5th May
03:05 GMT -5
I send filaments down ahead of me, though not as far ahead as a truly cautious approach would involve. I am trying to rescue these people alive, and I'm far more survivable than they are.
Nothing much, nothing, there! I grab the Columbian thrall and pin their arms to prevent the Spine Rider controlling them from using their magic. Then I loop filaments around their neck-. Got you!
The Columbian man stiffens at once, his heart racing and his breathing erratic. His pupils are dilated and aren't really focusing on anything. Ring, quick health check… Nothing he won't recover from on his own, but with a little power ring I can make that now.
"Sir?"
"B-by God Almighty-!"
"Sir, you've been taken by a Spine Rider. I've killed it, but your coworkers are still being held. If you can remember anything about what it told you to do, that would be very helpful. Otherwise, please head up the stairs and stay close to my colleague Canis."
"I-" He sits up, his right hand going to the back of his neck. I closed the wound when I treated him, but I use a filament to pick up the Spine Rider's sword from the ground and hold it out to him. He sees it and nods. "No, good sir. I saw little of their attack before I was… T-taken, and then it was… As if I was in a dream, compelled to walk ever onwards with no sense of my own self. I-I have no idea what they plan for us, but I pray you, destroy these devils. Save my friends."
"I'll do my best. Up, now." I give him a hand and he pulls himself to his feet. "Canis has a large dog with him. He's a little strange, but he knows his business."
He nods jerkily and then darts up the stairs.
There's no one else in range of my filaments, but the magic here is either making them fade out or preventing me from getting feedback.
Or… Thinking about the feedback-.
I check my spell eater, but it's still in place and at a reasonable temperature. Not cold; there's been enough magic thrown around to get it a little heated. But it should still be working.
For one entirely inappropriate moment I'm reminded of when I started watching anime. It was completely different to any of the tropes I was all too familiar with from western animation, and I mistook that difference for originality. Here, I don't know if the Sheeda are being truly clever or if they simply use arcane attacks that happen to be different to the ones I'm used to guarding against.
Not that it makes much difference; I'm here with the equipment I have now and I have to deal with them.
I fly downwards. Not much dust, but my rings ever-so-helpfully point out the disturbances in the dust on the steps and the walls. Not walking lockstep in the way that star conqueror victims tend to. No spell snares, but I suppose that if a random group of tannery overseers are capable of using magics which could harm me then they certainly couldn't do so quickly.
There's an opening up ahead, and a chamber beyond it. The ongoing sensor dampening magic is making me consider simply feeding on the magic… But I don't want to risk harm to the hostages unless a reasonable alternative presents itself.
And…
Huh.
The Columbians are kneeling in ranks before… Some sort of multi-headed mosquito… Thing. Most are collapsed, and as I watch the mosquito finishes draining the last few and withdraws its heads. I can see the blood running through its translucent body and into… A… Its vast body, bloated and fat.
A construct blade severs the heads. Filaments annihilate the Spine Riders and mend the Columbians. Other than the shortage of blood, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with them. Was that… It? The Spine Riders brought them here to feed this.. thing? I restore their bodies as best I can and then deposit them by the door. Working out what the heck Melmoth was trying to do needs to be my priority.
Or… Does it? Can I think of a single non-evil thing that Melmoth might be doing with thirty pints of type-unmatched Columbian blood? No, no I can't.
Thick bands of orange light connect me to the still… Aliveish? Mosquito-thing, as I have a crack at assimilating it. The things I cut off… Yes, they had mouths and eyes but I don't think they were actually 'heads' in any conventional-
"Still alive, Lantern?"
-sense.
The creature is resisting, glowing runes all over its carapace making it hard to make contact. But that's fine; I'm trying to kill it anyway.
I ignore Melmoth's voice and form a railgun, load mage slayer rounds and fire at the most important-looking cluster. The first round strikes it without difficulty, and this time it actually works.
"How are you doing that? Some sort of leeching spell?"
The runes near the impact site stop glowing, and some sort of feedback causes the carapace nearby to crack up and the runes there fail as well. Immediately I follow up with an orange strand and attempt to assimilate it. The strand connects, and the creature turns to dust.
Mostly.. turns to dust.
"Ah. Curious. That particular redundancy wasn't created with Lanterns in mind."
There's a pile of.. tissue, or.. organic material. I assume that it isn't 'Sheeda' enough to have been included in the disintegration effect. It's.. like spider web: cream in colour, strong, slightly sticky in places and… It looks like it's cocooning… Someone or something. Columbian blood that hadn't percolated far enough through the system splats to the ground as I generate crumbler constructs and start… Pruning it back.
"Other than you wanting to be as evil as you can, what is any of this about?"
"Oh, this isn't about 'being as evil as I can'. There are far more ways to be evil than I currently indulge in."
"So when you claimed that you 'really like hurting people'-?"
"Oh, I do. But unlike some of my kind I know when to practise restraint."
"You just prefer to live-" Behind me the recovering Columbians begin making a retreat. "-in a situation which doesn't require you to."
"When I ruled these people I enforced my own laws in a completely fair and even-handed manner. I just didn't subject myself to them. What's the point of being king if you can't be king?"
"To create the greatest and strongest realm you can, with the most prosperous and capable people, as a testament to the rightness of your rule."
"Well…"
"But I suppose that's not for everyone. Particularly if this is all you've managed since the last Harrowing, you malignant incompetent."
The shape is humanoid, though I can't see anything that suggests that they're alive. But… This civilisation is rife with necromancy, and there are humanoid species with decidedly non-standard vital signs. I wouldn't want to kill an intelligent undead creature that hadn't done anything wrong.
"You know, I had considered keeping you on with your facilities intact. Now, I think I'll let you watch everyone you know and love die screaming before I turn you into a gibbering pet."
"Melmoth, if your threats worried me I wouldn't bother talking to you."
"I suppose you have acquitted yourself reasonably well so far. But I rather think that's about to change. You see, after I was deposed and abandoned after our previous Harrowing, I had the complete run of a dead civilisation. Access to all manner of interesting things. All sorts of interesting people. And their corpses. The main drawback of replacing my blood is that I don't have any Sheeda blood in me any longer, but my seed is still Sheeda seed, and my descendants have me in their blood."
"And it doesn't take a lot of blood to make a grundygod."