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The BloodVaine EpicChapter 97: Victory
Gib awoke, his face sticky with blood from his nose, and his left arm numb where it had lain under him for who knew how long. Tattered threads of memory began to pull together -- there were so many holes that it was easier to list what he knew than what he had forgotten.
He was Gib. BloodVaine was nearby. The Yellow Castle was all but deserted.
The spirit-box was in his pouch.
His time had come.
Gib stumbled along the hallway, half-dazed. His pulse throbbed in his temple, and the flagstones clattered beneath his feet. He still only had the vaguest idea of exactly what had been going on, but the layout of the castle was somehow familiar, like something remembered from a dream. He knew BloodVaine would be in the main hall, though he still wasn't sure how he knew.
The smell of blood and ozone were thick. As he entered the hall, only one figure was still standing amid the carnage. Over three score and ten bodies lay strewn like fallen leaves around the room, decapitated. Flies buzzed among the headless bodies, but most of them were clustered in a seething cloud around the figure in the center of the room, though none actually touched him.
BloodVaine.
Gib felt his gorge rise. His face was hot with anger. BloodVaine stood with his back towards the door he had entered from, and Gib saw a double bladed axe abandoned on the floor nearby. The mad sorcerer was staring into space, seemingly oblivious to Gib’s intrusion. But as he moved farther into the room, a reddish-purple distortion of magical energy sprang up between them.
“You’re not Aezazel.”
The voice was enough to raise the hairs on the back of Gib’s neck. BloodVaine turned his head, but did not move.
“Aezazel left you. How careless of him.”
“I am Gib. Your demon is gone.”
“Was he my demon? Or I his? It doesn’t matter. I’m about to crush the army outside. Did you care to watch? I think there is a window in the next room over…”
Gib realized that BloodVaine had gone completely insane. He moved forward again, holding the silvery-gray spirit box in both hands. Through the greenish crystal of the lid, he could see the tiny motes inside, moving so quickly they looked like a miniature lightning storm. The haze of reddish-purple magic faded back from the box as he approached. BloodVaine, still half-staring at nothing and everything at once, did not seem to notice.
“I have Mana again. They gave it to me.”
He jerked an arm around the room like a blind man.
“Necromancy. Their lives for Mana, and now I have the power I need to strike down this little insurrection once and for all. All the pieces swept from the board at once. How shall I? Ice? Fire? Water? So many choices. Perhaps I will just open up the ground and grind them like wheat under a millstone. Yes. I like that idea, grind them into the dust they are.”
“No.”
Gib moved forward again, and BloodVaine’s eyes locked on the box he held before him. “No. You won’t.”
BloodVaine swept his hand upward, and Gib was thrown back across the room by a wave of force. But he held the box like it was nailed to his hands.
“You presumptuous insect!” BloodVaine spat in contempt, “You dare to think you have the right to destroy me? You presume you have the power!?”
Gib felt his bones grinding into one another, and knew that BloodVaine’s magic was crushing him. He struggled to speak.
“N-no. But they do.”
Gib opened the box.
The effect was instantaneous. The spirits of the dead burst forth from the box, whirring around the room and plastering Gib against the wall. BloodVaine seemed unaffected by this however as he stood in the eye of the cyclone, gritting his teeth. Then, emerging from the swarm of spirits, stepped the man which no one had seen since the day that Orion fell.
“BloodVaine!” said the Classic Emperor in a commanding voice, “We have come!”
“Get back, phantasm!” BloodVaine yelled, throwing a fireball at the emperor and obliterating the wall behind when the spell passed through its target.
“Your crimes, BloodVaine, are numerous and terrible. Even now, my corpse rots at the foot of my throne, where you left it. It bears evidence against you, but it does not stand alone, and those with me need neither proof nor conviction. They are here. Every man, women, and chilled that you ever killed in your quest for power, even those men whose bodies lay, still warm, at your feet.”
The dark mage flinched. A look of terror sprang into his eyes.
“Now, BloodVaine, your fate is set. The gavel is struck. The sentence is passed. The hour of judgment is at hand. Here and now, will you pay for your crimes. Justice will be served. HERE IS YOUR DOOM!”
In a fury, the spirits sprang upon him. Through the shifting shadows of the ghost’s assaults, Gib saw a horrible sight.
BloodVaine was being torn apart. Armor deteriorated into dust, as did the skin, seeming to age beyond death. BloodVaine was decomposing and from his rotting mouth, came such a hideous scream that the very life in the air seemed to die.
He was more dead then alive now, being held together only by the Mana of necromancy. But now, something else was happening. Where once the spirit box had been, now sprang a vortex of black flame.
“Now,” said a voice that Gib knew to be the Emperor’s. “I commend you BloodVaine, to the pit!”
But up from the funnel came another voice that Gib knew all too well.
“Come my friend. Join me, my ‘master’.”
And the spirits vanished into the vortex, with the laugh of Aezazel, ringing in the air. In a burst of flame it vanished and Gib was alone. But the man dropped to his knees and closed his eyes, for they had seen too much.
The mind of Gib was wandering. Through memory and time, it traveled. Passing through visions of forgotten sights and resting on familiar faces and locations that seemed to be without a place. Yet there were some things he did know. He was Gib, the demon had left him and BloodVaine was dead. But Gib still felt cold. The presence of Aezazel seemed to linger about him. He would never forget that terrible experience. He knew it. Even if he never remembered any other thing. What did he remember? BloodVaine was dead and He had opened the box. But why? It was his mission. The one thing besides his name that he still remembered. Gib knew BloodVaine somehow, but he couldn't place how or why.
Now, something strange happened. A whirring sensation filled Gib’s head and before he could open his eyes, he was locked in a teleharm.
Gib, the voice began, This is Gart. You were never trained in teleharm, but I know you can hear me even if you can’t respond. I want to say that I’m sorry Gib. For leaving. You may blame my change on the dragon poison, or the dragon blood, or even on that poor dragon who attacked us all those years ago. He was only acting under BloodVaine’s orders. But in truth you can’t really blame any of them. I wanted power. I wanted it so badly. And in my lust for it I denied you. I chose it over you and for that I am sorry. So sorry. But Gib...I tried to save you. What you’ve been through...I don’t even know if you will live. But if you don’t, then perhaps I will have some company. Goodbye Gib. I hope you can forgive me.
And it over. Gib’s eyes fluttered, suddenly open and he returned to real world. With the dead bodies surrounding him and the stench of that room assaulting his sense of smell.
What was that all about? Gib wondered. The hermit tried to think. Reaching back into his mind, searching for a link that would explain the strange message. Gib, Gart, BloodVaine, dragon poison, It didn't make any sense. Gib tried harder. Woods, trees, dragons, knights, Rigger, Dacker,
Dacker!
Suddenly it all came back to him. The whole story of the their friendship, from Glestol to the Neverwood to the attack of the dragon. And suddenly the real meaning of the teleharm became clear.
Gart, Gib thought, Gart. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRT!
But Gart didn’t hear his friend.
“He’s gone.” Shainya sighed, “Who was he?”
“I don’t know,” Jack responded, “Keavur brought him in. Looks like a spear wound. Right in the heart. Better put him with the others…”
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