Congratulations, you have unlocked a new [Affinity Skill]!
[Rarity]: Rare
[Description]: You have successfully managed to unlock the Skill [Psionic Siphon], and added it to your list of Affinity Skills. [Psionic Siphon] allows you to drain Psi from your enemies, once you have weakened their mental defenses. This may only affect a foe once.
[Effect]: Drain Psi from an enemy to fill your reserves
[Cost]: 5 Psi on Activation
Leonidas read over the details of his new skill with quiet approval, reading it while the crowd chanted “ACHILLES! ACHILLES! ACHILLES!” and he stood with one foot upon the drooling body of the Hobgoblin whose mind he had drained. He passively cycled his remaining psi, and a measured quantity of his mana, to restore the Stamina he had lost from his brief and explosive demonstration of power. The fight had been excessive, of course, but that had been the point.
His eyes lifted to survey the chanting voices, noting that not every face among the thousands was pleased at a glance, but that the vast majority—Human, Haelfenn, and otherwise—seemed more than content to scream his name after the dominant performance he had given. This was, of course, one of the most important parts of the match: the executions. Defeating the Hobgoblins in a visible effort would have sufficed, but that did not play into the narrative he and Ceruviel had concocted.
Instead, he had to open his ‘debut’ with overwhelming force.
Just like he had at the Adventurer’s Guild trials.
Leonidas raised his [Archon’s Psiblade] to once again recognize the adulation of the crowd, and he spread his arms while looking around at them all.
“PEOPLE OF DAWNHAVEN!” he called in his best vocal projection, “WHAT IS YOUR VERDICT FOR THIS HOBBLED VERMIN?”
The ire and vitriol were all part of the show. He needed to win the approval of the Haelfenn, true enough, but he also had to keep the hearts of the Terrans. The Hobgoblins had been part of the tribe that had wiped out an entire settlement of their people—his people—and that meant retribution would be on the docket. They, however, needed to be part of that process.
They needed to see him as the arbiter of that justice, on their behalf.
“DEATH! DEATH! DEATH!”
The crowd’s roar of condemnation was loudest from human throats, and Leonidas saw more than a few hateful faces leering down at the creature in the act. Sometimes simplicity was the best form of expression, and he was unsurprised that the humans had taken so easily to the idea of arena executions.
The Colosseum, after all, was a Terran wonder of the world.
Blood sports were in their species’ genetic wiring, like it or not.
Leonidas bowed to the crowd with his arms spread in acquiesce, and his sword was swapped to a reversed grip in his right hand. His Core revved in reply to his call for power when he made it, and mana and psi rippled out of it to infuse the ancient weapon. It was not true [Psionic Swordforce], because his reserves were still too low for that—but it was an infusion that would do what he needed it to.
Leonidas settled both hands on his sword hilt, and with a theatrical roar, slammed his sword down into the Hobgoblin’s sternum.
Mentally, he stoked his Willpower into a furnace and, while using the psi infused to his weapon as a medium, pushed cataclysm mana into the creature’s body. Leonidas did not merely inject it, he flooded it: surging the chaotic energy into the Hobgoblin over the span of a second. Mana, after all, moved far faster than blood—especially thanks to its nature.
For good measure, he focused the energy subtly away from him, toward the crowd.
The result, of course, was expected.
The Hobgoblin exploded like he’d been embedded with a plastic explosive.
* * * * *
Aylar leaned forward when Leonidas played to the crowd, and a hum of consideration resonated from her lips. The Princess Royal turned toward Ceruviel, standing nearby at perfect parade rest, and she opened her mouth to speak—only for the Dusk-Lord to turn toward her with unnerving awareness.
“{Yes, your highness?}”
Aylar’s words died on her tongue, and she absently let out a sigh at once again being predicted.
“{That really is disturbingly uncanny, Duchess Latherian.}”
“{Your mother thought so, too, though she rarely bothered to voice it.}” the steely woman replied mirthlessly. “{It was part of the package of my being in her vicinity, as you will no doubt learn.}”
Aylar shook her head in reply and turned her gaze back toward the Arena, gesturing with a bare hand at the carnage below as Leonidas detonated a Hobgoblin to the thunderous approval of the crowd.
“{Your Squire is not what I expected,}” Aylar said while considering their environment, and choosing her words carefully after a small glance at the nearby Nobles and Dignitaries—several of whom were most certainly Blues. “{He plays the crowd like a natural, fights like a man two tiers above his actual capability, and appears to possess incredible magical talents. Even among Haelfenn he would be considered a generational prodigy.}”
“{I am aware of my Achilles’ strengths, your highness,}” the Duchess said in a voice that hinted at limited patience. “{I am simply glad that others are beginning to see them as well, lest loose tongues result in thorough correction sooner rather than later.}”
This the Duchess seemed to be addressing to those same persons around them, for Aylar noticed more than one person go unnaturally still, or look very pointedly anywhere but at the Dusk-Lord. The very few brave enough to look at Ceruviel did so with a comical mix of an attempt at impassivity, foiled by their paled complexions.
The fury of the Moonlight Duchess was legendary, after all.
Then again, that was Ceruviel Latherian in a nutshell: an uncompromising, cantankerous force of nature more likely to roll over you than give you time to breathe.
+“{Your mother thought the same.}”+ the Dusk-Lord said telepathically in a decidedly dry mental voice, and Aylar cursed her errant thoughts.
+“{I meant no disrespect, Ceruviel.}”+
+“{It would take far more than the truth to earn my ire, girl, as you are well aware,}”+ Ceruviel responded in what Aylar interpreted as a reassuring sending. +“{I can, however, sense that you wish to say something and are being wary of those around us. Consider this is a chance to speak your mind, quite literally so, without the verminous blowhards suckling at your brother’s teat hearing.}”+
Aylar struggled to maintain her composure at Ceruviel’s caustic narration of their eavesdroppers, and instead focused on watching Leonidas prowling toward the two prone and brutalized remaining Hobgoblins like a specter of death, coated in viscera, and yet somehow with his face untouched by the gore.
All the while, he continued to cajole and build the mood of the crowd.
+“{It has barely been a week since I first met him, and he already seems like a different man. Even the reports of his exploits in the Elite Slayer Trial do not do him justice. Your Squire fights like a veteran of outright warfare, not a Terran freshly take under your wing.}”+
Ceruviel turned to glance at her appraisingly when she spoke, and Aylar subconsciously found herself sitting a little straighter in her seat. It would be wrong to call it intimidation or nervousness, for she felt none when facing the Dusk-Lord—it was more akin to disconcerting familiarity.
The Duchess was giving her the same measuring look her mother used to wield.
Given that the two of them were companions for decades, it did make sense.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
+“{Achilles has his past, Princess Aylar, as we all do,}”+ Ceruviel said at last while turning back to the arena, and leaving the other observers puzzled by the interaction—not that she, or even Aylar for that matter, cared a whit what they thought. +“{I will not divulge his secrets, but I will say that he may be the answer to more than one of your problems.}”+ the Duchess said cryptically.
+“{I was unaware I had other problems beyond the Rite of Ascension.}”+
Aylar’s heart rate grew subtly more intense within her chest, and she felt her [Heroine’s Will] flare to the fore to restrain a surge of concern. Whatever Ceruviel was alluding to, there were only a few possibilities, and if she was speaking about using Achilles for what Aylar suspected…
A steadying breath entered her lungs, and she exhaled to ground herself.
…No. Ceruviel would not wield her apprentice that way. She was ruthless, but using Achilles to assassinate her brother’s loyalists was beyond the pale for the rigidly chivalric Duchess. It would certainly be helpful, but Aylar wasn’t sure she could condone it herself, let alone a woman of Ceruviel’s integrity.
She was spared further supposition by the Duchess’ continued telepathy.
+“{You have a fanciful imagination, Aylar, but you are correct: I would not use my Squire that way,}”+ Ceruviel clarified, much to Aylar’s relief. +“{However,}”+ the Duchess continued, +“{when I am done with Achilles, there will be nobody in Dawnhaven that can stand against him—myself, Sinalthria, and Uriel, perhaps, being the exceptions. I do not intend on simply making him a glorified soldier of the Duskguard.}”+
Aylar’s eyebrows rose at Ceruviel’s words, and her curiosity was wordlessly broadcasted.
+“{I intend on making Achilles the first Terran Archon.}”+
Aylar had expected any number of things to come from Ceruviel when she offered to explain her intentions, but of all the things she had believed, that had not been one of them. The Archon Order had vanished from Altera long before Aylar had been born, but their legends persisted. She knew that Ceruviel was part of the Order, or at least, had inherited it by default after training under the Level 97 Grandmaster of the Order, the Last Archon of Altera.
She did not expect that to be her goal, however, especially not with a Terran.
+“{Making him an Archon?}”+ Aylar responded in a mental voice that was embarrassingly open in its shock, awe, and trepidation. +“{Doing that would upset the balance of Dawnhaven irreparably! If he inherited the teachings of the Order, especially starting from the foundation of an Untempered, Achilles’ growth would be terrifying. Even if he never reached beyond Fifth Tier, as the majority of Terrans we have tested seem bottlenecked to by the Assessor, he’d—}”+
+“{Achilles’ potential was already read by the Assessor as is protocol, Aylar,}”+ Ceruviel cut in before she could finish. +“{He is estimated to reach Ninth Tier at the minimum.}”+
Aylar felt her stomach drop at Ceruviel’s sending, and it was only a mix of [Heroine’s Will] and her [Princess Royal] title’s passive corrections of slips in decorum that allowed her to avoid either slumping in her chair or shouting invectives of denial. Ninth Tier?
Her eyes snapped back fully to the Terran Knight, who was even then pressing his armored palm against the head of the shrieking Hobgoblin spellcaster, and doing something that had the creature spasming and frothing blood and spittle. Her imagination went into overdrive, and she pictured him doing that to those among the nobility who opposed him—to Earl Brightblade, or Mernyn, Leona, and the rest of the Royal Guard, or any other number of people.
System forfend, the man could just decide to flatten Dawnhaven with his mind!
+“{You are creating a weapon you cannot hope to control, Dusk-Lord.}”+ Aylar said in a mental sending that was, to her relief, far stronger than the jelly her knees had become. +“{Giving Achilles—a complete stranger and a Terran!—that much power is suicidal!}”+
+“{The alternative is exiling him and hoping someone ends him before he returns for revenge, if he is so inclined—or executing him myself,}”+ Ceruviel said simply to her in response. +“{I am not idiotic enough to even entertain the former, and I am already committed to the latter should I detect a discernible kernel of possibility that he is becoming a threat to Dawnhaven and its people.}”+
+“{Why are you telling me this?}”+ Aylar asked instead of arguing with her, while realizing the entire discourse was strange. +“{Surely you knew it would alarm me. Why? Why now?}”+
+“{Because you are about to spend a great amount of time with him, Aylar, and trust him to watch your back,}”+ the Duchess replied in her steely, unruffled mental voice. +“{More than that, you will be Queen of Dawnhaven. If you are to walk that path, you must be aware of every variable—and every option available to you.}”+
Aylar’s brows furrowed faintly at the Duchess’ words, and her gaze flicked to Ceruviel in question for a moment. Beyond using Achilles as an ally through which to eliminate her political opposition, Aylar didn’t see any other—
Unbidden, a memory came to her of a discourse she had once had with her mother, during her early years as a teen.
“{Archons, hm? Why are you asking me about them, my sun?}”
“{Because Duchess Latherian is an Archon, and father said that she is superlatively powerful, even more so than people entire tiers above her!}”
“{He did, did he?}” the Heroine-Queen asked with a warm laugh. “{Well, that is true enough. Archons possess power that is far beyond their given tier. I would put Ceruviel among the strongest individuals on Altera, in fact.}”
“{Do you suppose she would train me, mother?}”
Aylar had looked at her mother with hope, and the Queen had smiled at her sadly, while reaching out to brush some errant strands of hair out of Aylar’s eyes.
“{If only it were so easy as to desire it, my love. Did you know that Ceruviel is the last Archon to be initiated on Altera?}”
“{No. Father never mentioned it,}” Aylar had replied with a frown, “{why is she the last?}”
Even as a young woman she had hated being told she couldn’t do something, as if the denial was a refutation of her persistence; but she at least knew her mother would explain the why of it.
“{There is a very specific, very rare Alpha combination needed for Archons, my darling, and even among the strongest of our people; few are born with the aptitudes for all four. Affinity, Archetype, Ambition, and Aspect must all align if someone is be considered—and their potential matters as well, for Archons require considerable power to pass all their rites.}”
“{Which Alphas?}” Aylar had persisted.
The Heroine-Queen had laughed, but she had answered regardless.
“{A Psi Affinity, a Knight Archetype, an Ambition no less than a High Noble, and the Aspect of a Duelist.}”
Aylar’s eyes had darted to her sheet at that, and she’d had an immediate moment of crestfallen realization. “{My Affinity and Ambition are wrong,}” she had lamented, “{even though my Archetype and Aspect are correct.}”
“{We all have our own paths to walk, dearest. The Archon Order was once the greatest on Altera—but they are now little more than a memory of older, more dangerous times. Give them your respect, but do not lament your inability to join them. It is unlikely another shall ever appear again.}”
“{What if one did?}” Aylar had asked finally.
“{Hm…}” the Heroine-Queen had hummed, trailing off while looking toward the sunlight streaming through the windows. Her hands, calloused from centuries of swordmaiden arts, had subtly flexed in a way Aylar had come to recognize as subconscious wariness. “{If that is the case,}” her mother had said in a voice that was quietly solemn, “{then I wager that person would shake the world.}”
Aylar’s eyes widened in recollection, and she felt her [Heroine’s Will] flare to life once more. The memory had been poignant, but its most potent element had not been her mother’s final words on the matter—it had been the narration of an Archon’s required Alphas.
+“{What is his Ambition, Ceruviel?}”+
+“{That, Aylar, you must find out for yourself,}”+ the Duchess told her in a mental tone that Aylar recognized as utterly uncompromising. +“{But know this: fear has been the undoing of many would-be rulers. Achilles may be a threat, yes, if improperly approached and improperly treated—but he may also be a loyal and dedicated ally. Consider this my test to you, to see if you truly are the Haelfar your mother believed you to be.}”+
Aylar took a breath to control her rising concern, and responded Ceruviel as levelly as she could.
+“{And what test is that, Duchess Latherian?}”+ she asked as civilly as possible.
+“{This world is not Altera. This city is not Eldormer,}”+ Ceruviel began with a tone that told Aylar it was very much an intentional reminder, though for what purpose she could not yet discern. +“{Bring Achilles to your side, your highness,}”+ the Dusk-Lord continued steadily, +“{and in doing so, prove you have what it takes to rule Dawnhaven, all of Dawnhaven. Only then will I consider you worthy of the Crown your mother wished for you in truth.}”+
Aylar turned her eyes back to Achilles, who was even then—after detonating the last two Hobgoblins to the roar of the crowd—was walking back toward the portcullis leading to his between-matches ready room, followed by ceaseless chanting of his name from rapturous throats.
"ACHILLES! ACHILLES! ACHILLES!"
Bring him to my side, huh? Aylar considered with a furrow of her elegant brows.
"ACHILLES! ACHILLES! ACHILLES!"
Achilles would have to become her ally, it seemed, one way or another.
"ACHILLES! ACHILLES! ACHILLES!"
Ceruviel had made it clear that failure was not an option.
* * * * *
+“{Well done, Achilles,}”+ Ceruviel sent while he was walking away from the executed Hobgoblins amid the chanting of the crowd. +“{You made an excellent first impression. What comes next will be harder, but if you remember your training, you will rise above. Did this battle yield dividends?}”+
Leonidas glanced at his character sheet at Ceruviel’s words, and the grin on his face as he waved to the crowd while he walked only grew more sincere.
6,350 / 8,000 XP
+“{It did. I am less than two thousand experience from level nine, and I gained both [Psionic Force] and [Psionic Siphon].}”+ he reported with a pleased tone. Ceruviel’s guidance and lessons had paid off remarkably, and every bit of the hell-week he’d endured had been worth it. If all went according to plan, he would be a different person when the arena’s events were concluded.
+“{I am glad to hear it,}”+ Ceruviel said with genuine approval as he entered the shadow of the tunnel. +“{I will not join you in your intermission this time, but remember: you have two more matches today, and then three more tomorrow. Your next one will test you, quite extremely, but you will triumph if you harness your new abilities. You remember step two, I hope?}”
+“{I do. Force and Siphon were step one, and step two will be completing the required trinity for the Fusion.}”+
+“{Good, then I will leave you in Tarnys’ worried care until your next match. Remember to meditate and equalize your energy. You will need every ounce of it for your next match.}”+
+“{You almost sound worried, Ceruviel.}”+ Leonidas sent back with a wry tone.
+“{I have just invested a substantial amount into you, Achilles.}”+ the Duchess replied dryly. +“{I simply hope to see a return on the most recent gamble.}”+
+“{I hope you picked a reliable bet.}”+ he responded glibly.
+“{Oh don’t worry, Achilles,}”+ Ceruviel said in a voice that sounded genuinely amused, +“{I think we will both enjoy the payout if this particular bet succeeds.}”+
Ceruviel’s presence vanished from his mind after her final sending, and Leonidas furrowed his brows in consideration. Her words had seemed normal, but there was an edge of laughter to the Dusk-Lord’s message that he recalled to coincide with her plotting something.
He let out an aggrieved sigh.
Ceruviel was playing games again, but he had no time to waste worrying about it.
His eyes found Tarnys when he strode past the open portcullis, and he nodded to the Haelfar, who looked his gore-splattered warplate over with a grimace—one that drew a wry smile from Leonidas.
Whatever Ceruviel was plotting, he reasoned, it was pointless worrying.
He had a second match to focus on winning.
Leonidas Current Character Sheet: