Redemption Arc

The new arrivals unnerved Lucian, but his training had drilled composure into him for a long while now. That training allowed him to focus on the fight at hand. The fighting style that Lucian had developed while working with Aurelia was incredibly potent. It was also incredibly reckless, but that seemed to be tradition for him by this point.

The gorgons were flooding into the city just as the water in the streets was beginning to subside. They were incredibly grotesque creatures, with a body shape closer to that of a leech than a snake but scaled up to the size of a human. They had green skin well-suited for blending into the jungle environment, and two arms that had snake heads for hands. Their heads were vaguely human, but wrong, with almost orc-like faces and grotesque tumorous growths sprouting from around their reptilian eyes.

Aurelia broke ahead of the rest of the pack, leaping over buildings effortlessly to find a more densely crowded place. Lucian marked a larger gorgon using the Fear spell. In the battle against Villeth, he’d used it as a remote heal—now, he used this magic on the offense. The gorgon shone from within, spasming as the holy element ravaged it. Aurelia crouched low, giving Lucian time to imbue his repaired Inquisitor’s Spetum with a three-word holy spell. Until he achieved 60 MAG, he couldn’t learn four-word spells. That said, he’d finally learned to use spells without a chant.

Once his spell was prepped, he said their signal.

“Smart.”

Lucian braced the spetum like a proper knight and Aurelia lunged with ungodly speed. He impaled the gorgon right through its putrid face. The ferocity of the impact was so intense that Lucian thought that his arm might give, but the gorgon’s body gave first when the spell he’d imbued into the spetum exploded. A barrage of purified essence flowed into Lucian. Aurelia, meanwhile, lashed out with her tails’ conjured holy weapons, cleaving into countless of the lesser beasts around.

In what felt like no more than three seconds, they cleared out a small area of the gorgons from the city. Lucian looked around for more targets. While doing so, he also checked that group of elves to see what they were doing. He received his answer soon enough in the form of a javelin bursting forth and impaling one of the gorgons on the wall.

“That one had purified essence…” Lucian muttered. He looked back to see if Rowan and the others were faring alright, and he saw them having similarly resounding success against the ambushed monsters. “I’m uneasy, Aurelia. We should make for the blessing immediately. That one,” Lucian said, igniting another gorgon from afar. “I’ll signal you a path.”

Aurelia charged through the city rapidly, heading into the heart of things. Lucian would charge his spear with a spell, brace it in his arm, and then use Aurelia’s physical prowess to charge through and end them cleanly. Gorgons were dense with purified essence that bestowed CON and HP. It wasn’t only Lucian that was reaping the benefits—Aurelia, too, gained a feast of power from killing wayward enemies. She’d detached from the demons, after all. She would become considerably hardier once this all was over, both in her natural form and divine beast form.

But if the two of them were making fast progress, then the band of elves that had come into the ruins were no less formidable. They might have been moving a little bit slower, but they were wreaking much more destruction. Lucian could tell from looking at them that these weren’t average soldiers. They carried no flag, shouted no war cry, and had no distinguishing marks he recognized. Who were they?

After a furious dash through the ruins of the fallen city, they came to the temple district. A gargantuan stepped pyramid loomed above all. This pyramid was the source of much of the water in the canals in the city—streams flowed down elegantly in carved paths right beside the stairs.

Aurelia moved steadily up the stairs, catching her breath. Lucian asked, “Got any wounds? Need any healing?” Aurelia nodded, and Lucian spent some time healing her and curing the poison that’d taken root. When her breath was caught, he continued, “Alright. Remember the plan. Leave the shadow to me, you take the body.”

Aurelia ascended wordlessly, arriving to the sanctum of this temple. They entered inside, and Lucian couldn’t help but take in the sights. The elves believed that the world itself was a god that they all lived within. There was no surer manifestation of divine favor than mastery over nature, in their view—they believed that things like gardens, orchards, or even farms were quite literally harnessing the power of God. Their temples were thus places where they created some of the most masterful gardens that the world had ever seen. Their places of worship made the Hanging Gardens of Babylon look like a hobbyist gardener’s backyard.

It was a terrible shame to see this one reduced to this state.

What had once been an incredibly beautiful garden had decayed into a decrepit mess without active maintenance. There was a giant pane of glass above shining light on myriad dead plants, many of them half-flooded by the overflowing wellspring in the center of the room. It was overflowing because the water was being displaced by something lying within it.

A disgusting white mass of flesh laid in the middle of the wellspring. It was clearly a gorgon like the others that they’d seen, but it was at least seven times larger and had more notably anthropomorphic features. It lounged in the wellspring like it was a bath, and its head was laid back in what seemed like bliss with its tongue lolled out, stretching for a solid ten feet. This was a Shadow Gorgon—one of two in the whole of War of Four.

Lucian dismounted quietly, giving a nod toward Aurelia once he’d done so. She crept up silently on the disgusting monster. She walked up right to its face, contemplating where to attack. Then, one of her tails became a sword and she slammed it down upon its tongue. The Shadow Gorgon hissed and shrieked at the same time, reeling and thrashing despite the fact that Aurelia had already dodged away. She perched on a large dead tree, watching it.

The Shadow Gorgon came to its full terrifying height. It didn’t have scales, only tumorous, leathery skin. Where its body had been submerged in the path was horribly pruney and lumpy to the point where it was sickening to look at. It had two powerful legs and snakes for arms that dragged on the ground. Its human-like mouth was bleeding copiously, but seconds later a fresh tongue slithered out. It seemed undamaged.

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One of its arms lashed out for the base of the tree that Aurelia was standing on. The deadwood shattered, leaving her falling through the air—as she did, the other arm lashed out. She cast out holy fire to protect herself. Its flesh burned, melting away… yet seconds later reformed, again totally unharmed. Its regenerative abilities seemed absurd, almost to the point of immortality.

It was immortal, in some sense. That gigantic body was nothing more than a puppet for the real creature.

As Aurelia stood her ground and fought the puppet body, Lucian paid attention to the flow of magic in the air. Aurelia’s body was being targeted by a form of magic—a hex. Lucian devoted his total attention toward finding the source. As the fight with the giant raged on, Lucian found himself surprised by how completely he trusted she wouldn’t let a single attack get to him.

And in turn…

Lucian spotted the source of the hex moments after it was complete. From a shadow cast by a tree, a shadowy gorgon burst forth toward Aurelia’s back with sharklike jaws wide-open. Lucian held his hand out and cast Fear swapped with the holy element by his Formless Essence. The thing was consumed by the magic and shrieked in agony, colliding against Aurelia’s back ineffectually and plopping down to the ground with a wet flop that sent oil-like blood scattering over the ground. Simultaneously, holy light burst from the body of the puppet.

Attacking the shadow was the only thing that damaged this boss. The player had to keep the giant distracted while other units hunted for the shadow, roaming hidden somewhere in the map.

Lucian lunged to the true body of Shadow Gorgon as fast as he could. The thing had incredible magic resistance, but physically, it was pathetic. The thing slithered and hissed pitifully as Lucian chased it. He stumbled over roots and all manner of obstacles in this poorly-maintained area. It was heading for the closest shadow. Once it found that, it could swim away. He felt like a servant with a broom chasing a mouse—his spear banged against stone, narrowly missing time and time again.

Lucian paused, preparing a spell. A chain of ice erupted from his hands, narrowly missing the Shadow Gorgon but stabbing into the ground. He grabbed it and pulled as hard as he could while he ran, leaping and swiping at it with the spear. His spear seized it in the leg, slicing it clean free. He landed a lot more gracefully than he’d been expecting, bashing his shoulder against a tree but nothing more.

By the time he looked back, the Shadow Gorgon was slipping into the shadow like a mole into the dirt. He let out a curse, then made to Aurelia. She looked tired defending against the relentless attacks of the puppet body. It had lost one of its huge legs thanks to what he did, but it remained incredibly vicious in its assault. Her breath was labored.

Aurelia continued to resist, swatting relentless biting fangs with fire of holy weapons. The hex stacked up once more. No matter how much time passed, Lucian never felt the hex complete. In War of Four, if a unit attacked the puppet body, it built up hex. When hex was maxed, the Shadow Gorgon would warp and attack that unit, allowing the player to predict its actions.

Use what you’ve learned, Lucian reminded himself.

“Aurelia,” Lucian said. “I want you to keep an eye on me. Bark if something’s about to stab me.”

Lucian himself couldn’t believe how much trust he was giving both her ability and her willingness to help him as he moved toward a dense cluster of shadows near the puppet body’s feet.

The beast wouldn’t attack Aurelia. She hadn’t done any damage to it. It would attack the thing that it knew to be a threat. He walked deeper, deeper into shadows, waiting, waiting… then, Aurelia yelped.

Lucian slammed his hand down and cast an earth spell. A wall of stone erupted around him on every side. When he saw a shadow overhead, he realized he timed it almost perfectly. The Shadow Gorgon had been interrupted mid-attack, and had been knocked up into the air by his attack.

Lucian cancelled the spell, took aim, and stabbed. He pierced the Shadow Gorgon right beneath its neck, and its putrid little body thrashed and hissed, spitting black blood on him that burned his skin. As the seconds passed, it slowed… then turned to ash. When he no longer felt its weight on his spear he turned back, where Aurelia panted exhaustedly. The puppet body swayed, then crashed to the ground. It was made of the flesh of people—it’d persist.

With an exhausted sigh, Lucian lowered his spetum. He wished that he could have used fire. But if he’d used fire, he wouldn’t have been able to do this. He walked to the back of the temple. There, a flower began to blossom. Atop it, like the sweetest fruit, was a pearly white blessing. This flower apparently closed itself in the presence of demons and monsters. If the player used fire, it’d burn—and the blessing would disappear.

Aurelia bumped up against Lucian, watching the blessing. He looked at her.

“Great job,” he praised without reservations. She raised her head in what seemed like pride, then beckoned toward the blessing with a tail.

Lucian reached out and took the prize. It popped, and surged within his body. He felt a surge of vitality and another new power well up inside him. Aurelia bumped him again with her head, then gestured. Lucian turned back to see a few elven warriors enter the temple.

Hell… what is this about?

“Hey,” Lucian called out in a friendly tone, but stayed near Aurelia. “We’ve got permission to be here, don’t worry. Which clan are you with?”

The elves surveyed the room—particularly the gigantic body of the flesh puppet. Lucian and Aurelia got closer. They were speaking to each other in the elvish tongue. It had many n’s and z’s and t’s.

“Did you hear me?” Lucian asked. “Which clan are you from?”

The elves continued to speak elvish, completely ignoring Lucian. Aurelia glanced at Lucian, then advanced. One by one, her tails came alive with holy weapons, and the elves readied their weapons.

“Stop,” one of them eventually said. She had a very heavy accent. “We are not… for conflict,” she said, clearly not totally used to the Riverran tongue.

“That being the case… I’ll repeat myself,” Lucian said. “Which clan are you from?”

“No clan,” the woman said—the apparent leader. “We serve Enoch.”

Enoch? Lucian frowned.

“He wishes to witness you all,” she concluded. “And his wish is ours.”

Last time Lucian checked, Enoch didn’t have a bunch of heavily-armed and highly-skilled people trying to fulfill his wishes. But here they were, and all of them seemed rather insistent.