Savage Awakening 591. The Final Training Montage (II)

Zane had to grin. He always liked when the Sage got like this.

He felt it wasn’t just the Sage going on, either. He remembered the Sage saying something about being unreasonable earlier. It just seemed to be how the Sage had gotten this far in the first place.

Whether the Sage could do something or he couldn’t, he’d always think he’d have a shot, which Zane could resonate with. And for some reason, something about the Sage just made him believe. He wasn’t sure what it was.

Now, Zane still planned on getting the job done himself.

But he was kind of curious to see what’d happen if the Sage did end up getting his crack at Malzareth.

“You know, lad,” said the Sage. “I was meant to die in that damned snake’s prison. The Conclave got the Scryers’ Guild to scry my Fate, and it ended down there, in that Superdungeon Cell. So here’s another tidbit for you. Don’t put too much stock in prophecies. Put your stock in your heart and your soul, your own damned flesh and blood! That’s the only certainty any man can have in this life.”  

Zane nodded. He’d never really been one to read too much into those kinds of predictions anyway.

A few hours later, he’d loaded in steel until he was full, and started getting ready for Law loading. The Sage had started a campfire in the middle of the skull cavern, and there they sat, chatting and chewing—with Fluffy coming by for bones every now and again.

Then the Sage clambered up and made his way out onto the ‘roof’ of the skull. “Let me show you something.”

Zane followed.

Far above them were a series of red numbers—a kind of digital-looking clock.

“It can be a bit hard to tell time down here,” the Sage admitted. “I’m a big fan of it, actually. Keeps the mind focused. Really hammers home what we’re doing here, I like to think. Anyway, that’s what this timer’s here for.”

He looked like he wanted to give it a slap, but it wasn’t physical. He frowned at it. “We’ll get up at 6 o’clock, sharp, every morning. Dinner will be at 6 at night, and after that’s Law loading time… between then, it’s pure grinding. Grind ‘till you damn near can’t take it anymore, then get up to do it again.”

Zane nodded. “Looking forward to it.”

“Right then. Any last questions?”

He thought about it, then shook his head. It all seemed pretty straightforward.

The difficult part was just getting it all done.

The Sage gave him one more hearty slap on the back.

“Then let’s get to work!”

And like that, the training montage began.

***

The Boss Chamber—A.K.A., Malzareth’s Lair

Malzareth’s newly constructed lair, which doubled as his throne room, sat on the second-lowest floor of the Superdungeon.

Its floor was a single continent in a sea of void. A continent made entirely of hardened Corruption, a continent whose very presence created that void. Any reality within a thousand miles simply couldn’t bear to exist.

Pillars of more hardened Corruption, sculpted and studded with purple Corruption Mirrors, rose up from that continent. They sank into an arched ceiling, a ceiling made of that same hardened Corruption.

To the eye of a human of Earth it might seem like a super-sized version of the Pantheon, just black-purple and tinged with twilight colors.

At the center of this structure sat seven proud thrones.

One that looked like a mass of rotting flesh and blood, another that was sculpted out of a pure-white wood, with hollow-eyed faces rising and falling over its surface. Another a throne filled with clanking gears. Yet another was just a mountain of spiking Mirrors. But the grandest throne of all sat at the very head of them.

A throne fit for giants. Its backrest was the central pillar that held up the grand roof. A massive clock with ethereal hands was carved into it, slowly ticking down the time to doomsday.

That was the throne of Malzareth.

This massive throne room-cum-lair sat empty. There was only one bridge attached to it, leading out to a distant patch of reality.

Beneath that bridge, surrounding that lair, lay a moat. A moat filled with hundreds of shards’ worth of Destruction; it’d once cut off Malzareth’s cell from the rest of reality. Now it’d been repurposed. If all that Corruption didn’t make the sea of void, this Destruction-river certainly would.

This lair sat empty, the Destruction moat churning, the void-sea slowly revolving all around it.

And then a lone figure burst through a portal—lean and tall and pale, dressed in a coat.

The Ghoul Doctor strode purposefully across the bridge and took his throne on the other side—an austere, simple, bone-and-steel structure.

He was the first to arrive by nearly half an hour, but he showed no signs of impatience. He simply sat there, eyes closed, cross-legged. 

Then another figure crossed the bridge. Each footfall made a clink-clank! where the Ghoul Doctor’s was nearly imperceptible. A golem whose guts were exposed, revealing shiny gold- and silver-gears.

Stegar the Mechanism, or rather, Stegar piloting one of his mecha-bodies. Each one at least as strong as a T3 Empyrean.

Stegar scanned the vast room, briefly glanced at the Ghoul Doctor. Then, without any acknowledgment, strode to take his own throne a few miles off.

The Ghoul Doctor closed his eyes once more. None of Malzareth’s Primes owed anything to each other; indeed, most of them never spoke. They were, by and large, lone operators… it was very rare that the Master would gather them all in a single place. It’d be a gathering of auras like Dragonspire had seldom seen.

It only made the Ghoul Doctor more hesitant about what, precisely, the Master wished to discuss.

Minutes later, a ghostly lady in silks and a laurel wreath floated across the bridge. Her eyes were milky white.

“Daressa,” said the Ghoul Doctor, inclining his head.

“Doctor!” She scanned the throne room, noted the one cracked, crumbling throne, and paused. “Dear me… poor, poor Hreinn. That heavenly tribulation did a number on him, didn’t it? Though I can’t say I’ve shed a tear.” The Spirit Queen could shatter souls with a glance, but she took very little seriously, in the Ghoul Doctor’s estimation—a flaw she seemed in no great haste to correct. She spent most of her time in her own little spirit-world. 

“I expect you’re delighted,” she said, cocking her head. “Not having to joust with dear Hreinn anymore. You must have Master’s sole focus now. No doubt Master grows wiser every day, with your constant counsel.”

“I give my counsel,” the Doctor acknowledged, ignoring her slightly mocking tone. “The Master does what he wills regardless. At the moment, he is in a rather difficult mood.”

“Is he?”

“He’s… scheming.” He worried that was not a good thing. 

“Why not let him have his fun? The work is already done, isn’t it?”

“It’s not done,” he said sharply. “It’s only set up, and that is the trouble. There is a saying in games of skill—‘the most difficult game to win is a won game.’ Mankind is nothing if not resilient.” 

“Very wise, as always,” mused Daressa. “I suppose mankind does have its assets. Those galactic wards do seem nontrivial… Then there’s a few amongst them who might even pose a threat! Those Numbered Assassins of that shadow-Guild—they made for such exciting duels last war. I do hope we’ll get to dance again….”

She paused.

“Have some faith, doctor.” She turned and made for her soulbark throne, saying as she went, “With a bit of luck, we’ll be reporting to the Father before the half-century’s over, with a few choice human heads in hand. Glories and crowns lie in our futures.” 

She left a sighing Ghoul Doctor.

Not long after, Gilgoroth the Elder Nightmare Dragon flew in on six tattered wings—like a darker, slightly smaller version of Malzareth trailing shadowy mist. That dragon had hardly covered himself in glory with his Integration campaign. He’d gained back a measure of respect after terrorizing the Azure Flame and the Steelheart Factions in the Beginning of the End, despite how that’d ended. The Ghoul Doctor had always felt him to be a careless figure and an unreliable operator. But by raw strength, he was the match of several Great Faction heads.

Then came the Mirror Dragon, the biggest of Malzareth’s Primes… and, it was widely agreed, his strongest. It gave a shattering shriek as it descended and took a throne of crystal shards, where it gazed disdainfully over them all. 

The final Prime to come, predictably, was Cromm.

CRACK. CRACK. CRACK!

Each of his giant steps sent stress fractures through the bridge.

Most every Prime was difficult to kill. But Cromm had to be second only to Hreinn himself in that respect. Attacks that would end most T3s, Cromm would barely notice. The Doctor had at first disapproved of how slovenly he was, but he later saw how futile that was. He considered Cromm more a force of nature than a Monster; it’d be akin to reprimanding a tsunami. He’d never seen Cromm, in a rampage, ever stopped. 

The Meat King came carrying a giant slab of bloodied meat, which he chewed, as he always did.

He took his fleshy throne too, though slowly, like he was moving through mud.

And then… silence.

The Mirror Dragon gave a shriek of impatience.

Three heartbeats later, eyes filled the tallest throne. Six crimson eyes—the eyes of their Master, still chained somewhere far below.

Every Prime there gave a start.

“Master!” cried Daressa.

“Master,” said the Ghoul Doctor. They all made to kneel, even the Mirror Dragon, bowing its giant head low.

Primes. His tripled voice echoed down the hall. After all these millennia, at last…

A silence.

It nears time for the grand design to come to fruition. The vision which Lord Malzareth has prepared since the dawn of this age, to commence... a vision which has brought you all here, on this day. A vision which I have refined, perfecting, for so many ages. Consulting strings of Fate. Preparing men and Monsters alike, meticulously… It is a vision I believed I’d made flawless.

There was a pause as his voice grated down the hall, ending in silence.

I see now… that was not the case.

The Ghoul Doctor gave a start. For the Master to admit that… that was rare.

I misplaced my trust, said Malzareth, eyes narrowing at Hreinn’s throne. And that mistake… has been paid for in blood.

Certain failures have occurred which even I had not expected…failures in execution. And so men still live on today. Men who have no right to if plans had been executed more carefully. Men who danced in my grasp—who have all but been permitted to slip away, through no great achievement of their own.

The eyes grew cold.

I see the truth of it now… Mankind must be crushed decisively. Perhaps I had underestimated just how decisively. I knew their kind, knew them better than they knew themselves! And still they managed to defy me…

Malzareth snarled. The Massacre at The End must not merely be an overwhelming triumph. It must be made absolute.

To that end, there have been revisions to the grand design.