Chapter 370

370 270 – A Quest Ends

“Damn it all.” Madonna said. “I see the spirit of light. If it looks closely, it can still recognize me.”

“What, Roman?” I asked.

“Roman?”

“The cherub?”

“Yes. He’s not able to stop me, but if he recognizes me, then...”

“I can distract the cherub.” I said. “He hates me.”

“Does he? You will be my shield against him, so that I may reach the angel?”

“I suppose after all the fights of mine you’ve been part of, that I owe...”

She bolted forward. “Help me! I am prisoner of this horrid titan spawn.”

.....

That was... There were better ways of doing that.

“Bwa-ha-ha! Behold my EVIL! I don’t even have a mustache to twirl, because I don’t NEED one. That is how evil I am.”

I strode casually onto the front walkway of the church.

“FIEND! I KNOW YOU! HOW DARE YOU RETURN!”

he sent at me.

I attempted to counter.

Just a hint? Don’t try to counter physical effects with mental or spiritual ones. I went rolling backward, head over heels.

[You have taken twelve points of Bludgeoning damage. After armor, four points have been received. 76/80 health remain.]

Laughing. Gods.

The cherub must have been holding back earlier.

“FLEE BEFORE ME, CREATURE OF EVIL, AND NEVER RETURN. ELSE IT SHALL BE I THAT DESTROYS YOU.”

“Do you have the mana?” I asked. “Come, give it your best shot.”

“BY YOUR OWN CHOICE, THEN.” Roman said.

In the background, Madonna ran for the church, tears streaming from her face.

Roman’s next smite knocked my shield from my grasp. I really had needed time to strap the thing to my arm.

“THAT IS THE WRONG MAGICAL BLADE FOR THIS FIGHT.” he said, as I drew Heart’s Protector from my inventory.

“It is enchanted for defense.” I said.

“BUT NOT FOR MAGICAL DEFENSE.” Roman said, and proceeded to Smite at me.

He was right. My parries weren’t reducing the damage of his smiting at all.

“Water Shield!” I cried, only to have it reduced to droplets and a mist of fog.

“YOU HAVE ONLY SO MUCH MANA, AND THEN...”

There was a heart-wrenching shriek of pain, loud enough on the mental wavelengths to leave me [Staggered].

“CASSANDRA?” Roman asked.

Just before the opened doors of the church of Xistos, a beautiful woman stood some eleven or twelve feet high. In the moonlight, her pale skin shone like marble, her hair black yet clearly visible against the night sky. She was removing a sharpened piece of obsidian from her left breast, Madonna gently cradled in the other arm.

“What have you done, child?”

“Foolish angel!” Madonna replied. “Behold Blacksoul Madonna.” She slid the Mask toward the top of her head.

“Impudent whelp. I shall crush the life out of you.” Bones snapped readily under her grasp.

“Not if I break your soul as well.”

“By your will, by my hand – die forever.”

“CASSANDRA, NO!” Roman was away from me, at a speed similar to Flash Step. He was too late.

The sound, or perhaps more accurately spiritual resonance, that a soul makes when it is broken is impossible to mistake for anything else. It is an affront against reality, against... well, everything.

As she died, Madonna’s final action was to adjust the Mask to point at Cassandra’s core.

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Madonna had about five points of Taint in her when we met. The bolt formed by her death, and the panoply breaking itself open was easily double that. It was focused through the eyes and mouth of the Mask, but it broke apart and dissolved, unable to contain the sheer power of Madonna’s spill.

As horrible as the blast was, Cassandra’s defenses blunted it. I almost – almost! – saw how. But my stomach churned, and my mouth went dry, and I could not watch.

Foolishly, I tried to flee. Even with Fleet of Foot, it was never going to work.

She lifted me by a noose, already infusing with the power of the impure. When she spoke, her voice was still soft, still that of a young woman. “You are right to flee, of course.”

She touched my soul with the tips of her fingernails, etching symbols arcane and divine. My screams never made it past that noose.

[Serious Spiritual Injury: Renewing Soul Brand has been sustained.]

“The only reason I shall not Taint you is that it would forever mark me as anathema to my own church. But this much, this much I can still do before throwing myself at the feet of my father and begging help. You are marked upon your soul as an enemy of the Church of Xistos, and by extension an enemy of the gods. It will take me decades of work to purge this affliction, but for every instant of that time, you shall know what it is like to be abandoned by the gods.”

And then she was gone, and the noose with her.

I had time for two breaths before he was on me, all flame and glory, and a squid and a half’s worth of limbs.

“YOU! YOU MAIMED HER! YOU MAIMED HER FOREVER!”

He was on me with raw emotion, and even the Jaws of Rage couldn’t stop him.

[You are at negative Sanity, and will experience a period of madness.]

[You are at negative Serenity, and will experience a period of emotional turmoil.]

That is how they found me in the morning, wandering the upslope, and trying to sell women clumps of feces that I’d salvaged from the sewers.

One of the good things about being distinctive is they had no problems identifying me, and in dropping my fragrantly repulsive self off at the embassy. I am told it was three weeks before I woke and was emotionally drained.

[Lucid Dreaming enforced.]

The angel of Sobek lifted me by my collarbones, using only her thumbs and forefingers.

“Tell me you understand what you have done.” she said.

“I have only the vaguest of clues.” I said.

“Xistos is livid. Sobek is livid. And I, I who have to punish you, am livid.”

“Do you still need to punish me after I leave the Shining Isles?”

“Leave? Fool, you are EXILED. Return to the Isles, and I shall kill you myself. And...”

“And?” I asked.

“When you arrive in the Tidelands, expect that there will be unending work awaiting you. Unending. Work.”

She dropped me.

“Now, leave us.”

And, as though the new moon poking its head out from behind the storm clouds had severed my madness, I was aware.

I had killed her.

Madonna had TOLD me, in so many ways. Not in direct words. Perhaps she couldn’t? But I’d never KNOW. Gamilla, Madonna. How long before I got Kismet killed as well?

And damn the gods! Who kept rolling me onto my back as I slept!?

I tried to roll over, and discovered myself chained to the bed, wrapped in a protective cocoon of burlap and leather straps.

AND they hadn’t been feeding me properly, which nearly caused me to lose my ...

[-3/40 Serenity remain.]

I sighed, letting it become the deep breathing that assisted my Resolve/Focus/Meditation skill.

My health, for once, was completely full. My sanity... was healing.

So... I still had a lot of work to do on my Resolve and Charisma scores. And I’d best be at least healing before making decisions on that.

At least on the surface, I couldn’t find the purchases my insane mind had done, other than [Cecotropes], which appeared to be a near-useless evolution that made my feces dissolve extra vegetable nutrients that hadn’t been ingested the first time. It wasn’t just that eating poop was disgusting, my System got all the good nutrients the first time around.

However I may have rationalized what my insane self had done with my initial development points, I couldn’t see a use for this development. Not anything I would actually DO, anyway.

None of which distracted me from the core of my pain. I had failed to protect Madonna. In retrospect, I couldn’t even figure out HOW I could have saved her. Not without me carrying all that Taint around, and getting my soul destroyed.

I couldn’t even wrap my head around WHY. There was no compulsion, no curse compelling her. And yet she had willingly CEASED TO EXIST in order to get her quest completed. I hadn’t yet come across the quest I had that level of dedication to.

.....

It made me want to cry, but some idiot version of me had sold back my tear ducts.

[You lack sufficient biomass and nutrients to begin developing those organs.]

I used a Telepath ability to sense the mind of the guard on the other side of the door, and telepathy to contact him.