nemorosus

Chapter 158: Stepping Aside

Argrave hadn’t spoken to Galamon much at all since Garm was lost to them. Argrave couldn’t deny he was upset Galamon had gone behind his back so blatantly. They sat cross-legged amidst the sand dunes, the night sky above. The chill of winter had set in; they were well into the heart of the cold season. There was an awkward air between the two of them. It reminded Argrave of a dispute with his brother or father—they’d just avoid each other, saying only words that needed to be said… 2022-07-19 07:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 157: All Eyes Forward

Argrave laid his head back against the pillow, blinking rapidly. The Alchemist’s finger curled inwards, stashing away the Unsullied Knife.

Eye replacement surgery had to be one of the most unpleasant operations imaginable, doubly so because the Alchemist was an unfeeling bastard who made him stay awake for the entire process. Even if it was painless, being blinded temporarily was terrifying beyond compare.

The Alchemist didn’t have the grace to replace each eyeball individuall...

Chapter 156: No Return Policy

Argrave and Anneliese talked for a long while before Argrave’s hunger started to eat at him, and they elected to return. On the way back, Argrave’s Brumesingers greeted him, climbing all over him like a friend sorely missed. Argrave could almost feel their worry for him.

Their fur was growing shades darker. It seemed they had food enough to live well in this place. It was a testament to the Alchemist’s callous nature, he supposed. It also served as a reminder not to step out of li...

Chapter 155: Stupid Heart

“Argrave,” Anneliese called out, short of breath.

Argrave turned his head from where he sat beside the great willow tree hanging off the ledge. With the unending plain of clouds before him, it appeared like the end of the earth stretched before him. The suns were setting, hueing the white fluffy clouds with reds and oranges.

Anneliese took some time to catch her breath, and then took slow steps towards him. Argrave turned his head back to the view before him, watching silently...

Chapter 154: Cynical Bastards

“Set aside this fight, for now. Let me ask you a question,” Durran hefted his glaive, pointing it at Garm. “Say you prevail. What next?”

“I’ll work at regaining the power I had,” Garm answered at once.

Durran lowered the glaive. “You see, I’ve noticed a little problem you have. I ask that question, and you first talk about what you’re going to do for yourself.”

“I can’t help anyone without power,” Garm shook his head. “That’s why you’re doin...

Chapter 153: Last Will

Garm knelt down and picked a black rose from the endless field. He held it up to his face, twirling it about with his fingers. The black petals began to twitch… and then exploded outwards as a mass of flesh.

Opposite Garm, Durran panicked and jumped back at the unexpected sight. Garm could see his face morph with surprise, his sole desire becoming getting away. And the man did—he jumped back near fifty feet, practically flying in the sky. Garm had summoned some of his favorite creat...

Chapter 152: Standing Proudly Once More

Argrave blinked open his eyes. As he stared at the bloodstained purple blanket before him, mind blank, it took a few seconds to realize he’d just woken up. And not in pain, too—the aching was there, still, but hollower. He was used to being woken up by spikes of pain, so it was a welcome feeling.

He took the rare moment of respite to look around. After Galamon had arrived, the place had become much cleaner—though the vampire was absent, now, probably getting food. Anneliese slept ...

Chapter 151: Bitter

Ringing metal echoed through the obsidian abode of the Alchemist. Galamon took slow, heavy steps, eyes glancing around everywhere. He followed a trail of purple lights, though he didn’t seem to trust them completely. The uniform hallways and sterile atmosphere of the place seemed to disquiet him.

He turned a corner and paused, raising his bare hand to his nose, as though it smelled bad—he’d still not repaired his armor after it had been severed in the battle with the Lord of Silve...

Chapter 150: Scrutinized Testing

“Garm mouthed off to the Alchemist?” Argrave questioned while rubbing his chest, taking deliberate and heavy breaths. Anneliese had placed some accommodations in the room—the end of the bed had a chair to accommodate Argrave’s dangling feet, and she had placed a large couch just beside the bed for herself. In addition, some food was ready and stocked.

The pain was beginning in earnest. It was a constant dull ache, rising ever upwards in intensity. It had been manageable at first...

Chapter 149: Unpredictable, Insurmountable

Argrave laid in bed, staring up at the bronze hand mirror he’d once so loathed owning.

Traits: [Tall], [Black Blooded], [Intelligent], [Magic Affinity (High)], [Insomniac], [Blessing of Supersession (MAX)]

Skills: [Elemental Magic (C) {LOCKED}], [Blood Magic (C) {LOCKED}], [Healing Magic (C) {LOCKED}], [Illusion Magic (C) {LOCKED}], [Warding Magic(C) {LOCKED}], [Druidic Magic (C) {LOCKED}], [Inscription (E)], [Imbuing (E)]

Two accursed traits that had plagued him ever sinc...

Chapter 148: Make An Effort

Anneliese stepped through the bizarre palace of the Alchemist, following the purple lights that shone without an obvious source, guiding her through the castle. Typically, her eyes wandered at times like these, consumed with curiosity, but she was led forward now with a single-minded purpose.

She passed through a threshold into another room. The trail of lights faded. She saw a bed in the back of the room—it was a fancy one, a four-poster bed, hanging curtains of purple fabric with st...

Chapter 147: Baring Your Heart

Argrave recalled that he had once complained in an online forum about ‘fade to black’ cutscenes in video games. The screen would go dark, and then someone would narrate what had happened. ‘It’s lazy,’ he recalled writing. ‘Devs didn’t want to animate a surgery.’ Argrave was sure he’d been about fifteen years old when he wrote those nonsensical complaints.

Now, Argrave wished for nothing more than his vision to fade to black and a month to pass.

Instead, a twenty-...

Chapter 146: Apathy

The Alchemist living beneath the hot sands of the Burnt Desert was nowhere near as insignificant as his name implied. The master of this obsidian castle was not merely a practitioner of alchemy. He embodied it. Literally.

His body was alchemy manifest.

The principle of alchemy—fantasy alchemy, at least—was that of exchange. The most famous example would be turning lead to gold. In ‘Heroes of Berendar,’ alchemy was dually a process by which potions were created, and a magic...

Chapter 145: The Alchemist

“Keep watch on Durran,” Argrave spoke to Anneliese and Galamon. “I told you before he’d be a good ally, but… he’s volunteering to carry Garm, he’s following us without reason… my scheme senses are tingling.”

“I was going to tell you,” Anneliese nodded. “I picked up the same… though without ‘scheme senses,’ granted,” she noted with an amused smile. “For what it is worth, I feel no malice from either.”

Argrave nodded. “Reassuring. But you don’...

Chapter 144: Ride and Die

“You want to give us a ride?” Argrave questioned Durran.

“I do,” Durran nodded, spinning his wyvern scale helmet about in his hands. Up close, the armor was quite impressive—a coat of gray lamellar wyvern scales stretching down to the knees, held together with studs of what looked to be brass. His glaive was made of wyvern bone. It was done in the style of the southron elves. All-in-all, impressively armed.

Argrave crossed his arms. “Why?”

“You probably saved...

Chapter 143: Cushioned Iron Fist

“When you said you had something to show me…” Durran trailed off, then looked to Argrave. “This is one of the last things I expected. You’re…”

“Not a necromancer, no,” Argrave shook his head. “He is, though. And he wishes to speak with you.”

Durran stared down at Garm, brows furrowed and eyes wide. “Not ominous at all,” he nodded his head slowly. “Listen… I—”

“You should listen,” interjected Garm annoyedly. “Argrave. Let me sp...

Chapter 142: Left Wanting

“You,” growled Durran. “All of you. Before the battle is even finished, you devolve into base vultures. You pick at a carcass still warm, still pumping blood.” He looked about the crowd. “You paint me as a monster with the direction of some snake merchant, who puts forth his own claim to the city in the same breath.”

The people beneath Titus rose their voices, but Durran raised his own volume, drowning them out. “I thought to help people. The purest motivation, devoid of p...

Chapter 141: Steel Tempered by Tyrants

In the alleyways of Sethia, someone crawled away on their knees, veritably pulling themselves forward using the walls. They pushed aside rubble, heaving, then eventually collapsed against a building, breathless.

“Haah… haah,” the man breathed. Covered in grime, dust, and sand, the man was entirely nude. He was ridiculously skinny, appearing both dehydrated and starved. His hair and eyes were brown. His skin was the color of copper.

If any of the residents of the city saw him...

Chapter 140: Division of Power

“The dangerous thing about Brium is…” Argrave trailed off as he stared out over the city of Sethia, standing atop the mound of sand that had been built by the Sand Courser.

Argrave had chosen what he thought was the ‘right thing.’ He’d endeavored to liberate the city from the hands of the Vessels, even if it did create some uncertainty and loss of time. Yet now… Sethia was the worst he had ever seen it. ‘Heroes of Berendar’ never had an outcome with such devastation, s...

Chapter 139: Biggest Prize

Argrave grabbed a silver handle from a shelf, pulling free a black box. It was large, and he was unprepared for the weight—Anneliese put her hand beneath it to stop Argrave from dropping it. They lowered it to the ground together. It was a black cube chest with a silver locking mechanism.

The four of them stood in Argent’s treasury, entirely unopposed. The place was a fitting treasury for the Lord of Silver… but quite disappointing for Argrave. Fine art, silver statues, or sculptu...

Chapter 138: Mirror Room

Argrave had been preparing for—and loathing—the possibility of a confrontation with the Lord of Silver, Quarrus.

One of Quarrus’ attacks had been sufficient to completely destroy a B-rank ward, and even left a hole in the silver wall beyond it. Argrave was confident in his enchanted armor… but he couldn’t deny his heart was beating the fastest it ever had. He pulled his duster’s hood over his head, drawing it tight as he watched the Lord at the stairs.

The title of ‘...

Chapter 137: Golden Lady

Argent was a decadent place. The walls and floor were all made of silver, polished so as to reflect that within its walls. Just about everything else was an imperial purple—furniture, carpets, and curtains all. These decorations had gemstones, furthering the beauty of the place. It was truly a home for a lord, by Argrave’s reckoning. It was a shame, then, that such a pretty place was marred by the heartless bastard owning it.

The moment that Argrave’s feet met the silver ground of...

Chapter 136: Waves Collide, Amplifying

Brium stared down at the area beyond the walls of his tower, Cyprus, pushing a curtain aside to look through the barred window. There was a great abundance of people behind him—most of them were ordinary humans, while two were Vessels. They were all armed for war. The Vessels were in their liquid form, silent and still, water tendrils wound like a snake poised to lunge.

At the walls surrounding the foot of the copper tower, there was a great blockade. Soldiers formed the bulk of the w...

Chapter 135: Boons and Curses

Argrave’s hand emerged from a still body of water, grasping onto a sandy beach. The sand fell away, and he fell back in. A second later, his hand came back up, and he used his elbow to raise himself up out of the water.

“Christ,” he gasped, water dripping off his face. “Cold. Didn’t think about how much of a nightmare this place would be.”

Argrave felt a colder glaive pointed against his neck, and he raised his head up, blinking water out of his eyes.

“That’s...

Chapter 134: First Ripple on a Still Lake

“Why did you lie to me?” Durran demanded, holding his glaive to Titus’ neck. The blade was made of a black bone, yet still ridiculously sharp. The man sat across from him, passively, with complete ambivalence to the situation.

“Because it was easier,” said Titus.

“Easier?” Durran repeated. “No—I know that’s not true. Even if you’d been honest that Brium intended to betray us, I would have gone along with it. You’re one of us—you used to be. You know we wo...

Chapter 133: Easy Out

Mistress Crislia, the Lord of Gold. Though Argrave was embarrassed by his lack of knowledge of Titus, he knew plenty of the Mistress of Aurum, the golden tower on the outside of Sethia. The knowledge came from that of an enemy, though—the player could only ever collaborate with Cyprus, and Aurum and Argent would always be one’s enemies were that the case.

The Crislia Argrave knew was narcissistic and greedy. She didn’t lack for ambition, both for spiritual and physical matters. Sh...

Chapter 132: Intrigue of the Desert

Durran stepped into a hovel on the edge of Sethia, leaning against his glaive. Once he passed the barrier, he shut the rickety wooden door behind him. He stood there, breathing heavily, almost as though wounded.

“Did you—” a man’s voice called out, and then the sound of plate boots against wood sounded out as someone moved up to Durran. “What’s the matter? You’re pale. What happened?” the man insisted. He wore a helmet depicting a boar, though most of him was covered by ...

Chapter 131: Durran

Argrave, without much option, took Durran to an establishment that he knew had private rooms for eating. Some Vessels ran the place, but they worked for Aurum, so Brium would likely never find out about them. Even still, ever cautious, Argrave had warded their conversation.

Of all the characters in ‘Heroes of Berendar’ barring the custom-made one, Argrave had definitely played Durran the most. Melanie stood at a close second. They were fun to play, mainly, but Argrave liked their pe...

Chapter 130: Dissatisfied Stalkers

Elias stared out into the distance, where the looming walls of Elbraille were not even visible in the all-consuming darkness. He and Stain sat in their carriage, moving through the night and towards the city. Their cavalry marched quietly towards the gates of the city, but there was a somber air throughout the whole party. The death of Bruno had affected more than simply Elias, he knew, but he needed to put on a brave front.

“You’re sure about this, Stain?” Elias questioned. “Ca...

Chapter 129: Blade that Lies

Florimund held a pure white—likely ivory—chisel in his right hand, a hammer in the left. He turned them about in his hand, inspecting them for any flaws or deficiencies. The other warriors looked over his shoulder, leaning atop him to see the thing better.

They sat cross-legged on the floor in a rather strange place—a silk-crafting room. Above, there were innumerable cocoons, each made of black silk. It made Argrave quite uncomfortable, but he hoped Galamon, standing just behind h...