Rise of the Blade - Charles Moffat [100]
"No, I was talking about this whole Chev being a god business?"
"Oh!" Martinez stopped and pondered, actually chewing the food for a moment. The spices set in and he coughed and swallowed. He immediately grabbed a bottle of drow vodka from a pocket and twisted the cork out. Leaning back, the bald warrior poured the liquid down his throat and washed down the spices.
Hiram waited patiently throughout the tirade and picked up the bottle when Martinez set it down with a thunk. He took a quick swig, remembering the old days when he had drank the stuff like water in between the fights to calm his nerves.
Martinez sat and pondered and finally shrugged. "I really don't know what to think. On one side I think Chev should be hung for killing all those Harpers, but at the same time I can't help but admire him for taking on a god and then becoming one. It takes a lot of guts to go up against a god."
Hiram nodded. "What about Pierce? I have a feeling he's pretty confused right now. Last I heard he went down to the docks to let off some steam. You haven't seen him since this morning, have you?"
"Me? Nope. I haven't got a clue where he is."
"What a mess!" shouted Draque and kicked over the cauldron. The silver had tarnished to the point that it was paper thin and it crumpled easily under the elf's foot. "Years of hard work went into this project! I spent a fortune in silver and now look at it! Magical residue staining everything and destroying everything it touches!"
Szymon bent over and picked up a blackened mushroom that had grown up through the floorboards and then died. "What happened here? The boards grew bark and leaves and everything!"
"And now its all dead!" Draque shouted and kicked a dead branch that had grown out of the floor. "The magical energy from the lifesyrup was corrupted by the sword exploding. Chev said that he drained the cauldron dry but what he didn't realize was that he had also drained the life energy from everything else in the area. He sucked it dry like some overzealous vampire who drinks the sap of plants!"
"They can do that?" Szymon asked.
"No, but it is theoretically possible," Draque consented. Taking a deep breath, the mage sat down and tried to light a cigar with a cantrip and failed. He threw the cigar down with disgust
"Couldn't we use this place for something?"
"Firewood?" muttered Draque. "Nope, not even firewood. Wood has life energy in it and thats what gives fire its power. This stuff isn't even wood. Its more like the ashes left after the wood has been burnt away.
"No, I meant for magic-"
"Its dead. There's not even magic here. I can't even light a cigar. Chev even drained the magic out of here until even that is gone."
"Does that mean magic doesn't work in here?"
"That's cor-" Draque looked at the apprentise sharply. "That is indeed right! I can use this room for storing magically unstable things! After long periods in here, the accursed things power will eventually die out!"
Szymon beamed proudly. "Now what?"
"Now we go get all my magical experiments I hid in the basement and stick them in here. Who knows? Maybe in a hundred years the power in this room will have transformed and we can conduct some more useful experiments to see if we can finally use it!"
Szymon paled. A hundred years? This sounded like a lot of work.
The first thing Chev learned was that gods has duties to fulfill to their people. This included preserving those who belonged to him in life, or should have belonged to him had he only been a god before hand. This was only one of myriad duties as he spread his consciousness across the cosmos and took up conversations with every god he came across.
They all wanted to talk to him, to make sure that this powerful warrior was on their side. To Chev however, he wanted only to talk to Kelemvor, the Lord of the Dead.
Called by some the Justice Bringer, Kelemvor had replaced Cyric as Lord of the Dead and brought justice to the realm of unliving. It was here in Hades that unwanted souls gathered and continued their existence. Before