LightReader

Chapter 83 - BG3: Part 29

Maybe that believing he could so easily kill a god had been nothing more than one of Eden's arrogant streaks, but it became obvious after Eden's third try that Tharizdun was invincible inside his domain. Well, unless one killed every demon present inside, but there had to be millions if not tens of millions of them.

It had taken Eden a month to cross that Balor again, and that was when Balors were in the minority among the monsters present.

So, Eden returned to Abraxax, and waited. He could have started studying Wish right away, but that just would not feel right, so he waited by Abraxax's side.

It took him two days to wake up from what he had seen. And even when he did, his voice was low, and weak.

Burrowing his way through the Corpse Castle he had made for him, Eden joined Abraxax's side, and realized that these two days of comatose had not been the only thing taken from him. His eye had turned a milky white, his sight lost forever.

Still, despite everything, while weak, his voice was calm as he said, "I see we're still here."

"I see you haven't lost your sense of humor."

Abraxax snorted softly, "Give a devil some respite in his last moments."

Eden sighed. He had thought about what to say for the last two days, and in the end, he decided to explain, "That was no exit in there. It was the center of this prison, with its true prisoner inside. Tharizdun. Rings a bell?"

Abraxax chuckled, "I'm surprised it doesn't for you. An ancient god from primeval days, he was the one to create the Abyss. He was corrupted by the Obyriths, and said to be imprisoned somewhere at the edge of the multiverse. Guess we know where that edge is now."

"Well, be that as it may, I killed it, or him I suppose-"

"You killed a god?"

"Sorta. But when I did, he let one of the demons down here take his place, and revived back to full health. Tried three times, always went back to the same. Any ideas?"

"You like saying that."

Eden blinked, and asked in disbelief, "What?"

"'Any ideas'. You often say that."

"I feel like that's a pretty normal way of asking for someone else's opinion."

Abraxax laughed, "I never told you why I was here. Or why I wanted you to kill Belial."

Although the sudden change in subject felt slightly jarring, Eden said, "You said he sent you here. He used to be the Lord of one of the Nine Hells, right?"

Abraxax shook his head, "He still is, in anything but name. He rules with his daughter Fierna, the most beautiful of all devils."

Eden stared at Abraxax, and seeing the slight smile of joy on the Pit Fiend's face, asked disbelievingly, "Don't tell me you were sent here because of fucking love, or I'm killing you myself."

Abraxax laughed again, this time louder, with some of his past vigor, "No, of course not. Fierna is charming, but no, never. The problems started when Elturel was pulled to Avernus, and a group of adventurers braved the Nine Hells. You see, they found Zariel's sword. The one from back she was an angel. A mighty fiend-slaying weapon if I've ever seen one, I'll tell you that. Something that would never acknowledge a devil, but it still represents a threat for many devils."

Eden nodded, knowing of the blade.

"What does it have to do with you? You found it?"

"That's right. Thought myself mighty clever, that I could use the blade as leverage to further my own goals. It worked for a while, until it didn't. Long story short, Belial backstabbed me, and judged me down here."

Eden raised an eyebrow, "And the sword?"

Abraxax grinned, clearly expecting the question, "Safe, where no one could ever find it. The coordinates are yours, if you grant me a small favor."

"Which would be."

Abraxax took a deep breath, laying back as he closed his turbid eyes, and pronounced, "Kill me."

Eden's hand twitched, and looking down at it, and the souls attached to him. He looked back at Abraxax, his thoughts clear to him, though he still asked, "You don't want to be corrupted by the madness, is that it?"

"Yes. Maybe you will never get out of here, maybe you will. Either way, I'd rather die than become a beast like these savages. We've already established a normal death wouldn't do it, so I'm turning to you."

For better or for worse, the souls attached to Eden were protected from the madness, at least from what he could tell. None of them showed any sign of further damage.

"Before that, I've got to tell you; I have no idea what it is like to be attached to me. For all I know, it could be hell on earth, forced to watch my every move, or it might be an endless slumber. Or anything in between to be honest."

"I still choose this over this madness. Now, are you in?"

Eden smiled bitterly, but he placed his hand on Abraxax's neck all the same, right over his heart as he asked, "Where's the damn sword?"

A serene smile appeared on Abraxax's face as he transmitted the precise instructions to Eden, before he said his final words, "You better escape this hell hole."

Eden hummed softly, and activated Cleave with Maximum Output. It might not have been enough to kill a Pit Fiend like Abraxax, even when aimed at the neck, in a normal fight, but Abraxax had been weakened by what he had seen, and he also let himself be harmed, so, his neck was severed with a clean cut.

Feeling Abraxax's soul attach itself to him, Eden looked at it deeply, trying to ascertain its current state, but he could not see much. It was definitely somewhat damaged, probably from the madness and what he had seen, but far from the point the other souls had reached.

Whether he was awake or asleep, Eden had no idea, and maybe he did not want to know.

With Abraxax dead, Eden did not waste any time and directly flew up above the Abyss, away from the Puncture's influence, and once he was high enough, cast Wall of Force under himself. This allowed him to sit down in the air, and no longer have to focus on flying.

More than a month had passed in the Forgotten Layer of the Abyss, which only translated to barely an hour in the Prime Material Plane for his Simulacrum. Eden had wanted to keep his Simulacrum in the physical world, safe above the Rosymorn Monastery, until the party found it and could tell them what had happened to him.

But that would just be wasting resources. They had a whole Creche to go through before reaching his Simulacrum, and that was if they even tried to do so. But if he did insist on waiting, every minute his Simulacrum waited, would correspond to over eleven hours for him.

If his Simulacrum waited for a day there? That was over two years for Eden.

The easy solution would be to have his Simulacrum leave behind a message for the party, but that would break Eden's Binding Vow.

The Power of Knowledge had among its clauses that his Simulacrum could not be used as a scout, and using it to carry a conversation across dimensions already stretched these limits, and leaving a message behind with the specific intent of being read by a particular set of people broke that limit.

Maybe it was a loosely and ill defined limit, but again, this was a Binding Vow, and what truly mattered to it in the end, were Eden's personal feelings.

So, he cast Simulacrum in front of him, and as it manifested in front of him, the one back in the Monastery crumbled down into ice and snow.

As the new Simulacrum appeared in front of Eden, also sitting down on the Wall of Force he had created, Eden felt a little strange because of their connection. He had grown used to the strained connection he had with his Simulacrum in another dimension, so to have one back in full power felt weird for a moment.

He did not need to give his Simulacrum any instructions, as it already knew what to do. He handed over the scroll with Wish on it for it to study, and started meditating himself, entering a cycle of meditating and casting Wall of Force, his Simulacrum helping remind him every ten minutes to cast it again.

Unfortunately, as much as Eden wanted to spend all his time up there, putting all his efforts in learning Wish, he did still have needs, such as hunger, thirst and sleep.

Descending back to the ground layer, Eden quickly created a Corpse Castle for himself, having recalled his Simulacrum and taken back the Wish scroll in his Inventory.

Tearing apart the leg of a burnt demon, Eden bit into the hard meat, tearing off a chunk, before drinking some blood.

It had been more than a month since Eden had arrived in the Abyss, and although he had provisions with him, they had long run out. So, Eden had been forced to start eating the local population.

It was disgusting, but he had grown used to it, and it easily beat starving to death.

From there, Eden started a routine. Most of his days would be spent high up in the air, meditating and maintaining the Wall of Force, while casting a new Simulacrum to learn Wish. Time was hard to track since there was no day and night in this dimension, or any other way to track it, so Eden could honestly not say for how long he studied the spell, or how long his sessions were.

He could have spent three to four days, a week or two, or even a month at it, he truly had no idea, but in the end, he did manage to learn and master Wish.

[Wish (6th Circle): Declare your intent aloud, and the world will be bent to manifest your will. The effects are limited by the complexity and the power behind the spell. Cost: 990 (250) MP.]

The mightiest spell a mortal could cast in this universe definitely did not disappoint, and even went beyond expectations. According to what Eden had seen, Level 6 and 7 spells should be the equal to a 4th Circle Spell, while Level 8 and 9 to a 5th Circle Spell.

Yet, Wish, a 9th Level spell, had been translated into a 6th Circle Spell. This was still within the bounds of a Tier II spell, but it was definitely above what he had expected, and was well beyond what Eden could normally have learned. Not to mention it was a particularly complex spell, even for 6th Circle, considering it warped reality.

Had it not been for his Binding Vow, Eden would have probably taken several times as much time to learn it.

For the spell itself, it underwent a few changes from the basic version he was supposed to learn, simply because he was not a normal wizard.

What Eden had learned was the raw version of the spell, and what he suspected the Dead Three had used in conjunction to banish him into the Abyss. In terms of game mechanics, the mastered version was probably the equivalent of a 10th or 11th Level spell.

What wizards of this world had access to was a stunted version of the spell.

The most basic application of the Wish spell in this world was to tap into the Weave and cast a lower level spell while bypassing all requirements. This was something that could be safely used by any wizards because it heavily relied on the weave.

However, if need be, that version of Wish could also be cast to reach for other effects. To do that, Wish would no longer be able to solely rely on the Weave, and would instead attempt to alter the world itself.

It was not impossible, but it was not something a mortal was supposed to be able to do, and thus it came with a restriction. Not from the spell itself, but from Mystra's rules. This restriction could stop the spell from working, and even had 1/3 chance to erase the spell from a wizard memory and spellbook, forbidding them from casting it ever again.

In other words, it was not so much that the spell's structure had been changed, but rather that Mystra's rules, imprinted upon the Weave, stunted the spell. Since every wizard cast spells through the Weave, Wish would be altered once interacting with the Weave.

But if a wizard were to learn how to cast without the proxy of the Weave, they would technically gain access to the true version of the spell.

Eden, not being restricted by Mystra's rules, directly learned the true version of the spell.

The lack of a backlash, while nice, mattered little to Eden since any magical backlash would probably be countered by his talent anyway. Although recent events had proved to Eden that his Soul Overlord was not omnipotent, he theorized that the banishment had been allowed to happen because it did not affect Eden's internal condition, but rather the world around him.

Eden had already long discovered that as powerful as it was, his talent could only affect and protect his internals, and that protection could not be stretched out of his body. Or if it could, he had not learned how.

Power Word Kill, for example, worked by snuffing his life out. This was an attempt to magically alter his internal body, and thus failed. Being banished, on the other hand, did not affect his physical condition, but the space he stood in instead.

Back to Wish, although the backlash included some light damage, the worst effects was the loss of strength of several days, as well as the possibility to never be able to cast wish again. His talent might not have been able to shield from the damage itself, and even that he was not sure about, but the other two effects he would have definitely resisted.

Not that it mattered in the end, since the backlash had disappeared entirely.

Other than the lack of a backlash, the only difference, as far as Eden could tell, was that his Wishes would be more potent than other wizards, but the exact increase was hard to quantify since in Dungeons and Dragons game, the scope of the stunted spell was mostly up to the Dungeon Master. Then again, maybe there were no differences in the scope of effects.

Well, now was the time to test that out.

Standing on top of his invisible Wall of Force, Eden look down through it at the Puncture far below, barely visible due to the distance, and thought about Abraxax's body, which he had placed in his Inventory.

Although the Pit Fiend had expressed no such sentiments in life, Eden had decided he would bury his body. Probably somewhere in Phlegethos, where he had lived his entire life.

He also wondered how much time exactly had passed in the real world. At least an hour, probably less than two. Would they think the spell had failed when they saw him appear before them so soon after being banished?

Shaking his head, Eden looked at his Simulacrum lastly, who nodded with a smile. He knew the emotion was fake, since his Simulacrum could not feel anything, but he still found himself smiling back as he dismissed the construct, and finally chanted his spell.

"I wish to leave the Forgotten Layer of the Abyss."

A six layered concentric spell circle appeared in front of Eden, the different layers of the circle rotating slowly as they shone with a bright silver light.

It lasted for a second, before vanishing away, leaving Eden staring blankly.

The spell had failed.

More Chapters