Bog Standard Isekai

Except for Jeeves, none of Hogg's Shadow Elementals were inside the grand auditorium; he'd held them at bay in the Atrium on one side and the labyrinth garden on the other. The [Illusionists] were kind enough to display the scene outside so that no one could miss the sight of Hogg's Shadow Elementals fading into wisps of shadowy smoke and then disappearing.

Calixtum tossed the gemstone to the ground, shattering it, and their hopes of reconnecting it to Hogg. Clearly, he had no use for it beyond ruining Hogg's defense. Brin felt himself near to panic, because this was not how he'd seen this part going.

Jeeves hurried to his side, and murmured into his ear. "There's been an adjustment to the plan. Let him go."

"Uh, let him go, I guess," Brin ordered.

Calixtum's color was so dark that it was hard to make out his features. He nodded, then fled back through the still-open doors to the Atrium.

The [Illusionists] had been doing a better job at coordinating things that Brin had given them credit for. The moment the Shadow Elementals had disappeared, they'd been ready to step in, and replaced the wall of Shadow with a wall of magical artillery. They eliminated a huge swathe of the monsters in one great volley, and then laid down suppressing fire to corral the Shrouded away from the commoners still remaining.

It was a dazzling display, but Brin knew it was a temporary one. With a connection to the Grand Focus, Hogg could keep up his defense for days if necessary. These [Mages] had hours at most, more likely minutes.

Calixtum arrived from behind the defenders, and dodged a few panicked fireballs and earth spears, but didn't engage the [Mages]. Instead, he ran straight past the [Mages] to crash into the Shroudlings.

He approached the first Anger Shrouded with arms outstretched, like he was going for a hug. Calixtum ran into the Shrouded, and then through. The red Shrouded burst like a water balloon. Most of him splashed into pale, empty, water, but some of him was integrated into Calixtum. Calixtum kept running, tearing through the Shrouded of every color with equal ease, growing slightly larger with each victim.

To [Wyrdic Inspect] Calixtum's Class hadn't changed. He was still Calixtum [Who Wears the Shroud]. A statement or a question, Brin didn't know. On the Wyrd side, he could definitely feel a shift in the Class. Calixtum had a precedence with the Shrouded that he hadn't had before, and now Brin could see what that meant in real time. He was consuming the Shroud.

The change in Motley Shroud was immediate. The Shrouded who'd had enough intelligence to fight from around corners and use guerrilla tactics suddenly turned to face Calixtum's direction. Those who'd been especially mindless and were running wild on the floors above stopped and did the same. They all started moving in his direction.

No, not all. Brin noticed a few dozen suddenly change to color of fear and flee the Tower completely. They were quick when retreating, and ignored all the people and buildings of Steamshield to run straight back towards the lake. Only a few dozen, though. Perhaps those who’d been turned from regular humans were fleeing, while those charging were the ones that had been converted from undead. He noticed that those recently regenerated and still making their way back from the Alent fled as well, so perhaps there was a range limit to Calixtum's lure.

The Shrouded that had been fighting in the labyrinth garden were now desperate to cross through the auditorium to get to Calixtum, and the [Mages] defending that area were now hard-pressed to keep them back.

Three Joy Shrouded broke straight through the dome, letting in the daylight which cast sunbeams through the smoke and sparkles of the day's festivities. The Tower hadn't left this place completely undefended, and blasts of killing fire from the [Grand Magus of Flame] destroyed them without Brin needing to involve himself.

"Master Hogg also instructed me to tell you to take the potion," said Jeeves.

"I don't need it. All my main body's wounds will heal, and I bet I'll get a ton of advancement on [Scarred, but Healing]," said Brin.

"What will you say when Lumina sees you in this state?" asked Jeeves.

Brin paused at that thought, but said, "E-even so, I think there's probably someone out there that needs it more.”

Jeeves bowed. "Apologies, sir. It is not my place to press. Master Hogg also informs me that the next phase of the plan will be better if you are physically present. As in, with your own body," said Jeeves.

"I'll see what I can do," said Brin. He sent some Invisible Eyes to coordinate with Valentin, because he wasn't about to take the stairs. He needed an easier way down.

Calixtum continued his slaughter, growing larger by the second. Some of the Shrouded had fought with intelligence up to this point, and Brin expected that they'd start to see they couldn't beat him and reassess, but the sight of Calixtum consuming their brethren just seemed to make them even more desperate to fight him. Even the Fear Shrouded threw themselves at him.

He saw ghostly Cecildis swirling around in curiosity. She'd already defeated the last of the Shroudlings that Brin could spot with her invisible eyes, and she'd started taking nips out of regular Shrouded to see if she could destroy their color as well. She could temporarily drain a bit of the color of some of the Shrouded, leaving gray sores that healed after a few minutes, but she hadn't been able to destroy one completely. Brin warned her away from Calixtum.

Before Brin knew it, Calixtum had finished the last of the Shrouded in the atrium that hadn't been destroyed by the [Mages'] fire. Brin wasn't sure if he wanted to tell the [Mages] to stand down. On the one hand, the ones defeated by the [Mages] were still regenerating in the Alent and from there, they could flee into the countryside. On the other, each Shrouded that Calixtum ate made him stronger.

Calixtum turned and marched back towards the auditorium. There was a tense stand-off when no one was quite sure what he'd do, but he didn't approach any of the humans. He simply moved straight past the defenders and launched into battle against the Shrouded in the maze garden.

"Just for the record..." Brin began to ask, and noticed that the [Illusionists] were projecting his voice and he was on the big screen again. He cleared his voice and spoke more confidently. "Just for the record, Vitor, what will happen to Calixtum if you decide he has violated his Oath?"

"He'll die," said Vitor, slightly cowed by all the attention. "But... but look! He's still on our side! He disrupted Hogg's spell because he wanted to defeat the Shrouded himself. But he's still fighting them for us, isn't he?"

"Yes. But what specifically happens if he breaks his Oath? I won't believe that Cobol didn't try it with at least one of the ones that swore to him," said Brin.

"He did," Vitor admitted. "And it didn't help. It only reverts the levels of the man, but doesn't expel the Motley Shroud. With no Class to protect him, the Shroud devours him and becomes just another one of them."

"So we can't do that, can we? If Calixtum loses his Class, all that power will be released again. You can't hold Calixtum to his Oath, no matter what he does after he finishes consuming all those Shrouded," said Brin.

"That's right," said Vitor, a little uneasily.

"Follow me."

He'd been speaking only to Vitor, but all the rest of his friends followed him anyway.

The maze garden was a battlefield. A few of the Shrouded had caught on that touching Calixtum meant absorption, so a group of Envy and Fear Shrouded pelted him with water bullets from a distance while red-raged Anger Shrouded charged him one after another to keep him from drawing close.

He didn't gain any more levels, which meant that he was gaining something else from absorbing these things.

This book was originally published on NovelPhoenix. Check it out there for the real experience.

Per Hogg's request, Brin moved his real body down to the ground. He lost the incredible resonance he'd had up there, which meant that he couldn't use [Commune with the Elements] to regenerate his Mana in three breaths any longer, but the light-absorbing cloud he'd left up there had had some time to ramp up, and it would make an appropriate substitution.

The battle didn't have a climactic finish. Eventually, Calixtum absorbed enough of the Shrouded that it overwhelmed whatever Skill or ability he was using to draw them towards him, and the rest who hadn't been struck down by the [Mages] fled into the city. That was going to be annoying to clean up, but he saw that Hogg was already summoning more Shadow Elementals to deal with it.

Meanwhile, Calixtum was still solid black, and he'd grown to eleven feet tall. He turned to face Vitor. "Release me from my Oath."

"Don't you think you're underestimating someone?" asked Brin.

"I think you'll find that you are the one underestimating me." Calixtum was so dark a black that it was hard to even see his mouth moving. He was like a void in the world. "Everyone does. Everyone always did. Do you think because I feel, it must mean I've stopped thinking? I've been thinking this whole time, and making plans. It's why I agreed to help guide the Shroud here."

Brin clapped mockingly. "Congratulations on that. You must feel really powerful."

"It was never about power. I desire freedom," said Calixtum.

"But why?" asked Vitor. "You know I would never have used that Oath against you. We... we're friends. That Oath was just for appearances sake."

"It was, until I became a monster. Release the Oath, Vitor. Release it, or I will break an Oath of Last Resort and become free that way," said Calixtum.

Brin turned, not really talking to Calixtum, but raising his voice towards the assembled crowds and the Invisible Eyes that were projecting this to the rest of the Tower. "You didn't answer my question. Don't you think you're underestimating me a little too much? You were standing like 3 feet away when I said this the last time. I always expect at least one betrayal. At least one, not 'no more than one'."

"Whether you predicted it or not, it doesn't change where we are." Calixtum's voice suddenly took on a deeper resonance. "Make your choice. You're running out of time."

The ground of the maze garden turned black. For a half-second, Brin feared that it was a new ability from Calixtum, but no, this was Hogg.

Men and women with gray skin, clothed in black and white, grew up out of the darkness. Hogg's army of Shadow Elementals returned, all one thousand of them.

"No," gasped Calixtum, and his black color finally lightened enough to take on a small tint of fear. He looked passed Brin to the auditorium and the shattered gemstone. “It was a fake?”

"First off, I need to say, excellent job, Sancha." Brin reached out his fist, and she bumped it, two glass fists clinking together. "Piloting a Mirror Man isn't as easy as she's making it look. She really came through for me. Unlike Ares, who nearly gave the whole thing away the second he touched her and realized she was glass."

Ares put both hands up, laughing. "Guilty!"

Bia raised her hand. "I knew, too!" She lowered it slowly when everyone looked at her. "Just saying."

"And!" Sancha cut in with a malicious smile. "I guided it, but the power belonged to Brin, and he felt all the body touched. Thy first kiss, twas with him!"

"She's right." Brin nodded. "That was my first kiss, too. Jerk."

"How dare you, Ares?" Bia said.

Sion shook his head. "A poor showing, my friend."

Ares spluttered. "That wasn't my first... I mean, it wasn't..."

Brin smiled. It wasn’t everyone who could shift straight from mortal peril to banter easy like this; he really appreciated that from these guys.

"Where is the true Grand Focus?" asked Calixtum.

"Remember all the times Vitor complained that we should've left the Grand Focus where it was and defended it from the top of the Tower? Well, that's exactly what we did. It's currently guarded by the Land's End and twenty of her best [Water Mages]. Our little team of adventurers was the decoy party. We honestly didn't think we would get this far. We thought that the Easterlings were going to be the first to figure it out. That's what we get for worrying about a bunch of dumb bugs," said Brin.

"They are not dumb!" exclaimed an outraged Guoncal. "They are creatures of supreme beauty and intelligence!"

Calixtum jumped into the air. Whether he had a way to fly, or if he was just planning on climbing the Tower from the outside like King Kong, Brin didn't get to see, because Vitor leapt up and met him in the air.

Vitor let out all the stops from the beginning. Brin felt his eyes go dry even though the force of the [Thirsty Blade's] spell power wasn't even aimed his direction. The ground disintegrated into sand from the force of Vitor's leap, and more sand joined him in the air as a weapon.

Calixtum met spell and blade with a wet, stringy punch, and the force sent both of them hurtling towards the ground. Vitor caught himself with stepping stones of air and sprinted across the sky to cut off Calixtum’s next leap towards the Tower.

Brin summoned a Laser Drone and then put a wasteful amount of power into a laser. It cut straight through Calixtum’s watery body. He didn’t know how much it damaged him, but it distracted him enough that Vitor’s water-destroying sword sliced straight through his side, nearly bisecting him.

They fought a furious back and forth, until Vitor called on his sand for a shield, and it didn’t come. He must’ve already been at the dregs of his Mana, but now he was out. An oily kick flung Vitor to his back, and only a wall of ten Shadow Elementals kept Calixtum from finishing him off.

Brin summoned chains, but this time, summoned them out of molten glass. He grew them from underneath the pools of sand Vitor had left lying around, and then sprang them all out at once, catching the one [Who Wears the Shroud].

Brin half-expected Calixtum’s watery form to slide right through, but the interactions between the magic types benefitted Brin this time. Calixtum’s flesh sizzled and steamed where Brin’s molten chains touched him. They hardened him, burnt and bound him, and he screamed in anguish.

Calixtum screamed and contorted and anguish. “Close! I was so close.”

“You weren’t close at all. If you’d gotten up there, you would’ve found that it was just another decoy. Did you not hear my speech about expecting betrayal?”

“Then… then where…?”

Brin shrugged. "Not telling. But I'll tell you who has it."

Bia raised her eyebrows, comprehension dawning. "Bedelia!"

Brin nodded. "Bedelia! Did you figure out that one, too?"

"No, I... I just put it together now. It isn't only Sancha who could safely move it. Bedelia is connected to Hogg's power; she wouldn't damage the link by taking it. Then... then she isn't dead?"

"I told you she was fine," said Brin. "I wouldn't leave a servant behind to die. Right, Tonin?"

Tonin nodded solemnly. He was looking a little morose ever since Brin had dropped Sanpurana off on the damaged prison level, and now he was fairly horrified at the sight of suffering Calixtum.

“Don’t kill him,” said Vitor. He grasped Brin’s arm, the glass one since Brin’s real body was still invisible. “Please. Don’t kill him.”

“No mercy, huh? That's hardcore,” said Brin.

“Did you not hear me? Yes! Yes to mercy,” insisted Vitor.

“Even your best friend has written you off, Calixtum.” Brin chuckled darkly.

Vitor shook his head. “That's not–”

“Welcome to a hundred years of torment as the Tower's test subject!” Brin tripled the number of molten glass chains he'd wrapped around Calixtum, though he was running low on the amount of Mana he could use down here.

Hogg appeared at his side, a gray and black Shadow Elemental of himself. "Let's do the Basil Bunny."

“Oh hell yes!” said Brin.

Hogg surrounded Calixtum with a dome of semi transparent hard light, and Brin relaxed the chains.

Calixtum flung himself against the walls, but to no avail. Hogg's magic was strong.

Brin covered Hogg's bubble with glass. Mostly using stuff he'd already summoned from here and there, including the glass body he'd been piloting. He made it extra thick, and when he was done, let his real body come out from invisibility.

The real body still had the combined Water and Color Poison, the potion Hogg had described as the Shroud Eveladis. He opened a hole in the bubble, saw the same hole in Hogg's hard light, and flung the potion inside.

Yes, he often made fun of people for throwing potions instead of opening them in their hands, but he was a [Glass Mage]. He exploded the potion straight in Calixtum's face.

The wave of anguished screaming was liable to make them look like they weren't the good guys. Hogg dampened the sound after a few moments.

“Will that kill him?”

“Uh… theoretically no,” said Hogg. That was good enough for Brin, but Hogg expounded. “I'm hoping it burns away the Shroud and leaves the man. It would kill a regular Shrouded, but since Calixtum still has some human in him, it should leave that part behind.”

The bubble idea ran into its first snag when Calixtum started venting water, releasing the moisture he'd collected and threatening to burst containment. Brin had to open up a hole, but they didn't want to let it go free into the air in case it was still infected with the Shroud, so they made tubes and collectors. His glass prison ended up looking more like a meth lab by the time Calixtum was stable.

Hogg nodded. “That'll do. Now it's time for the last part of our plan. You ready?”

“Ready for what?” Brin asked. “You haven't told me this part of the plan yet. Aren't we done?”

Hogg frowned. “Wasn't talking to you. Now!”

He felt glass break against his breastplate. An Eveladis. Thrown by… Sion?

Rhun struck him next while he was still reeling from all his threads returning at once. Using a [Knight's Charge], Rhun tackled Brin around the middle, driving him to the ground and holding him there.

Bia landed next, wrapping her hands around his wrist and pulling off his gauntlet to reveal his non-injured hand and Lumina's ring. Sion reached in and plucked out the Healing Potion.

Starting to understand what they were after, Brin pushed his glass magic into his armor to pull himself away, but Jeeves caught him and held him still. Another Shadow Elemental pulled his helmet off. Brin clamped his jaw shut, but Vitor's grimy fingers wedged them open.

He used his glass magic to seal the bottle shut, but Vitor just pushed it into his mouth and then punched Brin in the jaw to shatter it.

The relief was instantaneous. The pain he'd been trying so hard to ignore was gone. The wave of euphoria that came with the lack of pain nearly made him burst out laughing, but he clamped his jaw fast. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

Brin spat out a mouthful of glass and stood. His friends all smirked at him and he returned only glares. He couldn't let them know how happy this little betrayal made him. He really hadn't expected it at all. How long had they been plotting this?

There was nothing else to do. He clenched his newly-healed fist, and socked Vitor in the jaw.