Kairos 88: A Harvest of Souls

The clock struck and the timer went down.

They had spent a minute rushing through the corridors, but they couldn’t outrun time.

“This way!” Nessus shouted as he guided his group through the halls of the palace towards the northeast wing, his bow ready for a fight. Agron sang a song to empower the group as they followed in a mad rush. “His lair is in this direction!”

“He can listen, you fool!” Sertorius replied, frustration breaking through his stoicism. “Don’t warn him!”

“You said you had something against ailments,” his brother-in-law said as he ran at the party’s front alongside Rook and the other warriors. [Dispel] and other spells hadn’t worked, nor did Thales’ elixirs. “Now is the time to use it!”

“My Legendary Skill will disrupt all our buffs too!” Sertorius warned. “It will make us vulnerable!”

“Try it!” Andromache snapped angrily. The witch had taken Thanatos’ spell the hardest, her faith shaken by fear. “I can apply the spells again later!”

Sertorius’ jaw clenched as he raised his scepter. “[Balanced State].”

A blue aura flared around him and expanded like a pulse. When it touched Nessus, the satyr sensed the weight of his crimes and centuries of life shackling him. The impartial, almighty power of the law suffused Sertorius’ magic, forcing all things to return to their natural state. The various enhancements Nessus benefited from his gears and protective spells vanished, brushed away like straw in the wind.

All status ailments, buffs, and debuffs have been removed.

Nessus let out a breath of relief as he watched his friends’ timers freeze for a few seconds. The phantom clocks above their heads stopped at four hundred twenty-one.

The group’s relief only lasted for a few seconds as the timer began to go down again, much to Sertorius’ chagrin. “Thanatos’ is the natural law of death,” he said. “I can disrupt his [Doom] ailment timer for a few seconds, but I can’t lift the effect.”

“Better than nothing,” Cassandra said. “How many times can you cast it?”

“As many times as I want,” the judge replied. “But it takes a few seconds to set it up.”

Kairos nodded in appreciation. “Use that Skill constantly and buy us more time then. The more you extend the timer, the greater our odds of reaching Thanatos within the limit.”

But the Travian King had tempted fate, and it answered the provocation.

“This place will be your tomb,” Thanatos’ voice echoed through the corridors, brimming with magical power. “[Dying Land].”

Nessus covered his mouth to avoid breathing in a cloud of dust. The obsidian corridor they were in trembled as cracks spread through the walls and gemstones fell from the ceiling. Statues of Persephone lost their noses and ears, the march of time eroding their features.

“Sir, he’s bringing down the palace on us!” Thales warned. “We need to reach a hall! The foundations will be stabler there!”

Remembering his friendly races with Artemis and Apollo inside the sprawling rooms of Olympus, Nessus took the lead again and guided his allies. Sertorius kept casting his unique [Balanced State] spell as they ran, keeping the timer frozen above four hundred.

The group managed to reach the northeast region of the palace when the ceiling started collapsing on them. A huge chunk of the roof fell down on Nessus’ head, nearly crushing him.

“Beware!” Kairos raised his spear and summoned a powerful blast of wind. The sheer power behind his attack shattered the falling stones into harmless dust.

“Thanks—” Nessus started but didn’t finish as the floor partly collapsed beneath Agron. The minotaur’s left feet fell through a hole, making him stumble.

Another chunk of the ceiling fell on the minotaur’s head. Andromache, using her shapeshifting abilities, turned herself to stone and raised her hands. Like a living pillar, she supported the obsidian roof before it could crush everywhere underneath. “Free him now!” she snapped. “There is no time!”

“Go!” Cassandra said as she helped Agron unstick his leg from the hole. “Go, go, go!”

“I’m fine!” Agron snapped, more angry at the humiliation than hurt by it. The moment he managed to free himself and the rest of the group escaped the collapsing area, Andromache turned herself to living water to escape the falling stones.

The group’s mad dash ended in a cavernous hall that Nessus recognized as a copy of Olympus’ colossal dancing room. Hades had made adjustments to it, raising two rows of gemstone pillars to lift the ten meters tall marble ceiling. Although part of it had collapsed into small stone piles all around the room, as Thales suspected, the room’s improved foundations had better resisted Thanatos’ spell than the rest. A deep, empty fire pit occupied the hall’s center, surrounded by old dusty rugs made from the pelts of Nemean Lions.

Ghostly will’o wisps provided a meager light, showcasing faceless woman statues in the corners and defaced frescos on the cracked walls. Two doors led to different parts of the palace on the opposite end of the hall; one would lead them to Tartarus’ entrance, the other to Thanatos’ room.

And both were buried in rubble.

Damn it, Nessus thought while Kairos checked up on Andromache behind him and Sertorius cast his spell again. The timer wavered around four hundred seconds like a broken clock, but the judge only delayed the inevitable.

“Is there another path?” Cassandra asked as she used her bident’s ghostly flames to  illuminate the hall. It was too large for that; Nessus couldn’t see the fire pit’s bottom, nor past the shadows between the pillars.

His long experience with ambushes kicked in and raised all kinds of alarms; especially since he should have been able to see through them with his [Dark Vision] Skill. This implied magical darkness of some kind.

“Only through the southern wing,” Nessus warned as he looked over his shoulder. Thanatos’ spell had ended, but the exit had collapsed behind them. “The way back is buried and we will have to go through the entire palace again.”

They would never make it in time.

“Let’s dig then!” Rook said as he hurriedly rushed at the two exits on the other side of the room. “Spot does it all the time, it can’t be that hard!”

“Do you have any spell that could open the way?” Kairos asked Andromache.

“Let me think,” she said, her face tensing. Nessus guessed that she struggled to think clearly under pressure.

It’s where we lost contact with her undead thralls, Nessus realized as he glanced at the firepit. Did they fall inside, believing it to be a way to the fourth level? Or did it contain some foul creature that Thanatos would unleash on them now?

Nessus tensed up as he glanced at the shadows around the group. Agron too expected an ambush, grabbing his ax and preparing himself for a surprise attack. The flames of his weapon flared up, dispelling the shadows.

Most of them.

The attacker ran so fast that Nessus’ eye almost didn’t follow his movements; his hoplite armor seemed wreathed in darkness, making it near-indistinguishable from his surroundings. He rushed past the surprised Agron and Cassandra, his spear aimed at Kairos’ head.

Reacting quicker, Nessus fired an arrow at the assassin. The shadowy warrior deflected the projectile with his spear, but Kairos noticed the movement in the air. His own [Anemoi Spear] clashed with his attacker’s, the parry pushing the undead back. Yet the assassin swiftly prepared another thrust, bloodthirsty lights flaring beneath his helmet.

“Begone!” Andromache immediately cast a stream of flames at the attacker, with Kairos strengthening it with a blast of air. Their combined magic swallowed the assassin in a torrent of flame and briefly illuminated the darkness around them, revealing the other assassins waiting among the pillars.

Dozens of shadowy figures attacked the party from all sides. Whether they were hoplites with swords, warriors with bows, or rogues with daggers, their bodies were crafted from the very essence of darkness itself. Some of the shadows didn’t even belong to humans; one shadow reminded Nessus of a merfolk, and another of a giant crab.

An archer spoke to Nessus in Indian as he fired an arrow, confirming his suspicions.

“Die, Dionysus!”

The words startled Nessus, but not enough to let him take the projectile. He dodged by leaping to the side and fired an arrow of his own as the entire room erupted in chaos.

“Kill the priest first and then the witch,” Thanatos’ voice ordered over the sound of clashing blades. “Succeed, and I shall return you to life.”

“He’s lying!” Nessus snarled over the chaos of the melee, but none listened.

Not all of Thanatos’ soldiers obeyed the order though. The spearman who attacked Kairos emerged from the flames unscathed, his spear shining with lightning, but he focused entirely on the Travian King. “You won’t take me by treachery this time!” he snarled with a ghastly voice as he attempted to impale Kairos. “That spear belongs to me!”

Nessus briefly used [Observer] on the attacker, confirming his suspicions.

Pelopidas the Relentless

Legend: Spear of Thanatos (Hero)

Level: ???

And as he noticed the shadow of King Lysander parrying Cassandra’s sword with an iron shield, Nessus wasn’t the only one being haunted.

His own victims didn’t even have the decency to focus on him though. Indian archers who Nessus slew during his own campaigns raised their weapons at Sertorius, targeting him as he prepared to cast [Balanced State] to delay the [Doom] timer again. Nessus immediately targeted them with arrows of his own, while Thales threw bomb devices at the enemies.

Cassandra deflected projectiles aiming for Sertorius with her fork, acting as his bodyguard. Agron let out a roar of berserk rage as he charged into the melee fighters, single-handedly breaking their line apart while Kairos and Andromache double-teamed Pelopidas. Rook, who had gone ahead of the group to dig a path outside the room, rushed back into the melee and shredded the closest undead with his talons.

The shadows had hoped to take the group unaware, only to face a well-oiled machine.

But they don’t need to win, Nessus thought as he glanced at the frozen timers. The ambush had delayed Sertorius’ spellcasting, allowing the [Doom] counter to go down to three-hundred and eighty. Only to stall.

“You burned me at the stake, Agron!” A hoplite called out the minotaur before attempting to impale him with his spear. Agron lazily grabbed the weapon with one hand, shattering it with his mere strength.

“Personally?” Agron flashed a frightening smile before splitting a shadowy hoplite with his ax. “I relish the pleasure of killing you again.”

If Thanatos had hoped to make the minotaur doubt himself, the gambit had failed spectacularly. No sooner did Agron hit the shadow than the undead burst out in fiery flames. The Songaxe’s music grew louder, its power magnified by death.

All stats raised by one stage!

With newfound strength coursing through his veins, Nessus slew an Indian archer by firing an arrow straight into his eyes. Thales’ bombs caused a pillar to explode nearby and crush the shadow of a giant crab and Orichalcos soldiers under its weight, their bodies disappearing into purple smoke.

While most of the undead were not truly threatening, Pelopidas proved a harder foe to deal with. The dead [Hero] unleashed a lightning bolt from his shadowy spear at Kairos, forcing the rogue to stay on the move. Andromache assisted her lover with fireballs and spells, but the undead warrior proved as agile as his nemesis. He leaped among flames with speed contrasting his heavy armor, before dispelling a blast of wind with his spear.

“The spear is mine, you Travian thief!” Pelopidas snarled as he failed to impale Kairos with a strike to the chest.

“I made better use of it than you ever did,” Kairos replied while dancing around his foe. Much like Agron, he felt nothing at facing the people he had slain… or if he did, he didn’t show it in the middle of battle. “Rook!”

“On it, Kairos!” The griffin replied before moving behind Pelopidas, ready to strike him from behind.

And as always, Thanatos screwed it all up.

“[Shadow Wall],” his words echoed in the hall as a curved veil of darkness rose up in the middle of Kairos’ party.

The room was split in half in one second. Kairos, Nessus, Cassandra, and Sertorius were trapped on the fire pit side alongside Pelopidas; Andromache, Agron, Thales, Rook, and the shadows on the other. The arrows flying in the room crashed against the barrier as if it were made of unbreakable stone, and Nessus could barely see anything through it.

“The Romans had a saying,” Thanatos mocked them as the black barrier turned Agron’s music into background noise. “Divide et impera. Divide and conquer.”

“In this case, that applies to you,” Nessus pointed out, as Pelopidas was the only shadow on their side of the wall. The satyr swiftly raised his bow to attack the spearman while Cassandra and Kairos surrounded him. “When will you get tired of cowering behind others, you chicken?”

“Why would I risk myself?” Thanatos replied as Pelopidas retreated to avoid being surrounded, deflecting one of Nessus’ arrows while at it. “Each time I danced with mortal [Heroes], it cost me. I shan’t bother this time. So long as I remain out of your reach, your friends will die.”

“The [Shadow Wall] spell has a short range though,” Sertorius pointed out, as he prepared to cast [Balanced State] again. “Kairos, can you sense him with your spear?”

“I detect movement in the air coming from the fire pit,” the rogue replied as he parried a thrust from Pelopidas’ spear. “But it’s bigger than Thanatos.”

Reinforcements? Nessus turned around to look at the fire pit, bow ready to kill whatever would crawl out of it.

“I know what you want, my foolish shadow,” Thanatos mocked him. “You want to destroy us both.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Nessus replied with a shrug, as he heard spears clash behind him. “The bliss of oblivion? Or does the thought of reuniting with me fill you with such revulsion?”

“There will be no reunion, my immortal half. Not before I silence this world.”

“Who’s going to stop our match?” Nessus replied as Sertorius’ aura once again flared around him, though it couldn’t breach the shadowy veil. The buffs from Agron’s song were disrupted for a few seconds, but immediately reapplied as music echoed through the barrier. “These second stringers? Where’s Jason of Iolcus? The Giants? The Nemean Lion? The dragon? After all the enemies we made over the last year, this is the best you can throw at us?”

“I could only steal so many souls without arousing Persephone’s attention, those she found beneath her notice.” Thanatos let out a dark chuckle. “But there is one soul that I spirited away centuries ago, specifically for you.”

Nessus heard the hissing of snakes coming from the fire pit.

His lone remaining eye widened in horror. No, the satyr panicked, his heart accelerating in his chest, his breathing shortening. A dreadful memory he had suppressed came flooding back, as it did when he saw Euryale’s statues around the marsh.

Only one of the sisters had died.

“Medusa!” Nessus shouted in alarm as a clawed hand of living shadows grabbed the edge of the pit. He lowered his gaze to avoid facing the monster’s eyes as her crown of snake hair emerged, avoiding the fate that befell him so long ago. “Gorgon!”

Kairos and Cassandra reacted quickly enough to lower their gazes, but Sertorius and Pelopidas were not as lucky. In an ironic twist, neither the living judge nor the undead warrior proved immune to Medusa’s cursed glare. Sertorius turned to stone, while Pelopidas’ shadowy body crumbled to dust.

And without the judge’s spell, Kairos’ counter started to go down unimpeded.

Medusa leaped out of the firepit, though Nessus couldn't witness her full, ghastly glory. His eye only saw a serpentlike tail two meters long and a pair of clawed arms, alongside the reflection of a necklace on a scaled chest. The vengeful ghost only let out a bestial shriek as she slithered towards Nessus, her mind long crushed by centuries of undeath.

How long had Thanatos held onto her soul? Did she end up in Tartarus as per the will of Athena, only for the reaper to free her as a weapon against immortal foes?

Whatever the case, Nessus could only leap away close to the fire pit’s edge, as Medusa’s snake hair attempted to bite him. I can’t aim well while keeping my eyes down! the satyr thought angrily as he raised his bow in the gorgon’s direction and fired an arrow. His projectile hit a pillar, completely missing his target.

Thankfully, Kairos and Cassandra proved better at it. The former unleashed a burst of wind from his spear and the latter ghostly flames from her bident, the two elemental attacks incinerating Medusa in a torrent of fire. The gorgon let out a howl of rage as she stopped paying Nessus attention and turned around to attack his allies.

“It is a mercy,” Thanatos said. “I have watched your steps across history. Felt your pain. You have lived too long, my immortal half.”

“On that, we agree,” Nessus replied as he mustered the courage to look up. Medusa had her back turned on him and attempted to whip Cassandra with her snake tail. She protected herself with her shield, while Kairos struck the gorgon from the left with his spear. “But you first.”

“The stone will be a kindness. Mercy. The closest thing to oblivion that you will ever experience.”

Nessus ignored the taunt as he tried to find a way out of this situation. He noticed flashes of light behind the shadowy wall separating them from the others; probably Andromache trying to bring it down with fireballs. But above all, the satyr’s eye wandered to Kairos’ [Doom] counter.

Two-hundred fifty.

Less than five minutes, and Thanatos wouldn’t show up even if they won.

No way around it.

“Kairos!” Nessus shouted to his captain, fully aware he was about to reveal their plan to Thanatos. “Summon Orgonos!”

“He said only at the temple’s bottom!” The Travian King snarled back, his spear tearing off a piece of Medusa’s shadowy flesh.

“Take your chance!” Nessus insisted as he raised his bow at Medusa’s back. “We’ll keep her busy.”

Kairos clenched his jaw and prepared to refuse his ally’s suggestion… until he locked his gaze with Nessus.

They had been adventuring together for so long, they didn’t even need to speak. One look was enough for them to understand each other’s thoughts. Kairos’ gaze turned to shock, then to denial, and finally to sorrow.

Leaving Cassandra to occupy Medusa’s attention, even as she ignored the arrows Nessus shot in her back, the Travian King hand mimicked reaching out for something beneath his [Golden Fleece] cloak. While he kept his bow raised at Medusa’s back, Nessus’ eye kept an eye on his captain like a parent on a child.

And when Thanatos’ scythe descended through the ceiling in an attempt to cut off Kairos’ hand, the satyr threw his bow away and rushed at them.

“What were two, now made one,” Nessus whispered the prayer Orgonos taught him in ancient Greek. “By the will of Ananke, the certainty. Death, an ending; life, a beginning.”

His hands shone with bright light as they lunged for Thanatos.

Kairos reacted swiftly, parrying the scythe with a thrust of his spear and attempting to impale the [Demigod]. But though his scythe was solid steel, the reaper’s body was as incorporeal as a ghost. The [Anemoi Spear] went through Thanatos without inflicting any damage.

He had hidden himself in the hall’s stone walls and ceiling, lurking out of reach while he could cast spells on the party undetected. Thanatos immediately attempted to retreat by phasing through the floor, but Nessus didn’t let him.

The satyr’s glowing hands grabbed the shadow by the neck, the incorporeal being unable to escape his grasp.

“Got you,” Nessus said with a smirk.

He had to admit that Thanatos’ panicked expression made all the effort worth it. Unable to escape his foe’s grip, the reaper let out a screech as he attempted to strike the satyr with his scythe. A thrust of Kairos’ spear sent the weapon flying against a wall.

“No wonder Sisyphus managed to restrain you,” the satyr mocked his shadow as he held Thanatos by the arms. For all of his power, the [Demigod] was no fighter. “You’re way out of shape.”

“Release me at once!” Thanatos hissed, his eyes blazing with hatred while Medusa screeched in the background as Cassandra burnt her face with ghostly flames. “Let me go!”

“After all the effort we went through to get back together, my shadow? I think not.”

Nessus knew he couldn’t let the group summon Orgonos, as it would wreck his plan beyond belief. It was an all-or-nothing gamble, but they managed to get the cowardly [Demigod] to panic.

And now, Nessus couldn’t let Thanatos go even if he wanted. The [Demigod]’s feet started to merge with the satyr’s shadow, his power flowing into a new vessel. Nessus felt a chilling cold fill his flesh… and a sense of peace too.

Soon.

It would be all over soon.

Kairos’ spear struck Thanatos in the head, wind swirling around its tip. The weapon phased through the specter harmlessly.

Nessus glanced at his friend with his lone remaining eye. “It’s useless,” he warned.

Kairos’ expression turned to sorrow. “There has to be another way. Maybe you can subsume his mind, take the power for yourself. Fight it!”

“There is no other way,” Nessus replied with a sigh. “And if you ask me… it was worth it.”

His friend’s counter had fallen below one-hundred and fifty.

But it would never reach zero.

After causing so much destruction across the centuries, Nessus had finally saved someone.

“You are death itself, Thanatos,” the satyr told his counterpart, as the cold infused every fiber of his being. “You’ve given its kiss to countless mortals across centuries. And maybe, just maybe… that’s why you fear it so much.”

Thanatos could only glare in response. His shadowy wall was already faltering, its power waning.

“I’m already offering annihilation through reunification,” Nessus whispered, his thoughts slipping as he sensed Thanatos’ fear and hatred resonated in his own mind. “Yet you tried to hide and run. You hate humans so much, but you weren’t so different from them in the end.”

How ironic.

The embodiment of life wanted to die at long last, while death refused to perish first.

“Release me now,” Thanatos rasped. “Or I’ll kill them all right here.”

“We are beyond the bargaining stage,” Nessus taunted him back, Kairos’ counter reaching one hundred. “Now is the time for acceptance.”

“Fool, I shall cast it!” Thanatos said, his left hand’s fingers rubbing together. Shadows danced around them. “At this distance, they will not survive!”

Nessus’ eye widened in horror.

The [Death] spell.

“You can’t!” Nessus shouted in disbelief. “Their time is not up yet! The Fate System won’t let you kill them, your restrictions—”

“What have I to lose by trying?” Thanatos’ mouth morphed into a hideous grin. “Free me, now!”

“I can’t!” Nessus said, his body refusing to answer. The fusion was already halfway through, with Thanatos’ lower half having merged the satyr’s body. “It’s too late! Kairos, stop him!”

But his friend’s weapon phased through Thanatos’ hand. Nessus attempted to restrain it, but the [Demigod] fought him off. Their powers were merging, but not fast enough.

“[Telchine Sorcery: Charm],” Kairos said through his clenched teeth as he attempted to crush Thanatos’ will, only for his power to crash against the hardened fortress of the [Demigod]’s mind.

Thanatos’ eyes let out a flash of fiery anger, quickly replaced with grim resignation. “This is the fate that not even gods can escape,” he whispered. “The last breath that brings decay. The fingersnap that snuffs out life like candlelight.”

Faster, Nessus thought, trying to swallow Thanatos into himself before the fatal moment. Kairos paled as his counter fell below twenty, his eyes closing as he prepared himself for the fateful instant.

“[Death] to all!”

The finger-snap echoed across the hall.

Click here to alter fate. 

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