Vainglory 18 - Artifacts

4/6 for the day.

18 – Artifacts

The cage-like, copper elevator continued to descend, and when it clanked and rattled against the ground, almost immediately, the copper cage door cranked upward, leaving nothing but five yards between Ward and the hulking lizard man. Ward aimed the pistol, hesitating for just a moment as he locked eyes with those vertically-slit pupils in their bright orange irises. Could he just blast the guy for looking like a lizard? The thought fled his mind as the thing spread its maw, hissed, and dove at him. Ward’s pistol barked twice, and the loud concussion of the bangs echoed and clanged off the copper elevator.

The lizard’s leap lost some momentum, and, not being alive, the poor thing had a hard time directing itself at Ward after he sidestepped. It slapped onto the ground with a wet thud, sliding for several feet, leaving a red smear in its wake. Ward looked at Haley and saw her dancing around a similar opponent, but her lizard man was yellow and orange, not green. He stepped toward the copper line separating their areas and took aim. He waited for a clean shot that wouldn’t endanger her, but Haley proved his concern misplaced. She slipped a lunge from the big lizard brute and punched it in the kidney.

Apparently, her fists grew more potent the longer she did her strange dance to charge them up. In this case, her punch rippled through the lizard’s flesh with the sound of a sledgehammer pounding a pot roast, and Ward watched as the creature’s thick hide blackened in a circle around the impact, instantly turned to char by the heat. It squawked in shocked pain and stumbled forward, windmilling its big muscular arms. Ward watched as it fell, tumbling over the copper line separating Haley’s section from Nevkin’s, but it didn’t burst into flames or get scorched. It fell to its knees, still writhing and croaking in agony, unable to stand.

Ward turned his attention to Nevkin, circling back and forth with his lizard man, a yellow and blue variant. He’d already given it several perforations, and red blood leaked from them in long rivulets that left smears on the stone floor. Nevkin seemed fine if a little strained, sweat beading on his pinched, focused face, narrowly dodging the creature’s brutal swipes. Ward hurried closer to his boundary with Nevkin’s space and lifted his gun, but Nevkin, through clenched jaws, snarled, “Leave it! I can win.”

Ward frowned, but he held off squeezing the trigger, watching the kid work his nimble sword work. Ward was no expert on sword fighting or fencing, but it looked like Nevkin knew what he was doing. He seemed to know when the big lizard man was about to swipe his clawed hands his way and would dance back or sidestep. Every time, he gave his opponent a cut or a stab as payment for his troubles, and soon, the dozens of gashes and punctures seemed to take a toll. The stone floor was painted red in Nevkin’s area, with most of the blood concentrated in a wide circle where Nevkin led the constantly attacking brute.

The lizard man grew sluggish, and the ferocity of his lunges faded, giving Nevkin more room to lunge and stab, leaving deeper and deeper wounds. It reminded Ward of bullfights he’d seen on TV, and though he wanted Nevkin to win, he couldn’t help noticing the glint in his eye and the cruel twist of his lips as he grinned, watching his opponent slowly bleed out. Ward wasn’t some kind of pacifist; he’d proven that plenty of times in his life. Nonetheless, he didn’t like seeing things suffer, and the poor lizard brute seemed too stupid to stop walking into Nevkin’s stabs. He was half-tempted to shoot the thing and put an end to it. He held back, though, figuring he might need that bullet to save himself or one of the others before they got out of the catacombs.

Eventually, the lizard man couldn’t stand any longer, and when it fell to its knees, the fury seemed to fade from its big yellow eyes, and it collapsed, sprawling out on its stomach as a large pool of blood fanned out around it. “Hah!” Nevkin crowed, whipping his rapier back and forth with a flourish. He stepped back, observing the slow death of the lizard man, and then Hannah cried out in alarm.

“Nevkin! Look out!”

Ward saw what she was yelling about, but it was too late to do anything. The lizard man she’d wounded had found a second wind, or a final burst of strength, and lunged up from where it lay, raking its long, sharp claws down the back of Nevkin’s left leg, from his glutes to his calf. He cried out and stumbled forward, falling to his hands and knees next to the lizard man he’d perforated so thoroughly. Luckily for him, both lizard men were out of gas. The one who’d clawed him was lying on its stomach, panting in rapid, short breaths, and the other was utterly still. “You okay, kid?” Ward called.

“Not really!” he panted, clearly in pain. He turned to his side, and Ward could see the bloody shreds of his pants. He crawled over to where he’d set his backpack. “I need to bandage . . .” his words trailed off as he groaned in misery, digging through his pack. Ward contemplated throwing him his healing potion when the copper bird cage startled him with a loud, rattling series of clanks. He jerked his head toward it to see the gates had slammed shut, and it was slowly rising toward the ceiling.

“Shit!”

“I think you were supposed to get inside the cage after killing your opponents,” Grace said from behind him.

“We should have gotten in!” Haley cried.

“Yeah. Are we screwed, or do you think it’ll come back down?” Ward stared at Nevkin and then at Haley, but neither gave him an answer. She was sitting on the floor, eyes up, watching the copper elevator cage rise. He turned back to Nevkin and watched as he pulled his pants down, exposing the bloody gashes on the back of his leg. They looked deep. Ward could see the tell-tale signs of panic and agony—his jaw was clenched, sweat was rolling off his shaven head, and his breaths were coming in quick, short pants as he worked to smear big gobs of his wound salve into the cuts. Ward couldn’t see how that would work; he was bleeding so profusely the salve would surely go to waste, washed out of the cuts by the blood flow.

To his surprise, the flowing blood began to slow immediately; the creamy medicine must have had something to help with coagulation. After he’d smeared the cuts, Nevkin dropped the tin of salve with a clatter and began winding long strips of bandage around his leg. Ward noticed Grace as she stepped up beside him. “Looks like he’s not going to die from blood loss.”

“Yeah. That’s good shit in that jar.”

“I think the elevator will come back down, but I also think you’ll have more enemies to fight.”

Ward looked at Grace and followed her gaze toward the copper elevator as it thunked into place in the ceiling, and the pillar stopped moving. “What makes you say that?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t seem logical to leave you all in here if you win. If the elevator leaves, it’s to teach a lesson, no? What good is a lesson if it doesn’t give you another chance? I think it will keep challenging you until you enter the elevator and escape.”

Before he could respond, Haley called out, “Nevkin? Are you going to be all right? Do you need more salve?”

“No. I have enough. I’m not going to be able to move very well, however. I fear another round of creatures like these will spell my doom.”

“Ward?” Haley turned to him. “Do you think you can shoot his monster if more come down?”

“Probably.” Ward sighed and flipped open the cylinder on his gun, popping out the two spent cartridges and replacing them from the dwindling supply in his pocket. With six in the gun, he only had four more in his pocket. Something flickering caught his eye, and he looked at the dead lizard man, where he saw a sizeable cloud of anima dust starting to rise out of the corpse. “Hmm.”

“What?” Grace followed his gaze. “Anima?”

“Yeah.”

“Well? See if you can gather more since your refinement!”

Ward grunted his agreement and moved over to the corpse, glad the blood pool hadn’t grown very large and also that the body hadn’t started to stink yet. He squatted beside it and held out his left hand, still gripping his pistol with the right. Just as before, when he put his hand into the swarm of flickering blue motes, nothing seemed to happen at first. Then he closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to find that calm, grounded state of mind he’d been in the last two times he’d collected anima. Just as when he’d been with Lisa, it came quickly, and suddenly, his entire palm began to tingle and vibrate.

The sensation was much more intense than before; rather than a few motes entering his flesh at a time, totaling nothing more than a dozen or so, it felt like hundreds were pouring into him. As the tingling in his palm faded and the motes began to flow into his wrist, and then his arm, the sensation was so intense that Ward fell back on his butt and would have sprawled back into the copper line separating his part of the room from Nevkin’s if Grace hadn’t inserted herself between him and the barrier. She caught him with her knees and pushed him up, all while Ward was utterly oblivious to his danger. He was too busy experiencing a kind of ecstatic rush, unlike anything he’d ever experienced.

The buzzing, tingling wave of pleasure passed from his arm into his chest and then slowly pulsed outward into the rest of him. Every part of Ward was tingling with energy, and he felt a kind of constant shiver of pleasure washing over him as the anima propagated through his body. When it finally subsided, he realized Grace and Haley were both speaking.

“. . . all right, you big doofus? You almost fried yourself! Open your eyes! I want to see what changed!”

“Ward, what are you doing? Are you ill? Nevkin, can you see what’s going on with him?”

Ward cleared his throat and coughed, slapping a hand to his tingling, buzzing face. As the sensation faded, he began to feel almost like he had a strong buzz, which made him want to laugh. “I’m . . .” he paused and, again, had to suppress a laugh at the way his voice sounded in his ears. He tried again, “I’m good. I’m fine.” A sharp, quick slap startled him, and he snapped his eyes open, scowling up at Grace.

“Shit, old man! Your eyes are positively glowing now! Bright! I think you skipped whatever rank that Lisa chick was at—your eyes are brighter!” As she spoke, Ward studied her, amazed by how different things looked. Different was the wrong word; it was more like he was seeing more at once now. He could see the individual strands of Grace’s eyebrows if he stared at them, and when he focused on her eye, the yellow, orange, and red flames flickering behind her irises were brighter and more vivid.

Everything was sharper, he realized, as he turned his head left and right, staring at Nevkin and noting all the little spots of dried blood on his arms, hands, and face. The stench of copper hung heavy in the air, along with the faint odor of shit. Ward wrinkled his nose and looked over at Haley, locking his gaze with hers. Her soft, brown eyes seemed more detailed; Ward could see the pale and dark flecks that made up the intricate, beautiful patterns in her irises. Before he could stare too long, they widened with surprise, and she leaped to her feet. “Your eyes!”

“Oh, brother! I guess there’s no hiding it . . .” Grace, who’d been squatting before him, staring into his face, stood up and regarded the corpse. “I think you took a lot in because you just went through that refinement. That probably won’t happen very often.”

Ward hopped to his feet as the rush of pleasure and well-being continued to fade. He didn’t know how much animahe’d just absorbed, but plenty was still clouding around the lizard corpse. He stepped close to it again, holding out a hand. “Are you gathering anima?” Nevkin asked from behind him. Ward didn’t answer right away. He held his hand in the cloud of motes and sought that calm state of mind. It was harder to get there after what he’d just experienced, but when he did, tuning out the rest of the world, and nothing happened, he figured his body had taken all it could handle for the time being.

Straightening up, he turned to Nevkin. “Yeah.”

The kid, grunting in pain from the effort, holding his injured leg out straight the whole time, turned to regard him. He frowned and rubbed his chin. “I see you changed your clothes. Did you find a refinement potion?”

“Don’t tell him!” Grace said.

“Refinement?” Ward asked, moving over to his pack in the vain hope that there was something in there he hadn’t eaten or drunk yet.

“Yeah. You’re not familiar? A potion that improves your body—removes weaknesses and unlocks potential.”

Ward frowned, trying to decide if he agreed with Grace. Should he lie to the kid? What was the point? He rifled through the pack, much easier without the big wool blanket he’d cut into his current ridiculous outfit. When he grabbed hold of the soft blue pouch containing the ball of lead, he felt it vibrate slightly. “Huh.” He lifted it out of the pack, and the vibration intensified. “Something’s going on with this thing,” he muttered, digging his fingers into the opening and pulling it wide. He poured the ball into his hand, and the cold ball of metal shivered with vibrations so rapid that it almost felt like it was floating on his skin. It felt like it was pulling to the left.

“Ward?” Nevkin called, still waiting for an answer.

“Leave him be, Nevkin. If he wants to tell us more, he will.”

“Just a minute, you two.” Ward turned his hand toward the left, and the vibrations in the ball grew more powerful, to the point he had to hold it tight, lest it find its way off the edge of his palm. It tugged him toward the corpse of the lizard man, and when Ward stepped toward it, following the pull, it vibrated more intensely. “This ball wants me to bring it over to . . .” Suddenly, he realized what it wanted. The ball was trying to get into the cloud of anima. He knelt before the corpse and held the ball in the swirling motes, and they flowed into it like iron filings to a magnet. Not just a few or a couple hundred, but almost half of them.

Thousands and thousands of anima motes surged into the metal ball, and when they stopped, the ball was slightly warm, and rather than flat gray, it shimmered with an inner blue glow. It was beautiful.

“Holy cow, Ward! Did that thing absorb anima?” Grace was kneeling beside him, eyes glued to the softly glowing ball.

“Oh, gods!” Nevkin cried. Ward turned to see the young man standing right at the edge of his barrier, all his weight on his good leg. “I think that’s a power well. I’m such a fool! I should’ve realized.”

Grace snapped her fingers and jumped up, clapping her hands. “The kid’s right! I knew I’d read about things like that! They hold anima and can be used to enchant artifacts or as extra anima so a person can cast spells that require more than they can cover from their personal pool.”

“Like a battery.” Ward smiled, gripping the ball. It was perfectly still now—no vibrations whatsoever.

“Ward, can you do me a favor?” Nevkin pulled a slender, polished white case from his belt pouch. It looked like it was made from ivory, about the size of a smartphone, if a bit thicker.

“What?”

“You seem quite sensitive to anima. My father gave me this. It's an artifact left to him by the last person in our family who was sensitive enough to anima to use it. She outgrew its use and passed it down to my father’s father. Do you see these pale crystals on the top?” He pointed to three smooth, transparent stones on the top of the ivory case. Ward nodded. “If you can get the anima to flow into it like you did that power well, it will activate, and I can get the artifact out. It should help us with the next creatures in the copper cage. If I have that, I might not need you to shoot my opponent.”

“I can try. Toss it here.”

“Do you trust this guy?” Grace stood between Ward and Nevkin and folded her arms, scowling. Ward shrugged but didn’t answer aloud. It wasn’t like the kid was asking Ward to give him anything; he couldn’t do any more with the anima coming off the corpse.

“Don’t drop it!” Nevkin said, licking his lips nervously. When Ward locked eyes with him, he gently tossed the yellow-white box toward Ward in an underhand throw. Ward caught it easily and then leaned over the corpse. He saw Haley watching him, eyes glued to the box he held out over the body. Nothing happened at first when he held it into the much smaller cloud of motes. It wasn’t like the power well; they didn’t stream into it effortlessly.

“Nothing’s happening.”

“I think you have to do something. Like you do when you gather it for yourself, maybe?” Nevkin’s voice was shaky, and Ward could tell the kid was ready to collapse. Frowning in concentration, he closed his eyes and began to ground himself, breathing out slowly, tuning out distractions, and forgetting his worries, one by one. As he found his calm center, he felt the smooth oblong box in his hand begin to vibrate gently, and it started emitting a weird, shaky, high-pitched musical note. Ward opened his eyes to see that one of the clear gemstones was glowing blue.

“It’s working!” Nevkin’s voice rose excitedly, cracking almost comically.

“This won’t harm Ward, will it, Nevkin?”

“No, Haley! Of that, I can promise.”

Ward frowned, tuning them out, and continued to concentrate. The note coming from the box continued to grow in volume, and in a matter of seconds, a second note joined it, creating a weird, discordant harmony. Ward didn’t have to look to know a second gem had lit up. He was deep in the zone now, the conversation taking place between Nevkin and Haley nothing but a background buzz. He thought Grace might be saying something, too, but he pushed the thought away, focusing on his task. A few minutes later, a third note joined the first two, and the box began to shake in his hand.

“You’ve done it, Ward!” Nevkin shouted, and Ward opened his eyes to see the box’s three gems blazing with blue light. “Quick! Throw it here!” Ward looked from the box to Nevkin, saw the desperation in his eyes, and began to get a funny feeling in his gut. Was the little jerk playing on his heartstrings? Was the story about a relative giving him that artifact a bunch of BS?

“You should keep it, Ward. Why would he deserve it if he can’t even get it charged up like that?” Grace rested a hand on his wrist, almost like she would keep him from tossing the thing back to Nevkin. Hearing her say aloud the same thing he’d been thinking clarified things for him. He might kill people who attacked him or people he was looking out for. He might even take some of their stuff afterward. That didn’t make him a thief, though. He shook his head at Grace then, before he could have a second thought, quickly turned and tossed the ivory box back to Nevkin.

Nevkin caught it and immediately fell to his rump, his injured leg sticking straight out. Ward could see the sweat on his head, the glee in his eyes, and how his hands shook as he fumbled with the box. “Thank you, Ward! I’m sorry I lied.”

“You lied?” Haley cried. Ward looked at her, saw the flush of anger in her cheeks, and shook his head, chuckling.

“Relax. I had a feeling he was full of shit. Did you find that right before coming into this room?”

“Yes. I lied because I feared you might steal the artifact. I figured if you thought it was a family heirloom . . .”

“I’d be more likely to give it back, yeah, I figured. Whatever, kid.” Ward sighed and sat down, staring at the ceiling, wondering how long they’d have before the elevator came down again.

“Well? What is it?” Haley called out.

“I don’t know. Let me get this case open . . .” Nevkin trailed off as he held the case up, examining it from every angle.

Grace sighed and sat down in front of him. “I knew you should’ve kept it.”

“Spilt milk.” Ward lay back on his left elbow, idly rolling the heavy, glowing ball around the smooth, stone floor with his palm.

“Aha!” Nevkin said, and with a soft click, the music emitting from the box ceased, and Ward could see him gently lift the lid, looking within. “What have we . . . what is . . argh!” Something flew out of the box, attaching to Nevkin’s chin and scurrying up toward his lips. He slapped at it, trying to hold it back, his hands blocking Ward’s view. He struggled and groaned, then screamed as he flopped back. Ward just caught a glimpse of something that glinted metallically in the light as it slipped into his mouth. Nevkin continued to scream, thrashing and flopping.

“Nevkin!” Haley screamed, running to the other side of her section to get a better look at his face. Ward couldn’t see much beyond Nevkin’s thrashing legs, so he leaped up. He stepped toward the barrier, eyes locked on Nevkin’s face. He was so distracted by the horrible screams, imagining some kind of invasive insect or something crawling into his mouth and burrowing into his flesh, that he kicked the power well, sending it rolling over the stone floor, past the copper barrier, to come to rest against Nevkin’s flopping legs.

“Dammit!” Ward growled. He’d tried to snatch the rolling ball but had been too slow. He watched Nevkin thrash for a minute more, then, suddenly, he stopped. He turned to his side, facing away from Ward, and began to spit blood and gobs of flesh out onto the stone, coughing, and hacking to get the fluid out of his throat.

“Nevkin? What happened? Are you okay? Ward, you should throw him your healing potion!”

“No,” Nevkin growled, and his voice was different. It was rich and resonant. It echoed through the chamber with a finality that left no room for argument. “I am not injured.”

“But the blood . . .”

“My old tongue has been removed. I understand the artifact now.” He sat up, spat one more gob of flesh upon the stones, and then smiled a macabre, bloody grin. He lifted the empty ivory case and tossed it to Ward. Then he scooped up the power well. “Thank you, Ward. This will come in handy.” His voice was less resonant now that he spoke in a normal tone, but it was still different—richer, deeper.

“What happened?” Haley asked. “What’s the artifact?”

“I need that ball back,” Ward said at the same time.

Nevkin grunted and clambered to his feet, struggling not to bend his injured leg. “I have acquired a rare and powerful artifact, Ward and Haley.” He opened his mouth wide and stuck out his tongue. Haley gasped, and Ward cussed—his tongue moved like a natural, fleshy appendage, but it gleamed like silver. He laughed as he pulled it back in. “The case labels it the Warlock’s Silver Tongue. It’s quite robust, as you can no doubt hear from the strength of my voice. I shouldn’t struggle to utter the few words of power I’ve learned. Tell me, Ward, do you know any of the words?”

Ward folded his arms and scowled. He could already tell the little prick wasn’t planning to give him back the orb. He reached for his pistol, drawing it from its holster. “I don’t like being stolen from, kid.”

“Kid? Hah! You think you can threaten me with that pistol, Ward? Imagine squandering a gift like you have! Such a talent with anima manipulation, and you haven’t learned a single word? In any case, relax. I will borrow this power well to deal with the creature that emerges from the cage as it descends again. I may be able to utter some words now, but unlike you, I wasn’t born with the gift to harvest anima. I’ll use this to good effect.” He lifted the glowing ball of metal in his left hand.

“Shoot him, Ward. Shoot that thieving, lying, sneaky little rat!” Grace pounded her fists against the invisible barrier that held her in Ward’s section of the room. “If I could get over there . . . if I had a body . . .” her muttered threats trailed off.

“Nevkin, you should have asked Ward. He would have let you borrow it.” Haley sounded angry, but her voice rose in a questioning note, probably expecting Ward to say something to confirm the statement. He didn’t. He was pissed, but he wasn’t pissed enough to blast the kid. Anything might go in these catacombs, but Ward wasn’t someone who could kill a young man who’d done nothing more than pick up an object he’d dropped. Still, if the little shit hadn’t promised to give it back . . .

His red-tinted thoughts were cut off as the pillar began to turn and the copper cage descended from the ceiling. “After the fight then, Nevkin.” He turned to Haley. “Don’t forget to get into the cage as soon as your lizard dies!”

“Right!” She’d already begun her dance, powering up her fists. Ward watched her for a few seconds, then looked up at the cage slowly descending from the ceiling.

Despite his irritation at the kid, he asked, “Nevkin, you good? You sure you got yours?”

“I am good.” Something in his tone made Ward look at him again. He’d picked up his pack, slung it over his shoulder, and stared at the cage as it lowered, squinting through his spectacles.

“What are you gonna do?” Ward asked, a sinking feeling in his gut making him want to do something, anything, to get Nevkin to look his way and stop whatever he was up to.

“As you see,” Nevkin said, pointing, “the cage is now clear of the ceiling and an opening there lies. Farewell, Ward and Haley. Learn this lesson well—in Vainglory, power trumps all.” With that, he lifted the softly glowing power well and uttered words that echoed through the room, shaking Ward’s eardrums like those the monks fighting in Tarnish had spoken. It was different this time, however. Ward didn’t wince in pain, and he understood the words better: "Thravik-thragh.”

“Hold on . . .” he started to say, but Nevkin had burst into a cloud of shimmering silver smoke that streamed up toward the hole in the ceiling and out through it. In a flash, Ward caught a glimpse of Nevkin as the smoke disappeared, and then he could only see darkness through the hole again. “That little asshole,” he growled as the cage full of monsters descended to the ground with a metallic thunk, and the doors began to rattle open.