Bah, humbug.
Act VII: Agents of the Primordials
Abaddon collapsed, and the shield faded. A few of the smaller rocks from the broken ceiling fell harmlessly around the four Heroes. Through blurry eyes, he saw Lanaya stagger upright.
"Well done," she gasped. "I didn't know you had that left in you."
"Nor… did… I," the Lord whispered, feeling weakness close over him. "Something, briefly, empowered me.."
Dragonus was still unconscious, and Arash was lying strangely comatose. Lanaya followed his gaze to the Psychomancer.
"He looks almost peaceful when he's sleeping," she remarked, smiling slightly. Abaddon grunted, unable to do much more.
"Should we do it?" she asked.
"Do what?"
"Kill him. Remember, for all his facades he's still an abomination."
Abaddon shook his head. "We still need him. Besides, he is struggling, trying to remember that he is human. I suspect that he may change much after this business with the Ancients has concluded." The effort of speaking caused him to slump further to the floor. Lanaya crawled over worriedly, nursing a clearly dislocated shoulder. She knelt down next to him.
"What's broken?" she asked. He shook his head.
"It's mainly… exhaustion. I'll be alright… in a few minutes."
She nodded, then reached up to grasp her dislocated arm near the shoulder. Supressing a cry of pain, she twisted and pushed up, forcing the bone back into the socket.
"Son of a *****," she grunted. "At least we've done some good today."
"We still… have not found… what we were looking for," Abaddon interjected. "The library is probably destroyed." He felt a modicum of strength returning to him, but still not enough for him to stand up.
Dragonus and Arash began to stir, and Lanaya shook her head. "I saw the entrance to the library as a hidden door in the wall. It occupies another spatial dimension, so it should be untouched."
Abaddon nodded gladly. "Can you… help me up?" He hated having to ask for help but in his present condition there was nothing he could do. She knelt down, and he braced an arm around her shoulders before the two staggered upright, Lanaya visibly shaking under the strain of a lord of Avernus in full battle armour.
"Is the Ghost King dead?" Dragonus murmured, before coming to full consciousness. His eyes flicked open with startling swiftness after the first blink. "Well. We are in all likelihood the first people to dare attack Vo'hollom Domosh."
"We were just about to head into the library," Lanaya explained.
"Are you all well?" Arash asked, acting as if he'd never been unconscious. Nods and affirmatives issued from the others. "Then let's go! We have a destiny that awaits."
__________________________
Kael sauntered arrogantly through the blackened, tar-riddled ground of the Dire fortress, looking for the telltale signs in a building that a soul-collecting demon had set up his dark operations there. They weren't very difficult to spot, and he found the Shadow Fiend rather quickly. The demon was playing with half a dozen swirling souls in the air, looking for all the world like a kitten batting a ball of yarn.
"They survived Vo'hollom Domosh… with a little bit of indirect help from me." The conversation began with the Invoker. "Now you uphold your end of the bargain."
Nevermore clenched one hand into a fist and the souls vanished. He let both hands drop to their normal positions. "So you wish for demonic words… surely you have heard them before?"
"Only from lesser demons," Kael gestured vaguely. "Which you are not one of."
The Shadow Fiend pouted. "What is it you wish from me?"
The Invoker spat some words in Demonic. "Vo'izhai icha fol ozh poz. Ozh omoz icha groth."
Nevermore looked amused at this. "You wish to have this world as yours?"
"All others who aspire so are insignificant."
"Eredar would disagree… but so be it. I will give you a spell we call Eminence. May it allow you to impose your will on those below you."
Invoker scoffed. "All are below me."
"Then you will have this world."
"I will continue your commission for now, demon, in the promise of more power," he said after a short silence. "What would you have me do?" This short subservience would be well worth the rewards.
The eyes of the Shadow Fiend blazed with a malicious light. "Bring them to me. I wish to know what Arash thinks he is doing, that he believes he is beyond my gaze."
Kael nodded slightly. "As you will."
He left immensely satisfied, certain that his work was already paying off.
____________________
"What is it?" Lanaya asked, looking at the strange object in the library. The shelves had stretched for what seemed like miles before they found this clear space, with a strange fountain in the centre. Completely empty.
Abaddon shook his head. "This should not be. We can't be-"
"What. Is. It." she replied, more forcefully.
"It is a perfect copy of the physical shell of the Font of Avernus. But… it shouldn't be here! There are no records of the Font ever being duplicated!"
Lanaya looked again. If this was the Font's appearance, it was rather underwhelming. Certainly, it was a massive black stone edifice, but it was simply smooth obsidian, unadorned. She tried to picture it with black mists effulging from it, and that helped somewhat.
"I think it may be the other way around," she said. "Perhaps your Font is a copy of this one. Maybe this was a prototype that was rejected, for whatever reason."
"We never knew the origins of the Font," the Lord of Avernus mused.
Arash poked his head out from behind a shelf and smiled innocently at them. "Good news. I found the writings on the Ancients."
"Then let's take them and leave," Abaddon said. "This place disturbs me."
The Psychomancer laughed harshly. "There's a whole shelf. We can't take them all."
"Of course we can," Dragonus said incredulously. "I'll simply seal the shelf in a subrealm of reality."
The other three looked at him.
"Magic," he shrugged.
Lanaya noticed Arash was carrying a book, and without even seeing the title knew it was on the Shadow Fiend. She felt an uncharacteristic surge of pity for him. Even though they'd all know he had ulterior motives for coming here regarding Nevermore, the lengths he was going to in the hope of freeing himself were proof as to how much he hated what had happened to him.
Dragonus had found something, too, but he kept it hidden from them all. Skywrath politics? She'd never know.
Abaddon was still staring at the prototype Font, clearly wondering what this discovery boded for the House. Lanaya nudged him.
"I think we're going," she whispered.
"Not a second too soon," he said. He threw one last, long look at the Font, and turned his back and followed the others out. Vo'hollom Domosh was left behind, and faded once again from mortality.
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