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Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
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26/11/2010
Giovanni checked, then double-checked his luggage as he prepared to depart from the Zatara estate. The days he'd spent there had proven frustrating and upsetting in the extreme.
The perpetual one-upmanship. Bragging and boasting as to which group of fools, each far smaller upon their return in comparison to their departure, had brought back more treasures from the now-empty vampiric enclaves...
"Keh," an old, wizened voice called from the doorway of the small, musty room that he'd been afforded inside of the moldering mansion. "You have not joined any of the others, Giovanni. Do you not wish to help the family?"
Luminita, the head of the family, sat within the doorway to his room. His aunt, Kazia, one of Luminita's granddaughters stood behind the woman with her hands firmly wrapped around the handles of the old woman's wheelchair.
"Half of those which have departed seem to have fallen victim to the traps within the lairs, elder." That these traps often seemed to take the form of a knife in the back was something Giovanni felt should be left unsaid. "I'm afraid I've left my daughter alone long enough as it is."
Honestly, he'd be amazed if Shadowcrest was still standing by the time he got home.
"Feh. Thinning the weak from the bloodline," the old woman said before she spat on the floor. "We shall be all the greater for it."
The stage magician was tempted to ask if they were all the greater for his great-grandfather passing away on the front lines of the first world war, but he again held his tongue.
Instead he snapped his luggage closed and grabbed his cane with with free hand, ready to depart.
"I have been meaning to speak with you, Giovanni," Luminita, however, remained quite firmly in the way. The old, wrinkled woman with her deeply sunken eyes stared up and into Giovanni's own. "I would know something, Giovanni. Something that I think you will tell me."
"Such as?" he asked, glancing unhappily to the gaps in the doorway around the frail woman's wheelchair.
Luminita used to be a feared, respected force among the magicians of Europe. The failing of her mind, the loss of her web of contacts and owed favors, it had freed up countless lesser forces to fight among themselves. Her sickness had brought instability to the underside of the magical world but, in many ways, it had also seen many such forces brought to heel when they'd tried to strike out on their own and been stuck down in turn.
"The power that slew the vampires, Giovanni," Luminita said, her lips quirking up into a toothless smile. "None that I have asked know who would have the strength to do such a thing. Not unless it was that pompous fool, Fate. But this.. No, Fate would not act in such a way. This, as brazen as it was, the magic is not that of Order. It was someone else. Something else..."
"I'm afraid I really can't say," Giovanni deflected as he turned his gaze to the window.
It would be a bit of a fall, he was on the second story, but it was certainly tempting...
"You cannot say?" the crone asked as she leaned forward in her chair, looking up at him. "But you do know... Giovanni, such power cannot be left to languish in the hands of the unworthy."
Giovanni inhaled sharply through his nose, his hands tightening around his luggage and cane.
"So, you do know," the old woman laughed, a dry, croaking noise from somewhere deep in the back of her throat. "Such magics... those that wield them, they have the same hunger. The same... appetites."
Giovanni's glare grew increasingly frigid upon the ancient woman.
"You have a daughter, yes?" the woman asked, a dark gleam in her eyes. "She would make an adequate-"
Giovanni lashed out, refusing to let the old woman dare besmirch his family. His cane unfolded, the barbed whip hidden within arcing out-
And wrapping around Kazia as his aunt began to move, some artifact in her hands.
"What?!" Luminita croaked in surprise and fury before Kazia was ripped forward, knocking over the old woman and her wheelchair, spreading papers out onto the floor that had been in one of the pockets on the side. "Giovanni, you-?!"
Whatever threat the old woman was getting ready to make was cut off as the stage magician slammed his boot down Luminita's throat.
"Stay down, Kazia," Giovanni demanded as he reached down to pick up the tool that she'd dropped. An old fashioned pen, one with a slender blade hidden in the back of it that had a small hollow leading to the nib. A Contract Pen, an artifact that could be used to force a geas unto an unwilling party by writing out a contract in their blood. "Or I will take your life, I swear it."
"Yhou-!" Luminita wheezed and hacked from her spot upon the floor, where Giovanni had left her. "Yhou whill pay..."
Giovanni flicked his wrist, recalling the whip of his threaded cane.
"potS," he said, freezing his aunt in place, midway into a standing position, as he looked down upon his great grandmother.
It may not have been the same spell that Diana spoke of Alchemist using but the principles hadn't been terribly hard to discern. Especially after he'd read the report from Superman wherein Alchemist had actually expanded on the dangers of his spell.
"Your time has come and gone, elder," Giovanni declared as he shut the door and barred it with a chair. "And the fear you once commanded has gone as well."
Giovanni looked down to the artifact, to the papers that Luminita had clearly intended on writing out his contract upon.
"You will pay, Giovanni," Luminita spat as the stage magician grabbed one of her arms and pulled it straight. "There is nowhere you can flee that we will not- AH!"
"ecneliS!" He demanded, cutting the old woman's screams off with another spell.
"I think, elder, that you do not understand something." Giovanni watched, his eyes cold and his voice hard as the Contract Pen drank its fill of Luminita's blood. Once the nib began to drip crimson, he jerked it free of her arm. "You do not get to threaten my daughter."
Grabbing one of the papers that had spread across the floor, Giovanni debated on the wording of the contract, even as Luminita continued to struggle on the floor.
He'd known coming here would be a mistake...
Just, he'd expected it would be a mistake for him. Not the fool that thought herself the queen of this kingdom.
-----
Flames danced across the metal floors and robots spasmed wildly as lightning coursed through their circuits as Alchemist and Player One tore through the residents of the Temple of Wind. Great, oily blocks of ice slammed creatures into the metal floors, crushing through scale and armor alike.
Around the arcane storm, Player One ducked through defenses and robbed the monsters to her heart's content before burying her freshly-forged blades through the backs of the creatures that focused almost exclusively on Alchemist.
"...Why?" she asked, struggling to breathe after a particularly numerous group was finally felled. "Why... aren't you getting hurt?"
As the bigger and obviously more dangerous foe, everything was just swarming the man. Dragon.
And he was letting them!
She'd watched on in confusion as some of the beasts would break claw or blade against him, only for some form of crimson light to rip out of them and into Alchemist. Some kind of passive defense similar to her own ability to reflect harm?
"I've invested heavily in my defenses," he admitted to her, his large head turning to blankly stare at her. She kind of wished he didn't have a helmet on that covered his entire face, dragon or no, because she had no idea what he was thinking. No idea where he was looking. "A pure defense bolstering spell, another that shunts all damage to my mana and finally a third spell that retributionally harms anything that strikes me with equal force to what they do to me. Here, let me get you a copy of one of them..."
Tiffany leaned against a wall and tried to get her breathing under control as the dragon opened a system window and began to tap at it with a single claw. A few moments and about nine taps later, he held a book out to her between two claws.
Taking it, she read the title.
Mana Wall.
"Is this the one that makes it so things hit your MP instead of your HP?" she asked, tapping the book and getting a system window asking if she wanted to learn the spell.
The little transparent window in front of her face had some details on the spell but... it was actually pretty straightforward. It just shunted damage to her MP and there was some kind of formula detailing some damage reduction.
"E-yep," he told her as he walked past her to look around a corner.
"So you think I should learn it?"
"Player One? Everything you use falls into either Skills or Abilities. You're not using your MP for anything else."
Player One silently hit accept, refusing to verbally acknowledge the man's point.
"Come on," she said instead, changing the topic. "We should be close to the bridge with the door guardian thing. Just... be careful? It hits like a truck and has some really, really powerful magic."
"I'm not an overworked Japanese salaryman," Alchemist replied, confusing her terribly. "I'm not afraid of any trucks."
...What?
-----
All told, even with the detour to work up some new gear, it only really took them about an hour to get to the bridge that led to the boss chamber.
They probably could have saved fifteen minutes but Alchemist had been making sure to strip the slain 'knights' of their weapons and armor. Since the skeleton idea was a bust, Alchemist needed to consider something else that he could use to make reasonably permanent but equally disposable soldiers.
The bodies underneath of the armor, though... were warped, bloated masses of muscle with minuscule facial features. They looked as though they might have been mortal men, once, but they'd been twisted after donning their suits. There weren't any curses on those, Alchemist had checked, though their swords were certainly interesting.
Deathbringers. Ooh, spoopy. They offered some decent boosts to a few attributes and could be used to cast an instant death spell if a little bit of magic was fed into them. Spoopier.
He'd picked up each blade the enemies had dropped and, from time to time, a quartet of them would drop as loot from the Black Knights.
Nothing else was genuinely interesting for him. Giant poisonous plants, golems made of clay and rock, dark elves, vampires... The fact that he recognized everything, that he knew where they were was somewhat suspicious. The volcano, at least, hadn't been a direct rip-off of another location.
The question, then, was 'Why?' What was specific to this place that Gaia, or at least the Terra fragment of her, would send them here? Was this meant for Player One? Or was there always the intention of having him accompany the girl?
Questions, questions, quite a lot of questions and not an answer in sight. His 'Administrator' had been silent ever since the vocation add-on to his system had catastrophically failed and he hadn't heard a peep from her.
"That's it," Tiffany whispered at Alchemist's side as the duo looked through the door that led to the bridge where the area boss laid in wait. On the opposite end, a massive machine of gleaming steel and wicked purpose stood before the opposite door.
It had two legs, jointed backwards not unlike how a chicken's might look. They led up to a massive, almost-pill like body that had hoses leading around from the back to the front where an instrument panel lay, several blinking lights and one massive camera eye focused on them.
"Every time I think I've gotten it? It just keeps getting back up!"
"Hmm..." Alchemist hummed, his head tilting from left to right as he scanned the area. The bridge was wider than he expected and, unlike most similar such pieces of infrastructure in DC, had guard rails. Beyond that was just open air, leading down to the planet many, many kilometers below.
The mage tapped a claw against the metal floor for a few seconds as he debated his options.
Between Dread Spikes and the Reflect spell, it would be entirely feasible to just have the Death Machine kill itself on him. It would be loud and time consuming but also reasonably safe.
Or, he decided as he extracted an item from his inventory and broke it-
~~ Veteran's Periapt ~~
~~ All Experience X 16 ~~
-before snapping his claws and teleporting the imposing machine off to the side and into the abyss.
He could just not waste his time.
"...Did you just throw it over the edge?" Tiffany asked incredulously.
"Yes," Alchemist told the girl as he sauntered onto the bridge. "Yes, I did."
"It can't possibly be that easy," she argued. "There's no way it's going to-"
~~ Conflict Resolved! ~~
~~ Gained: 17,715,200 Experience, 441,600 GP, Genji Armor X4 ~~
~~ Congratulations! ~~
~~ You have reached level (91)! ~~
~~ Warning! ~~
~~ Current level exceeds the maximum range for this adventure! Further experience gains will be penalized! ~~
"Looks like it can," Alchemist smugly told the girl. "And it looks like it did."
No monsters, demons, machines or anything else attempted to molest the duo as they crossed the bridge and reached the door on the opposite end.
Opening the door and squeezing through wasn't too bad, actually. The door was bigger than he was by a large margin, easily meant for something significantly more massive than him.
"...What?" a woman in a robe demanded from near the center of the room, her arms held up high in prayer before an altar.
That... wasn't what he'd been expecting. And, judging by the puzzled look crossing the woman's face, she hadn't been expecting him, either.
"Who are you?!" the woman demanded, confusion quickly giving way to a sort of manic rage. "How did you get past my greatest creation!?"
Alchemist tilted his head to the side as he considered how to answer the woman. He took in the details of the room, the details of the woman. Her thin, greasy hair and emaciated frame, the deep blue cloak she was garbed in...
The five dragons spread around the room, blue, black, green, white and red. All staring at Player One and himself in idle curiosity. All lounging languidly and making no motions to get up.
"I'm Alchemist," the mage said, placing one claw against his chest as he introduced himself. "Traveler. With whom do I have the honor of speaking?"
"...Kaine," the woman said, her name coming out in two syllables. Kai-nay. "The greatest mind of Lufenia. The most brilliant magitechnician our people have ever seen! The true inheritor of our people's treasures!"
Ah, Alchemist realized. She was the woman that had helped the monsters invade the shrine and most likely turned her inventions on her kin.
"...You mentioned some kind of creation?" Alchemist asked, ignoring the elbow that Tiffany sent into his ribs.
"-true master of the Wind- What? Yes! My Death Machine!" the mad inventor crowed, moving from one tangent to the next. "It should have slain you! And your little human, too! Where is it?!"
"About..." Alchemist stood up on his hind legs and used one claw to indicate roughly how tall the machine had been. "Yea tall? Super powerful? With Nuke magic?"
"Yes!" Kaine demanded, her eyes gleaming.
"No idea," Alchemist said as he dropped back down on all fours. "There wasn't anything else on the bridge when we were crossing it."
"That's impossible!" the madwoman screamed, ignoring the amused snort that came from the blue dragon. "I would have heard if it had walked off! What did you do with it?!"
"Well, you would have heard if we'd fought it, right?" Alchemist asked as he shuffled out of the way of the door, shoving Tiffany along with his bulk. "You can go see. There's nothing there."
The emaciated zealot rushed past them, going through the door without so much as a glance at Alchemist or Player One.
"What?!" she screamed. "It's gone! Where did- How did- What happened to my beautiful-"
Alchemist snapped his claws.
"Wha-Aaah!" and Kaine's voice trailed off into the distance as she followed the Death Machine down to the world below.
"...I can't believe that worked," the blue dragon growled as it stood up and shook itself.
"True," the white one agreed as it, too, stood to its feet. "That was utterly embarrassing."
"Zealots," the black dragon growled as it also rose. "Useful, but only so far."
"She was amusing, though," the green one said with a toothy grin.
"Enough," the red dragon growled as it turned its massive head towards Alchemist. As all of the dragons turned their heads on him in eerie unison.
"...Alchemist?" Tiffany asked, a small trill of fear in her voice. "What's going on?"
"Ladies," Alchemist greeted. "Or should that be singular? I'm afraid I don't know how you wish to be addressed, Tiamat."
"Either is fine, child," the black dragon told him. "Go on and explain things to your companion. We've been waiting quite a while for you to join us. I can wait a moment more."
"Thank you." Alchemist inhaled slowly as he considered how to word thing before turning his head to look down at Tiffany, still utterly confused at his side.
"Tiffany? I'd like you to meet my grandmother. Technically. Sort of."
"...What?"
-----
Tiffany looked between the armored dragon next to her, then to the flight of technicolor dragons spread around the room, then back again to Alchemist.
"What?" she repeated, as she tried to process what the man had just said. "...How?!"
"Well, when a chaos goddess of life decides that her consort is looking mighty fine on an evening flight, she'll send him a-"
"Child," the green dragon interrupted Alchemist's 'explanation', though Tiffany could swear the creature was holding back a laugh. "Perhaps an answer that would actually explain things is in order?"
"Right, right. Sorry." Alchemist cleared his throat and turned his head to properly look at her. Probably. She still couldn't tell because of the helmet wrapped around his massive head. "Tiamat is a primordial goddess, on par with the patron of our own power, Gaia. Her very flesh is the foundation of reality, by her will do the seas rage and storms howl. Among her many titles, one stands out most at the moment as the 'Mother of Dragons'."
Tiffany felt a bit of whiplash at Alchemist's sudden tonal shift. He'd gone from telling a terrible joke to, well, actually answering the question that had been on Tiffany's mind.
"So... which one is Tiamat?" Tiffany asked, looking at the various dragons that now stood before the altar in the center of the room. "Is she the black one? Actually, how would she be your grandma, anyway? I thought you were human?"
"Alright. First off? Racist-"
"Hey!"
"-and second off, Tiamat isn't any one of the other dragons. She's each of them, and none of them. Finally; I'm not related by blood to any other dragon, Tiffany, because I used to be human. Then I took up residence inside of a golem body, which ended up having a lot of teething issues and now I've moved on to bigger and better things."
Tiffany brought both hands up to massage her temples.
Alchemist making a serious effort to answer her did not, in fact-
-- Enemy Defeated! --
-- Kaine the Unloved --
-- You have gained: 1 EXP, 16,000 GP, Skillbook: Magitech Basics X 1, Perk: Kaine's Avarice! --
-- Kaine's Avarice: Perhaps the greatest artificer of magic and machinery the ancient world ever produced, her successes were never enough to win Rosado's heart from her rival, Cecily. Her gnawing hunger drew the many-eyed gaze of Tiamat. The Fiend offered to cut down her rival in return for one small, insignificant thing. Her loyalty.
Effect: +1 to all loot drops. --
"How does that work?" Tiffany asked, waving rudely at the quintet of dragons. "How is she none of them if she's right there?!"
"Tiamat is a full-blown Multiversal Goddess. Capitals included. I'm reasonably sure that if she -could- fully manifest in this reality, we'd get to enjoy the sight for about five seconds before reality collapsed and we'd get to enjoy an all-expense paid trip into the multiverse without adequate protection." Alchemist paused to breathe for a moment and waved one claw towards the technicolor flight of visibly amused dragons. "Those would be some of her priestesses. Her hands, eyes, her voice if she observes something she wants to comment on. And, if she feels a direct hand is needed? She can have them ritualistically murder each other to form a physical avatar."
"Oh! Clever, clever," the white dragon crowed, her voice like crashing icicles upon a frigid tundra. "However did you figure that out? It's a rather well kept secret, after all."
"Well, four-hundred years from now, there's going to be a fully formed avatar waiting in this room for the Warriors of Light. And there are five of you here, the same number of heads as the avatar usually uses. Although..." Tiffany stepped a bit to the side as Alchemist's wings twitched, partially unfurling before readjusting on his back. "That avatar would be acting under the control of Chaos. Something I'm reasonably sure you would disagree with."
"Quite," the red dragon agreed as it stepped forward and began to slowly circle the duo. "However, Chaos has a role to play. And so shall I. The story is already written, the story is already told. This is not a new role for us, not at all, but we do not truly mind revisiting our history. It grants us access to a greater audience, fresh minds and fresh hearts to worship our grandeur."
"Wait-wait-wait!" Tiffany shouted, silencing the almost playful banter between Alchemist and the... Fiend? Goddess? Dragon-hive-mind-thing?! "I am so confused!"
"...She's not very bright, is she?" the black dragon asked, dark humor in her voice.
"I've been trying to avoid saying it," Alchemist quietly admitted.
Right next to Tiffany's head.
"You know what?" Tiffany asked the room at large. "I don't have to put up with this!"
"Wait," the white dragon commanded, closing the skill menu in front of Tiffany's outstretched hand. The girl swallowed slowly as she tried to bring up her other menus. Any of her menus!
And nothing responded!
"I did not set these events into motion for the sake of amusement," the green dragon continued.
"Well, no," Alchemist agreed as he placed a hand on Tiffany's shoulder.
If it was meant to be comforting, it failed. She was currently too busy inhaling and exhaling in short, sharp pants as she tried to do anything to make her power work.
"If that were your goal, one of your dragons would be pink," the wizard continued, speaking absolute nonsense that did nothing to ground Tiffany or help her calm down.
"Quite," the black dragon answered as she began to circle Alchemist and Player One, opposite of the red dragon. "You have proven mildly entertaining, child."
"But you were dragging yourself to the brink of self-destruction," the green dragon continued as it walked into lockstep with the red and black dragon.
"Living metal? Dragon's blood?" the white dragon listed off, items that Tiffany had no idea as to the meaning of. It, too, joined the other three in circling the Gamers. "Then you did something so foolish as to sup upon the blood of your patron and play host to a concentration of power from a world unborn."
"The human soul is not meant to be burdened by so many things," the blue dragon said, finally speaking up. "We had expected to see it collapse under the strain you placed upon it. A truly unfortunate end for one with such promise as yourself."
"Madness is to be expected from one such as you, of this we know quite well," the red dragon said as she sat down, as all of the dragon's sat down. "But I would appreciate it if you could temper your foolishness. My consort is quite fond of you and he would be inconsolable if you did something so foolish as to shatter your soul by accident."
"I... was not aware I'd come close to such a risk," Alchemist admitted, shuffling awkwardly next to Tiffany. "I'll try to be-"
"The next time you wish to try and derive power from the Magatama?" the black dragon interrupted the wizard. "Just eat the foul little thing. You've the power to extract its secrets. Use it. And be thankful that your nature now surpasses what it would have done to you."
"...Thank you," Alchemist said, jostling Tiffany's insensate form.
He didn't seem worried that the dragon had just shut off her powers with a word. He didn't even act like he'd noticed!
"Are there any other dire portents I should be worried about?" the mage asked.
"No," the red dragon huffed, flames curling from her nostrils. "Now, begone. I've made use of the opportunity presented within this moment. When next your messanger would enter this realm, she shall find the avatar that acts in service of Chaos. Whether she can attain victory, else end as a rather unfulfilling meal is up to her."
"...Again, thank you," Alchemist repeated as he placed a hand upon Tiffany's shoulder.
She looked up, her eyes glassy with panic and tears as Alchemist opened a system window, navigated to his Skill Menu...
And tapped 'I.D. Escape'.
-----
Meanwhile, four-hundred years in the future...
A quartet of brave warriors traversed the empty sands of the endless desert. Their goal, the Mirage Tower, seemed to be further and further from them with every step.
Their black mage led from the front, a dagger in one hand and arcane fury crackling in the other. Behind him, the red wizard struggled to hold his chapeau down upon his long, white locks. Just behind the wizard, one hand hidden in his pocket, the team's untrusty thief struggled to keep up. And, making up the rear, the stout and simple but reliable warrior merrily carried on.
"This is ridiculous!" the thief whined as he shook his head to try and dislodge sand from his long, pointed ears. "We should have gotten there already!"
"I could lead," the red mage offered. "But I put all of my points into animal husbandry, so I don't know how to navigate."
"Just... shut up," the black mage groaned. "And Fighter! Stop making that horrible racket!"
"What's a racket?" the warrior asked. "Is it for tennis? Are we going to play tennis?!"
In the distance, a rhythmic thumping grew louder and louder. Soon enough, it wasn't a sound in the distance.
Instead, the four warriors of light(?) were treated to the sight of a massive robot that walked on two legs, striding through the sands as though they were wholly unimpeded.
"What's that?" the warrior asked, pointing to the machine with one of his swords.
The robot stopped, then walked in a tight circle to face them.
"I don't know," the black mage answered. "It kind of looks like the robot that told us to come here. Except bigger. And deadlier."
"The robot that was full of really expensive machinery?" the thief asked. "Well, maybe we should go and see if this one will be just as helpful!"
"Hello!" the warrior shouted, waving about his swords in greeting. "Over here!"
Above the group, a little black box with a white outline faded into existence.
"...That doesn't look good," the thief admitted.
[NUCLEAR]
Red light consumed the party, followed by heat so intense that the sand glowed red and molten underfoot. When the spell faded, only two people were left standing.
"This doesn't make any sense!" the black mage shouted as he hiked up his blue robes and began running. "Where did that thing even come from!"
"I don't know!" the red mage shouted, his hat flying off of his head as he ran alongside his fellow spellcaster. "Animal Husbandry doesn't work on robots!"
Behind them, the WarMech followed. Its pace was unhurried, it had no need to run.
They would not escape.
