Finally! My victory is at hand!
Zala’tazz, High Inquisitor of her most holy Myna the Verdant Goddess, rose from the earth with the help of her priestess’ and fellow warrior maidens, to the summit of the one they sought.
It was a tricky play, using that decrepit corpse of a worm to distract the knife eared mongrels, but with the power gifted by her Goddess, even something so trivial would always be possible.
Their escape was seconds away as the hologram device she placed on the worm fooled the abomination into following, allowing her to gather the last of her forces and rush to the location.
The very one indicated by their informant.
So wonderful it was to feel the Goddess’ favor wash over these ignorant savages, to feel her lash upon their skin and have them renounce their false Empress, and come to the whole of her Verdant Mother’s bosom.
And one of them is a soldier of repute no less.
“This glorious day would not be possible without you my dear convert. Myna our Goddess will surely look down with favor upon your house once we have taken this forge from our enemies.”
The convert in question bowed her head low, “I am pleased to hear that I could serve the Goddess so faithfully.”
Zala’tazz placed her hand across the cheek of this Elfari, as one might a lover. A zealot she may be, but she could feel her Goddess echo in her thoughts with gratitude towards this one.
Yes, she would be favored, and it was Zala’tazz’s duty to see it done.
“Very well done indeed, your faith is no longer in question. Now comes the moment of our truth! Bring forth this Elementalist! Bring her to us!” She waved out her plasma whip as her priestesses rushed to secure the prize. Fervor echoed in their steps, the rush to complete their holy mission blazing in their hearts.
She felt the venom in her fangs sizzle with anticipation.
Bring her to the Goddess!
…
Iaos awoke from her vision as the last of her barriers began to corrode, the simple enchantments used to conceal her presence breaking one after the other.
It is time then.
Gifted with the sight of earth allowed Iaos a certain perspective, a chance to see events as they occurred before they did. She had been blind ever since she took upon this duty, but the sight never left her.
The vision’s showed her shackled in her mind as her body moved to commit atrocities as the work she came to love was undone by green scaled hands.
It was always due to betrayal, a slighted noble house, or a disgruntled Harrier. The images would shift, but the result was always the same, a herald of destruction she would become, a bane to her people.
It was why she so foolishly moved to this place, the highest peak on Torsca, the seat of her power. Here she could fight, could resist as long as she may to prevent the horrid certain future from approaching.
Had she simply trusted her fellow Elfari, would she be alone? No, but more would die trying to defend her, more still would be conscripted by these verdant hands.
No, she would not sacrifice her people for her own safety.
Instead, she would end her existence, bringing about the destruction of Torsca, but at least denying her enemy the weapon they sought to make of her.
The barriers of her seat of power flexed, one of the sigils had been deactivated remotely.
Only a Harrier would know of these methods, so it would appear it was a traitor after all.
Iaos drank in her power, surging with the mana of her throne and bathing in the flaming heart that was hers.
A wordless scream rang out from her as she broke her own barrier, smashing the green bugs into paste, lifting her arms of magma and stone to batter and break the enemy before her. Her sight brough forth the fifty combatants to her mind, including the traitor. The glowing green energy leaking off of the leader made her gag as it threatened to overwhelm her senses.
She would not bend to this thing! She would be the one breaking them!
Iaos called forth her partner, the Earth elemental that was a part of her soul, the one she had made a pact with in front of her most majesty, the Empress.
She launched forward, intercepting spells with stone and weapons of light with the blaze of fire. Of course…
Just like her vision though, a haze came over her, a powerful potent haze of something entered her lungs and spread outward towards her body and mind.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
It commanded her obedience, it allowed nothing else but complete subservience. So much was it like the Empress’ own scent that Iaos almost surrendered to it.
Instead, she covered her body in stone, filled the inside with magma and allowed the heat to burn her throat and lungs to try and dissipate the haze.
“Damn! Get her out and dose her again! She must be made to serve!” Iaos heard the silky sweet voice of the one who threatened to dominate her thoughts.
Do not resist… give in to her glory…
Iaos dunked her head in the magma she surrounded herself in, pleading with her elemental to eliminate the forces outside, but without her guidance it was just as blind as she was.
She felt herself begin to slip away as the drug inched closer into her mind.
Resistance, defiance, she needed to push these thoughts to the fore and hold onto them!
A thought entered, one that came in her vision.
Hold onto yourself, help is coming!
Iaos could not help but feel flabbergasted by the reveal, the vision showed her as nothing but a red girl, eyes that glowed with starlight, that spoke of galaxies and hunger. A wish to save, to help!
Latching onto that image with the desperation of a sailor lost at sea, Iaos prayed to her Empress.
Please come, save me!
…
Chimera felt the energy around her come alive as the land began to heave, roiling around as though it were alive!
“Shit, Captain, we need to move faster!” Bargo rushed forward on his slab as Arrose took to the sky with her rifle, her body prone as she began laying down fire upon the mountaintop they were heading.
Chimera didn’t need to be told twice, her wings shooting out of her body as she flew to the skies toward the cloudy top of the place called Highmount.
A single spire that held a plateau with a cavern entrance, it was also decorated like a temple, with pyramid like columns that held the entrance upon to an equally triangular entrance. It depicted motifs of a woman bending stone and fire around the reliefs, and Chimera could make out depictions of other works the woman on the walls did.
She landed in a run as she rushed inside, the entrance already showing signs of battle as serpent ladies in robes laid out in various ways, all dead or unconscious.
Chimera didn’t spare them a moment, feeling that tug in her chest as the source of the mana in the air became more apparent when she entered what looked like a throne room with a amphithere around her.
All around her, the Verdant Hood were fighting clay golems and stones filled with fire and magma, but it was clear that there was no direction to the assault as the golems fought eacg other as much as the Hood.
In the center, encased with stone was where the magic was coming from were two figures who were desperately trying to insert a drill with a green hazey substance inside.
Chimera rushed forward with her aura form, her body shifting midflight as she slammed into the stone, knocking the two figures away. Without a moment to spare, she immediately engulfed the entire stone egg, placing it within her stomach.
“NOOOO!!” a hissing screech roared outward into the throne room as Mera turned to face the two figures she couldn’t make out before.
One was the priestess she recognized from the video footage onboard the captured Verdant Hood destroyer, the one that signed the death warrants of her crew. The one who controlled them all to commit themselves to death.
The other was a person Mera recognized, a friend face from her training, a face she never expected to be here.
“Glenda?”
The xenophobe, the one Chimera wrote off as a posh noble brat back in their training, stood next to the Verdant Hood Inquisitor protectively as a pair of green blades ignited, her eyes focused and deadly.
“To think I would meet you here, though I suppose this works as well.”
Glenda shifted, her body and form taking on a scaly exterior as a mix of both Elfari and Hoodian biology appeared before Chimera’s eyes.
Not only that, but deep inside Chimera’s very being, she felt the resonation of something she thought she had lost long ago.
The power she had shed when she exploded, the glowing golden energy that she had lost that day she was separated from her family and friends, glowed underneath the scaly skin of Glenda.
“Mistress, leave her to me and retreat.”
“No! We can still complete our mission, I will not return to her Holiness with failure!”
“We have what we need, so long as we retreat.”
Mera didn’t like where this was going.
“Who said anything about you retreating?!” She rushed forward, her spines and tendrils shifting to accommodate her aura. With a full swing of four tendrils she smashed into a glowing golden barrier, one coming straight from Glenda’s core.
“Please Inquisitor! You must survive and inform her Holiness!”
Chimera launched another volley, focusing on the Inquisitor as Glenda moved to intercept her strikes, each one blocked by a tendril of her own.
“You have passed her tests, Glendara. I will not leave. She said I must grant you her favor, and I will not return to her in failure!”
As Zala’tazz passed the hybrid a vial, Chimera watched as a circular device slammed against the golden cored creature.
“Wait! You are needed, you can’t do this!”
“Our duty to her Holiness must always go first, goodbye… my student.”
Chimera tried to intercept them, but the green glow of energy engulfed Glenda before she could make it, and after a brief second the hybrid vanished.
The High Inquisitor wasted no time in attacking Chimera, her plasma whip dancing with moves that made no sense, almost tracking her movements with every shift of her form and footwork.
The Inquisitor was like a dancer, her movements with her tail and legs allowing no entry that didn’t come with burns and slashes. Everytime Chimera thought she got close, a blast of aura smashed her aside and brough her back to the edges, where the whip cut her form down to her core.
She forced her own Aura into a ball, walking towards the Inqusitor slowly as she placed a tendril under the ground.
“Remember this well abomination, and know that I am Zala’tazz! High Inquisitor to her most Holy Radiance the Verdant Goddess Myna! Die and be released into her warmth, heretic!”
…
