B3 C58: The Door Breaks Open

AN: Long chapter today! This probably should be two chapters, but I promised we'd be ending this arc, and so we're ending it. Post-edits, I'll probably try to move some of the Cal stuff to an earlier chapter to keep the tone and mood more consistent, but even so, this chapter has been a long time in the making, and I hope you all enjoy!

~~~~~~~

Cal, to her credit, did not waste any time.

The dagger sank deep into the flesh of Warram’s neck before she yanked it out. And then again. And again. In rapid succession, the small blade almost looked like an industrial sewing machine as she turned his neck into little more than mincemeat. Not once did Warram fight back either. Whether paralyzed or otherwise frozen, I wasn’t sure.

For good measure, Cal jabbed her dagger a single time into his forehead as well, his body finally slumping to the ground. A few of the wounds had already turned into miniature fountains, blood streaming out of them to coat the floor.

Distantly, I felt that my first reaction to the scene was wrong, but I couldn’t help it: It was pretty. He would have made a very nice centerpiece in a garden, I thought. Even as Cal approached to undo my bindings, I just kept staring as the blood left the man who’d been torturing me this entire time. It feels nice. Maybe this is how therapy is actually supposed to work? Something in the back of my head told me that wasn’t right, but I couldn’t remember why.

“Gah, fuck.” Cal tried to yank my chains off, the metal sucking the mana out of her as she made contact with it. “You just sit tight, okay? I mean, not like you can really do anything else right now, but I’m going to get you out of here. It’s all over.”

I giggled at the obvious lie. “No it’s not.” Cal cocked her head to the side, signaling for me to elaborate. Not like she actually needed me to, but I decided to humor her anyway. “Cal can’t be here right now. That means you’re just a hallucination. And that I’m still dying. So it’s not actually over if you think about it. That’s okay though. Glad I got to see you again, even if you’re not real. I missed you, not-Cal.”

Not-Cal smiled at that, but it wasn’t the sort of smile I enjoyed. Her brows bunched together. There was a faint tightening of her muscles. A wrinkle in her nose. It was a broken smile, I thought. Not at all the sort of expression that the real Cal ever wore.

I felt something faint brush up against my mind, adding another tally to the “this is a figment of my imagination” theory. Either that, or not-Cal had picked up some sort of soothing skill as part of her fake priestess class. That was a real possibility, actually. It was something Cal would never do, but considering this was not-Cal, then that would make sense, right?

“Tess. I have absolutely no clue what’s going on here, but listen -- I’m real. Real, real. Super real.” Not-Cal reached out and poked me in the cheek, but that was hardly proof. Sensing my continued disbelief, she sighed.

“All right. Not like I don’t have time to explain. Pretty sure taking all these chains off is going to take a few minutes. But honestly, it’s not even that wild a story…”

~~~~~~~~~~

Viscous black sludge wormed its way out of every pore and orifice of Cal’s body, the only break from the endless darkness surrounding her being a few small clumps of red that escaped her too. It hurt, and without a doubt, she would have been screaming had the gunk in her throat not precluded that option.

If that weren’t bad enough, the entire experience came with a running commentary too.

“Man, that’s really gross, you know?” Hexaura lounged in her black pool chair, sipping on an equally dark drink as she watched Cal sweat and vomit out a swamp’s worth of sludge. “Can I be honest with you, Cal? I didn’t think it would take this long. I’m getting kind of bored. You mind if I just, uh, head out?”

Finally! Leave! As thankful as Cal was for the training, she wanted Hex to fuck right off at the moment. She couldn’t say so with her throat blocked, but fortunately, that didn’t stop the mind reader from understanding her.

“Awesome, I’m going to dip, then. I know you were hoping for a really touching and sappy goodbye where I gushed about how much I enjoyed training a disciple and we hugged it out, but you smell bad and I want to go on vacation with my girlfriend.” The goddess started to fold up her pool chair, going through the motions of packing up. “But don’t worry about it! If you survive a century or two, I’ll try to remember to say hi.”

Leave, leave, leave, leave. And thank you. I owe you a lot. But also fuck you.

Hex only chuckled at that. “Anywho, you want me to send you anywhere when you’re done extruding nastiness? No need to go back to those training grounds I made. Free ride, on me.”

Had Cal not currently been having the least comfortable experience of her life, she might have thought that generous. As it was, she barely had the mental wherewithal to seriously consider the question.

Not my father. Need to be wearing my priestess outfit to see him. Tess? Yeah, I should check in with Tess first.

Hex hummed out a low note of disappointment. “Oooh, unlucky. She actually just started a dungeon run.”

Fine! Just put me outside the dungeon. If Tess took too long, Cal would just head to the bar or the bathhouse to wait. Gods only knew that she needed a stiff drink and a bath.

Hex only shrugged. “If that’s what you want, then okay! Tell the others how good of a teacher I am! And don’t get too mad at me when you check your notifications! Number one god of darkness… Out!”

Get mad? What did you do to me?

Rather than answer, the goddess winked out of existence.

And just like that, Cal’s grueling months of training with Hex came to a close.

With that, she was left all alone with nothing to do but push out gallons of gunk. It almost seemed like her plight would carry on forever, but of course, nothing ever did. The sludge and its accompanying pain eventually slowed down before stopping altogether.

Congratulations! Your skills have evo-

She would have enjoyed some light reading right about then or just a breather in general; however, the very moment her transformation ended, Cal’s surroundings changed as she was whisked away.

Can Hex even do that? I thought I was still in my class space.

She shrugged, deciding that wasn’t the important part right now. What was important was that none of the muck had come with her. She was even now wearing a completely new set of skin-tight black clothes, too.

True to Hex’s words, Cal had been teleported, a dungeon portal standing right before her.

Unfortunately, there was an issue with that.

Because.

Sure.

It was a dungeon portal, just like she’d been promised.

Only.

That’s sure as hell not the dungeon I was expecting.

A few passersby had spotted her spontaneous appearance, but Cal was hardly in a mood to answer any questions right now. Immediately, she dropped into stealth and fled, climbing to a nearby rooftop. From her vantage point, she had a perfect view of the dungeon portal.

Well, I have no clue where I am, but Tess has to come out at some point, doesn’t she?

~~~~~~~~~~

Sitting and waiting, as it turned out, was monstrously boring. If this was what Hex had gone through while watching her, then Cal could understand why she’d left early. It also made her doubly glad she was only a fake priestess, as all that sitting and praying would have surely driven her mad.

On the flip side, it did give her a great opportunity to read through her notifications. She also immediately saw what Hex had preemptively told her not to get mad about.

Note! Your race has been upda-

So it was that. Fucking mind-reading dark gods. With a scowl, she scrolled farther down, not willing to give the line another thought. Several dozen notifications followed detailing exactly what she’d won from suffering through that harrowing, sludge-filled transformation. She was essentially a little better at, well, everything now, but the bulk of the difference was to her mana control.

Which was all well and good, but it also wasn’t what she’d been after. Towards the bottom were the lines she’d been waiting for.

Congratulations! You have reached the Master rank in Stealth!

Based on your feats, skills, and other relevant factors, you have been granted a skill evolution. Your Stealth skill is unchanged, but 63 of your other skills and spells have combined to form the evolved skill: Apex Shroud.

Apex Shroud

Fully and completely erase your presence from any set of senses of your choosing. By default, this skill will shroud you from all senses.

While this skill is in use, you are not considered a valid target for any skills which require line-of-sight target selection.

Additionally, this skill passively adds half of its skill level to your Stealth skill.

Mana and stamina costs variable based on how many senses you choose to block, decreasing with each level.

Hells. Legendary. More than that, it was the exact skill she’d been after, too. Real invisibility.

There were a few more notifications about achievements and completed class quests, but Cal was almost itching to try her new skill out. Before she could, however, she noticed some sort of commotion by the dungeon portal. A woman rushed out carrying two people in her arms, shouting something and pushing one of her party members into the hands of healers before collapsing.

With a start, Cal realized the woman was exactly who she’d been waiting for. Tess.

She would have rushed over, but it seemed whatever was happening wasn’t quite done yet. Some man in a guard’s uniform helped Tess up before escorting her into a carriage.

Taking her to a hospital or a healer maybe? Regardless, she’d looked pretty distressed back there. Probably not the time for a grand reunion. For now, Cal would just follow along and wait to make her dramatic entrance.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The hells? Was someone mocking her?

She’d taken her eye off the carriage for one second as it turned into an alley, and then it was suddenly gone.

Now, Cal understood that things were likely to work a little differently in cities that weren’t Ftheran, but she was still pretty sure that carriages didn’t magically disappear.

She dropped into the alleyway in question, trying out her new Apex Shroud just to be safe. Nothing immediately called out to her eyes, but her class was a separate matter entirely. Her Infiltrator skills sang out one after another. She wasn’t sure exactly what was off about her surroundings, but it was clear that things weren’t as they seemed.

Well, fine. I always did like a good puzzle.

~~~~~~~~~~

Cal had to admit she’d been wrong. Sometimes, she did not enjoy a good puzzle. The entire trip had taken her hours. Hours! Either Tess had gotten involved in some sort of secret society, or she’d been teleported to the most paranoid city in the world, because this was just ridiculous. Illusions. Fake walls. Hidden levers. A dash of mental magic. Especially considering she wasn’t the strongest tracker, she’d had to backtrack half a dozen times just to keep the trail.

But she’d found it.

A tiny room at the end of a rune-covered tunnel, hidden under a statue in a barracks-like building. Even the entrance was obfuscated, although from the looks of it, it was made to be harder to see from the inside than the out.

A few months prior, sneaking in unobserved would have been an issue for her. Doors, after all, were the natural enemy of rogues. Fortunately, however, one of the numerous spells her Apex Shroud had absorbed was her Soma of the Sylph, and by erasing her presence from those who could detect air displacement, she gained a similar effect. Dispersing into air, Cal squeezed under the door and into a dark, dungeon-like cell, reconstituting into her usual solid form.

She hadn’t been sure what she would find at the end of all her searching, but even in her darkest thoughts, it hadn’t been this.

A haggard and sweating man stood with instruments of torture and death laid out before him. A perfectly still body on the floor was all the evidence she needed that he was willing to use them, too.

And then there was Tess.

Chained. Gashes, cuts, and stabs all over her body. Her eyes were dim, dull, and listless.

Cal saw red.

For the briefest of moments, Cal wondered if she was overreacting in some way. There were those who would willingly undergo scenarios like this to level. The best way to resist torture, after all, was to endure it.

But no. The body on the floor, the layers of secrecy, the spittle flying from the man’s mouth as he yelled increasingly unhinged threats. It was all more proof than she needed.

Cal readied her daggers, applying the strongest paralytic she had on her, a standard must-have for an Infiltrator for the few times she was ever caught. She walked right up to him, trusting in her skill to keep her hidden. When finally right behind him, she stabbed. The dagger sank into his neck, almost immediately paralyzing him.

On the incredibly slim chance she was misreading the situation, she dropped the visual and auditory components of her skill, appearing out of thin air.

“Just to double check, but I can kill him, right?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Cal finished her tale, the last of the chains binding Tess fell to the floor. Rather than jumping for joy or hugging Cal, though, Tess only sat there, equally motionless as she had been while chained.

“And that’s pretty much it. Killed your torturer. Unchained you. And here we are. Just let me heal you really quick and we can get out of here now, okay?”

That would have been nice, she thought. Tess would be saved and healed. In time, she would forget about whatever the hells had happened here. If not a happy ending, then an acceptable one.

Before Cal could so much as cast a cantrip, however, the entire room erupted with light, blinding her. Even while unable to see, Cal spun to the corpse of the man she’d stabbed, unable to believe he was alive but ready to throw a dagger at him nonetheless.

She never got the chance. With a raspy, quiet, and burbling voice, the man she knew she’d killed got out a single word.

“... charge…”

She didn’t even have time to wonder what he meant before she collapsed, the notifications flooding in.

You have confessed your crimes! The arm of the law weighs heavily upon you.

You have confessed to entering the city through unlawful means.

You have confessed to having an illegal class without a permit.

You have confessed to stalking a government official.

You have confessed to trespassing on private, government grounds.

You have confessed to the attempted murder of a guardsman.

You have confessed to the attempted murder of the family member of a chamber head.

Stats reduced by 90% (reduced to 75% due to level difference).

Stamina and mana regeneration halted

Your mana has been locked.

You have been frozen in place.

Unable to even lift a finger, Cal was free only to her thoughts, one of them rising to the top.

Huh. This might be a little bad.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One moment, not-Cal had finished freeing me from my chains; the next, I was completely blinded. Distantly, I noted that the flash of light was painful, bringing tears to my eyes, but it was only a small footnote on the list of agonies my body was suffering through. Still, I wasn’t a fan of having my sight robbed from me. With the tiny sliver of mana I was now regaining, I activated Light Sight, protecting myself against future flashes.

When my vision cleared, it was to a curious sight.

There was not-Cal, only, she was lying on the floor. Hadn’t she been saying something about healing me?

Stranger yet was the corpse of Warram. For a corpse, it was looking decidedly un-corpse-like. The bloody gashes across his throat were now only red welts of raw skin, and the singular puncture wound on his forehead knitted itself back together as I watched. His healing did nothing for his blood, however, which was still liberally smeared across his face and neck.

See? I knew it was all fake. Just a hallucination.

Not-dead Warram shakily lifted himself to his feet, jerking his head my way. A familiar notification soon followed.

You have been affected by the Law’s Embrace!

I almost welcomed it this time, its secondary effects stopping the myriad of wounds he’d inflicted on me from damaging me further.

Or I would have if it had actually worked.

Warram’s skill flickered in and out, my nerves shifting between relief and pain in rapid succession.

Odd thing to hallucinate, actually. Or maybe this is already death? Too many thoughts. Who really cared, anyway? Most of my focus was still spent on holding back the pressure. It was growing harder to remember why I was even doing that in the first place, but I knew that it was important, and so I did it anyway.

Not-dead Warram began ever-so-slowly approaching not-Cal, his voice sounding only marginally better than one would expect after getting stabbed in the neck that many times.

“You’re dead. You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead. I’m tired of the interrogation. I’m killing you, and then I’m killing her. I’m done.”

That was a shame. I liked not-Cal. She reminded me a lot of actual-Cal. Her story even sounded like something actual-Cal might have done, didn’t it?

My entire brain ground to a halt at that.

There was something important there. Something I was missing. And then, at last-

Oh.

Oh!

Not-Cal was not not-Cal. Not-Cal was actual-Cal.

What a good realization. I felt proud at figuring that out for myself.

For whatever reason, though, the pressure in my head seemed to intensify, making further thoughts even harder. A nap… A nap would have been so nice right about then.

As Warram neared Cal’s prone form, however, my mind seemed very determined to have an entire second thought. Were I a computer, my fans would have been whirring at a frightening speed as my head grew hot from the sheer exertion. Still, with all my considerable computational power, I managed to arrive at an exceptionally intelligent second thought.

That’s bad.

It repeated itself over and over again, each time with an increasing urgency, until I could feel my head clear slightly. I wasn’t sure I liked that, in fact, as the clarity arrived with a proportional sense of dread. Both of them rose and rose until, if barely, I understood.

He’s going to kill her. Never mind the “how” of it -- what the hell am I doing? Why the fuck am I just sitting here?

I lunged at the two of them, or at least tried to, but it was no use. Even with Law’s Embrace flitting in and out, my muscles didn’t have enough time between each application to make any meaningful motions.

I need something, now. My addled mind raced for a solution, finding only one. If his skill is failing, maybe…

I waited for the very instant Law’s Embrace fell from me, and hoping against hope, I tried to plunge myself into my class space.

I failed.

The second time, the third time, the fourth time, I failed again, with each failure, a cloud of smoke blooming in my mind as I tuned out the crescendo of my beating heart.

Please. Please, just let it work.

And blissfully, on the fifth try, it did. The gray smoke arrived, swallowing me whole and depositing me somewhere far kinder. I barely took in my surroundings as I raced through my class space, knowing exactly which class skill I wanted.

Status Resistance

While wearing armor summoned or enhanced by Arcane Armory, all negative, non-physical statuses will have their effects reduced. For temporary effects, additionally reduces the duration of the effect. For channeled effects, additionally increases the cost and effort required to affect you.

An entire five points went directly into the skill, and then I exited my space immediately. The next time Law’s Embrace dropped, I summoned my plate armor, my new skill going into effect along with it.

For the briefest of moments, I worried it wouldn’t be enough. And partially, it wasn’t.

You have been affected by the Law’s Embrace!

Once more I was frozen, but this time, the skill fell even faster, its next application delayed. In the interim, I stood.

Noticing the motion, Warram froze, unable to process what he was seeing.

“No. I still have mana! It should be working on you.” He stopped moving towards Cal, his entire focus spent on reinforcing his skill.

It almost worked, too. Sadly, all the practice he’d given me was his own undoing.

Impairment Resistance has reached level 4!

The next time the skill dropped, I took a step.

Another. Another. Unceasingly, inextricably, I drew myself forward.

Warram wasn’t entirely stupid. He understood the score. Rather than fight a losing battle, he dropped the skill entirely, trying to run from me.

Unfortunately for the guardsman, his Dexterity was far lower than mine.

Fully free at last, I dove at him, crashing into him and driving him to the floor. I thought I might need to get some of the chains he’d used on me, but there was no need. Physically, he proved to be laughably weak, the weight of my armor proving more than enough to keep him down.

I spun him about before straddling him, ignoring his awkward attempts to punch at my armor. Far from his usual indifferent demeanor or even the mad scowl he’d recently donned, I found a much different Warram this time.

Before I even summoned my weapon, before I made a single threat, he was already blubbering, tears streaming down his face.

“Stop! Stop. You can’t. You know my chamber would never allow it. I’ll turn myself in! I’ll go into exile. I’ll get my class stripped from me. Anything! I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I was wrong. I’ll pay you. Give you priceless artifacts. I’ll sign a soul oath to do whatever you want. Mercy…”

With each word, the anger I’d thought buried started to resurface. From a spark, to a flame, to a raging inferno, it grew until there was nothing else but the rage. Rage at the man who’d crushed my hopes of having a peaceful life in Sylum. Who’d hounded me at every step, who’d turned a friend against me, who’d killed some of the people I loved the most. Who’d just tried to kill me.

And he had the gall to ask for mercy. Where had that mercy been only moments before?

I tried to be a good person most of the time. To not kill. I did. I really tried.

Even I, however, had my limits.

Almost without conscious thought, the pickaxe appeared in my hands, and with a beautiful finality, I brought it down.

You have killed Warram’Goss!

+321xp

Even looking at him like that, with his head practically having exploded outwards, that feeling of rage didn’t subside. It wasn’t enough. Wasn’t close to enough.

It was almost a relief, then, when the room erupted into light once more. This time fast enough to activate my Light Sight prior to being blinded, I had the great misfortune to watch as Warram’s head reformed, slightly misshapen and raw with patches of hair now missing.

“STO-”

CRUNCH. I brought my pickaxe down once again, brain matter scattering across the room.

You have killed Warram’Goss!

+51xp (Experience reduced for multiple kills)

I figured that cheating death a third time might be beyond him, but no! Again the room lit up, and again he came back together.

I wanted to be sad. I really did. With all the tragedy of the day, I should have been weeping. I should have wanted to end things as soon as possible. To have some closure.

Instead, I was almost gleeful.

CRUNCH.

You have killed Warram’Goss!

CRUNCH.

You have killed Warram’Goss!

The room was unnaturally loud, and it took me a moment to realize that the noise was me. At first, I screamed, channeling every ounce of pain he’d given me and meting it out tenfold. When the worst of my rage had been sated, though, I started to laugh.

CRUNCH. That one was for the time he’d tried to arrest me outside the bar.

CRUNCH. For the ballroom. CRUNCH. And the petty attempts at making me trip while dancing.

CRUNCH. The time he’d framed me for cheating. CRUNCH. For butting into my resistance training class.

And for everything he’d messed up, for everyone he’d killed. For Nella, for Oachin, for Emin. For Alara’s injuries and Cal who still lay immobile behind me.

The pickaxe fell down.

And it still wasn’t enough. With what mana I’d recovered, I channeled it into my weapon. I burned my stamina as fast as I could, until each swing sheared clear through him and into the floor below, sending cracks through the cold stone.

With each flash, with each resurrection, though, I started to understand -- to Understand in fact. The faint workings of whatever force was bringing him back grew clearer, until finally, Understanding fully kicked in, revealing what I was up against.

Boon of the Peaceful End

You are fated to die peacefully, lying in bed surrounded by those you love. When you die at the hands of any sentient being who has violence or hatred in their heart, you can choose to resurrect yourself. Doing so will make you increasingly weak and sick for an extended period and will incur a massive experience debt which must be paid off before leveling further.

A boon. Of course it was. I couldn’t think of anything else that would let him keep coming back to life like this, and considering he was an Antagonist, he had to have one.

Perhaps he thought that it made him invincible here, and it was understandable why he would. The next few times I drove my pickaxe home, he came back to life as expected.

In the end, however, he simply didn’t understand. Because when at last I’d vented every last bit of rage, when at last the joy of paying him back faded away, the only thing that was left was the exhaustion.

This entire time, I’d succeeded admirably at ignoring the incredible pressure on my mind, but all at once, it pushed itself into the foreground. I was growing so tired of resisting it. Tired of hacking away at the figure beneath me. Tired of the pain from the countless wounds on my body. Just… tired.

I sank into that feeling, barely conscious. There was no hate left. No will to fight.

Beneath me, Warram was barely recognizable anymore. His resurrection had long since failed to heal his vocal chords properly, and the only sound that came from him was a garbled cry. The cracks in the floor were filled with sticky puddles of blood. It was a scene straight out of a horror movie, and I’d been the one to do it.

I probably could have let him go at that point, I realized. With how many times he’d died and activated his boon, I imagined he’d never level again. He certainly wasn’t in any condition to fight me. I could just stop. Sleep.

Just one more. One more time.

Head empty and mostly on autopilot, I raised my pickaxe one final time.

May we both be at peace.

And down it fell.

CRUNCH.

In its wake came no flashing light. No resurrection. Only a ruined corpse, an eerie silence, and a set of notifications.

You have killed Warram’Goss!

You have killed an Antagonist!

At last, it was over.

I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, staring at his body, nor was I sure how long I would have stayed there left to my own devices. Eventually, though, a wave of light washed over me, undoing the worst of my previous few hours worth of injuries. An instant tug managed to pull me to my feet.

“Tess. Tess! A little bit more, okay? I don’t know this city. Do you have somewhere you can go now? Someone who can help?”

Cal. She was okay now. That was good. A shame she wouldn’t let me fall asleep here, though.

“Suds,” I replied. “I have a gem.”

Somehow understanding me, Cal placed a few pouches in front of me, one of which happened to be my own. Evidently, she’d already found where Warram had stashed my things.

With a sigh, I reached into my pouch and took out the recall gem to Sylum. Some sort of spatial lock in the room prevented it from activating, and Cal had to practically drag me out into the hallway before it could be used. With a dash of mana, however, it at last activated, and the two of us disappeared, the rune-covered tunnel replaced by the wood paneling of Suds’ mansion.

I wasn’t entirely sure what happened after that. Cal started screaming something, I think?

All I knew was that I eventually found myself on a couch with Suds, Cal, and Markus staring down at me. Strangely enough, even Verin was there.

So tired. Am I allowed to sleep yet?

But no. There was something I still needed to know, wasn’t there?

The four of them rattled off all sorts of questions, but I ignored them all.

“Alara. Tell me about Alara.”

Only one of them seemed to be able to answer the question: Verin.

“The lady Valis is… alive. With her class, she is proving difficult to heal and has yet to wake, but I am certain she will not die.”

Alive.

Thank god.

Then there was nothing else I needed to do. No reason to keep pushing.

The mounting pressure in my head seemed all the stronger at that moment. It shoved against the many battered and chipped pieces I even now held in place with my will, forming only the loosest semblance of a door.

Perhaps I could have continued to fight it. Perhaps I could have held off.

But I had no more will. No more need.

And so at last.

I let go.

And the door broke open.