Mystara: Dirge of Tomorrow Supremacy Conclusion

I have killed you a hundred times in a hundred ways, a voice spoke into his lingering consciousness, but you do not break.

It is the nature of the soul to be full of emotion, and devoid of thought. As such, it did not register to what remained of Malhavoc Brazzengarde that he was dead. Instead, he was filled with pride – the pride he felt as a boy in his mother’s approving smile – and remained near the voice.

Move on, the voice commanded. Your presence is an intrusion upon my solitude.

He felt the sadness in the voice. It overwhelmed him, such was its depth. He opened himself to her suffering, but it was too much. It filled him up, spilled over him, and washed him away into the hereafter, into the far realm of the multiverse where he would spend his eternity.

He heard the pulse of his afterlife, touched the flesh of his new body, knew the frailty of physicality. He was reborn. Intellectually, he knew he was not truly alive, but was the physical expression of a soul, a soul of someone who had been truly alive. But he had a body and ears and eyes, and he breathed and heard and saw.

The air was stale here, and each inhalation was contaminated by dust long undisturbed. Nearby, he heard the heavy breathing of someone sharing the air with him, someone whose every breath was accompanied by the soft ringing of plated armor. It was mostly dark here in this chamber, but torches placed in even rows along the many pillars of the room cast dim light upon countless guilded objects and ornaments.

Before him, he saw another body, not breathing and hearing and seeing. It too was clad in ornately worked heavy plate. The figure’s head lay nearby. The cut that had severed it looked impressively neat. Its vacant eyes stared lifelessly at its torso. There was blood everywhere. It stained everything nearby, as though spattered by an artist cleaning his paintbrush.

The petitioner turned to face the living occupant of the great hall. She loomed imperiously over him without even trying. Her helmet was pointed in the direction of the decapitated form. In her left hand was a glowing blade that was red with blood, which was slowly trickling down its length and dripping onto her plated boots. Upon closer inspection, he saw several cuts into her armor as well. As he watched, the armor slowly sealed itself, one hole at a time. The healing process was slow.

“Who are you?”

Her gaze was steady on the deceased warrior, but she responded. I am Vanya. The voice rumbled like thunder across the plains, reverberating time and again throughout the room.

“Are you hurt?”

She did not answer. Silence filled the space between them, punctuated only by the staccato of the blood dripping from her sword. He counted the drips to fill the time. Eventually the blood began drying and the sound stopped. Finally, she turned to face him. With her attention on him, his timidity faded and was replaced by awe. His concern remained constant. “Are you hurt?” he repeated.

Not compared to some.
He was unsure whether she referred to him or the man on the ground. “Let me help you. I can heal you.” He took a few steps towards her, his arms reaching gently towards one of the more severe gashes.

Before his hands made contact, hers struck like a viper. She grasped him at the waist with both hands and lifted him up to eye-level with her. I am beyond your power to heal, just as I am beyond his power to kill. Her hands clenched, exerting heavy pressure on his ribcage. His breath came in ragged gasps. She spun him to face the previous object of her wrath. As he watched, the head began rolling bumpily towards its neck. I reject your pity, just as I reject his judgment. The two parts of the corpse met, and seamlessly fused together as though never parted. At the same time, he heard – and felt – the sickening crack of his rib bones. Abandon your faith, spirit. It has damned us both.

Just before his vision went white, the warrior’s eyes opened and his body began to right itself. He fled to the vessel, and was home.

Malhavoc – the warrior, not the petitioner – rose to his feat and raised his blade. “You have failed me again, Champion.” And he attacked.

This scene played itself out many times. Sometimes he laid her low before the will to destroy her left him. More often she slew him before he had the opportunity. Each was a variation, but the end was always the same. Until the arrival of the other.

Sir Tungsten had been on the cusp of death for nearly a week. He was too weak to attempt to move, and the Vanyans were too proud to admit their shortcomings and requested no external aid. He had occasional periods of lucidity, though the pain kept them brief. As time passed, and infection set in, the young knight’s life force slowly trickled away. The body was preserved, in the hopes that revival would someday be a possibility. Father Maborel knew of the boy’s friendship with the Patriarch, and sent him a private letter notifying him of Tungsten’s death. When no answer came after weeks of waiting, Maborel performed the funeral rites himself. Just like the other Vanyans, he knew his prayers would fall on deaf ears, but for his own sake, for the sake of this beloved child, he beseeched that his spirit find its way home to the spirit world.

Tungsten heard the pulse of his afterlife, touched the flesh of his body, knew the frailty of physicality. He was reborn. Intellectually, he knew he was not truly alive, but was the physical expression of a soul, a soul of someone who had been truly alive. But he had a body and ears and eyes, and he breathed and heard and saw.

The scent of fresh blood here was pungent. Behind him, he heard a man’s grunts of efforts and groans of pain, accompanied by the steely ring of battle that he still knew from his past life. Turning to face the scene, he saw this armored man locked in battle with a giant of a woman in plate mail. The air crackled with the man’s magic, and it was clearly the only thing sustaining him – indeed, it seemed to provide him advantage. The man was wearing a medallion around his neck bearing a symbol that was etched in the knight’s very soul. Vanya. This man was her servant. And he certainly fought like it.

It seemed the man was going to win the battle. The giantess staggered to her knees, and the Vanyan warrior raised his blade over his head for a killing stroke. Instead, he paused, and lowered the blade’s point to the ground. He knelt before the woman, who rose casually, unconcerned that she lived only by his mercy. She lifted a great block of stone beside her, a piece of a nearby pillar that had been shattered in the fighting. She was going to kill him.

Tungsten reacted instantly. He sprinted forward and dove with his full strength into her back. It did almost nothing to move her, but it distracted her. She dropped the stone. Before the first echo of its impact reached his ears, she had spun at him with a gauntlet outstretched. The backhand connected with his skull and sent his body flying.

He was dead – again – before it hit the ground.

Malhavoc had only a split second to recognize the body of this new petitioner before Vanya struck him down. Tungsten.

With a feral shout of wrath, he launched himself full into a renewed assault on his goddess. The child’s sacrifice had bought him the opening he needed to strike true. His first swing cut deep, and a piece of her nearly impenetrable armor was sheared completely off. She reacted perfectly, as was to be expected, and swung a crushing blow at his head. He anticipated it and raised his blade while stepping to the side. It sliced cleanly through the thinner plating on her forearm, severing her hand. He followed the swing through to land another strike on her breastplate. She retaliated with her good arm, but it hit only his shield. He attacked her legs and was satisfied to cut across her heel, forcing her to stumble forward to her knees.

He had been here many times since first entering the room. But this time he did not pull back. He channeled the gift of her strength, and put his full might into the thrust. It pierced her straight through the heart. The slain goddess’ body clattered to the floor gracelessly.

Malhavoc first turned to where the petitioner that had been Tungsten had gone. The body had evaporated instantly after the soul that animated it perished. He was gone. He turned then to look at the broken body before him. In a daze, he took a few steps forward and knelt beside her. His hands reached towards her helmet and unfastened the straps holding it on. It slid off only with effort; religious lore held that she never took it off lest she be caught unprepared.

He expected nothing from this glimpse of the woman that had been his life’s greatest passion; he only wanted to see her – and to see her die. Dimly he realized that throughout the entire fight, he had never once injured her face. Still, it was wracked with pain, and her dark, sunken eyes were devoid of hope. A line of tears was drying upon each alabaster cheek. Malhavoc removed his own gauntlets and ran his fingers through them, then brought them to his lips.

It was then he noticed a growing brightness in the room, shining from every direction. It grew in severity to the point where he had to squint, and grew still more until he was forced to shield his eyes with his hand. Before long, the radiance penetrated even that, until it ran cleanly through his body, purified him, and became him.

The sensation was one of singular omnipotence. Power surged through him on a level he had never before understood possible. It was of a physical nature yes, but the light also came with knowledge flooding through him on every subject, magic so potent that it could ignite the sun in the sky, a will that could reshape the mountains around him by his mere desire. It would have been overwhelming, except that he was no longer capable of being overwhelmed. Still, it took him a few moments – at least he thought they were moments, what with time being so unclear in this godly haze – to tame this new power, and to focus the light into his physical shell. Even as he did so, more continued surging into him. He became keenly aware of distant motes of consciousness elsewhere. He felt their faith and confidence, felt their need for his power to aid them. Some close by, others on entirely different planes.

One, however, was practically on top of him. It was faint, and he would have lost it in the cacophony of pleading had the proximity not caught his notice. It was coming from right at his feet.

He opened himself to her petition. Power, she rasped. Give me back my power.

Why should I? You failed to use it when it was needed. He began to recite her the litany of her sins. You cast your favor upon the blasphemous Heldannics. Your following has withered, and you have sat idly by. You allowed Tungsten, named for your saint and one in his own right, to die. You destroyed his very soul. His anger shook through him, and through the Halls of Valor tremored around them. You MUST be JUDGED.

You care for him so much? You would stand watch over my death with hate in your heart to avenge the death of this one man?
HE IS MY SON! Malhavoc thundered.

Desperation tinged her voice as her immortal spirit dwindled from a tongue of flame, to flicker, to a fading ember. He is mine as much as he is yours. Give me my power, and I will restore him to life. He will be spirit of your spirit, flesh of your flesh once more.

He paused for just a moment of consideration. No. You were given opportunity and failed. Your sentence can only be death.

The ember was now a spark, fleeting into the empty sky. Your church would deny me my chance for redemption?

He grasped the spark, and held it. Fed it just enough to sustain it. The first law of the Church of Karameikos: There shall be no sin beyond atonement. This had been a founding principle of the Church since its inception. Here lay a woman asking his forgiveness, and offering to make ammends. The law demanded that he honor her request. Yet he burned with the need for revenge.

He contemplated the matter. Was it truly so wrong to condemn her? Truthfully, he had lived his whole life in judgment. Always an executioner, never a pardoner. Sinners, blasphemers, heretics – they had been scoured away in his wrath. The Heldannics had been hunted nearly to the point of extinction.

And then the insight washed over him in full. The Heldannics. During the Black War, they had become such an overwhelming majority of her followers. Their rise in prominence was due in no small part to their ambition of hunting down “moderates” – people like Malhavoc, for whom the means of victory need be justified apart from the ends. He had killed them for it. Burned through their leadership like a firestorm, scattered the ashes, and then disintegrated those too. With the devout dying by the hundreds – or thousands, during the war – and the faithful only trickling in out of fear of association with their hated enemy, he had been working to crush her power out of the world for decades.

He was the reason her power had faded. Why she had not healed his son. And he judged her for letting him do it.

Without wasting another moment, he restored to Vany her power and fanned her dying spark. As the light faded from within him, hers burned hotter and brighter. A tongue, a flame, a blaze, an inferno, a raging supernova of raw power. Malhavoc became human once more, and Vanya again an immortal.

He dropped to his hands and knees before her. “It is I who is in need of forgiveness, my liege. I humbly beg of your pardon for my failures, and I pledge to spend the remainder of my life in service to your will, whatever it may be.”

She remained silent, and after a moment he raised his head just enough to glance up at her. She regarded him with a faint smile. It was the most joyous sight his eyes would ever know.

He lowered his head, and heard what he knew was the sound of her helm being put back on. Her words came directly into his mind. Absolution will be yours when you have fulfilled your pledge, my chosen priest. Restore what you have taken from me, as I have restored what was taken from you. His heart threatened to crawl up into his throat at hearing this.

“‘In your wisdom, I am humbled,’” he quoted from her Morning Prayer. “On my honor, I shall never fail you again. I swear to you now a binding oath that by my life’s end, your name will be restored to glory and greatness, and you will be revered among the highest of all Immortals. Should I fail you in this, may I be damned to the blackest depths of the Abyss for all eternity.”

Her gauntlet – the one he guiltily remembered severing only minutes before – rested upon his shoulder. He felt her power flow into him, and he felt the oath become a part of him. And may you have the years you need to atone, harbinger of my return. You have my blessing. Go now. Your son, our church, and my legacy require your attention.

Malhavoc bowed as deeply as his armor allowed him, and held the pose for a time. He then left the Halls of Valor, and began the long journey back to Mystara. He had work to do.