hands? I do not have hands. What a soft-skinned notion. I have glorious taloned feet. What need has a king for hands? Servants with hands can accomplish just as much, after all."

"Fair enough, big guy," Anilith said, chuckling, "What's that smell, anyway?"

Razhik's eyes grew wide, and he refused to make eye contact with her. "Well, nature called, and I didn't want to go too far away, I don't trust our allies so fully, I just—"

"Not what she meant, I think, bud. Pretty sure I cleaned that up well enough, she wouldn't have even known if you didn't stick your glorious taloned foot in your mouth," Orion laughed. "I think she was referring to the, you know, burning smell."

"Oh," Razhik replied, retreating sheepishly, "I guess that would make sense."

Orion's expression grew tighter, approaching grim, as he continued, "The Grokar have been pullin' bodies out of the tunnels a while now. They'd started a big pile with what we cleared out of here, and they just keep addin' the fresh ones to it. Been slowly burnin' the whole lot, and you're smellin' the tail end of that. The Grokar they pull out, they take back to the water, but I can't say what they do with them there."

"Oh," Razhik interjected, "Babblin the small actually cleared that one up for me. Turns out, the Grokar have a custom of burning the bodies of their enemies. Something about destruction by fire being a just end for those who go against the sea. He won't say what they do with their fallen, other than that they become the nourishment that feeds a new generation of spawnlings. I didn't press for more, because honestly, I don't want to know."

"Huh," the man grunted, looking approvingly at his friend, "the more you know. Good on you, Razh, doin' some independent research." He turned back to Anilith as he said, "Anyhow, now that you're back in the land of the livin' and all, might be about time we made some moves. How are you feelin'?"

Anilith took another gulp from the waterskin, feeling vigor return to her limbs. She pushed herself up into a sitting position and rolled her shoulders. She was stiff, banged up, and more than a little sore, but that seemed a fair result after the events of the past few days.

"Let me get a meal in, and I should be right as rain. Honestly, I feel more rested than I'd imagine after passing out like that." She was silent as she rehashed her time in that strange place, but she didn't say anything about the experience to her companions. She hardly understood what had happened, how would they make heads or tails of it?

Goosebumps crept across her in a wave as she remembered the unearthly nature of that figure that was both her and something…other. She couldn't help but feel that, even now, the figure simply lurked, waiting for its moment of freedom, and that, worst of all, she somehow owed the thing. It had apparently kept her from overtaxing herself up until now, after all.

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Orion drew her out of her introspection, asking, "You still with us, kid?"

"Yeah," she replied, "Just thinking back on whatever happened. Think I'll take it easy on using my skill for a while. It took something out of me, drained me dry, if I'm not mistaken, and I don't know that I've recovered whatever that something is."

Anilith sighed. "I guess I'm just left with regular old magic," she finished with a wink.

Orion nodded slowly, ignoring her attempt at humor. "Yeah, probably for the best. Can't really have you collapsin' on us from here out. Somethin' tells me we're in the last legs of this thing. We all gotta keep our heads on straight if we want to make it through this in one piece."

"I'll go check in with the squad," Razhik said, "See what news they might have picked up recently. Why don't you get her up to speed, Ori?"

"Alright, see you soon, bud," the man said to Razhik's retreating form, before turning back to Anilith. "Like I said before, the Grokar have been clearin' tunnels left and right, pushin' forward to the next choke point. Say there's some kind of outpost there, a goblin fortification. Might be about time we took a look."

Anilith got up slowly, testing her legs as she rose. When she got up, she jumped a few times before hopping from foot to foot. "Yeah, I think I'd be down for stretching my legs a little."

"Let's just wait for Razhik to get back," Orion said.

"Oh, come on, now. Where's the fun in that?" Anilith didn't wait for him as she set out for the tunnels. "Just tell him to meet us on the way!"

"Not like we didn't just wait a whole day for you to wake up," the man shot back, a smile in his voice.

The tunnels they walked through were different than the ones they'd navigated as they scaled the mountain's innards. Those had been mostly smooth, either natural or hewn from the stone by some artisanry. These were rough, jagged in places, as if they were gouged from the earth, and proved to be far less direct. Having witnessed the ferocity of the Wolverines, Anilith didn't doubt they were capable of excavating such a system. The tunnels wandered somewhat listlessly, the end result being a warren of interconnected passages with no clear design and far too many chokepoints. A group could quickly find themselves surrounded if they tried to fight their way to the main cavern down here.

Orion had summoned Razhik as they walked, and the Shadow Guard came with him. They had, evidently, explored the tunnels while she was incapacitated and knew a path to reach the outpost. Anilith was glad for that fact, as she didn't particularly want to rely on her abilities at the moment, content to just experience the world through mundane means.

It had been so long since she had given herself a break, just pushing relentlessly from one fight to the next, finding the limits of her abilities time and again.

In her drive to improve herself, to become the hero that might go back and save her people, she'd neglected one of her Master's first lessons: the importance of rest. The Blade Weaver had progressed farther along the path of power than all but a handful of her people, and yet he hadn't done so by relentlessly pushing forward. He had always told her that the body needs time to ingrain the lessons of training, to fully utilize the strength one had earned.

Internally, she chastised herself for her youthful arrogance in overestimating her fortitude, even as she let the senses she was born with wander to their fullest, stretching in a way they hadn't in ages. She hadn't set out to work so tirelessly, and she'd let her body rest between missions. Still, she was always pushing her supernatural senses in those moments, trying to find and expand their edges, never giving her body and mind a chance to rest, never embracing the teachings of the Blade Weaver as fully as she had sworn.

As she wandered down the darkened tunnels, observing her surroundings with the most basic senses she possessed, she relished in the simple scuff of boots, the cool air on her skin, even the unpleasant aromas of the underground. More than anything else, though, she appreciated the company of her friends more genuinely than she had in far too long.

She walked languorously, in no hurry to reach the next obstacle, aware of its inevitability. Whether she pushed forward or not, the true peak of the mountain approached, and she needed to be her best to survive the challenge. Her brush with the surreal being that dwelt within her had only outlined for her how close she had come to disaster, and she said a silent prayer in thanks to her Master for his lessons.

It wasn't his fault she'd been a poor student. Unbidden, an adage of his sprang to mind.

The man who sees his own error demonstrates truer wisdom than the most educated scholar in the land.

Maybe she was learning, slow as her progress was.

As they approached the end of the tunnel, where the Grokar reported the crossroads lay, the soft light of the Grokar lanterns mingled with harsh flickering torchlight from beyond the aperture. There was an unnatural silence in the air, and a tangible terseness to the atmosphere. Orion had felt it many times before, and it had never ended well. It was the prelude to war, the soft-falling footsteps of impending doom.

Even without setting foot into the cavernous space, he knew what he was walking into.

Anilith, Razhik, and his guard trailed behind him as they exited the tunnel. Before them stood a wall shaped from the stone itself. Four other tunnels fed into the space, but the wall dominated the scene. At its center yawned an open gate, flanked by pyres on either side, a pit of darkness vanishing beyond the harsh light. Goblins crawled from the abyss like demons spawned in Nightmare, forming loose ranks before the gates, a lower fortification granting them cover from the Grokar.

Opposite the Goblin lines, the Grokar warriors had erected rough barricades, limiting the goblin horde's ability to overrun their defensive lines. Green-blue and amber lights warred for dominance of the chamber, as both sides made preparations for the imminent battle. The tension between the two forces felt near a boiling point, threatening to bubble over and plunge the cavern into chaos.

Halting his group near the mouth of their tunnel, Orion knew that whether they had come or not, the storm that was building here was ready to break. Already, he could see signs of squadrons of mages forming up near the frontlines.

In his time before the Tower, a time he hardly thought on, nowadays, he'd heard legends of battles like this, but that would be his first time laying eyes on such a thing. It was said that in conflicts of this scale, mages were the shield and the anvil and determined the fate of the battle. Almost without fail, the side whose mages fell first would find themselves locked in the jaws of defeat. It was a tactical game, where each move had to counter the next.

He had no desire to be anywhere near the frontlines, just in case disaster struck. It was time for the Grokar to show their worth, after all.

Kewrok, bulbous, ugly bastard that he was, appeared to be covered with a viscous armor that reminded Orion far too vividly of mucous. The creature took up a position near its personal retinue of hydromancers. He glanced over at Orion and his friends, and smirked, even as the mages began to work their magic.

A wall of water formed before them, cutting off an immense siphon of pressure that threatened to pull them all off their feet as the air was violently sucked towards the goblin lines, consumed by a wave of fire that raced towards the Grokar, impacting the wall of water, and stopping in its tracks.

With an eruption of steam, a new battle commenced, and, for once, Orion hoped to have no hand in the outcome. With a collected effort, the hydromancers forced the steam back upon the defenders, the screams of the hydromancers' victims not nearly as horrible as they should be. There was a twisted joy in the sound, and it turned Orion's stomach.

These depraved beasts deserved death.