Chương 50: 49. Dungeon Mother

Tavian awoke to a crisp, metallic scent in the air that tasted like lye. He cracked one eye open, and struggled to open the other. A few fuzzy paving stones commanded his vision. The light from the infuser had dimmed, but it still shone brightly through a room that had been cleared of miasmic mists. All he heard was the throbbing of his heart in his ears. Calli lay nearby, spread eagle on the ground, eyes closed. Her hair looked strange to Tavian. Her chest rose and fell slowly, fingers twitching.

Shattered fragments of the miasma condenser were strewn across the floor. Tavian's [Mana Armor] had disappeared." Tavian, it worked!

"Lea exclaimed in his head." It worked, you did it! The miasmic turbulence has faded. My miasmic diverters are empty, the dungeon is no longer bleeding away your essence!" A slow smile spread across Tavian's face. He winced as his lips cracked, and laid his head back down when the room started spinning. Steel rang on stone, and Tavian looked past Calli to discover Jarden. The man was picking Tavian's sword up off the ground. Blood ran from a wound in his head, trickling into his ear and dribbling onto his shoulder.

Jarden staggered toward Calli. Tavian tried to yell to her, but only an ethereal groan spilled from his mouth. His muscles had no strength left in them. He couldn't even move his arms. He checked his system interface. They had never left Tavian's kingdom. He knew he'd be dead without the meager Influence here." Lea, please, tell Vanal we need more Influence!" He didn't know if it was even possible for her to do that. Jarden lifted Tavian's sword over his head. Calli's eyes snapped open.

Jarden thrust down toward Calli's gut. Calli threw up her arm, rolling her body away from the blow. The sword bit down into Calli's arm and side. She gasped.

"Father!" The voice was feminine, familiar, and somehow younger than Tavian remembered it.

"Don't you worry, my dear," Jarden muttered, placing a foot on Calli and yanking the sword free.

"I won't let them hurt you. I'll kill them for you."

"Father, I'm so cold." The words broke through to Jarden. He looked to the figure lying on the ground in the center of the room, a pool of black blood spreading out around her.

"Avi!" Jarden exclaimed, dropping the sword and running to the girl.

"What did they do to you?" Jarden knelt beside the girl, and held her in his arms. She looked to be around fourteen—Tavian recognized her. A much younger version of the woman shown to him before. Jarden's daughter.

"It's okay, darling," Jarden said, staggering as he tried to lift her.

"They found the condenser, they brought it to us. We have what we need to complete the transformation, this time."

"Daddy," the girl said, reaching a hand up to touch her father's injury.

"You're bleeding."

"Come on, come on," Jarden said, climbing to his feet and carrying the girl over to the infuser. He pushed the Aegis aside, and laid his daughter inside the device, standing over Tavian like he wasn't there.

"We can still do it," Jarden said, his voice pleading.

"Keep breathing, I'm going to fix everything. We didn't come this far to let you die." He started examining the infuser, and then he came to the shattered orb of the condenser. Jarden plucked it up, and stared at it, eyes wild. Influence began increasing, slowly. Tavian wondered how Lea had pulled off getting his message to Vanal. He blessed her name regardless. Feeling began to come back into his limbs. He tried to crawl to Calli.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Jarden seemed to notice the room around him for the first time. It was clean. The air was clear. The dark taint of miasma was almost entirely gone.

"What have you done?" Jarden muttered, his tongue snaking out and tasting the air.

"Where is all the miasma?" His eyes drifted over to the shield, lying on the ground. It pulsated with a black aura, the red gemstone eyes of the griffins on the front of it glowing softly.

"No. No! No, no, nooo…" Jarden descended into incomprehensible muttering. He cast the cracked orb of the miasma condenser aside and it smashed on the stones. He returned to his daughter, who fluttered her eyes weakly as he approached.

"No! What did you do!" Jarden screamed, burying his face in her shoulder.

"I was just trying to save her life!" Tavian pulled his arms under his body, struggling up onto hands and knees. If he could get to that shield… Jarden fell silent. Deadly silent.

"You've killed her," Jarden said. He arose, no longer trembling, and wiped sweat from his face. He walked calmly to where he'd dropped Tavian's sword.

"After everything I've done. After all the struggle, and the pain, and the desperation. After all the studying, and the failure. And now she's dead."

"Then there's nothing left for me to do," Jarden said, walking over and standing between Tavian and the shield. He held the sword to Tavian's neck.

"Please," Tavian wheezed, arms and legs shaking as he tried to hold up the weight of his body. Jarden raised the sword mechanically, preparing for the death blow. Tavian closed his eyes. Sword bit into flesh, scraping across bone, and a wet spray of hot gore spattered across Tavian's back. Jarden's body flopped to the ground in front of him, his head thumping to the ground and rolling into a corner. Tavian's sword clattered down nearby. A man loomed over Tavian.

He crouched, quietly cleaned his blade on Jarden's robes, and slid it back into his sheath.

"Well done, son," Cormath said, looking into Tavian's face. His voice was raspy, and strangely hollow.

"I knew you'd come back for me." Cormath had a large red gash across his neck. Caked with dried blood, it didn't seem to be bleeding at all. A familiar taint of blackened flesh spread out from the wound. His skin was pale—gray, almost—and his eyes were sunken. He reached out a hand to Tavian. Tavian collapsed back to the ground, uncertain.

"Cormath?" he asked.

"What happened to you?" He glanced over to his sword.

"Jarden tried to create a lich of his daughter," Cormath said, producing a tattered, ancient scroll.

"But you can't make someone into a lich," he said.

"They have to choose it." As Cormath spoke, his chest didn't move. He wasn't breathing.

"Are you… Did you die?" Cormath nodded grimly.

"I was gravely wounded," he said.

"She was hunting for me. She would have had me, too. I found this scroll, and in the end, it was the only way. I had to end my life." Tavian's gut churned. He looked between Cormath's still extended hand, and his own sword, lying nearby.

"Then you're a ghoul," Tavian said.

"You're under Lord Anarvia's control now."

"Not a ghoul," Cormath said.

"Not under anyone's control but my own, so long as I possess the phylactery to which my soul is bound." Tavian stared at the man for a long moment. He didn't know what to make of it. The dungeon mother—Avi? —had been telling the truth. Tavian could have wound up like this.

"I'm sorry, Cormath," Tavian said.

"I should have come for you sooner."

"You should not have come for me at all," Cormath said.

"But you were calling for me. I had… visions of you."

"Selfishness," Cormath said, a little twinkle in his eye.

"I can afford a bit of that, as a sword master. You, on the other hand, are a ruler, and are not allowed to be selfish any longer."

"That's exactly why I'm here," Tavian said.

"Are you going to let me help you up or not?" Tavian cautiously reached out and took Cormath's hand. His former mentor and sword master helped him to his feet. The man picked up Tavian's sword and handed it to him. Calli groaned.

"She's hurt," Tavian said.

"We need to get her out of here. Can you…" Cormath moved with a speed and grace Tavian had never seen before, kneeling beside Calli in an instant. He moved quickly, tearing strips of cloth from Calli's skirts and binding them around the gash in her arm and her side. Calli's body seemed to recoil involuntarily from the touch of the lich.

"She needs proper medical attention," Cormath said, rising and looking around the room. The six men of Captain Toral's fist lay strewn around. Some of the bodies were in much better shape than the others. Tavian sheathed his sword and stumbled over to Cormath.

"We can carry her," he said. He lifted his tunic, inspecting his own miasmic wound. The stubborn gash in his side, which had, for so long refused to heal, was gone. Only a black patch of flesh remained, a shadow of the injury he'd suffered. He felt a pull within it, directing him toward the Aegis.

"You're in no shape," Cormath said.

"I think… In my new state, I have some capacity… May I borrow the bodies of your men to assist me?" Tavian took a deep breath.

"Is it safe?" he asked.

"Or will they turn against us?"

"They'll remain under my control," Cormath said.

"I don't think I can animate a corpse for very long, though. And I can't think of another way to get them back to the surface." Tavian nodded grimly.

"Do it," he said. Tavian glanced around the room, looking with Darksight. Every surface oozed with tar-like goo, concentrations of miasma that had seeped into the stones over the years. Calli might have drained the free miasma from the halls here, but everything was still deeply tainted. A black mass pulsated in his side; miasma trapped there now, with no way for him to extract it. Tavian disabled his Perk. The room seemed bright and clean, under the brilliant glow of the infuser.

He slung the shield on his back as Cormath reanimated the soldiers. The men shambled over and lifted Calli between them, her hair tumbling down to the ground in platinum waves. Tavian stared. Her hair, once raven black, was now silvery white.