Chapter 96 - A Devoted Husband

“And that brings me to here,” Tucker said, having just summarized the path that had led him to being enslaved by Micayne and forced to work on the man’s obsession. “I’ve been trying to make it work for…for long than I care to admit, and she’s as close as I’ve gotten to success. Still doesn’t work, though. Which is probably gonna start a war.”

“W-what?” Zeke muttered, having dropped his guard a little, but Tucker was still wary. Anyone who could not only participate in the sort of carnage he’d seen outside his tower, but also disable his warded door, was someone to be closely watched. And then there was the matter of the collar, which the armored young man had deactivated in only seconds. Even Micayne, to whom the collar’s controls had been bound, would have taken longer.

Absentmindedly, Tucker massaged his neck. He’d been wearing the collar so long that he felt almost naked without it. “Look – it’s a long story,” he said. “And I don’t think we have time to –”

“Make time,” said the archer. She’d dropped all pretenses and pointed her drawn arrow at him. “Or this is going to get messy.”

As if to punctuate the threat, the dire bear growled. Tucker took an involuntary step away from the creature. It wasn’t mature, but it was still big enough to make quick work of him.

“Fine, fine – let’s make a long story short, I guess,” he said, raising his hands. Tucker suspected that he could disable the both of them, so long as he used the right grenades. Probably a variation on his poison bombs. Because of [Alchemist’s Body], he’d avoid the worst of the effects. But it would have to be one of the faster-acting concoctions. Maybe the paralysis grenade that incorporated the venom of a particularly nasty sea spider found in the Lake of Flames with the extract from a yellowcap mushroom. The mushroom would lower their stats while the venom would lock up their nervous systems. It had actually been difficult to make the two play well together, and –

“We’re waiting,” said the blonde archer.

“Right,” Tucker said, bringing his thoughts back to the present. “The easiest way to put it is that Micayne’s been trying for years to bring his wife back to life. He’s run his experiments on hundreds of people. Some ended up as zombies. Others…were worse.”

“And who’s she?” Zeke asked, pointing to the chamber containing their most recent acquisition. Then, the armored runemaster pointed to the other chamber. “And him?”

“That’s…complicated,” Tucker said.

“You keep saying that,” was the archer’s immediate response. “Maybe if you just told us the story, it would save time. Or we could go with the alternative? You know, where I put an arrow in your forehead, we take everything that isn’t nailed down, and get the hell out of this cursed forest.”

“Ain’t gonna be as easy as you think, little girl,” Tucker spat, his mind already on the cusp of summoning the appropriate grenades. The girl was only level sixteen, so he thought he could take an arrow or two while he took the second or two necessary to infuse the grenade. After that, he was confident that he could win the fight. Or he would’ve been if it was only her. The problem was the bear. And the armored man. He was a wildcard.

“Stop,” Zeke said. “We don’t have to fight, okay? Just tell us the story as quickly as you can.”

Tucker sighed, lowering his hands. “Okay. How much do you know about this place’s history? Not much, probably. That’s fine. You know who Lady Constance is, right? Well, that’s her daughter over there. And she’s dead.”

“Shit,” the archer said.

“The guy in the other chamber is her father,” Tucker went on. “Basically, Lady Constance sent her down here as a kind of battery. We were supposed to use her to resurrect her dead husband. In exchange, she looked the other way while Micayne brought people down here to be sacrificed for his…our…experiments.”

“That…that’s horrible,” the woman muttered. “Her own daughter?”

“She’s not the first,” Tucker said. “Constance has been around for a while, so she’s had a bunch of kids over the years. And over the past ten years, ever since her husband died, she’s been sending them all up here to be sacrificed so she can bring him back. None of it worked, obviously. They were all too different. Too advanced on their own paths. The transfer requires someone who made similar choices but hadn’t progressed too far. No evolutions. Same skills. Frederick was a healer, which only complicated things. Not many go down that road, and when they do, they tend to choose different skills than he did.”

Zeke’s eyes narrowed. “So, let me get this straight,” he said. “Constance basically raised her daughter to be sacrificed so she could bring her husband back to life. Not only that, but she also sent her other children up here for the same reason.”

Tucker nodded.

“How many?” Zeke asked.

“Fourteen. Fifteen if you count her,” he said, nodding at the tube containing Talia Nightingale.

“How?” Zeke asked, stepping toward the chambers. He ran his hand along the metal exterior, his eyes darting around as he traced the underlying runes. “Wait – is there…what do these chambers do, exactly?”

“Be careful there,” Tucker said. “Don’t go messin’ with things you don’t understand.”

“I’m more qualified to ‘mess with’ this than whoever made it,” Zeke muttered. “It’s like these runes were written in crayon.”

Tucker started to respond, but held his tongue. The chambers had been built by Micayne himself, who, even before the last decade of intensive study, had been one of the more accomplished runemasters in the world. He wasn’t lucky enough to have an artisan path, but the man’s knowledge was vast.

“Answer the question, big guy,” said the archer who still hadn’t introduced herself.

Tucker sighed. “It’s a containment field for the bodies,” he said. “Keeps them nice and fresh. It also prevents the souls from moving on. And finally, the runes are designed to harness and transfer energy from one to the other. Basically, the whole procedure is supposed to harvest the energy from one soul and inject it into another.”

“And that’s supposed to resurrect the older guy, huh?” Zeke asked, his gaze never wavering from the chamber. “That explains a lot.”

“It don’t explain nothin’!” Tucker exclaimed. “I’ve spent the past two years developing a series of potions that prep the bodies for that influx of energy! Without me, they’d just be a pair of corpses!”

“So, you’re saying you were complicit in the murder and sacrifice of an innocent girl?” asked the woman.

“What? No! I couldn’t do nothin’ about that,” Tucker said. “I was a prisoner!”

The archer jerked her head in the direction of the containment chambers. “I’m sure that means a lot to the princess over there,” she said.

“Stop it, Abby,” Zeke said. “The man didn’t have much of a choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” she muttered.

“You could make it work, couldn’t you?” Tucker asked.

“Probably,” Zeke admitted. “Not seeing why I should, though. It would be better if we just opened these chambers up and set the whole place on fire. Unless…”

Tucker stepped forward. “What?” he asked. “What are you thinking?”

“This guy here, he’s got a lot of energy stored, right? From all those other sacrifices, I mean,” Zeke said.

“Yeah,” Tucker admitted. “He was also level twenty-five when he died, so…well, that’s the only reason his soul stayed around for as long as it did. Long enough for Constance and Micayne to trap it and keep it from moving on. Why?”

“Well, the runes are already backwards…”

“You said that, but…oh,” Tucker said, realization dawning. “You want to reverse the procedure and send that energy into the girl.”

Zeke nodded. “Would it revive her?” he asked.

“No goddamn idea,” he said, shrugging. “I’m just an alchemist. I understand the ritual, but I’m not a runemaster. Not a damn lich, either. So, I don’t know if we have the requisite skills.”

“Show me the ritual,” Zeke said.

Tucker glanced back at the ruined door, half expecting Micayne or one of his minions to show up. Thankfully, the stairwell on the other side remained empty. He could make his move now, if he wanted. The warrior was distracted. The archer had relaxed a little. He could drop a grenade and probably get away.

But then what?

Micayne wouldn’t let him loose and would likely pursue him until he was dead or turned into one of the man’s undead minions. But Tucker had long since come to terms with that possibility as his eventual fate. Even if he accomplished the task set before him, Micayne wasn’t the sort to just let a former slave go. Permanent enslavement, death, or a life as an undead ghoul were always going to be in his future. Now, though, it seemed that fate had given him another option. Without the collar, his chances of escape or survival had skyrocketed. He only had to stay alive to seize the opportunity, and that meant not taking any chances.

So, he crossed the room and grabbed a tome from one of the shelves. The thing was leatherbound and decorated in elaborate scrollwork – ostentatious, as far as Tucker was concerned, but his opinion on the subject had never mattered. It was only pure luck that he had the thing in the tower to begin with; Micayne had only given it to him so he could make the final preparations for the ritual.

He handed the book to the armored man. “It’s in there,” he said. “I’ve marked the page.”

Zeke immediately opened the tome to the appropriate page, then his eyes darted over the words, symbols, and instructions. After only a minute or two, he said, “It’s all runecraft. It doesn’t require skills.”

“You can tell that for sure after looking at the ritual for a couple of minutes?” Tucker asked, unsure of whether he should be impressed or suspicious. He settled somewhere in between. “Who the hell are you?”

“I think we can do it,” the younger man said, closing the book. “Doesn’t look all that complicated, really.”

“Do what?”

“I want to reverse the ritual,” Zeke said. “Well, it’s not actually a ritual. It’s just runes and power. Lots and lots of power. Probably more than I have, honestly. But I think I might be able to set something up that can divert some of the power from the old guy’s chamber to powering the transfer. I’d just need to jump start it somehow. How does Micayne do it?”

“That’s one of his skills,” Tucker explained. “He can channel and augment the flow of mana. Used to, he’d use it on other people’s skills. Like when the Sun Bitch – pardon, Lady Constance – set that forest on fire a few years back. But so long as he has a source, he can channel and enhance that energy and push it into the ritual. He was going to use me for it this time, but he had other…slaves to do it with the others.”

In fact, his [Mana Infusion] skill had been one of the reasons Micayne had kept him around. His alchemical abilities were useful, but Tucker had never met anyone else with [Mana Infusion]. That made him valuable, especially when it came to Micayne’s very specific needs, and it was probably the primary reason he’d been kept alive at all.

Zeke tapped his chin, lost in thought.

“What are you thinking?” asked Tucker.

By way of response, Zeke opened the book, and pointed at a particular portion of the ritualistic runes. “See that? It’s a repeater,” he said. “It’s used to enhance the flow of mana by absorbing the ambient energy. I’ve seen it a couple of times, especially in skills. I think that if I add a couple dozen of those, we could probably make it work without Micayne’s skills. I’m just trying to figure out where to put them.”

“Can’t you just…I don’t know…slap them on somewhere?” Abby asked, her eyes trained on the doorway.

“Doesn’t work like that,” Zeke said. “Runes are weird. Everything has to work together. And there’s a lot of waste in this one. If I had a week or two, I could probably make it work with only a couple of repeater glyphs. But I’m guessing we don’t have that long, do we, Mr. Tucker?”

“Just ‘Tucker’ is fine,” was the bigger man’s reply. “And if I had to guess, we’ve probably got less than an hour before Micayne or one of the twins come calling.”

“That long?” Zeke asked. “After that explosion?”

Tucker shrugged. “Not as uncommon as you might think,” he admitted. “I use explosions as stress relief, and Micayne’s more than willing to overlook the death of a few zombies if it means I stay on task. He won’t ignore it, but he won’t go out of his way to…investigate. Not right away. So, we’ve got a little time. Not forever, but…do you really think you can make it work?”

“I think so,” Zeke responded, already kneeling in the bare center of the room. “Give me a few minutes, then we can try to make this thing work.”

Tucker was going to respond but thought better of it. Instead, he watched as Zeke continued to kneel on the floor, his hand on the stone as he muttered to himself. “Is he always like this?” Tucker asked, realizing that Abby was standing at his shoulder.

“No,” she said. “Usually, he’s jumping at some monster and swinging his club. But when he’s doing his rune thing, yeah. He kind of goes into his own little world.”

“Is he capable of doing what he says he’s going to do?” Tucker asked.

“Yes,” was her response. “Zeke has plenty of flaws, but if he says he’s going to do something, he does it. Trust me – he’ll make the thing work.”

“That’s a lot of confidence,” Tucker said.

“He’s earned it,” she said.

Tucker continued to watch the younger man as he worked. Throughout the process, there was very little indication of what Zeke was actually doing. Not to Tucker’s eyes, at least. Very few people could actually see the underlying power of runes. In fact, most chose to use more physical facsimiles when they worked. The carvings or engravings were almost always inert, but the act of drawing them was usually enough to tap into the Framework. Once that happened, the underlying magic wrote itself. It was never as potent as it could’ve been, but it was enough to make things work.

What Zeke was doing was on an entirely different level. Tucker could feel the power crackling in the air, evidence of Zeke’s efforts. Finally, after a little over a half an hour, Zeke took out a knife – from where, Tucker couldn’t see – and carved a symbol into the stone floor. Then, he sighed, saying, “It’s not perfect, and I know I could do a lot better if I had a little more time. But I think it’ll do.” He stood. “Now, let’s move those chambers into the middle of the room so we can get this thing done.”

After that display of ability, Tucker didn’t argue. Instead, he helped Zeke move the two chambers into the center of the room. Then, the younger man repositioned the cylinders into very specific spots before announcing, “Okay – that’ll do it. You mind channeling some mana into that symbol? The rest of it should be automated. I think.”

“You think?” asked Tucker.

Zeke shrugged. “Like I said – it’s not perfect,” he admitted. “And the runes on those chambers are really sloppy. Like I said – they look like they were drawn in crayon or something. But I think it’ll work.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then it’ll fail, and they’ll both get to move on,” he stated. “That’s got to be better than hovering between life and death, right?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Tucker said, kneeling beside the glyph and placing his hand over it. But he’d had such thoughts before. He had no idea what it was really like, but he had a hard time believing it was pleasant – especially considering the results of some of Micayne’s other experiments. The moment his fingers made contact with the carved symbol, he felt the power of the rune.  It was strong. Stronger than anything contemporary, he suspected. In his experience, the only runes more powerful were relics from the ancient people who’d once lived in the Radiant Isles.

And Zeke had done it in half an hour.

Taking a deep breath, Tucker said, “Hold onto your butts.”

Then, he used his skill [Mana Infusion], injecting power into the glyph, which then flowed into the rune. Immediately, the complex pattern of symbols and glyphs, invisible before, lit up the cellar. In addition, the twin chambers, which contained father and daughter, glowed with power.

“This might have been a mistake,” Abby muttered.

Meanwhile, Zeke stood over the rune, his armored arms crossed. Hadn’t he been carrying a shield and a mace? Where had those gone? Tucker was about to ask when something suddenly latched onto his skill, wrapped itself around it, and yanked. All at once, the trickle of power that he’d been injecting into the rune became a torrential flood. He screamed in agony, his channels scorching from the sudden expansion, and tried to jerk away. However, his hand remained glued to the glyph as every ounce of mana was pulled from his core.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Zeke muttered.

“Good to know that a giant, screaming black man wasn’t part of your plan,” Abby said. “Is he going to be okay?”

“Probably,” Zeke said. “Maybe.”

He mumbled something else, but Tucker couldn’t hear it over his own screams.