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Bloodsworn Ch. 14
🕑 Added 2024-11-07 19:40:40 +0000 UTC14.
Erak
Bloodsworn lvl. 8
Strength: 30
Vigor: 20
Durability: 20
Perception: 23
Processing: 15
The burst in power was relatively small, but the improvement was still welcome. He was growing weary of squinting all the time in the dim spaces. While the increase in perception did not make the world as bright and clear as the daylight outside, it did push the murk back a bit further.
He rose, steady and strong, and looked down into the depths of the sewers as Julius came bubbling up. The man tossed his hair back and forth, gasping and gagging as he struggled to stay above the water as he hoisted the spear towards Erak.
Erak pulled the spear, and the professor, up with ease. His ancestry had made him stronger than almost all mortal men, and his training had made it even more so. Killing his foes and reaping their power had made him unnaturally strong. He felt he could contest a full blooded giant now with the strength flowing through his limbs. There was a whisper in his mind to challenge that being in the portal, to stand before its presence as it lobbed cursed fire at him and stand before it.
The weight of his vows kept him grounded. There was nothing that could stand before that creature and survive. At least not yet. If he continued on his path, he would meet that thing in a contest of strength, skill, and steel. Erak’s heart hammered excitedly at that thought, yearning for the Challenge that could not be conquered.
“Erak, we should be close to an exit that would have us out of the sewers and into the streets beyond the Hall of Justice. Look for a ladder or maintenance tunnel to the surface,” Rutledge said, her sharp eyes peeling away the layers of armor between them. She saw through him, into his being and saw that his battle lust was rising higher and higher.
Erak nodded and simply patted Julius gently on the shoulder in thanks as the other man tugged his boots on. The soldiers watched this exchange with no words, their eyes still locked on the swiftly settling waters and the beast that Erak had slain. Soon enough they would have been able to match it, though Erak was beginning to wonder how far their casters would carry them in the long run.
Nevia had kept her sword drawn, having abandoned or lost her own caster. The officer peeled her eyes off the water and looked about.
“Eyes up and about! Emperor’s Blood, Constance! Squad, eyes on the rear,” Nevia railed back and forth between her and Constance’s fire teams, trying to get them to maintain some form of discipline.
Erak shook water off of himself and checked to see if there was any damage to either the shield or the spear. Both appeared pristine, ready to keep fighting without a mar upon them.
It took only a few more minutes before he found what Rutledge had talked about. Those minutes were crucial, as the heat in his chest for the battle faded to a steady glow in his core. He would have to be careful when affixing if he was consumed by battle lust every time. The urge was still there but had settled into something that could easily be set aside.
A simple ladder, steel embedded into stone, led up into a narrow tunnel. Erak held his spear in his shield hand and climbed awkwardly up. His shoulders grated on the sides of the passage as he continued to shuffle upward. This more than anything calmed his mind even as he grew more and more frustrated with the lack of size in the tunnel. This passage had been made for dwarves! Or at least diminutive humans.
The tunnel was capped with a thick piece of steel that Erak had to strain against. He wedged his shoulders and back against one side of the tunnel and pushed with his legs and free arm, until with a might scream the rusted bolts snapped and the plate was freed.
Erak scrambled up, switching his spear to his free hand, and looking about himself. In the hours since he had left the surface, the world had changed. The smoke clouded the horizon, thick and black with streaks of red and gold lighting zipping through it. Fires leapt all around him as the Imperial City burned, the cries of the dying having fallen silent as the denizens were slain.
All around the skies were infested with shapes, bat wings stretched out in ragged sails as they floated on the updraft of the fires. Battle sounded, further away that before, as some still held hope. Erak peered about looking for the distinctive tower of the Iron Cathedral and the portal that dwarfed it.
Miles away he saw it, the being sitting there, perched in the frame of it. Boredom and pain stitched across its features as it waited, ghastly and great all at the same time. Further away, across the city from the cathedral but only a few miles from him, the Sword of Empire still sailed, connected to the earth by the floating docks of the Armory.
Erak could hear the fighting still coming in that direction, the clash and scream of war beckoning him forth. Nevia and her soldiers continued up, spreading around him as horror spread across their faces. Rutledge simply observed, face as calm and placid as ever. Julius buried into himself, his shoulders shrinking as he trembled.
“What…what?” One of the soldiers murmured, their eyes growing wet and their face ashen.
“Stow that shit! The Armory still stands, we move towards it now.” Nevia’s voice was a whipcrack and the soldiers found their faltering courage and wove it into a cloak of armor. Erak started moving, heading through the maze of burning streets and homes towards the towering edifice that was the Armory.
It was perched atop one of the three hills of the Imperial City, furthest from the city’s core. A monstrously large fortress that had once been a king’s castle before the Conquering. Now it held a battalion of infantry, the entrance to the floating docks and the fleet, and an entire regiment of armored cavalry.
Peering through the smoke and haze Erak could see flashes of caster fire coming from the walls. Bursts as thick as trees scouring the city around its base. Purple blazes fired back though, rotten and rich they hit the white walls of the armory and left them stained and cracked.
Erak began to move them towards the thickest part of where that purple-black fire came from. He hopped through alleys and darted across streets, all the while keeping an eye on the skies and the swirling hordes above him.
He paused at the end of one side street, peering at a wide river of stone that formed one of the main boulevards for the city. Corpses lay thicker than a carpet, a mess of flesh and bone, demon and man twisted together forever more. A parade to honor the newest Queen, turned to a slaughter before anyone could react.
Now it lay deserted, with the only movement the hot, ashy wind stirring tattered clothes. Erak looked down the long boulevard, stretching onward to reach the heart of the city and beyond, the Imperial Palace. Far enough away the boulevard would pass under the eye of the being sitting above the Iron Cathedral.
To the other direction shapes bounded forward. A knot of tall figures, each over eight feet tall with shoulders as broad as boulders. Swords, spears, and great hammers could be seen as no more than shadows in the thick smoke. They grew closer and closer, looming until they were visible.
Armored head to toe in gray and white armor and furs. Ancient ceremonial weapons renewed with purpose. Half-man and half-giant, true scions of the Northern Polar Fields.
Deathsworn lvl. 10
