Ch. 78 - Paralysis

As the tower ceased its waving, clouds of gray ash slipped overhead, eclipsing the bright afternoon sun. The city became veiled in shadow, draped in an artificial midnight. Momo shivered, the lack of sun exacerbating the winter chill.

“And she says I have a flair for the dramatic,” Valerica rolled her eyes.

The tower began to tremble. After a long moment, it started to lean in a scoliotic fashion, bowing towards the ground. The long rope of black was delivering something downwards – a shadowy figure, barely visible.

Sera.

The Necropriest flitted in and out of view, jumping between puddles of shadow.

“Momo, dear, I have a new quest for you,” Valerica said, her eyes darting around, tracking the figure’s approach. Her voice was suspiciously unsteady. “Do you accept?”

“Uh, I’m not sure. You didn’t tell me what it is yet.”

“No time for that!” Valerica yelled, eyes opening wide.

Momo followed her gaze, and her body went cold.

“Shit, fine – yes, yes!”

Before Momo could think to move, a tidal wave of Nether submerged her. Ferocious black waves blew Momo straight to the ground, pinning her underneath the tsunami. It was like being stuck to the sea floor, only the algae was floating, crumbling pavement, and the seaweed was black and prickly.

Momo sputtered and choked. She inhaled no air – only liquid tar, hot and muddy in her mouth. All she saw was black nothingness, and all she heard was her own suffocating breaths.

No. No. Absolutely not. I’m not dying today.

She coughed violently, but the Nether she expelled was only replaced with more.

I can’t die. I haven’t even kissed a girl yet.

As that single, motivating thought rattled around her skull, a newfound willpower coursed through her. Closing her eyes, she focused not on breathing – but hearing. The Nether was calling to her, singing in synchrony like a chorus of sirens. Their song was sharp, like nails on a chalkboard mingling with an untuned organ.

The Nether – it was in pain. Those sounds were songs of torture.

Momo’s eyes shot open. She took in a long, scattered breath, and reached out to it.

"Settle down," she murmured, "it's okay."

Shocked by her own voice, she realized she could breathe again. Around her, a bubble of Nether had formed, the violent waves splitting around it. She couldn’t see anything outside the black, bubbly walls, but she was safe within them.

She thanked Morgana a thousand times for mixing up her universes. Extrius had been right – this bugged out skill was powerful. She’d have already suffocated without it.

Most strangely – the Nether’s song had changed. It had gone from a shrill, piercing scream to a pleasant murmuring. From Sera’s violent tsunami to a lovely little melody.

It was almost as if Momo had… tamed it?

It was an insane thought, but she had the instinct to check her [Bestiary].

Later, she decided. It was sapping all of her mana as it was to preserve the bubble against the tidal wave of energy being thrust at it.

Before she could devise a plan, a piece of parchment, seemingly born of nothing, appeared in her lap.

You have been reinstated in the [The Dumpling Maker’s Guild For Esteemed Makers of Dumplings]. Your previous uncompleted quests have failed.

Momo frowned. My XP.

You have accepted the quest [Save Nam’Dal] given by questgiver [Valerica].

Quest completion condition: Defeat the current tyrannical ruler of Nam’Dal, the Excalibur Necropriest Sera, and take control of the city.

Bonus objective: Protect future labor forces (citizens) from harm.

Quest rewards:

- 10,000 XP in [Corrupted Druid]

- Guild Fortress (Knight’s Hall)

- Scepter of Ruin

- Bonus reward: 2 Battalions (Knights Guild and Thieves Guild)

Momo’s eyes bugged out of her head. 10,000 XP?! She knew that the experience reward was scaled by the difficulty of the quest – she had read so in her So you want to be a Guildmaster? pamphlet – but that was still an insane amount. Her quest to kill the vampire had been worth 1,100 XP, and even that measly amount had given her an immediate level up.

Of course, the experience required to level up did scale each time, as evidenced by her annoyingly slow progress since hitting Adept. But this… this could take her far.

Her body filled with greedy adrenaline.

“[Nether Inversion]!”

The muffled shout broke Momo out of her reverie, reminding her that she was floating placidly through a warzone. Not to mention that if she had heard that spell correctly, Valerica’s plan was nearly halfway done. Momo began to panic. She needed to give the signal to Komodo, or the lizard wouldn’t know when to fire the missiles.

And then Valerica would lose. Or die. Or both.

Momo felt like she was going to throw up.

Everything’s fine. Deep breaths.

Momo went to her safe place – the corner of her mind that had memorized every pixel of YouTube’s ‘Cute Cat Video’ playlist. She inhaled, and her head only pounded further. It appeared the bubble was rapidly running short on oxygen.

“Shit.”

Momo thrust her hands forward experimentally, and to her delight, the ball moved with it. She groaned as the motion sapped her mana. Still, she was moving. Like a sphere-locomotive, the bubble sputtered through the dark.

“I.. I can drive this thing?”

As she thrusted the barrier through the waves, a sliver of light peaked out. She used her remaining energy to power straight towards it. The waves lashed out, almost vindictive – but with a last push, she soared out of the tsunami, flying parabolically until she slammed onto the ground. The ball dissolved around her, and she lay flat like a starfish on the cold pavement.

“Urgh.”

“[Paralyze]!”

Momo craned her neck upwards, expecting to find Sera’s paralyzed body. Instead, she was faced with her worst nightmare – Valerica, standing perfectly still, mouth frozen in a horrified expression.

“Gods, she’s like a cockroach,” Sera groaned. “But that should teach her.”

The two Excaliburs stood mere inches from each other. Sera leaned crookedly, gasping for breath as Valerica motionlessly gazed at her. The entire plaza sat in shambles beneath them. The nether had violently infested every nook and cranny of the pavement, leaving craters of rock and dirt where the marble fountain used to stand.

Luckily, the damage was limited to the small area. The surrounding homesteads and shops remained untouched. Looking upwards, Momo understood why. A giant dome lurked overhead, a translucent black semicircle which hugged the perimeter of the square. That had to be the [Nether Enclosure].

The Necropriest began to turn towards her, and Momo reflexively threw her head back down, closing her eyes. She knew that Sera could kill her in one hit if she wanted to – better to play dead until she left.

“Oh, and what’s this?”

The smell of rotten fish swam into Momo’s nostrils. It took everything in her not to wriggle her nose in disgust. Sera’s hot breath fell on her cheek. The Necropriest lifted her chin, twisting her face back and forth.

“It seems rigor mortis hasn’t kicked in yet,” she observed, dropping Momo’s face abruptly. Momo let her neck fall slack to the side, doing her best impression of a corpse.

“I can’t break the barrier,” Vivienne’s ragged voice called out. “None of my [Dispel] charms are working.”

“That’s no issue. It’ll dissipate within half an hour,” Sera dismissed. “Regardless, I’m not sure why Valerica bothered to cast it. I can’t imagine she really cared about preserving the lives of these silly, Novice mortals. Perhaps she hoped that I’d be caught up in my own [Death Tsunami], but all it did was ensure that I had the upper hand.”

“I’m not sure – but I’m sure it was for a good reason,” Vivienne said, concern evident in her voice. “Some of my knights believe she’s collaborating with Komodo.”

“Komodo? What is that?”

“She is Nam’Dal’s border patrol officer. She controls the walls, and the defensive artillery. I sent a knight patrol out this morning to make sure she wasn’t setting up an attack in secret, but I haven’t heard back from them yet.”

“An attack?” Sera laughed. “She sounds like a lovely skeleton to add to my trophy room. I say let her try.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Nia interjected. “That lizard has a lot of punch packed down in the sewers. The last time I talked to her, she was boasting about a dozen or so magical missiles. The type of thing that could blow any one of us to smithereens.”

“Magical missiles?” Momo could practically hear the terror in Vivienne’s voice. “Are you kidding? And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“What, seriously? I assumed you knew! In case you forgot, you’re the one who was running the whole entire government up until a few days ago.”

“So? It was your responsibility to fill me in on the criminal underworld. That was our agreement – I was above ground, you were below. Why would Komodo tell me about some stockpile of world-ending bullshit? I let her have her cut of the imports, and she let me not think about our border security. Our relationship ended there.”

“Girls, stop bickering,” Sera interrupted. “You forget that you have me now. You do not have to concern yourself with fears from before. If they send [Holy] missiles, then I will simply cancel them out with [Nether Beams]. And if it does blow me to smithereens – I will simply regenerate.”

“But Valerica cast that curse on you…” Vivienne countered. “The one that slows regeneration.”

Sera paused, and huffed. Momo heard her footsteps get farther away from her, and she risked opening an eye.

Just as she did, she spied a fast-moving object slithering through the clouds, just over the horizon. Within seconds, hundreds of other snakes of black joined it. Momo’s heart nearly stopped. The gerbil in her chest slowed its gait, sensing something ominous.

Komodo didn’t wait for a signal.

The lizard hadn’t been worried about Valerica betraying her – she had been concocting the perfect plan to betray Valerica. Two necromancers, one stone; or rather, two necromancers, a hundred air weapons, primed to kill.

The missiles were heading right for them, and there was no escape.