Unnamed Lair Island October 24th 2010 12:00 AM EDT
The extra two hundred points I felt blaze through me was a nice boost to an already portentous moment as I gaped at the new base screen. I had to admit, game elements of the email aside I didn't expect...this. I mean, of course it cost points, but still this was unbelievably cool. I walked into the castle, feet echoing on the stone floor and the others followed, clearly clued in to my state of distraction and deciding to leave me alone as they split off to explore in groups of two to check out our new place.
Zee wandered off in one direction, with Jim following behind as per her magical oath, and Artemis and Reggie wandered the other way. Between her attack power and his mobility they should be safe enough even if the place wasn't safe, which I knew it was because my power would have told me if we had to clear it out or something. Even run down and crumbling this place was something else to look at, and I had to admit it had a sort of dark majesty. As much as I could stare at my first lair for hours and not get sick of it though, I had a menu to check out.
I took another look at the window I'd seen, I knew I could call it back by concentrating on the orb, which was the focus for the entire island. Welcome Future Lord of Darkness! You have entered your villainous lair, would you like to see your list of available upgrades? I grinned. Fuck yes I wanted to see my list of available upgrades. I concentrated again and a new window popped up. Please select a category! Defenses, Security, Amenities, Structure, Minions, Misc. Each category had a sort of impression in my mind that let me know what they did, and each one was fucking amazing.
Defenses was obvious, that was protection from outside or hostile forces. My current concealments technically counted as defenses and were without a doubt the most powerful thing in lair. In the email it implied the lair was used but that its concealments worked perfectly, which was why I bought it. Apparently that meant literally everything else was fucking busted, but honestly I almost preferred that because it meant I could rebuild from the ground up. Defenses would be a heavy priority going forward, real ones, not just cloaking tech and spells.
Security was the flip side of defenses, and could technically be described as the same thing. It was the offense to go with the defense. Cannon emplacements, killing arrays, fucking guard alligators, anything that could be considered offensive that wasn't literally sapient was on the list of security upgrades. Some of them were so absurdly over the top and expensive that I couldn't imagine ever getting them, running into the millions, while some were pricey but seemingly within reach if I save for a while.
Structure was the obvious, the building itself, and mostly focused on materials, design, and some weird and useful workshops and rooms I could buy that would boost my own and my friends abilities. Like a training dojo where training skills worked better, a forge that boosted the power of magic items, and an explosives workshop where products were more stable and produced a bigger boom. Each room came with materials that would restock regularly and could be upgraded and I tried not to squeal like a little kid at the thought of the things Artemis and Reggie could make.
Amenities was a weird one. Five star restaurants, bowling lanes, theaters, a fucking water park, there was some insane stuff on there, but it was the first section where I saw a requirement for another section for most of them, which was Minions. Minions could be anything apparently. I could get myself a master alchemist or a demolitions expert, a gourmet chef or a torturer. There were options for dominatrixes and mistresses and manservants and butlers. Bodyguards were a dime a dozen, some with amazing races or species or unbelievable meta powers, but almost all the powerful ones were insanely expensive.
Finally, last and seemingly least was misc. Misc was weird random stuff. Cleaning supplies, cooking utensils, a lot of the stuff or materials you could buy for the rooms but cheaper and without the room attached. Personal items were on there too, weapons and gear that would be upgrades to my current stuff or weirder more sciency things like powered armor and personal shield devices. Between all five categories there was pretty much anything I could ask for. I was spoiled for choice. Except for one important detail. As was always the case with my power, every single thing here cost points. Most of the useful things cost exorbitant amounts of them too.
I dragged my eyes away from my bases defenses and the powerful servants I could call up and forced myself to prioritize. This place was busted as fuck and I needed to fix it. I clicked on structure, and then checked the repair options. Repair Doomhollow Hall? Tier 6 material, Igneous Nightstone required, total repair cost, 50,000,000 points. Downgrade materials? I winced. Going by the level of the concealments I'd been kind of afraid of that. This place had been pretty fucking high level before it got wrecked apparently.
I sighed and selected downgrade material. Repair Doomhollow Hall? Material downgrade to Tier 3 Shadowspawn Marble. Total repair cost 50,000 points. Cannibalize Igneous Nightstone remnants for one time 90% discount? That...seemed like it might be a really big mistake honestly. Going by the point value I was probably massively losing out, but considering this entire island cost me five thousand I was guessing the fifty grand castle would be plenty amazing, even if I had to give up a bunch of rocks that were probably too powerful for me to even break.
I sighed deeply and confirmed the repair. The orb flashed into existence floating over my palm and the purple glow started spread. It returned to the full brightness of when I got it, then brightened more, with the power overflowing the crystal and pouring out into the stone like liquid as it began to shine. The purple glow spread through the entire castle, burning into the rock and increasing as it went until the entire fucking building was blinding in its intensity. It got so bright I couldn't even fucking see and then, suddenly, it went out.
When the brilliance faded I was staring at a real, true blue, castle. A fully repaired and refurnished castle with amazingly tasteful decor. The black stone of the castle, now a polished smooth black marble with veins of white shone under a clean, white flame from black wall sconces with torches in them. The floor was the same polished marble along the edges but with long plush red black carpets with white trim lining most of the floors. I had to hold myself back from literally squealing with delight, even as I felt the five hundred points I'd shown up with empty, leaving me two hundred left.
I was kind of dumbstruck by the whole thing, but not nearly as much as the others, who came barreling back the way they'd gone to glare at me. Well, all except Zee, who straight up hurled herself into my arms babbling excitedly. "Oh my gods that was amazing baby! What did you do? The whole place was destroyed and it got completely restored. The material seems different though, I could feel the power in the old place, this seems orders of magnitude less potent. How did it work? Can you get it back to the way it was before?" She was gleeful at the changes and I didn't blame her, this was awesome.
I leaned down to kiss her to stop her endless questions. "Calm down. It was messed up but there was a repair mechanic in the email I guess. It costs points to work but I was able to get a big discount by using up the energy from the much more powerful stone apparently. There's a bunch of other stuff I can do too but it's all crazy expensive." I set her down. "Now why don't I fill you in on all the options and you can help me plan out what we're going to do with this place. I literally can't imagine how useful it could be if we got it outfitted to a decent level." This whole place was a fucking treasure trove of potential assets.
I filled them all in on how the place worked, since Jim and Reggie knew the truth now and my mentor was probably in the best position to advise me on how to apply the improvements. I had no illusions about how quickly that would happen of course, even once I got to level fifty I'd be rocking four hundred points a day, most of the potent upgrades cost in the tens of thousands. Plus all the rooms and Amenities were Tiered like the stones of the Structure were when I went back to look.
Every tier seemed to be a qualitative increase in power and in price. I had no clue what a Tier 2 restaurant would give me that a Tier 1 wouldn't aside from probably better tasting food. Some of the Amenities didn't cost much more up a Tier, and it seemed like the only difference for things like the bowling lane was the materials involved in the construction, which didn't really have too much of an impact. The workshops on the other hand scaled like crazy price wise and each Tier up seemed like it represented a new peak of potential. Zee was nearly salivating as some of the casting rooms and even Reggie was excited about the explosives workshop.
Jim pretty much nixed the rooms as a first purchase. "I respect the desire to improve, and I agree your choice for your first upgrade was well spent, but you'll need to ration your points with your current income. Proper defenses for the island should be your primary purchase. I know it's tempting to ignore them because we're so well concealed but things have a way of going wrong in the worst ways. We need to be prepared in case of any incidents, and once the protections are out of the way we can move on to improvements both for ourselves and the premises."
As much as I wanted to argue he wasn't wrong. This was Gotham, or close enough to it, and shit went wrong all the time. We needed to be prepared. On that note though I pulled up another option. "I was thinking these would be first actually." Because of the focus I was able to share windows so I pushed them over to share them with my friends. Base to base teleportation pads. Allows instantaneous transport to and from the lair and a secondary location. White list permissions required for non host use. 1000 points. Those were a bit pricey but they seemed pretty much perfect for our needs.
Jim nodded. "Yes I could see the utility. I take it the white list mentioned is a list of people you verify for the use of these devices?" At my nod he looked pleased. "I'll have to check and make sure they work securely, I can always add protections of my own, but that seems like an admirable start. Of course it will take quite some time to save up for the few of these we need, but depending how secure and well hidden they are we may be able to add them to locations like your school for easy travel and as an escape option." I hadn't even considered that but it was a great idea. With a grin I started going into some other ideas and we began planning out how to develop the base long term. I had always loved base building games. This was going to be so much fun.
Hell October 29th 2010 8:00 PM EDT
Level fifteen was mostly done. With the extra power and my massive boost in skill from the constant Outer Body Training nothing down here so far had really been able to give us trouble. Between my training hours of daily training with the Warlord, fifty dexterity, my King's Sword of Haste, my reflexes, my ability to teleport, and my three dimensional movement from my flight I was basically a fucking walking nightmare in combat. I'd drastically cut down on how many points I'd been spending lately and with the Outer Body Training I was still gaining proficiency in my active skills.
The process of carving our way through the level had spiked my level from forty two to forty five, a jump of three levels that proved our new efficiency and power more than anything else. It had taken a twenty day grind to get the seven levels we'd gotten in October, but we managed three in five days down here. Between the more powerful and experience heavy monsters and our increased killing speed and efficiency we'd made some massive gains without even a boss to kill. Of course, that lack of a boss had to come to an end eventually.
Eventually in this case being the final real battle before the end of the dungeon where we would fight Annabel. I'd expected the staff that would lead us to the Archbishop would be in some kind of expansive hall or room full of enemies, but in the end it was pretty underwhelming. More of a whimper than a bang as it were, when we found the staff tucked into a small rack in the back of some tiny back room. Despite the obscure location though the description after we identified it was perfectly plain about what it was. The Staff of Lazarus.
Rather than just trigger the boss fight though we stopped to talk over how this was going to go. Zee was the first person to state the obvious. "This is going to fall pretty heavily on you Morgan. Reggie's explosives and Kit's guns have been getting a boost from Artemis and the anvil, and my golems have gotten pretty damn good, but all three of these bosses are magic immune. I can counter Lazarus's magic even if my own spells wont work on him, but the Succubi are physical fighters. With the other three keeping the normal Succubi busy, you're going to have to face them both with pretty much no backup while I pin down Lazarus."
I nodded. I'd figured that. Lazarus was the big threat, and we couldn't let him go unchecked. His bodyguards were monstrously powerful (no pun intended) and were bosses of their own. Considering the pack of Succubi surrounding him though Reggie, Artemis, and Kit would have their hands full so I would be left facing Red Vex and Black Jade. I doubted they were as skilled as the Warlord, but I also assumed they were much higher level, and they could use magic to boot. This would be a hell of fight, no pun intended.
But waiting wouldn't help us any. I wanted to wait honestly, wanted it badly. I was getting nervous as we got closer to the
end of the labyrinth. I had this terrible pit in my stomach, though whether it was a prediction of trouble to come or just guilt and horror at the thought of killing Annabel with my own hands I didn't know. Because that was the only way this ended. I'd looked for alternatives for months but in the end killing her was the only thing we could do. She'd already gathered too much power to be let loose, but even with everything she'd done the idea made me sick.
I felt arms wrap around me as I looked up to find Zee staring into my eyes. "It's ok to feel sad you know?" I cocked an eyebrow and she just chuckled and kissed me sweetly. "About Annabel. Sure she turned out to be crazy, but you really cared about her. I can't imagine what you must be going through right now. The only person I've ever been in love with is you, and if I had to kill you myself, no matter what you did to deserve it." She shuddered, closing her eyes in grief and pain. "I can't imagine it. I can do it, if you want? Finish it for you? If you think it would help."
I smiled and leaned down to catch her lips in a kiss of my own. "No. I appreciate it but I need to do this myself. Plus I have to use my gun to finish it. She's partly a god now and I need to make sure it takes." Left unsaid was the worry that if I let Zee kill Annabel for me I might come to resent her for doing it. I'd lost one girlfriend already, I wasn't ready to lose another to my own cowardice. She just looked at me sadly and nodded, then stepped back. I handed her the staff. "Alright, no reason to put this off, we're as fresh as we're getting." I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and nodded to my girlfriend. "Do it."
I felt the whoosh of displaced air as the portal was cast, and when I opened my eyes I was looking into the blood red event horizon of a gate to the Archbishop. The staff opened it here instead of next to the pentagram like I'd expected, but to be fair we didn't need Cain to do this either so it seemed like the dungeon was just streamlining things for us since we had no access to Tristram. I turned to regard my team, all of them looking serious as a heart attack, and nodded, receiving the same gesture in response as I turned and led the way into the blazing red of the portal that would take us to fight a legendary monster of a man.
The trip through the portal was, as always, instantaneous and almost unnoticeable. As soon as we arrived a wave of shining bolts of power came flashing at us, but with my reflxes creating a Hole and swallowing them all up took minimal effort. The power my shadow dancing gave me allowed me to move the Hole through the air to intercept them instead of simply spawning a bunch of them in place to intercept. It cost about a hundred points to manage it but still, I was able to keep the Hole active after I used it so I only had to spend that once.
From there we had to wipe out the Succubi. It was long, tedious, and honestly pretty distracting. The sex demonesses were all scantily glad and very well endowed and seeing them bounce around was enough to make me hesitate for a second until Zee zapped me with her lightning. I gave her a sheepish smile and blocked out all the bare flesh as we fought our way through hordes of the damn demons, and I was lucky we were all wearing armor because one Hole was not enough to counter a so many of the bolts. There were so many of them I actually got a level, bringing me up to forty six, before we finally got to the final room. We stopped to refuel and get ready before we went through the portal, and finally made our way into the mad bishop's lair.
The first thing I did when we entered was point the Hole at the Archbishop and unleash the collective energy of all those bursts. Because they were all the same type of energy and the Hole was fairly small, they had been condensing down into a massively powerful version of the attack and when I let it loose I saw Lazarus's eyes go wide. Sadly he teleported out of the way of the blast, but his distress and the explosion from the massive burst leveling one of the walls of this very famliar dungeon area threw him off balance enough for us to get into position and start the fight.
We all leapt into action, focusing on our targets, and I went after Black Jade and Red Vex with a quick teleport into a surprise attack. After my time training with the Warlord in my Outer Body trance, I'd made a ton of progress perfecting my use of a blade, and my instantaneous attack was on a whole different level in terms of speed and form. I rook one of Black Jade's wings off when I appeared between them, but that bit of initiative was all I managed before they were one me.
While neither had the Warlords unnatural skill or technique, they were both faster than I could have imagined and they fought with a sort of primal animalistic style that gave me very few openings. Their claws were sharp as razors and seemed to seek out any opening in my form, not to mention they functioned as a perfect combo, moving instinctively in tandem. I had a gross thought and prayed mentally that Lazarus had been training his busty Succubi to move in perfect lockstep for combat situations like this and not for sex. Because come on, he was so OLD.
I focused my efforts on Black Jade first, she was already injured and I tried to use the pain she was in to force an opening. It took a few minutes but I got a chance and shoved my blade into her guts, jerking it out sideways and ripping her open as I spun away from an attack from her partner. Red Vex was pretty cold, she barely even noticed her sister Succubus get eviscerated, but barely is still something. That second of hesitation gave me another opening and I took Red Vex apart within seconds before turning to finish Black Jade off.
With literally not a second of hesitation I spun and shadow ported across the room, bringing my sword down on Lazarus from right behind him, distracting him from casting a nasty immolation spell on my girlfriend as he instinctively raised a shield to protect himself. I was fucking exhausted, my skin caked with sweat and my whole body burning, but I kept pushing. I noted another level up, possibly two, hanging in the corner of my vision but I ignored it, focusing completely on my form as I drove an attack at the back of the corrupt Archbishop.
Lazarus had already been in trouble from Zee, but his magic immunity had protected him from the worst of it. Now though he was facing a melee fighter with a sword faster than he could track, and I managed to start opening small cuts as he tried to bounce his attention back and forth between the two of us. Finally, with one last roar of effort I impaled Lazarus through the heart, feeling yet another level up hit me and putting me at level forty nine, just shy of reaching my cap.
Mentally I opened my character sheet and dumped the stats into my points category, hitting three hundred and ninety five points of income per day, and then slumped to the ground, gasping. I panted in exertion as I lay there, Zee keeping a shield up to stop me from getting hurt after I overdid it. I realized looking back that I had put way too much into this fight. I'd rushed and ignored my safety because I was upset about Annabel and I'd almost gotten killed for it, but checking their auras as they came up to check on me I noticed none of my friends were angry. Well Kit was kind of pissed but she rarely wasn't.
I sat up slowly with a groan. Looking chagrined at my friends who had just come off killing a dozen Succubi while we handled the bosses. I smiled weakly. "Guess we finished them off." I looked around, noting the stone walls and familiar flooring and looked over at the Succubi. "Hey, did you guys notice Lazarus had a literal sex dungeon?" I took heart in the fact that even Kit burst out laughing at that. I also made a promise to myself to be more careful, but I wasn't too worried. This was the second to last fight. It was almost over now. The dungeon would be gone soon.
Hell October 30th 2010 8:00 PM EDT
It was time. Three months of constant growth and accruing power. Three months of training and fighting and combat against monsters and demons. I had a plan for killing Annabel, as much as I wished I didn't have to. It had taken us hours today to clear our way to the pentagram leading to Annabel's chamber, but we'd done it, and I felt my final level click into place after hundreds of monsters killed, bringing me up to fifty. My last five stats were dropped into points bringing my point generation to four hundred even and I sighed as that last goal was accomplished.
I couldn't take my eyes off the portal to the last level of hell. All this work, all this trouble, and this was the end of it. If we walked in their I would walk out of it having murdered someone I might have loved or I wouldn't walk out at all. I turned to look at the others. Their auras burned with conviction. Oddly even Kit seemed focused and determined. Her aura had undercurrents of shame and guilt I didn't really understand, but maybe she was as sick over the thought of murdering another person like this as I was.
It was strange, I'd killed thousands of monsters by this point, some of them humanoid, but I didn't feel like a murderer. I knew that would change after tonight. I gave a heavy sigh. "Everyone ready?" We had a basic plan, but we would have to adapt on the fly. Annabel would have her own mind most likely, though judging by how thematic this place was Diablo would still be in there. Everyone gave their assents and it was time. We all stepped forward into the portal, appearing in the empty halls of the last level of hell.
Finding the room she was in wasn't hard. It was right around the corner and it glowed in my aura vision like the sun. I pushed open the doors of bone and stepped into the last room of this pit of nightmares. Annabel was waiting of course, she was sitting on a throne of bone sipping from a golden goblet, and when she saw me she smiled brightly. "Morgan! You made it! I was beginning to think you would make me wait forever." He voice was playful and happy, and she sounded so much like the girl I'd been with all those months ago, even while looking so different.
Her skin was red, of course, and shiny, though more of a latex sort of shine than plating. Her breasts were larger and she seemed taller, and her horns curled back around her head, sweeping her blonde hair back to expose the red spike of crystal in her forehead. Her eyes were blazing yellow, but they still glowed with that manic intensity I'd managed to ignore from them when we were together. I swallowed at the sight of her. I'd been hoping she would attack me, would call me a traitor or something. I cleared my through. "Annabel. Good to see you. You know why I'm here?"
She giggled girlishly, a sound so at odds with her new regal appearance. "Of course silly, you're her to join me. Well, you don't know that yet, but I'm sure I can convince you. We belong together Morgan, I've been watching you down here, I've seen those wings of yours. You're every bit the demon I am now, you just hide it better." She flicked her eyes to Zatanna with a sneer. "I was planning to kill the whore, but you've impressed me, and she isn't...useless. If you like watching her shake that fat ass for you so much we can work something out. She's pretty enough I suppose, she'd make a decent succubus."
I winced internally. This...this was worse than I expected. She legitimately didn't understand why I couldn't take her side. I didn't think I could do this if she didn't attack me first. Even her insults to Zee had clearly been made as a peace offering in their own twisted way. "Anna. I can't just leave you down here. If you finish your ascension you're going to kill A LOT of people. Or am I wrong about that?" Maybe I was wrong, maybe this could end peacefully, maybe we could get her to give some kind of magical oath not to abuse her power.
That hope turned to ash in my mouth as she giggled again. "Silly, of course I will. The Court is outdated, that's why we couldn't be together before. The old ideas about purity and superiority are out of useless, you've shown me that down here. You've gotten more powerful than I could have imagined. But Gotham is twisted by their ideals, they're baked into it's bedrock." She shrugged. "Easier to just flip the board and reset the pieces. No one will miss it anyway, this place is a shithole." She smiled placatingly. "Not everyone needs to die, your mother and even your friends can be spared. Think of how much good we can do for the world by cleaning this place up?"
That seemed...ambitious for her. She hadn't struck me as a messiah before. But maybe being down here with access to all this power had changed things. I sighed sadly. "I can't do that Anna. Give up the power. I don't care too much about the dungeon, as long as you remove the soulstone you can even leave it here. We're just here to stop you from becoming a goddess and making the world a hellscape." I knew when I said that there was no hope, but I had no idea what to offer her, no idea what to give up to get her to abandon this.
I expected anger, but instead I got a sad smile of acceptance. "I'm sorry to hear that Morgan. But it's alright. My first plan will work fine. Once I kill you and bring you back you'll understand why I've done what I've done. With your demonic powers I'm sure the demon form I can create from your body will be a thing of glory. Then we can be together forever. You can be my King down here, and once my ascension is done I can manifest our armies in reality and send them forth from this place to cleanse our city."
Without a second thought she flicked a finger, and the form of Annabel on the throne split into thirteen identical copies. I growled as they appeared and ported to the throne, drawing my blade and driving it into the chest of the figure sitting atop the bone seat. All my hesitation drained away at the threat, and though I still felt a low ache in my chest as I drove my sword through her heart I knew it had to be done. The emotional impact of that decision however, was somewhat undercut when the form of Annabel shattered like sugar glass as I hit it, dissolving into nothingness as the obvious simulacra was destroyed.
I cursed and spun to find the rest of my team already engaged with the others. Zee had summoned about a dozen golems and had dispatched them in teams of three to pin down four while she held off another herself. Reggie and Kit were teaming up against one and Artemis had dropped one at the start of the fight with an arrow and was engaged with a second and third leaving me to handle two of my own. I ported out to meat the two on the far side of the room before they could fall on my friends and engaged them both.
From the aura I could tell that one of mine was the real Annabel, something I hadn't noticed until the last second but was grateful for as I shattered the other one with a single perfectly placed blow of my chainsword of Haste and turned on the real one. I went after her with every ounce of power and skill I'd learned from my time in the dungeon and my hours of repetitive practice in my Outer Body trance, fully expecting to take her apart or to at least be able to wear her down through attrition with my superior skills trumping her enhanced stats.
As she met my blade with her claws, perfectly deflecting and slash at her throat, it occurred to me all my lamenting and guilt had overlooked something pretty obvious. Annabel had grown up as a princess under the Court with easy access to Talons she obviously abused. I'd had some good training lately, but judging by her skills she'd been training since fucking childhood. Combined with her absurd stats this fight was going to be harder than I had expected. Sparks flew from my blade as we clashed, and her pretty face was set into a wide manic grin. "You're doing so well Morgan! The harder you make me work the more worthy it proves you to be mine!"
I danced out of the way of a strike, starting to get her rhythm down as we battled, and slowly things began to turn. Contrary to what one might expect however, I didn't slowly overpower her as I learned her weak spots. I made sure to keep myself at the most basic level of self defense, making it look like I was being worn down, as I set up my final blow. I needed a perfect shot to manage this last part. She was a demigoddess right now at least I needed to make sure it stuck when I killed her.
I merged my powers again, hole and portal, shadow and space, and opened a huge beach ball sized hole right behind her with out her noticing as I drew my holiday gun. She saw it and reacted instantly, darting back to make space but it didn't matter at this point. I'd been saving this because it cost hundreds of points, but it would finish her. I opened a portal right in the barrel of my gun, at the exit of the barrel where all that muzzle velocity would be kept. As the bullet fired, a massive round of metal the size of a fucking cannon shell rocketed out of the portal behind Annabel.
The shot turned her into paste, and I was lucky to have dodged it before it went off because that massive death aspected cannon shell smashed into the bone wall and turned it to powder, proceeding further into the dungeon. I stared in horror at what was left of my ex as the other copies dissolved, and I fell to my knees, vomiting violently on the floor as I saw what the bullet had done to her. Her whole torso was just gone, and her head had rolled away across the room. The only sound was my retching as Zee ran over to try to comfort me, Artemis walking up to clasp my shoulder. I sat there like that for a minute, just...empty. But at least I had my friends with me, at least I wasn't alone. I had my best friend and my girl.
I could see Reggie too, coming to stand by my side, but I didn't see Kit anywhere. My eyes widened in alarm as my instincts screamed something was wrong and I staggered to my feet, whirling around to look for her. When I saw her my stomach dropped. Kit was standing next to the bone throne, holding Annabel's head in one hand and the red crystal of the soulstone in the other. She gave me a sad smile as she met my eyes. "Sorry cousin. I wish it hadn't come to this. Don't worry, I won't cause you any trouble." She called across the room. The last thing I saw as she drove the red stone into her forehead was a flash of red light as we were all thrown forcibly from the dungeon.
Gotham City October 30th 2010 8:30 PM EDT
"What the FUCK just happened?" Not the most eloquent response to things sure, but this was completely out of left field...except it wasn't. She'd basically TOLD me it would happen. Told me how jealous she was, how she wanted to get stronger, and I'd ignored it. Hell I had a fucking road map to this exact situation in the form of the game itself, which was probably where she got the fucking idea, and I'd just dismissed it. I climbed to my feet, looking around to see at least a dozen other people doing the same. It seemed Kit had emptied the whole dungeon when she took over.
I didn't see any of the heroes or Talons, which gave me the impression everyone got dumped out of their own entrance. Honestly I was pretty glad, because I was in no mood for their shit right now. Zee, Artemis, and Reggie all got up, groaning and brushing dirt off themselves. They all looked pretty saddened by what happened. I turned to Zee. "Can she do that? Just take the soulstone like Aiden did in the game?" I didn't know what the fuck I was supposed to do here. I could theoretically just re-run the dungeon, but I'd seen her aura, she wasn't evil just insecure and sad, and I'd JUST executed my first girlfriend, I didn't want to kill my cousin too.
Zee just shrugged. "Apparently. I think the soulstone is just some kind of carrier for the energy while the ascension process is ongoing. I'm guessing there was some power lost when it changed hands but yeah, Kit should be fully in control now. The question is, what are we going to do about it. We only beat Annabel so easily because we blitzed her. She sacrificed short term power to draw more people in and it left her weak in the short term. When Kit took over it kicked everyone out and I'm pretty sure it shattered the portals. Everyone has to start all over and work their way back down and she's going to be WAY stronger when they get back to hell."
I punched the wall in frustration, my enhanced body cracking the brick on the building next to us rather than vice versa.
"No. I'm done. It isn't worth it. Kit may be insecure but she isn't nuts like Annabel was. If she wants to stab us in the back to become a goddess she can go wild, I hit fifty and I'm guessing with Annabel's death you did too." I got nods from them. "Then we're done. I'm sick of the Labyrinth, let the heroes deal with it, if they even can. Let's head back to the base. Which is closer, the docks or the teleporter at the tower?" I was too friend to even remember where this stupid entrance was, we usually just used the portal.
Zee stepped up and wrapped an arm around my waist. "The docks are closer, and a boat ride might clear your head. I'm sorry baby, I know you wanted to help her." She laid her head on my shoulder and we started walking in a direction I assumed was the shore. Artemis and Reggie followed behind, both quiet and both most likely blaming themselves somehow for my fuck up. Because it was my fuck up. I just couldn't see what I could have done to help her. Anything I tried would have just made it worse. I'd hoped Artemis and Zee could make friends with her, but even their charisma couldn't break through her shell.
In fact, looking back, she might have started planning this after our talk. The signs were there, she'd been pulling away from us, not out of anger, but because she didn't want to feel as bad for what she did. The worst part was I wasn't sure I would have said no if she just asked. I wasn't a superhero, I didn't give a fuck if someone became a god, as long as it wasn't my psycho stalker ex who had threatened to murder my girlfriend and tried to turn me into an undead thrall. But I knew if she had asked it would have been like I gave it to her, and she just couldn't take that. I'd failed my cousin, and I had no idea how I could have helped.
I sighed, putting my arm around Zee's shoulders as we walked, people in armor and wearing masks were hardly unusual in Gotham but we still drew looks. I just ignored them though. "I...I'm not even that mad. I'm just sad she felt like she had to do it. Having the rug yanked out from under us is annoying sure, but...fuck it, I hope she finds what she's looking for. Maybe once she becomes a god she'll stop being so insecure. Somehow I doubt it works like that but hey, I don't know everything clearly." I just shrugged trying my best to force the thoughts of betrayal and hurt down. She was on her own path now. I turned to look at the others. "How about you guys? I don't make all the decisions, what do you think we should do?"
Reggie sighed. "Well the labyrinth isn't under the Court's control anymore, if it ever really was I guess given how unstable your ex was." I glared at him and he grinned sheepishly. "Sorry dude, but it's just true. But honestly I'm with you. I'm burnt out from constantly killing monsters. I had so much gold I couldn't count it all in a day and Arty can make weapons anyway. We got into this to make up for what happened with Madame X mainly, and I'd say clearing out Darth Barbie evens us up there. Let the heroes deal with Kit's power trip." Zee nodded her agreement, but Artemis just seemed so listless I had to whistle to get her attention.
She jerked her head up. "Oh, sorry. Yeah I guess just let the League handle it. I just...I really wanted to be her friend. She was a cool person and we had a lot in common. I thought we were bonding at first, you know?" I winced. Artemis was almost as lonely as I was before we became close. She had me and Reggie and Zee and her mom now, but seeing Kit would have reminded her of herself. A lonely girl with a father who had screwed up her whole life and no one else to count on. Zee pulled away and walked over to her best friend and now pretty much biological sister, pulling her into a hug. Artemis wrapped her arms around her and squeezed back with a wet chuckle.
There was a sharp clap and we all jumped, turning to look at Reggie. "Nope. No more of this mopey nonsense." My friend had a wide grin on his face. "The dungeon is behind us, let's leave all the bad stuff down there. Kit isn't dead, and maybe she'll find what she's looking for. In the meantime we're sitting pretty. We're rich, powerful, and now that we don't have a mission or whatever we can get back to doing what we do best. Stealing everything that isn't nailed down, and stealing the nails out of the things that are." That tore a laugh from Artemis and I, though Zee looked dubious.
I just smiled at Reggie. Out of all of us only Reggie had the mindset of a true thief. He just enjoyed the thrill of stealing, and I couldn't say I disagreed. Even if not to the same extent, planning and pulling of jobs was just...fun. "You're right man, we're thieves not emo theater kids. We've spent the last few months building ourselves up into a team of real badasses, we could own this town. No valuables will be safe!" I threw my arms out dramatically as I bellowed my declaration of thievery. I was cut off by a pointedly cleared throat. I glanced sideways at Zee. "I mean, most people's valuables won't be safe?"
She made hmm of skepticism. "Well I'm not helping you steal anything. I'm not a thief, even if I cuddle with one sometimes. That said consider me Switzerland. I won't spill your secrets just like I won't actively help. That's the best you're getting from me babe." Her voice was light and happy, and I was warmed by the trust. Zee didn't care too much about is taking some trinkets since she trusted we wouldn't hurt anyone needlessly or do anything actually evil. I'd gotten so damn lucky. I felt a short twinge as that line of thought led me back to Annabel, but I squashed it down and grabbed my girlfriend pulling her against me.
I reached down to grab a handful of her thick jiggly ass and squeezed one cheek, nipping at her ear. "I bet I can get plenty of things from you that are better than that." She giggled a bit and shoved me away, rolling her eyes. She knew I wouldn't push her into anything and I could see in her aura that she was just as turned on at the though as me, though a bit embarrassed to have me say it so blatantly in front of our friends. I felt my earlier worries melt away as I just enjoyed being with my crew. I felt good, at peace. As we approached the docks I couldn't help but look forward to what might be coming next.
Artemis gagged as usual at our behavior. "Gods you two are nauseating. I'm all for a little slap and tickle and even finding yourself a honey bunny like I did with Wally, but you two are going to give as all diabetes with how sweet you are. Plus poor Reggie has been taking it slow with Bette because princess Kane doesn't think getting felt up is "dignified" so watching you two paw each other has to be hitting him hard." Reggie gave her an offended look but she just shrugged. "What, like we couldn't tell? No one should be that obsessed with gold, and if there's a better euphemism for being backed up than becoming an explosives expert I haven't heard it."
Reggie looked hurt. "For your information, I was the one who wanted to wait thank you very much. I've rushed things like that before and I didn't want to ruin things with Bette. Honestly I've been starting to regret it. She didn't get mad or anything but she's taken my refusal to get physical as a challenge and has been openly trying to frustrate me as much as possible. I'd give you details but unlike these two I have some sense of privacy and decorum about my lovelife." I gaped in shock at the unprovoked drive by insult and was about to respond when we reached the edge of the docks and I saw the horizon.
I froze in shock and horror as I stared at the shapes on the waterline. "So." I said conversationally. "Hypothetical question, can any of you guys think of a happy occasion that would necessitate the appearance of a fleet of greek triremes crewed by muscular women in togas carrying weapons off the coast of Gotham?" Their eyes, which weren't demonically enhanced and were much weaker than mine with the sole exception of Artemis with her high dexterity, widened as they tried to peer out into the dark to see the invaders.
Seeing everyone else as disturbed as I was I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach as they no doubt came to the same conclusions I had. "No? Me neither. But I was hoping I was just being a pessimist." I swallowed hard as I saw the ships draw closer and noted the hard looks and drawn weapons on the faces of the women aboard. I didn't know why they were here, but I knew who was knocking on out door. The Amazons had come to Gotham, and from the looks of things, the reason for their visit was far from friendly.
Doomhollow Hall October 31st 2010 12:00 AM
Obviously with the harbor full off pissed off Amazons we weren't going to be able to sail to the island. Instead I'd burned the extra points to shadow port us back to the tower so we could use the teleporter to get there. Mom was safe with Gojo, and Paula was there too, but Reggie called Bette and his mom and sister and told them to stay inside while we bypassed their whole fleet by jumping straight out to our base. It cost me about a hundred points to shadow port everyone nearly across town, leaving me at five hundred and some change when we actually arrived.
The first thing we did was check on the defenses for the island. Our concealments hadn't been breached but part of the layered design let me check the upkeep and do repairs, which meant we could see what had been through them and which way it had gone. The fleet had gone by the edge of the island, though not closely, which I was grateful for because while my protections were good I doubted they would hold up to an army of Amazons noticing them and trying to break through. From the slight brush though I was able to get an idea of their speed and urgency, and I scowled as I noted how fast they were going.
They'd been in a hurry. I turned to Jim, who'd come over from the tower with us. Luckily Kent hadn't been around, he'd gotten called off on an emergency response when everyone was booted from the dungeons. He usually hung out at the tower when Zee was delving with us. Jim had his face on, and he was still looking grim from the news about Kit, but sadly we had bigger fish to fry right now. My mentor sighed. "This was Circe." My blood froze. I hadn't even considered that. He shook his head. "I was foolish, I got so distracted by the dungeon that I forgot Circe was involved with the early stages. Of course she would bring her faction of the Amazons to claim the labyrinth."
That...that was crazy. "What do you mean claim the labyrinth, it's in Gotham. There's no way the government will let a tribe of foreign warriors seize one of the biggest cities in the US. Besides isn't Circe an enemy of the Amazon's? Wonder Woman is their princess and I heard they hate each other. They all live on Themyscira right? How could she have a faction there opposed to the Queen?" I never took the Amazon's for soft, and leaving a divisive splinter group alive in your territory was nothing if not naive. There was no way Wonder Woman or her mom would allow that.
Jim shook his head. "The Bana-Mighdall are a splinter group of the Amazon nation. They were followers of Hippolyta's sister Antiope, who was murdered by her husband Theseus. There's... a lot of context behind that story that we don't have time for but basically the Bana-Mighdall are Circe's chosen instruments and hate men even more than regular Amazons. If Circe brought them here it's almost definitely to take advantage of the power of the Labyrinth to raise some of her own to godhood. There's also so history with the Labyrinth given Thesues's involvement in their founding but I won't get into it. Suffice to say they have the reasons and the resources to take Gotham."
I scowled. "That's crazy though. Sure we don't have many powerhouses but there's no chance the boyscout in Metropolis lets a hostile force invade the US even if the government failed to get involved for some reason." Honestly I had been confused as to why we hadn't seen the government in Gotham yet with the advent of the dungeon. I'd figured they'd just been in another instance or something but I still should have heard news of a big influx of soldiers. It seemed stupid to ignore something as important as easy access to powerful magical gear.
Jim looked troubled. "I agree, but I suspect someone is pulling strings here. The military should have been in the city months ago to participate in the dungeon delving, someone high up is keeping them from interfering. Given Shiva's presence I suspect someone working with the shadows is using their influence to divert attention from Gotham, though how they managed to get enough sway for that is anyone's guess. Granted the information avenues out of the city have always been easily manipulated because of the Court's interference but keeping this under wraps would be a massive undertaking."
I blinked. I...didn't know anyone outside Gotham except I guess Wally, but it would make sense the League would have the inside scoop. Was it really possible someone had managed to keep the dungeon out of public view outside the city? Hell even if news did get out it was feasible no one had believed it. Gotham was known to be a crazy shithole, they might have just assumed it was some kind of trap. I shook my head. "That's not the same as covering up a whole invasion though, there's no way the government would just throw a whole city under the bus like that right? It would make them look terrible to the public."
Jim nodded. "It would, if they knew about it. But considering the level of influence at play here that's no guarantee. Depending on whether Circe got in contact with whoever is making moves there are plenty of ways to hide an invasion on a target this small. My first guess would be spreading some kind of outbreak rumors and quarantining the city. Most of the country wouldn't even question Gotham being host to some kind of plague. Once they fully have the city under their heel it would be easy enough to melt into the background like the Court has done for years, just letting things go an as normal, or even get whoever is pulling strings to open an embassy here."
I groaned and stood up from the table we were all sitting at, pacing back and forth. "Then what the hell do we do boss? Assuming this isn't going to just go away, how do we prepare for this? What's even going to happen? Will they just lay siege to the city? Will they make demands? Will they book it for the dungeon first thing? Is Kit in danger? Can we negotiate with Circe? Gods this is such a mess, how the hell are we supposed to react to this nonsense?" I admit it, I was panicking a bit. I had just gotten done with that shitty dungeon and now we had this mess and who knew how things were going to shake out.
Zee reached out to grab my hand, squeezing my fingers soothingly as she gave me that smile that made me go a little loopy in the head even when she wasn't letting all her sexy out, which she currently was. "Hey, calm down. We're fine. Sure this isn't great, but we don't necessarily have to DO anything. Batman is still in town and daddy and Black Canary and tons of other Leaguers. Even if they can cut off contact with the outside to civvies there's no possible way they can do it to the League, so everything will be fine."
I exhaled. She was right. But I still wanted to do something. I pulled up my upgrade menu for Doomhollow Hall and flipped through it, finding one particular bit of useful equipment and throwing it over to the others to look at. Territory map. Allow overlying view of nearby territories, zoom function available, colored designation markers for all inhabitants. 500 points. It was pretty pricey for something with literally no external aspect at all. It couldn't effect anything or interact with other people, but for something huge like this potential invasion it would be a life saver. I looked to my boss in question?
He nodded. "An excellent purchase. Having such a capability would enable us to operate with impunity in the city even should it come under siege as currently seems likely. I wholeheartedly agree with the selection." I grinned and purchased it, feeling five hundred points drain away, leaving me only the twenty or so I'd had on top of that. Luckily it was enough to prevent me from feeling like I'd been hit by a truck, but it wasn't exactly a pleasant experience. I flicked a hand and brought up the map of the region, which covered the island, Gotham, and a bit out to sea but not much else. We got a very small section of Metropolis too but I ignored that.
I blinked as it came up, because hold shit there were so many dots. I could see the red field of them heading for the harbor still, they hadn't made landfall yet mostly, but I saw some of them had broken off and sailed around to the sides for some reason and those had already disembarked and were moving inland in small groups. I turned to Jim. "Ok boss, any ideas here? Because I have zero clue what's happening." I was completely perplexed as to what the hell was going on here. They hadn't attacked, they were just spreading out, mostly avoiding group of other dots. I saw some of them slip further inland and some took up position at the docks but they didn't seem to be moving much aside from that.
Jim took in the map and looked to me with a raised eyebrow and it took me a second to get what he was aiming at before I passed him control of the map to let him zoom in and out and turned to regard my friends. Artemis looked disturbed. "This...seems bad. Amazons are scary, like I know we're pretty badass too but there are...a lot of them. Can we do anything about that many of them? Should we? Like is this even any of our business? If they don't start offing random people then I don't really see how it's our problem." Which was actually a really good point. We were making a ton of assumptions here.
Reggie came back over, looking worried but less stressed. "I called my mom and sister and then Bette. Told them what was up and to stay indoors. I said I was by the docks when we saw the ships but I ran away and I'm safe now. Luckily they're all women so even if things get bad the Amazon's shouldn't just go ham on them or anything." He slumped into a chair. "I heard what Artemis said, and I agree. If they don't start shit with us we shouldn't start shit with them. We just got out of one long term mess and there's no reason to get dragged into another. Let the League and the Court deal with the Amazons."
Jim interrupted us from his place at the map. "I'm afraid that may be less of an option than one might expect. Come look at this, I think I've figured out what they're doing." We hurried over to his side where we were looking down at the map. I didn't see anything, but he pointed out the distribution of the dots. "As you can see they appear to be spreading out in a full circle around the city." He zoomed out. "Not just within city limits either, as you can see they left several ships behind and it appears some of them have come overland from the other direction, presumably portaled in by Circe. The only thing I could think of that would require this kind of encirclement is some kind of ward." My eyes widened at that and I bolted for the door, the others hot on my heels.
What he hadn't said was that if they were in the full encirclement position whatever spell or ward they cast would be happening any moment. What he probably didn't KNOW but I did, was that Circe had a spell for this situation in her grimoire. I'd memorized the whole thing before she gave it back. The wildsphere was a powerful divine spell that used ambient power to create a sectioned of partition in the world, sort of like a sphere that made everything inside it part of another dimension.
It was one of hundreds of spells so I hadn't really considered it a threat but given the curse on Gotham and the labyrinth being here... I hit the door running. I threw open the front doors of the castle and sprinted outside to see, but we were too late. We arrived just in time to watch the green dome of power shimmer into existence trapping us and the entire city of Gotham inside with an army of Amazons.
Boom! It's siege time folks! Gotham is trapped in a bubble with invading Amazons and months worth of accumulated magical gear and spellbooks. Welcome to the pressure cooker. As for how it happened, well Morgan figures that out next chapter though I'm sure some of you noticed and important theme in everything that's been going on. I was building to this for a while and there were some subtle clues, though I think almost everyone missed the biggest hint. Anyway super excited for this arc! Let me know what you think and hope you enjoy. Advance chapters are available at pat-reon at that site /malcolmtent