The shaman held up a hand, palm out, “Hold, Deathweaver, I wish a parlay before we attempt to kill each other once more,” his voice cracked like dry parchment.
Drew glanced down at the conflict between his team and the other trolls, Robbi was slashing through a troll with a massive, ruby greatsword, while lines of fire kept the trolls at bay. “Okay, you have thirty seconds.”
Chapter Forty-Two — Pyrrhic
“You have obviously talked to humans from the greater population. That divine xatherite you used to kill my people on the surface is proof of their interference. Tell me, Deathweaver,” The troll spat out that title, animosity dripping off his tongue, “Did they tell you that you were special? That you were their best hope of survival?” He snorted and turned around.
“You are nothing but a tool, a means by which they can destroy their enemies. You cannot create. You cannot heal. You can only obliterate. You are a blunt instrument, designed only to destroy. That is what they need you for. They don’t want you to think. They don’t want you to stop and consider the consequences of your actions. They need a loyal soldier who will kill in the name of Protector and Senate.”
“I can save lives,” Drew rebutted, “Human and troll alike. I can use my powers to protect people from suffering,” Drew said, circling the troll, wary for a trap. He needed information about the universe, about Ares and his siblings, and about the system. “We don’t have to fight. There could be peace between our peoples.”
The troll snorted, “At what cost? You save others, and they will reward you. They’ll give you anything you want: women, drugs, physical pleasures you cannot currently comprehend, but only so long as what you want is war and death. The system does not want us to make peace with each other. It feeds on our blood. It stole my people from our homes and deposited us here, and then promised that if we sacrificed enough of your kind, we could go home. Why do you think it did that?” He paused giving Drew a chance to think, but not long enough to answer.
“It wants to foster war, to create a never-ending conflict. Whatever the system’s purpose is, it wants our blood. My people were powerful once, like yours. We eradicated hundreds of weaker species and created an empire that ruled across the cosmos. Then, at the height of our power, we too thought to create peace, an alliance that would foster learning and growth for every awakened species.” He paused, his words remorseful, “We had such dreams. The system would not allow it. It gave quests of sedition. It turned us against ourselves, and for that salacious promise of power, we turned cannibal. We killed our brightest children, craving the power they would give us, fearing that they might outshine us.”
“Too late we realized the error of our ways. We had already ruined ourselves. Those of us that were left gathered together the scraps of our once great civilization and fled. We fled to the furthest reaches of the known, to places where no mana engine could reach. We became vagrants, wanderers of the stars. The system could not let us escape its clutches so easily though. We fled for millennia, for generations, afraid of the day the system would find us again.” He turned and looked at Drew, his violet eyes glowing with emotion.
“Find us it did, and it brought us here. It promised us freedom, real freedom, if we would only sacrifice ten of your people for one of mine.” The troll smiled, a wicked grin, “So I gave the system the blood it desired. A thousand dead humans for a hundred of my people, finally safe from the system.” As he said that, the blue building below them flashed, shedding a bright light throughout the pit.
The color drained from Drew’s face as he looked frantically down at the pit, the captives that had been digging were now mostly dead. His group had managed to save thirty or forty, but the trolls hadn’t been trying to fight, their efforts had clearly been on killing as many of their captive humans as they could. Red blood stained the dirt. He turned to look at the troll shaman and saw him in the process of casting a spell. Immediately a fireball erupted from Drew’s hand; it exploded against the weakened shield around the troll. It was only the first impact, within a second, frostfire ball, acid arrow, shocking acid arrow, cone of frost and cone of frost-fire were all launched again. He could feel Aeon’s power struggling for the surface for control, crying desperately to be let free, to punish the wicked.
Drew tamped it down as his spells ripped through the Troll’s shield and then sent it flying, landing with a crack against the far wall and then sliding down with a wet thump. Drew stalked over to him, anger coursing through his veins. The troll just looked up at him and smiled, “Your people die, deathweaver.” And then he kicked out with his legs, sending Drew tumbling. A blast of fire transferring heat into his side where the blow was stopped by blade barrier, but the energy it imparted still cracked the cockroach shell embedded in the armor. Drew cast lightning bolt, but the shaman managed to get an arm up. Whatever was left of the shield bouncing the bolt up and into the ceiling where it dissipated harmlessly.
Rolling for cover behind a table, Drew began casting dancing blade, he wasn’t sure if the sword would cut as well as Robbi’s, but his other spells were on cooldown. Once it was cast, he peaked around a corner, launching another lightning bolt at the Shaman, who had to jump to avoid the blast.
Hair standing on end, Drew rolled over the top of the table he was hiding behind. Feeling a jolt of electricity bind his left hand to the ground, the smell of burned flesh filled his nostril. He cried out in pain, but his momentum saved him, rolling over the table before more damage could be done by the pillar of lightning that had erupted where he had been hiding.
Dancing blade slashed into the troll, cutting deeply into its right arm. Drew tried to focus on another spell, and lightning bolt was almost up. The pain in his left arm was incredible, the shaman’s attacks having already burned through his mana shield, leaving him vulnerable. He jumped towards the shaman, trusting in blade barrier and dancing blade to do the work for him. Impacting with a thud, he slid back, the trolls’ superior strength preventing him from being able to complete the tackle.
Dancing blade struck again, cutting deeply into the troll’s neck and green blood fountained from the wound soaking Drew immediately. A last lightning bolt flickered from his fingers, catching the Troll straight in the chest and sending him flying back against the wall again. Drew kicked him once in anger then turned back to the edge of the ledge.
Robbi and Trista were fighting off the last of the trolls, a mere handful that seemed almost eager to die, rushing into the battle without a thought for their safety. Drew launched acid arrow and shocking acid arrow. One troll saw them coming but dodged into a slowly fading line of fire, decapitating it immediately. His other globes struck true, and Robbi scythed through the rest with powerful swings from his glowing red…nodachi? Drew shook his head, trails of blood flowed up from the slain humans around him. Filling the sword with a malevolent energy that Drew could feel from here. The sword shifted as he watched, becoming a claymore as he turned to block a strike from the last troll.
Trista claimed the last kill. She had begun firing not at the creatures themselves, but rather where they would be. Evidence of the effectiveness of her attacks adorned the area around them, severed limbs and diced trolls. Drew shook his head. The last of the trolls taken care of, he stalked back to the shaman, where three xatherite crystals grew from his chest: a yellow, blue, and indigo. He briefly considered having someone else come up and grab them, or throwing the body down, but opted just to harvest them himself, causing three blight flashes of color.