Savage Awakening 328. Fifth Tier Breakthrough (I)

Zane spent a nice weekend with Reina back on Earth. They went on a beach date. She came in a little flower-print bikini which he found quite distracting; Zane didn’t need to change much—his daily outfit was pretty much beach-ready.

For a while, she lay on him as they sipped sweet fruit drinks and told him about a few of the goings-on in the World Tree Faction. The potion-making was going well, but a few troublesome things had been stressing her out lately. She’d had to put down a minor noble uprising, incited by what remained of House Arandor—they still had an Ancestor in seclusion, which meant the family kept some influence, even disgraced. They were a thorn in her side.

He quite liked seeing the tension in her body melt away as she stayed with him. She leaned on him more and more. 

She asked him about his time in the Conclave, and he gave her a quick run-down. He mentioned how it was a funny thing—he thought of her in that final lift.

“Zane…” she whispered, wide-eyed. 

“What’s up—” 

Then he felt the overwhelming happiness pouring off her.

She was all over him a moment later. 

They did a good deal of Leveling, after that, which ended with her sprawled over him, once-pristine hair a mess, breathing heavily. Her eyes were closed, and there was a little satisfied smile on her face. 

Level up!

Essence Level 464 -> 465

At the World Tree Faction, she always held herself with faultless posture, like a perfect queen. But with Zane, she let herself dissolve into him until it was just his body holding her up. She let herself become completely unwound with him. He found it quite nice. 

They lay there a while, listening to the soft lapping of the waves. She snuggled into his chest, tracing a rune on his pec idly.

"Oh!" she yawned, blinked, like she was just remembering something. "Evan and Avery sent mail."

It came in the form of scrying glass messages.

Evan showed up with a little scarf around his neck, in something like a Boy Scout’s outfit, but in medieval garb. He was beaming.

He was still plugging away at his quest and making good progress. He’d made it about halfway through—only now he had to solve a riddle given by a sphinx to be let through this treacherous mountain pass. He’d been stumped on it for three days.

He started telling them the riddle. About halfway through his telling, Reina paused the recording, turned to Zane, correctly guessed the rest of the riddle, and then solved it.

"..."

She sent the answer off to Evan.

Avery’s message was less happy.

She’d lost the bidding for the Sacred Bone to that rich young master, and she was still quite salty about it.

She did buy an elixir as a consolation prize. The ‘Draught of Eternal Spring’—it was supposed to be quite good for any water-based laws. She meant to chug it all down and see if she could make it to Tier 5, and then some. She was going to go into a cave and power nap for a bit.

"I didn’t need that bone anyway!"

She cracked her knuckles. "No more playing around," she declared. She had her hoodie all the way up. She said she was going to do a training arc.

Reina thought she might be going through a phase.

***

Superdungeon

Floor ???

Meanwhile, at the bottom of a dank, lightless well...

A cloud of runes floated in the air, written in bright white lines of pure Destruction. The color on the back of your eyelids after staring too long at the sun. They crackled thickly, suppressing a certain Monster King. So badly it couldn’t even take solid form.

They shimmered, spreading through the entirety of the space. Tearing apart the noxious fumes choking the air. It was the only way to hold that Monster down.

Then an eye opened up high above the well. A massive eye with a snake-like pupil of red-orange, the color of dying hearths.

Then a blackness pricked the midst of it.

Expanding until it filled the entire eye. Then Corruption was all it showed.

A haze of blackness descended, encroached on those white runes. Dark Creation descended on Destruction. There came a hissing in a pitch beyond the hearing of any living creature.

The runes began to melt.

The fiery gaze swept the cage, wiping out the lights one by one. Until all that was left was the fumes.

Satisfaction glinted in that eye. And at last, the Demon Overlord spoke.

Arise, my lieutenant... Goloog, the Undead Bog!

The creature came together out of the fog, coalescing. Suggestions of eyes popped up along that bubbling tar-like mass as it condensed into a sludge of foul-smelling decay, gathering mass fast, until it grew to the size of a pickup truck.

Trees and branches and vines, sludged over and dripping, poked out of it as it assumed its original form once again.

A hideous jagged smile stretched from one end of its boiling body to another. It gurgled its thanks.

Malzareth does not forget its loyal subjects. The eye narrowed. Gather your minions once more, and bind them. Raise your Ten Thousand Voidspawn! They shall make a fine addition at the Beginning of the End...

The bog fiend gave a deep gurgle.

Good. Malzareth paused. I have another task for you. A special one.

Another gurgle.

An old enemy of our race has risen again... a fiend known as the 'Savage Sage'. Malzareth hissed the name with real hatred.

He is no threat now. But in a hundred years... he may grow enough to make a difference. Given centuries—millennia to grow—if he is anything like others of his lineage...

The eye shuddered. He cannot be allowed to survive!

Goloog cocked its head. Gurgled a question.

No. Not right now. Assassinating him outright will be difficult. He is under the protection of a human named Noughtfire—one of the wiliest and wisest of the forces of man... and his home is too distant to reach this early in the Cycle.

It spat out the words. But I doubt humanity knows the true potential of the man known as 'Zane Walker'... They will not suspect the lengths we might go to destroy him. Bide your time, Goloog. If—when—you find a chance to execute him... make it fast. And make certain of it.

Goloog’s dark eyes glimmered.

***

"Lord Zane! Welcome back!"

A grinning, waving Jawl greeted him by the teleporters at Planet Stormhaven. Zane waved back.

The grizzled warrior steward had his spirit weapon strapped to his back—a giant thick longbow. His fuzzy yak-fur cape was a little bloody.

"How was your time up north?"

"Pretty good," said Zane. He looked around, taking in the cracked landscape, the funnels of storms raging in the distance. A light haze was descending, signaling acid rain. There was a familiar smoky burning smell and the distant crackling of Stormfire. Nice and comforting.

Jawl and the servants had made Zane a little welcome-back feast of yak steak. He’d just finished up a hunt for them, so they’d be fresh-made once Zane arrived.

Zane thanked the fellow and dug into the meal.

Jawl gave him a rundown as he munched.

"No one’s sent any big new challenges since you left," said Jawl. He chuckled. "After that last showing of yours—that Ten-Man Challenge—no one’s dared, I’d wager."

Zane nodded.

"Ah! And Master Noughtfire will see you as soon as you’re ready."

Zane figured he’d head over right after he finished up. He wiped some oil from his mouth. It almost felt weird, eating cooked meat after all that time. Quite delicious, though—Jawl and his tribesfolk sure knew their way around a grill. Raw or grilled—both had quite some merit, he felt.

Just then, a herd of little dust plumes rose from the distance.

Jawl groaned. "Don’t tell me..."

It was Jawl’s nephews—the little Princes of Stormhaven, clamoring up in a rush. "Zane, Zane!"

Jawl was faintly embarrassed. "I told them not to come out this time," he grumbled, pinching his nose. But they looked so eager he didn’t seem to have the heart to tell them off.

Zane didn’t mind.

A bunch of wide-eyed faces clustered around Zane, looking up at him.

"Lord Zane?" It was the oldest of them—a fellow of about 17, if Zane remembered right. Nak. Nak came up to Zane’s shoulders. "Can you please show us your new powers from the Steel-peoples?"

Zane finished up his steak. Then went out and punch-exploded some thirty-foot-tall rocks for them, to their delight.

"Don’t try this at home," he said, frowning, after a few of them wound back to have a go at their own rocks.

Then there was little Rei, who—to the surprise of his whole Storm Drake tribe—had started manifesting pseudo-Stormfire at just seven years old after seeing Zane do it. They all thought he might be a little genius. He was quite eager to show Zane.

"Huh," said Zane, inspecting the little fellow’s flame. This fellow really was talented. Maybe as much as one of the top-fifty World Rankers back on Earth.

He gave Rei a tip on how to control the thing better, and Rei went off to practice, all excited.

Might be something could come of it.

***

Zane took the winding steps up the little misty mountain, past the ashen-white trees. It always seemed eerily quiet whenever he came. Maybe it helped with concentrating or something.

He found Sage Noughtfire in the garden outside the little hut at the peak, holding a brush. There was a canvas on an easel before him.

The old Sage seemed to be painting.

To Zane’s surprise, he felt a familiar Law on that tip—Destruction. But where Zane’s Destruction was a hint—a wispy candle’s flame—this felt like a torch. A single point of blinding white.

It was enough destructive potential to cave in an E-ranked planet.

But Noughtfire was moving it gently. Keeping all that power concentrated on a tiny point—somehow he kept the light from emanating, kept even its rays contained, so it seemed little more than a laser. Tracing what looked like a simple rune on the page, leaving simple lines—it looked like calligraphy. As it moved through the page, it left the cleanest strokes Zane had ever seen.

Noughtfire moved smoothly, slowly, as though in a trance. There was a simple beauty to it.

Zane stood there patiently, letting him finish. It was a bit hypnotizing to watch.

At last, Noughtfire set down the brush.