Chapter 5: Dark Tower
My idea of a vacation resort is a tropical planet with sunny beaches, shining blue water, and Twe'lek hula dancers, looking at the rotting ooze infested swamps of the Wasteland I decided I'd be checking this place off of my vacation list.
We had finally escaped the swarm of Halfling swarm and are now traveling through the Wastelands towards the place where the ruins of the Dark Tower lay.
"Sire, I would advise you to avoid the Magical Ooze." Gnarl said.
"Yeah I know, it smells." I joked covering my nose.
"That and..." Gnarl started to explain but was interupted by a Halfling charging at us. As he was running, the Halfling tripped and fell down rolling right into a puddle of the Magical Ooze. A few seconds later something else came out of the Ooze. It looked like a Halfling, but it was taller, had horns, blue skin with glowing blue blood vessels visible through it, and glowing eyes. It charged at me letting out an inhuman roar. I activated my Lightaxe and swung at it causing it to fall to the ground with a diagonal slash in it's chest that had a bluish black fluid leaking out from it. I had to cover my mouth so I wouldn't throw up.
"Let's get going." Gnarl said, "We wouldn't want to run into any more mutants, especially slugs."
"Slugs?" I asked now rather concerned after seeing that thing.
Evernight, Tree of Oberon
Lady Elise knelt down in the center of Evernight Forest in front of the tree where the great hero Oberon Greenhaze once slept. After being destroyed by the Overlord, the tree regrew itself on the spot where Oberon fell.
"The Dark Elves have returned." she said to the tree with her head bowed, "They're back and even more powerful than before. I don't know if I will be able to stop him this time, not without Fay or... you." tears began to form in her eyes as she continued, "I never could have stopped them myself back then, when all us were together I felt we could accomplish anything, but now... it's just me... and I don't think I'm strong enough." Now the tears streamed down her face.
Suddenly she felt a hand placed itself on her shoulder. She looked up to see an Elf wearing ancient armored Elvish warrior robes and a bow as well as white hair. He had a presence, but it was also like he wasn't really there. "Oberon?" Elise asked the Elf.
Oberon nodded and kneeled down in front of her. "Elise, you must not fear, and please don't weep. I have never known a stronger woman in all of the Fair Folk, and right now that strength is what our people need. I know you're scared, but I also want you to know that I think there is no better leader for our people, and no one more suited to send Terrek back to the Netherworld!"
"Oberon... thank you." She said managing a smile in this moment.
Oberon then began to fade, "This tree will guide you in our most desperate hour." he said before completely dissappearing.
Elise stood up and nodded her head hoping that Oberon was still watching, hoping that he knew he was successful and that her conviction was restored. She then left in the direction of the Mother Goddess Temple, seeing him again this also helped her conscious. That she wasn't able to save the man she loved from his fate, but seeing him at peace had finally let her make peace with herself.
Wastelands, Dark Tower Ruins
"Man, this tower must have been enormous." I said as I looked up at the part of the tower that was leaning on the mountain and upon the ruins across a wide area.
We stood in a small trench which lead to a small door in the base of the tower which wasn't on it's side like the rest of it. I was about to open the doors when we heard a scream. I turned around just in time to see a girl with blonde hair and brown eyes crash right into me knocking me on my back.
"Ow! What was that about?" I asked in surprise as I jumped back onto my feet. She had fallen as well. When I got a better look at her I realized I had seen her before, "Hey you're that girl from the Halfling village." I remembered as I offered my hand to help her up.
"You know you could just ask my name instead. I do have one." she said in an irritated voice, but she accepted my help anyway.
"And that would be?" I asked her. Something about this girl bugged me.
"Rin. Rin Korrotoe." She said with a small amount of pride.
"That name... could it really..." Gnarl said, "No, no no no. Probably just a coincidence."
"So, aren't you going to tell me your name?" She asked she was looking at me with a very serious expression, like she was expecting I was going to say something bad.
"I'm Nova, the new Overlord." I answered.
"The... Overlord..." she said backing up slightly.
"Uh oh." Gnarl said backing up slowly.
"The Overlord... The Overlord!" She backed up a little, "I can't believe it, to think I'd be the first one to meet the new Overlord. And that it'd be someone like you. I never could of seen this coming. It's just... the Overlord." She seemed to be almost confused, but she also seemed to understand what was going on. There was clearly something she wasn't saying.
"Gnarl, do you have any idea what she's..." I started to ask Gnarl a question, but he had already walked off back to the door.
"Hurry along, master. I think it'd be best that we hurry to our task."
I glanced back at Rin, who seemed to be contemplating something, but decided I'd leave her be and just followed Gnarl.
The inside of this place was in terrible state, collaspsed pillars, tunnels that have fallen in, and half of the roof was missing. "It seems the Spawning Pit is in need of a dusting after a few decades of not being used." Gnarl said.
I couldn't exactly tell if he was joking. It was definitely going to take more than a bit of dusting to fix this. "So what now?" I asked him.
Gnarl pointed towards a small pool of water in the center of the room that had rocks around it, "That is where the Heart once stood, walk over there and raise your gauntlet hand."
I did as he said and walked over to it and stepped into the water which barely went up to my ankles. I raised my left arm, then the crystal on it began to glow and i could hear rumbling sounds coming from several directions. The rocks surrounding the pool flew up into the air and the began circling the center as a blue ball of light appeared in my hand. Before my eyes, the ball, with a flash of light, grew larger and formed into a large blue crystal orb hovering above my head. It spun fast and from it came a loud whirling sound. There was a shimmering coat of light across it's surface and through it I could see what looked like trees in a peaceful forest.
"You've done it! The Tower Heart is restored!" Gnarl said loudly to make sure he was heard over the sound of the Heart whirling. Then more stones and broken pieces of the room lifted up into the air and began to fly to the walls and parts of the ceiling.
It took me a moment, but then I understood, the Tower was mending itself. Outside, the fallen pieces of the Tower scattered around also began to fly towards the Spawning Pit and form on the ruins raising up the Tower.
"Amazing." Gnarl said, "The Dark Tower responds to the call of its heart and it's mew master."
Almost a minute later the Heart slowed and began rotating at a slower speed. After that amazing event seemed over I lowered my arm and stepped out from under the Tower Heart. It was then I noticed that I was very tired. I took a few more steps and then I felt myself lose my footing and fall to the ground as everthing went black.
Space
A Correllian YT Freighter pqinted entirely black was flying out in space.
In the small bridge on its front side was a girl in an orange pilot jumpsuit which had Luka on the shoulder. She had green eyes and blonde hair. She looked to be about 15. She activate her comlink, "Ichiro, how's Yuka?" she asked.
Over at the other end was an alien who looked mostly human, but had yellow skin. He wore damaged clone trooper armor. His eyes were blue and his hair brown. He seems about 16. "She's doing fine Luka, her condition has stabled so she is out of danger now." Ichiro said looking over at a makeshift bed where a redish pink haired girl who looked to be 14 lay.
The girl seemed to have burns on her arm and chest that look like blaster marks. There were two human men sitting on either side of the bed. On the left side of the bed was a human with brown eyes and hair, he wears brown pants and a blue shirt with a black vest over it. He seemed to be 16 years of age. He was bandaging the left arm of girl called Yuka. Then on Yuka's right was a boy of fifteen, he wore damaged Madalorian combat armor. His hair was a bright red and his eyes were the yellow color of a Sith's eyes. He looks to be 15. He was holding Yuka's right hand looking at her face with his yellow eyes full of sorrow and fear of losing her.
"I should have been more careful," the Sith eyed one of the right said, "I should have been prepared for the attack."
"You shouldn't blame yourself, Akio." The one on the left said as he finished bandaging Yuka's arm, "No one had seen this coming. The Republic had never been this vicious, but this 'Galatic Empire,' it's something far different. There's no way you could of stopped what happened on Dantooine.'
"I know that Kaito." Akio said, "But still... I should have been protecting her."
Then Luka's voice sounded from the ship's speaker system, "Hey guys," she said, "it looks like there is a planet nearby that isn't on the maps and the Centurion Hawk is rather low on fuel, do you think we should land there?"
"Do we really have much of a choice?" Kaito asked.
Luka didn't respond for a moment, "We'll be landing shortly."
Dark Tower, Throne Room
I finally made it to the top of some almost never ending stairs and stepped into to a large room with high ceilings. In the back of the room was an open are with a stone chair in the center. In the front of the room is a deep looking pool of water and beyond that is an opening from which I could see the sky. There were also four exits, the one I just came from, two others that lead downwards, and one with stairs going up.
"The first thing I'm going to do is build an elevator." I said as I tried to catch my breath.
"Welcome to your Throne Room, Nova." Gnarl said, "It is also the main room from which to travel to the Private Quarters, the Forge, the Spawning Pit, and the Dungeons. It also holds the Tower Portal," he pointed to the water, "which is is now linked to the old Tower Gates across the land."
I stood up straight and said, "Good, so what's our next move?"
Nordburg, Dark Elf Fortress Constitution Site
Terreck stood in front of the under construction fortress made of Netherworld rock which stands where the town hall used to be. Below in the town center were citizens being forced to make weapons and armor for the Dark King. Torrock walked over to his master's side and wispered something in his ear. "Very well then." Terreck said, "Send the scouts, I want to know everything you can find out about this new Overlord."
Dark Tower (yet again)
"It seems the Heart has gifted it's new master with a new Minion Disk." Gnarl said "These cylindrical Objects each have a different purpose, there are one's that increase your health, increase your ability to store energy, and then one's like this which increase the amount of minions you can control at a time by five."
"So I should pick these up if I ever see them lying around?" I asked my advisor.
"Yeah pretty much, that's what most of the other Overlords spent a lot of their time doing." He said.
"So have the minions from the Castle arrived with the Brown Hive yet?" I asked.
"Yes, they are placing it in the Spawning Pit as we speak." Gnarl said.
"Why... are... there so many stairs?" A female voice asked between breaths.
I turned around and saw Rin standing at the in front of the stairs to the Spawning Pit breathing heavily.
"Oh it's you." I said, "What are you doing here?" I asked her trying to figure out why she looked so panicked.
She raced over to me and grabbed my shoulders and pressed the left side of her face in my chest and began crying, "You have to help." she said, "The Halflings are going to attack Spree again and this time I don't think anyone will survive. I didn't know if I could trust you at first, but we're out of options. Please help my people."
The image of the village burning with even more dead appeared in my mind after she had said that. I placed my hands her shoulders, pushed her back some, then looked her in the eyes, "Don't worry Rin, I will not let those fat demons harm your people."
Then I grabbed my Lightaxe and ran towards the Tower Portal and jumped into the water.
"Rin, I would like to inquire about your last name." Gnarl said.
Spree Village, East Gate
I had successfully teleported to the Mellow Hills and as soon as I got there I summoned my maximum fifteen minions and charged to the gate on the East side where I knew the Halflings would attack. Just as I predicted the Halflings showed up on this route, there were quite a few, quite a lot actually. But I know I'm gonna beat them all. Then I ignited my Lightaxe and smirked.
I know this might count as bribery, but, whoever leaves a review first gets spoilers for the next chapter as well as the chance to have an OC of your creation in this story! So what are you waiting for?
