Tenebroum PLUS Ch. 206-207

Ch. 206 - A Return to Normalcy

Leo’s return to Wayward was as uproarious as he feared. The entire village, which mostly consisted of people he didn’t know at this point, stopped everything they were doing to celebrate his return. It was exactly the opposite of what he wanted, of course. He just wanted to slip back in and pretend he’d never left, even though he knew that was quite impossible. Some reacted like Toman, but they were in the minority, and a meager feast was called together for later that night. 

The feast might have been too strong a word. There was plenty of dried fish and bland root stew, which was more than enough for him. There was also some bread, though it had been created with light rather than grain. Still, Leo didn’t complain. He still couldn’t eat more than a few bites at a time without feeling completely full anyway. 

The event was dominated by his presence, which was no surprise either since it was in his honor. He was peppered with questions and spent half the night making fruit for people on demand between telling stories about some of his adventures. He mentioned a couple of the giant monsters in passing, but mostly, he focused on how empty it was out there now that both the monsters and the men were gone. 

“It’s like a new world,” he explained. “There aren’t even any goblins. It’s like the zombies ate them or something. We could go anywhere and do anything.”

“Why would we need to go anywhere?” Tara asked as she squeezed Regie’s hand tighter where she was sitting across the fire from him. “We’re building something right here.”

“You are,” he agreed, looking around. 

The place really had come a long way. There was a thatched roof over every head now, and though some of those homes were still crowded with several families, it was only a matter of time before there was a cabin or a cottage built for everyone here. That would be an accomplishment in itself, even if it was a rather primitive one. 

Soon, primitive houses would line crooked streets, and gardens and fields would stretch out into the distance. It wouldn’t be such a bad place. 

What’s the next step, he wondered. Do we make bricks? Does anyone even know how to make bricks? He had no idea. He certainly had no idea. He was pretty sure they involved fire and clay, but after that—

“No, we are building something right, aren’t we,” Cynara said, correcting him very publicly. 

“We are,” he agreed, a little chagrined. “I’m just saying that we could do anything.”

“We are doing anything,” Reggie agreed, looking back to his wife. “We’re building a new world.”

Leo didn’t comment on that because he wasn’t sure what to say. Instead, he was relieved when Toman finally asked, “So, do you think we’re the last people left in the whole world then?” 

“Probably not,” Leo answered honestly. “The world is a big place. I’m sure there are other survivors hiding here and there just like we are.”

“I’m not hiding,” Toman answered defensively. 

“We’re not,” Leo agreed, “But you know what I mean.” After that, Leo laid out what he thought had happened to everyone. 

“It’s pretty clear that we lost, for starters,” he began. “Humans, I mean. If evil had lost, then there wouldn’t still be undead roaming around. They’d just be corpses. I think that the main body of the force continued north, gathering strength as it went. That’s the bad news. The good news is that since they purged the area of everything worst killing, there’s no reason to come back, so I think we’re safe.”

It wasn’t the most hopeful message he’d ever given, but it was honest, and it spurred a lot of discussion about whether they should or shouldn’t build a wooden palisade around Wayward. Most people thought they should, but even though Leo knew it was pointless, he went along with it, if only because it would make everyone sleep a little better. 

That night, the spotlight only left him when Sam showed everyone her own small miracle. She’d been working with Mela while the others were talking, and inspired by the strawberries and apples that Leo had been making for everyone, they’d made wheat seeds. 

“I noticed that when I bit into the apple, it still had seeds,” she explained, “So I thought, maybe we could plant them, and then it occurred to me that if we could create one kind of seed with the light, then we might be able to create another…”

“That’s genius,” Leo said with a smile. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because it had nothing to do with a sword,” Cynara taunted. 

Even he laughed at that, and the group of them spent the next couple of hours trying and sometimes failing to make seeds for many of the different plants they missed most. When he finally went to bed in the bunkhouse that had been built for the unmarried men hours later, Leo was tired, but they had started a small seed bank that might be able to give the people of Wayward one of the things they’d missed most when the next spring arrived: real agriculture, without all the messy gaps and missing cultivars they had currently. 

That wasn’t why he lay there in the dark smiling, though; it was because the mocking grin that Cynara had given him lingered long after her words had faded and the bonfire had gone out. It wasn’t the reason he came back. He knew that. It should have been, though. 

The next day, he got to work in earnest. He couldn’t use the light to create meat, so animals were out of the question, but they had found a few goats, sheep, and pigs in their wanderings, and small herds were slowly growing. Now, they could work on other things like wheat, barley, and potatoes, and soon, in a generation or two, things would be back to normal. 

He left the more complicated aspects of how that would happen. Instead, he got to work, with shovel and axe, slowly carving away at the land in the ways that they needed. It wasn’t as enjoyable as carving up monsters, and no matter how he sharpened his axe head, it didn’t cleave through the wood the way his silvered blade sliced through his enemies, but it was what they needed, and now that the darkness had been banished for a good, long way in every direction, this was what the light needed now. 

Some of the other men complained about feeling naked when they left their weapons at home. Leo never joined in those complaints, because he’d long since figured out how to banish and summon his own blade. He would never be unarmed as long as he could channel enough light to make it appear and disappear at will.

He never had need to summon it, though, because there was no longer anything left to fight. With the darkness gone, the light could finally grow. That meant more than fields heavy with wheat. That meant families and children. Those thoughts inevitably made him think of Cynara, which usually made Leo blush before he refocused on the task at hand. 

Despite the fact that he worked with the men, he still somehow managed to run into her almost once or twice a day. That shouldn’t have been a surprise, of course. Wayward was a tiny village with just over two dozen structures that were only slowly evolving into something more. It was easier to see everyone at mealtime than it wasn’t. Still, something about those encounters always made him feel special. Like it was meant to be. 

It was shortly after spring started in earnest that those feelings only blossomed further, though. Toman, of all people, had figured out a new trick to do with the light. Not wanting to be outdone, he’d spent days and nights in the field tending to their small crop of wheat and other staples. At first, this had been just to keep the animals away from the tiny precious plants, but as time went on, he discovered he could use the light to bless them, too. 

The result was easy to see. Only a few weeks after the last frost, the fields were alive with plants that looked like they’d been growing for months. The celebrations that followed that discovery were even more joyous than Leo’s arrival. He wasn’t jealous, though. Well, he was jealous that he hadn’t thought of Toman’s idea first, but only a little. 

After all, it only made sense. Plants needed light, and he and his friends were suffused with light, more or less. Why shouldn’t one go with the other? In the nights that followed their impromptu spring festival, they spent an evening wandering the fields singing the old hymns that Brother Faerbar had taught them all in what felt like a lifetime ago. 

The fields outside their small village were a wide place that was many acres across, but even so, with so many of them weaving the light and blessing the plants, it looked like a swarm of fireflies had infested the whole area. It was like the stars had come down to dance, and they danced with them. It wasn’t a joyous moment like it had been during the recent festival. It wasn’t somber, either, though. It was more of a reverence. 

Leo had dreamed of healing the world with the light, one sword stroke at a time, but in a way, this was better. This is what they should have been doing all along if only they’d known that they could or even that they should. 

That night was almost as exhausting as combat for him, but by the time he was done, wheat was ripening, rows of maize were growing tall, and fruit trees had grown into fine saplings. If we do this every week or two, we might have two or even three harvests this year, he thought to himself as he slumped down against a tree and watched the few remaining fireflies dance in the fields beyond. 

That was when Cynara found him. Even without the dancing lights, she was a vision of loveliness, but tonight, she had a glow about her, and when she sat down beside him and started talking to him, he could barely formulate a response to whatever it was she was saying. 

It should have been the perfect end to a perfect evening as the two of them sat there. Instead, Leo had to go and ruin it by kissing Cynara. She didn’t complain. Quite the opposite, she kissed him back eagerly, like she’d been waiting for this moment for longer than he’d thought to do it. Still, after a long minute, when they finally came up for air, he couldn't help but feel like he’d changed everything with that one little thing. 

He burned for her, but that wasn’t what he was supposed to be burning for, was it? Didn’t he have some greater purpose than to marry a beautiful girl and settle down? 

He wasn’t sure. However, he gasped as he gazed into her beautiful glowing eyes, and he had a hard time trying to convince himself that they shouldn’t do that again.

Ch. 207 - Quenching the Forge

When all was in readiness, Tenebroum opened the floodgates and sent dozens of cubic yards a second cascading into the darkness below. In time, the river might run dry, but if that happened, thanks to its efforts to salt the river and weaken her further, the canal would not run dry until the oceans did. 

None of the spirits that swirled within the Lich had any idea how much water it would take to quench the fires of creation or what the consequences might be. The mages didn’t know, and neither did the dwarves. Even the All-Father didn’t know. The spirits of the dwarven dead all seemed to believe that the fires would eventually go out on their own if the forge went unused for too long, but no one had any idea if that would be years or decades, and the Lich was unwilling to wait one day longer than it had to. 

So, instead, it emptied the river and sent the flood flowing into the depths. Even falling as fast as it was, it still took several minutes for the first drops to reach the fiery depths. These evaporated before they even made contact, but the same could not be said for the wall of water that followed. 

The eruption of steam that followed was enormous, obscuring the whole cavern in a blanket of scalding fog. Tenebroum knew nothing about volcanos or engineering, but some of the dwarven spirits did, and as the lava met with the torrents of water, they whispered what was happening. They explained how the pressure was building in an attempt to erupt but was unable to because of the sheer weight of the water. 

Instead, the steam rippled out through the surrounding passages and caverns, doing untold damage and making the stone itself shake so violently that it could be felt all the way on the surface. After verifying that the tremors caused no real damage, Tenebroum ignored them. Instead, it focused on the elemental battle occurring miles below. 

There, fire and water in their purest forms were battling out, releasing torrents of air and slabs of earth. It was, in its way, a perfect elemental laboratory, and just watching the way that the four elements interacted gave the Lich new ideas and theories it could try with its elements. It had used them separately, but it had never mixed them together in an attempt to cause such a powerful reaction. Such a thing could be a potent weapon. 

Still, it set that idea aside for now, and instead, it focused on the pure fury it had unleashed. No matter how much it drowned them, the fires of creation refused to extinguish. Instead, each time the magma cooled enough to become the base stone it should have been, those boulders would sink beneath the fiery surface, and the process would repeat all over again. Sometimes, eruptions would occur between these small, shifting plates, causing fresh new eruptions to occur repeatedly. 

It was a scene of primordial chaos that seemed like it would last forever, but no matter how long it took, the Lich could not turn away. The cavern was a vast place with the All-Father’s anvil in the center, but all of that was hidden by the storm of swirling steam. All that Tenebroum could see was where its poisoned waterfall came down like a pillar of water and vanished before it could become the lake that it should have become. 

Slowly, that changed, though. Day after day, the water came down, and eventually, the magma that it struck first turned to hard stone. Slowly, almost too slowly to notice on any given day, that area of fully solidified stone began to spread, and just as slowly, the endless fog began to dim. 

Until now, the white haze was underlit by the infernal red and yellow glows of the lava. That, combined with the intense heat of the place, made it impossible for the Lich to enter and explore whatever the All-Father had left behind for it to discover. However, that would change. Day after day, and if necessary, week after week, both of those would diminish, and eventually, it would be able to explore this forbidden sanctum with impunity. It relished those thoughts, but even as it did, it watched the water slowly decrease in its flow until it was all but stopped. 

That was when the steam rocketed to the surface. The Lich fumed, worried it had finally run the river dry, but that turned out not to be the case. Instead, one of the stone walls its minions had built almost a quarter mile above this hellish place had ruptured, and the water that should be quenching the forge was now filling some nameless cavern and flooding the depths instead. 

If it had been drowning a dwarven city or something similar, Tenebroum might have accepted such a miserable delay, but the race was all but extinct at this point. There might not be a single dwarf left at this point, which made this a complete waste of time. Unfortunately, there was little it could do about it. As the steam rocketed hire, it detonated that section of the tunnel, causing fractures and cave-ins that stopped the flow entirely. 

Tenebroum growled in frustration as it considered its options. Why must it always be something, it thought to itself. First the stars, and now the steam. The darkness is only ever just out of reach!

It could send the Devourer back down to bore a new hole. This would take time, but it wouldn’t be impacted by the water. It almost did just that until a few swirling voices in its soul pointed out that as soon as the blockage was cleared, the thing would be swept down and dashed upon the rocks far below. 

Though the Lich was perfectly willing to sacrifice such a pawn, it had no idea whether or not it would need the complex machine again. Instead, it set it aside and opted to use its Dark Titan instead. 

“Circumvent the blockage and craft a new channel through the bedrock,” the Lich commanded. 

The elemental creature didn’t acknowledge the command or make any reply. It never did. It was always silent as it got to work. 

The creature of stone and lead would not be nearly as fast as the Devourer. Rather than ripping and breaking apart the stone with teeth and claws tailor-made for the task, it manipulated stone similarly to the way that dwarves did, but making it malleable and molding it like a piece of clay. This would create a stronger path for the terrible pressures involved at those depths, making it an acceptable compromise.

While the Devourer could move feet of stone every day, the elemental could move only inches, so the workaround was even slower than Tenebroum had feared. Still, the thing worked tirelessly, and after a few weeks of endless waiting, the path was once again open. 

This time, much of the steam and, indeed, much of the heat had dissipated. Whether it had known it or not at the time, the Lich had been on the verge of success. 

So, while the cavern began to fill with water, the darkness that was the Lich’s soul followed it in, and began to search for anything of value that it might add to its resources. The anvil was the largest thing. It was impossible to miss and also seemed to be made out of pure Adamantite or perhaps even something stronger. Such a thing represented an impossible trove of riches. The only problem was that  Tenebroum had no idea how it would break the thing apart and reforge it into something useful.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case with everything else. The hammer that went to the forge was missing, but the Lich knew exactly where that was. It was still resting at the bottom of the dead cathedral that had witnessed their dual not so long ago. Fortunately, there were any number of small implements made of mithril and other rarer things that would tide the Lich over until it made plans for the anvil. 

Around the main anvil were smaller ones that were presumably used by the forge master’s servants.  Any number of smaller projects lay around in states of partial completion, and then beyond those, in a dark room that seemed to go on forever, it found the mother lode. 

Amongst the weapon and armor racks were nearly endless sets of weapons and armor that had been made and set aside. The dwarven spirits it had absorbed whispered that these were always being constructed so that the stone men could fight the world’s end when the day of judgment arrived. 

Well, that didn’t work out for you, did it? The Lich mused as it prowled the rows, looking through the endless axes and horned helmets that sat there oiled and ready for use. It could outfit an infinite number of zombies now, which was Ironic, considering it had so few at the moment. Unfortunately, it had no idea how it could get all of these to the surface. Even with a mithril chain, a crane of such length seemed out of the question. 

Before it could give that problem much thought, though, it noticed something. It was almost fully dark now. Only a few flickering flames guttered in the highest ground, and even now, that water was climbing higher and higher to reach it. One by one, Tenebroum watched those go out as the room got darker and darker, quietly celebrating its victory. It had very nearly extinguished the forge fires of creation. It had done the impossible. 

Then, suddenly, the darkness was complete; nothing could stop it from going even deeper and finding out what exactly this beacon had been holding back for so long. The Lich rejoiced in that, but before it could explore deeper or reactivate its Devourer to continue on its journey, it felt another tremor. Another quake, it wondered. But the steam has stopped. 

It took the Lich a moment to realize that this wasn’t the stone missing further complaints. 

It was a different sound that was heard as much as felt. Something was coming.