Yet, underneath that anger, simmering, laying beneath, was a healthy amount of anxiety.
Perfect.
“Nightmares! Nightmares be gone! Bad! Bad! Go! Go! You nightmares not s’posed to be here! Evil! Evil! Corrupting the fort! Vile! Defilers! Defilers!”
Standing before Fort Zyvar’s gate, there was another voice in my head, that wasn’t mine. High-pitched and whining like a child whose candy had been stolen by an older, yet still more juvenile child, the voice ranted over and over again about the bad, evil nightmares.
Raging. Raising my right hand, I activated [Gatekeeper].
[Gatekeeper Activated]
Identified: Reinforced Fort Gates, created by the Hlahani Human Army, the twelfth day of the Month of the Visitor, 311FE in the Hlahan Forest of South-Eastern Alamir.
Gate’s Structural Integrity: Medium
Gate’s Special Ability: [Bastion Against the Night]
Memories Available: [192]
Gate Soul: Present [Zyvar]
No. of Times Gate has been used: [9,999+]
Gate Connections: None Assigned
You may edit, delete, replace, upgrade, assign, bless, or curse this gate.
A thousand memories of a thousand lifetimes pierced through my head like a laser tearing through tissue. I staggered, only for a brief second, as the images of blood, bones and death occupied my head. Warfare. Battle. Siege. The Fort’s creation. The Fort, withstanding an army of pointy-eared Elvani. The Fort, holding back a Horde of hundreds of thousands of goblins –
The memories of the Fort’s previous commanders: the hero, Sionis the Savior, the brigand, Erodes the Errant, the sorcerer, Alquon the Black Blood. Their adventures, their commands, their lives and deaths as they held Fort Zyvar, defended Fort Zyvar, and met their demises, here at Fort Zyvar.
I forced the memories to the wayside with a snarl. “Enough.”
“My… Lord?”
“I wasn’t talking to you, seven fingers.” I pointed my finger straight at the gates. “I was talking to Zyvar.”
The accumulation of several heroes and villains living and succeeding in this Fort had given it a personality. Well, well – why am I not surprised? If simply suppressing your emotions could grant a personality, why then, was an object such as this, which had been lived in and breathed in for years upon years not eventually develop a soul?
“…You… nightmare… you can hear my voice?”
“Yes, rather annoying that. I’d rather not have any errant voices running amok in my head.”
Onna took a cautious step back. She couldn’t hear Zyvar talking. No doubt, I must have seemed insane to anyone who couldn’t hear the voice.
“My name is Janus,” I said. “You’re Zyvar aren’t you? I can tell. You don’t like us nightmares being here.”
“Yes!” Zyvar screeched. “Yes! Yes! Leave! Leave! Fort not for Nightmares!”
“The Fort is mine now,” I said. “My Domain. We have a problem because I have a bad habit of not giving away things that are mine.”
“Fort not for Nightmares! Fort made to repel nightmares! Fort –”
“Fort is abandoned. Decrepit. Rundown.” I gestured. “If it weren’t for the nightmares here, you would be nothing. A relic lost to time. Consumed by nature. Overrun with animals, crumbling and breaking until the sunsets and sunrises turn you to dust. Is that what you want, Zyvar? To spend a thousand years dying, going quietly into that good night?”
Zyvar didn’t respond.
“Think carefully, Zyvar. What is a sword’s purpose? To lie, gathering dust eternally in its sheath? What is a shield’s purpose? To be hung up on a wall, rotting away as a decoration? What is a Fort? A graveyard of warriors, left behind to decorate the landscape? Is that what you are, Zyvar, ornamentation?”
“Master Sionis said Fort is a bastion. Bastion against the night.”
“Then, be a bastion,” I said. “Be my Bastion.” I rose my hand. “My name is Janus. I am the one who will become the King of Nightmares. To do this, I’ll certainly make no small number of enemies. So, Zyvar, rather than rot, would you not prefer to stand beside me, against the full might of the forces of Alamir?”
“…but… you are a Nightmare.”
I waved my hand. “And yet here I stand, the sole being who has been able to hear your voice in thousands of years. If I am not worthy to command you, then who is?”
The ground rumbled. Shook. Onna, behind me, struggled to find her footing. My lips, curled behind my mask, as I rose my right hand into the air.
“Well, Zyvar!” I roared. “Who is worthy?!”
The Fort was shaking. I could hear the panic of the nightmares. I focused instead, on my power, the power of the [Gatekeeper] and the power of my authority as the owner of Fort Zyvar.
My eyes lit up at the sight of a floating blue light. The spirit of the Fort. The light swirled, blinking like a firefly dancing atop fireworks. Turning and shaping, swirling and taking form, until, it landed directly before me.
The person before me was a young, disheveled man with dusty brown hair and empty white eyes. In broken Greek-style armor littered with a million cuts, the spirit of Fort Zyvar stood on shaky legs.
“If… If I must serve you – I must test your mettle. Do – do you have what it takes… nightmare… to command me?”
Do I have what it takes to command?
I chortled. “Zyvar…” I rose my right hand. Channeling my power. “KNEEL.”
You have used the Skill: [Spirit Manipulation].
You have used the Skill: [Gatekeeper].
Title: [User] has come into effect.
Title: [Demiurge] has come into effect.
You have consumed [1] Influence Point.
You have been recognized by the System.
You are exuding [Sovereignty].
Zyvar dropped to both knees, screaming. “I YIELD! I YIELD!”
I drew back my power. Stopped the lull of overwhelming pressure that smacked down unto the spirit like a thousand falling planets. Zyvar was left, on the ground, coughing, bleeding, wounded. The fort was
