The yawning portal that Celeste created snapped into focus behind her as time resumed its normal flow. The howl of wind blowing through unending caverns came from the other side. Though instead of a single person stepping through the portal it was four.
Celeste recognised one of them, his nose still crooked from the time she beat him up. A man in a dark robe that seemed to flow around him, though she couldn't help but notice that the hem was lined with golden trim, showing his status. His face was gaunt, almost to the point of being hollow, and his white hair was slicked back and greasy. Mordecai, the Ilsher of death, was not someone that Celeste had expected to see. His face still had that smug sense of superiority that she had come to expect from every Ilsher, and as he looked at Celeste, the goddess could swear that she saw a sting of fear cross his features.
Next to him was another man wearing oiled leathers, moving silently, his posture betrayed not the smallest sound of his movements. Underneath the armour was a green tabard, showing that he must be the Green Ilsher. The tabard flowed into a hood, which had been pulled up to hide any features that might be shown. Combined with a strange leather mask that almost looked like a plague doctor mask, it was impossible to see any features of the Green Ilsher. The moment he stepped onto the battlefield, he almost seemed to vanish, as he melted into the shadows.
Thanks to the tracking through the tunnels, Celeste knew that the green house was the house of assassins in the drow world. She just hoped that the Ilsher would be more effective than the people he had sent after Martin and Celeste.
When Celeste saw the third man step out of the portal, she had to do a double-take. Tall, lanky, his hair tied into a ponytail, with a slowing blue robe that seemed to reflect the sunlight. It might have been Jasper, had it not been for the fact that this man was clearly a drow. He even seemed to have the same bad posture as her husband, and yet, the way he carried himself. The way he looked down his nose at everything around him. There was not the kindness in his eyes that she was used to seeing. His eyes weren't looking around for material to make some kind of dumb joke, and he didn't have that soft mannerism that she had come to expect. There was no doubt about that this was Blue Ilsher, and if the mage get-up was any indication, that house was concerned with magic.
It was, however, the woman behind them who took Celeste's attention. She wore a single piece of fabric across her body, swirled around her hips up her back, over her left shoulder and covering only one breast. before it ended at her hip. The piece of cloth was multi-hued and seemed to represent every one of the houses for the Ilshers. She had a stern look on her face, not as kind as Celeste would expect from a mother. Yet it conveyed a sense of disappointment and disapproval that only could come from a maternal figure. Nothing was stated outright, but it was still clear that she did not appreciate anything that she saw.
To her surprise Celeste saw a small line on the woman's body light up in gold, almost snaking along her body, and for a moment she could swear that she saw the golden line create text on the woman's exposed skin.
The cackling laughter from the Archdemon broke Celeste out of her analysis.
"Finally, Mother. You have come!" The Queen of the Night said. That all but confirmed the suspicions that Celeste had that the female Drow who had stepped in was Daikia, the mother of the drows and the Ilshers.
Her voice was firm, cold and hard as she answered her daughter. "Usstan tlun naut dosst ilhar, aterruce."
Martin looked deeply confused as he landed next to Celeste, the Mana Muncher flying off to try and recuperate its strength by hunting down some of those dragons.
"What did she say?" Asked the massive ork, adjusting his armour.
Celeste didn't have that good a grasp of the drow language, especially not since the woman seemed to talk with an accent. "She claimed not to be the Archdemon's mother."
Martin nodded, though Celeste could see that he wasn't really that interested in diving into the background of what had led to this clash.
"You may claim so, but I claim my birthright," The Archdemon spoke, and before she could finish, the shadows around her seemed to condense, and the leather-clad Green Ilsher stepped from the shadows, blade in hand, ready to plunge it into the Queen of the Night's back. The backhanded smack the Archdemon delivered to her brother's face wasn't loud enough to cover the sound of teeth breaking and shattering.
This was bad. If the Archdemon had been able to output that level of power, she had definitely been waiting for this to happen. There must have been a reason why she hadn't killed Martin and Celeste before.
"Z'lonzic d'nindol. Vel'bol zhahus dosst G'ravess inth wun nindol? Dos inth xuil Rivvin lu'Eroln?" Daikia spoke, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that one of her sons had taken such a hefty blow to the face. "Dos ph'nau dalharil d'usst, naut trok'hr ulu dosst arlathil, jhal trok'hr ulu dos tluin natha rothe ulu natha rivvil."
Celeste decided that she might as well translate for Martin, since Daikia apparently refused to speak in the common tongue, apparently believing that speaking such language was for the lesser races.
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"She said that she didn't disown Lasandra because of her archdemon nature, but rather due to her being a slave to a human," Celeste explained. "Also, something about her planning with humans and orks. She might mean us, but I have no idea."
"Oh, mother, I am no slave. Raffael Moordet knows the value of revenge, but honestly, this is not revenge. This is justice. You know it too. After all, it was your ritual that brought me here." Lasandra said with a soft smile. "Sol whol biu Sol. Natha dro whol natha dro."
Daikia's frown only seemed to deepen. "Dalharen, Usstan quarth dos. Elgg nindol jaxzo'llan. Elgg nindol rothe. Jous ilta l'ouvalyrin d'aphyon. VLOS!"
Celeste didn't have time to translate, since the world exploded into chaos all around them.
A thick line of dense energy erupted from the palm of the Blue Ilsher, the scent of ozone rapidly spreading as the magic impacted the Archdemon. Underneath Raffael Moordet, the corpses of the dragons started to shift, Mordecai raising them as undead.
Celeste felt an instinctive pull to block Mordecai's power, as her opposition to the undead fought with her need to defeat an archdemon. Her morals lost, and she instead focused on the self-proclaimed God of Demons.
Martin clearly had the same idea, as the loud boom of his cannon sent the temple shaking. His aim was true, as always, and where Raffael Moordet once had a shoulder, a nice circular hole was now located.
Blood started to leak from the wound, though instead of dripping onto the floor, it seemed to contort and pull on itself, until the arm and shoulder were recreated. The man had clearly been lying when he said that he was technically still mortal, or maybe that was something that a mortal could achieve.
Celeste didn't have time to contemplate it further. She stormed towards him, creating two small knives from some of the mithril in her cloak. Her charge towards Raffael Moordet only picked up speed as she made it past the Archdemon, fighting off some incredibly resilient undead dragons, but despite the fact that she was also defending against lightning bolts and energy beams in a barrage that would have put a machine gun to shame, Lasandra wasn't being forced to her knees. She was holding her ground.
In fact, as Celeste moved past her, she used the glaive that Celeste had created to strike at the Architect of Reality. Celeste didn't dodge, trusting her future sight to warn her of any danger, and as the blade crashed down, promising a swift end to the already injured Celeste, it was stopped by a dagger, seemingly from nothing.
The Green Ilsher, stepping out in front of the glaive, pushed it to the side. He didn't look injured, and Celeste couldn't help but notice that the one who had been hit before was still there. The goddess had a sneaking suspicion that the one who had been beaten down with a single strike wasn't really an Ilsher, but an elite trained mortal drow dressed as the Green Ilsher.
She didn't give it more thought, as she finally made it into the temple and started her attack on the still chanting god. His smile only seemed to widen and become more manic. He managed to dodge a couple of swings, but the spellcasting made his movements sluggish and languid. Or maybe that was the fact that he was missing a limb.
Combined with Martin's volley of bullets and even a grapeshot from his cannon, where every pellet seemed to hone in on the god, it was clear that they had won the fight.
Raffael Moordet's body tried to heal itself, rapidly recreating parts as they were cut or torn off, but it was too slow to keep up with the damage that was inflicted.
With a final gurgling grin, he lunged forward, ready to strike at Celeste. Once more, Celeste stood with a choice. She knew that she could end this, but it would require that she take a hit. With a deep breath, she decided to end things. There was no pain. No horror as the knife hit her stomach.
The god of lies and deception had plunged forward with such speed and force that he was he was practically bending over to reach her. She saw her life drain from 18 to 8. But she followed up with her own attack. Her own knives expanded into short swords, and with a swift movement, she tore through Raffael Moordet's midsection. Tearing him apart as he made his final attack.
As his lower half vanished, Celeste could hear his ragged voice try to catch some air. His lips moved just a tiny bit, until he coughed up a black glop of some kind of ichor, which stained the white temple floor and mixed with the blood from the dragons.
Celeste looked down at him, aware that killing a god wasn't as easy as to defeat them in battle, but it would banish him to his home plane. And yet he didn't look shocked or defeated, he looked... victorious?
"I present the key. I present the key... I present the key." His voice ragged and barely audible. He kept repeating those four words.
The dagger with Celeste's blood started to glow, first bright dark, and with a flick of will, it was like the world itself turned monochrome. The blade coated in Celeste's blood burned with a black flame that seemed to suck in everything around it. The world shuddered, and above the temple, the tree that represented Esselaia faltered, instead becoming a large circular spiral. Had it always been this? Had Raffael Moordet been hiding what spell he had been casting?
The dagger floated up, slowly rising in the air, turning sideways and then rotating like a key. With a click, something unlocked. Something that Celeste believed she had sealed away. An invisible gate opened, a gate made to hold back the very thing that sorted souls. The Whirlpool of Souls was on the other side, shimmering between the Spheres. An opening had been made, and Raffael Moordet smiled, his soul trying to pass on, but Celeste didn't let it. She wasn't about to let him escape by simply dying.
The Whirlpool of Souls was meant to sort the souls of those who died to the right god, based on their preferences. It was a structure of pure death, and it was meant to overcome the teleportation problem. Now, however, it was being abused. The spell that Raffael Moordet had cast started to tear off bits of the Whirlpool, and with a speed that was impossible to truly see, it lashed out, striking through the gate and hitting Daikia right in the chest.
Her eyes seemed to almost instantly fade, as one of the few things that could truly kill a god was invoked. Celeste couldn't hear the screams of the Ilshers, so close was she to the strand from the Whirlpool. All she could hear was the screams of the souls that had passed, and she cursed herself and her morals for thinking that she knew what was best.
Daikia's skin seemed to turn ashen, and the shifting golden script that appeared on her body slowly faded. She had been the rock that tied all the drow houses together. She had been stability and ruthlessness, and now she was no more.
From the sphere of the demons, laughter could be heard through the still-open gate, as a new Archdemon was born. One that was the opposite of the goddess that had once been. An Archdemon of Madness and Instability.
Do you prefer open systems (Everyone can pick and use every skill, like Skyrim)
Open system or Class system?
