Framework of the Frontier, Sain Artwell [read me a book .TXT] 📗

The forest of tendrils which was his face flailed at the sinking orbs, whipping them about with strength that would crash stone. It did not, however, shatter the magically reinforced crystals. His limb squeezed around one in an attempt to crush it, but that appendage exploded into purple mist when the core unloaded its energies at point blank range.

Chunks of him fell off. Cores continued firing, cutting off limbs and flesh.

As Rulu watched the carnage, shivers of euphoric delight ran through her. I will end him. I will remove a leviathan from the seas.

“I shall bring a token of you to my sister. Perhaps I shall pierce her with your claw.” Rulu laughed.

The cloud of his gore grew obtrusively thick, until Rulu could no longer even see where the golems’ beams fired. That’s because they stopped firing. Ishaiothess’ roars quieted.

His sails thrummed with a rhythmic vibration as he straightened from the knot, facing Rulu with a mantle of tendrils of which the golem’s beams had trimmed perhaps a mere third. Fresh protrusions pulsed at the tips of the cut off tendrils and the spray of blood trailing behind him diminished to a nil.

“Unfair…” Rulu whimpered as the mass of limbs began to make a cage around her.

“I should have expected trickery, considering you deserted R’lyeh of your own volition.“ Ishaiothess’ voice was a calm undulation, devoid of resentment and rage. “Raise your hands. I would not wish to bring unnecessary harm to the future mother of my spawn.”

“Why care when my death at his birth is all but certain?” Rulu scowled, raising her arms above her head.

He did not answer.

Limbs thicker than her legs coiled around her wrists and thinner tentacles wound through her fingers to hold her palms stretched out. She felt something sharp press against the back of her hand. With a flash of pain it pierced skin, muscle, nerve, and bore through. Rubbery skin of the leviathan chafed against naked bone. And though Rulu grit teeth, the pain was of such spine numbing intensity that a scream escaped her lips nonetheless. The same tip penetrated her other hand.

Despair fell upon her as she looked at her palms stitched together by his tendril. His flesh was too thick for her to bite through. Nothing short of ripping her arms off by the elbow would free her and Rulu knew she lacked the physical strength to do so.

This is it. This is how I will be defiled and how I will die.

“How is this not unnecessary harm?” To her disgrace, Rulu found her voice trembling with a sob.

Water streamed around her body, washing off the blood as Ishaiothess turned. He crested a reef-claimed fortress. Beyond it, the seafloor fell at a sudden plunge into a vast plateau blurred by the hum of the water. Beyond it lay the Gate to the Emerald Seas and ultimately, R’lyeh.

Fight and vigor bled from her soul as Ishaiothess dragged her into the plummet.

“I cannot say why,” Ishaiothess finally replied. “Perhaps this is compassion. Love?”

Rulu snorted in disbelief. “A golem will know love before you — a bloated worm enslaved to the whims of a queen whose touch you shall never know.”

“And you do?”

“I do.” Rulu shut her eyes. Indulging in that warmth which had taken root in the rocky bottom of her soul.

24

William jerked to sit up, hitting his nose on something hard. “Ow, fuck!” Opening his rapidly waking eyes, the something turned out to be Trotto’s armored arm.

His voice was hurried by worry. “Sorry ‘bout that Ranger. Rulu is gone. She…”

Memories before the night flooded William with a surge of dread, adrenaline, and sprang him on his feet.

Why, why, why did you go? Fuck.

“I need to go after her. I gotta run. Ember. Ember!”

Naked beneath a blanket, the curvy faun stirred to his shaking. In a jolt of panic, she blinked to full wakedness. “Will! Will, she’s gone she… Oh no!”

“I know, I know, we’ll get her. Trotto is anything missing?”

The troll leaned out of the room to hail his companions. “Hey! Are we missing anything?”

“I don’t think so,” Orien’s voice replied. “But, I’ll take an inventory.”

“Oh no no nooooo, little Rulu what did you do,” Ember bemoaned, slumping to her knees before the magic suppressing chest. Only the core marked with a ‘m for mountains’ remained. Ember’s ears fell flat down as she closed the chest, hanging her head.

As William crouched to wrap his arms around her, a sharp pain flared up in his knee. He cursed. No catching her now, not without opening the door to the ruins north of Nastall.

“Our stuff is all here,” Orien’s voice replied. “We should think about leaving though. Could get dicey if we run into a nest of slugs or more golems without Rulu.”

More golems. The golem forge still has cores.

William flipped Ember by her shoulders to snap her back to now. “The golem forge. Could one of its cores be able to open the door to Nastall or the sea or somewhere?”

“That…“ Ember closed and opened her mouth. Her eyes widened with a mad desperation matching his own. “Yes, maybe. That, that could work!”

“Listen to yourselves! The sea? What in the Realms is this madness?” Orien stood by the doorway, angry. “We already decided it was too dangerous and that was with Rulu to back us up. Without her—”

“We can hunt a few slugs for the masks,” William cut her off, shifting his gaze through Orien’s party. “You can take the last core. We’ll find another way out.”

“Will, if we get to her, what will we do about the leviathan? You cannot face him. I will do my best to help, but… Let’s be honest, we are no match to it.”

William found himself shaking his head as he paused at