A Record of Ash & Ruin: The Grieving Lands

Book 3: Chapter 1

Anything, when meticulously crafted and refined for a single, specific purpose, free from all unnecessary trappings and features, embodies a form that is pure and captivating. Like the most elegant of instruments, or the most elegant of weapons - their intrinsic beauty lies in their purity of purpose. In this, the human heart can not help but be enamored.

But when we ponder the nature of such beauty, an ethical question arises. If the thing is fashioned for a purpose that falls within the realm of the malevolent or the unethical, should we still regard it as beautiful? It is one of the foibles of man that we are often attracted towards the aesthetics of perfection, even when it is directed towards an objectionable end.

- The Principles of Conflict by General Damien de Savant circa 234 AC.

A thing from myth and legend fixed its gaze on me, its slitted eyes emanated a primordial light and were mesmerizing in their ferocious beauty. The Manticore unfurled its leathery bat wings, shaking off the last of the stone dust before giving out a thunderous roar that echoed throughout the temple. I was momentarily stunned by the sheer force of the sound as it reverberated through my very core, causing my bones to tremble in response.

The monster lashed out with its lion’s paw, its sharp claws screeching against the metal of my cuirass and knocking me off my feet. As the world spun around me, a burst of adrenaline flooded my system. Time seemed to slow down as I rolled to evade a liquid projectile hurtling through the air, taking cover behind one of the lifelike statues. The gob of whatever it was sizzled upon contact with the stone floor where I had been, just scant moments before. The creature possessed the ability to spit acid, or something equally deadly.

The temple resounded with laughter, a mocking echo that seemed to pierce through to my soul. It was the laughter of the godling, taunting me mercilessly.

It launched another attack, pouncing at me, which by some miracle, I dodged by half-rolling out of the way. I even managed to score a glancing hit with the blade of my weapon, but that was turned, for the most part, by its thick hide.

"You'll need to do much better than that. Struggling against such a juvenile creature, and this is only the beginning of your trials," Iasis, the Mother of Monsters, warned playfully, placing a delicate, clawed finger to her lips.

It was circling me, its prey. I was the only focus of its leonine and serpentine eyes, all four filled with equal menace. I kept the statue, a brutish Minotaur, between me and the monster. Dwarfing the largest of draft horses, it was of a fearsome size. But what truly unsettled me was seeing the alien hunger in those malevolent orbs. The primal part of me screamed that I should just run away. Fear, however, could give birth to more than cowardly flight. From fear could come rage. And from rage a serene form of clarity.

Seeking to cut out the root of the problem, I slashed at the goddess, the blade of my weapon passing through her form like so much smoke. This only caused her to erupt in new peals of laughter. Tsk-tsking in annoyance, I realized that there would be no choice but to play her game.

I focused on the task at hand and cast my investigative spell, Identify.

Juvenile Manticore - (Chimerae lvl.12) Health: 402/402 Stamina: 74/75

Mana: 7/7

Seeing something broken down into visible numbers soothed the part of me that feared the unknown. The monster before me, though no doubt a being of a fantastical nature, had Health, Stamina, and Mana. They were high numbers to be sure, but not totally out of reach. With my powers, given enough time, I could kill even this mighty creature.

A quick glance at my Status caused a small grin to steal across my face.

Health328/336 Stamina64/68 Mana9/14

Thanks to my heavy armor, the Manticore’s last attack only caused eight points of damage, a drop in the ocean. Even as I registered this, my Holy Aura was already starting to undo this minor damage. If I played this correctly, my victory would almost be certain. The only thing I had to worry about was its acid attack. Worriedly, I noticed the stone was still sizzling from the caustic liquid of its missed attack.

Almost as if sensing my thoughts, the snake head opened its mouth wide and spat a large gob of acid. The burning liquid missed me, splashing against the Minotaur statue between us. The acid ate into the living stone, causing Iasis to float closer. Her movement drew my eye, and although she hid it well, I saw a flash of anger cross the features of the dark goddess. So that’s what it was, I thought to myself with a grim smile. These statues were of some importance to her. That could be leveraged.

It was time to make this trial, divine test, or whatever this was meant to be, a little easier. I gave a challenging roar of my own, hoping to anger it even further, and forcing it to put aside whatever low cunning it possessed. In response, it simply offered up another bestial cry, and we continued our little game of Ring Around the Rosey. I started to cast an old staple of mine, Drain, upon the monster. Forming the spell structure in my mind had become almost second nature, but for some mysterious reason there was a resistance, an obstruction to the spell.

Nevertheless, I continued to push more Mana into the spell and the familiar black lines of ebon came into being. They formed a link between me and the mythical creature, and a flood of heady energy filled me. A flavor I had been without for too long, the very taste of life, distilled in its purest form. Between raw human cunning and the insidious power of Drain, it was just a matter of time before the thing died.

Unlike the Karilla, a large fearsome lizard beast that I had defeated in the Sainba, the Manticore sensed the link between us and stormed towards me. The monster’s feral charge was a hurricane of scale, tooth, and claw that smashed into the statue between us, toppling the sculpture over with a crash.

My timing was perfect, for I had moved out of its path just before the monster crashed through the stone, and I took shelter behind yet another statue. The silence of the goddess’ laughter was all the confirmation I needed to know that my ploy was working. Like the action games of the old world, this would be a battle of patience and attrition where I used the enemy to damage objects in the environment in the hopes of unlocking the next stage.

I just needed to repeat this. My goal was to wear it out and, at the same time, potentially destroy future opponents that could be born from the stone.

Enraged, the Manticore fixed its baleful eyes at me, the serpent’s head hissing with new malice. More gobs of stone-eating liquid flew my way, but, as always, I made sure to keep behind a statue.

Again the creature charged, knocking over yet another statue and hurting itself in the process, to boot. I was hit by a concussive fragment of stone, which took out a chunk of my Health. But my Drain spell was still eating away at its very life force, and this stolen vitality was recovering my Health. The creature shook itself from its latest failure. At this rate, the creature’s end, like all things that bled and died, was inevitable. Iasis knew of this truth.

“Enough! Very well, you pass this stage of the trial!” cried the goddess, her words an imperious command. She clapped slowly at my success, grudgingly even, and the Manticore mysteriously faded into the silken shadows. The midnight lines of the Drain spell that joined me to the monster suddenly snapped, as if cut by an invisible blade.

Doubting her words, for this stage of this so-called trial had been surprisingly easy to overcome, I narrowed my eyes, looking toward where the monster had vanished before a new script filled my inner sight.

You have completed a Divine Ordeal.

You have gained 200 experience.

Perhaps the godling was telling the truth, but what she said next was as from relief as mirage was to the true water of an oasis.

A mischievous expression played about her face before she announced, “Very well done. Indeed, I did not expect one of my sister’s ownto actually use their little brain. It’s always purge the unclean, burn this, and burn that…” she played with her hair, twirling it in her fingers before she smiled at me. “But have you the mettle to complete my next Test, I wonder?” she broke off laughing, a melodious tinkle that irked me to no end.

The Manticore had been objectively dangerous, but not something I could not have overcome with a strong arm and a sharp wit. Indeed, a part of me was disappointed that I had not been given a chance to finish the thing off. I had suffered minimal damage and had even absorbed two points of Mana from my exchange with the winged terror. Wings that it had, thankfully, never gotten to utilize, for had we fought where it could have used the advantage of flight, the outcome may well have been very different.

The crack of stone splitting shook me from this line of thinking, and drew me back to the task at hand. The sacred task of defying the Goddess and surviving this damnable trial. The hall shook as the sound of worn gears and ancient machinery filled the stale air. All except two of the remaining statues sank into the floor, as if being absorbed by quicksand.

From one of the remaining statues, a new threat presented itself. A threat that positively towered, reaching almost as high as the ceiling. A hulking metal faceless thing that was shaped in the vague approximation of a gigantic man, but with sharp lines and oblique angles. No bestial roar came, for the construct had no mouth to scream its challenge. There was only the screech of ancient pitted iron as the unnatural abomination stood upon thick pillars that could be construed to be its legs.

Fear and shock had long left me now, just a dull weariness remained that hid a smoldering ember of hate. I just wanted to get this over and done with, and I spent a precious point of Mana to measure the new threat.

Iron Golem - (Automata lvl.12) Health: 1059/1059 Stamina: --/--

Mana: --/--

Like the undead Praxis Guard I had encountered before, the Iron Golem had neither Stamina nor Mana points. At a guess, this probably meant that it did not rely on Stamina for its basic locomotion. The lack of a Mana points, I intuited, meant that it possessed no will or consciousness of its own, not unlike a pre-programmed machine. It did, however, still have a prodigious amount of Health that completely overshadowed my own, and since it was a metal construct, I doubted my Drain spell would work upon it.

“One of the finer creations of one of my own creations. The old Gnomes always had a way with their inspirations. You will not defeat the Giant of Iron by running around like a little mouse,” Iasis chortled playfully, her voice coming from somewhere behind me, tempting me to look back.

I resisted the urge to turn in her direction. An indistinct yearning slowly emerged from within the deep recesses of my mind, crystallizing into a nearly palpable thought of a deeper hunger. A burning need to reduce this lump of metal into molten slag. Rust, and its need to consume the banquet before it. It had consistently eluded me before, as slippery as a wet eel, but now it pleaded to be invoked. If I had only realized sooner, I could have turned the Undead Praxis Guard into so much dust and avoided a desperate struggle.

But these were merely thoughts of what could have been, what should have been. Regrets had once held me captive, keeping me on the path of passable mediocrity. To give ear to them would be but a waste of time and emotion. They had no place in the here and now, in this world where civilized society would not shield me.

Somehow, I forced down a burst of reckless laughter that would have no doubt riled Iasis, possibly causing her to twist this Test against my favor. Impending triumph played its anthem within my mind as I began the motions to cast Rust. The dead syllables of an unknown language formed the spell in my mind. The voice of the spell resonated alongside mine, delighting in the anticipation of soon feasting upon fresh bounty.

Just as men were often victims of their own hubris, so too did the gods often misjudge the capacity of mortals.