Tenebroum Ch. 207-208

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.

Ch. 208 - Primeval

The shadows came roaring down the tunnel with every bit of the force that the water once had; Tenebroum gloried in them, at least at first. It let the tide of darkness wash across and rejuvenate its threadbare form. 

The leading edge of that tide were the shadow creatures that Krulm’venor had called the silent. They had been down in the dark so long they had forgotten what the last soul they’d even eaten was. So, instead of wearing the shapes of others, they were nothing but ragged and indistinct outlines. That didn’t save them from being devoured by Tenebroum’s hungry maw as it siphoned them up one after the other. 

They were nothing but fish, and they were devoured greedily by the Lich as they tried to swarm past him. The souls were thin. There was identity left to them and little in the way of essence, but little was more than zero, and each one added to its dwindling reserves. 

As the Lich grew in power, it absorbed more souls at a faster pace than before. It was a vicious cycle. Tenebroum got stronger, which in turn made it get stronger faster. It had experienced this before, at several points in its history. When it had devoured Siddrim and the All-Father were some of the highest points of its existence, but when it consumed Rahkin, and it had tasted thousands of lives within hours, as well as when it had devoured the silent shadows of Ghen’tal, it had experienced a similar rush. 

This was almost as much essence as those had been, and there was no sign of stopping. Instead, the shadows that were coming out of the bowls of the earth, where the All-Father had imprisoned them, were slowly getting larger and more well-defined. Most of them bore the faint shape of men, though without enough detail to say anything about the age they came from. 

There were other animals, too, including some like horses that could only be found on the surface, that hinted at some things that didn’t make sense. How would these shadows reach the surface as long as the sun, the moon, or the stars were always shining, it wondered. 

The Lich had no answers, though, and neither did the souls that it feasted on. In its new configuration, it felt like it could gorge forever on this flow, and so far, at least, it showed no signs of abating. It was possible it might peter out at any moment, but the Dwarves seemed to think it was a limitless reservoir of evil, and they recoiled at what it had done. They could not escape it, though; no one could. All it would take to stop this tide, theoretically, would be a single candle, but the Lich would never light one. Instead, it would feast. 

For the next few hours, the size of the creatures that emerged from the depths began to increase in size. Tenebroum found the dark tunnel to the absolute void that they were traveling from on the far side of the dwarven armory, past the fortifications and the locked doors that had been burst asunder by this endless tide. 

Now, there were orcs and ogres, as well as bulls and even larger creatures for which the Lich had no names. What had started as a school of flickering, formless fish had become an army stampeding toward its waiting maw. It was at this point that Tenebroum finally had the answer to one question that had been nagging at it as it bathed in the unrestrained flows of essence. 

Why haven’t they devoured each other? It had been asking itself for as long as it had been feasting, but it had to see a creature of significant enough size to answer that. 

It finally became clear when it saw the shade of a troll devour the shade of a man just before Tenebroum devoured them both. As it ate the man, it fissioned apart, releasing several smaller ghosts of the things it had devoured recently. These were, in turn, devoured by nearby orcs. It was a cannibalistic food chain that no one derived any sustenance from as they looked for scraps of life. 

Indeed, for anyone else, there would be no essence here at all. It was only because Tenebroum was so attuned to the darkness and had such a rigid form that it could devour and contain so many dead souls that would have simply leached the soul out of a living thing. 

Tenebroum wasn’t alive, though, not in any sense that mattered. It was a nexus of death and darkness. Its powers over disease and decay had atrophied with the loss of the Worm’s touch, but that was, for the moment, irrelevant. Right now, all it needed was its mastery of magic and darkness. 

At least, that’s all the Lich thought it needed. That was until the first truly mammoth creature found its way out of the labyrinth that had contained it for so long. At first, the Lich thought that it was the ghost of a whale swimming through the inky blackness. That wasn’t right, though. A whale didn't have a jaw that could unhinge or a hinged carapace. 

Whatever it was, it was the first creature that tried to devour Tenebroum rather than the other way around. It had no chance of succeeding, of course. It spread its toothy maw wide even as it approached the Lich’s event horizon and began to unravel. The most it could do was offer the very slightest resistance to what happened before Tenebroum turned it into raw essence, like everything that had come before it. 

It was the first large creature, but it wasn’t the last. Tenebroum knew nothing about the nature of animals and how they might be related to each other or what might exist on far-off continents, but as the parade of shadows continued into its waiting maw, they only grew larger and stranger. 

These were animals that had little in common with anything that it had ever seen. The only real parallel was the behemoths it had glimpsed beyond the stars. Eventually, after barge-sized slugs with razor spines and hydra worms with a thousand mouths, that became Tenebroum’s only real conclusion. These things must have been down there for so long that they predated the sun and the stars themselves. 

It wasn’t sure what to make of that. It had never given thought to the idea that permanent darkness might have existed before it had brought it to the world for a brief time. 

Soon enough, the parade of monstrosities was beginning to provide a real challenge to the Lich. It was stronger than it had ever been. It was radiating so much cold from the consumption of so many shadows that the once boiling water was now freezing into place. 

Neither ice nor anything else could stop the tide of darkness, though. All Tenebroum could do was consume, less it spill over. It was only after days, or perhaps weeks of feasting that it finally found what it was that this herd of grotesques was stampeding away from. Until that moment, Tenebroum had thought that they were simply seeking to escape from their prison, but when the first giant crawled forth from a shattered gateway that was much too small for it to ever fit through. Still, the thing fit through all the same. 

In fact, once it was in the cavern, the Lich’s soul had grown to almost entirely occupied, the whole thing warped, becoming larger than it ever should have been as the fifty-limbed and hundred-headed monstrosity rose and stretched, reveling in its full height after what must have been a very long imprisonment. 

Tenebroum was again surprised when the thing started to speak. It spoke no language that the Lich or any of its souls understood, and yet, somehow, the meaning came through. “You have quenched the fires of creation,” it said in dozens of voices. “I thank you, paltry shade, but the only reward I can offer you is a quick death.” 

The Lich had no fear of the threat, and the battle was soon joined as the giant fought against the maelstrom of frozen souls with no clear advantage to either party. Is this some dark god from an age past? It wondered as it thrashed and gnawed. Will it have some terrible trick to play on me like the worm?

Tenebroum banished that doubt as soon as it appeared. Just because it had been bested in a single fight did not mean all dark gods it encountered might have some secret advantage over it. The Lich had slain more than one god already; this was just an opportunity to add another one to its list. 

Surely this soul will be valuable too, it decided. It will have answers to questions I have not yet thought of. 

Tenebroum fought back with all its strength. A week ago, or perhaps even a day ago, it might not have been revitalized enough to face this impossible monster, but if it could attack with fifty arms and legs, then Tenebroum could attack with 100. It needed to, too. 

Soon, the problem wasn’t the creature it was facing but the avalanche of other monstrosities that traveled in its wake. Every minute spent wrestling with an ageless titan was another where it was being gnawed on by a thousand varieties of unnamed beasts. 

That was when Tenebroum withdrew. Not because it was afraid or even because it was losing. What it was engaged in at this moment was very clearly a stalemate that it would eventually win. However, time was not on its side. Just because this thing was the largest creature to come from the bowels of the earth didn’t mean that it was the largest thing that would come from them. It would be in real trouble if two of these nightmare giants appeared. 

So Tenebroum disengaged and moved swiftly back up its borehole to its lair, which was its true place of power; it left only ice and enemies in its wake as the tide of monstrosities gave chase. All of these monstrosities were as incorporeal as it was, so neither the blockages nor the ice troubled them at all. Instead, it became a mad rush to the surface, though that took several minutes. While the Lich returned, it made a series of urgent orders to its minions, who extinguished all the fires and other lights in the main chambers but lit them anywhere that the Lich didn’t want these creatures to wander off to. 

They would be entering its sanctum. That much had to happen, but it would not allow them to go anywhere that would represent a real inconvenience or danger. That would be unacceptable. 

By the time Tenebroum returned to the undertemple, the stage was set, and the lair was thrumming with power. It was here that it showed off all of the efforts that had gone into rebuilding and restructuring the edifice in the wake of its near death. 

Miles away from its ring, it had only a fraction of the power that it had here and now at its heart. The outer ring that contained the eighty-eight golden skulls that were its new phylactery throbbed with so much power that black lightning arced between the nodes, relaying its thoughts instantaneously. 

The Lich had more essence than it had ever thought possible now. It spun like a whirlpool, creating a singularity of power where it now stood, ready for anything. As the dark titan crawled out of the hole that led into the depths, Tenebroum was ready for it. Before, the two of them had been a near match, but now the Lich would rip it to blood shreds after it finished yanking off its prehensile limbs one at a time.