Path of Dragons

The prisoner looked up with heavy-lidded eyes, his face creased from advanced age, and locked his gaze onto Elijah. He opened his mouth as if to speak, revealing a mouth devoid of teeth, then let out a rasping cackle that quickly turned into a coughing fit. Elijah’s instincts told him to step in, to offer comfort to the elderly man, but he pushed that urge aside. Looks, he knew, could be deceptive, and he had no idea what capabilities the old prisoner possessed.

“Help?” the man croaked, disbelief evident in his rough voice. “There is no help. Only the sweet release of death. Will you deliver me, stranger? I am willing. I will not resist.”

His chains clinked as he held his hands out in submission, but still, Elijah was wary. So, he asked, “Do you know that you’re in a tower?”

“Tower? No. That is impossible. I remember…oh…Goddess and her Empire, I remember the Reavers descending upon my village. They took us all. I resisted. I tried to save them. But I was powerless. I lived, even when I should have died. There…t-there is no one else left. Just me…”

Elijah considered the cost of the man’s endurance. His ordeal had clearly robbed him of the necessary faculties to see the truth of his circumstances. Briefly, Elijah wondered what that meant for when this fragment of his soul returned to the host – if it ever would – but he couldn’t afford to ponder such things. Every moment he spent without the shelter of Guise of the Unseen was another opportunity for his enemies to find him. So, as much as he wanted to help the old man see the truth, he simply didn’t have the time nor the opportunity.

So, he moved on, asking, “Why did they spare you? What do you do in here?”

The man had already begun to babble about empires, curses, and goddesses, so Elijah had to snap his fingers in front his face before he looked up. When he did, no recognition was apparent on his face. Clearly, the elderly man’s mind was gone.

Deciding to use a familiar tactic, Elijah unslung his pack and retrieved a jug of water. He took a drink, then handed it over. “Drink. It’s safe,” he prompted.

The old man didn’t need any more prodding, and an instant later, he was sputtering under the onslaught of water as he tried to drink too much at once. Yet, the fact that he spilled more than actually went down his throat didn’t seem to deter him one bit. Finally, after emptying the entire jug, the man seemed to remember that Elijah was there, and he narrowed his eyes, asking, “Who are you?”

“Why are you here?”

“I think you know,” Elijah guessed. When the old man didn’t offer a response, Elijah went on, “I’m here to kill the lieutenants, and then the Reaver.”

Once again, the elderly man’s eyes narrowed to slits. Suddenly, he burst into laughter that soon became another coughing fit. This time, Elijah had no trouble ignoring his own helpful nature as the old man muttered, “Kill the Reaver…as if…ha!”

“Are you finished? Because if you keep going on like this, the ogres are probably going to come investigate. I’m pretty sure I can take at least a couple of them,” Elijah lied. “But you? They’ll smash you to bits. Maybe that’s what you want. I don’t know. But I need your help. A lot of people depend on my success.”

“I did that once,” the man mused. “Tried to take it all on my shoulders. I couldn’t bear the weight. And…I…I don’t remember much more than that. Isn’t that odd?”

“That’s because you’re in a tower.”

“Not possible. If this were a tower, and you were a challenger, you would not be alone,” he said.

Elijah shrugged. “Maybe I do things a little differently. It doesn’t matter, though. Look – these ogres imprisoned you, right? They killed people you cared about, didn’t they? Don’t you want revenge?”

“Of course.”

“Then help me,” Elijah urgently insisted. “Give me information, and maybe I can make them pay for what they did to you. I could even save you.”

“I am beyond saving, and there is no possibility of your success. No – better to just give in and beg for a quick death. No suffering.”

“I’ll risk it. Tell me about the lieutenants.”

“Monsters, all. Tuk and Tok are mages, masters of fire and ice, and their domains reflect their chosen elements,” the old man stated.

“Domains? They have domains?”

That got the prisoner’s attention. “No. The wings of the citadel in which they live and work. Not true Domains. I am surprised you know of such things,” he said. “Where did you hear of them?”

“Here or there,” Elijah answered, already filing away the information. “What about the others?”

It didn’t get any better from there. Now that the old man was talking, he was more than willing to give Elijah all the information he could desire. Each lieutenant commanded a separate wing of the citadel. To the north was Tuk, with his fire. Tok – who was apparently Tuk’s twin brother – commanded frost to the south. Meanwhile, to the east was a dark elf named Tulariel who held dominion over shadow. A high elf named Avasil, who was a master of light, was to the west. Finally, on the next floor up was a domineering ogre who was supposedly the strongest warrior the citadel had to offer. He was known only as the Champion.

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The ogre warrior guarded the way to the Reaver who was almost assuredly the final obstacle to conquering the tower. So, even if Elijah found a way to bypass his Task to slay the other lieutenants, he would still have to defeat the Champion.

Once the old man had finished his explanation – which Elijah was convinced was the whole reason he existed within the tower – he said, “Now that I’ve answered your questions, I have a request for you.”

“I don’t think the keys I stole will work on those –”

“Kill me.”

“W-what?”

“Please. Kill me. If it is a tower, then I will be that much closer to having fulfilled my purpose. One day, I will be freed to rejoin myself in the outside world, and I will be all the richer for it. But if it is not a tower, I do not wish to live another day. It is…too painful, physically and emotionally. Please…I would do it myself, but…”

He pulled the chains taut, showing that he only had a few extra inches of movement.

“Why do they keep you here?” Elijah asked.

“I translate texts,” the man said. “The…Reaver is something of a student of the occult. From time to time, she descends from her perch and requests a translation of some obscure text. Yet another reason I must die. Those…books, nothing good can come of them. Fel rituals, soul magic, and daemonic pacts. You mustn’t –”

“Real demons? As in the elder race?”

He gave a rasping chuckle. “No. Someone like her, as powerful as she is compared to the likes of us, could never command one of the elders,” the man said. “She makes pacts with beings from Alta Terra. The Underrealm. They use that pact as a tether to allow them to traverse the World Tree and enter this realm.”

Elijah told the old man that he didn’t understand. To that, the prisoner simply shook his head and said, “The universe you know, the one in which we live, is called Mortalum. Above is Pruina, the Ice Fortress, Silvara, the Wilderness, and Aesira, also called the Realm of Sky. Below us is Ignis, Nilfara, The Umbra, and the Ethereum. And below even that is the Underrealm, located in the roots of the World Tree. It is there from which the Reaver’s daemons hail. They are alien creatures with fel powers of corruption, and they can only pass into this realm by virtue of an invitation.”

“The pacts you mentioned,” Elijah reasoned. It didn’t take a genius to make that connection.

The old man nodded. “You will likely never see the other planes,” he said. “Few natives of Mortalum do. To even survive, you must become an Ascendent at the very least, though even then, it is dangerous to the extreme. Not that going to the other planes is ever safe. Even for Demigods.”

“What about Deities and Transcendents?”

The man snorted. “What do I know about those lofty existences, hmm?” he asked, a little more personality showing through. Was he getting comfortable? Or was it a ruse to get Elijah to do what he wanted?

“Probably more than me,” Elijah admitted deprecatingly.

The old man snorted again, but he didn’t extend the conversation. A few seconds passed before he asked, “So, will you do it?”

“I…”

Suddenly, Elijah was reminded that it wouldn’t be his first experience with mercy killing. Not only had he done so while hunting with his father throughout his childhood, but more memorably, he’d killed the panther guardian he’d been incapable of saving. More than once, he’d replayed those events in his mind, and he knew precisely how many mistakes he’d made that day.

But this was different.

He could save the old man. With a few casts of Touch of Nature, Elijah could heal him. Then, he could find some way to free the prisoner from those shackles. He was smart. Resourceful. He could figure it out.

“Don’t.”

“What?” asked Elijah.

“You can’t free me.”

“Why? I’ve done –”

“If you do, I will kill you,” the old man said in a low voice. When he looked up and saw Elijah’s puzzled expression, he went on, “Oh – this is not the real me. It is, but these chains, they weaken me. Drain my Ethera until there’s nothing left. Freed, I would recover, and the beast would take over.”

“What beast?”

“One of those demons we were talking about,” he said. “I was one of her first experiments. Her first sacrifice. She offered me up, and with these chains, I was incapable of resisting. The stupid creature never expected to take over a bound body, though. It was restricted and drained, just as I was. She lets it out from time to time, using it to translate demonic rituals. If it was at full strength, I would not be aware during those periods. But now? I know everything it does. I know how it thinks. I know its cravings as my own. The moment these chains are removed, it will take over, and it will wreak havoc on this entire Citadel. I am already dead. Finishing the job will be a mercy. It cannot survive without me to anchor it to this plane.”

While listening, Elijah had felt his heart sink. He knew what he had to do. Certainly, the old man could be lying. But it didn’t seem likely. Besides, Elijah kept reminding himself that killing the man wouldn’t be permanent. He was just a sliver of a soul borrowed by the system and thrust into the tower so as to give it authenticity. Or variety. Regardless of the reason, it didn’t really matter. The fact was that there was no good reason for Elijah to refuse the man’s request.

And there were plenty of reasons to do it.

Except it felt wrong in ways logic and reasoning couldn’t touch. For all his life, Elijah had been told killing another person was wrong. So, even with the mitigating factors of the situation, he couldn’t help but hesitate.

Sure, he had killed, and often. All those gnomes, goblins, and dwarves had fallen by his hand, and that wasn’t even considering the things he’d done in the tower. Yet, there was something entirely different about those, and Elijah was at least honest enough with himself to admit that it was based on the fact that they weren’t human.

He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. When he opened them, he was resolved to do what was necessary. So, he said, “I need you to close your eyes.”

The old man looked a little surprised at the request, but then nodded, saying, “I understand.”

When his eyelids fell, Elijah used Shape of the Predator to adopt the scaled panther form. Then, because the old man’s eyes were closed, it only took a few seconds for him to slip out of combat. The moment he did, he let Guise of the Unseen envelop him. Thus cloaked in the stealth ability, he activated Predator Strike.

He padded into position, his feet silent. The old man clearly didn’t hear him. He had no idea what was coming. Once Elijah was behind the man, he cocked his claw back, then swiped across the old prisoner’s neck. The blow, which was augmented by Predator Strike, hit so swiftly and with such force that it decapitated the old man.

Even as the prisoner’s head fell free, Elijah felt a tiny trickle of experience, telling him that the man was dead.

He let out a reptilian sigh, then noticed that the shackles had unlatched the moment the man died. Seeing that, Elijah wasted no time before gathering the chains, then shifting back to his human form so he could stow them away in his pack.

With that done, he waited a few moments to let his Ethera regenerate, then shifted back into his scaled panther form before once again adopting the Guise of the Unseen. Without another look back, he padded out into the hall and continued on his way. Still, even if he didn’t look back, he would never forget the sight of that old man’s headless body.

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