“That’s true,” I said, musing over this issue. “I can’t give up the Dragon Sword. Maybe Grave Oath? I don’t use it nearly as much as I used to. No, that won’t work. The enemy would find it suspicious if the actor was wearing my full plate armor, but was using a mere dagger as a primary weapon. Hmm … it’ll have to be the kusarigama. As much as I love the weapon, this illusion requires that I give it to the actor.”
“If it’s any consolation, you’ll be wielding it in battle, just through someone else’s hands,” Anna-Lucielle said. “Even though it’ll look like the actor’s doing it, you’re the one who’s ultimately going to be in control.”
“I know, it’s just a pity to hand over such a powerful weapon.” I sighed. “Still, nothing great is ever achieved without making sacrifices. This is the only way I can save Brakith and get to Elandriel and the Blood Pyramid before it’s too late.”
“And speaking of lateness and time, you need to give everyone your orders soon, Vance,” Isu said.
“I will. First, though, there’s a place I need to visit.”
I went off to be alone for a while, but not to rest or think. Instead, I needed to visit a place no one in my party but Isu had access to. When I was by myself in the shadows of a grove of trees, I closed my eyes and launched my spirit into another dimension.
When I opened my eyes again, I was on the Black Plane. Its perfectly flat, glassy black ground stretched outward in all directions from me, melting into the uniform darkness where it met the far horizons.
After a running start, I jumped into a flying leap. My body soared through the still, unearthly air like a boulder launched from a trebuchet. I landed smoothly on the forgiving surface before I rolled acrobatically in a controlled tumble and came up near the base of the enormous Gray Sentinel.
I’d surely accrued enough souls after the battle with the harpy flock to have gained access to a new skill. I was eager to pluck whatever magical fruit was waiting ripe and ready for me in the upper boughs of the tree.
I clambered up the sentinel, jumping from branch to branch and scrambling up the trunk with eager haste. Sure enough, at the very top of the tree, a new skill was glowing with bright promise. All I had to do was reach the top and rip this succulent promise from the branch.
As I climbed higher up the tree, I could discern the new skill more clearly. When it came into focus, something about it immediately struck me as odd.
Up until now, every skill I’d taken from the Gray Sentinel had something to do with death and the undead. The representations of these skills were accompanied by appropriately obvious images: skulls, corpse explosions, corpse titans, and other such grisly visual motifs. This new skill, though, was nothing like these at all.
Instead, it was a crown.
A crown made of bone, studded all over with vividly colored jewels. I climbed higher, and when I got a closer look at the bone crown, I could see the details more clearly.
The jewels embedded in the crown were not simply there for decoration—they were intricately carved into symbols. There was the pulsing heart of the Charm Goddess, the whirling tornado of the Wind Goddess, the emerald dragon of the Dragon Goddess, the mighty tree of the Tree God, the blazing sun of the Lord of Light, the crashing wave of the Water God, and many others.
It was when I saw these symbols that I understood what this crown represented. This was not a new skill; I had obtained the pinnacle of Death magic with the Corpse Titan skill. Instead, this final fruit was something far bigger: it would make me the ruler of all the other gods and goddesses, giving me mastery of their powers.
“Fuck yes, I’ll take that,” I said, scrambling eagerly up the final few branches.
I reached the fruit and examined the glowing bone crown in detail, savoring this moment before I could finally pluck and consume the ultimate fruit. It was ripe and heavy, like a swollen apple ready to drop off the tree at the slightest hint of a breeze.
All I had to do to claim ultimate power was take it.
“All right, I’ve appreciated this thing’s beauty for long enough,” I said.
And then I grabbed it.
As ripe and heavy a piece of fruit as it looked, the crown simply wouldn’t budge. I wrapped my legs around the branch beneath me and grabbed it with both hands, then pulled as hard as I could. Still it refused to move.
Growing annoyed and impatient, I drew Grave Oath, for the enchanted dagger always accompanied me to the Black Plane. I hacked at the stem that anchored the fruit to the branch, but as sharp as Grave Oath was, I may as well have been trying to cut thick plate armor with a blunt butter knife.
The crown simply wouldn’t budge.
Then, in a flash of inspiration, I understood. The bone crown was not like the other skills I’d taken from the Gray Sentinel. I could feed the tree any number of souls, but the crown still wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t just any soul this mystical tree needed before it would allow the crown to be plucked.
It was the Blood God’s soul.
Once I’d defeated him and taken his soul, the bone crown—which would make me ruler of all the other gods—would be mine.
“You win today, Gray Sentinel,” I said, patting the rough gray bark softly and affectionately. “But I will return for this crown. I give you the Blood God’s soul, and you make me ruler of all the other gods. It’s a hefty price
