Lich Lord, Chapter 154

I caught the dagger out of the air that Raven tossed to me. I held the priest down on the altar. The powerful death energy contained within beginning to leak out through the ritual. Nothing had fundamentally changed. I’d hope somehow the altar would absorb the death energy.

The bishop struggled, having become aware of what was going on. “You monster,” he snarled.

I brought the dagger down, pouring mana into it to activate the swift sacrifice and total sacrifice abilities.. The dagger slammed into his chest, punching through the robes with ease and penetrating his heart. He  gasped as the final dregs of his life were ripped out by the dagger. As remnants of his lifeforce poured into the altar as he died, his eyes full of horror and hate. I guess I didn’t blame him for hating me, I did pity him for following a mad god though.

Nothing happened at first, though something definitely had stabilized within. I tentatively placed my hand on the altar, trying to figure out what was going on. A window popped up after a moment of concentration.

Profaned Death Altar

This is an unclaimed altar.

The power of this altar was changed forcibly with the application of divine energy and death energy. Its nature was then further twisted and altered when the high priest of its temple was sacrificed on it. The altar now emits a powerful death aura, and weak souls untouched by death that venture too close will be doomed to die.

A revenant is bound to this altar. The priest who died refused his death in such a way that a fragment of his soul remained behind and has become a revenant that now haunts this altar. The only way this revenant will be tamed is by the altar being claimed by either a dark god, or by being purified.

As a member of an order that serves a god, you can claim this altar for your god. Do you wish to do so?

Y/N

I out of instinct hit yes, having forgotten that the Order of Equinox was technically speaking, a religious order. There was a pause and then another notification appeared before me.

Your god has declined control of the altar.

Note:

Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t really use altars. In particular this kind of altar, it is not my style. Sacrificing a high priest on his own altar, yikes man. Then again, Olattee is a little bit of a dick anyways. Keep up the good work.

– Ekwin

Somehow, I wasn’t surprised that the god of balance didn’t want a profaned death altar. I would have to remember to send a message back to Vito. Certainly this new death priest he was creating would be able to send someone to take control.

“Zeke, I’m going to get out of here,” Raven said, looking at him. “I don’t feel great.”

“Of course.” I’d forgotten that she would be affected by the altar. I tossed her dagger back to her. She had resistances to death magic, but pure death energy was a different thing altogether. “Abdon, take the prisoners out of here too. I don’t want them dying.”

Abdon nodded in acknowledgment as he and the others gathered up the members of the temple that had surrendered and hurried them out. As I stepped back from the altar, a shadowy figure rose out of the body of the high priest. It was the revenant.

The thing swiped at me with etheric black claws, but I didn’t bother trying to stop it. It tore at me, but the only thing it could hurt would be my soul, which was not easily done after all the work done by Damian and Ilore, while the death magic and energy contained within the revenant was meaningless against me. More shadowy figures began to rise from the fallen, but this time they were spirits. They were no threat to me since I was immune to their attacks but nonetheless I left the temple; my mission accomplished, they temple would no longer be a problem.

I left the captives under the guard of a platoon of bone guards and remounted Shadow, heading towards the fortress with my squad. As we approached, I heard Maxwells music, and coming around the corner I saw him. On the back of Snappy, a small stage had been built out of bone for him and his skeletal band. Around Snappy and the stage there floated different sound nodes emitting the notes needed for the music. It was the tail end of “Bodies” by Drowning Pool.

***

“Colonel Demetrius!” A voice stirred Igerna Demetrius, commander of Fort Ost, from a restless sleep. The next second there was hammering on his door.

“This better be good,” he snarled, checking a magical time keep he had on the wall. The sun would be rising in a few hours. Only then did he notice the alarm horns blaring across the city. That sped up his movements. He grabbed his sword and threw on a chain mail shirt and helmet, because he didn’t have time for his armor.

“What’s the situation?” Demetrius demanded as he burst through his door.

“A fog bank rolled in, and with it came the attack by an undead army,” the lieutenant informed him. He thought his name was Padre, but he wasn’t certain nor did he care right now.

“If they aren’t already up, get me Lieutenant Colonels Sagerious and Conse,” Demetrius ordered and the lieutenant scrambled away to follow those orders. He then went down two flights of stairs and turned down the hallway, entering his command room. In the middle of the room was a table that had a map of the city, and though it wasn’t a fancy magical map though it was very detailed. In the room, Lieutenant Colonel Conse was already talking with several of his captains. They all saluted the colonel as soon as he entered the room.

“Talk to me, Conse,” Demetrius demanded as he strode for the balcony attached to the room.

The lieutenant colonel and his captains fell in. “Happened quick. We lost the outer city for certain, and we only barely got the gate closed in time before a horde of specters tried to pour in. The magic of the gate is holding them back for now.”

The mustering yard just past the forts gate was three stories below him, and that thick fog shrouded it so completely, he could barely see shapes moving around below. In some places it looked so thick it appeared almost solid.

“How has this damned fog not been dispelled yet?” Demetrius demanded. “It’s clearly magical.” He was a battle mage, his skills of magic were not that of a wizard, but even he could tell it was a magical fog.

“The clerics are working on it,” Conse explained. “Lieutenant Colonel Sagerious left a moment before you arrived to get them to move faster.”

That was good. Sagerious was the one in charge of the magical side of his force. “Send a message to him to have his clerics also activate the fort wide regeneration.”

“Yes, sir.” Conse nodded at one of his captains who saluted back and ran off. “The rest of you, you have your orders; get your troops on top of  the walls and make sure everyone is awake and armed.”

“How and when did it start and what is our status?” Demetrius asked.

“The lookout on the wall reported an unusual fog bank rolling in about five minutes before the first horn sounded. Five minutes after the first we got the gate closed, barely in time before the specters could rush in,” Conse explained. “I was on watch at the time, still processing the fog when the horn sounded.”

“Good job getting the gate closed,” Demetrius said. “Hopefully the reason they rushed the gate is that they are a weak force and needed to take us by surprise.”

“We know for certain this is not an undead horde that is undirected,” Conse nodded along. “The fog bank and the coordination seem too great for that.”

Demetrius was about to respond when an eerie purple light began to shine through the portcullis gate. The light grew in intensity and power showing it was something else, where a regular spell would’ve been cast within only a few seconds, that was something more. “Get a runner to Sagerious!” he shouted. “Tell him to ignore the fog and focus on the defensive barriers on the gate, the blood be dammed!” He wished they had the communication discs they’d been promised. He doubted the runners would make it in time, his only hope being that the lieutenant colonel would see it before it was too late.

Yet the eerie purple light poured through the gate, growing brighter and brighter until the fog below him was illuminated like a lake of purple cotton. The wizards’ casting room was higher up in the fort and would not have a straight line of sight to the fog unless they were standing near the edge, which only a maniac would do. His magical senses alerted him to a pulse of magic from above, and he cursed as the fog lessened.

As if timed together, an alarm flared in the room telling him that the captain of the city guard had just been killed moments after his wizards attempted to dispel the fog. A moment after the alarm flared, there was an explosion that rocked the entire fort.

The portcullis gate was thrown across the mustering yard, slamming into the building a floor below him. Eerie purple fire spread out in a torrent, though the worst part were the shadowy figures now poured in through the gate. Scarlet magic built around Demetrius as he began to build his own spell. “Now we’re down to the brass tacks I guess.”

There were tall powerful looking figures striding through the purple flames, surrounded by zombies with glowing eyes. The tall figure in the middle looked up at him, and their eyes met for the briefest of moments. He heard of the power he saw there. Something eldritch had come them.

There was a moment of hesitation when he was caught in that tall woman’s gaze and in that moment came the attack.

A black bolt of death lightning hammered into Demetrius, accompanied by two magic missiles that exploded upon impact, releasing waves of death magic across the front of  fort. Demetrius stood at the center. His spell was overwhelmed by the immense power brought to bear. Technically he was stronger than any one of his opponents, but it didn’t matter when one was so completely overwhelmed by a combined cast.

As Demetrius’s fire spell came apart, he was encased in death magic. The black death lightning leapt from him ,tore through the building, striking a soldier and jumped to another one. It chained multiple times across the fort. The flesh that the power flowed through rotted and died instead of searing.

As Demetrius was barely conscious, only noticing he was falling, the balcony he’d been standing on completely crumbling apart. The ground rushed up to meet him, and as he fell he barely saw one of the figures wielding twin war hammers already swinging for his head. His corpse was all that slammed into the far wall a moment later.