Taboo Online

Kellan checked the final dark channel beneath his feet. "The purge is still dead."

"How far behind?" Rhea asked.

"Could be seconds. Could be a thousand-year-old machine refusing to recognize electricity."

"Convince it."

With the third ward gone, Rhea crossed back to the middle of the seal. The final wedge had been driven through its center beneath the thickest concentration of black brands, and once it broke, the reservoir would vent whether the purge system was ready or not.

Dorian backed into the chamber as operators and branded elves crowded the passage. The copper-wire woman stepped over the bodies behind them, blood covering one side of her face while several burned wires hung uselessly from her arm.

"You have no idea what that seal is holding," she said.

"We learned enough."

"No. You learned how to open it."

Her remaining wires snapped forward. Dorian caught one around his forearm and wrapped it around the broken mace shaft, but the second cut through his armor and opened a deep line beneath his ribs.

His bronze circle flickered, and Iris released the spare anchor before he could fall. Golden light crossed the chamber, locked around Dorian’s chest, and tightened over the wound until his body straightened.

[Maximum active lifelines reached.]

He looked down at the light. "I didn’t ask for that."

"Then consider it my decision," Iris replied.

Kellan pressed his palms more firmly against the control frame. Rather than releasing one violent surge, he fed lightning into the machine through several thin currents.

The final silver channel brightened, and for half a second, all three glowed together. Then black brands spread over the first channel and began choking the light from it.

"The first channel’s fading," Rhea warned.

"Then let me work."

The humor had disappeared from Kellan’s voice as he narrowed the current and split it into three separate arcs. Each followed an ancient channel beneath the floor, and although sweat ran down his face and his injured leg shook beneath him, he stayed in place until all three stabilized.

Rhea turned toward Dorian. "Final ward."

He pulled the copper wire tight around his broken weapon and used it to drag the woman into the edge of his oath circle. Bronze light climbed the wire and entered the brands beneath her skin.

She cried out and lost control of the remaining strands. Before Dorian could trap her inside the circle, she grabbed the branded bundle running beneath the skin of her forearm and tore it free.

Blood sprayed across the floor. Several copper strands remained lodged inside the wound, but the brands attached to them went dark.

The woman stumbled backward into the corridor and disappeared into the smoke.

Dorian threw the wire aside, turned, and drove the broken shaft into the final binding ward.

The first strike bent it. The second cracked the black metal, and the third shattered it.

[Hostile binding wards destroyed.]

[Seal removal initiated.]

[Corruption reserve released.]

[Evacuation window: 47 seconds.]

The center of the floor split open, and Rhea pulled her shield panels around the group just as the reservoir burst.

Corruption struck the forming barrier with the force of a flood. The impact threw Rhea backward, but Dorian caught her with one arm and kept them both inside the bronze circle.

Dark liquid and smoke covered the blue panels. Faces formed inside the corruption and stretched against the barrier before melting into other shapes. Some belonged to elves, while others had no eyes, mouths, or features that looked human.

The Forge shook around them as another system warning appeared.

[40 seconds remaining.]

"The channels are open," Kellan said through clenched teeth.

"Then why is the flood still here?" Iris asked.

"The seal isn’t high enough."

The black plate in the floor rose inch by inch as corruption poured through the widening gaps and rolled around Rhea’s shield. Operators trapped outside the formation screamed when the flood reached them.

Their brands flared, drew the corruption into their bodies, and twisted them into dark shapes against the chamber walls.

Farther inside the passage, the copper-wire woman tore open a maintenance door and threw herself through it moments before the black flood swallowed the corridor. The door slammed behind her, leaving the other operators to disappear inside the corruption.

Dorian watched them vanish, and the bronze circle widened beneath his feet.

[Oath condition engaged.]

[Bound suffering detected.]

Whispers rose from inside the corruption.

Help me.

Don’t leave us.

It hurts.

Dorian tightened both hands around the broken shaft while the lifeline across his ribs burned gold.

"No suffering soul will pass this line," he said.

Bronze light climbed the inside of Rhea’s shield and forced the nearest corruption away. Faces pressed toward the circle, but none crossed it.

[31 seconds remaining.]

A crack spread through one of Rhea’s blue panels, followed by another beside it.

"I can pull Dorian’s anchor and put it back on you," Iris said.

"Don’t."

"Your shield is breaking."

"His oath is the only thing keeping the flood from coming through the cracks."

Another wave struck the circle and bent Dorian’s knees. Rhea forced her shoulder beneath the damaged panel and pushed it back into place.

"Keep him standing."

[23 seconds remaining.]

The native seal rose another foot. Silver symbols appeared beneath the black coating, but most of them remained dark.

Kellan’s lightning followed the channels toward the symbols. The first row woke, followed by the second, while the third stayed black.

"The last row is blocked."

"Where?"

"Under the reservoir."

Corruption had swallowed the lower half of the control frame, and black veins climbed over Kellan’s wrists in search of gaps in his armor. Iris reached toward him, but he pulled away.

"Don’t. It’ll ride the lifeline back to you."

The anchor around his thigh pulsed rapidly.

[16 seconds remaining.]

Cracks opened wide enough in Rhea’s shield for black smoke to slip through. Dorian caught the first stream against the bronze light with the broken shaft.

The corruption wrapped around the weapon and whispered in several voices at once. He pulled it deeper into the circle, and although the black smoke burned away, the shaft split down the middle.

Dorian tightened his grip around both halves and refused to let the weapon break apart.

[11 seconds remaining.]

"Kellan."

"I hear the timer."

The final silver symbols refused to light. There was nowhere for Kellan to run, and every attempt to force more power into the machine had only made the blockage worse.

He closed his eyes and lowered the lightning until only three narrow currents remained. Instead of pushing against the black obstruction, he traced its edges and searched for the ancient silver channel underneath.

One current found a narrow opening, and Kellan carefully guided the other two after it.

[6 seconds remaining.]

The final symbols flashed, and every silver channel beneath the chamber ignited at once.

The floor seemed to drop beneath them as the Forge dragged everything downward. Hair, loose clothing, smoke, and shattered pieces of black metal snapped toward the open channels.

Corruption tore away from Rhea’s shield and spiraled below. The sudden reversal ripped black smoke from the walls, the ruined operators, and the brands covering the machinery.

Dorian’s bronze circle collapsed beneath him as Rhea’s shield panels fell apart. Iris caught Dorian, while Kellan lost his grip on the control frame and dropped onto his injured knee.

When the timer reached zero, the chamber went dark. The only sound came from corruption roaring through the passages beneath the floor.

Silver light erupted through the Forge a moment later, and the black seal shattered.

[Hostile Warden Seal removed.]

[Native Warden authority restored: partial.]

[Passage to Lethariel restored.]

[The fifth extraction relay has lost primary power.]

The last of the black flood drained through the lower channels. Foreign machinery still covered much of the chamber, and several silver symbols refused to light, but the pressure that had filled the Forge was finally gone.