Vigil's Balance: One - House Hunting

“Damnit, Renholm!” I hollered, dancing backward as a fury body launched itself at my head. I shot a quick look at the Pixie-turned-Pookah. “I could use a little help over here.”

“You’re doing fine,” he drawled, not even bothering to glance in my direction. He was sitting on the back of his trusty steady, Sir Jacob Francis… filing his nails. I could’ve been bleeding out on the floor, and he probably would’ve said the same thing. “You’ve faced tougher enemies a hundred times over. Besides, this is your house, not mine. You wouldn’t ask a king to help you move a couch, now would you?”

“That’s not the point,” I growled while focusing on the feral, cat-sized rats flooding out from the hole in the dank, basement wall. There were dozens of them, and they were all unbelievably fast and nimble. “You’re supposed to be my back up.”

I thrust one hand forward and unleashed a lance of fire on the encroaching hoard of vermin. My Arcana gauge dipped by a hair as the flames engulfed their greasy, plague-riddled bodies. A chorus of shrieks echoed throughout the room, clawing at my eardrums, but the supernaturally conjured flame didn’t stop the rats. They were determined little fuckers.

If anything, the fire only made things worse, because now there were three dozen cat-sized rats barreling toward me and now they dealt fire damage. An especially bold rodent broke apart from the pact and tried, fruitlessly, to scrambled up my leg. I crushed its skull with my armored boot while the flames from its body licked at my foot.

[You have killed a Subterranean Ratling! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 25 Essence!]

“If you truly need help, or I get bored,” Renholm said, still clearly uninterested in the fight, “be assured that I will be there in an instant.”

No part of his callous indifference surprised me. Renholm was a self-serving asswad through-and-through. I kept him around because he could be surprisingly useful and occasional his self-serving nature happened to benefit me.

In the two seconds it had taken me to kill the first uber vermin, the rest of the rat bastards had managed to out flank me on both sides. Hoping to swarm me, no doubt. With a thought and a trickle of will, I conjured my Soul Bound, Benelli M4 tactical shotgun. I didn’t even bother aiming the damn thing. Instead, I thrust it straight out and started unloading. Generally, firing a shotgun like it’s a pistol is a terrible idea since a 12-gauge kicks like an angry mule, and the recoil will rip the weapon right out of your hand.

But most people aren’t Vigils.

With my preternaturally enhanced strength, I barely even felt the weapon buck in my grip. The barrel belched out round after round, all made of pure Essence. I turned the flaming greaseballs into pink mist and minced meat in a matter of seconds.

[You have killed a Subterranean Ratling! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 25 Essence!]…

[You have killed a Subterranean Ratling! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 25 Essence!]…

[You have killed a Subterranean Ratling! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 25 Essence!]…

Thin tendrils of Essence swirled across the floor while golden notifications backstroked through the air in a rapid flurry as the rats died en masse. The few that had managed to get within melee attacking ranged fared no better. Diseased claws and tiny, razor-sharp teeth scratched and bit, but failed spectacularly to penetrate my heavy Stone Spider plate mail. My own magic retaliated with vengeance. I was currently running a modified Valor build, complete with the Spiked Shell ability, which passively reflected melee damage back on my attackers.

Steely gray spikes of Arcana erupted outward from my body, skewering the rats and hurling them away in the process. In seconds the last of ’em were dead, their broken and twisted bodies littering the floor.

“See how easy that was?” Renholm remarked from behind me. “Honestly, I think we can both agree that was hardly worth the risk of getting my fur dirty. Or chipping a claw.” He held up a tiny hand, showcasing his minuscule talons.

“Yeah, god forbid that you get a little dirty while doing your job,” I replied, rolling my eyes and dismissing my shotgun.

“You know as well as I that the False Queen of the Oblivion Court could send riders at any moment. I need to look my best when the time comes for us to attend the opening ceremony.” He stood on Jacob Francis and twirled in a slow circle. The cat chirped and flicked his tail in annoyance but stayed put like the good and faithful steed he was.

Renholm looked vastly different than when I’d first found him trapped in an iron bird cage back in the Grave Ghoul cave.

He was still the size of a collectable action figure, but he no longer looked even remotely human. He had the body of a spider monkey, the face of a fennec fox, and a pair of glossy black raven wings protruding from his back. He was missing a leg, which he’d replaced with an intricately carved peg. He’d also added a couple of extra of accessories to his ensemble. There was a tiny crown perched lightly on his head and a bright red, fur-lined cloak that trailed down between his wings. There was a small rapier, crafted from a Grass Hound Quill, situated at one hip.

“You may not want to admit it,” he said, “but this is what the ideal Fae body looks like. I’m fabulous and soon everyone will have to acknowledge that reality.” His eyes narrowed as a sneer stretched his lips into a grimace. “Especially Jeffery.”

Awfully big claims for a creature the size of a candy bar, but if there was one thing Renholm didn’t lack, it was confidence. That and delusions of grandeur.

After suffering a life-threatening injury, the fairy had evolved using a Sage Class Chaos Affinity Scale and, in doing so, he’d inadvertently dragged me into an age-old conflict involving the nobles of the Fae Wylds. More specifically, he’d drawn me into a conflict with a particularly nasty Archefae named Ionia, the Supreme Queen of Dark Tidings, who happened to be the ruler of the Oblivion Court. It had been nearly three weeks since I’d received an inky black rose with a note attached to the stem. I had no problem remembering the words, because they’d been haunting every waking moment since.

Prepare. The Wild Hunt rides. As a Noble of the Fae Wylds, you have been called. Heed the call. Join the Hunt. Or become the Hunted…

In Blood and Night,

Ionia, the Supreme Queen of Dark Tidings, Mother of Oblivion, Child of Chaos, Archfae of Telvyss, the Void Tree of the Endless Night

Not ominous or concerning in any way.

“Thanks, but I don’t need any reminders about the colossal heap of bullshit you’ve dragged me into. If I had any sense at all, I’d just cut you loose and let you deal with the consequences of your own actions.”

“But you won’t,” Renholm said cheerily, “because you’re loyal to a fault. Something I appreciate greatly, since it is advantageous to me. Not that dissolving our pact would help you at this point,” he quickly amended, just in case I was having second thoughts. “You’ve been called to the Hunt. Join or become prey. The only way forward is to participate, and you’ll need my help to survive to the politic intricacies and schemas of the Fae Courts.”

“Hold that thought,” I said, raising a hand to stop the fairy from bumping his gums.

There was an odd noise coming from… somewhere. Everywhere?

It was almost like someone running a wet mop across the barracks floor.

What the hell is that?

I glanced over my shoulder and watched in equal parts fascination and horror as the gory remains of the rats crawled and slithered across the floor, merging into a giant, pulsating ball of meat.

Goddamn were Mortka gross.

It seemed like every single one of them was somehow more disgusting than the last. In seconds, the rat remains were gone, replaced by something new and even more horrible.

A hunched-back rat golem, seven feet tall, with mangy gray fur and countless rat faces protruding from its chest and arms and legs. This thing wasn’t a single entity, but rather looked like a hundred rats that had joined up to form a rabid, Voltron of flesh, all fused together by powerful Essence and dark magic. It tossed back its malformed head and issued a roar that shook a fine cloud of dust from the ceiling. Great strings of black and green drool dangled from jaws filled with rows upon rows of sharklike teeth.

I didn’t wait for it to finish showing off how badass it was.

Instead, I raised my hands and unleashed another round of Unbound Blaze, hoping to flash-fry this greasy shit stain before he could do any real damage. A half dome of noxious green and black light exploded to life in front of the beast, deflecting the column of fire. As I cut the attack short, the wall of cancerous light disappeared, and the beast retaliated with an attack of its own. It lurched forward and vomited out a ball of writhing tangled hair and rat tails that throbbed with disease. I narrowly sidestepped the attack before it could touch me.

It splattered against the floor near Renholm and Jacob Francis, spraying the fairy with something unspeakably disgusting. I couldn’t help but laugh. He had it coming, after all.

Hate and fury flashed across the Pookah’s adorable face.

“You have brought doom and destruction upon your household!” Renholm shrieked, taking to the air with a flash of wings. Jacob Francis immediately launched himself at the hair ball, which against all odds, was now moving across the floor like a spider on legs made from rat tails.

Great, things were getting progressively grosser by the second.

Renholm drew his sword and pointed it at the rat golem, firing off a pinky sized bolt of twisted purple energy. The rat monster didn’t even bother trying to avoid the attack. Why would it? Such an innocuous looking little thing.

Bad choice on its part.

The bolt of purple power disappeared as it landed, and a small violet dot appeared on the creature’s skin. Veins of black slowly crept outward like jagged bolts of lightning. Renholm had gained some significant new upgrades from his evolution, including an Entropy Bolt. The spell was destruction in its truest form. It could cause metal to rust away in a matter of minutes. Food to spoil in seconds. Or, in this case, cells to break down and die. The creature was literally rotting in real time even if it didn’t know it yet.

Renholm zipped forward, his quill-sword outthrust, and immediately started slashing at the creature’s eyes. Attempting to blind the beast.

Not wanting to waste a perfectly good distraction, I advanced with my axe raised, my jaw set in grim determination.

Renholm was dealing some decent damage, but the problem was this thing had tiny rat faces all over its body like cancerous growths. There was no way to blind it. A hundred beady rodent eyes all locked onto me as I approached. The golem rat ignored Renholm’s frantic assault, lowered its broad shoulders, and charged me. The colossus ploughed into me… and bounced back like it had just ran headlong into a brick wall.

That was the Unmoving Bulwark ability at work. Another one of the many skills from the Ward of Valor I currently had equipped. I’d seen Kerra—who stood five foot nothing and weighed all of a buck twenty—use the ability to hold her ground against fearsome monsters that outweighed her by a thousand pounds or more. Unmoving Bulwark made me more or less, well unmovable, by absorbing the raw kinetic force of an attack and dispersing most of it into the ground, while simultaneously redirecting a portion of the energy back at the opponent.

At the same time, Spike Shell struck again. Huge thorns of steely-gray Arcana punched through muscle and rat bodies.

The creature scrambled madly, its filthy black talons clawing for purchase on the basement floor. As soon as it regained its balance, it wheeled around, and used the wall as a springboard, leaping toward me. My Combat Sense alerted me too the attack. I could’ve easily absorbed the force of the blow, but instead I casually pivoted to one side, letting the uber rat sail harmlessly pass me. I swiveled and brought my Mortka-Forged Axe screaming around in sharp arc.

The razor-sharp blade edge sheered through one of the creature’s arms, effortlessly parting meat and bone. The limb detached and cartwheeled through the air, spraying out a gout of green acidic blood, which splattered the floor and splashed across my Stone Spider armor. The stone sizzled and small tongues of white smoke curled upward.

Thankfully, my armor was impervious to acid damage.

A notice flashed in the corner of my eye, here than gone, as my own potent poison took effect.

[Subterranean Ratking afflicted with Hellflayer Rot – x1]

The creature let out a fresh shriek of pain and rage and launched itself at me with renewed fervor—never mind that blood was gushing from the stump where its arm had been moments before. But then a curious thing happened. Its huge foot came down on top of its severed arm and suddenly it couldn’t keep its balance. The creature slipped and toppled, landing on its back with a meaty thud.

Renholm cackled in response. “Yes! Taste the terrible power of my Hex Cloak, you fool!”

That was one of Renbholm’s other new powers.

Hex Cloak was an active aura, similar to my Mantle of Strength ability, except that it created a powerful bubble of improbability, causing the impossible to be merely improbably and the improbably to be damn near certain. It brought luck and fortune for those aligned with Renholm, and calamity and misfortune for those who stood against him. Hex Cloak also had a stacking effect, so the longer someone or something stayed inside the range of the spell, the more potent the Hex would become.

The biggest drawback was that Renholm could only keep the aura running for a minute or two, tops, because it ate through Arcana like a platoon of hungry Marines fresh in from the field.

The rat golem pulled itself from the floor with a shake of its head, then dropped into a crouch, preparing to leap again.

It never got the chance.

I thrust my left hand out and let loose a burst of Arcana from my palm. A battering ram of unseen force smashed into the Mortka, swatting it back into the wall. It hit with a thump and landed in a heap, dazed from the blow. Before the creature could recover, I hurled the axe with all the strength I could muster. The bladed flipped end over end and slammed into its chest, afflicting the creature with a second dose of Hellflayer rot—not that the rat golem was going to live long enough for the disease to be an issue.

I conjured my shottie again, leveled the weapon, and pulled the trigger a trio of times. The gun barked in my hand. At less than ten feet out, there wasn’t enough of the creature’s head left to fill a beach pall.

[You have killed a Subterranean Ratking! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 1,175 Essence!]

“Serves you right, you dirty, uncouth, heathen,” Renholm spat, brushing off some of the gore that had splattered across his chest.

I ignored the fairy’s grumbling—it was nice to see him get a little taste of his own medicine for once—and dropped to a knee beside the decapitated corpse of what had apparently been a “Ratking.” Although decapitated wasn’t quite the right word, since I hadn’t really cut its head off. I’d disintegrated it.

Floating up from the body was a wispy golden ball of energy, attached by a thin tether of blue light. The ball of energy unfurled like a flower in bloom as I focused on it. Inside was a pocket dimension of sorts—a cubbyhole nestled within the soul of every Mortka—containing a small pile of loot. There was a handful of Affinity Scales, a single Transformation Token, and a dagger that looked to be built from bone. Or maybe it was an oversized tooth—hard to tell. I absently grabbed up everything I could and sent it all to my own Soul Vault using Fae Tether.

A grin stretched across my face as I spotted the real treasure. A glimmering ruby the size of a robin’s egg with gentle, golden script running over its surface. As I pulled the gem free, golden words appeared.

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Bounty Fulfilled

House Hunting: You have cleared out the last Mortka inhabiting the abandoned Starlake Keep and captured the Heart Stone (Saint Class) as your own. As a reward for reclaiming this former domain of the holy, you have been granted +10,000 Essence and the ability to claim the Keep as your own seat of power. To proceed, bind the Heart Stone to your Soul Vault Terminus Node.

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